Posted on 05/09/2002 10:00:40 PM PDT by Max McGarrity
May 7, 20o her team measured the amount of cotinine --02 -- If you're a smoker, and a parent, you probably step outside to indulge your habit, thinking this will protect your little ones from the dangers of secondhand smoke. Not true, a new study shows.
"We wondered if parents who said they were not smoking in the home or near their children had an impact on the child's environmental tobacco smoke exposure," says study leader Judith Groner, MD, clinical professor of pediatrics at Ohio's Columbus Children's Hospital, in a news release.
S a by-product of nicotine metabolism -- in the hair of 327 children, aged 2 weeks to 3 years, and their mothers.
As expected, children whose primary caregiver smoked, and did so in the home, had the highest levels of cotinine. But kids whose parents reported smoking only outside the home also showed potentially dangerous levels of exposure, albeit much lower than the other children.
Overall, the children of parents who knew that cigarette smoke was unhealthy for their children and avoided smoking or allowing others to smoke in their presence, had the lowest cotinine levels.
"Our study verified that exposure still occurs," the researchers say. "As healthcare professionals, we still have very serious concerns over the fact that these children are being exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. The youngest children are the most vulnerable."
The researchers conclude that parents who know that cigarette smoking is bad for their kids make the greatest effort to keep exposure to a minimum. "This attitude correlates to the child's cotinine levels being lower," they say. "Intervention to change attitudes among parents is key to reducing children's environmental tobacco smoke exposure."
EXCELLENT QUESTION! Can't wait to hear how the pc police would answer it.
Soon we can even have a Personal Injury as the nominee for president of a major political party.
Maybe the parents lied. Maybe they took their kids outside and blew smoke on them. Maybe they barbequed them. Maybe outside has a different cultural connation for these parents -- maybe they thought out of the way and to the side was outside...or maybe the kids smoke.
Does anyone who reads this tripe (other than us freedom-fighters) realize that nowhere do these alleged researchers say or even hint what harm is caused by cotinine. That's because there is no harm from cotinine, a "biomarker" of nicotine, used because nicotine leaves the body so quickly.
IF this miniscule of cotinine is thought to be dangerous to children, why on earth don't they ban tomatoes, eggplant, green peppers, potatoes, tea, and many other average foodstuffs.
Maybe some of you would like to write WebMD and let them know we're not idiot children to be lied to and manipulated. And keep these figures at hand so you'll know when they're lying to you again.
Dietary Contributions to Nicotine Body Burden. L. B. Gratt, IWG Corp., 2241 Kettner Blvd., Suite 220, San Diego, CA 92101; and W. R. Chappell, University of Colorado at Denver, P.O. Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-- Recent USDA food intake surveys are used to perform a probabilistic analysis of dietary intake of nicotine. Using limited data on nicotine content of foodstuffs (tea, tomato, potato, green pepper, and eggplant) and the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSDII), the absorbed dose of nicotine is shown to be significant compared to present day environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) nicotine exposures.
CSDII contains 3-day dietary intake data for 11,912 individuals and weighting factors for extrapolation to the entire US population. Using tea as an example, the tea consumption cumulative distribution function for adults (>18 years) shows an average tea consumption of 142 g/d, noting that 62.7% of the US population has no tea intake. The average for those who drink tea is about 1.6 cup/day (using 250 g/cup). Using the available data for nicotine in 10 brands of brewed tea (2 instant and 8 leaves) tea nicotine concentration is modeled as a lognormal distribution (with a mean of 68.9 ng of nicotine per gram of brewed tea and a standard deviation of 75 ng/g). Oral nicotine bioavailability is modeled as a triangular distribution. Using a study of the oral nicotine bioavailability for a group of 10 male subjects, the most likely absorption factor was 44% with a range of 24% to 59%. The dietary tea dose was calculated using the daily tea intake, the concentration of nicotine in tea, and the absorption factor. Using @RISK simulation for 25,000 trials the average absorbed nicotine dose for those who drink tea is 12.5 mg/d. The median is about 5 mg/d. The 95th percentile for the entire US population aged 18 years and older is 22 mg/d. The dietary contributions of absorbed nicotine dose are significant when compared to present ETS exposures. A recent study of workplace ETS exposure results in mean and median absorbed nicotine doses of 11 and 3 mg/d, respectively. Thus, ETS exposure analysis based on total nicotine absorption needs to consider dietary intake.
Some of you who smoke have seen me make a comment or two on the forum extoling the virtues of smoke free restuarants. It is in that light that I wish to say that the do-gooders who pass themselves off as the friends of children, want nothing less than to completely replace parents. Starting as soon as possible after birth these folks want to indoctrinate your children into a mold after their own liking.
This thought process is about as offensive to me as anything could possibly be. Smokers, I support you if you do your best to keep the smoke down around your children. As for these nitwits, they should be placed in a nice room with soft walls and no sharp objects.
Raise up and take these folks to task. Put them in their place. When I can, I'll join you. You will have my full support.
...homosexual priests are, but gay teachers aren't....
Here's more on using cotinine as a biomarker:
Studies of nicotine metabolism in humans have shown, however, that there exists between individuals a genetically determined variation (up to 50-fold) in the level of metabolism to cotinine from a given nicotine exposure {Fernandez-Salguero et al. 1995}, and this variability needs to be considered in the use of cotinine measurements in body fluids as an index of exposure to ETS.
"Aside from individual differences in metabolism, aside from the fact that serum, salivary and urinary measurements can vary, even wildly, in the same individual (so that researchers, testing the same individual, each using a different method, might each deduce a mildly to wildly different conclusion), aside from the fact that --as quoted in one study-- eating a bowl of fries could equal 3 1/2 hrs in the clutch of a smoky room, all that aside-- the presense of cotinine indicates absolutely nothing at all except the presense of cotinine! There is no indication that it's an accurate marker for any other constituents of secondhand smoke. It's used because the other constituents, for the most part, are there (IF they're there) in amounts too tiny to measure. Which raises another question: can amounts too tiny to measure do any measurable harm? If you can't measure them, how can you measure how -- or even into what-- they're metabolized? how fast they're excreted?" (Great questions from Sam the Cat.)
Time to get angry, folks; time to let your representatives know we've had enough of this vicious and violent array of government-approved and funded crusaders out for blood. Our blood.
And the soccer moms will believe it. No questions asked. Wake up America!
Jack
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