They are at it again.

Our good friends in "research" have come up with another target with which to blaze headlines and demand immediate action, and presumably wads more cash for yet more research.

The target this time is air fresheners. 

Apparently these devices are causing cancer, asthma, diabetes, dementia, respiratory diseases, heart attacks, strokes, are damaging the unborn cheeeldren [can’t leave them out?] and are killing 40,000 people a year in the UK.

Er…. I thought that was smoking's job?   Apparently not.

Now I confess to an intense personal hatred for those damned air fresheners, be they aerosol or those stinking things you plug in.  The make my eyes water and give me sinus trouble so I won't go anywhere near them.  And I have never yet met one that smelled like the label claimed.  You see the advertisements that claim they make your room smell like a rose garden or a pine forest?  Bollox!  They just stink of chemicals, so it is no surprise to me that the "researchers" claim they are full of chemicals.  These lads are really at the peak of their profession?

Anyhows, these magnificent men in their ivory towers have deemed air fresheners and scented candles to be carcinogenic [though it baffles me a bit why they should cause obesity?  Maybe they threw that in as it’s a good one for extra funding?].  However they also claim that outside air pollution is a major cause for concern.  These lads are really after a Nobel Prize for Stating the Bleeding Obvious, aren't they? 

I see they are trying to hi-jack Formaldehyde too?  The Anti-Smokers won't be too pleased with that and will probably slap an injunction claiming breach of copyright.

So if you stay indoors you're fucked.  If you open a window or go outside you're fucked.  Either way you are filling yourself full of carcinogens so essentially….. you're fucked.  You might as well buy your coffin now.

Isn't it amazing the similarity between the effects of artificial scents and cigarette smoke?  The only thing I can see that's different is that the fresheners don't cause cot death, but then my bet is that the next round of research funding will unearth that little nugget?

And so the wagon rolls on leaving yet another worry for the sheeple, who will doubtless chuck all their air fresheners in the bin and then refuse to travel to work because of the toxic pollution outside.

My advice to them is to relax and have a smoke.

It's much safer.