Very one sided article here from the BBC “proving” that the Smoking ban has reduced childhood asthma admissions. This smacks of those with vested interests taking selective data to validate their own case and it would have been nice to see the BBC rather more inquiring about the “research”.
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES
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I take it you read the research then?
This smacks of you not liking the outcome simply because you are so paranoid about the nanny state. Nothing to do with bias, or the BBC.
Fail.
Actually, I don’t believe everyone has to read every research paper ever produced in order to have a view on something.
It should be expected that the BBC, replete with all of the money it gets from taxpayers, and employing on a permanent or temporary basis, as it does, many supposedly reputable scientists and scientific analysts, would be able to assess whether the ‘research’ being carried out in so many fields is valid or not.
I heard the interview this morning, and heard no rugged analysis or examination from the BBC of the ‘research’ to determine whether it was ‘good science’ or simply taking two bits of data (properly researched or otherwise) and implying a causal relationship.
Sort of like taking two observations, such as ” snakes are terrified of mongooses” and “Ireland is free of snakes” to come to the ‘scientific’ conclusion that Ireland must be secretly full of mongooses.
I believe that we should be able to rely on the BBC to properly analyse and determine the validity of claims such as these before broadcasting them as if they were ‘scientific fact’ to the public. Mind you, having seen how the BBC has reacted to Anthropogenic Global Warming, perhaps I am expecting a tad too much from the hallowed halls of Broadcasting House.
I do believe you have perfectly described a non sequitur…
So you don’t have to read research in case it challenges your biased opinions but everyone else does…d’oh.
Smoking around children is of course healthy. I assume Vance regularly puffs a havana over the nearest baby without the slightest complaint from its Mum.
Cobblers ! No-one can read all the research on every subject, but that does not mean they are uninformed. I rely on my doctor for medical advice, my solicitor for legal advice, my financial advisor (my wife) for financial advice – I choose not to research all the data on these subjects myself, but rely on those who have. We all depend on ‘authoritative’ analysis of most of the information availabe to mankind to help us make sense of the world.
I doubt if YOU have read ALL the research data in the world before making your comment about smoking near babies ? But further, no-one was arguing that smoking near kids is good for them. I’m not a smoker, have no axe to grind, and I, too, believe that smoking near kids is dangerous for their health. But I’m not making any argument on that point, and you know it. The ‘research’ discussed this morning was about one specific event being the specific cause of an outcome. The point I am making is that I do not want policy-making to be based on incomplete or flawed theories. I have a scientific background, and the scientific method basically, in my view, expects theories to be tried and tested against ALL possible causes, and the report on this ‘research’ this morning gave no indication that other causes which may have delivered the results the researchers observed, had been completely eliminated from the equation.
And where did I say that I don’t have to read any research which may challenge my opinion, or that everyone else has to read all the research, but I don’t ? If anyone has displayed a biased approach on this thread it is yourself !
Well put, Richard. As has become the norm for the BBC there was no attempt to investigate whether there might be an alternative explanation e.g. cleaner car engines. It’s either lazy journalism by the BBC or they have an agenda on the issue. Whichever, it doesn’t make them look good.
They could also have considered why childhood asthma is such a modern phenomenon when far more kids were exposed to passive smoking in the 50s and 60s.
Have you read it? Is it peer reviewed? Is it backed up to prove even the slightest causation? Have you compared it to children with asthma in the 60s and 70s when nearly everyone smoked but hardly anyone had asthma? have you considered road traffic? Or do you jump on anyone saying anything against the BBC because you have nothing better to do?
Financial crisis started in 2007/8. Smoking ban was in 2007…need I say more? Smoking ban caused the international financial crisis.
Sorry, SO, hadn’t read your post before making mine above.
Of course they have discounted that asthmatic children are being treated better by their own GPs with newer better drugs therefore there has been less need for hospital admissions; or, perhaps, as the recession bites, parents are using less household sprays?
No, it HAS to be smoking.
Ironic really considering half the presenters on BBC news and radio have 60 a day voices. Derbyshire, Bruce, Naughtie etc.
As predictable as a goat cheese canape at one of their Saturday night soirees…to set the tone for next weeks “liberal love-in”.
The BBC and Guardian pincers( but thinking that they are Panzers) out this mornig to scratch those selfsame eyes now with no smoke to get into.
