Something Stinks.

by Benjo

A reader sent me a story that ran in Saturday's Times about the dangers of so-called "third-hand smoke." Sensing a suspicious familiarity, I walked down the hall to Edward's office. He was out, but a cursory glance at his desk revealed exactly what I'd suspected: he had submitted an almost identical story to the Times earlier in the week. They'd swapped one of their columnists' names for Edward's and printed it, verbatim--almost. The full, shocking tale is below.

The NYT story begins:

Parents who smoke often open a window or turn on a fan to clear the air for their children, but experts now have identified a related threat to children’s health that isn’t as easy to get rid of: third-hand smoke.

Now compare that to Edward's:

Parents with bad gas often open a window or turn on a fan to clear the air for their children, but experts now have identified a related threat to children’s health that isn’t as easy to get rid of: third-hand fart.

NYT continues:

“When their kids are out of the house, they might smoke. Or they smoke in the car. Or they strap the kid in the car seat in the back and crack the window and smoke, and they think it’s okay because the second-hand smoke isn’t getting to their kids,” Dr. Winickoff continued. “We needed a term to describe these tobacco toxins that aren’t visible.”

Whereas Edward writes:

"When their kids are out of the house, they might fart. Or they honk the backdoor horn in the car, so to speak. Or they strap the kid in the car seat in the back and crack the window and polish off a bit of the ol' stainless stool, and they think it's okay because the second-hand fart isn't getting to their kids," Dr. Winickoff continued. "We need a term to describe these flatulatory toxins that aren't visible."

Invisible farts aside, there is a very serious threat underlying Edward's article. And here we see the gravest of NYT's crimes. While the article is liberal with alarming language--"threat"; "toxic"; "highly carcinogenic"--it is far less so with evidence. The few statistics it mentions deal with parents' perceptions of the risks of third-hand smoke, while omitting information about the number of children who actually got sick or died because of these perceptions.

Edward's reporting is far more robust in this respect:

A new study in Science finds a 50% greater risk that later in life, pre-teens who have previously been exposed to third-hand fart will exhibit behavioral disorders. These include weird snoring; excessive buffalo wing eating; and burial of hands in the sweatpants, with what the scientists call "a little too much hand movement."

* * *

I have to admit: I was torn about whether to post this. I loyally read and greatly respect the Times. But I was finally swayed when I read a couple sentences at the end of Edward's piece that drove home the gravity of this issue:

Scientists cite another consequence of fart residue: imitative behavior. Children who are exposed to third-hand fart are almost guaranteed someday to become farters themselves.

NYT, do the right thing. Publish the original story. The world needs to know.