MASSACHUSETTS HEALTH OFFICIALS were worried about the effects of breathing second-hand cigarette smoke in stuffy railway cars, so they asked Massachusetts Institute of Technology to investigate. MIT’s conclusions, outlined in a letter from Professor William Ripley Nichols, were unambiguous:
“The products of the tobacco consumed mix with the air and render it oppressive to most nonsmokers…A very little tobacco smoke does indeed affect the eyes and throat of a person unaccustomed to its use, but our senses are often affected by quantities too small to weigh, too small even to detect by chemical means.”
That report was prepared 114 years ago. The only change since then has been a dramatic improvement in the means of measuring the chemical constituents of tobacco smoke and of weighing their deadly effects.
Using techniques that measure down to parts per billion, scientists now know that so-called passive smoke contains carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, polycyclic-aromatic hydrocarbons, nicotine, inhalable particles and hundreds of other dangerous compounds. It also contains about 50 chemicals, such as benzene, which are known or suspected to cause cancer.

And researchers suspect carbon monoxide, ammonia, benzene and other toxins may be present in higher concentrations in passive smoke than in what a smoker inhales, which has been burned at higher temperatures that destroy some of the pollutants. In a 1986 report, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said there is evidence “sidestream smoke may be more carcinogenic.”

Recent reviews suggest that passive smoking causes up to 5,000 deaths a year from lung cancer, said James Repace, a scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency. “Our program is putting out a consumer booklet advising people not to smoke in the home, to smoke outdoors,” he said.

Passive smoking takes a particularly harsh toll on children, Koop said. Those exposed to it are more likely to be hospitalized for bronchitis and pneumonia during the first year of life, have a higher rate of tracheitis, bronchitis, laryngitis and other acute respiratory illness before age 2, and are more vulnerable to middle ear problems and coughs in early childhood.

Studies conducted in Watertown and East Boston by the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital suggest children exposed to passive smoke also suffer lung damage that makes them more susceptible to serious disease later in life.

“It shows up as very small differences at this point in life, when the children have lots of excess lung capacity, and they won’t sense it through middle age,” said Douglas Dockery, who helped run the study on 1,841 first graders in Watertown, half of whom were followed through high school. “But when they get into their 60s or 70s, those small changes can put them at very significant risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.”

Some scientists believe passive smoking also increases the risk of heart disease the way smoking does, and recent studies in Japan and Scotland tend to support that position. Koop, however, said further study is needed to make that link. He also said “the simple separation of smokers and nonsmokers within the same space may reduce, but does not eliminate, the exposure of nonsmokers to environmental tobacco smoke.”
Massachusetts has made major progress controlling passive smoking since Professor Nichols wrote his report in 1874, most recently by restricting smoking in government buildings, nursing homes, day care centers, restaurants with 75 seats or more and other public places. But Gregory Connolly, director of the Office of Nonsmoking and Health, is worried that “we are still behind the rest of the nation by not restricting smoking in the workplace.”

Dispersing smoke
How to test:

• Laboratory tests, costing under $50, can tell such things as whether children are being exposed to passive smoke at school or other settings.

How to eliminate:

• Confine smoking to certain rooms.
• Disperse smoke with fans or air purifiers, and open windows.

Tags: Disperse smoke with fans, Nonsmoking and Health, passive smoking

Posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 8:16 am filed under Environment, Family, Health.