Wednesday 14 August 2019

"Twenty fags a day no worse than city living"

From The Metro:

SMOKING a packet of cigarettes a day is no worse for the health than air pollution that city dwellers are exposed to, a shock report warns.

Breathing in fumes from traffic, planes, power plants and industry on a long-term, regular basis is causing growing numbers of urban non-smokers to develop chronic lung disease, experts say.

29 years of puffing on 20 cigarettes daily was found to do no more damage than just a decade of city living...

A government spokesperson said last night: ‘We might have been exaggerating the dangers of smoking a bit recently, which is why we will be easing off on the smokers and meddling elsewhere instead.’


5 comments:

Jonathan Bagley said...

Were this true, it would invalidate all "studies" claiming environmental tobacco smoke poses a significant risk (typically claiming a relative risk around 1.2). This is because those exposed to large doses of ETS, from work or spouses, are generally poorer and more likely to live in polluted city regions and this confounding effect would be large compared to the risk from ETS.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JB, we always knew that second and third hand smoke was a load of hype.

But if could reverse engineer the statistics to prove it, that would be great.

benj said...

Only studies have shown, that as of now, most harmful pollution comes from either inside the home or outside of cities. Surprisingly, agricultural fertiliser being the worst source for particulates.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/15/ammonia-emissions-rise-air-pollutants-fall-new-government-statistics

Another reason the justifications for electric vehicle subsidies are nonsense.

Lola said...

I feel immenseley sorry for the little girl and her mother, but, I was a chronic asthmatic, and I lived in London in the 50's and 60's when there were genuine smogs, and my parents were heavy smokers and there was lots of lead in petrol and more dirty diesels than there are today. So I remain unconvinced that the poor child was killed by London traffic.

Note. None of that caused my asthma. I have defective genes....

PJH said...

How does:

"Just a decade of city living was found to do the same damage as 29 years of puffing on 20 cigarettes daily."

equate to

"SMOKING a packet of cigarettes a day is no worse for the health than air pollution"

Using those numbers, air pollution is more like smoking 60-a-day.