Old tobacco smoke does more than simply make a room smell stale — it can leave cancer-causing toxins behind, US researchers reported on Monday.
They found cancer-causing agents called tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) 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.
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 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 TSNAs, Destaillats and colleagues found.
Unvented gas appliances are the main source of nitrous acid indoors, and vehicle engines emit it as well.
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 to the press.
“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,” Asotra said.
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.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS