ATHENS, Ga. --- Smoking bans have made the air healthier in bars and restaurants, but may have made the air just outside the establishments more hazardous, University of Georgia researchers have found.
Nonsmoking diners and imbibers sitting in outdoor patios or sidewalk seating areas connected to the bars or restaurants are picking up doses of secondhand smoke, the scientists found.
In fact, nonsmokers who volunteered to sit in the outdoor seating areas had levels of a tobacco byproduct in their bodies up to 162 percent higher than when they first sat down, said Luke Naeher, a professor in the university's environmental health science department.
Collaborating with researchers in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Northeast Health District, Mr. Naeher and other UGA researchers measured levels of a substance called cotinine.
Mr. Naeher's research team assigned 20 nonsmoking volunteers to spend six evening hours in one of three outdoor areas for the study -- outside a downtown Athens bar, outside a restaurant near downtown or outside UGA's main library.
"We're looking at real-world settings," Mr. Naeher said.
After six hours, the volunteers gave a saliva sample, which the researchers tested for cotinine, a nicotine byproduct often used as an indicator of tobacco exposure.
Volunteers who hung out where smokers gather outside a restaurant saw their cotinine levels more than double. Nonsmokers outside a bar had their cotinine increase by even more, up to 162 percent.
The study is published in this month's issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene .
Previous studies have shown that restaurant and bar smoking bans reduce the incidence of heart attacks and respiratory illness among people inside the establishments.
But researchers don't know the health impacts of outdoor secondhand smoke.
"The question is, is it an environment that warrants concern or further study?" Mr. Naeher said. "The answer is, we don't know yet."
The researchers aren't quite ready to declare outdoor cafes a new health hazard for those that may inhale secondhand smoke there -- including children, restaurant and bar workers, and pregnant women and their unborn children.
"We feel like it's something we need to be taking a look at," said Lou Kudon, one of the authors of the study. Mr. Kudon is program manager for the Athens-based Northeast Health District, which includes Clarke and nine other area counties.
Next, researchers will measure levels of a carcinogen called NNAL in nonsmokers who spend time in outdoor places where people smoke.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
All right, I find this study dumb. I'm no fan of tobacco smoking in public areas, especially confined areas, but smoking outside gives the non smoker the option of positioning up wind of the smoker when sitting with them. If a smoker joins the group, it would behoove them to make room on the down wind side. Going out of your way to sit in a smoke rich area while outside is just dumb.
As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
-harleyrider1978
Outdoor bans are even crazier than indoor bans. The chemical make-up of shs is nearly 94% water vapor and A SLIGHT AMOUNT OF CARBON DIOXIDE with about 3% being carbon monoxide AND 3% CONTAINING THOSE SUPPOSED KILLER CARCENOGENS.........
n-nitrosomines which you hear so much about is actually inorganic arsenic..what they dont tell you is that the measurements they took match the naturally occuring arsenic in the air outside everywhere.
they measured levels at 0-29 picograms.
n-nitrosomines which you hear so much about is actually inorganic arsenic..what they dont tell you is that the measurements they took match the naturally occuring arsenic in the air outside everywhere.
they measured levels at 0-29 picograms....which is totally safe.its the same as drinking a glass of water..the amount has to be 5 million times that to be harmful to humans........you see how they switched it. Trying to blame shs for what is actually a natural thing. The levels of other things in shs if they can be measured at all are millions if not billions of times smaller than the amounts needed to harm anyone......just remember this second hand smoke is a joke within nano seconds from the burn it turns into WATER VAPOR.....Even the exhaled smoke is loaded down with water vapor...osha has said nothing in shs/ets is going to harm you or anyone else.....what shs will do is irritate those with weak immune responces.......thats why shs is classified as a class 3 IRRITANT BY OSHA AND THE EPA..
Remember this a prohibition movement must rely on scare tactics and big money in order to succeed to the level of getting legislation....These outdoor regulations are even crazier than the first claims made for indoor bans.......lets do the silly math if one cig lets off 29 pico grams.We will use the high side of their measurement........and it takes 5 million picograms then thats 5 million divided by 29 = IN CIGARETTES SMOKED AT ONE TIME IN A SEALED ROOM.........172,414 CIGS SMOKED SIMULTANEOUSLY..........DIVIDE THAT BY 20 TO GET PACKS.........8620 PACKS ALL TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME...........SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE........and this same thing applies to anything they claim in shs/ets.........dont be fooled
Let me guess harleyrider, tobacco addict?
The correct thing to do is let the owner to make a decision which group earns him the most. Then put a sign on all doors
,one like the the one a pack of cigarett's. This should be the owner's decision.NOT THE PUBLIC OR GOVERMENT
So all those smokers that get emphysema and COPD and congestive heart failure and lung cancer got it from water vapor. Who knew?
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS"
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
November 2004.
http://cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/cotstatementtobacco0409
"5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke - induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease."
n other words ... our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can't even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact ... we don't even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.
harleyrider's just a spammer. Google him. This anonymous spammer with no education, no intelligence and not even a real name presumes to "educate" others on science and ethics? Not a chance.
So smoking bans continue to pass. No one pays any attention to his BS, because if his PR talking points had any validity at all he'd have the guts to stand up in front of legislators and present them, as real people do.. But then he'd have to tell people who he really is, and the real reason he floods message boards with his boilerplate. And THAT could prove embarrassing.
It's all just "viral marketing," meant to fool tobacco's last major demographic: the poor, the ignorant, and all those stupid enough to believe internet spammers.
aha,poor gene borio......of tobacco.org......if my facts werent true why does gene a tobacco control specialist getting millions of dollars from the american cancer society and the robert woods johnson foundation follow me around to do damage control........makes you wander doesnt it.......come on gene tell us how much you get from the taxpayers to run around spreading propaganda for tobacco control.....of course he wont. He is afraid to stand up before the taxpayers and tell them......I spread the truth and gene cowers in the corner hoping his taxpayer money and grants dont dry up.then he might have to get a real job and work for a living.....gene whats the sweat on the back of a hard working smoker worth to you.....another dollar to laugh about.
I don't know , but I expect the people who would conduct such a test would have an agenda to start with...just saying...
found this interesting "Some studies have suggested that cotinine (as well as nicotine) improves memory and prevents neuron death. For this reason it has been studied for effectiveness in treating schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases[3]. " and this too :"The word 'cotinine' is an anagram of 'nicotine'. It is used to measure the grade of tobacco smoking, but might also improve mental function."
There is a simple solution to all of this!
If smokers embrace electronic cigarettes, then the issue of smoking bans will be mute. There is no second-hand smoke, no odor, no carcinogens, no CO2, and no mess like ashes, butts, etc. from electronic cigarettes. If smokers of tobacco cigarettes would switch their habit to a non-tobacco electronic cigarette, we would have no further need to further infringe on the personal freedoms of any one group.
If you are smoker, consider it as an option.You won't be inhaling all the chemicals and carcinogens that you currently do from your tobacco cigarette. If you are a non-smoker, learn about the technology, and pass the information on to your friends who are smokers. The electronic cigarette is a win-win in so many ways.
You can learn all about this technology including the contents of electronic cigarette vapor and other information such as scientific studies fully documented at my informational website, http://www.NoTobacco.net/Blog
Thank you