Imperial Tobacco has just produced a paper claiming that there is no statistically significant evidence that passive smoking is a danger to health. The company does not refer to any investigation conducted by itself, but simply criticises other studies, mainly because investigators did not themselves measure the period of exposure to second hand smoke, or the intensity of atmospheric pollution, but relied on estimates by sufferers.
Direct measurements would be hard to make, but lack of them does not imply that we have no reason to consider passive smoking dangerous. The dangers of smoking are well established, so it is a reasonable inference that inhaling the same noxious substances in a diluted form would be attended by similar, though probably smaller dangers.
People who like smoking and are selfish enough to smoke even when that makes life unpleasant for others may manage to deceive themselves into believing that passive smoking is harmless. I only wish smoking also produced sterility so that such people would have no children to inhale their fallout.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
Posts
1 comment :
It may render those children asthmatic, so producing fewer grandchildren perhaps. Sins of the fathers', etc.
Post a Comment