Greetings from Television Centre
Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 8:03 Currently at BBC Television Centre in west London.
Arrived at 6.15 to do Five Live Breakfast followed by BBC Breakfast on BBC1. I am doing BBC Breakfast again in an hour or so and was briefly in the Green Room with Chief Medical Adviser Professor Dame Sally Davies who seems very personable.
Sitting opposite me is a child whose mother "believes" that he suffers from asthma because of her smoking.
The reason we are all here is to discuss the government's new "hard hitting" advertising campaign designed to discourage parents from smoking at home.
The BBC has the story online: TV ad shows danger of 'invisible secondhand smoke'. The campaign is getting a fair bit of coverage elsewhere too.
Forest has issued this response:
"Yet again smokers are hit by a fusillade of estimates and calculations designed to spread fear and revulsion.
"It's only a matter of time before loving parents who smoke in or around their homes are accused of child abuse and risk having their children taken into care.
"Tobacco is a legal product. Adults must be allowed to smoke somewhere.
"If the Government doesn't want children exposed to even a whiff of smoke they will have to amend the smoking ban to allow designated smoking rooms in pubs and clubs. That is the only sensible solution.
"Meanwhile, are they going to ban barbecues and bonfires?"
PS. Pat Nurse is on Five Live shortly after eight.
Update: The 7.10 interview went OK. The 9.10, if I'm honest, wasn't my finest hour.
I went head-to-head with Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who threw me a bit by claiming that passive smoking is the major cause of cot death.
That's news to me. I know smoking is often mentioned in relation to cot death but the principal cause?
My understanding is that the causes are still open to debate. Why else would we have the ongoing discussion about whether a baby should lie on its back, on its front or on its side?
Anyway I had a moment when I was talking but didn't feel in full control of what I was saying.
A strong coffee would have helped. Instead I've been sipping water all morning.
Reader Comments (18)
Great little PR stunt having a child there whose asthma has miracously cleared up since the mother gave up smoking...well of course it would. Presenter: "Now then, little Johnny/Janice...do you feel so much better now that your mum gave up that nasty smoking habit?" All together now "Yeeeesss!" I haven't actually seen the interview by the way - and I wish Simon well.
But just how did they find this mum and child combo who would come along (perhaps at short notice) and helpfully criticise smoking to the complete joy of antis everywhere? Could the mother have been put up to this, how was the invitation framed by the beeb - coincidental too - just when the government's campaign about smoking in the home is launched, the BBC manage to find mum and child so quickly. Did aunty contact ASH to supply someone for this item?
The BBC had to have been informed by the government about this launch well in advance to prepare guests like this for the interview.
Anyway back to asthma. Funny thing is ...all those millions of tons of carbon monoxide poison being pumped into the atmosphere from vehicle emissions (BBC car park must be choking with carbon monoxide gas) then there's industrial pollution from home and abroad and of course farmers and gardeners spraying crops, fields and gardens with insecticides, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides...all of this swirls around in the atmosphere and we breathe it all in - and yet has absolutely no effect on asthma... isn't that just weird eh? Is there any evidence to suggest that it doesn't - just how do we know?
I remember reading somewhere that an asthmatic person who smoked had found it actually made his asthma better not worse.
This morning top story on BBC news was the government current launch of SHS on children. I won’t go into the item as I am sure you are well aware of what was said. One of the interviewees was Prof Dame Sally Davies. She was asked how she was so sure that SHS was the cause of the asthma problem in children, could it be the air pollution which is pretty bad in this country. She replied that this was bunkum; the pollution in this country was well below the EU agreed levels.
Now as it happens, we had our pollen filter changed in our car yesterday. It a process that is done each time the car is serviced. This is the filter that cleans the air from outside the car before it goes through to the inside of the cars air con system and I thought you may like to see a photograph of the stuff it has cleaned out of the “unpolluted” outside air she maintains we breath. Remember that the new filters are a light beige colour. I would like the public to realize how much they are being lied to.
I am sorry but I have been unable to attach the Photo but I have it if anyone would like to see it
I tried to attack the cot death claim but I was interrupted and not allowed to finish my point which is that cot death - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome - by definition has no known cause. Even after an autopsy has been done they cannot say what caused it but the biggest single issue which has vastly brought down the number of tragic deaths is the advice not to lie babies on their backs.
We have some 250 cot deaths each year and it is cruel to blame smokers only when non smokers babies die this tragic of all child deaths too. What blame do they lay at their door?
This is one of the most wicked claims by the anti smoker industry to single out one group of grieving parents to attack.
The "Today" programme also had Dame Sally on and, without an opposing voice (apart from John Humphreys playing stooge) she had full rein to spout the nonsense. Balance, eh?
