Dangers of thirdhand smoke add up
You’re coughing. You’re waving it away. Not only does it smell bad, but you’re also worried it might give you cancer or other lung ailments.
It’s secondhand smoke, of course. And so you walk away. Into another room. “Ah,” you think to yourself, “I’m away from all that toxicity.”
Except you are not. You are now entering the realm of thirdhand smoke.
Have you ever been in a hotel where the only rooms remaining are on a smoking floor? Doesn’t smell too good? That’s where thirdhand smoke lives. In the drapes. In the carpet. In the bedspread. In the ceiling tiles.
And, according to researchers, it can do you — and, more particularly, young children — harm.
A study by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that newborn mice that lived in cages containing smoke-treated fabric for three weeks weighed significantly less than their counterparts in a control group. In addition, both newborn and adult mice exposed to thirdhand smoke experienced changes in blood cell counts associated with the immune system, leading to inflammatory and allergic reactions.
The research team believes the results of the mice experiment can apply to humans, too.
“We suspected that the young are most vulnerable because of their immature immune systems, but we didn’t have a lot of hard evidence to show that before,” said study lead author Bo Hang, a Berkeley Lab staff scientist who previously found that thirdhand smoke could lead to genetic mutations in human cells. “In this case, we found that thirdhand smoke appeared to inhibit weight gain in neonatal mice.”
In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, Hang’s team noted that human babies and toddlers are at greater risk because they come into contact with contaminated surfaces while crawling on carpets and sleeping on smokeinfused bedding.
And the health threats can persist, says a report by the Respiratory Health Association, a lung health non-profit based in Chicago, if the thirdhand smoke environment is permanent.
“When residual nicotine reacts to certain chemicals in the air it forms cancer-causing agents that continue to develop over time,” an RHA paper said. “Also, when nicotine reacts with ozone in the air it forms ‘ultrafine’ particles, which can transport harmful chemicals.”
So how do you reduce the risks? Stop smoking and start ripping everything out, the RHA said.
“Simply cleaning does not completely remove thirdhand smoke contaminants,” the scientists report. “In such properties, it may be necessary to replace carpeting, wall boards, counters and furnishings.”