Asthma and the smoking ban - facts, or propaganda?

The BBC has today reported a sharp fall in the number of children admitted to hospital with severe asthma in recent years, with some attributing this directly to the smoking ban introduced in July 2007. But does this claim really withstand scrutiny, or is it yet more propaganda from the anti-smoking lobby?

Reading the headline, you would be forgiven for believing that there was a proven causal link between smoking - actively or passively - and childhood asthma. Whilst research suggests this may be the case, it's not quite so straight forward.

A rich source of asthma-related information, the website www.asthma.org.uk states "It's difficult to know for sure what causes asthma". It continues:

"What we do know is that you're more likely to develop asthma if you have a family history of asthma, eczema or allergies. It's likely that this family history, combined with certain environmental factors, influences whether or not someone develops asthma.

"Many aspects of modern lifestyles - such as changes in housing and diet and a more hygienic environment - may have contributed to the rise in asthma over the past few decades. Environmental pollution can make asthma symptoms worse and may play a part in causing some asthma."

Whist the statistics demonstrate children whose parents smoke are more likely to develop asthma - particularly for those children whose mothers smoked whilst pregnant - there is little evidence to suggest passive smoking is a major contributory factor. (You will doubtless have noticed the quote above fails to mention smoking at all.)

The prevelance of asthma increased in the majority of countries across the world (including the UK) since the 1970s, although levels appear to have plateaued in some developed countries. Indeed, self-reported symptoms of asthma in children 13–14 years of age decreased by about 20% in the UK between 1995 and 2002 [Anderson, 2005] (before the smoking ban!).

Nor can the increased prevelance of asthma be explained by any links with passive smoking.  Throughout the last four decades, the number of smokers (and children living in households where there is at least one parent who smokes) has steadily and consistently fallen. Furthermore, the level of harmful substances per cigarette has also fallen steadily in recent years, with levels of tar and nicotine, for example, less than one third of what they were half a century ago.

Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that passive smoking is the primary contributory factor in severe childhood asthma, it is difficult to see how the smoking ban could have led to the fall in admissions as has been claimed.

The smoking ban was introduced primarily to protect staff in the workplace; mainly in pubs and restaurants, but not exclusively so.  Whilst it may be different in your place of work or local pub, these aren't places where I have ever seen large numbers of children hanging out.

The argument as reported on the BBC website, that the smoking ban has lead to a fall in severe childhood asthma, appears to amount to little more than post hoc, ergo propter hoc - after it, therefore because of it (as any latin scholar or fan of the West Wing can tell you). As often proves to be the case, this is likely to prove a nonsense.

Whilst it is obviously in the interests of those nannying fussbuckets responsible for the introduction of the smoking ban to try and further 'evidence' of the benefits of the ban (other than the 1,000s of pubs forced to close since 2007), this is a pretty lazy effort by any standards.

As H Ross Anderson, professor of epidemiology and public health, stated in his 2005 article:

"Any advance in our understanding of trends is likely to depend on the development of new theories of causation together with better methods of measuring and classifying asthma in population studies."

Until such time as we have not just developed new theories but have proven the causations of asthma, you will forgive me if I treat any such claims by the anti-smoking lobby with a healthy pinch of cynicism.

In the meantime, I'm sure the BBC will continue to do what the BBC does, and not let the facts or balance get in the way of a 'story'...

Highly recommended further reading from Simon Cooke's blog: http://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/how-to-lie-with-statistics-asthma.html

Yarm School planning application rejected. Unanimously!

Campaigners from Yarm, Eaglescliffe, and Friends of Tees Heritage Park secured a stunning victory this afternoon with the planning committee of Stockton Council voting unanimously to reject a planning application from Yarm School which looked to create 11 new sports pitches and a pavillion on the Eaglescliffe side of the River Tees as well as building a new bridge across the Tees.



Whilst this may not sound like the most objectionable planning application you've ever heard of, the committee agreed it would have ruined a large tract of unspoilt rural and agriculture land comprising part of the Tees Heritage Park.

A number of other concerns were voiced by committee members - far too many in fact to list here - but chief amongst these was regarding the proposed footbridge over the Tees (which was to be sited just metres away from homes on Minerva Mews, and would have resulted in an unacceptable invasion of privacy for residents there).

What is arguably of more significance from Yarm residents' point of view is the impact today's decision will have on the application to build 735 homes on Green Lane, which is (at least for the moment) due to be heard by the planning committee on 5th February 2013.

Today's application was merely an enabling development to afford Yarm School scope to sell the site of its current playing fields at Green Lane (pictured above) to Bellway Homes, the latest profiteers hoping to bank a greenfield site with planning permission in Yarm, to cash in on whenever the housing market improves.

Whether the Green Lane application will now be heard by the committee next week remains to be seen, but don't be surprised if the application is withdrawn between now and then.

Although today's decision is undoubtedly good news for the overwhelming majority of residents across the whole borough, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness.

