Third-hand Smoke - Wut?

[FoolKiller]

Polonium-210 is highly radioactive and the ill-effects would be... well... death through radiation sickness. 1 microgram would be sufficient to kill an average person (the LD50 - the lethal dose in 50% of cases - is 1 microgram)

So how much is in a cigarette?

Or should the question be how much can be absorbed through smoking, secondhand, and third-hand smoke?

 

[Sureboss]

While we are on the dangers of toxins, can I ask a question regarding racing fuels used within Drag Racing. I've never been able to find information on what they emit and how much of it they emit. Information on Methanol and Nitromethanol (It's not Nitromethane is it, because that would be a gas, wouldn't it?)

Feel free to tell me to go to the Ask section.

 

[Touring Mars]

There is enough polonium in a typical cigarette to provide you with a dangerous (i.e. likely to cause cancer) dose if you smoke 40-a-day for 25 years... that doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that this is just the polonium alone (nevermind all the other carcinogens in cigarette smoke), that's pretty bad...

...as for secondhand and thirdhand smoke, it's all but impossible to quantify. The fact that most if not all toxins in cigarette smoke can also be found elsewhere (i.e. Carbon monoxide from car exhaust fumes, polonium from seafood restaurants frequented by former KGB agents etc.) means that you'd have a very hard time trying to assess just how much damage any form of passive smoking has actually caused you.

As with any potential cancer risks, it's about minimisation of risk, since complete avoidance is impossible. I think the reason people get upset (and perhaps irrationally so) is when other people do stuff that increases your risk, like smoking in your face when you're sitting on a bus to work.

I doubt that we will ever see a single case where someone has died solely as a result of thirdhand smoke contamination, though. That said, if I can use the "minimisation of risk due to polonium exposure" argument to get out of ever going back to that hideous vegetarian restaurant my mate took us to a few months ago, then atleast this health scare will have achieved something...

 

[Famine]

So how much is in a cigarette?

Upon hunting, I've found that a figure is oft-quoted of "0.04 picoCuries" is inhaled per cigarette. Since a Curie is a unit of radioactivity this isn't very helpful - but, luckily, Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning gives us easy access to biological radioactivity vs. mass figures

0.04 picoCuries seems to be about the equivalent of 8 ATTOgrams of Polonium 210 - or 8 x 10^-18 - but given that Po210 has a half life of 138 days and persists only for 30-50 days in the human body, this could be "accurate" or 3-5 times too high. So we're looking at the order of between 1 and 10 attograms. At this level it's actually easier to talk about the number of atoms involved - and my brain has given up at a number which appears to be 3,000.

So 1 cigarette = 8ag of Po210 = 3,000 atoms of Po210

And that's assuming all of the atoms in the cigarette are inhaled. And my calculations are right - which isn't a guarantee when the conversions are so daft and tiny.

 

[Danoff]

And that's assuming all of the atoms in the cigarette are inhaled.

..and retained right? No good blowing them back out. Or is blowing them back out what we're after here, in which case retention would be a good thing.

 

[Famine]

To be honest, the error could swing either way - it could be that the cigarette itself contains 0.04pCi of radioactivity, or that what you inhale does, or that what you retain does. As is always the case with figures chucked about for whatever reason, they lose their initial meaning.

Oh, and assuming 1-10ag to be right and 1ug being a lethal dose, you'd have to smoke between 100 and 1,000 BILLION (US - 10^9) cigarettes to reach the LD50 - which would be the equivalent of 511 cigarettes per second for an entire average smoker's smoking career, if it weren't for the fact Po210 is excreted within 50 days.


I suspect only Tom Mullica needs to worry.

 

[FoolKiller]

0.04 picoCuries seems to be about the equivalent of 8 ATTOgrams of Polonium 210 - or 8 x 10^-18 - but given that Po210 has a half life of 138 days and persists only for 30-50 days in the human body, this could be "accurate" or 3-5 times too high. So we're looking at the order of between 1 and 10 attograms. At this level it's actually easier to talk about the number of atoms involved - and my brain has given up at a number which appears to be 3,000.

We could narrow this down a bit. If we knew how much was in the tobacco plant leaf itself I could find out the amount of tobacco in a cigarette and the average time from harvest to consumer. My dad retired from Phillip Morris and I have two uncles and a cousin that grow tobacco, or at least used to.

So, knowing the half life we could calculate how much is in the cigarette when the consumer actually gets it.

And that's assuming all of the atoms in the cigarette are inhaled. And my calculations are right - which isn't a guarantee when the conversions are so daft and tiny.

..and retained right? No good blowing them back out. Or is blowing them back out what we're after here, in which case retention would be a good thing.

