Home thoughts

I was on the Stephen Nolan Show on Five Live last night.

I was invited, with several others, to discuss a new study that claims that 'Non-smoking adults have a higher risk of dying from serious lung disease if they grew up with parents who smoked'.

According to BBC News:

The researchers said childhood passive smoking was "likely to add seven deaths to every 100,000 non-smoking adults dying annually".

Now, I'm no mathematician, scientist or epidemiologist, but those figures suggest to me a very small increased risk (a point I didn't have to make - although I did it anyway - because Stephen Nolan did it for me).

The study certainly doesn’t justify calls to ban smoking in the home yet that is exactly how the results of the study have been interpreted.

Here are a few headlines:

Ban smoking in the home, say scientists (The Times)
Call for smoke ban in the home to protect children (Daily Express)
Cancer scientists say smoking should be banned in the home (Irish Sun)

As it happens, one of the report’s authors, Dr Ryan Diver, speaking to Nolan last night, said he didn't think smoking should be banned in the home.

He did however think that homes should be "smoke-free" which, you could argue, is the same thing.

Anyway the 'debate', as it often does, quickly descended into the usual bunfight that characterises Nolan's late night programmes.

And so, instead of Ryan Diver, who sounded quite reasonable, I found myself going head-to-head with someone called Vicki. Her name, voice and opinions sounded familiar. And then it clicked.

Two years ago we had a similar set to on Good Morning Britain. On that occasion we were discussing a proposal to ban on smoking in children's play areas and then extend the ban to public parks, zoos and theme parks.

According to her Twitter profile Vicki is a "multi-award winning blogger/vlogger and filmmaker" who goes under the name of 'Honest Mum'.

Vicki/Honest Mum not only thinks smoking should be banned in the home. In her opinion smoking should be prohibited everywhere.

By the time she came out with that we were already talking over one another so Nolan called time on our spat in order to bring in listeners.

I had intended to keep calm and not rise to any bait but, not for the first time, I came away from the programme feeling slightly dirty.

There’s a serious discussion to be had about smoking in the home but that wasn’t it.