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Coordinated nationally by the Institute for Children's Environmental Health |
To join the Partnership for Children's Health and the Environment (PCHE) and receive this bulletin, please complete the form at http://www.partnersforchildren.org/members.html#member.
For information about additional events, please visit our searchable calendar of events at http://www.partnersforchildren.org/conferences.html.
December 4 - 6, 2006
Atlanta, Georgia
at the Hilton Atlanta Hotel
Presented by Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Environmental Health, The 2006 Environmental Public Health Conference has a theme of "Advancing Environmental Public Health: Science, Practice, New Frontiers." The conference will address the need to revitalize environmental public health, and it will chart the nation's vision for the future. There will be six plenary sessions, up to 75 workshops, and up to 40 exhibits and poster displays that will address a wide range of topics from emerging threats to a myriad of everyday environmental public health issues. Topics will include bio-monitoring; climate change; environmental justice; environmental public health tracking; food and water protection; health disparities; healthy places and healthy homes; indoor air quality; injury prevention; laboratory science and service; preparedness & response; public health policy and law; toxicants, exposures, and contaminants; vector management; and workforce development.
Website: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/conference/
Contact: smargolis@cdc.gov
December 13, 2006
9:30 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Seattle, Washington
at the Bertha Knight Landes Room, Seattle City Hall (5th and James)
We've all become aware that the world built around us affects our health beyond the reach of personal lifestyle choices. With land use policies, designs and plans influencing individual and community health, it is more important than ever to better integrate planning processes and public health. But how can we determine what is healthiest for the community and the people in it? Health Impact Assessments (HIA) are used around the world to promote health and prevent illness. Come and learn about the Health Impact Assessment process and how it can promote and improve healthy places for all people. Our guest speakers are co-founders of Healthy Development, Inc., which focuses on the relationship between development and human health. The speakers provide science-based planning and decision-making tools related to the health, social and economic impacts of energy, land and water development. They will address the audience on their 25 years of experience in public health research, environmental land use and community development policy work and their use of Health Impact Assessments.
Contact: Julie West at 206-205-4396 or Julie.West@metrokc.gov
from Daniel Axelrad, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Updated data on children's environmental health have been recently added to the U.S. EPA's America's Children and the Environment website. America's Children and the Environment provides measures of environmental factors related to the health and well-being of children in the United States. The updated measures are available at http://www.epa.gov/envirohealth/children.
The website shows trends in environmental contaminant levels in air, water, food, and soil; concentrations of contaminants measured in the bodies of children and women; and childhood illnesses that may be influenced by exposure to environmental contaminants. The measures were previously published in a 2003 EPA report, and this web-only update adds from 2-5 years of additional data for each of the measures. America's Children and the Environment helps identify, track and evaluate potential environmental impacts on children's health. Ultimately these measurements will help guide efforts to minimize environmental impacts on the nation's children and also will inform discussions among policymakers and the public about how to improve federal data. We hope you find the website useful and we welcome your feedback.
from the US Environmental Protection Agency
EPA is accepting comments until January 16, 2007, about its risk assessments on human health for the N-methyl carbamate pesticide aldicarb. EPA's aldicarb risk assessments and related information are available at http://www.regulations.gov in Docket Number EPA-HQ-OPP-2005-0163. Information on the Agency's N-methyl carbamate cumulative risk assessment is available at http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/cumulative/index.htm.
EPA's November 15, 2006, Federal Register notice is available on the agency's website at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-PEST/2006/November/Day-15/p19360.htm and on the aldicarb reregistration web page, http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/reregistration/aldicarb/.
by Antoaneta Bezlova, Inter Press Service
November 21, 2006
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35554
BEIJING (IPS) -- Repeatedly cited for pollution, China has launched a counter-attack saying it is mainly because the country has been the world's workshop in the past twenty years, producing and exporting goods for a multitude of nations, while keeping the waste and ecological degradation for itself. A high-profile report released by a governmental think tank in Beijing, last week, berated current trade patterns, which resulted in China bearing the brunt of heavy pollution. "China is the major venue of resource consumption and pollution as well as the main victim in the current economic and trade pattern," the report, titled "Review and Perspective of the Environment and Development of China" said.
Prepared by a group of experts at the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, the report said all parties in the product chain, including manufacturers, traders and consumers, should share responsibility for ecological degradation. The report rejected accusations by environmental watchdogs that China was destroying tropical forests by importing timber from South-east Asia, pointing out that 70 percent of the timber was being made into furniture that ended up in shops in the United States and the European Union. "We import the raw material, produce, send the products abroad and keep the waste and pollution ourselves," Shen Guofang, an expert with the think-tank was quoted as saying by the media at the release of the report. He warned that China's environmental record was about to get even worse as many high-polluting industries, like iron and steel, cement and construction were being relocated from the developed countries to China. "The shift of industries is also the shift of global pollutants," Shen said. "While they (developed countries) have less environmental pressure, China has more."
The study found that imports of waste utilised as raw materials, such as steel scraps and waste paper, have been rapidly rising. In 2004 for instance, the amount of waste imported by China -- 33 million tones -- represented a seven-fold increase from the 4.58 million tonnes in 1996. The report comes at a time when China's environmental woes and their global impact have moved to the forefront of world news. China's dynamic economic engine is spewing an increasing number of pollutants, which scientists say contribute to global warming. The country now ranks behind only the U.S. in carbon dioxide emissions. It is also the biggest emitter of sulphur dioxide, which causes acid rain.
But Chinese scholars argue the amount of emissions is not surprising given the country's rapid economic growth and its dependence on coal consumption. China relies on coal for 70 percent of its energy needs. The United Nations' latest Human Development Report has cited China on worsening water pollution and its failure to restrict heavy polluters. More than 300 million people, almost a quarter of the population, lack access to clean drinking water and more than half of the country's water resources have been severely tainted by pollution. "As the needs of consumers, agricultural and industrial production are pitted against one another in a booming economy, these problems can be expected to grow worse, not better," Alessandra Tisot, senior deputy resident representative of the UN Development Programme in China said at a news conference, last week.
Water pollution is regarded as one of the most severe challenges China faces in its environmental clean up. Yet here too China has found that international companies rank among the violators of the government's environmental guidelines. More than 30 multinational corporations (MNCs) with operations in China have violated water-pollution control guidelines, according to an investigation of official records conducted by the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. The institute, a domestic environmental non government organisation (NGO), found that some 34 MNCs, including Pepsi Co Inc, Panasonic Battery Co and Foster's Group Ltd, were reported by government bodies at local and national levels as causing water pollution.
While foreign violators represent a small fraction of the publicised 2,700 violators, Ma Jun, the institute's founder and director, said the findings created a stir with Chinese public. Nearly all of the MNCs cited were known for their commitment to protect the environment. "You can't claim to be a responsible international corporation if you fail the emissions control," he said. The role of MNCs in China's notorious pollution problems was highlighted by the state news agency Xinhua and various domestic media, which published the results of the institute's survey. Xinhua News agency blamed local governments for their lax environmental controls that allowed MNCs to foul the water and the air.