Well, we could attempt to be on the safe side (safe meaning safest buffer for humans, not most accurate) and say 100% is inhaled and retained, but we know that is inaccurate if it is measured in any form of second or third hand smoke.

Oh, and assuming 1-10ag to be right and 1ug being a lethal dose, you'd have to smoke between 100 and 1,000 BILLION (US - 10^9) cigarettes to reach the LD50 - which would be the equivalent of 511 cigarettes per second for an entire average smoker's smoking career, if it weren't for the fact Po210 is excreted within 50 days..

I assume there is some form of damage done on a tiny scale while it is in the body, but this basically says that no lethal amount can be built up within the body or even settle on an inanimate object due to the short half life and even shorter time in the human body.

And if I remember my very, very old biology correctly, damage on that kind of cellular scale can be easily removed through our natural defenses during cellular reproduction unless we have some other form of genetic defects. Or have I been sitting in a business office too long?

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that the radioactive materials in cigarette smoke is too small to make much, if any, difference and it being listed the way it has is purely a media scare tactic.


And if I understand where polonium 210 can be found, any plant-based objects will have trace amounts?

So, a pre-dinner salad is about as radioactive as a post-dinner smoke?

 

[Sureboss]

I reckon Steven Tyler could do it given the size of his mouth...Does sticking them in ears count?

 

[Touring Mars]

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that the radioactive materials in cigarette smoke is too small to make much, if any, difference and it being listed the way it has is purely a media scare tactic.

No... Although Famine refers to the quantity required to give a "lethal dose", it doesn't mean that anything less is harmless. Cholesterol has a LD50 value too, but you're unlikely to ever overdose on it, or have anywhere near that amount in your body at any one time, but it can still "kill you". Similarly, smokers have much higher, 5-10 times, as much polonium in their systems as non-smokers, and more significantly, their lungs and airways are specifically alot more exposed to the radiation. This results in the observation - made by many researchers over the last few decades - that radiation damage from cigarette smoke can and probably does pose a significant risk to smokers (see this for example)... it is certainly not a media scare tactic. Perhaps the thirdhand smoking thing is going a bit far, but Famine's calculations that you'd need to smoke billions of cigarettes is misleading (however arithmetically correct it may be )

 

[Famine]

No... Although Famine refers to the quantity required to give a "lethal dose", it doesn't mean that anything less is harmless.

Well quite. Even one radioactive decay inside your body could - and I use the word "could" to refer to even the tiniest mathematical possibility - result in DNA damage which leads to malignant neoplasms.

... it is certainly not a media scare tactic. Perhaps the thirdhand smoking thing is going a bit far, but Famine's calculations that you'd need to smoke billions of cigarettes is misleading (however arithmetically correct it may be )

I've got doubts over the statistical accuracy, because I checked it four times and got 3 different answers. I got quite annoyed by multiplying and dividing such tiny numbers.

Nevertheless, saying that:

Among the substances in third-hand smoke are ... even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006.

Is phenomenally misleading and could be considered a scare tactic.

Like the example of picoCuries of Polonium in a cigarette earlier - where I have no clue to what that actually applies - this message becomes "Thirdhand smoke contains polonium!" which, while superficially true, doesn't accurately convey the facts. Yes, it can contain Polonium but where "can" is applied at the same level as my earlier "could".

Incidentally, I note that, with regards to the 0.04pCi stat earlier - drinking water has a maximum permitted level of 15pCi/l of Polonium. So, on a purely mathematical platform, drinking a litre of tap water is, potentially, the Polonium equivalent of smoking 375 cigarettes.


3,000 atoms!

 

[FoolKiller]

This results in the observation - made by many researchers over the last few decades - that radiation damage from cigarette smoke can and probably does pose a significant risk to smokers (see this for example)... it is certainly not a media scare tactic. Perhaps the thirdhand smoking thing is going a bit far, but Famine's calculations that you'd need to smoke billions of cigarettes is misleading (however arithmetically correct it may be )

By that experiment 9%-53% developed cancer (shouldn't they have an exact number? Did they lose count, forget their basic math?). So, shouldn't the cancer rates among smokers be much, much higher if that is accurate?

And do we have the full write up on that research, because I have questions about how they came up with their pre-experiment assumptions. Is the amount of rads smokers are exposed to based on the amount per cigarette, per inhalation, etc.

I know I am asking a lot of questions of a 34 year old study, but the facts are in the details and that paragraph had very little. I mean, it basically said that they did everything from undershoot best estimates to do more than 15 times the amount. Of the percentage that developed cancer, what was their dosage? If that 9%-53% (um...) were in the 50-300 rads groups then it means nothing.

 

[Danoff]

Incidentally, I note that, with regards to the 0.04pCi stat earlier - drinking water has a maximum permitted level of 15pCi/l of Polonium. So, on a purely mathematical platform, drinking a litre of tap water is the Polonium equivalent of smoking 375 cigarettes.


