Further BMA demand to ban smoking in cars

The BMA wants us to stop smoking in cars.

London-based Dr Noble said: “In cars, particle concentrations are 27 times higher than in a smoker’s home and 20 times higher than in a pub, in the days when you could smoke in public places.

“It would be safer to have your exhaust pipe on the inside of your car than smoke cigarettes in terms of fine particular matter released.

There is probably a good reason why neither Dr Noble nor anyone else from the BMA made a name for themselves by insisting that smoking bans in homes and cars should take priority over smoking bans in adult recreational venues. They could have saved millions of young children from up to five or six years of perilous exposure to secondary smoke. Why has no one sued them?

How can a BMA official talk about smoke levels in 'a car', 'a house', or 'a pub', and expect to have these units of measurement taken seriously?

And does he really believe that breathing in the product of an exhaust pipe is safer than inhaling secondary smoke? Why does he qualify this by saying 'in terms of particulate matter released' – because of the gaseous content of exhaust fumes, which don't lend themselves to particulate measurement?

Michael McFadden's contribution to the argument about toxicity of cigarette fumes (including its toxicity in relation to that of exhaust fumes) has featured in an earlier blog post. He points to serious flaws in studies on smoke inhalation.

We don't need a ban on smoking in cars.