I have read the above article which, on the whole, was pretty well balanced. However, I noticed at least two refeernces to smoking causing cot-deaths. Let me establish first that I am not a scientist, but I have my own theory about the cause of cot-deaths which are a relatively modern phenomena.

I have a rare allergy to synthetic fabrics, as did my late father. I simply cannot wear anything that contains more than 5% - 10% synthetic material and all my bedding has to be cotton, wool or down (silk would be nice!!). One of the effects of this allergy, apart from headaches and otherwise inexplicable agitation, is that I get terribly hot and can find myself drenched in perspiration even in the coldest weather. Staying in hotels, especially cheaper ones is, for me literally a waking nightmare.

These days, in the interest of 'hygiene', most babies' bedding is synthetic as are their clothes. If those babies get as hot at night as I do as a result of this allergy, they will almost certainly die. I am 63 so when I was a baby I slept in, and was dressed in natural materials.

Has anyone ever investigated this I wonder, or is it too easy to blame it on smokers? How many parents of cot- death babies are actually smokers?

The act of smoking tobacco is of course defensible. Any legal act undertaken by a consenting adult freely in a, supposed, democratic and free society, in a way such as to limit any negative effects of that action on others, is highly defensible. And I applaud Forest and others for defending it so consistently.

We need more inigshts like this in this thread.

Thanks Gerri. I wish someone would take up the issue of synthetic fabrics in relation to cot-deaths. They are so far unexplained. But I suppose that there are too many vested interests and cot-deaths are so rare that a huge industry cannot be destroyed for fear of my being right.