Jump to full article: Consumer Affairs, 2006-04-18
Intro: If the nicotine doesn't get you, the pesticides just might. That's the upshot of a study by researchers at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, who say they have found previously undetected pesticides in tobacco smoke.
Using electron monochromator-mass spectrometry, the scientists found three pesticides – suspected of being toxic to the human endocrine system as well as carcinogenic – in a wide sampling of experimental and commercial cigarette smoke samples.
The three nitro-containing pesticides, including flumetralin, commonly used in tobacco farming, survive the combustion process.
Flumetralin, a suspected endocrine disrupter already banned for use on tobacco in Europe, belongs to a class of chemicals that may be active at miniscule levels, the researchers say.
Endocrine disrupters can produce adverse effects on early development, reproduction and other hormonal processes.
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None of the three pesticides has been previously reported in either the mainstream or sidestream smoke from current U.S. tobacco.
"No information exists for long-term low-level inhalation exposures to these compounds," said Voorhees, "and no data exists to establish the possible synergistic effect of these pesticides with each other, or with the other 4,700-plus compounds that have been identified in tobacco smoke."
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