Parents of newborn babies are being told to wear smoking jackets and not touch their child for up to half an hour after having a cigarette - to protect the babies from smoke residue.Yep, the kid may be crawling towards an electric socket with a knitting needle, but keep well away in case they experience real danger.
[Counties Manukau smokefree programme manager Vicki Evans said] "We recommend parents wait at least 20 minutes and wash their hands before touching their baby after having a cigarette, and wear protective clothing which is then removed after smoking."Absurd, much?
However, a leading quit-smoking advocate says enforcing thirdhand smoke measures do little to protect children in the long run.That'll be because there is no such health danger as thirdhand smoke. Considering the evidence consists of a telephone poll; a study so corrupt in method that its authors should be relegated to flipping burgers for a living; and a press release by an anti-bacterial floor mop company; anyone who actually buys into the fantasy must be so idiotic as to also believe that there was once a World War 2 bomber on the moon ... which then vanished.
This is how pathetically low tobacco control has sunk, with health service institutions being their version of an open mike comedy store. Next up, how fairies at the bottom of the garden can sprinkle magic dust on your baby to ease teething pain.
Good grief.
