A friend sent me this.  Does anyone have a URL?

W A S H I N G T O N,  March 2 - Researchers said
                 today they had found traces of a cancer-causing
                 agent in the urine of newborn babies born to
                 women who smoked.
                      Of 31 babies born to smokers, 22 had the chemical
in
                 the first sample of urine collected after birth, the
                 researchers reported in the Journal of the National
Cancer
                 Institute.
                      Stephen Hecht of the University of Minnesota and
                 colleagues at Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf,

                 Germany said they found by-products of NNK, a
                 chemical derived from nicotine, in the urine they
tested.
                      NNK is known to cross the placenta from mother to
                 baby, and causes cancer in animals.

                 Also Found in Breast Milk
                 Although nicotine itself is not considered to be a
                 cancer-causing agent, some of its breakdown products
                 are.
                      Hecht, who reported some of his findings last year
to
a
                 meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston,
said
                 the study showed that babies are absorbing
                 cancer-causing agents from their mothers before birth.
                      Other studies have shown that mothers can pass on
                 elements of tobacco smoke to their babies in breast
milk.
                      Smoking is known to increase the risk of having a
                 baby with a low birth weight, as well are increasing
the
                 risk of losing a baby to sudden infant death syndrome,
                 also known as SIDS or crib death.

                 Smoking During Pregnancy
                 "In spite of this, only 39 percent of smokers quit
while
                 pregnant and of those who quit, 70 percent resume
within
                 one year of giving birth," Hecht wrote.
                      He said studies are not yet clear on whether
babies
                 born to smokers are at higher risk of cancer in their
                 lifetimes.
                      Hecht reported in 1997 that NNK had been found in
                 the urine of nonsmoking adults who were exposed to
                 cigarette smoke at work.



--
Jeanne Mitchell, Austin, TX
http://www.flash.net/~xanth/home.htm
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"You can tell the quality of a person by how
they treat people they don't need." My Dad