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Perhaps, but as a scientist, I am all too aware that more often than not there is no great ephiphany, no 'eureka' moment.

People find the answers they seek. Absolute knowledge does not get funded.

Grants seldom go to those who go forth with wide open eyes seeking the complete answer to a problem or question. Instead the trend is to sieze on some popular 'boogeyman' and flog it to death, spending kings' ransoms to do so.

Only afterward is it discovered that the problem still exists, fodder for the next 'anti-boogeyman' jihad.

Maybe if tobacco had a better smell, like fresh mown hay (or Phosgene gas) it would be more popular.

Few would argue it is good for anyone's lungs to smoke, but the selfsame medical industry which decries the dilutions in homeopathy as quackery is off on a tear decrying the diluted contents of cigarette smoke as uber-terrible carcinogens. Why is that logical flaw not seen? Because people see what they want to.

All the while those who cannot be fundamentally honest enough to say they just think the smoke stinks welcome each new tidbit of 'data' (no matter how questionable), with the glee of a Homecoming crowd seeing their team get a touchdown, and use that data to embrace the sort of regulation (establishing precedent) which they would never welcome under circumstances which might impinge on their lives or livelihoods.

That will have deeper ramifications for all of us, just as the continuing expenditure of research money to villify tobacco will (instead of using the funding for basic research into the mechanisms of cancer--all cancer).

The next obvious sin will be obesity, even the best girdle won't hide it, it will be regulated by the BMI which will not 'read' right for those who have musculature better developed than the statistical average, and will be decried as vehemently as smoking. Anyone who was ever the 'fat kid' in their class can tell you that.

Whatever. About the time we are all just perfect we will likely be overrun by some bunch of khat chewing zealots who don't raise their children in a bubble, while whining about the smell.

You may not agree with me, but I believe you should let your babies cry (a little--it develops the lungs), and when they get older, let them play in the dirt, it develops their immune system. Soothe them, feed them wholesome food, wash them, and put them in a clean bed at night. It worked for us.