While Beijing is trying to reign in unbridled economic growth in order to reduce energy consumption and cut major pollutants, many local governments have set double-digit growth targets, much higher than the officially projected target of 7.5 percent for the next five years. But pursuing single-minded economic growth is proving to be costly. Much of the country's recent swell in protests and social unrest has been provoked by water and land pollution. "The paradise that China is proving for foreign companies can't last forever," warned Ma Jun. "We are dumping the pollution into our own backyard and people are suffering."
by Cindy Tumiel, San Antonio Express-News
November 21, 2006
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA112106.01B.agent_orange.2f7ff5b.html
Dioxin, the toxin contained in the Vietnam-era herbicide Agent Orange, appears to limit the growth of the prostate gland, potentially suppressing male hormones and causing infertility and decreased bone and muscle mass, a long-term study of Air Force Vietnam War veterans finds. The conclusions are the latest from the Air Force Health Study, which was directed by San Antonio and Dallas-area scientists and began in 1982. The study tracks the health of almost 1,000 veterans who were involved in spraying the defoliant and compares them with 1,300 other Air Force Vietnam personnel who did not directly have contact with the chemical. More than 50 research papers have been published since the study began. The latest findings appear in this month's issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
The military sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange from 1962 to 1971 to kill vegetation that could conceal enemy troops. In the latest study, scientists analyzed the dioxin levels in blood samples drawn in 1987, said Dr. Amit Gupta, a urologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, the lead author. In their analysis, scientists found that soldiers who had higher levels of dioxin in their blood had a lower incidence of benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH, an abnormal enlargement of the prostate gland. But even men in the comparison group that did not handle Agent Orange directly had lower rates of BPH, Gupta said. This should not be interpreted as a positive finding, he cautioned. "BPH is thought to be the disease, and anything decreasing it can be thought of as a positive thing. "But dioxins are very toxic chemicals. If you look at the larger picture, what they actually are doing is inhibiting the growth of the prostate so it is affecting the reproductive system, and that is not a good thing."
The study also found a correlation between higher levels of dioxin exposure and lower levels of testosterone, the male sex hormone that contributes to bone and muscle mass and sexual functions. The study could not show, though, that Agent Orange directly caused any of these conditions in the veterans, but it did establish that dioxin exposure does influence male reproductive hormones, said Gupta and Joel Michalek, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center who was principal investigator of the overall study.
The Air Force study officially ended in September. Scientists now are trying to get permission from the veterans involved so they can continue to analyze blood and tissue samples collected during the years the study was funded. More research is important if scientists are to understand the full impact of dioxin, said Michalek, who was at Brooks AFB, now Brooks City-Base, during most of the years of the study. "There are many health conditions that are suspected to be related to exposure to Agent Orange," he said. "Many of those had to do with endocrine disruption, having to do with hormones ... reproduction, including testicular and prostate cancer."
by Joanna Bale, London Times
November 20, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2461748,00.html
Parents and teachers are forcing some schools to dismantle wireless computer networks amid fears that they could damage children's health. More schools are putting transmitters in classrooms to give pupils wireless access from laptops to the school computer network and the internet. But many parents and some scientists fear that low levels of microwave radiation emitted by the transmitters could be harmful, causing loss of concentration, headaches, fatigue, memory and behavioural problems and possibly cancer in the long term. Scientific evidence is inconclusive, but some researchers think that children are vulnerable because of their thinner skulls and developing nervous systems.
At the Prebendal School, a prestigious preparatory in Chichester, West Sussex, a group of parents lobbied the headteacher, Tim Cannell, to remove the wireless network last month. Mr Cannell told The Times: "We listened to the parents' views and they were obviously very concerned. We also did a lot of research. The authorities say it's safe, but there have been no long-term studies to prove this. We had been having problems with the reliability of it anyway, so we decided to exchange it for a conventional cabled system."
Vivienne Baron, who is bringing up Sebastian, her ten-year-old grandson, said: "I did not want Sebastian exposed to a wireless computer network at school. No real evidence has been produced to prove that this new technology is safe in the long term. Until it is, I think we should take a precautionary approach and use cabled systems." At Ysgol Pantycelyn, a comprehensive in Carmarthenshire, parents aired their concerns to the governors, who agreed to switch off its wireless network. Hywel Pugh, the head teacher, told The Times: "The county council and central government told us that wireless networks are perfectly safe, but as there were concerns we listened to them and decided that the concerns of the parents were of greater importance than our need to have a wireless network."
Judith Davies, who has a daughter at the school, said: "Many people campaign against mobile phone masts near schools, but there is a great deal of ignorance about wireless computer networks. Yet they are like having a phone mast in the classroom and the transmitters are placed very close to the children." Stowe School, the Buckinghamshire public school, also removed part of its wireless network after a teacher became ill. Michael Bevington, a classics teacher for 28 years at the school, said that he had such a violent reaction to the network that he was too ill to teach. "I felt a steadily widening range of unpleasant effects whenever I was in the classroom," he said. "First came a thick headache, then pains throughout the body, sudden flushes, pressure behind the eyes, sudden skin pains and burning sensations, along with bouts of nausea. Over the weekend, away from the classroom, I felt completely normal."
Anthony Wallersteiner, the head teacher of Stowe School, said that he was planning to put cabled networks in all new classrooms and boarding houses. Professor Sir William Stewart, chairman of the Health Protection Agency, said that evidence of potentially harmful effects of microwave radiation had become more persuasive over the past five years. His report said that while there was a lack of hard information of damage to health, the approach should be precautionary. A DfES spokesman said: "It's up to individual schools to decide on this."
by Arlene Blum, Op-Ed Contributor, New York Times
November 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/opinion/19blum.html?_r=1&oref=slogin#
THIRTY years ago, as a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, I published papers in Science magazine calling for the ban of brominated and chlorinated Tris, two flame retardants used in children's sleepwear. Both forms of Tris caused mutations in DNA, and leached from pajamas into children's bodies. In 1977, when brominated Tris was found to be a potent carcinogen, the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned Tris from children's sleepwear. So I was astonished to learn recently that the same chlorinated Tris that I helped eliminate from children's pajamas is being used today in the foam inside furniture sold in California to meet standards there for fire retardancy, and that the state is considering similar standards for pillows, comforters and mattress pads. The federal safety commission, following California's lead, is working to set a national standard for fire-retardant furniture.
Unfortunately, the most effective and inexpensive way for manufacturers to meet such standards is to treat bedding and furniture with brominated and chlorinated hydrocarbons like Tris. Though the chemical industry insists that they are safe, when tested in animals most chemicals in this family have been found to cause health problems like cancer, sterility, thyroid disorders, endocrine disruption, developmental impairment or birth defects, even at very low doses. Many of these chemicals are long-lived and accumulate, especially in people and other animals high on the food chain. For example, PCBs, chlorinated chemicals that were also used as flame retardants, were banned in 1977, but very high concentrations can still be found in many creatures, including dead killer whales washed ashore in British Columbia.
According to the polyurethane-foam industry, if the new federal standard for furniture were similar to the California standard, using current technology, then an estimated 17 million pounds of fire-retardant chemicals, mostly brominated and chlorinated hydrocarbons, would be used annually. (A more rigorous standard also being considered by the safety commission would require up to 70 million pounds of chemicals a year, the industry says. Some of that could eventually end up in people and the environment.) To complicate matters, consumers wouldn't know whether the sofa they're curled up on had been treated with Tris or its cousins. The United States does not require labeling on furniture contents.
All this is not to say that furniture fires don't pose a danger. According to a recent report from the commission, 560 Americans died in house fires that started in upholstered furniture in 2003. But by contrast, cancer killed more than 500,000.
What makes the potential increased use of chlorinated and brominated fire retardants all the more troubling is that it comes at a time when the risk of furniture fires is receding. Most fatal furniture fires are caused by cigarettes, which typically smolder for half an hour after being put down. The good news is that after decades of opposition from the cigarette industry, cigarettes that extinguish themselves within minutes are now mandatory in New York State and laws have been passed requiring them in five other states. They are likely to become universal in the United States in the near future, thereby greatly reducing the risk of furniture fires -- and the need for chemical treatments.
So why are we still using these potentially dangerous chemicals? In the United States, chemicals are innocent until proven guilty: we wait until someone has been harmed by exposure to chemicals before regulating them. This is not an effective strategy, since most cancers occur 20 to 40 years after exposure, and are usually caused by multiple agents. Consequently, it's very difficult to link human cancer to specific chemicals or consumer products. And there's another problem: In the United States, the manufacturers of consumer products are not required to disclose the results of toxicity tests to regulators or the public before selling their products.
