Articles and Links
Smoking and Air Quality in homes in the United States, United States
January 6, 2015
I will post articles and links as I find them (this can mean daily or frequently during the day).
Please check in for updates.

Bible Study Note Keeper
Combine and keep study notes organized and divided
by books of the Bible.

Do You Need A
TOTAL MONEY
MAKEOVER?

10/27/14

Dartmouth researchers unveil first real-time secondhand smoke sensor

EurekAlert.org The plug-in device will be marketed initially to hotels to enforce no-smoking rules, but it also is attracting interest from rental car companies, apartment buildings, public housing, condominium associations, dormitories, nursing homes, jails and other commercial and residential settings.

9/19/14 California to ban smoking at home daycare centers The Press Democrat Home day care operators in California must stop smoking in their houses, even after hours when children are gone.

5/6/12 Do It Yourself: Good cleaning might help tackle tobacco odor Spokesman.com Q. Our apartment smells strongly of tobacco smoke.4

5/4/12 Major Apartment Air Quality Issue: Tobacco Smoke Environmental News Network A new study from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) shows that tobacco smoke can seep from one apartment to another.4

2/18/12 DEAR ABBY: Move out if possible to avoid danger of smoking habit Fort Collins Coloradoan (LINK NO LONGER AVAILABLE)
DEAR ABBY: "Dwayne," my boyfriend of eight years, insists on smoking in his bedroom. In our last apartment he'd fall asleep with a lit cigarette and ended up burning holes in our couch, numerous blankets and pillows as well as the carpet. When we moved, Dwayne assured me he had stopped, but a month ago I noticed his blanket and mattress have burn holes and so does the carpet by his bed.

We live together with our 6-year-old son and, needless to say, I'm scared to death Dwayne will burn this place down. . . .
· - SCARED FOR MY LIFE IN MILWAUKEE

DEAR SCARED: Because Dwayne is unwilling to be more responsible, it's time to consider your son's safety and your own. Your boyfriend is not only addicted to tobacco, he is also misguided. If cigarettes were "safer now" there wouldn't be burn holes in his bedding and the area surrounding where he sleeps. If moving isn't feasible, at least make sure there are working smoke detectors in your apartment and an extra one outside Dwayne's bedroom door.

Frankly, it would be healthier for you and the boy if Dwayne didn't smoke at all in your apartment because the Environmental Protection Agency has classified secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen.

2011 James Repace on Air Quality The study participants were self-selected nonsmokers who own condominiums, co-ops, and business tenants. They complained of symptomatic and health effects from SHS infiltration of their units.

2/8/11 (original link may no longer be available) California Researchers Raise Concerns About ‘Thirdhand Smoke’ (CBS)SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) – You’ve heard of the damaging health effects of smoking and secondhand smoke. But what happens when the smoke settles?
According to scientists, smoke literally sticks around for a while, as something they are calling “thirdhand smoke.”
     Karolyn Ballard learned about it the hard way. Her new apartment had been painted and scrubbed, carpets cleaned. What she didn’t know was a heavy smoker just moved out.
“I woke up at night,” Ballard said, “and I could just smell the tobacco smell getting worse every night. It was like it was just oozing out of the walls.”
“     It can be a real problem,” said landlord and professional ServPro cleaner Paul Watts. His crew wears protective gear to scrub a smoker’s house, to prevent nicotine poisoning.
“It’s a very long, slow process. And it has to be cleaned off before you can put paint, or else it’s going to bleed through the paint,” Watts said.
     We’ve all smelled “thirdhand smoke” in places such as bars and stale hotel rooms. Now scientists are beginning to study it.
     At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a chain-smoking machine puffs away on eight cigarettes at a time, depositing smoke residue on various materials so scientists can study the fallout and chemical reactions.
     Researchers Mohamad Sleiman and Lara Gundel say nicotine is the gift that keeps on giving. The residue hangs around for weeks or months, they found, sticking to everything from clothes to carpets to kids — long after the smoker has gone.
     “It’s really difficult to get rid of the smoke that is impregnated in the surfaces,” Sleiman said.
But that’s not all.
     “What we have found is that residues of tobacco smoke will get more toxic with time,” said Gundel. More toxic as nicotine reacts with other household gases and chemicals, or gets taken into the lungs as dust.
     “And those particles are teeny particles,” said Gundel. “And they’re very irritating. They’re more irritating than nicotine or cigarette particles themselves.”
     In another groundbreaking study, San Diego State University professor Georg Matt tested apartments after smokers moved out and non-smoking families moved in.
     “We find these compounds in some apartments, six months, maybe even a year or longer,” said Matt.
     Even after the apartments were cleaned and painted, he found nicotine all over, including on the hands of non-smoking adults. Most disturbing, Matt said he also found signs of nicotine in the urine of children.
     “This child, as well as the adults, are likely to get exposed to tobacco smoke that was smoked in that apartment months ago,” Matt said.“This child, as well as the adults, are likely to get exposed to tobacco smoke that was smoked in that apartment months ago,” Matt said.
Scientists say children’s exposure to thirdhand smoke can be 10 times greater than adults’, because of their small size and their tendency to put things in their mouth.
     “Our concern about children is that they can be exposed to these carcinogens through their skin and through breathing and eating dust,” said Gundel.
     What are the health effects from thirdhand smoke? No one fully knows because it hasn’t been studied yet.
     But researches such as Georg Matt say they do know this, “You can’t just open the window and it goes away.”
     “When you live in an environment like this, you cannot escape it,” Matt said.
     According to one experiment, even though airborne toxins from thirdhand smoke are about a hundred times less than from secondhand smoke, those exposures can add up over time.
     CBS 5 asked tobacco industry leader Phillip Morris about thirdhand smoke. The company declined to comment.
     © 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc.

"But now God has shown us a different way to heaven - not by "being good enough" and trying to keep his laws, but by a new way (though not new, really, for the Scriptures told about it long ago). Now God says he will accept and acquit us - declare us "not guilty" - if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, by coming to Christ, no matter who we are or what we have been like. Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious ideal; yet now God declares us "not guilty" of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins." Romans 3:21-24 Living Bible