Assessment of environmental tobacco smoke exposure of Finnish restaurant workers, using 3-ethenylpyridine as marker.

UNLABELLED: Exposure of restaurant personnel to environmental tobacco smoke was assessed in 23 restaurants in 2002-2003 after the Finnish Tobacco Act--including restrictions on smoking at bar desks and demands on non-smoking sections--had been extended to restaurants. Air samples were collected using passive samplers from the breathing zone of non-smoking workers during entire work shifts. 3-ethenylpyridine (3-EP) was used as a tobacco-specific vapour-phase marker. The overall median concentration of airborne 3-EP for 97 workers was 1.2 microg/m3, the individual concentrations ranging from <0.06 to 9.4 microg/m3 (n=292). Higher concentrations were measured for staff working in smoking areas or at bar counters than that recorded for those working in non-smoking areas or across different areas. Area samples were collected by passive sampling of 3-EP on organic vapour monitors and by active sampling of 3-EP and nicotine in charcoal tubes. The median concentrations of 3-EP and nicotine were 1.5 microg/m3 (n=292) and 11 microg/m3 (n=92), respectively. In non-smoking areas and at the bar, 3-EP concentrations were 41% and 69% of those measured in smoking areas, with a third of the restaurants having concentrations below 20% in their non-smoking areas. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The method applied here--based on diffusive sampling of 3-ethenylpyridine--proved adequate even at low environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) levels. The easy-to-use sampler is thus well suited to detect whether a non-smoking room or area is actually smoke-free or contaminated by smoke drifting from a smoking area. Only a third of the restaurants participating in this study achieved low concentrations of 3-ethenylpyridine in their non-smoking areas. In these cases, the non-smoking area was usually strictly separated from the smoking area. Despite the ban on smoking at bar counters in most restaurants, the drifting smoke was usually a problem if the counter was located in the middle of the smoking area. However, exposure to ETS behind the bar desk was reduced if the counter was located in a non-smoking area.

Aluminium, lead and cadmium concentrations in seminal plasma and spermatozoa, and semen quality in Finnish men.

Aluminium, cadmium and lead concentrations in the spermatozoa and seminal plasma of 27 employees of two industrial companies, a refinery and a polyolefin factory, and 45 consecutive sperm donor candidates at a sperm bank were studied using atomic absorption measurements. The relationship between metal concentration and parameters of semen analysis was studied. A high concentration of aluminium in spermatozoa was correlated with decreased sperm motility. The concentrations of cadmium and lead were low and did not show any correlation with parameters of semen analysis. Aluminium may be one of the environmental pollutants causing impaired semen quality. The mean sperm concentrations were similar in the factory employees (96 x 10(6)/ml), in the sperm donor candidates of the comparison group (104 x 10(6)/ml) and in 352 donor candidates at the sperm bank of the Family Federation of Finland (107 x 10(6)/ml) between May 1993 and May 1995.