Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center conducted a study in Hookah bars and found that employees are exposed to the same hazards as tobacco secondhand smoke a report indicates. Hookah bars aren’t designated under the same laws as tobacco regulations because an alternative, non-tobacco substance is used known as Shisha. Shisha, which is offered in an assortment of flavors, is often made with tobacco but as a substitute can be made with herbs and molasses. A coal is fired up and placed on top of the shisha, which is smoked through tubes connected to the hookah. Although, the city’s Department of Health has cracked down on establishments that have used tobacco.
New York banned smoking in 1998 in taxis, places of employment, and required restaurants to have a segregated non-smoking section. In 2003, the law was extended and eliminated smoking in all bars and restaurants and enclosed spaces as well as parks, beaches, and in Times Square in 2011. Dr. Terry Gordon, a professor leading the study said in a press release, “Hookah use is often exempt from clean indoor air laws that protect people from secondhand smoke,” and adds, “Ours is the first study that links poor hookah bar air quality to damaging effects in workers, and the results recommend closer monitoring of this industry to protect the public.”
Researchers collected air samples during working shifts of 10 employees at randomized establishments. They measured fine particulate matter, fine black carbon, carbon monoxide and nicotine and workers were tested for blood pressure, heart rate, markers of smoking and secondhand smoke, inflammatory cytokines in blood, and tumor necrosis factor before and after their shifts.
Results concluded that employees suffered the same effects as tobacco-based smoke. Air from the bars had the identified pollutants and the workers exhibited the symptoms of secondhand smoke with significantly higher levels of exhaled carbon dioxide. The air was determined to be proportional to the number of people in the room and the water pipes in use. Thus, the bars included in the study seemed to have been selling tobacco based products, making them a red flag to the Department of Health, which has shut down 13 operations in earlier this month.
“I would suspect that if you went into the vast majority of hookah places it’s going to be tobacco,” Thomas Merrill, general counsel for the health department, told amNewYork. “I’m not surprised these are the results we got.”