In marked contrast, the European Union is adopting a "better safe than sorry" philosophy through regulations known as the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals. Manufacturers must demonstrate that their products are safe for people and the environment to introduce them and keep them on the market. This standard provides a strong incentive for finding new alternatives to potentially dangerous brominated and chlorinated chemicals. An innovative Swedish company, for example, is developing a nontoxic fire retardant, Molecular Heat Eater, derived from oranges and lemons, that prevents fires in plastics and fabrics.
Home fires are a defined danger in the present. Chemical fire retardants pose a more ambiguous risk that can last for decades. We need to consider the larger picture before passing regulations that would put chemical fire retardants inside our pillows and those of our children, who are even more vulnerable to carcinogens. These regulations would lead to the widespread use of fire retardants that could be ultimately much more hazardous to us and our environment than the fires they're intended to prevent.
Arlene Blum, the author of "Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life," is a biophysical chemist.
by Geoffrey Lean, London Independent
November 19, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1996334.ece
Ministers are sabotaging laws to control toxic chemicals despite fears that they are causing a "silent epidemic" of brain disorders in British children, a leaked document shows. The document reveals how, after pressure from the Bush administration, the Government has successfully led opposition to a Europe-wide measure that would make companies use safe chemicals when they work just as well as poisonous ones. It sets out a British proposal to emasculate the law that was accepted last year by all European Union governments.
The law is the first attempt to regulate more than 100,000 chemicals in use in Europe. There is little or no safety information on 85 per cent of the ones in common use: the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (Reach) directive aims to get companies to carry out safety tests on chemicals -- and to control the most dangerous ones.
This month, top Danish and American researchers warned that the chemicals could be behind "a silent epidemic" of brain disorders. In a report published by The Lancet they identified 202 chemicals known to poison the brain, saying they were likely to be "the tip of a very large iceberg". They pointed out that one in six British children suffers from some kind of development disability, including autism, attention deficit disorder, mental retardation and cerebral palsy. Last month, Dr Andreas Kortenkamp, head of the Centre of Toxicology at the University of London's School of Pharmacy, concluded that routine exposure to "gender-bender" chemicals, used in many everyday products, could be one of the causes of a big increase in breast cancer over the past three decades. In September, research by WWF-UK (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) found hazardous chemicals to be widespread in food on supermarket shelves.
Britain originally supported Reach, but after lobbying by the Bush administration -- which fears it will damage US exports -- it switched to denouncing it as "dangerously wrong". The European Parliament still wants a tough Bill, and Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative MEPs all support the compulsory use of safe chemicals rather than dangerous ones when they will do the job just as well. But Britain has persuaded Europe's governments to resist the measure. If no deal is reached, the entire directive is likely to be abandoned. Paul King, WWF-UK's director of campaigns, said last night: "The Government has made an appallingly short-sighted policy decision, which will be seen in the same light as the defence of the tobacco industry in the 1960s and 1970s."
by Jane Kay, San Francisco Chronicle
November 19, 2006
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/19/TOXICTOYS.TMP
Widely used chemicals with suspected links to cancer and developmental problems in humans are present in common baby products like the yellow rubber ducky, bath books and clear plastic bottles, a Chronicle analysis confirmed. The toxic chemicals, which are used to harden or soften plastics, can leach out each time a baby sucks on a favorite doll or gnaws on a cool teething ring, scientists say. Starting Dec. 1, a first-in-the-nation ban goes into effect in San Francisco, prohibiting the sale, distribution and manufacture of baby products containing any level of bisphenol A and certain levels of phthalates. The law, modeled on a European Union ban that started this year, reflects emerging concerns by environmental health scientists over the buildup of industrial chemicals in humans, particularly young children. Especially under scrutiny are chemicals that mimic estrogen, possibly disrupting the hormonal system and altering the normal workings of genes.
Yet the trouble is that no one knows for sure how many baby products contain the chemicals. Stores, many of which are still unaware of the pending ban, will be unable to decide what to take off the shelves because manufacturers aren't required to disclose what chemicals go into a product. For that reason, The Chronicle set out to test several common baby toys and found that most of them -- even ones labeled "safe, non-toxic" -- contained the chemicals.
Toymakers and companies affected by the ban have sued to block enforcement of the San Francisco law, saying their products have been used safely for decades. A January hearing is scheduled. If the courts uphold the measure, most companies say they'll comply with the ban even though they believe it's unnecessary. "The U.S. government has always felt that what's in the marketplace is perfectly safe for the consumer," said Jeff Holzman, CEO of New York-based Goldberger Doll Manufacturing Co., who found out from The Chronicle that his company's Fuzzy Fleece Doll would be banned under the San Francisco law. "Be that as it may, if there's a question, all the products that we make will be made without phthalates by 2007," he said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admits that its own guidelines -- called reference doses -- for safe human exposure to the chemicals are decades old and don't take into account the new research. The EPA is actively reassessing the health risks of three types of phthalates but is not reassessing bisphenol A, agency spokeswoman Suzanne Ackerman said. The Food and Drug Administration, which controls chemicals that may touch food, and Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is responsible for toy safety, haven't limited the chemicals in baby products for years. Representatives say they have no plans to impose new restrictions.
Chemical-makers say that's appropriate. "We believe at very low levels of exposure, there is no concern," said Marian Stanley, a spokeswoman for the four U.S. phthalate-makers. Low doses of bisphenol A are also not a health risk, said Steve Hentges, a spokesman for the five major U.S. companies that make that chemical. "In every case, the weight of evidence supports the conclusion that bisphenol A is not a risk to human health at the extremely low levels to which people might be exposed," he said.
Many scientists who study the materials disagree and point to hundreds of scientific studies they say show why bans such as San Francisco's are needed. It's not the first time San Francisco has led the way in instituting a chemical ban. A decade ago, its leaders voted to eliminate the most toxic pesticides from city property. That sort of action is needed to cut exposure to harmful chemicals, said Dr. Richard Jackson, a UC Berkeley professor who for a decade headed the Center for Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We don't want dry-cleaning solvents in our livers, lead in our brains or perchlorate in our thyroids. We certainly don't want endocrine disrupters in breast milk and umbilical cord blood. We need to be ratcheting down these levels in people by reducing the loading of these chemicals in the environment," Jackson said.
The Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety, a group based at the World Health Organization, recommended in September prevention of exposure to known hazards from chemicals already detected in some toys. "Protections for children from chemicals in toys are weak at best and dysfunctional at worst," said Joel Tickner, a professor of environmental health at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He has served as a consultant to the forum and on national panels that advise the U.S. government on chemicals in the environment. "Consumers would be astonished if they knew that federal laws regulating chemicals in children's toys all require balancing the benefits of protecting children with the costs to industry of implementing safer alternatives," he said.
The tests
It's often impossible for parents to tell if the teething ring or baby rattle they hand their children contains bisphenol A or phthalates. The Chronicle purchased 16 children's products and sent them to the STAT Analysis Corp. laboratory in Chicago, one of the few commercial labs that test for these chemicals. The city's ordinance bans the manufacture, distribution or sale of items intended for children younger than 3 if they contain any level of bisphenol A. Six different forms of phthalates are covered by the ban, which sets the maximum phthalate level at 0.1 percent of the chemical makeup of any part of the product. Three of those phthalates are banned only in items intended for kids younger than 3, but the law doesn't include age limits for products that contain three other phthalates -- DEHP, DBP and BBP.
Some items exceeded the city's phthalate limits:
These products were found to contain bisphenol A and would be banned in the city:
The method used by STAT to test for bisphenol A wasn't sensitive enough to detect the chemical in three polycarbonate clear plastic baby bottles made by Philips Avent, Gerber and Playtex and one clear plastic Gerber cup. Experts from the American Plastics Council, however, say that polycarbonate plastic can't be made without bisphenol A. Those items would be banned under the San Francisco law.