Therefore
1. Is the smoking ban responsible for the drastic decline in the number of pubs?…what effect have they had on raising the unemployment figures?…death of rural life?
2. Is the smoking ban responsible for any reduction in tax take, and so making austerity more needed?
3. Has the BBC wondered about the decline in great songs like “Smoke gets in your eyes?”…great film moments like “Casablanca”?…
4. Tell you what…if nothing else…has the BBC/Guardian nexus got any data to hand in regard of PETS that die as result of passive smoking/living in a smokers house/walking near a smoker in a park etc,etc.
Pet deaths cannot be massaged or cooked up to satisfy the “asthmatic lobby du jour”-not unless Peter White and Chris Packham can cook up some mess of pottage.
You know something-dope has got to be banned hasn`t it?…that passive smoking effect is likely to be terrible years up the road…and I myself make no apologies for wanting dope smoking made illegal with draconian fines/prison..not if it saves just one cutesy wabbit or one potential Ventolin inhaler…the cost is just too great!
Pincers?…more pansies that Panzers.
The BBC has turned me into this FOREST clone…I myself don`t smoke, and hate the idea…I just hate the BBC/Guardians take on it all, even more…
May be of interest
The research CONTRADICTED predictions that Asthma cases would rise because more people would be forced to smoke at home. They didn’t smoke more at home. So asthma cases went down. ut why let kids health get in the way of bias!
Smoking is Healthy of course.
Where does the research say this? Do you mean Prof Millett saying “We increasingly think it’s because people are adopting smoke-free homes when these smoke-free laws are introduced and this is because they see the benefits of smoke-free laws in public places such as restaurants and they increasingly want to adopt them in their home.”
hmmm, look at what he says, look at the words. The whole thing is pants: as I mention above how do you explain in previous decades hundreds of thousands more smokers, far more unhealthy types of cigarettes and less asthma?
“‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.'” (Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes)
My god there are a lot of ignorant people commenting here. The paper appeared in Pediatrics, one of the world’s most respected medical journals. I am a doctor, I have read it. The author of this post has casted aspersions on the validity of the science without the slightest knowledge of what is in the paper or its methodology. The link is not proved beyond doubt, of course it isn’t (one study can’t hope to do so) but the study was controlled in such a way that other possible correlating factors were substantially eliminated.
Actually all thee author of this post is doing is suggesting the BBC may have done a bit more thinking and research into the issue as it always seems to do when the news is about something they don’t agree with.
As a doctor with some scientific background you’ll know that almost nothing is ever proved beyond doubt.
Anyway, how’s the weather in Gloucester?
I think you need to pop back to your Gloucester practice and dry off. The water from that puddle seems to have got you in a muddle as:
There may well be a relationship between smoking and childhood asthma but, and this is a Dawn French sized but, there is unlikely to be a significant correlation between the smoking ban and childhood asthma.
The two things are similar but different.
As pointed out elsewhere the smoking ban applies to places where children are unlikely to be.
The ban has not been in place long enough for the dip to be real for any age group other than the 5-6 one if direct smoke-child relationships are discounted. e.g. pregnant women inhaling secondary smoke. IIRC asthma can commence at any age, including adulthood.
How does all those smokers hanging around the entrances and exits to buildings affect childhood asthma? No effect because its outside or because there are rarely children present?
Why was asthma not much more in evidence in the past when smoking was far more prevelant than it is today?
Isn’t it more likely that parents are now more careful of smoking in front of children than they once were? Could that be the deciding factor between smoking and childhood asthma?
All of these questions are ones which the BBC fails to ask and in doing so fails in its duty to report without bias. That is independant of whether the research has validity or not.
Either way I hope you recover from your dunking and that you do not develop any agrophobia due to it. 🙂
P.S. when you read it did you see this:
I would have more confidence in Dr Foster if s/he did not swallow dubious research and questioned the results. Perhaps prescribed reading of http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/asthma-and-smoking-ban-find-decline.html
might help.
very good link Yvonne, thanks
haven’t read the paper but I do know that the smoking ban is applied to pubs, workplaces and work vehicles…none of which were stacked out with children before the ban… asthma was as rare as polio when I was a lad in the fifties….and most people then smoked…
…..but diesel engines were rarely found in general vehicles