Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Over the past several years I've managed to stop paying attention to health news on TV and print media because for the most part if they are not citing something in JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, or Nature, then they are skewing the findings or drawing conclusions that should not be drawn. Here's a prime example from Reuters via Yahoo:

Secondhand Smoke Lowers Kids' Math, Reading Scores

...During the study, Yolton and her colleagues asked 4,399 kids between the ages of 6 and 16 to complete reading, math and reasoning tests. The researchers also checked their blood for cotinine, a substance created when the body breaks down nicotine, thereby serving as a marker for exposure to tobacco smoke.

Cotinine scores were typically higher in African-American kids, and in those who shared a home with at least one smoker.

The researchers found that children with more cotinine in their blood tended to score lower on the reading, math and reasoning tests. And the higher the cotinine levels, the lower were their scores, the authors note in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

That's a CORRELATION...not causation as the title implies. I must confess I have not looked at the study so I don't know if the authors controlled for all the possible confound variables, but I have a suspicion they did not. It's just a convenient way of getting PR for the study.