If we were to take everything the tabloids say at face value then we would assume that just about every special occasion from Christmas to Bonfire night; to Easter had been either curtailed or even outright banned by the evil "elf n safety" killjoys. This time it seems that Halloween itself has come into the firing line of the clip board Gestapo, which is presumably why we get this article:Oh God here we go again.
"Most sensible people consider it a jolly Halloween tradition that poses a danger no graver than getting a squirt of water up your nose.
But now apple bobbing has fallen foul of the health and safety police – with participants advised to wear goggles, remove stalks and use bottled water."
So have the "elf n safety police", whoever in God's name they are, saying that kids have to wear goggles as implied by this opening sentence?
"A hospital eye consultant said a ‘high-velocity impact with an apple’ had the potential to cause serious eye injury, while dirty water could lead to infection or blindness.
He recommended disinfecting water containers, using bottled mineral water and turning on lights so you can see what you are doing.
And ophthalmologist Parwez Hossain, from Southampton General Hospital, even suggested contestants remove the apples from the water with their hands instead of their mouth."
Of course not. It is just the advice of an ophthalmologist who has been asked how to prevent unnecessary injuries at Halloween time as part of an NHS trust scheme at that hospital, to offer advice (that people are not somehow bound to honour), the bottled water thing is put in as he says that the risk of eye infection is less than tap or stagnant water. Seems pretty straight forward, and in the case of other occasions, successful.
"Admissions to casualty on Bonfire Night have gone down as people have become more aware of health and safety but we have not seen a decline on Halloween."
The goggles advice seems to be in relation to a hypothetical activity involving "high velocity impacts" and not directly related to apple bobbing, but whens a technicality like that ever going to stop these kind of headlines? And when is that going to stop the reader comments who have only read the headline or glanced at the story itself, and have completely missed the point.
"What tosh this Parwez Hossain talks. Does this twit realise that if everyone went through life as precautious as he is suggesting he'd be out of a job, ans theree'd be no NHS. If these lot had their way we'd all sit at home in padded room with only one person moving around at any given time to reduce the risk of causing an injury. Someone tell this bloke to get a life."
"It's amazing, I wonder how I made it through my childhood without risk assessments for Halloween. Come on, three people admitted to hospital, out of how many? Percentage rate of injuries versus total participants?? It's easy to make up figures to suit your own ends. I hope the person with the non-job who came up with these recommendations is first to go in the cuts... but then the NHS is exempt, and therefore this waste of fresh air will carry on trying to protect us from ourselves."
This kind of journalism is the ideal thing to appeal to readers confirmation bias. They have a presupposition about something, and the article implies that that presupposition is right, which they cherry pick whats written to support their bias. In short these stories aren't going to go away soon.
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