Secondhand Smoke Exposure in Hospitality Venues in Europe

BACKGROUND: Although in the last few years some European countries have implemented smoking bans in hospitality venues, the levels of secondhand smoke (SHS) in this occupational sector Could still be extremely high in most countries. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study, was to assess exposure to SHS in hospitality venues in 10 European cities. METHODS: We included 167 hospitality venues (58 discotheques and pubs, 82 restaurants and cafeterias, and 27 fast-food restaurants) in this cross-sectional study. We carried Out fieldwork in 10 European cities: Vienna (Austria), Paris (France), Athens (Greece), Florence and Belluno (Italy), Galway (Ireland), Barcelona (Spain), Warsaw and Lublin (Poland), and Bratislava (Slovak Republic). We measured vapor-phase nicotine as an SHS marker. RESULTS: We analyzed 504 samples and found nicotine in most samples (97.4%). We found the highest median concentrations in discos/pubs [32.99 mu g/m(3); interquartile range (IQR), 8.06-66.84 mu g/m(3)] and lower median concentrations in restaurants/cafeterias (2.09 mu g/m(3); IQR, 0.49-6.73 mu g/m(3)) and fast-food restaurants (0.31 mu g/m(3); IQR, 0.11-1.30 mu g/m(3)) (p < 0.05). We found differences of exposure between countries that may be related to their smoking regulations. Where we sampled smoking and nonsmoking areas, nicotine concentrations were significantly lower in nonsmoking areas. CONCLUSIONS: Hospitality venues from European cities without smoking regulations have very high levels of SHS exposure. Monitoring of SHS on a regular basis as well as a total smoking ban in hospitality sector would be needed

Multi-residue determination of 130 multiclass pesticides in fruits and vegetables by gas chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry

A multi-residue method has been developed and validated for the simultaneous quantification and confirmation of around 130 multiclass pesticides in orange, nectarine and spinach samples by GC-MS/MS with triple quadrupole analyzer. Compounds have been selected from different chemical families including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and acaricides. Three isotopically labelled standards have been used as surrogates in order to improve accurate quantitation. Samples were extracted by using accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) with ethyl acetate. In the case of spinach, an additional clean-up step by gel permeation chromatography was applied. Determination was performed by GC-MS/MS in electron ionization mode adquiring two MS/MS transitions for each analyte. The intensity ratio between quantitation transition (Q) and identification transition (q) was used as confirmatory parameter (Q/q ratio). Accuracy and precision were evaluated by means of recovery experiments in orange, nectarine and spinach samples spiked at two concentration levels (0.01 and 0.05 mg/Kg). Recoveries were in most cases between 70-120 % and RSD were below 20 %. The limits of quantification objective for which the method was satisfactorily validated in the three samples matrices were for most pesticides 0.01 mg/Kg. Matrix effects over the GC-MS/MS determination were tested by comparison of reference standards in pure solvent with matrix-matched standards of each matrix. Data obtained showed enhancement of signal for the majority of analytes in the three matrices investigated. Consequently, in order to reduce the systematic error due to this effect, quantification was performed using matrix-matched standard calibration curves. The matrix effect study was extended to other food matrices such as raisin, paprika, cabbage, pear, rice, legume and gherkin, showing in all cases a similar signal enhancement effect

Secondhand smoke exposure in hospitality venues in Europe

BACKGROUND: Although in the last few years some European countries have implemented smoking bans in hospitality venues, the levels of secondhand smoke (SHS) in this occupational sector Could still be extremely high in most countries. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study, was to assess exposure to SHS in hospitality venues in 10 European cities. METHODS: We included 167 hospitality venues (58 discotheques and pubs, 82 restaurants and cafeterias, and 27 fast-food restaurants) in this cross-sectional study. We carried Out fieldwork in 10 European cities: Vienna (Austria), Paris (France), Athens (Greece), Florence and Belluno (Italy), Galway (Ireland), Barcelona (Spain), Warsaw and Lublin (Poland), and Bratislava (Slovak Republic). We measured vapor-phase nicotine as an SHS marker. RESULTS: We analyzed 504 samples and found nicotine in most samples (97.4%). We found the highest median concentrations in discos/pubs [32.99 mu g/m(3); interquartile range (IQR), 8.06-66.84 mu g/m(3)] and lower median concentrations in restaurants/cafeterias (2.09 mu g/m(3); IQR, 0.49-6.73 mu g/m(3)) and fast-food restaurants (0.31 mu g/m(3); IQR, 0.11-1.30 mu g/m(3)) (p < 0.05). We found differences of exposure between countries that may be related to their smoking regulations. Where we sampled smoking and nonsmoking areas, nicotine concentrations were significantly lower in nonsmoking areas. CONCLUSIONS: Hospitality venues from European cities without smoking regulations have very high levels of SHS exposure. Monitoring of SHS on a regular basis as well as a total smoking ban in hospitality sector would be needed

The Power of Hyphenated Chromatography/Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry in Public Health Laboratories

Laboratories devoted to the public health field have to face the analysis of a large number of organic contaminants/residues in many different types of samples. Analytical techniques applied in this field are normally focused on quantification of a limited number of analytes. At present, most of these techniques are based on gas chromatography (GC) or liquid chromatography (LC) coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Using these techniques only analyte-specific information is acquired, and many other compounds that might be present in the samples would be ignored. In this paper, we explore the potential of time-of-flight (TOF) MS hyphenated to GC or LC to provide additional information, highly useful in this field. Thus, all positives reported by standard reference targeted LC–MS/MS methods were unequivocally confirmed by LC–QTOF MS. Only 61% of positives reported by targeted GC–MS/MS could be confirmed by GC–TOF MS, which was due to its lower sensitivity as nonconfirmations corresponded to analytes that were present at very low concentrations. In addition, the use of TOF MS allowed searching for additional compounds in large-scope screening methodologies. In this way, different contaminants/residues not included in either LC or GC tandem MS analyses were detected. This was the case of the insecticide thiacloprid, the plant growth regulator paclobutrazol, the fungicide prochloraz, or the UV filter benzophenone, among others. Finally, elucidation of unknowns was another of the possibilities offered by TOF MS thanks to the accurate-mass full-acquisition data available when using this technique