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23rd May 2005
According to NHS research, many parents are ignoring warnings about the risk of smoking near their children. Of the 500 teenagers polled by the NHS, to coincide with the relaunch of adverts showing the risks of smoking near children, 39% admitted to being exposed to smoke in the home when younger, while 13% were exposed to it in cars. Five-year-old Sol Rickman, who apparently has the "lungs of a pensioner" due to his mother's 20-a-day habit, features prominently in the campaign. The NHS TV adverts show young children and babies appearing to exhale tobacco smoke, while newspaper and magazine ads show a child's bottle filled with smoke. In other research, almost half of adult smokers (45%) admitted smoking in the car in front of their children, while 28% said they smoked in the same room. Yet, bizarrely, 60% of 1,078 adult smokers, questioned for a Central Office of Information study last year, disapproved of smoking near children. Exposure to cigarette smoke has been linked to an increased likelihood of cot death, bacterial meningitis, asthma attacks and other breathing problems in children. In addition, children who live with smokers are at an increased risk of having tonsils or adenoids removed. Caroline Flint, public health minister, said that: "It is important that we increase the public's awareness of the real health risks to children from second-hand smoke - not merely the discomfort caused by being in a smoky atmosphere," while Donna Covey, chief executive of the Asthma UK charity, stressed: "The best thing a smoking parent can do for their child is to quit." Covey went on to say that parents who smoke would be truly shocked if they realised how much their habit could harm their children. "Young children are very sensitive to cigarette smoke - it can trigger asthma attacks and cause asthma in children who were previously healthy. More and more research is showing that children of smokers suffer even if their parents don't smoke in the same room as them." Where to next?
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