Research published earlier this year by Berkeley Lab scientists in Biological Systems and Engineering Division (BSE) showing that exposure to thirdhand smoke was associated with low body weight and immune changes in young mice has recently received a flurry of renewed media attention. Antoine Snijders was interviewed via Skype for a segment that aired on New York’s Fox 5 News. In it, he noted that human infants and toddlers could potentially be at risk of exposure. “They play with toys, they play on carpets, there’s much more hand-to-mouth action than most adults do. So the exposure levels could be significantly higher in that age group,” he said. An article on USAToday.com quoted Bo Hang and Jian-Hua Mao. “We suspected that the young are most vulnerable because of their immature immune systems, but we didn’t have a lot of hard evidence to show that before,” Hang said. The study was also referenced on the blog Bustle which linked to the original Berkeley Lab News Center article.