The lab didn't detect the chemicals in three other products chosen by The Chronicle:
Most companies whose items were found to contain phthalates or bisphenol A learned about the pending San Francisco ban through interviews with The Chronicle. Among them was Walgreen Co., which has since begun to examine ways to comply with the ban. Officials at the company's Illinois headquarters said the chain is asking its vendors to identify products that do not comply with the San Francisco law. Representatives for Prestige Brands in Irvington, N.Y., said the company would remove the teether with phthalates from San Francisco shelves and is working on finding an alternative. After Random House officials learned of the test results on their baby bath books, they made plans to conduct their own tests. The company pledged to stop shipping books to San Francisco if it finds the products would violate the pending ban. When notified of the chemicals in its products, Hasbro spokesman Gary Serby responded in an e-mail: "Hasbro does not agree with the science behind the ordinance, but will comply as of Dec. 1." Nidia Tatalovich, a Disney representative, said all of the company's products meet state and federal compliance guidelines. She said that her company would examine the San Francisco law. Shannon Jenest, spokeswoman for Philips Avent, which makes polycarbonate baby bottles, said, "We're working through the details right now. We're very concerned with those standards and will make sure that we adhere to those guidelines." Munchkin, the company whose teething ring contained bisphenol A, didn't respond to repeated queries.
In the past three weeks, groups representing the chemical manufacturers, toymakers, retailers and San Francisco's toy stores, Citikids and Ambassador Toys, filed two separate lawsuits, arguing that the city doesn't have the authority to pass such a ban. Some of the same trade groups -- the California Retailers Association, the California Grocers Association, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association and the American Chemistry Council -- successfully fought a bill this year in the state Legislature that would have enacted a ban similar to San Francisco's. The city agreed to delay enforcement of its ordinance until a Jan. 8 hearing at which the companies will seek a preliminary injunction. A hearing date hasn't been set for the second lawsuit, which was filed Thursday. Yet even without an injunction, there are no penalties for companies that violate the ban. City leaders said they wanted to make sure all companies knew about the ban before issuing fines or taking other actions.
The San Francisco ordinance is certain to cause concern among parents who may not have been aware of the European ban or studies on chemicals commonly found in child products. Mary Brune, a technical writer from Alameda, said she first started paying attention to the issue when she was nursing her baby last year and read about chemicals in breast milk. With two friends, she founded Making Our Milk Safe, or MOMS. She scans Web sites to find toys made without plastics and tells friends about baby bottles made from glass, polyethylene, propylene and other materials considered safe. She stores food in glass. Last month she passed out leaflets near Albany's Target store, urging company officials to remove polyvinyl chloride (PVC) toys from their shelves. "It's impossible to keep plastic toys out of children's mouth. They chew on things," Brune said. "So we as parents rely on the manufacturers of products to ensure their safety. If consumers demand safer products and businesses demand safer products from their suppliers, we'll be able to get these toxic products off our shelves."
The health effects
Scientists simply don't know how low or high levels of phthalates or bisphenol A will cause health problems in babies if they suck on a bottle or handle a doll containing those substances. Studies on the chemicals are largely conducted with high-dose and low-dose experiments on animals, which over time help scientists determine the level of chemicals that may pose unacceptable risks. Those sorts of strictly controlled animal experiments are what first showed that the pesticide chlordane could cause cancer and that industrial pollutants like dioxin could cause birth defects. Such studies were also cited when California named one phthalate a carcinogen in 1988 and two others as reproductive toxicants in 2005.
There is a dearth of long-term, epidemiological studies on children exposed to phthalates and bisphenol A. So scientists from groups like the American Chemistry Council say the fact that the chemicals are found in human bodies doesn't necessarily mean they cause health problems. Yet scientists who study phthalates and bisphenol A say there is enough evidence to implicate some forms of the chemicals now. New evidence about how bisphenol A affects lab animals and how it can leach out of items such as plastic bottles came out of 1999 research by Koji Arizono at Japan's Kumamoto University. Arizono found that a used polycarbonate baby bottle can leach out bisphenol A at daily levels that damaged the brain and reproductive systems in lab animals. If a 9-pound baby drinks about a quart of liquid from the bottle a day, it can ingest 4 micrograms of bisphenol A. "We're showing that amount is in the zone of danger, based on the animal studies," said University of Missouri researcher Frederick vom Saal, who said that the doses that have hurt lab animals were very close to what a baby would get from a baby bottle.
Vom Saal found that 148 published bisphenol A studies, all financed by government bodies, reported significant health effects, including altering the function of organs and reproductive systems in male and female animals. That compares with 27 studies that found no evidence of harm. Thirteen of those studies were financed by chemical corporations.
Last year, researchers at the Tufts University School of Medicine exposed pregnant lab rodents to levels of bisphenol A 2,000 times lower than the EPA's 18-year-old safety guideline, which the agency admits is outdated. That old guideline suggests it would be safe, for example, for a 9-pound baby to swallow about 200 milligrams (or 200,000 micrograms) of the chemical a day. But rodents given just a very small fraction of that amount showed changes in mammary glands. In humans, such changes are associated with a higher risk of breast cancer. Other researchers showed that exposure of newborn rats to bisphenol A causes early stages of prostate cancer.
Testifying before the state Legislature this year on the failed bill, one of the EPA's top phthalate researchers, Earl Gray, said studies on pregnant rodents found in their male offspring such effects as disrupted testosterone production and low sperm counts, malformation of sexual organs, and disruption of the endocrine system. There's no reason to believe that the same effects wouldn't be the same in humans as well, Gray said. And last year, for the first time, scientists showed that pregnant women who had higher concentrations of some phthalates in their urine were more likely to later give birth to sons with genitals that showed changes similar to those seen in exposed rodents.
It appeared that human infants, like rodents, were less completely masculinized. Some of the changes, including incompletely descended testes, were similar to those included in the "phthalate syndrome" seen in lab rodents that received high doses of phthalates, University of Rochester researchers found. Later in the lab animals' lives, those genital changes were associated with lower sperm count, decreased fertility and, in some, testicular tumors.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which works closely with industry, has developed a voluntary agreement to eliminate the phthalate DEHP in some baby products. In 1983, the commission determined that substantial exposure to DEHP could put children at risk of cancer. The agency didn't issue a regulation, but instead reached an agreement with the Toy Industry Association to keep DEHP out of pacifiers, rattles and teethers. The agreement leaves unregulated all other toys that babies put in their mouths.
When advised that Chronicle tests found that all the polyvinyl chloride toys contained DEHP, including a teether, Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the commission, promised that his agency would look into it. Nevertheless, Wolfson said his agency believes that consumer products that contain low levels of phthalates are not a danger to children. His agency doesn't conduct its own tests on toys but follows up when other organizations share test results, he said. "We have a saying: 'The dose makes the poison.' We are not seeing a high dose of phthalates coming out of a product and into the body of a child."
by John Heilprin, Associated Press, Forbes Magazine
November 17, 2006
http://www.forbes.com/business/healthcare/feeds/ap/2006/11/17/ap3186847.html
Air quality regulators in at least 22 states have concluded that the Bush administration's approach to cutting mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants is too weak and are pursuing tougher measures of their own. Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that accumulates in fish and poses the greatest risk of nerve and brain damage to pregnant women, women of childbearing age and young children. Emissions of mercury total about 48 tons a year, most of it in the form of air pollution that winds up in waterways.
The trend of states bucking the Bush administration became apparent Friday, the deadline for states to submit their plans for reducing toxic mercury emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency. States' responses were tallied by the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. "At least 22 states have gone beyond EPA's rule in three ways," said Bill Becker, the association's executive director. "They have either adopted more stringent regulations, accelerated compliance deadlines or restricted interstate trading of mercury. Some have done more than one of those." States most frequently chose to require cuts of up to 90 percent in mercury pollution, speed up federal requirements by about three to five years or reject the administration's decision to let companies turn to the marketplace to buy and sell rights to emit mercury. Becker estimated that the tougher state rules would generally add about $1 a month to the average household's utility bills.
