h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Tobacco Smoke - A914401
Author: Archangel Fashion Cat (Bring your Abbreviations to A975666) - U137089

Comments please!

You want me to review this now after having read it to say it would make a good guide entry. Ok I'll get to it later.

Hmm, I'll read it in depth later on, just one query for the moment...

The last line of the entry, with the statistics of 10% of infant mortality is caused by smoking Seems a little vague... Should you add ... "in the US" or "in the UK" or "in the Western World" because I can't believe those statistics include third world countries.

That's a good point Whisky, wonder if she remembers.

What a good entry - if only it wold make a difference!

You talk about infant deaths - I wonder if you should mention cot death in particular? I feel there may be a point in how smoke may kill a baby, without ever showing any signs of illness, and that cot death is probably the most likely way that a baby will be killed by smoking: "Cot death is the leading cause of death in babies over one month old - more deaths than from meningitis, leukaemia, other forms of cancer, household and road traffic accidents" (FSID) and babies living with someone who smokes 25 a day are **eight times** more likely to die of cot death - very scary!

I got this lot from the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths:
http://www.sids.org.uk/fsid/fullrtr.htm

Excellent entry

It's not exactly balanced, as called for by the writing guidelines, but then how can you be balanced about this subject? Tobacco smoke does all those things.

Two typos:

"Nicotine produces efects..."
"Thus, about 430,700 American?s die..." No need for an apostrophe there.

Smoker here! *cough*

When talking about the content of tobacco smoke, you really need to differenciate (oh Hell, you know what I mean) between different *types* of tobacco smoke. There's different stuff in ready-made fags, roll-ups, pipe tobacco, cigars etc. This affects what's in the smoke- half remembered chemistry lessons with cotton wool, vacuum pumps and glass jars are beginning to surface....

Thanks, I do need to add that bit about cot deaths...

And opps! typos!

And if I add a bit at the start mentioning that diff types of ciggys have diff contents, with that cover you Kerr??

And if you can come up with a way to be less biased Id love to hear it! I did try to just stick with the facts though...


I'll do this tomorrow. guys!

I think this entry has potential, but there are some areas that could be improved here.

One point is that some of the statistics might need putting in context, or don't seem to tell us much. The main example is in the first sentence, where you talk about the smoke having about 4000 chemicals including 200 poisons. The number of chemicals tells us veyr little, without comparing it with normal air, or something else we can compare it with.

Also, the number of poisons doesn't tell us how dangerous the smoke is, unless we know how poisonous they are, and how many are in quantities that are poisonous.

Similarly, the amount of tar doesn't tell me much. 7mg of tar doesn't sound like much, but without information on the effects of tar, it doesn't tell me much.

Also, with bronchitis, and emphysema, you mean that the risk is 10 times that for smokers as for non-smokers, but perhaps it would be good to mention the actual rates, as if the rates amount non-smokers is particularly low, it wouldn't take much to increase the rate by 10.

Another point is the use of medical jargon, that might end up confusing people. For example, 'bronchial disorders', 'cardiovascular', 'neurotransmitters, and sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems'. These could probably be changed to make the entry more accessible.

Finally, I think it would be more interesting for the entry to talk more about how smoke causes the various diseases and conditions, and what the effects of the diseases are, over what period, etc. I think this would be more useful than just listing diseases and related statistics, which you seem to do for some of the diseases.

Well, kind of FC, but are all the chemicals you mention present in all types of smoke? If not, that needs to be made clear. I agree with Silverfish's comments too

Ok. What do you think of this?

1. Whisky - Those stats are dont have any further definition as far as I can find. I guess they must be for the whole world.

2. Cloviscat, its a great point about cot deaths. Its such a big subject, I dont want to belittle it really. What do you think of the bit at the end?

3. Gosho - I dont really know how to balance it out. I wish I could say, 'on the other hand, some scientists believe that a pink elephant will come and kiss you from the smoke', but I cant. I've tried to stick to the facts, and tried to remove as much conjecture and my own feeling, so that the reader can decide. Im not pro-smoking, I will admit, and Ive grown up with both my parents smoking. Hopefully some one will read this and decide not to light up. And thanks for spotting those typos!

4. Kerr - I've added a bit about different smoke, but I dont think you're gonna like it!

5. Silverfish - I did have a number of issues with what you said initially, but I've tried to take them on board. What do you think?

a) the stats in context - its hard to do. If you think any of them need futher clarification, let me know. A lot of it you just have to take on-board. It is one of those articles where stats are thrown at you all the way.

b)the no of poisons - I hope that the list makes things better. I've also added in a couple of links which chould help.

c) the medical jargon I've added footnotes. Does that clarify things better?

d) I feel the point about the diseases would require individual entries, and would make the entry too big. I've linked to sites, and if people want to know then they can go there and delve further.


Anything that I can push further?

FC- that stuff's good, but wasn't what I meant . 'lights' has always been b*ll*cks, those that smoke it know it!

did I not get that point over? I tried to say that although there is a differentiation made between light ciggys and normal ciggys, scientists dont entirely believe it. And I tried to say that although there may be a difference, there is still nasty stuff in any kind of tobacco smoke, which is why I can generalise as I have done in the remainder of the article.

How else can I clarify that Kerr?

What I meant was I wasn't talking about light/low tar ciggarates, I was talking about the difference between manufactured ciggaretes and tobacco.

you mean chewing tobacco? or self roll-ups?

No, I see what you mean.

Give us a minute. I saw a sentence somewhere on a website which says there aint no difference!

There must be- for a start manufactured fags have saltpeter in them to make them burn more evenly, which isn't the case with pipe tobacco or rolling tobacco.

I was being flippant.

I'll add that on now, then let you know when its been updated.

Sorry, thick moment. That's the only chemical I know of, but you may well fine that others of the chemicals you've listed are additives, rather than in tobacco. I dunno tho'.

Hey FC!

This is shaping up really well.

I've checked back the FSID stats, and they're slightly different to my memory. How about this:

Babies are more likely to die of cot death than any other cause, The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths states: 'Cot death is the leading cause of death in babies over one month old - more deaths than from meningitis, leukaemia, other forms of cancer, household and road traffic accidents'. and babies who are exposed to tobacco smoke are at an increased risk of cot death: 30% of the cases of cot death could be related to smoking. A baby who is exposed to the smoke of 20 or more cigarettes a day is eight times more likely to be a victim of cot death.

The arrangement looks fine - the only other way I can see of doing it is to lumb the unborn, cot death and children bits all together, as they would flow quite nicely. Another fact garnered on the way: children of smokers are twice as likely to have meningitis -