Meanwhile a group of MPs called for a public consultation on how to reduce the harms from smoking in cars.
This doesn't make me cringe, but it does make me wonder how it came about. Is it a simple typo, a careless editing from "harmful effects" or is it a deliberate use of harm as a countable noun?
Harm as a countable noun goes back to Old English. From the
Genesis of the 8th century:
Ealle synt uncre hearmas gewrecene [all our harms are avenged]
Harm has been used in this sense by many good authors over the centuries. For example, Shakespeare,
Antony and Cleopatra:
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch.
So I don't see how you can in good conscience object to this sense of the word.