Whilst it is always disappointing to see landowners and housebuilders looking to profit from Yarm, and Stockton Borough Council's idiotic belief that the borough needs thousands more homes (more on that another time), it can hardly be considered a surprise.

However, when a private school looks to ruin a swathe of a heritage park in order to facilitate the building of hundres of new homes, in the face of overwhelming public opinion, I do feel a pang of sadness and, perhaps naively, surprise.

Anybody living in Yarm will be familiar with the problems Yarm School brings, particularly if you have ever had to try and drive down The Spital whilst parents are parked inconsiderately, dangerously, and as near to the school gates as they can get. Or if you have tried to park anywhere on West Street just to find every space occupied by a sixth-former's car.

It is easy to understand some of the anger that a large number of residents from Yarm and Eaglesliffe have directed at the school as a result of this planning application, branding the application as "selfish and unnecessary". Whilst you would expect any school to try do the best it can for its pupils, staff and the school itself, when those aspirations repeatedly clash with those of the local community it's perhaps time the school had a good, long look at itself.

[Final paragraph amended 21/01/2013]

Should the UK withhold aid from countries where Christians are persecuted?

Last week I read a typically thought-provoking piece by Gillan on his God and Politics blog about how much aid is given directly by the UK government to those countries ranked in the top 50 of those where the persecution of Christians is most severe (you can read the piece for yourself here).

Since reading Gillan's blog, time and time again I find myself considering the points raised and the same question keeps springing to mind: is it time that we start to withhold aid, in part or in full, from those countries that allow, sanction or even encourage the persecution of Christians?

In 2011/12, the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) gave £3.11 billion in bilateral aid to countries across the world. Of this, £1.74 billion was donated to countries ranked in the top 50 for the persecution of Christians; that's a staggering 56%.

Amongst the recipients was Somalia, which received £101million and is ranked 5th in the world for the persecution of Christians (behind only North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq). Somalia is a Muslim country (with an estimated 99% being Muslims) with a tiny number of Christians, most of whom are converts from Islam. Although apostasy (converting from Islam to another faith) is officially prohibited in only Somaliland and Puntland, it is effectively considered a crime by most of the rest of society, as Sayid Ali Sheik Luqman Hussein found out when he was shot dead in July 2008. His 'crime'? He had converted from Islam to Christianity.

Another major recipient of aid from DfID was Pakistan, which received £212million and is ranked 14th for persecuting Christians.  Whilst Pakistani law provides a reasonable amount of protection for religious minorities, Christians face severe and increasing opposition from militants and face risks including abduction, torture and death.  An increasing number of Christians find themselves falsely accused of breaking the country's controversial blasphemy laws.  Indeed, it was his opposition to the country's blaspehmy laws that saw Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Minorities Minister and only Christian cabinet member, gunned down in broad daylight in 2011.

These are but two examples; I could have gone on and on and on (to coin a phrase).

Given how tight the UK's finances currently are, and will doubtless be for the foreseeable future, I can't help but wonder if it is right to donate such a large share of our scarce resources to countries where Christians (or any other religious minority for that matter) fear for their lives daily.

Freedom of religion and belief is a fundamental human right, as per Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Amnesty International, in its evidence to the Conservative Human Rights Commission commented: "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is a fundamental component of the universal and indivisible human rights framework that applies to all people everywhere, as laid out in international law".

Furthermore, the extent of religious freedom in a country is a useful yardstick in assessing the extent of other fundamental freedoms; where the former is absent or in decline, a host other freedoms are usually threatened too. (Check out the aforementioned list of the top 5 culprits for persecuting Christians again).

So should we then reduce or end aid payments to such countries?  Should we make future aid conditional on concerted and tangible efforts by those countries' governments to act to protect religious minorities? I genuinely don't know.

A part of me is of the mind that aid to such countries should end, and the sooner the better. With the majority of the planet living in extreme poverty, surely there are others that are more worthy, more deserving of the UK's assistance?

Another part of me disagrees entirely. How could such a policy, of effectively imposing economic sanctions against some of the world's poorest, be in keeping with the Bible's teachings to love one another unconditionally, to help the weak and needy whoever and wherever they may be?

As with any crisis of conscience, I turn to my Bible for inspiration and quickly stumble upon what I think is the answer I am looking for:

"But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" 1 John 3:17

But does this really help? In a country of finite resources, and in a world whose needs far outweigh our ability to help in any meaningful way, bilateral aid is already apportioned based on subjective appraisals of need, of worthiness.  Why should the persecution of religious minorities not be taken alongside the multitude of other considerations?

As I continue to grapple with the question that is the title of this piece, one thing is abundantly clear to me - more needs to be done, and urgently, by countries such as the UK to tackle religious persecution, and particularly of Christians, across the world. With "200 million Christians (10 percent of the global total) being socially disadvantaged, harrassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs", according to Rupert Short's Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack - a figure which is rising year on year - the time to act is now.

As I will doubtless continue to grapple with this question over the days and weeks to come, I can but hope and pray there are wiser minds than my own working within DfID and the Foreign Office on this very issue.

