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Action Points
* Explain to interested patients that it is well-known that second-hand smoke harms the health of children.
* Note that this study examined the behaviors associated with the belief that "third-hand smoke" -- toxins left on surfaces once tobacco smoke dissipates -- can also harm children's health.
* Explain the study found that fewer people are aware of the danger, but those who are were more likely to completely ban smoking in their home.
Such toxins are especially hazardous for children who breathe near the surfaces, crawl and play on them, or touch and mouth them, according to Jonathan Winickoff, M.D., of the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children, and colleagues.
Although most adults are aware of the danger of second-hand smoke for children, the risks of third-hand smoke are lesser known, Dr. Winickoff and colleagues said in the January issue of Pediatrics.
The conclusion is based on a nationally representative survey that examined beliefs about second- and third-hand smoke and behaviors derived from those beliefs, the researchers said.
The Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control, an annual cross-sectional look at smoking, was given to 1,478 adults, reached by telephone, in November 2005. . . .
Primary source: Pediatrics Source reference: Winickoff JP, et al "Beliefs about the health effects of "thirdhand" smoke and home smoking bans"
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The Food and Drug Administration, bedeviled by a salmonella outbreak and tainted medicine from China, is likely to monitor imports and fresh produce more closely under an Obama administration.
With President Bush no longer a roadblock, health officials also can expect new powers to control tobacco, from cigarettes to the recently introduced smokeless products called snus.
President-elect Obama, a former smoker struggling to avoid relapse, is a sponsor of legislation giving the FDA authority to control, but not ban, tobacco and nicotine. . . .
Obama is being urged to move quickly to appoint an FDA commissioner. Already more than a half-dozen names are in circulation: outside critics such as Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Dr. Steven Nissen; insiders such as Susan Wood, a former director of the FDA's women's health office; and public health advocates such as Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Baltimore's health chief. . . .
Under the tobacco proposal, the agency would be able to order changes in tobacco products to make them less toxic and addictive, but could not ban tobacco or nicotine. The bill passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support, but a veto threat from Bush kept it from getting out of Congress.
Aides to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., co-author of the tobacco bill, say there is strong interest in getting the legislation passed soon after the new Congress convenes in January. Obama is a co-sponsor.
Before the latest anti-smoking law went into effect last November, the amount of particulate matter from smoking in Israeli cafés, bars and pubs was nearly 20 times that permitted in indoor air, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and 10 times the levels measured at such establishments in countries where bans on smoking in public places are well enforced.
These findings were reported by Dr. Laura (Leah) Rosen and colleagues at the Tel Aviv University School of Public Health and Dr. Greg Connolly of the Harvard School of Public Health, who are now monitoring levels of particulate matter since the law took effect. Rosen told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that she hopes to have data to present by December. Both studies have been funded through Harvard by FAMRI, the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute. . . .
"Whether the new law will successfully promote clean air in Israeli bars, pubs, cafés and other indoor places is yet to be seen," they wrote in their article published in the just-published August/September issue of IMAJ, the Israel Medical Association Journal.
Rosen said that while her post-enactment data is not yet available, she has the feeling that some municipalities and local authorities around Israel are significantly better than others, even though all are obligated to enforce the law.
Attorney Amos Hausner, who heads the Israel Council for the Prevention of Smoking, agreed and noted that some municipalities have said openly that they don't intend to enforce the 10-month-old no-smoking law . . .
It's impossible to file lawsuits against all the municipalities that fail to enforce the law properly, thus as a last resort, Hausner intends to take the Israel Police - which has the ultimate responsibility for enforcing the law but claims to be "too busy" and has left the job to the municipalities and local authorities - to the High Court of Justice.
As many as 200 Inland volunteers could help medical researchers identify whether early screening helps cut lung-cancer risk among people with high exposure to secondhand smoke, such as flight attendants and restaurant workers.
Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage is one of more than 50 medical facilities worldwide involved in a first-ever study of nonsmokers who either have lived with smokers or worked in fields with high levels of secondhand smoke exposure.
Researchers hope the study, which will last at least five years, will convince insurance companies and policymakers that early detection of lung cancer and other diseases in people exposed to secondhand smoke could save lives. . . .
The study, headed by New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, is funded by an $8.7 million grant from the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute in Miami, Fla. . . .
Dr. Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical College did not return phone calls to discuss the secondhand smoke study.
Secondhand smoke in the home appears to induce markers for heart disease as early as the toddler years, researchers reported at the American Heart Association's 48th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.
It has long been known that many forms of cardiovascular disease in adults are initiated and progress silently during childhood. Now researchers have found a young child's response to smoke may not just affect the respiratory system, but the cardiovascular system as well.
"This is the first study that looks at the response of a young child's cardiovascular system to secondhand smoke," said Judith Groner, M.D., lead author of the study, pediatrician and ambulatory care physician at Nationwide Children's Hospital and Research Institute in Columbus, Ohio.
Little is known about long-term adverse health consequences experienced by flight attendants exposed to secondhand smoke (SHS) during the time smoking was allowed on airplanes. We undertook this study to evaluate the association between accumulated flight time in smoky airplane cabins and respiratory tract diseases in a cohort of never smoking flight attendants. . . .
