Good input Elaine. I shall get back to them and I'll use your information as part of my question. I've been investigating an additional angle, woodsmoke.
Breathe Healthy Air
"The EPA estimates that the lifetime cancer risk from wood stove smoke is twelve times greater than that from an equal volume of second hand tobacco smoke. (The Health Effects of Wood Smoke, Washington State Department of Ecology)"
Wood smoke creates carbon monoxide as well as PM2.5 (the component that James Enstrom studied at UCLA before he got fired).
There's a certain logic that rather than testing for cotinine, they should be testing for CO since the levels in individuals that burn a lot of wood would certainly be elevated. This is certainly a health risk that effects both morbidity and mortality.
From another website-
How are you exposed to wood smoke?
"Ironically just as cigarette smoking is being phased out of public places, restaurants cooking with wood or charcoal, often run by national chains, are springing up all over the country, in shopping malls and dense urban neighborhoods like Forest Hills Queens, NY, Longmeadow, MA, Palo Alto, CA, and even a little town like Point Arena, CA. Air regulatory agencies overlook their pollution as they each burn up to one thousand pounds of wood a week. They are a nonstop assault on the people who live in and work in these areas. Measurements inside a non-smoking restaurant using gas for cooking fuel showed no detectable PM2.5 or carbon monoxide (CO).
Measurements of PM2.5 and CO inside a restaurant using wood equaled pollution levels similar to levels measured in a restaurant with cigarette smoking."
My emphasis.
Then there is this study-
Lung Cancer Pathogenesis Associated With Wood Smoke Exposure* ? CHEST
"Sixty-two patients with primary lung cancer were examined prior to chemotherapy (Table 2). Approximately 38.7% of the patients had an association with wood smoke (24 of 62 subjects), and 37.1% had an association with tobacco smoke (23 of 62 subjects). "
"Conclusion: This study suggests that there is a possible association of lung cancer with wood smoke exposure. Likewise, our findings demonstrate that wood smoke could produce similar effects on p53, phospho-p53, and MDM2 protein expression as tobacco. "
Beside a question on why they're only testing for cigarette smoke, I'm finding the information fascinating in looking at another reason for lung cancer as well as the perspective of second hand wood smoke.
It really is dangerous firing up that fireplace, especially with young children in the house or the neighborhood. I don't think the smoke Nazis have considered the other possibilities.