The rest of the states are roughly split among those accepting EPA's regulations as sufficient and those that are still trying to figure out what they plan to do, according to Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade association that favors the EPA approach. "Clearly, some individual utilities will be able to exceed this level of reduction or may be able to reduce emissions more quickly," Riedinger said. But he also said many companies will be hard pressed to meet even the federal requirements because the new technologies are still being tested and manufacturers are reluctant to guarantee they'll work.
The EPA adopted new regulations in March 2005 that the agency said could force mercury reductions of 70 percent by 2018 from coal-fired power plants, the source of 40 percent of the nation's mercury pollution. The agency set a nationwide cap on mercury pollution, and put a ceiling on allowable pollution for each state starting in 2010. That would allow companies to choose between installing new technologies to trap mercury particles in exhaust vents or paying other companies to instead reduce their pollution. EPA estimated that with the trading mechanism, mercury pollution from power plants could be cut in half by 2020 at an eventual cost of $750 million a year to utilities and users of electricity. Deeper cuts would take a few more years, the agency said.
Idaho, Rhode Island and Vermont are excluded from any regulations because they have no coal-burning power plants. Becker said many states informed his group they viewed the trading system as "extremely problematic" because it would create so-called hot spots of pollution in waterways. "By allowing a utility in Ohio to trade with one in Florida, for example, it may improve mercury levels in one of those states," he said, "but it will continue to exacerbate the levels in the other state."
The states' responses also reflect the fast-changing nature of a carbon injection technology for trapping mercury in power plant exhaust systems. Once considered effective only for coal mined in the East, the technology is now also working better with lower-sulfur coals mined in the West, Becker said. The 22 states listed as having tougher mercury-cutting plans than the federal government are: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
by Lidia Wasowicz, UPI
November 17, 2006
http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDaily/view.php?StoryID=20061117-042323-1237r
SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -- While many consider the case against vaccines and autism closed, there is some movement afoot among public-health agencies and policymakers who are shifting away from an automatic dismissal of environmental factors. They say they also are paying more attention to parental feedback. At the heart of the debate is a mercury preservative called thimerosal that was used in several childhood vaccinations through the early part of this decade -- and remains in some flu and booster shots. Critics are also concerned about the possible impact of certain vaccines, such as the measles-mumps-rubella shot, and the cumulative load of immunizations in young children.
"(T)he preponderance of evidence consistently does not reveal an association between thimerosal and autism," Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said at a news briefing on vaccines and health in February. "But I can't sit here today and tell you with 100 percent certainty that there is absolutely never going to be any association of thimerosal and autism in one or more children," she added. "When you're dealing with a problem as complicated as this one and as important to so many children and so many families across the United States, we have a responsibility to be open to any and all hypotheses."
Among studies exploring thimerosal's effects, a six-year survey launched in September 2001 by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is following 2,000 children between ages 2 and 5. The aim is to determine how genes, environment and their interplay fit into the mix that gives rise to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. In addition, in a Feb. 22, 2006, letter signed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and seven fellow members of Congress contending the CDC has not adequately explored the issue, the agency was asked to conduct a new investigation into a potential vaccine-autism link.
On a federal Web site, government officials assure of their open-mindedness. "CDC continues to support research related to autism, including studies designed to examine the possible causal association between autism and other possible environmental causes, including thimerosal-containing vaccines," states an open letter signed by Dr. Stephen Cochi, acting director of the agency's National Immunization Program. That's all many of the critics are after -- to keep the door ajar to all possibilities until the real causes can stand out and be counted. "It is critical that there be an investment of time and money to find out whether the use of multiple vaccines in early childhood is doing more than just eliminating or controlling infectious disease," said consumer advocate Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center. "We must find out if preventing all infection in early life with the use of multiple vaccines is setting up a significant number of children for the development of chronic disease," she said. "What is at stake is nothing less than the biological integrity of the human race."
Many specialists, however, think the vaccine question has gotten more than its scientific due and that the time has come to take advice included in an Institute of Medicine report and move on to "the most promising areas." "Would it not make more sense to invest in studying and implementing treatments like behavior therapy that might have a big chance of helping children rather than in an elusive pursuit of an environmental suspect against which there's very little scientific evidence?" said Dr. Daniel Geschwind, professor of neurology and psychiatry and director of the Neurogenetics Program at the Center for Autism Research and Treatment at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, and author of "Microarrays for the Neurosciences" (MIT Press, 2002). "Would it not be more productive to focus more attention on regressive autism and possible environmental causes other than vaccines, which already have been cleared by substantial amounts of scientific testing?" he added. "The focus on vaccines may be taking researchers' attention away from other environmental factors that might in fact prove to be involved in the disorder."
New research avenues are being paved with the advent of novel disciplines like molecular genetics and biological measures of stress, a 10-year review of autism-related literature pointed out. Cutting-edge strategies and razor-sharp instruments are starting to clear multiple paths toward autism's core, the authors noted. In a departure from past protocols, the present-day undertakings increasingly find parents casting off their traditional role as spectators to play a dramatically different part. Moms and dads typically found waiting in the wings are taking center stage, producing the impetus for a push for progress and providing direction for future research. "This is an area that really takes a village -- this is not going to be done by one sector, not going to be done by one laboratory or one part of the service community," said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "I've often said, and I continue to believe this, that parents in this case are some of the best experts, and we've learned a tremendous amount from them about what needs to be done and what can be done better, and it certainly involves the advocacy community, which has become in this case a very important partner in the future research effort and the current way of setting research priorities." As that collaborative effort gets under way, the only certainty is that all the parties have their work cut out for them.
by Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times
November 17, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-livestock17nov17,1,4917883.story
Growing so large that they are now called factory farms, livestock feedlots are poorly regulated, pose health and ecological dangers and are responsible for deteriorating quality of life in America's and Europe's farm regions, according to a series of scientific studies published this week. Feedlots are contaminating water supplies with pathogens and chemicals, and polluting the air with foul-smelling compounds that can cause respiratory problems, but the health of their neighbors goes largely unmonitored, the reports concluded. The international teams of environmental scientists also warned that the livestock operations were contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant germs, and that the proximity of poultry to hogs could hasten the spread of avian flu to humans.
Feedlots are operations in which hundreds -- often thousands -- of cattle, hogs or poultry are confined, often in very close quarters. About 15,500 medium to large livestock feedlots operate in the United States in what is an approximately $80-billion-a-year industry. Although the reports focused largely on Iowa and North Carolina hog and poultry operations, California has more than 2,000 facilities with at least 300 livestock animals each, half of them with more than 1,000, according to a 2002 estimate by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Dairies, most of them in the San Joaquin Valley, dominate the industry in California.
Led by Peter Thorne, director of the University of Iowa's Environmental Health Sciences Research Center, the researchers outlined the need for more stringent regulations and surveillance of water and air near feedlots. "There was general agreement among all [the scientists] that the industrialization of livestock production over the past three decades has not been accompanied by commensurate modernization of regulations to protect the health of the public or natural, public-trust resources, particularly in the U.S.," wrote Thorne, a professor of toxicology and environmental engineering. The findings were from a consensus of experts from the United States, Canada and northern Europe who convened in Iowa two years ago for a workshop funded by the federal government to address environmental and health issues related to large livestock operations. Six reports, written by three dozen scientists mostly from the American Midwest and Scandinavia, were published this week in the online version of the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Among their recommendations are limits on the population density of animals and mandatory extensive environmental reviews for new feedlots. They also recommended a ban on the use of antibiotics to promote animal growth, and that the drugs be available to farmers only through prescriptions. In a new area of concern, the scientists said they were worried about the danger of a flu pandemic spread by feedlots with both hogs and poultry, and recommended new regulations to set minimum distances between the two.
