Secondhand Smoke Can Flare Asthma

Is Secondhand Smoke Causing Your Asthma Attacks? Secondhand smoke serves as more of an irritant as opposed to an allergic trigger, says Neeta Ogden, MD, an allergist in private practice in Englewood, New Jersey, a member of the Medical-Scientific Council of the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America, and a spokesperson for the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. “Anybody who has allergic asthma has inflammation in their lungs, and secondhand smoke is a known irritant,” she says.