Is It Bad for Babies to Be in Cars That Smell Like Smoke
Environ Health Perspect. 2011 Feb; 119(ii): A70–A74.
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Focus
Does the Smoke Always Really Clear? Thirdhand Smoke Exposure Raises New Concerns
You may never take heard of thirdhand smoke, or THS, but chances are yous've smelled it. THS is, in the words of The New York Times, "the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to smokers' hair and clothing, non to mention cushions and carpet, that lingers long afterward secondhand smoke [SHS] has cleared from a room."1 Recent inquiry exploring potential dangers of THS has received a flurry of coverage in the international media2,iii,4 and the scientific press.v,half dozen,7 And in the United States, court cases are get-go to announced in which plaintiffs are citing these alleged dangers,eight,nine despite a lack of human being health studies on the long-term health effects of THS exposure.
So how dangerous might THS actually be? The reply, even so to exist pronounced, will depend on many factors.
A Cursory History of THS
THS was a topic of interest long before information technology received its present name. The seed of the thought that cigarette fume toxicants might linger on room and automobile surfaces long after the fume itself was gone was planted in 1953, when it was reported that smoke condensate painted onto mice caused cancer.10
In 1991 the house grit of smokers' homes was first found to exist contaminated with nicotine.eleven Later, in 2004, nicotine was quantified in the dust of nonsmokers' homes and homes in which mothers smoked in the house over the preceding iii months.12 In homes with the highest SHS exposure, in which the mothers smoked in areas where their children were present, nicotine in dust averaged 64.0 μg/m2 in living rooms and fifteen.8 μg/m2 in infants' bedrooms. Surfaces in living rooms and infants' bedrooms averaged nicotine coatings of 73.05 μg/m2 and 56.26 μg/m2, respectively. The same study showed the dust and surfaces of homes in which smokers had tried to limit their children's exposure (for instance, by sometimes smoking outdoors) were also contaminated, although to a lesser degree. All the same, no nicotine was found in the dust or on the surfaces of homes never exposed to tobacco smoke.12
In 2008 similar findings were reported for cars.thirteen Nicotine was detected in significantly greater quantities in the grit (mean 19.51 μg/one thousand) and on the dashboards (mean viii.61 μg/m2) of 78 vehicles belonging to people who smoked in their vehicles than in the dust (mean 3.37 μg/g) and on the dashboards (mean 0.06 μg/m2) of twenty vehicles of nonsmokers. Eight smokers had imposed a smoking ban in their vehicles for at least 12 months. Their vehicles nevertheless were contaminated with nicotine (mean eleven.61 μg/grand in dust and 5.09 μg/m2 on the dashboard). The authors point out, notwithstanding, that the cars may have been contaminated past smoke that entered the car from outside and that smoking bans may non take been complied with 100% of the time.
A 2010 study showed THS too remains afterwards smokers move out of their homes, even after being vacant for two months and being prepared for new residents, sometimes with new carpeting and paint.14 Meanwhile, other lines of research have confirmed some smoke compounds adsorb onto surfaces and then desorb back into the air over time, providing a source of tobacco toxicants that lingers long after people cease smoking.15,16
The term thirdhand smoke may take outset appeared in print in 2006,17 just it became more than widely known in 2009 when it was used by Jonathan Winickoff, an acquaintance professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues in a newspaper published in Pediatrics.eighteen In that work, the researchers reported that 65.two% of nonsmokers and 43.3% of smokers believed THS could harm children and that such beliefs were independently associated with the imposition of home smoking bans. The authors also wrote that emphasizing the potential dangers of THS to children's health might be important in encouraging parents not to smoke effectually their children.