Farm industry representatives said they were not familiar with the new reports and could not address specific findings or recommendations. But they said that many environmental improvements had already been made, and that some experts at universities had said the health risks were minor. "The livestock industry has been under very intense scrutiny over the past 10 years, and as a result, has gone to great lengths and very high expense to try to improve their environmental record, across the board," said Don Parrish, the American Farm Bureau Federation's senior director of regulatory relations. We've definitely improved our game over the past 10 years," Parrish said, and most livestock owners "are being very sensitive to their neighbors and doing the best job they can."
Many of the risks come from the sheer volume of manure. Livestock excrete 13 times more waste than humans -- 133 million tons per year in the United States -- and some individual feedlots produce as much waste as entire cities. The American Farm Bureau Federation maintains that almost every state regulates the amount of manure applied to the land to protect water supplies. But the new reports criticized the current techniques. "Generally accepted livestock waste management practices do not adequately or effectively protect water resources from contamination with excessive nutrients, microbial pathogens and pharmaceuticals present in the waste," the scientists reported.
The number of large livestock operations has surged in the last two decades, and farms with more than 500 hogs now account for three-quarters of the U.S. inventory. In Iowa, the average number of hogs per farm increased from 250 to 1,430 between 1980 and 2000. California has more than 2,000 dairies, mostly in Tulare and Merced counties, and many have thousands of cows each. But the health risks to the dairy workers and their neighbors have gone unstudied, said Frank Mitloehner, director of the UC Davis Agricultural Air Emissions Center, who was not involved in the new reports.
UC Davis is launching a five-year study, led by Mitloehner, at dairies in Tulare and Merced counties, to examine the threat from air pollutants. Among the air pollutants from feedlots are ammonia; fine particles of manure, feed, soil and bacteria that can lodge in lungs; and endotoxin, which can inflame respiratory tissues and trigger asthma, bronchitis and allergies. "There is potential for health effects, but in order to find out the intensity of them, we need to conduct these studies," Mitloehner said.
One of the new reports says a serious impact of feedlots "is their disruption of quality of life for neighboring residents," mostly in low-income and nonwhite communities. "More than an unpleasant odor, the smell can have dramatic consequences for rural communities whose lives are rooted in enjoying the outdoors," says the report, compiled by researchers in Iowa, Illinois and North Carolina. "The highly cherished values of freedom and independence associated with life oriented toward the outdoors gives way to feelings of violation and infringement.... Homes become a barrier against the outdoors that must be escaped."
In water supplies, the biggest problems are nitrates and fecal bacteria, although experts have also recently discovered animal antibiotics and other drugs in waterways. The scientists recommended that private wells, which largely are unregulated, be monitored carefully near the factory farms. The EPA was sued in 1989 by an environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, for failing to regulate feedlots under the Clean Water Act. Fewer than 40% have permits for discharging pollutants because of EPA exemptions and lax federal and state enforcement, according to a 2003 report by what was then the General Accounting Office. In June, the Bush administration proposed new regulations that would require feedlots to develop plans for controlling manure and obtain Clean Water Act permits.
by Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times
November 17, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pesticides17nov17,1,177248.story
More pesticide was used on California farms last year than in previous years, but growers reduced their reliance on many of the most toxic compounds, according to state data released Wednesday. State Department of Pesticide Regulation Director Mary-Ann Warmerdam said the increased use of less-toxic compounds "shows that we are moving in the right direction."
In recent years, California growers have lost some of their chemical arsenal because of newly adopted state and federal rules. As a result, many have sought alternatives. Many insecticides, herbicides and other pest-killing chemicals have been linked to cancer, neurological damage, birth defects or other reproductive effects. The greatest risk is for farmworkers, but some chemicals drift off fields, exposing neighbors.
Most commercial pesticides are applied in the San Joaquin Valley, the nation's leading agricultural area, led by Fresno, Kern and Tulare counties. Ventura County -- which has more than 1 million acres of strawberry fields, lemon groves and other crops -- ranks eighth in pesticide use. For California's top dozen crops, which account for more than 80% of the pesticides used, 11.7 pounds were applied per acre in 2005, compared with 10 pounds the year before, according to the pesticide agency's data. A total of 194 million pounds of all pesticides, an increase of 14 million from 2004, were used last year -- on average, 5 pounds for every resident of the state.
But use of many soil fumigants, carbamates and organophosphates -- considered the riskiest pesticides for farmworkers and neighbors -- declined. Volumes of reproductive toxins dropped 8.8% last year, while carcinogens dipped slightly, by 2.6%. At the same time, use of compounds classified as "reduced risk" increased 60%, reaching about 630,000 pounds. "It's not the pounds per se, it's pounds of what, and in most cases, there was increased use of less-toxic chemicals, and decreased use of chemicals such as fumigants," said Glenn Brank, spokesman for the pesticide department.
Nevertheless, environmentalists are concerned that some dangerous chemicals are increasing and state restrictions are coming too slowly. Susan Kegley, senior scientist of the San Francisco-based Pesticide Action Network of North America, said she gives California growers and the state pesticide department a C grade for progress made in 2005. While the growth in less-toxic pesticides is "an important move into the future," she said some "very toxic, very drift-prone chemicals" are used in California in large, increasing volumes.
Environmentalists are most concerned about fumigants, which are gases injected into the field before planting to sterilize the soil and destroy insects, weeds and diseases. Total fumigants dropped slightly in volumes and acres treated last year, as they have for several years. But one -- manufactured by Dow Chemical Co. and named Telone, or 1,3-dichloropropene -- is increasing "at a fairly alarming rate" and has been for 10 years, Kegley said. More than 9 million pounds were used in California in 2005, much of it on almonds, grapes, strawberries and carrots.
"Growers are not making progress toward using less-toxic alternatives for soil pests, and that's a problem that needs to be addressed," Kegley said. Strawberry growers have been gradually weaning themselves off methyl bromide, a fumigant that is a potent neurotoxin and has been phased out under an international treaty because it depletes the ozone layer. But many have switched to Telone, which has been linked to various cancers in animals and leukemia and lymphoma in highly exposed humans. It was banned statewide in 1990 because of high concentrations in Merced County air, then returned to use with new restrictions in 1995, after Dow conducted research on lowering air emissions.
Brank said California growers are "trying their best" to use the least toxic materials, but they are still struggling to find viable alternatives for fumigants. "We saw that growers are switching from one to another, and that's why we are taking some additional steps against fumigants," he said. "We're not standing still on fumigants, not anywhere close to that." California is about to impose the nation's most stringent fumigant restrictions. The department's proposal, expected to be unveiled before the end of the year, will probably focus on reducing pounds of fumigants used per acre by requiring larger buffer zones around fields, use of better tarps and lower application rates per acre. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also is in the process of reviewing all fumigants as a step toward possible national restrictions.
Of the extra 14 million pounds of pesticides used in the state last year, much of it was sulfur, a natural fungicide applied as a dust on vineyards and orchards. Because of a wet spring in 2005, growers of wine and table grapes and almonds needed more sulfur to kill mold and mildew. Used by organic as well as traditional growers, sulfur is California's most abundant pesticide, accounting for one-third of all tons in the state.
Growers of other major crops -- including strawberries, rice and tomatoes -- reduced their total tons of pesticides last year. Ventura County's preliminary numbers showed that pesticide use dropped to 6.35 million pounds last year from 7.28 million in 2004.
by Sandy Bauers, Philadelphia Inquirer
November 17, 2006
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/16032467.htm
Mercury from coal-fired power plants -- currently responsible for the bulk of all mercury emitted in Pennsylvania -- is expected to fall by 90 percent over the next nine years under a plan approved yesterday by a state regulatory board. The plan, vigorously debated for two years and heavily opposed by power plants and mining companies, trumps a weaker federal rule. Pennsylvania would join Illinois as the first major coal-producing states to move beyond the federal limits and make them tougher -- if measures to do so in both states become final. "This is a landmark victory for environmental protection and public health in Pennsylvania," Gov. Rendell said in a statement. "We cannot accept that our state is laden with more toxic mercury pollution than nearly anywhere else in the nation and do nothing about it."
