ASHRAE - Repace Study Notes

First, I have read the attached Repace study, ASHRAE: Fall 2006. Can Displacement Ventilation Control Secondhand ETS?, and you'll note Repace quotes ASHRE as saying that ventilation can protect nonsmokers in the nonsmoking section, but that it cannot protect nonsmokers in the smoking section. The important point here is that the nonsmokers in the smoking section are there by choice.

Most importantly... Repace readily admits the ventilation systems in the two Mesa establishments were not working properly, pre-ban. What kind of a scientist admittedly does studies on defective subjects?????

Notably absent were any data on pre-ban conditions with the ventilation shut off. Repace says eliminating the smoking does remove smoke, but we all know that. Suppose with smoking allowed, and ventilation shut off, ( kinda like in the old days) the PAHs, CO2, and particulates are hundreds of times more than with smoking allowed, and the ventilation systems working? This is plausible.

Such a study could have easily proved that the vast majority of smoking byproducts were eliminated just by having ventilation, and the RELATIVE improvement due to banning it is negligible compared to just having proper ventilation.

Methods to measure nicotine in air are widely available. Nicotine is tobacco smoke specific. If Repace want's to show the world how much tobacco smoke was removed, then he should use a tobacco smoke specific test, he did not.

Repace is famous for playing this kind of a "shell game" This is his style, this is how he hoodwinks people into passing bans. Data on how many secondhand smoke deaths were (improperly) estimated among workers, from exposures which occurred during the 1960s -1980s, when these modern ventilation systems were not yet widely used are implied by Repace to be representative of modern pre-ban conditions in Toronto and Mesa. He wants the reader of this study to assume his pre-ban data on PAHs, and particulate represent dangerous exposure levels, yet provides no comparison data even suggesting his pre-ban measurements represent dangerous exposure levels. He then says exposure was less post-ban. That's obvious, but does it really represent a health improvement??? he does not address that either.

Recently, I sent you my analysis MORE http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/casinoworkers.html from Pritsos, et. al, the University of Nevada, which, as you'll recall, showed the vast majority of nonsmoking casino workers had virtually nil tobacco smoke biomarkers in their plasma. For a worker with a serum continine level of 0.01 in that study, Repace is providing Black Dog measurement data finding a 60-65% drop in RSP post-ban, which could theoretically cause Pritsos's casino worker's serum continine level to drop from 0.01 to 0.004, if smoking were banned in casinos, but Pritsos's data show neither level produced any genetic damage.

I had previously stated, that Repace found a 60% drop in particulates post ban, in what had been the nonsmoking section, using the less appropriate measurement of particulates. And I said he should have used tobacco-smoke specific nicotine measurements.

As you'll see, ORNL did use nicotine measurements. Black Dog
What they found, pre-ban was that nicotine in the nonsmoking section was 0.44, and in the smoking section, 12.2 at the Black Dog. Therefore nicotine representing tobacco smoke, only, was 3.6% that of the smoking section, in the nonsmoking section.

What all this boils down to, is that Repace's particulate data pre ban found 16 in the nonsmoking section, and 152 in the smoking section, pre-ban representing 10.5% as much smoke in the nonsmoking section. This compares to 3.6% from the ORNL data, so you'll see the kind of error imparted by using a nonspecific test for tobacco smoke does influence the data. Repace then concludes post-ban, that 40% of that 10.5% was further removed. this calculated out to 10.5% X 0.44= 4.6% as much smoke in the nonsmoking section, post-ban as had been in the smoking section, pre-ban.

What''s amazing, is that all this means using ORNL's nicotine data, and corresponding Repace particulate data, is that the nonsmoking section is pretty much the same pre-ban as post-ban. This leads to the conclusion that the ventilation did work as well as the ban in the Black Dog.

You'll note ORNL'S conclusion stated that If one is thoughtful, HVAC can achieve what a ban can achieve. It seems, my analysis of all the data from both studies confirms ORNL's conclusion.

A study performed on the air in the concourses outside smoking lounges at Lambert Field, the main airport in St. Louis Missouri, further confirms that ventilation does work. 9-16-06. Lambert Airport Smoking Lounge Evaluations . Again, they use airborne nicotine measurements as opposed to Repace's use of particulate and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon measurements. More specific tests prove that the particulates in Repace's measurements are from other sources than secondhand smoke. Note the airport study also measured particulates and PAH's and did find those outside the smoking lounges, but no nicotine. this shows that most particulate and PAH in the air in nonsmoking sections comes from other sources that secondhand smoke, and cannot be used to conclude secondhand smoke is leaking into nonsmoking areas.

David W. Kuneman
Director of Research
The Smoker's Club,. Inc.
November 18, 2006



ASHRAE - Repace Study


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