It is the most common cause of respiratory-related death in the UK - and 56% of all working days lost among men are due to it, costing the economy many billions of pounds each year.
Pollution from them causes chronic and acute respiratory ailments and premature death, and it contributes to global warming.
Whooping cough, an illness caused by the pertussis bacteria, can cause severe respiratory symptoms and even death in young infants.
Affected males with this progressive muscular disease become wheelchair bound before 13 years of age, are ventilator dependent in their late teens to early 20s due to respiratory failure, with death in their late 20s to 30s due to cardiac or pulmonary problems.
This is despite the UK having the highest death rate from respiratory diseases, and the highest levels of obesity in Europe.
If untreated, the person could experience nausea, hypertension, vomiting, coma, seizure and then death due to cardio-respiratory arrest.
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These vulnerable groups are disproportionately represented in public housing, they point out, and may be at increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, respiratory infections, heart attacks, and cancer.
Secondhand smoke exposure causes eye irritation, asthma and other acute respiratory diseases and is thought to be a cause of infant crib death.
The inquest was told the post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as alcohol toxicity and the singer probably suffered a respiratory arrest.
The more prevalent causes of death for male and female smokers were lung cancer and other respiratory diseases followed by heart disease, stroke, and vascular disease.
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Liver disease, the fifth biggest cause of death in England and Wales behind heart disease, cancer, stroke and respiratory disease, comes in more than 100 forms but is most commonly associated with alcohol abuse, obesity and viral hepatitis.
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Secondhand smoke can increase the risk of respiratory ailments, lung cancer, and heart disease in nonsmokers, and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome and middle ear infections in children.
This outbreak, on top of another death last month in Saudi Arabia from a previously unknown virus, a cousin of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), has set global health agencies on edge.
Doctors told him she had died from a respiratory illness but he believes that it was exposure to formaldehyde that killed her - although there is no proof her death was linked to living in the trailer.
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