Academic Journal
Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 14 May 2013 - 10:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Signs Of Tobacco Smoke Still Found In Non-Smoking Hotel Rooms
Non-smoking hotel rooms with a partial smoking ban do not fully protect guests from harmful exposure to third-hand smoke, according to new research.
The study was conducted by experts from San Diego State University (SDSU) and was published in the journal Tobacco Control.
Georg Matt, professor of psychology at SDSU, said:
"Our findings demonstrate that some non-smoking guest rooms in smoking hotels are as polluted with third-hand smoke as are some smoking rooms. Moreover, non-smoking guests staying in smoking rooms may be exposed to tobacco smoke pollutants at levels found among non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke."
The surfaces and air quality of rooms in a random sample of low to mid-budget hotels in San Diego were examined. The researchers were looking for traces of tobacco smoke pollution - levels of nicotine and 3-ethenylpyridine (3EP) - referred to as third-hand smoke.
A previous study showed that nicotine in third-hand smoke, the residue from tobacco smoke that clings to essentially all surfaces long after a cigarette has been put out, reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to create dangerous carcinogens.
The sample included 10 hotels with complete smoking bans and 30 with partial smoking bans that had certain rooms designated for non-smokers.
The experts observed a group of non-smokers who spent the night at these hotels. In order to evaluate their exposure to nicotine and NKK, a carcinogen found in tobacco smoke, the subjects were asked to give urine and finger swipe samples.
"Smoking in hotels left a residue of tobacco pollution in both smoking and non-smoking rooms," the authors explained. "Hotels with a partial smoking ban did not protect the occupants of non-smoking rooms from exposure to tobacco pollution."
Surface nicotine and air 3EP were higher in both non-smoking and smoking rooms of hotels with partial bans than in hotels with total smoking bans.
Non-smoking rooms of hotels operating partial bans had surface nicotine levels over two times as high, and air levels of 3EP over 7 times as high, as those of hotels with complete bans.
Rooms where past guests had smoked had surface nicotine levels 35 times higher, and air nicotine levels 22 times greater, than those of rooms in hotels operating a complete smoking ban.
Smoking rooms had notably higher air nicotine levels compared to non-smoking rooms, and the levels were 40% greater in non-smoking rooms of hotels with partial bans than in those with complete bans.
Increased nicotine levels were also found in the hallway surfaces outside smoking rooms, compared to the surfaces outside non-smoking rooms.
Additionally, non-smokers who stayed in hotels with partial bans had higher levels of finger nicotine and urinary cotinine, compared to guests staying in hotels with total bans.
"Urinary NNAL was also significantly higher in those staying in the 10 rooms containing the highest levels of tobacco pollutants," according to the experts.
Matt concluded:
"New hotels should operate total smoking bans to protect not only their guests, but also their employees. In the meantime, guests who wish to protect themselves from exposure to tobacco smoke should avoid hotels that permit smoking and instead stay in completely smoke-free hotels."
Written by Sarah Glynn
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
Georg E Matt, Penelope J E Quintana, Addie L Fortmann, Joy M Zakarian, Vanessa E Galaviz, Dale A Chatfield, Eunha Hoh, Melbourne F Hovell, Carl Winston
Tobacco Control May 13, 2013; doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2012-050824 Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
MLA
20 May. 2013.
Please note: If no author information is provided, the source is cited instead.
posted by Scott Ewing on 17 May 2013 at 3:49 pm
Secondhand smoke was shown to be a fraud in Federal court in 1998. Only on a technicality was the decision overturned. The findings of the court remain intact. Since SHS was invented our of thin air (sorry for the pun) exactly no one has died from it. Unless you count the innocent smokers being attacked and murdered by being forced outside.But wait, there's more! Now we have Third Hand Smoke. So we have a myth, made from a prior myth.This argument is as thin as a soup made from the shadow of a chicken that starved to death.
| post followup | alert a moderator |
posted by dave copeland on 16 May 2013 at 10:47 am
Years ago people in the smoker’s rights movement joked about third hand smoke. Now, as further proof that our society has become so absurd that satire is nearly impossible, the press is now all abuzz about this new fictitious danger, described as deadly toxic particles that hang out long after the second hand smoke is gone. It started with an article in the once respectable New York Times.
Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, evidently desperate for his fifteen minutes of fame, has published a study that, on first glance, appears to bolster this ridiculous claim. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he says. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”
The article closes with the statement that Third Hand smoke contains polonium-210, “the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006.” This is yellow journalism at its worst.
Michael McFadden, author of the book Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains sent me some rough calculations about polonium-210. He writes:
“A 30 cig per day smoker gets 1 picocurie per day.
“A typical nonsmoker living or working with smokers would get at most about 1/100th of that per day, more likely only 1/1,000th with good ventilation and/or a more reasonable amount of indoor smoking, so about one femtocurie.
“A child would have to live with a smoker for roughly three trillion days to absorb the dose that killed the Russian.”
And that is for second hand smoke. Since Third Hand Smoke is a fictional construct, we can only base our calculations on assumptions. (These calculations also come from McFadden.) Assuming that 1% of this deadly stuff has been spread on the 10,000 square feet of surface area in a typical 2,000 sq foot house, and also assuming that your method of cleaning is to having your infant lick the kitchen floor clean once a day, the kid would have to lick the floor for one hundred trillion days to accumulate a fatal dose. That comes out to about 274 billion years. The universe is about 13.8 billion years old. The half life of Polonium-210 is a mere 138 days. So in order to ingest a fatal dose, the not only would the floor licker have to keep at it 20 times longer than our universe has existed, we’d also have to completely rewrite the laws of physics to keep the stuff dangerous long enough to do any damage. That wouldn’t even slow down a nicotine nanny, of course – they have quite a bit of experience rewriting the laws of physics!
| post followup | alert a moderator |
posted by Dave Copeland on 15 May 2013 at 6:52 am
When staying in a hotel, I'm always willing to look past the fecal matter, bodily fluids, bacteria, germs and fungus others have left behind. But if there's even a chance I'm being exposed to a contrived, ASH-generated, fear-mongering catch phrase, I will vehemently protest to hotel management!
| post followup | alert a moderator |
'Signs Of Tobacco Smoke Still Found In Non-Smoking Hotel Rooms'
Please note that we publish your name, but we do not publish your email address. It is only used to let you know when your message is published. We do not use it for any other purpose. Please see our privacy policy for more information.
If you write about specific medications or operations, please do not name health care professionals by name.
All opinions are moderated before being included (to stop spam)
Contact Our News Editors
For any corrections of factual information, or to contact the editors please use our feedback form.
Please send any medical news or health news press releases to:
Note: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our terms and conditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment