{"article":{"id":100993,"heading":"Ventilation no help against second hand smoke","author":"CBC News","created":"2004-01-22 02:44:27","modified":"2013-11-11 00:28:28","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:28:28","article":"
TORONTO - An American physicist says ventilation systems in restaurants and bars don't protect people from the effects of second hand smoke. James Repace studied air quality in restaurants and bars in Toronto, Boston and Wilmington, Delaware. He found indoor pollution levels dropped up to 95 per cent in Boston and Wilmington when sweeping smoke bans were enforced.
Repace measured air quality in a Toronto pub that contains a non-smoking section. Air is drawn in from the outside, pumped through the non-smoking section and directed through the smoking section before it is exhausted outdoors. The air quality was much better in the non-smoking section than in the smoking section, but it fared far worse than the smoke-free bars of Boston and Wilmington.
Repace says the Toronto pub's ventilation system exchanged the air 10 times an hour, which is what the current code calls for. But Repace told a Toronto news conference that to get the risk level down to an acceptable level, the ventilation system would have to make at least 34,000 air changes per hour. That's a tornado-like level.
Download the fact sheet: http:\/\/repace.com\/SHSFactsheet.pdf<\/a>
About James L. Repace, MSc
James Repace, MSc., is a health physicist and an international secondhand smoke consultant who has published 60 scientific papers on the hazard, exposure, dose, risk, and control of secondhand smoke. He has received numerous national honours, including the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute Distinguished Professor Award, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Innovator Award, the Surgeon General’s Medallion, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Public Health Association. He holds an appointment as a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine.
He is a former senior policy analyst and scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, serving on both the Air Policy and Indoor Air Staffs, Office of Air and Radiation, and in the Exposure Analysis Division, Office of Research and Development. He served as a consultant to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, on its proposed rule to regulate secondhand smoke and indoor air quality.
He was also a research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in the Ocean Sciences and Electronics Divisions.\n","contact":"letters@cbc.ca","link":"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/stories\/2004\/01\/20\/Consumers\/smoking040120","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Toronto pub's ventilation system exchanged the air 10 times an hour, but to reduce the second-hand smoke dangers to acceptable levels would require at least 34,000 air changes per hour.","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/01\/100993.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":100998,"heading":"hyperboled data","article":"RE: amount of fresh air needed to be free from 2'nd hand smoke risks\r\n\r\n> 34,000 air changes per hour. That's a tornado-like level\r\n\r\nI have daily experience in this as I hate smoke and everyone around here smokes. The trick is *positive pressure*. You draw fresh outdoor air in, but restrict air movement to other rooms where smoker's are. \r\n\r\nHospitals use this method as well.\r\n\r\n The problem with bars and other public areas is the open areas between non-smoking and smoking sections along with natural circulation. To keep smoke out when there's an open doorway would require a huge amount of air but there's other ways to reduce the leakage like using air filter units at the threshold between the sections.\r\n\r\nBut the cheapest (lowest energy usage) way is to maintain positive pressure along with barriers\r\n\r\nThe study does show that in such areas you can never have completely clean air, but the level of pollutiants in a typical city causes more health impacts. A good rule of thumb is if you can smell cigarette smoke it's bad. \r\n\r\nThis is what I go by, as we have wood smoke and other air quality problems as well.\r\n\r\nAny public place you go where you can detect smoke is to be avoided since the air quality obviously isn't good enough (some researchers claim levels of smoke below what you can smell are harmful but this assumes an otherwise very clean air supply - most people's air - even outdoors - isn't that clean anyway.)\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","author":"Hex anon w\/ encryption","parent_id":100993,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-22 03:04:59","modified":"2004-01-22 03:04:59","fileurl":""}]}