3,000 atoms!

...and better retention of those atoms.

 

[Keef]

Somebody said something about scare tactics? Personally, I feel that scaring gullible smokers into not smoking anymore is just fine and dandy! The more fools who give up smoking the better for all of us. In fact, it's almost worth exaggerating these components even more in hopes of getting more of these types of people to freak. Hopefully my mom would be one of them--she's pretty gullible. But then again the Kiger family is also quite stubborn. Hmm...

I think it's a scientifically proven fact that people freak out about substances they can't spell. I'll try that.

 

[Sniffs]

TB: I'm not arguing with it around the kids. that's also another reason there's a can in my pocket more often than not. just wish you didn't have to go stand out in a blizzard, sometimes.

since your medical, you would automatically see the crap.
they can't "afford" their cheap perscription because, as you well know, that people automatically assume a perscription is automatically megabucks. a lot of the general public, especially those people living off of the taxes we all pay through the nose for, wouldn't know this.

and from one still in the tobacco barn, enjoying himself...I'm expecting cancer, anyway. BOTH sides of my family were heavy smokers, and there was plenty of "pa-TOOEY" going on as well. when you literally grow up in a cloud of Nicotene, you ARE gonna start. at least I've ducked Alcohol

I'm too old and Cynical to worry, now. nobody's gonna miss me when I'm gone, cause my family disowned me when I came out of the closet. I just hope I have a spot to dump my remains.

 

[Omnis]

Thanks for going over the figures, Famine et al. Made me smile.

 

[BayConRong]

It made me laugh.

Why does it make a difference between inhaling 3,000 atoms and 6,000? your still inhaling radioactive particulate. Plus the various deadly things in cigarettes, there is even arsenic in cigarettes.

 

[Famine]

It made me laugh.

Why does it make a difference between inhaling 3,000 atoms and 6,000? your still inhaling radioactive particulate. Plus the various deadly things in cigarettes, there is even arsenic in cigarettes.

You inhale more atoms of Carbon-14 when you breathe in...

500ml tidal volume x 1x10^-13 C14 concentration = 5x10^-14 litres C14 volume in inhaled air.
Carbon dioxide partial pressure = 1.98g/l x 5x10^-14 litres = 1x10^-13g C14
At 14g/mol, that's 1.4x10^-12 moles of C14 atoms - or 22 billion atoms.


So you inhale 7.5 million times more "radioactive particulate" with every breath than you inhale from a single cigarette.

I could go further and point out that C14 has a half life of 5,730 years, compared to Po210 at 138 days, making an individual polonium 210 atom 15 thousand times more likely to decay inside your body than an individual carbon 14 atom (though remember you have 7.5 million times more carbon atoms per breath than polonium atoms per cigarette - which outweighs this by several orders of magnitude), and for balance point out that C14 decays by beta radiation which is far more penetrative but far less damaging than the alphas emitted by Po210 (about 100 times less - which to my maths makes breathing 5 times more hazardous in terms of radioactive emissions inside the body than smoking a single cigarette). But I won't bother.

 

[Sureboss]

Can you get catalytic converters for humans?

 

[niky]

It's not a catalytic converter you need. It's a carbon scrubber. The cat fixes carbon monoxide, not carbon-dioxide.

 

[Touring Mars]

By that experiment 9%-53% developed cancer (shouldn't they have an exact number? Did they lose count, forget their basic math?). So, shouldn't the cancer rates among smokers be much, much higher if that is accurate?

And do we have the full write up on that research, because I have questions about how they came up with their pre-experiment assumptions. Is the amount of rads smokers are exposed to based on the amount per cigarette, per inhalation, etc.

I know I am asking a lot of questions of a 34 year old study, but the facts are in the details and that paragraph had very little. I mean, it basically said that they did everything from undershoot best estimates to do more than 15 times the amount. Of the percentage that developed cancer, what was their dosage? If that 9%-53% (um...) were in the 50-300 rads groups then it means nothing.

All that study showed is that when hamsters were exposed to various doses of polonium (equivalent to lifetime exposures ranging from 15 to 300 rads), the corresponding incidence of cancer was 9% (15 rads) to 53% (300 rads). They go on to cite another paper which estimates the additional radiation exposure that smokers inflict upon themselves, and conclude that this additional dose is enough to cause an increase in cancer risk.

The dose is important, but so is the mechanism by which the dose is delivered and hence where the dose is delivered to. The fact that 1l of drinking water can contain as much polonium as 375 cigarettes, or that air contains many more radiative particles than cigarette smoke are truisms to an extent... They may well be true, but they fail to explain why smokers have more polonium in their lungs than the rest of us or how spouses of smokers also exhibit elevated levels of toxins found in cigarette smoke.

