Third Hand Smoke and Cancer

"Third-hand smoke" may interact with indoor air chemicals to form potential cancer-causing substances.
Bloomberg News (2/9, Ostrow) reports, "Tobacco smoke contamination lingering on furniture, clothes, and other surfaces, dubbed third-hand smoke, may react with indoor air chemicals to form potential cancer-causing substances," according to a paper appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In fact, "after exposing a piece of paper to smoke, researchers" at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory "found the sheet had levels of newly formed carcinogens that were 10 times higher after three hours in the presence of an indoor air chemical called nitrous acid (HONO) commonly emitted by household appliances or cigarette smoke."
Specifically, the "nicotine reacted with the indoor air pollutant to form carcinogenic compounds called tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs)," WebMD (2/8, Stacy) reported. Investigators found "'substantial levels' of TSNAs on surfaces inside the smoker's truck that was used in the study," and "more than half of the cancer-causing compounds remained more than two hours after the cigarette smoke had cleared."