PITTSBURGH, June 30 — Newborns of non-smoking moms exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy have genetic mutations that may affect long-term health, according to a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health study published online in the Open Pediatric Medicine Journal. The abnormalities, which were indistinguishable from those found in newborns of mothers who were active smokers, may affect survival, birth weight and lifelong susceptibility to diseases like cancer.
The study confirms previous research in which study author Stephen G. Grant, Ph.D., associate professor of environmental and occupational health at Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health, discovered evidence of abnormalities in the HPRT gene located on the X chromosome in cord blood from newborns of non-smokers exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.
In the current study, Dr. Grant confirmed smoke-induced mutation in another gene called glycophorin A, or GPA, that is representative of oncogenes — genes that transform normal cells into cancer cells and cause solid tumors. The GPA mutation was the same level and type in newborns of mothers who were active smokers and of non-smoking mothers exposed to tobacco smoke. Likewise, the mutations were discernable in newborns of women who had stopped smoking during their pregnancies, but who did not actively avoid secondhand smoke.
“These findings back up our previous conclusion that passive, or secondary, smoke causes permanent genetic damage in newborns that is very similar to the damage caused by active smoking,” said Dr. Grant. “By using a different assay, we were able to pick up a completely distinct yet equally important type of genetic mutation that is likely to persist throughout a child’s lifetime. Pregnant women should not only stop smoking, but be aware of their exposure to tobacco smoke from other family members, work and social situations.”
The research was funded by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the University of Pittsburgh Competitive Medical Research Fund.
The University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), founded in 1948 and now one of the top-ranked schools of public health in the United States, conducts research on public health and medical care that improves the lives of millions of people around the world. GSPH is a leader in devising new methods to prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases, HIV/AIDS, cancer and other important public health problems.
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One major problem here is that we don’t know what kind of smoke was being studied.
Was if from plain tobacco?… or from fake tobacco made from industrial waste cellulose to imitate tobacco?…or was it from pesticide-contaminated, radiation-contaminated (from fertilizers), dioxin-delivering (from chlorine pollutants) typical cigarettes?
If it was from the latter, well, it is already well-determined that dioxin causes fetal damage, cancer, pregnancy disruption, nervous system damage and on and on—generally the same diseases said Very Unscientifically to be “smoking related”.
To say it’s about “smoking” is to viciously blame the unwitting, unwarned, unprotected, secretly-poisoned, and uncompensated smokers—who believe and are told it’s just tobacco.
Once we expose the cigarette industry deceit about their cigarettes being automatically tobacco or just tobacco, then we can get somewhere. One benefit of that would be to also expose the researchers that have ignored the integral matter of those pesticides and chlorine.
As for RWJF, remember that Johnson & Johnson is a huge chlorine industry…even with its “Splenda” sweetener said to be made from “chlorine molecules”. We can understand why nothing RWJF touches, or gives money to, does a thing about the chlorine pesticides and chlorine bleached cigarette paper. RWJF would have us believe that all the illnesses and deaths (and costs) are “acts of God”, caused by nature’s own tobacco plant. How there can be “sin taxes” on one of “God’s creations” is a question.
The whole “anti smoking” crusade is more of a Save Chlorine Industries cause than one about health.
The hardest job in the country today is to find an “anti smoking” officials who is not somehow linked to the chlorine cartel, including their insurers and investors.
How much grant funding did the study’s author and the University get from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to produce this balderdash? You know, the Foundation that holds over 40,000,000 shares of Johnson and Johnson stock. Yeah, that IS the company that markets Nicoderm, Nicorette, Nicotrol, and nicoderm CQ. They don’t own those electric cigarettes so thay are getting their former employees, who are now on the Advisory Board of the FDA to put and end to those. Ain’t it amazing? My mom smoked through five pregnancies and has five healthy kids ranging in age from 50 to 62. When scientists lie for money it is disgusting!
I can’t believe all this crap that’s being put out there. I smoked the entire time during both of my pregnancies and my kids are completely healthy. One was so far ahead of her class that the school wanted to move her up in grades. The other is over 6 feet tall, healthy, and is also very intelligent. While I was in the hospital after giving birth, I was given an ashtray for my hospital room. People have to quit believe everything that is published that is anti smoking. By their rule of thumb, we should have all been dead a long time ago. I’m waiting for a “study” to be done linking second hand smoke to ingrown toenails. What a hoot all of this is!!
Amen!! I wish the public would wake up and realize how much they are being lied to. They are all such good little sheep!!! Jump!! How high?
Well, with virtually all mainstream media (papers, radio or TV) that are in the hands of the corporate system, it will be Quite Difficult to set off the public alarm system.
People aren’t dumb…they are just massively deceived and denied vital information. That’s the purpose of the corporatization-privatization of our media. If a critical mass of the public knew what was going on, it wouldn’t happen.
The computer and web do good work…but that does not replace having the “alternative” news and commentary in a Common Place, available to all at the same time.
The fact that so many people believe, without having heard the whole story, that typical cigarettes are automatically tobacco is just one issue. Something like 20 percent believe Obama was born in Kenya!..and that he’s a Muslim! Others believe in big percentages that “America” supports “freedom and democracy”. Many believe that our “regulatory agencies” are protecting the public from industrial misdeeds. A lot of people believe Columbus was a clean-shaven brave navigator who “discovered” “America”. True.