 

[Famine]

The fact that 1l of drinking water can contain as much polonium as 375 cigarettes, or that air contains many more radiative particles than cigarette smoke

Bit strong there!

 

[boiltheocean]

The fact that 1l of drinking water can contain as much polonium as 375 cigarettes, or that air contains many more radiative particles than cigarette smoke are truisms to an extent... They may well be true, but they fail to explain why smokers have more polonium in their lungs than the rest of us or how spouses of smokers also exhibit elevated levels of toxins found in cigarette smoke.

Mabye all smokers drink atleast 1L of drinking water. So it all adds up.

 

[FoolKiller]

All that study showed is that when hamsters were exposed to various doses of polonium (equivalent to lifetime exposures ranging from 15 to 300 rads), the corresponding incidence of cancer was 9% (15 rads) to 53% (300 rads). They go on to cite another paper which estimates the additional radiation exposure that smokers inflict upon themselves, and conclude that this additional dose is enough to cause an increase in cancer risk.

Obviously there is some large error in their findings, or other factors they do not take into account, as it should mean that easily 9% or more of the smokers I know should develop cancer. In Kentucky it is easy to assume at least half the people I know smoke or did. I only know two people who had any kind of cancer, and one of them did not smoke, and is a health freak. Although she does love her vegetables...

Of course, it may be that hamsters live, what, two or three years on average. So in order to expose them to a lifetime dosage of 20 rads would mean the direct concentrations would be much, much higher than in a human. 20 rads over an average of 72 years is .2777 rads a year. 20 rads over three years means 6.66 rads a year. That number is obviously much more evil.

Can you accurately test long-term effects on something that does not have a long-term lifespan?

And would body size affect the results as well? Smaller bodies mean higher concentrations over a larger percentage of the body.

 

[Swift]

Is there third hand grease? Seriously. If you cook bacon and other fatty foods that come to a point of boiling or bubbling and it getis inot whatever, will that also have an effect on our health?

This is just the dumbest of the dumb. I hate cigarette smoke, but smoking isn't illegal(a HUGE government hypocracy) so I'm not for all these stupid scare tactics.

But what's really funny to me is that when people talk aobut potential terrorist attacks it's scare tactics. However, talking about third hand smoke is a helth observation or other PC term.

 

[TheBook]

when you literally grow up in a cloud of Nicotene, you ARE gonna start.

This, I'll contest. I'm 16 years old, and both my parents smoke (combined, probably 3 packs a day; Dad smokes a little more than Mom). I don't mind it, but I've never had any desire to start myself. This may change, but I don't really see it happening.

 

[Eric.]

To be honest, the error could swing either way - it could be that the cigarette itself contains 0.04pCi of radioactivity, or that what you inhale does, or that what you retain does. As is always the case with figures chucked about for whatever reason, they lose their initial meaning.

Oh, and assuming 1-10ag to be right and 1ug being a lethal dose, you'd have to smoke between 100 and 1,000 BILLION (US - 10^9) cigarettes to reach the LD50 - which would be the equivalent of 511 cigarettes per second for an entire average smoker's smoking career, if it weren't for the fact Po210 is excreted within 50 days.


I suspect only Tom Mullica needs to worry.

 

[niky]

This, I'll contest. I'm 16 years old, and both my parents smoke (combined, probably 3 packs a day; Dad smokes a little more than Mom). I don't mind it, but I've never had any desire to start myself. This may change, but I don't really see it happening.

This is my experience as well. My Dad used to be a "pack-a-day" smoker, and now, thirty years later, none of us who grew up with his habit has ever felt the urge to smoke. Most I've ever done is take a puff off of a water pipe.

I actually think smokeless cigarettes are a mistake. Nothing turns you off the habit of smoking faster than the noxious smell of burning paper. If Dad had been addicted to cigars or pipe-tobacco, I might actually have picked up the habit... I love the smell of pipes.

 

[Sniffs]

Ty/niky: in my case, they were 4 pack a dayers. one of the reasons US tobacco companies got the living crap sued outa them. and when I was growing up, there was no stigma attached to tobacco, food, or other pleasures. I think people started complaining and putting on a Geis (curse) when US health care started having to foot the bill for heavy users.

 

[Tornado]

Bump:
Today my idiot health teacher said that this will be talked about on Tuesday, and the brief overview that she gave of it made it seem like she was as duped by this as she is by everything else. So apparently, this is now part of the college health curriculum. Or maybe she's just adding it herself, but either way it saddens me that I have to fake paying attention to something else that is patently absurd.

 

[Sniffs]

the minute they attach the words "doctors say" to anything, the important people that make decisions start paying attention. ridiculous or not, tobacco is slowly becoming a banned substance. they'll be working on caffeine and chocolate, next!