Comprehensive smoking ban in bars, restaurants reduces physical exposure to a powerful chemical.

Minnesota hospitality workers have significantly reduced exposure to a tobacco-specific cancer-causing chemical since the Freedom to Breathe Act went into effect on Oct. 1, 2007, according to a new study released by the University of Minnesota Cancer Center and ClearWay Minnesota, an independent, nonprofit anti-tobacco organization.

The study included data from 24 nonsmoking bar, restaurant and bowling-alley employees in the state who were typically not exposed to secondhand smoke except in their workplaces.

The study measured workers’ exposure to cotinine (a measure of nicotine exposure) and NNAL (a by-product of a potent lung cancer-causing toxin) before and after the Freedom to Breathe Act took effect. Each participant submitted urine samples taken before and after the law was enacted and a detailed questionnaire to the University of Minnesota research team for analysis.

Major findings indicate an 83 percent decrease in cotinine levels and an 85 percent decrease in NNAL levels inside study participants’ bodies.

“The comprehensive smoking ban has had a significant impact in reducing bodily exposure to a powerful lung cancer-causing agent and nicotine in our hospitality workers,” said the lead investigator, Dorothy Hatsukami, PhD, a nationally respected tobacco researcher.

“Protecting our workers (and patrons) from known cancer-causing agents, which have been demonstrated to be present in the urine of these workers prior to the smoking ban, should continue to be a high priority,” said Hatsukami, Forster Family Professor in Cancer Prevention, University of Minnesota Cancer Center.

The findings confirm previous University of Minnesota Cancer Center studies showing that nonsmoking restaurant workers and casino patrons have significantly higher levels of cancer-causing toxins in their bodies after working in or visiting establishments that allow smoking. Other research has estimated that restaurant and bar employees who do not smoke have about a 50 percent higher risk of contracting lung cancer than the general population.

Federal money for research into early diagnosis, treatment and cures is plummeting.

The war in Iraq is leaving less money for cancer research and could result in a slowdown in the progress made in finding cures, a recent article says.

“Many scientists believe the cost of the Iraq war is largely responsible for a drop in real dollars for cancer research, and private organizations, though critical, are a pale substitute for the power of the federal government,” Robert Weiner, former White House aide, and Patricia Berg, director of the George Washington University Medical Center breast cancer lab, write in the article “Too Few Funds to Fight Cancer in U.S,” posted on the San Diego Union-Tribune Web site.  

Due to inflation, the National Institutes of Health has experienced a 2 percent fall in its budget in real dollars every year for the last seven years, the article says. The National Cancer Institute now funds fewer than 10 percent of requested research projects, down from 25 percent a decade ago.

Ellen Sigal, chairwoman of Friends of Cancer Research in Arlington, VA, and the chair of a forum at the American Association for Cancer Research on alternative funding mechanisms, cites “deficit and war” as reasons for the drop in federal money.

The authors said that it is tragic that private volunteer organizations scramble to pick up the pieces for the federal government, which is primarily responsible for driving scientists closer to curing the disease.