Reply #24: One of the saddest things

[KT2000]

about the singular focus on smoking is that people are missing some really horrible sources of cancer and neurological diseases.
More and more manufacturing is solving problems through chemistry. Our airtight homes have become gas chambers that trap these chemicals and become the air we breathe.

It is turning out that the blood-brain barrier is not as impervious as we thought.

People who live in homes constructed of OSB are dosing themselves with urea formaldehyde - more unstable than the phenol formaldehyde used in plywood. Carpets are loaded with all kinds of chemicals that are nasty for the brain. Furniture is made of particle board (urea formaldehyde). Air fresheners are loaded with chemicals that affect the brain. Fertilizers and pesticides are tracked into homes where the carpet serves as a shoe cleaner. Unfortunately, these products require water and sunlight to break down, so in the home they persist.

If people believe that ridding the world of smoking will stop these illnesses, they are mistaken. Congress in 1990 saw the future and declared it the Decade of the Brain. This was an effort to take action and save the human brain for further chemical assault. Instead the authors of the report - The Office of Technology Assessment (non-partisan advisory group to Congress) was shut down.