A sure route to sickness (From The Northern Echo)

A sure route to sickness

11:48am Friday 2nd July 2010 in

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The British Lung Foundation wants to see a ban on adults smoking when they share their car with under-18s. Barry Nelson finds out why.

NO one would dream of directing exhaust fumes from a car into the passenger area, especially when children are around. But lung experts say that is precisely what smokers with children are doing when they light up in the confines of the family car.

Research shows that for every mile travelled, smokers emit five times the amount of harmful particles from their cigarettes as the particles emitted from the exhaust pipe.

That is why the British Lung Foundation (BLF) is trying to persuade the Government to bring in a law banning smoking in cars when under-18s are present.

Such a ban is the object of a new nationwide campaign by BLF which uses the disturbing image of a young girl strapped into a car-seat, apparently being forced to smoke a cigarette.

It is hoped that 50,000 signatures can be added to an online petition designed to make the Government introduce legislation.

While the BLF has strongly welcomed the existing ban on smoking in workplaces and enclosed public places, they feel that more needs to be done on closing loopholes in the law. One of them involves the behaviour of smokers in their own cars when they have children with them.

Figures from the same survey of 1,020 parents across the UK on mums net.com showed that 13 per cent of current smokers had smoked in the car when travelling with their children.

Over half of current smokers surveyed by the BLF also admitted they had exposed their child to second- hand smoke. This concentration of cigarette smoke is seen as a serious threat to the lungs of under-18s, according to the BLF.

It is no surprise to Dr John Furness, consultant paediatrican at Darlington Memorial Hospital, that about one in eight boys and one in ten girls in the UK have a long term respiratory disease.

It is estimated that passive smoking causes 25,500 new cases of respiratory trace infection in children under three, as well as 121,400 new cases of middle ear infection and 22,600 cases of wheeze and asthma.

Dr Furness, who strongly supports the proposed ban, says: “We used to suspect that smoking caused illness in kids, but now we know it is a fact.

Being exposed to passive smoking will make lung problems worse, including asthma, which is the most common lung condition in children.”

Every winter, the children’s department in Darlington sees many youngsters suffering from viral chest infection. In many cases the children are in a worse condition because they have been exposed to passive smoking in the home and in the car.

“There is also increasing evidence that the adult patients with lung disease you see later would not be so bad if it wasn’t for being exposed to cigarette smoke,” says Dr Furness.

Specialists like Dr Furness are against passive smoking at any stage in a child’s life, particularly when they are still in the womb and when they are in the first months of life.

“One of the big factors affecting development of the lungs is maternal smoking during pregnancy,” says Dr Furness. “Smoking affects the lung growth in the uterus and also affects children’s ability to grow and repair once they are born. All the organs are vulnerable, but the lungs are particularly affected.”

Dr Furness is also worried about premature babies. “We are seeing more and more premature babies surviving and in some cases going home on oxygen. We know that their lungs will grow the most up to their fourth birthday. We also know that exposure to cigarette smoke will make the lungs grow less and perform less.”

The paediatrician says parents often don’t heed the message not to smoke in the home or the car when their child is around until it is too late and the child is in hospital.

“They heed this message most when the child is actually ill, but smoking is addictive and human nature being what it is, they will often justify what they are doing,” he says.

The message is that anyone who smokes around children is harming them.

“It seems strange. We have made great strides in treating disease, but we are still not getting the message across on lifestyle issues like smoking and drinking and obesity, which will prevent illness later in life,” says Dr Furness.

There is no shortage of smoking cessation staff around who can help and modern drugs can ease the pangs of nicotine withdrawal. “Your GP can do something about it and you can now get very effective medication to help you quit,” he says.

Bev Wears, development manager for the BLF in the North of England, says: “We are trying to get 50,000 people signed up by 2011 when we will present it at 10 Dowing Street. A lot of people see their car as their private space, but they have to stop smoking in their cars when their kids are around.”

The BLF Children’s Charter, which also calls for a number of measures designed to benefit children’s health, including a smoke-free environment both inside and outside the home, was launched simultaneously at different venues around the UK.

STUDENTS from Branksome Science College in Darlington and members of the Darlington branch of Breathe Easy helped to launch the charter at the children’s out-patients department at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

Nigel and Dawn Miller, whose son, Sean, has regular treatment at the hospital for his severe asthma, are non-smokers. They are both horrified at the idea of the damage parents are doing to their children by smoking in the car with the kids around.

“Smoking in such a confined space with a child around seems ridiculous, especially now when we know so much about what is in cigarette smoke and what harm it can do,”

says Mr Miller. “Seeing anyone smoking in their car when their kids are there is like a red rag to a bull to me,” adds Mrs Miller.

■ To sign the petition go to lunguk.org