Even though I know the depths to which tobacco control sinks, I still find it incredible that someone of Dame Sally's expected stature can bring herself to publicly collude in disinformation.
Crib sheet cot deaths:
Between 1970 and 1988 SIDS (Cot) deaths in the UK rose 500% while at the same time smoking rates fell from 45% to 30% of the population.
The real reason for cot deaths is a lack of serotonin in the brain, this paper was researched and published by Havard Medical School.
"SIDS Linked to Low Levels of Serotonin
ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2010) — The brains of infants who die of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) produce low levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that conveys messages between cells and plays a vital role in regulating breathing, heart rate, and sleep, reported researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100202171811.htm
Over recent decades the asthma rate has increased threefold while the smoking rate has halved. Motor vehicles have increased over this period.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01f51lw
2.17.00
Pat gave a great performance even though she was outnumbered by anti-smokers.
They cannot argue against this as the obvious solution to the smoking in cars issue
http://www.sharp.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/gb/hs.xsl/-/html/plasmacluster-ion-generator-for-car-use.htm
21st century scientific technology beats spin any day
Watching that advert this morning with the impossible amounts of "smoke" crawling across the floor, I was irresistably reminded of the 1977 BBC production of Dracula, with the mist creeping in at the window and under the door.
Marvellous adaptation.
I missed this. Did Stephenson really say that smoking was THE major cause of cot death?
The latest research into cot deaths was concluded in 2010 Havard Medical School.
The real reason is a lack of Serotonin in the brain and one of the functions of serotonin is to regulate "The ...newly discovered serotonin abnormality may reduce infants' capacity to respond to breathing challenges, such as low oxygen levels or high levels of carbon dioxide. These high levels may result from re-breathing exhaled carbon dioxide that accumulates in bedding while sleeping face down."
"ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2010) — The brains of infants who die of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) produce low levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that conveys messages between cells and plays a vital role in regulating breathing, heart rate, and sleep, reported researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health."
The link is on Friends of Forest Facebook page.
@Dave Atherton
Thank you Dave for that link, it bowled me over. Here you have intrinsic medical proof and not propaganda. Harvard Medical School has an impeccable reputation for medical research accross the globe.
So, now then, does Professor Terence Stephenson have access to a peer reviewed and published paper to substantiate his comments? I think he should tell us don't you? He can also tell us if he agrees with the Harvard paper
Next time you come accross him Simon perhaps you can ask him ever so politely. I dearly would like to hear his answer.
More grist to the mill - eh?
Responce to the statement regarding Tobacco Funding needs to be addressed urgently. The Tobacco Industry along with the Pharmaceutical, Alcohol, and Food Industry is primarily made up by national and global companies. These companies would be deemed negligent within Company Law if they did not act in the best interests of their shareholders / investors including Government Pension Fund Managers.
That will shut them up ....
I'm confused. Correct me if I'm wrong but the big message is to stop people smoking around their children, but what they want is a blanket ban on smoking in the home? I don't have kids and don't entertain anyone in my home under the age of 40. So where would that leave me and others like me who chose not to have children?
There’s a very interesting section in Booker & North’s book “Scared to Death” in the section about SHS in which they point out how in fact the fastest rise in the number of cot deaths (during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s – I remember the headlines about it personally, because the rise was so drastic in comparison to previous decades) occurred at precisely the same time, and at precisely the same rate, as the number of smokers was experiencing its fastest-ever decline, thus exposing young babies to less ETS than ever before.
As they say in the book, if it was anything other than smoking (the anti-smoking campaigners having got the bit well and truly between their teeth by that time), the fact that the two sets of statistics correlated with each other so perfectly might well have been linked. But, using their now-familiar “attack is the best means of defence” tactic, the anti-smoking movement got in before these uncomfortable statistics became known and started claiming the complete opposite of what they were indicating.
Far from being a contributory cause of cot death (or indeed, as Stephenson stated, the sole cause) all the figures in fact indicated that a certain amount of ETS might actually offer some protection against it.
I think it is disgusting to use children in these and previous ads. I remember a very frightened child , a relative of mine, crying because he thought his mother was going to die because she smoked. I just said well I have been smoking for 40 years and I am still here! How can this be right?
Well it was good to see that BBC Breakfast managed to let you have a few words uninterrupted, but overall that programme had already shown it's hand of impartiality in the pre-filmed piece they showed right before the interview.
A good 90 seconds making the case for the bans, with a "but pro smoking supporters disagree with the ban" tacked on the end. No notion of editorial balance there then.
I have just written to Professors Davies and Stephenson with extensive science and medical evidence. I have also posted it on my blog as an open letter too. Please have a read.
http://daveatherton.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/an-open-letter-to-professor-terence-stephenson-and-professor-dame-sally-davies/