West Hollywood, California (January 11, 2010) - [Updated on February 2, 2010. WeHo News erred when it declared this to be the first peer reviewed study of outdoor second hand smoke. A Stanford study existed two years before that one, we discovered to our chagrin, something about which we shall report on soon]Half a dozen LA County municipalities have banned smoking near their outdoor dining facilities, with a few banning it from publicly-owned property - sidewalks, medians etc. - across their city entire.
WeHo News. |
All did so citing public health concerns, but none did so based on scientific evidence that second hand smoke (SHS) near an outdoor area poses a health risk.
The first scientific study on detecting outdoor second hand smoke levels in exposed persons, published by University of Georgia Athens (UGA) researchers in November, 2009, found increased levels of SHS in their subjects, but not levels considered to be risky.
The Athens-Clarke, Georgia, County Commission sought to extend their 2004/5 indoor smoking bans to outdoor areas in late 2009.
By chance, UGA happens to contain a world class environmental health sciences department that works alongside the United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO) to study indoor smoke and other contaminants around the world.
Environmental health science professor Luke Naeher told WeHo News that he conducted the study (in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene November 2009) because of the indoor ban – he wondered if allowing it in outdoor areas simply moved the risks associated with SHS in employees outdoors.
Environmental health science professor Luke Naeher conducted the first known study looking into detection of second hand smoke outdoors, published in November, 2009. WeHo News. |
“I do indoor air exposure assessment and health studies in parts of the developing world, looking at diesel and wood and other kinds of air pollutants,” so when Georgia banned smoking indoors and restaurants and clubs established outdoor areas for smokers, “I developed a study to look at levels of outdoor SHS.”
He said that his study intended to show, and did show, that “you can measure these particles contained in SHS such as carbon monoxide, and they correlate with the number of cigarettes smoked at any given time and did not correlate with traffic and background pollutants.”
Based on those findings, he partnered with the Centers Of Disease Control to conduct a deeper study that “shows, where you have these outdoor smoking settings, you can measure these cotinine levels, which is an indication of nicotine, in saliva.
“The levels are not earth-shattering, but they are measurable,” he said.
The study, conducted in the summer and fall of 2007 in outdoor standing and seating areas of bars and family restaurants in Athens, involved students spending six hours at a time during the busiest periods.
In all test results cotinine saliva levels rose – even in the control location on a college campus courtyard (13 percent). The bar patrons saw a rise in cotinine levels increase the most at 62.5 percent and the dining patrons levels went up 52 percent.
WeHo News. |
The highest median levels of cotinine found in the subjects was .296 ng/mLl.
The best science on the risk associated with SHS by James Repace, a Maryland scientist, determined that an average salivary cotinine level of 0.40 ng/mL – or 2.2 times (220 percent) higher than those found in Athens - corresponds to an increased lifetime mortality risk of 1/1000 for lung cancer and 1/100 for heart disease.
As the report reads, “The average salivary cotinine levels for all six study dates in our study did not reach this level, although the average post-exposure salivary cotinine level for the bar site participants in the summer was 0.296 ng/mL,” which is 75 percent of the risk levels reported by Repace and colleagues.
“Additional studies are needed to determine if workers repeatedly exposed to SHS at outdoor bars have sustained salivary cotinine levels in the range of 0.30 - 0.40 ng/mL, which would indicate an increased risk for lung cancer and heart disease,” he writes in the study.
The study acknowledges other faults, including not doing “an accurate count of the total number of cigarettes lit during each sampling period,” and not measuring how the “concentration of components of SHS in an outdoor location is… influenced by meteorological factors, such as wind speed, temperature, and humidity.”
After hearing the science, Athens-Clarke officials said they have no plans to revive talk of an outdoor smoking ban.
A UGA student clocking exposure to second hand smoke. WeHo News. |
According to the Athens Banner Herald, “the county commission and the state legislature both considered extending the ban to 25 feet outside doorways but abandoned the idea.
“County commissioners,” they wrote, “said they would either not support an outdoor ban or are waiting for more evidence before tackling the issue.
“UGA researchers did not go so far as to say outdoor cafes and patios are hazardous. They said they do not know the health effects of outdoor secondhand smoke yet.”
Luke Naeher told WeHo News that he would uncover answers to better address the question of risk in his Spring 2010 study.
“Is this of public health concern,” he asked, “do these levels pose a risk? We haven’t answered that yet.”
In the new study he said he will use NNAL (a metabolite of tobacco-processing associated nitrosamines) as a marker. “That [metabolite] is a known carcinogen, so it is an accurate measure of health risk. Having the data can help policymakers and public health officials determine appropriate measures,” he said.
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