I came across a little article today which cheered me up immensely.

They have done a "study" into third hand smoke.

Naturally they have discovered that it is the most lethal stuff imaginable and causes more deaths than the Hiroshima bomb.

When you are setting out to find something that you have already convinced yourself is there, then it is a simple enough process to find it.  These "scientists" did so by rolling out a gas chromatograph which, by my understanding of these matters is an extremely sensitive machine and is generally used to search for specific elements.  For example, you don't ask the device to itemise the colours in a photograph, you ask it if the colour green is present.  So these "scientists" set out to specifically search for certain compounds, and of course they found them.  I lay very heavy odds that if they set out top find Plutonium in my sitting room that they would find a molecule or two?

So having proved their preconceived notions they announce that people's home are full of deadly chemicals which they attribute to "third hand smoke".  What I would like to know is how they know that tobacco smoking caused those elements to be present.  I know for a fact that my home is brim-full of highly toxic materials, from radioactive gas, through lead, up to arsenic and beyond.  How do I know?  Because if you look hard enough, you'll find these things everywhere – in the air we breath, in the soil we grow our food in and on every surface we touch.  The world is full of toxins caused by pollution, chemicals, nuclear tests and by the earth itself.

I have a suggestion and a question for these so called "experts".

My question is the old one I have asked so many times in the past and yet no one has answered – if the residue from smoking is so damned dangerous how come people who lived in the last century are still alive?  Smoking was rampant, so called second hand smoke was everywhere and the residue must have lain thick on every surface, so according to all these recent "studies" we should all be dead by now from cancer and heart attacks?  Yet those generations are living longer than any previous generations?

My suggestion is that before they start involving themselves in the myth of third hand smoke, that they try and prove there is any danger in second hand smoke.  This is something they have singularly failed to do, relying of cherry-picked statistics which to date have suggested that second hand smoke is less carcinogenic than tap water.

They really are getting desperate.