Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger - by Jerome Arnett, Jr., M.D. - The Heartland Institute

I bring this up for good reason: it's called 'junk science,' which is a prevalent theme of discussion around here.

Last week, the wife & I had to take the kid to the emergency room in the middle of the night. What we thought was a pulled muscle (as there were no signs of swelling) turned out to be "nursemaid's elbow." We had never heard of it. The doctor simply popped my daughter's elbow back into place and that was that. In 30 seconds flat, she was back to normal. No issues.

You know, if she would just cooperate when we want to change her diaper, rather than shifting her entire body into deadweight mode when we try to pick her up, this wouldn't have even happened to begin with. But such is the mind of a stubborn 2-year-old.

So back to the relevance of this story....

While I'm holding my crying kid, the nurses are taking down all our info from my wife. Over the crying, I didn't hear the question she asked, so she says a little louder, "How much do you smoke a day?"

And with this puzzled look on my face -- this had to be the last question I expected to hear -- I responded, "Pack a day. Why?"

"It's part of this form."

So at 4 in the morning and just a TAD cranky, I instantly retorted loudly, "What the hell relevance is that?"

The other nurse was quick to respond, "Exposure to second-hand smoke."

If my daughter hadn't been crying in my lap, I would have unleashed into an epic diatribe at that point. For one, I smoke outside anyways. Second, this was completely irrelevant for why we were at the hospital.

I never got to ask the details about it, I was too tired. But in hindsight, it really pissed me off. For myself, the question was the equivalent of asking me about the size of my household carbon footprint.

I'm in an emergency room, my kid is crying in my lap and in need of medical attention, and I'm being quizzed about matters based on junk science -- and by trained professionals, no less.

Now whether or not those nurses really believed in the second-hand smoke myth, I can only guess. But as quickly as one of the nurses responded to my "relevance" question, I'd surmise she not only believed it, she wanted to quickly put me in my place. Any way you look at it, it was unnecessary. Fortunately for her, I was too tired to put her in her proper place.

Maybe I'll run into her again and we can have a "civilized" discussion on global warming.

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"Skepticism is the highest of duties, and blind faith the unpardonable sin." -- Thomas Huxley

sorry to hear about what happened to your daughter, I hope she is ok ?

After they popped her elbow back into place, she was fine. No swelling or anything. Next morning, she was running around & torturing the dog like always.

Since it happened, my wife has gotten e-mails from a few of her friends/family with the same type story with their kids. Apparently nursemaid's elbow isn't unusual. Learn something new every day.

__________________
"Skepticism is the highest of duties, and blind faith the unpardonable sin." -- Thomas Huxley

that is good to hear ! I guess kids at that age are still trying to learn their environment, and they know what they do and don't like.