Smoking gun

Citation: TA Slotkin, KE Pinkerton, and FJ Seidler. Perinatal environmental tobacco smoke exposure in rhesus monkeys: critical periods and regional selectivity for effects on brain cell development and lipid peroxidation. Environ Health Perspect, Jan 2006; 114(1): 34-9.

The authors begin their article by citing sources that acknowledge the harm caused by “Environmental Tobacco Smoke,” i.e. second-hand smoke. The sources are 15-20 years old. Since we already know this, it was critical to perform an experiment on pregnant and nursing mother monkeys and their children.

Summary of Experiment: 15 pregnant mothers were obtained (by Duke from CaNPRC). An additional “set” of 16 monkeys was used in a second set of experiments. The 15 dams were assigned to one of three groups: breathing filtered air, breathing ETS pre- and postnatally, and breathing ETS postnatally only. Smoke from the burning end of cigarettes was “aged” and pumped into chambers that housed two monkeys for six hours each day, five days a week beginning 50 days after conception, and for both mother and infant from birth to 13 months of age. Mothers were removed from the enclosure when the babies were “weaned” at 5 months of age. For monkeys breathing only post-natal smoke, the smoke experiment began at 6 mos. At 13 months, monkeys were given ketamine and then overdosed on phenobarb.

There were no differences between groups in weight, growth, general health or “activity” pre- or postnatally. There were significant difference in the number and size of brain cells in some parts of the brain and in how tissues used oxygen.

My Notes :
These results were nothing new – they are highly duplicative of the authors own work:

“Perinatal or postnatal ETS exposure elicited two characteristic patterns of neural cellular effects, both of which resemble earlier findings for effects of prenatal nicotine exposure in rodents (Levin and Slotkin 1998; Roy et al.1998, 2002; Roy and Sabherwal 1994, 1998; Slotkin 1998, 2004; Slotkin et al. 1987b).”

And an ocean of evidence about the harmful effects of smoke in general. Despite this, they want to keep doing ETS experiments on monkeys:

“These neurochemical inferences point to the need for detailed, quantitative morphologic investigations of ETS effects on primate development paralleling those done for nicotine in rodent models (Roy et al. 1998, 2002; Roy and Sabherwal 1994, 1998).”

They favor the use of diagnostic methods available for studying and monitoring the effects of smoke on human children (available for at least ten years):

“…supports the use of nicotine metabolite measurements in fetuses and children as an appropriate predictor of outcome (Eliopoulos et al. 1996; Fried et al. 1995; Jauniaux et al. 1999; Kohler et al. 1999; Ostrea et al. 1994).”

Stop the presses!

“Translated to human ETS exposure, this finding points out the importance of reducing the exposure of young children to tobacco smoke in the home or in child care settings.”

You mean we shouldn't be giving them ciggys OR smoking around them? I thought the issue was smoking around food or office equipment!

Author Affiliations: Duke University Medical Center. Monkeys provided courtesy of CaNPRC

Funding Acknowledged: Research was supported by grants from the Philip Morris External Research Program and the National Institutes of Health (ES011634, ES05707, and RR00169).