While the Republican-controlled state legislature has 14 days to stop the rule approved by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, observers say that's unlikely. John Hanger, president of the environmental group Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, which initiated the drive for the rule, praised yesterday's decision but also called for "vigilance." "The Republican Party -- particularly from the southeast -- has a lot to gain or lose on this matter," he said. "I don't think the Republican Party wants to be identified as the party of mercury pollution." Hanger said the rule proved "the birth of a new Pennsylvania that understands a clean environment is essential for not only public health but also a vibrant economy."
However, Douglas L. Biden, president of the Electric Power Generation Association, reiterated that the rule was "not in the best interests of Pennsylvania." Power-plant owners have warned that complying with a tougher rule would drive up electric bills, force some coal-fired power plants out of business, and send power plant jobs out of the state. The state has 36 plants and is second only to Texas in mercury emissions. Pennsylvania emits 5 tons of mercury each year, 80 percent of it from power plants. "If they start shutting power plants down, there's going to be a political price to pay," Biden said. He said the issue "was never about whether to reduce mercury emissions but how to do it."
A key part of the rule prohibits plants that emit more mercury than permitted from purchasing "credits" from cleaner plants, as the federal rules allow. Biden said the combination of annual federal caps and the state's refusal to allow credits will actually require emission reductions of up to 98 percent. "There's no technology that enables us to get to those levels," he said.
Mercury, which becomes airborne in the coal-burning process, is a neurotoxin that can remain in the environment for centuries. Once it falls into waterways, it becomes the more toxic methylmercury, which accumulates in fish and other wildlife. It poses the greatest danger to the developing fetus and young children, causing brain and nervous-system damage. Adults are at risk for heart and immune-system damage. Many streams and rivers in Pennsylvania have advisories warning anglers against eating their catch because of mercury pollution.
The rule passed yesterday by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission calls for an 80 percent reduction in mercury emissions by 2010 and a 90 percent reduction by 2015. The move for the more stringent state legislation began in 2004, when Hanger's group filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board on behalf of 10 public-health, sporting, women's rights, and environmental and conservation organizations. Eventually, nearly 70 organizations, including the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association, the Pennsylvania Parent Teachers Association, the Learning Disabilities Association, and the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, supported the effort.
The Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs added its voice. "It seems like hunters and anglers are usually the first ones to see the results of any type of environmental changes," said the group's executive director, Melody Zullinger. During a public-comment period, the Environmental Quality Board received 10,934 responses, a record for rulemaking in Pennsylvania. Fewer than three dozen opposed the rule. Joseph Minott, executive director of the Clean Air Council, said Pennsylvania had been struggling with "what the role of coal should be. We're very protective in Pennsylvania of our coal, of our coal jobs. Somehow, there was a feeling that this was going to hurt Pennsylvania coal." He thinks it does exactly the opposite. "It shows Pennsylvania is willing to make the hard decisions to protect public health, and that may give new opportunities for coal."
by Marcela Valente, Inter Press Service*
November 17, 2006
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35511
BUENOS AIRES (Tierramérica) -- Cultivation of genetically modified soybeans is expanding in Argentina, and with it, the use of herbicides. The "Paren de fumigar" (Stop the Fumigation) campaign warns against agro-chemical spraying in urban areas, as activists collect information about its impacts in order to denounce it. Behind the initiative are the Rural Reflection Group (GRR), the Nature Protection Centre and neighbourhood organisations.
Jorge Rulli, with GRR, told Tierramérica that so far this year the campaign -- which began in January and covers all rural areas -- collected more than 60 complaints. He explained that "it is no accident" that most of them come from the provinces of Córdoba (central Argentina) and Santa Fe (central-east), which along with Buenos Aires province make up the country's epicentre of soybean cultivation -- and the associated use of the herbicide glyphosate. "We want to put together a map showing that (the intensive use of agro-toxins) is a systemic model of rural development that will produce a health catastrophe," Rulli said.
In the last 15 years, genetically modified (GM) soybean farming has extended its zone of influence, and today is Argentina's leading crop, as well as the country's principal export. The latest harvest of 15.5 million hectares consumed 160 million liters of glyphosate -- six times more than a decade ago. The serious problem, according to the groups' complaint, is that this chemical, which kills all plants except for the transgenic crop itself, is sprayed within metres of people's homes.
Historically, forests, dairy farms and pastures surrounded the towns, and mitigated the impact of chemical spraying of fields. But now those protective barriers have disappeared. "We have soybeans to the north, south and east," said Sofia Gatica, who lives in the Ituzaingó Anexo neighbourhood on the outskirts of Córdoba, capital of the province of the same name. Home to 5,000 people, Ituzaingó Anexo is the limit between city and countryside. "I cross the street and that's where the soybeans begin. And of course if they plant it, they also spray it," Gatica said in a conversation with Tierramérica.
According to Argentina's 2005 Law on Agro-Toxins, the limit for spraying pesticides and herbicides is 1,500 metres from populated areas. In 2002, the neighbourhood was declared a health emergency area after a study by the provincial ministry of health found higher incidences of leukemia, lupus, skin hemorrhages and genetic malformations. Another report, presented in March, studied 30 children between the ages of seven and 14 in the neighbourhood. It found the presence of five agro-toxins in their blood, 25 with higher levels than considered safe by the health authorities. Following this investigation, conducted by epidemiologist Edgardo Schneider at the request of the Mothers of Ituzaingó group, the city government "concluded that the neighbourhood had to be evacuated," said Gatica. But the residents remain there, alongside the soybeans, as the crop dusters continue to fly overhead, spraying the fields.
The law also created a registry of those who apply the chemicals, and requires they receive training in chemical management. But the residents say there are excesses and dishonesty in the handling and application of herbicides. Also in circulation are trucks and tractors that empty and clean their tanks at sites in towns, and they drip the chemicals along the way. Furthermore, some municipalities use glyphosate to combat weeds growing between the cracks in the pavement.
Some local governments have passed regulations to stop crop spraying near town limits, but residents complain that there aren't enough controls to ensure that farmers obey the rules and that the authorities regularly give in to pressure from the farmers. The GRR has received complaints from other urbanised areas of Córdoba, including Montecristo, Mendiolaza, Río Cuarto and San Francisco, and from towns in Santa Fe province, such as San Lorenzo, San Justo, Las Petacas, Piamonte, Alcorta and Máximo Paz. And, most recently, from Buenos Aires province.
A study financed by the Ministry of Health, conducted in five towns in southern Santa Fe province, produced some alarming data. According to the Centre for Biodiversity Research, the National University of Rosario, the National Institute of Agricultural Technology and the Italian Hospital of Rosario, there is a "very significant incidence" of cancer and malformation in the area studied. The research, presented in January, showed that in the Santa Fe towns of Alcorta, Bigand, Carreras, Máximo Paz and Santa Teresa there are 10 times more cases of liver cancer than the national average, double the number of pancreatic and lung cancer, and three times more gastric and testicular cancer. Also recorded were numerous cases of hypospadia (the urethra exits the penis at a point before the tip) and cryptorchism (undescended testicles) -- both are birth defects associated with the use of agrochemicals.
Ninety percent of the pathologies are linked to fixed sources of contamination or environmental risk factors, says the report, which confirms that some of those sources, in the rural areas studied, surpass the averages. Today there are 200 people in the neighbourhood who have cancer, according to Mothers of Ituzaingó, who conducted a door-to-door survey, and brought the issue before the Supreme Court of Justice. They are awaiting a decision.