A new development emerged when Mohamad Sleiman, a chemist with the Indoor Environs Section of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Environmental Free energy Technologies Division, and colleagues reported that nicotine adsorbed onto surfaces reacted with nitrous acid—an air pollutant found in vehicle exhaust and produced by improperly vented gas stoves and burning tobacco—to course tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) including one-(Northward-methyl-N-nitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridinyl)-iv-butanal (NNA), 4-(N-nitrosomethylamino)-i-(3-pyridinyl)-one-butanone (NNK), and N-nitrosonornicotine (NNN).19 At that place is some testify NNA is mutagenic.twenty NNK and NNN are classified by the International Agency for Inquiry on Cancer as homo carcinogens21 and by the National Toxicology Programme as reasonably anticipated to exist man carcinogens.22
Later in 2010 Sleiman et al. reported that ozone, another indoor air pollutant, reacted with some 50 compounds in SHS to produce ultrafine particles smaller than 100 nm, the compositions of which are yet to exist determined.23 The furnishings of ultrafine particles are thought to vary depending on their composition and characteristics, merely their tiny size likely facilitates their uptake and distribution throughout the body to potentially sensitive target sites including the bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen, heart, and central nervous system.24
Sleiman et al. also speculated these ultrafine particles may be capable of depositing on surfaces and after resuspending into the air.23 In the same year, another inquiry squad provided the first preliminary quantitative data showing these particles did just that, although reaching airborne concentrations 100 times lower than levels in SHS.25
By the latter part of 2010, with thirdhand smoke an established moniker, researchers began to define the phenomenon with a "three Rs" clarification: "Thirdhand fume consists of residuum tobacco smoke pollutants that remain on surfaces and in grit later on tobacco has been smoked, are re-emitted back into the gas phase, or react with oxidants and other compounds in the environment to yield secondary pollutants," Sleiman says.
Working It Out
Although business concern that THS might exist a hazard has grown, proof of impairment remains to exist formally demonstrated. The papers past Sleiman et al.19,23 focused on chemistry; they did not written report health implications. However, figures reported in their nitrous acid/TSNA paper19 allow a back-of-the-envelope calculation that provides a starting bespeak for contend on the potential of THS to cause harm.
In this work, Sleiman and his colleagues sampled the interior of an old pickup truck whose owner typically smoked more than ten cigarettes a day inside the vehicle. They placed a filter-newspaper patch on the dashboard; three days afterward, with the owner having smoked as usual, they removed the filter paper and likewise took a wipe sample of the stainless steel glove compartment door. Both the filter-paper and wipe samples were analyzed, showing that ambient nitrous acid levels were able to produce TSNAs by reaction with nicotine. No NNN was detected in this experiment, but the filter paper returned values of effectually 1 ng/cm−2 for NNK and five ng/cm−2 for NNA. The glove compartment door returned nigh 0.two ng/cm−2 for NNK and 1.0 ng/cm−2 for NNA.
Considering the filter-paper results for the truck and factoring in many assumptions, a calculation for potential exposure emerges (see Box 1). At this point, estimating the cancer risk of such an exposure would exist speculative—no cancer authorization cistron (CPF) is bachelor for NNA,19 and the CPF for NNK refers to a combination of lung, pancreas, liver, and nasal cancers in association with oral exposure over a lifetime of 70 years.26 Sleiman and colleagues circumspection, moreover, that an important limitation of the calculation in Box 1 is the supposition that 100% of NNK and NNA on the surface of the manus is captivated into the trunk and/or ingested.
Merely although the predicted figures clearly could be lower, Sleiman says at to the lowest degree some of the input figures seem reasonable. He points out, "The quantities of TSNAs on the paper were only those collected after three days of one person smoking ten cigarettes per 24-hour interval. How much more than might be accumulated after months of smoking, perhaps by more than than one smoker smoking more than x per day?"
"Different materials absorb unlike amounts of nicotine [therefore producing dissimilar amounts of TSNAs]," adds coauthor Hugo Destaillats, as well of the LBNL. "Nosotros only examined newspaper and stainless steel; other materials in cars and homes blot other quantities." For case, wool, cotton, silk, linen, acetate, and polyester all absorb SHS compounds,27,28 and nicotine is reported to exist adsorbed by carpet and wallboard in quantities 2–3 orders of magnitude greater than the amount that would have been adsorbed by the pickup truck's stainless steel glove compartment door.29
Farther, although nitrous acid levels typically attain 5–xv ppb by volume indoors and 30 ppb past volume in vehicles, concentrations as loftier as 100 ppb by volume take been measured indoors.30 Moreover, nitrous acid photodecomposes during the twenty-four hour period, so concentrations could be especially high at nighttime in polluted cities, speculates coauthor Lara Gundel, also an LBNL researcher; TSNA production could increment with higher nitrous acid concentrations.
Gundel adds that SHS contains many more toxic and carcinogenic compounds—such as benzo[a]pyrene, 1,3-butadiene, benzene, formaldehyde, cadmium, arsenic, and lead—that the researchers did not consider in their studies. "Aslope NNK and other TSNAs, they could increase the dangers of thirdhand smoke remainder," Gundel says. Moreover, she says, the dermal CPF for at least 1 compound in SHS—benzo[a]pyrene—is actually virtually 15-fold higher than its oral counterpart.31
Winickoff is concerned that modest children might exist peculiarly exposed and more than susceptible to toxicants in THS. "Infants crawl over, touch, and oral cavity contaminated surfaces and are known to consume upwardly to a quarter gram per day of dust—twice as much equally practice adults," he says. "They could therefore exist getting much higher doses of thirdhand fume toxicants than older children and adults." Gundel also suggests that cleaning staff working in hotels where smoking is allowed could receive high THS exposures, for case by handling THS-contaminated bedding.
