...I will make secondhand smoke travel through a wall.
The majority of children living in apartments are exposed to secondhand smoke, even when they don’t live with smokers.
Do go on.
“We are starting to understand the role that seepage through walls and through shared ventilation may impact tobacco smoke exposure in apartments,” said Karen Wilson, M.D., MPH, author of the study and an assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Golisano Children’s Hospital.
Among children who lived in an apartment, 84 percent had been exposed to tobacco smoke, according to the level of a biomarker (cotinine) in their blood that indicates exposure to nicotine found in tobacco, and this included more than 9 of 10 African-American and white children.
Even among children who lived in detached houses, 70 percent showed evidence of exposure.
A bit of a hole in the theory, that, isn't it? Clearly the cotinine is not coming from tobacco smoke "seeping through walls and ventilation".
I won't bother fisking this in full—the press release is here—suffice to say that the levels of cotinine found are risibly small and there is absolutely no suggestion of any health risk. As usual, it is a case of the policy leading the evidence; the policy being...
A smoking ban within multi-unit, subsidized housing could further reduce the tobacco smoke exposure for children and reduce smoking rates among residents.
The positive aspect of this story is that it has gone almost completely unreported in the mainstream media (ASH have reported it, naturally). Perhaps the junk scientists have finally stretched the public's credulity too far? Not before time, some would say.
H/T Dick Puddlecote
