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Even third-hand smoke carries carcinogens: study
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Old tobacco smoke does more than simply make a room smell stale -- it can leave cancer-causing toxins behind, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
They found cancer-causing agents called tobacco-specific nitrosamines stick to a variety of surfaces, where they can get into dust or be picked up on the fingers. Children and infants are the most likely to pick them up, the team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California reported.
"These findings raise concerns about exposures to the tobacco smoke residue that has been recently dubbed 'third-hand smoke'," the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, available here
They suggested a good clean-up could help remove these potentially harmful chemicals and said their findings suggest other airborne toxins may also be found on surfaces.
"TSNAs (tobacco-specific nitrosamines) are among the most broadly acting and potent carcinogens present in unburned tobacco and tobacco smoke," Berkeley chemist Hugo Destaillats, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
"The burning of tobacco releases nicotine in the form of a vapor that adsorbs strongly onto indoor surfaces, such as walls, floors, carpeting, drapes and furniture. Nicotine can persist on those materials for days, weeks and even months."
The nicotine combines with another common compound called nitrous acid to form tobacco-specific nitrosamines or TSNAs, Destaillats and colleagues found.
Unvented gas appliances are the main source of nitrous acid indoors, and vehicle engines emit it too.
The researchers did laboratory tests with cigarette smoke, and also tested a 45-year-old pickup truck driven by a heavy smoker. The TSNA compound formed quickly if nitrous acids were around -- notably in the truck compartment but also in rooms where cigarette smoke wafted.
It would be easy to ingest this new compound, they said, calling it "an unappreciated health hazard."
"Because of their frequent contact with surfaces and dust, infants and children are particularly at risk," they wrote.
"Nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco smoke, has until now been considered to be non-toxic in the strictest sense of the term," Kamlesh Asotra of the University of California's Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, which paid for the study, said in a statement.
"What we see in this study is that the reactions of residual nicotine with nitrous acid at surface interfaces are a potential cancer hazard, and these results may be just the tip of the iceberg."
James Pankow, who also worked on the study, said it may raise questions about the safety of electronic cigarettes, or "e-cigarettes." which produce a nicotine vapor but not smoke.
The researchers said regulators who have cracked down on second-hand smoke with smoking bans may decide to consider policies on third-hand smoke.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Chris Wilson)
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For instance, the fact that they found TNSA’s is fine- but are they actually dangerous in this form / at this level of exposure? Are kids REALLY at particular risk?
Why not quote someone who can point out that there is no evidence that e-cigarettes are anywhere near as harmful as their tobacco burning
alternatives? If there’s no time/space for that, then leave the attack on e-cigs out of this story.
If this study and this reporting gives FDA ammunition to ban E-cigs, the result may be that more people continuing smoking cigarettes. That is bad.
Jeff Stier
American Council on Science and Health
www.acsh.org
Twitter: @JeffACSH
Children are likely to eat small amounts of dust or soil each day, so this is another way they may be exposed to arsenic. The total amount of arsenic you take in from these sources is generally about 50 micrograms (1 microgram equals one-millionth of a gram) each day. The level of inorganic arsenic (the form of most concern) you take in from these sources is generally about 3.5 microgram/day. Children may be exposed to small amounts of arsenic from hand-to-mouth activities from playing on play structures or decks constructed out of CCA-treated wood.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp2-c1.pdf
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
has set a permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 10 micrograms
of arsenic per cubic meter of workplace air (10 μg/m³) for 8
hour shifts and 40 hour work weeks.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts2.pdf
10ugs is equal to 186,000 cigs per hour in a sealed room 20×9x9.
note 3.5 micrograms is equal to roughly 60,000 cigs per hour in our small sealed room….Imagine that those rugrats eat up all that n-nitrosomines/inorganic arsenic in a single day…..
But why didnt they put it to us like this so we could understand in easier terms!
Guess where Nitrosamines are also formed? Cooking fish, where TSNAs are measured in microgrammes, but in the Berkeley paper nanogrammes a factor of a thousand times smaller. (2)
Nitrosamines are also found in ham, milk, children’s balloons and tap water. (3)
Finally the World Health Organization’s cancer mouthpiece the International Agency Research on Cancer says on Nitrosamines: “5.2 Human carcinogenicity data. No data were (sic) available to the Working Group.” (4)
So we have a dose that is so low, cooking a fish produces 1,000 times more “carcinogens” on a chemical which has not been proven to cause cancer in the first place.
Junk science that insults the intelligence.
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/02/08/dangers-of-third-hand-smoke/
http://rms1.agsearch.agropedia.affrc.go.jp/contents/JASI/pdf/society/21-1629.pdf
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/134/8/2011.pdf
http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol89/mono89-7E.pdf
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