Overshooting?
Clearly, not all the worst-instance scenario inputs used in Box i may apply. Michael Siegel, a professor of community wellness sciences at Boston University School of Public Health, says there is no evidence to back up the assumption that 100% of the NNK on the surface of the manus would be absorbed into the torso and/or ingested. He further argues, "The most likely source of meaningful homo exposure—ingestion—would only be a major upshot for infants, and the time menstruation during which high levels of ingestion of chemicals on the easily occurs is simply about one year" (although Gundel points out a smoker's spouse might certainly be exposed for l years over the span of a wedlock).
A more of import consideration, suggests Siegel, is whether the potential threat posed by THS adds significantly to the hazards of smoking and SHS exposure. Smokers who are exposed to THS on surfaces after smoking has ceased would already have been exposed to many times the quantities of the same chemicals through the act of smoking itself, he explains. Likewise, nonsmokers who are exposed to SHS—including the children of smokers—also would take in far greater quantities of NNK and other toxics via smoke inhalation than through THS. "This would make any small-scale additional NNK exposure meaningless," Siegel says.
Siegel believes one issue that is potentially meaningful is whether significant exposure to toxic THS constituents could occur equally a result of smoke absorbed by a smoker's wearable. "This question is important because it determines whether or non smokers who fume merely exterior the dwelling house withal place their children at potential risk," he says. "The research that is needed is a study to determine the level of baby carcinogen exposure resulting in the setting of parents who only smoke outside the dwelling."
Finding subjects for such research will not be likewise hard. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007–2008 indicate more than one-half of U.Southward. children anile 3–19 years, some 32 million children, are exposed to SHS.32 Globally, an estimated xl% of children, 35% of nonsmoking women, and 33% of nonsmoking men are regularly exposed to SHS.33
Cutting through the Smoke
Of the Sleiman et al. paper,19 Catherine Armstrong, a spokeswoman for British American Tobacco, says, "[This work] did not written report any health outcomes. As the authors themselves annotation, more than research is needed before conclusions on possible health hazards can be fatigued." That research is almost to first. The California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, which is funded by the California tobacco revenue enhancement, recently made US$3.75 million of funding bachelor for studying THS and cigarette butt waste matter.34
Georg Matt, a professor of psychology at San Diego Country University, points out that even in the absence of any hard bear witness of actual long-term health effects of THS, many nonsmokers—and quondam smokers—have already been sensitized to the phenomenon. "We ask for nonsmoker hotel rooms, nonsmoker apartments, and we prefer nonsmoker cars when we buy a used car. Hotels and car rental companies know that cleaning up [smokers'] cars and rooms is very expensive, and existent-estate agents know that smoking affects belongings values."
Regardless of whether THS is conclusively shown to cause illnesses, it is already changing attitudes, behaviors, norms, expectations, purchasing behavior, and the economic value of personal property and existent estate, Matt says. In combination, these are powerful factors that have the potential to reduce tobacco employ and lower the health risks associated with smoking itself as well as SHS and THS exposure.
"The well-nigh important impact of the efforts to prevent exposure to thirdhand smoke," Matt says, "may be . . . the reduction of health risks from active smoking and secondhand smoke exposure." For these forms of tobacco smoke exposure, at least, the discussion about whether they may be dangerous is well and truly ended.
Thirdhand smoke consists of residual tobacco smoke pollutants that 1) remain on surfaces and in grit after tobacco has been smoked, ii) are re-emitted back into the gas stage, or 3) react with oxidants and other compounds in the environment to yield secondary pollutants.
Michael Siegel of Boston University Schoolhouse of Public Wellness believes one potentially meaningful question is whether pregnant exposure to toxic THS constituents could occur every bit a result of smoke absorbed onto a smoker's wear. "This question is important considering it determines whether or not smokers who smoke simply exterior the dwelling still place their children at potential risk," he says.
Georg Matt of San Diego Land University points out that in the absence of any difficult evidence of actual long-term health effects of THS, many nonsmokers—and former smokers—take already been sensitized to the miracle. "The most important impact of the efforts to prevent exposure to thirdhand smoke may be . . . the reduction of wellness risks from agile smoking and secondhand smoke exposure," he says.
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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3040625/
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