Thirdhand Smoke Could Cause Lung Damage in Hotel Housekeepers

A study published last year in the American Journal of Physiology warns that exposure to thirdhand smoke could cause lung damage in hotel housekeepers who change the bed sheets in rooms of smokers, even when no smoking is occurring at the time the housekeeper is cleaning the room. The study concludes that thirdhand smoke is a substantial hazard that puts anyone exposed at risk of lung damage. Thirdhand smoke is exposure to tobacco smoke that off-gasses from surfaces on which it has deposited during active smoking, although the exposure occurs when smoking is not present.

(See: Rehan VK, Sakurai R, Torday JS. Thirdhand smoke: a new dimension to the effects of cigarette smoke on the developing lung. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 301:L1-L8, 2011.)

According to one of the study authors quoted in a KABC-TV article about the study, the results of the study showed that: "exposure to thirdhand smoke is as damaging, and in some cases, more damaging than secondhand or firsthand smoke." This was not an aberrant quotation, as a press release issued by the research institute where the authors work made the same claim.

The study itself concludes that "THS [thirdhand smoke] is a hidden toxin present in the households of smokers where pregnant women and small children live without realizing that they are being exposed to such dangerous toxicants. The same risk exists for adult workers who clean and change bed sheets in hotel rooms where cigarette smoking is allowed, all over the world: a problem of global proportions!"