Sir, - Shelia Flanagan in her opinion piece (August 17th) quite rightly states that preventing asthma would be money well spent. There is incontrovertible evidence linking asthma in children with their exposure to tobacco smoke.
A major study carried out in the United States and reported in the latest issue of Chest sought to determine the indicators of asthma severity among children with high and low levels of tobacco smoke exposure.
The authors of the study concluded that asthmatic children with high levels of involuntary tobacco smoke exposure, compared with those with low levels of exposure, were more likely to have moderate or severe asthma and worsened lung function.
In an accompanying editorial, aptly entitled, "Suffer the Children", the medical officer for the United States Public Health Service stated that "because the consequences of parental smoking impact not only the smoker but the smoker's children, it behoves us all to work diligently with parents who smoke to lower or eliminate tobacco smoke from their homes and cars." Apart from sparing asthma sufferers the trouble of being ill, it would save our health services a fortune! - Yours, etc.,
Dr FENTON HOWELL, Chairman, ASH Ireland, Northumberland Rd, Dublin 2