Third-hand smoke

nesf

So an article was published on Scientific American about the dangers of "Third-Hand Smoke": http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-third-hand-smoke

It's essentially an interview with an American doctor/academic J.P. Winickoff who published this paper on the subject and coined the term: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/123/1/e74


Basically it's just a survey of the beliefs of parents on the danger of this new threat. Now, never mind that he admits in the Sci Am article that there's no evidence to support this, this is a threat that all parents should be aware of! Personally I'm sickened by this. Instead of doing something useful for parents and going and doing a study or meta-study analysing the question of whether this is an actual threat to young kids he just publishes a paper of essentially hearsay from non-professionals who are in no place to judge whether there is a genuine threat here or not. We'll probably start seeing newspaper articles about this new deadly threat soon unfortunately given this is a perfect buzzword for headlines.

Second hand smoke does harm young children. There is a wealth of evidence to support this but surely if this was a factor it would have shown up in studies that children with parents who smoke outside of the home having worse health outcomes no?

Edit: My largest issue with this is the lack of clarity in his discussion. Is he talking specifically about people smoking in homes and cars when the kids aren't around or people who smoke outdoors and then come indoors afterwards? A lot of the discussion seems to be about the former but I've seen some (unsubstantiated) claims elsewhere about the latter.

imported_guy

nesf wrote: »

So an article was published on Scientific American about the dangers of "Third-Hand Smoke": http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-third-hand-smoke

It's essentially an interview with an American doctor/academic J.P. Winickoff who published this paper on the subject and coined the term: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/123/1/e74


Basically it's just a survey of the beliefs of parents on the danger of this new threat. Now, never mind that he admits in the Sci Am article that there's no evidence to support this, this is a threat that all parents should be aware of! Personally I'm sickened by this. Instead of doing something useful for parents and going and doing a study or meta-study analysing the question of whether this is an actual threat to young kids he just publishes a paper of essentially hearsay from non-professionals who are in no place to judge whether there is a genuine threat here or not. We'll probably start seeing newspaper articles about this new deadly threat soon unfortunately given this is a perfect buzzword for headlines.

Second hand smoke does harm young children. There is a wealth of evidence to support this but surely if this was a factor it would have shown up in studies that children with parents who smoke outside of the home having worse health outcomes no?

Edit: My largest issue with this is the lack of clarity in his discussion. Is he talking specifically about people smoking in homes and cars when the kids aren't around or people who smoke outdoors and then come indoors afterwards? A lot of the discussion seems to be about the former but I've seen some (unsubstantiated) claims elsewhere about the latter.

there is nothing really parents can do about it other than to quit smoking

This study points to the need for every smoker to try to quit. That's the only way to completely protect their children…. Really, I think that what this says is that we need to have sympathy for smokers and help them quit smoking…. [And also] that the introduction of this concept will lead to more smoke-free spaces in…public.

smoking in public places is already banned in ireland, advertisment of tobaco is banned in europe, not much else we can do other than banning cigs all togather, while at it we might as well ban alcohol, tbh if they do both at the same time i'll support that initiative, but i wont support banning of cigs/alcohol individually even though i dont smoke or drink, i just think either everything should be legal or nothing should (including drugs) and parents should be more resposible, if youre going to have kids quit before hand, there are alot of programmes out there which help im sure, genrally i have no sympathy for addicts of any kind.

nesf

imported_guy wrote: »

there is nothing really parents can do about it other than to quit smoking

Not quite no. If a parent never smokes in their home or car (i.e. never smokes indoors) they cut the risk to their children considerably compared to someone who smokes in the same room their children are playing in. The debate is over whether smoking when the kids have gone to bed is dangerous. Personally I say it would be but there's no evidence to show it is yet.

It's obviously better for the family if the smoker quits, since at best they can restrict the ill effects to themselves and a very large increase in the chance to contract fatal diseases early isn't a good thing for the family.

imported_guy wrote: »

smoking in public places is already banned in ireland, advertisment of tobaco is banned in europe, not much else we can do other than banning cigs all togather, while at it we might as well ban alcohol, tbh if they do both at the same time i'll support that initiative, but i wont support banning of cigs/alcohol individually even though i dont smoke or drink, i just think either everything should be legal or nothing should (including drugs) and parents should be more resposible, if youre going to have kids quit before hand, there are alot of programmes out there which help im sure, genrally i have no sympathy for addicts of any kind.

It's not really that simple. I can go on and off alcohol at a whim. I've been practically dry alcohol wise since my first kid was born with only the occasional drink despite several years of very heavy drinking when I was younger. There are relatives of mine who can't do this and who have drank themselves to an early grave despite all kinds of medical and family interventions. Alcoholism is a very different thing to a normal person drinking too much too often! Making out that addiction is somehow about a lack of responsibility misses the point by a large margin.