Yarm parking tax promises chaos...

Last Thursday, Stockton Council's Labour / Ingleby Barwick 'independents' coalition agreed to push ahead with their ill-conceived plans to impose their unwanted parking tax in Yarm.

Stockton Council would have us believe that they are doing this for the benefit of Yarm, both by addressing the congestion problems through Yarm High Street and by boosting visitor numbers thereby benefitting trade.  Yes, you read that right - Stockton Council believe that by taxing visitors to the town, more will want to come. Presumably in the same way as increasing rail fares persuades more of us to travel by train...

At least one Labour politician was sufficiently honest/careless to announce the real reason for the Council's plans...

But all this has been said before.  Were the risks to businesses on the High Street not sufficiently obvious as to constitute common sense, the press coverage has been considerable.

One area that has been less well publicised is the effect that the parking tax will have on residents living in the streets and wynds in close proximity to the High Street.

Whilst the eye was inevitably drawn to the paragraphs relating directly to charging in the report presented to cabinet last Thursday, there is one towards the end of the report which merits closer scrutiny:

"There will be a need to bring forward a range of parking restrictions to address existing indiscriminate parking and to manage the inevitable displacement that will occur as a result of introducing charging".

In other words, at the same time as implementing their parking tax Stockton Council intend to take Yarm back to the future with the reintroduction of their 2010/11 plans to swathe large parts of the town with double yellow lines and other parking restrictions, particularly along West Street.

There is no denying that there is ostensibly a need for some additional restrictions along West Street - anybody familiar with the area will be aware of the selfish and downright dangerous actions of some motorists, particularly those parking under the viaduct at the Bentley Wynd end of West Street - but only a fool would neither anticipate nor fear the promised proposals being virtually a carbon copy of the plans kicked into the long grass by the Council in 2011.

Not only will we see the "inevitable displacement" of vehicles as a direct consequence of the parking tax (and not just from the High Street - charging is also intended for the two SBC car parks, at The Old Market and Castle Dyke Wynd), but if the promised parking restrictions prove to be as draconian as intended previously, further displacement of vehicles from West Street, Bridge Street, and others is guaranteed.

There is only one word to describe the cumulative impact of these hair-brained proposals - chaos.

Yarm Town Council will inevitably lead the way in co-ordinating the protests at these proposals, as done so admirably by Councillor Jason Hadlow in the run-up to 2011's successful Appeals & Complaints Committee meeting.

However, without elections to the Borough Council due within a matter of weeks of the anticipated meetings this time around to focus the minds of Labour councillors (as in 2011), I fear the worst.

Please, nanny, ban fruit

The ongoing race by Labour MPs to come-up with the most ridiculous gimmick for inclusion in their manifesto for 2015 has a new front runner. Take a bow Andy Burnham, Labour’s nanny-in-chief the shadow health secretary.

 

According to Burnham, the government should ban high-sugar cereals and other foods which, he claims, are contributing to an obesity epidemic among British children.

 

Whilst it is reassuring that Labour seem to have finally woken up to the problem of childhood obesity, instead of a meaningful and considered policy proposal we are forced to endure yet another knee-jerk piece of headline grabbing.

 

It is reported that Burnham is considering proposing a 30% cap on sugar in cereals and other foods, despite even a cursory examination of the facts illustrating that the effect of this would be minimal.

 

A recent report by Which identified those cereals with the highest sugar contents to be Frosties (37g of sugar per 100g of cereal), Coco Pops (35g) and Sugar Puffs (35g). Put another way, the sugar content of a single 30g serving of each of these three cereals is 11.1g, 10.5g and 10.5g respectively.

 

Now let’s imagine that each of these cereals contained just 30g of sugar per 100g as Burnham is considering proposing. The sugar content of a single 30g serving of each would fall to 9g.

 

In other words, Burnham’s nannying fussbucketry would see little Andy eating between 1.5g to 2g of sugar a day less than he is now. Assuming that he doesn’t sprinkle a spoonful of sugar over the top to compensate (that wicked Mary Poppins has a lot to answer for).

 

Now, of course, reducing the sugar intake of children would help to tackle obesity. But to suggest legislating to force Kelloggs et al to marginally reduce the sugar content of their cereals would help in any meaningful way is nonsensical.

 

Now I must confess, I’ve never been a lover of Frosties, and I don’t think I have ever tried Coco Pops or Sugar Puffs. I’ve always been more of a fruit person.

 

For my breakfast this morning, I indulged in a packet of ready-to-eat apricots. No unhealthy cereals for me, nosiree. Just natural, healthy fruit. Or so I thought.

 

A cursory glance of the packet tells me that my healthy breakfast choice contained a whopping 60g of sugar per 100g. So now I’m in a quandary – should I put a handful of apricots in my son’s lunchbox tomorrow morning, or two handfuls of Sugar Puffs?

 

So please, Nanny Burnham, if you are serious about helping parents and protecting children, leave Kelloggs alone. Let’s ban fruit instead.