bbc news article reveals that 1000 uk deaths per year result from breathing in other peoples smoke, and that only a completely smoke-free pub or restaurant brings a worthwhile reduction in exposure. Having a no-smoking area is not, it seems, enough.

see :  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3507985.stm

this raises interesting questions on our society's attitudes to risk assessment, and to the economic value of human life.

an unrelated article at

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3514065.stm
reveals how lives are being lost through an acute shortage of nhs intensive-care beds.

It is time that, as a society, we began a rational dialogue on such questions, rather than the hysterical feminised hypocrisy which claims that even one human life is priceless, whilst leaving the difficult resource-allocation decisions to a silenced sub-group.

I believe that we need to incorporate into our school curriculum a course which teaches our children to assess and balance risks and costs, and to recognise how society does and must make compromises involving assigning monetary value to the life of a citizen.

Only with a cool understanding of the true relative size of the risks we all face from traffic accidents, ill health, false imprisonment etc, can the hysteria of the media, government spin, and the screeching of the occasional unfortunate sufferers, be resisted.