Children need to learn smoking blindness risk

Children need clearer warnings that smoking increases the risk of blindness to put them off cigarettes, The Macular Society  has stressed.

The charity said a survey of 10 year olds found that 98 per cent did not know that smoking increases the risk of blindness. In addition, blindness was ranked as their most feared consequence of smoking – ahead of heart disease, stroke and lung cancer.

Macular Society chief executive Tony Rucinski said: ‘We are failing children if we don't tell them about the full dangers of smoking. Children are, rightly, concerned about the prospect of living with sight loss but adults seem to overlook this when planning anti-smoking campaigns. 200 people a day in the UK start to lose their sight from macular degeneration and more than half a million people have it, making it the biggest cause of sight loss.’