Conclusion
We observed a significant association between hours of smoky cabin exposure and self-reported reported sinusitis, middle ear infections, and asthma. Our findings suggest a dose-response between duration of SHS exposure and diseases of the respiratory tract. Our findings add additional evidence to the growing body of knowledge supporting the need for widespread implementation of clean indoor air policies to decrease the risk of adverse health consequences experienced by never smokers exposed to SHS.
This article is the first peer-reviewed publication of systematic measurements of OTS concentrations. The main conclusion from these data, that OTS levels can be substantial under certain conditions, is vital to the development of outdoor tobacco control policy. Because adequate information on OTS levels and human exposures has previously been lacking, the estimation of health risks associated with OTS has been hindered, and public discourse concerning OTS has been impaired. The present study also has shown that continuous, portable airborne particle monitors are suitable in OTS investigations across a range of locations and environmental conditions.
Now, Stanford University researchers have conducted the first in-depth study on how smoking affects air quality at sidewalk cafés, park benches and other outdoor locations. Writing in the May issue of the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association (JAWMA), the Stanford team concluded that a non-smoker sitting a few feet downwind from a smoldering cigarette is likely to be exposed to substantial levels of contaminated air for brief periods of time.
"Some folks have expressed the opinion that exposure to outdoor tobacco smoke is insignificant, because it dissipates quickly into the air," said Neil Klepeis, assistant professor (consulting) of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford and lead author of the study. "But our findings show that a person sitting or standing next to a smoker outdoors can breathe in wisps of smoke that are many times more concentrated than normal background air pollution levels." . . .
Unlike indoor tobacco smoke, which can persist for hours, the researchers found that outdoor smoke disappears rapidly when a cigarette is extinguished. "Our data also show that if you move about six feet away from an outdoor smoker, your exposure levels are much lower," Klepeis added. . . .
In the study, the researchers used portable electronic monitors to make precise measurements of toxic airborne particles emitted from cigarettes at 10 sites near the Stanford campus.
Scientists say they have found nicotine receptors on kidney cells that may link nicotine to accelerated kidney damage in cigarette smokers.
Their research -- presented at the American Heart Association's 60th Annual Fall Conference of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research -- also identifies nicotine as the component of cigarette smoke that damages the kidneys.
"There are many substances in cigarette smoke and nicotine is one of the more investigated ones," said Edgar A. Jaimes, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Miami School of Medicine in Florida. "Initially, it was believed that the nicotine component of cigarette smoke was only responsible for the addictive effects of smoking. However, now we are finding out that nicotine can have significant biological effects in other tissues."
The Florida Supreme Court has cleared the way for more than 3,000 flight attendants to seek compensatory damages against tobacco companies for claims that they suffered respiratory illnesses from secondhand cigarette smoke aboard U.S. airline flights.
The ruling leaves in place a crucial decision by the state's 3rd District Court of Appeal that each litigant does not have to reprove strict liability by the tobacco companies for introducing a dangerous product onto the market. All the flight attendants must show, the panel said, was that they were exposed to secondhand smoke and that the exposure led to their health problems.
On Nov. 28, the Florida Supreme Court refused to hear the companies' appeal of a judgment in favor of Lynn French, a former flight attendant who said she suffered health problems while working aboard planes during the days when travelers could still smoke.
"[The Supreme Court's decision] now gives us the green light to move these cases forward after these years of delay, and it establishes what the issues are that remain to be litigated," said Miami solo practitioner Joel Perwin, who authored an answer brief opposing consideration by the state's high court.
The next chapter in the saga of more than 3,000 flight attendants who claim that secondhand smoke made them sick is about to unfold in a state appeals court.
That's where lawyers for Big Tobacco are scheduled today to seek to overturn a ruling issued in October by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Robert Kaye that essentially says that when the flight attendants' cases go to trial, their lawyers will not have to rehash all of the issues relating to strict liability, negligence and breach of warranty.
Kaye ruled that those issues were resolved by a 1997 settlement agreement that required the flight attendants to take their cases to court individually. He ruled that the only issues that remained to be tried were what specifically caused the flight attendants' illnesses and what damages they should be awarded as a result.
Lawyers for the tobacco industry will argue before the 3rd District Court of Appeal that the judge misinterpreted that settlement agreement by limiting the issues to be tried and that his ruling "contradicts the plain language of the agreement" in violation of Florida law.
Lawyers for the flight attendants, meanwhile, accuse Big Tobacco of trying to unravel the deal and argue that should they be forced to rehash those issues that are common to all of the flight attendants at each of their individual trials, it would take 200 years to get all of the secondhand-smoke cases to trial.
Four flight attendants representing a private foundation are meeting with lawyers this week to discuss how to spend $300 million from a 1997 settlement with tobacco companies.
The foundation is being tight-lipped about its plans for its portion of the $349 million that nonsmoking flight attendants and their lawyers accepted to settle their lawsuit against the nation's tobacco companies. The attendants said secondhand smoke they inhaled during flights gave them lung cancer and other diseases.
The fledgling Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute is one of the state's richest foundations. Because it is private, it can conduct most of its business behind closed doors.
That secrecy has hidden most details of a rift between Norma Broin, the flight attendant who started the case, and lawyers Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, who represented the flight attendants and received $49 million for their fees and costs.
Hundreds more nonsmoking flight attendants who blame secondhand smoke in airliners for their respiratory and other illnesses met a deadline Thursday for filing personal injury lawsuits,
The last-minute filings brought the nationwide total to an estimated 2,200, according to Miles McGrane, an attorney with one of six Miami firms coordinating the litigation.