Hookah (shisha, narghile, 'water pipe') indoor air contamination in German unrealistic experiment. Serious methodological biases and ethical concern.

摘要

Experts from the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority, Bavarian Environment Agency, and the Federal Institute for Risk Asessment (Germany) have recently published a study focussing on "water pipe", i.e., shisha (hookah, narghile, "water pipe")1 indoor air contamination, i.e., the environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and charcoal emissions produced by such a pipe. In a special setting, high concentrations have been observed for the "target analytes" during the 4-h smoking event. The median (90th percen-tile) values of PM 2.5, PMN, CO, NO were 393 (737 ng/m~3), 289,000 (550,000 particles/cm3), 51 (65 ppm) and 0.11 (0.13 ppm), respectively. The particle size distribution has a maximum of particles relating to a diameter of 20 nm. The seven carcinogenic PAH were found to be a factor 2.6 higher during the smoking session compared to the control day" (Fromme et al., 2009). The reported experiment and its publication pose serious methodological and ethical problems. Five important methodological biases have been identified here.