The Bitch and a Pinch of Salt! by Michael Knell

Well Darlings,

I see they are still at it. The anti-smoking brigade, I mean. Big headlines again today: Passive Smoking Deaths Revealed. Shock! Horror! However if we read on we discover a whole 1% of the world's population is BELIEVED to have died from the effects of passive smoking. Lung cancer - you know: the lung, that bit most directly affected - claimed 21,400 lives around this world of about 7 billion people. Er, excuse me! We have 'accidentally' killed more innocent Iraqi civilians than that in a single year! Let's get real here!

I find it extremely strange that the generation now living the longest lives ever known were brought up in a blue fog of cigarette smoke. These are the people who come from a time when just about everybody smoked, and no precautions whatever were taken. Today, in our supposedly healthier and almost smoke-free environment, we have a generation of kids who, we are warned, will likely die before their parents. Maybe I'm being stupid, but to me something doesn't add up here!

While the statistics from the WHO are quite obviously biased against smokers - it could never be classed as a healthy occupation - I find it deplorable that today we have whole armies of people who have built a career out of manipulating them to their own ends! When biased figures show a belief that only 1% die from passive smoking and yet we hear all this hullabaloo about it, I have to wonder why I am not totally deafened by all the furore over the other 99% of deaths.

I'll leave you with this: if you go to your surgery with a complaint, the doctor will automatically ask if you are a smoker, and record it on your file. Why doesn't he (or she) automatically ask if you are regularly in contact with spray deodorants and polishes, puffing room odorisers (these choke me up!), toothpastes that stun nerves the body uses for protection, antibacterial products that kill our natural defences, modern throat sprays, detergent and other cleaning additives that 'hang around', fumes from diesel vehicles, equipment employing ultra high frequencies, and a million other 'unnatural' things that the generation living the longest spent most of their lives without? No automatic record is kept of these things, so if they have any adverse effect, smoking will automatically be blamed.

We should look to our history, and thank Benjamin Disraeli for: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics!", and perhaps Saxa for the pinch of salt we need with which to take them!

The Bitch!