Posted on 08/07/2006 9:30:09 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
As any parent knows, crawling babies explore the world by touching - and tasting - anything they can get their wet little hands on.
If their parents use tobacco, that curiosity may expose babies to what some doctors are calling "thirdhand" smoke - particles and gases given off by cigarettes that cling to walls, clothes and even hair and skin. Up to 90% of the nicotine in cigarette smoke sticks to nearby surfaces, says Georg Matt, a professor at San Diego State University.
Preliminary research by Matt and others suggests the same chemicals that leave a stale cigarette odor on clothes and upholstery also can be swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin of non-smokers. Smoke residue may linger for hours, days or months, depending on the ventilation and the level of contamination. In some cases, contaminants may need to be removed by rigorously cleaning or replacing wallpaper, rugs and drapes, Matt says.
Matt cautions that his research needs to be confirmed by other studies. But his work suggests that babies may take in nicotine and other chemicals just by hugging their mothers - even if their mothers never light up next to them.
About 43% of children ages 2 months to 11 years live with a smoker, according to research described in Matt's 2004 study in the journal Tobacco Control.
In his small study of 49 infants under 13 months old, Matt found nicotine in the air and dust throughout smokers' homes, even when parents smoked only outside. Tests also found a nicotine byproduct, cotinine, in babies' urine and inside shafts of their hair.
As expected, babies whose parents smoked around them had the highest cotinine levels - nearly 50 times higher than the babies of non-smokers, according to the study.
Smokers who tried to shield their infants had only partial success, Matt says. The babies of parents who smoked only outside had cotinine levels seven times higher than in the infants of non-smokers, the study showed.
Adults also may be exposed to significant smoke residue if they rent cars, hotel rooms or apartments that have soaked up years of smoke, Matt says. He worries more about youngsters, however, because they may be exposed day and night for years.
Children also may be at greater risk because they breathe faster than adults and inhale more chemicals, says Jonathan Winickoff, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Crawling babies may take in chemicals through their skin.
Though scientists have extensive evidence about the damage caused by secondhand smoke, they know relatively little about the potential risks of thirdhand exposure, says Brett Singer, a scientist at California's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. "The million-dollar question is: How dangerous is this?" Singer says. "We can't say for sure this is a health hazard."
Matt agrees that doctors should study children - ideally for 10 or 15 years or more - to see whether low levels of smoke residue worsen asthma or harm the development of a child's lungs.
I love it! My routine is about the same except the ciggie comes first. LOL
That post was quite the eye opener!
That you want everyone who works for Wal-Mart to die and "clean out the gene pool", is not only NOT a "CONSERVATIVE" position, but reprehensibly beyond the pale. Who are YOU to decide who is worthy to live and not worthy to live, based on their job?
You don't have the right to proselytize to smokers. You really don't give a damn about them; you just want to feel as though you have some kind of "power" ( which nobody here is going to grant you, BTW ), because you understandably feel powerless over the pain of the deaths and illnesses of loved ones.
So, on the one hand, you want people you don't know, to die, because of where they work, but on the other hand, you want all smokers to live because of you. WHAT IF SOME SMOKERS WORK AT WAL-MART?
How about I begin to berate you and to tell YOU how you must live and behave? You'll eat that up with a spoon, now won't you; n00b? :-)
I'll probably out live you, as will the rest of FR's smokers.
I posted a FR posting rule. I was polite. You are looking for a flame war and I am not about to satisfy your need.
Baiting isn't condoned here. Neither is stalking.
LOL......that's what I said too. :-)
ROTFL...farticles!
Oh yes......it IS genetic!
I heard that another great way to naturally absorb the smoke in homes is to have a lot of plants around.
Nathan, are you the head of the sugar-nazis? Just asking.
Maybe FrankT has learned his lesson. :)
Actually, the beer portion of that is not as old fashioned as you may think. It's still passed along mother-to-mother that beer will help milk production. Better yet, brewer's yeast tablets - which, if I recall correctly, is the component that helps the actual increas in milk supply (the alcohol part is what relaxes mom - depends what you need most at the time, I guess). Of course, we're not talking drop-down drunk, we're talking along the same lines as that "glass of red wine helps your health" thing.
Well, that explains pot growers - it's not a felony, its an ecosystem!
One would hope so.
That was because dinosaurs were too big to bring inside. Haven't you ever seen the bbq ribs on the Flintstones?
How long can it be before someone publishes a report about fourthhand smoke where the babies who have grown up in this smoke-filled world pass along nicotine or its daughter products to their children and then theirs and theirs and theirs and...
Babies may absorb smoke residue in home
So if you invite all the neighborhood toddlers over, you can get rid of the smoke odor that has lingered for years?
Only after tobacco has been banned everywhere; then they will suddenly discover that oven and range smoke is harmful and we will all be encouraged to consume a government approved liquid diet made of concentrate.
We have these amazing machines that can measure things so small as to virtually not exist; and where thresholds for exposure have not been set or accepted almost any particle can be implicated in a negative event if one so desires.
Cancer is the body attacking itself.
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