(*Originally published Nov. 11 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)
from BBC News
November 16, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6153814.stm
A team of experts has drawn up five "grand challenges" in order to evaluate the safety of nanotechnology. The field's potential could be compromised unless the scientific community can implement a programme of systematic risk research, it warns. Writing in Nature journal, the team says that fears about nanotechnology's possible dangers may be exaggerated, but not necessarily unfounded.
The five challenges are designed to be completed over the next 15 years. "The threat of possible harm -- whether real or imagined -- is threatening to slow the development of nanotechnology unless sound, independent and authoritative information is developed on what the risks are and how to avoid them," author Andrew Maynard and his colleagues write in Nature. The five grand challenges include developing instruments to evaluate exposure to engineered nanomaterials in air and water and developing methods for assessing their toxicity. The group of experts says that if the global research community can take advantage of the safety infrastructure already in place for biotechnology and computing, then nanotechnology has a rosy future.
But Dr Maynard, from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC, and colleagues say that the way science is carried out means it is ill-equipped to address novel risks from emerging technologies. Research into understanding and preventing risk often has a low priority in the world of technology development, research funding and intellectual property, they say. "Without strategic and targeted risk research, people producing and using nanomaterials could develop unanticipated illness arising from their exposure," the authors warn in Nature. "Public confidence in nanotechnologies could be reduced through real or perceived dangers and fears of litigation may make nanotechnologies less attractive to investors and the insurance industry."
Safety studies
Recent studies on nanoparticles in cell cultures and animals show that a variety of factors influence their potential to cause harm. These include their size, surface area, surface chemistry and ability to dissolve in water. This should come as no surprise. Inhaled dust has been known to cause disease for many years. Small particles of inhaled quartz can lead to lung damage, with the potential for progressive lung disease. But the same particles with a thin coating of clay are less harmful. Long, thin fibres of asbestos can also lead to lung disease if inhaled, but grinding the fibres down to shorter particles reduces their harmfulness.
In May, the UK's Royal Society called on industry to disclose how it tests products containing nanoparticles. A joint report by the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering two years ago said there was no need to ban nanoparticle production. But it said tighter UK and European regulation over some aspects of nanotechnology -- manipulation of molecules -- was needed to ensure its long-term safety.
Nanotech's five challenges
by Kirstin Cole, CBS News
November 16, 2006
http://wcbstv.com/seenon/local_story_319205326.html
NEW YORK Every morning we lather, slather, spritz and smear ourselves with everything from shampoo to self-tanners to makeup and more. "Woman use an average of about 12 products a day," said Jane Houlihan, Vice President of Research for non-profit Environmental Working Group. But have you ever stopped to think what's in all these products? "One-hundred sixty-seven different chemicals, that we are putting on our skin, lips, hair," Houlihan said.
Chemicals, some health experts warn, may turn even the most innocent looking soaps and moisturizers into toxic cocktails that could cause cancer or reproductive damage over years of prolonged use. "If you just put them in a lab dish with cells, they are incredibly toxic," said Houlihan, who recently rated about 15,000 personal care products. What did she find? More and more manufacturers are now using potentially hazardous materials, called nano-particles. "The concern is that these particles are so small, we can be exposed to large amounts of them, they may absorb through the skin, we may inhale them," Houlihan said.
Added patient Ellen Wedels: "I experienced itching, inflammation, there were even pustules surrounding my eyes." Wedels is one of many patients Dr. Ellen Marmur, Chief of Dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said she sees with serious reactions to cosmetics and creams that should not be shrugged off. "Irritation can lead to an inflammatory background or environment on your skin that can directly lead to skin cancer," Marmur said. Wedels learned an expensive lesson after using a full-of-promises $125 eye cream. The reaction forced her to wear sunglasses for a week to hide her sore eyes. "Often expensive products have all kinds of extra ingredients that can be even more irritating," Marmur said.
Ingredients, like phthalates, that can keep your mascara from running, stop your nail polish from chipping and help your fragrance linger just a little longer. But, doctors also said these chemicals all carry a hefty price, since they may be contributing to reproductive and developmental disorders in children. Dr. Maida Galvez is currently studying exposure levels to phthalates in a group of 6-to-8-year-old New York City girls. "The question is whether or not these low-level exposures for long periods of time have long-term health effects and we are just beginning to scratch the surface," Galvez said. Animal studies find organ and reproductive damage, primarily in male offspring.
So why the lack of human studies? Current law allows cosmetic companies to be self-regulating, so the FDA cannot require product safety studies. The group representing the cosmetic industry said, "scientists review the latest ... research, including nanotech research, before bringing a product to market. The general scientific consensus is that they pose no risk to human health." Still, until more human research is done, the best advice from doctors is to keep your cosmetics and daily beauty routine very simple.
by Christine Dell'Amore, UPI
November 15, 2006
http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDaily/view.php?StoryID=20061115-045638-3118r
WASHINGTON -- Scientists have known lead can damage the nervous systems, particularly of children, for decades. But they are still figuring out how children growing in the mother's womb are affected by the toxic metal, and when that exposure is most acute. A recent study by Harvard's Dr. Howard Hu has made a major step in that direction, showing that lead might be most "exquisitely sensitive" to the nervous system during the first trimester of pregnancy. The impact of lead exposure ebbs and flows during various stages of gestation.
Hu, a professor in the school of public health, and colleagues focused on a group of 146 pregnant women in Mexico City between 1997 and 1999, who were exposed to lead through their diet, air pollution and lead gasoline. Lead in gasoline was phased out in Mexico City in 1997. The team measured the amount of lead in umbilical cord blood at delivery and when the children were 12 and 24 months of age. The results showed lead exposure during the first trimester were predictors of poor mental development index, or MDI, scores. Likewise, lead exposure in the blood plasma during the first trimester had a more damaging influence to the developing child than second or third trimester lead. Previous research has shown children with lead in their blood fall behind intellectually, which often causes them to drop out of school or become a delinquent.
The study was published in the Environmental Health Perspectives journal. "The bottom line is that lead is the most studied toxicant of all environmental health, and we still know so little," Hu said. Lead interferes with the normal firing of neurons in the body, chipping away at the architecture of the nervous system in its earliest stages. Lead also travels directly to the pathways in the front of the brain that dictate executive control, the ability to learn and organize.
Their study also reinforced prior research that accumulated lead in a mother's bones leaches during pregnancy, delivering another source of the destructive metal to the fetus. A mother's bones dissolve during pregnancy as the demand for calcium increases. Hu and his team have just completed a randomized trial to see if pregnant mothers who take calcium supplements at bedtime can reduce the lead transfer from the mother to fetus. "All I can say is it looks like there's some benefit, and stay tuned," he said. However, there were some limitations to the research. The sample size was small, and it's possible results from the pregnant women in the study can't be generalized to other populations. More research will need to be done to confirm the results.
Hu's research should be considered by the United States when making recommendations on lead exposures for pregnant women, he said. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of experts is currently examining the issue, he said. Lead has many effects across the spectrum of child health, both in behavior and physical ability, said Dr. Helen Binns, a professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine at Northwestern University and Children's Memorial Hospital. But Hu's research "points to the need of a preventive approach" in dealing with lead in women of childbearing age, Binns said. Since lead builds up in the bones over time, waiting until pregnancy to be informed is too late.
The most pressing agenda should be removing lead from older homes, where it was allowed for household use until 1978. In homes built before 1940, the chances of lead paint hazards is 68 percent, Binns said -- yet many parents don't realize it. More troubling, children with elevated lead levels don't show any physical symptoms that would suggest exposure to the metal. "It's still a hidden issue," she said. There need to be ways to convey lead risks when a house is sold, rented or renovated, apart from a basic pamphlet about lead. To that end, more research could focus on how to develop strategies to make lead an "open topic," Binns said.
Hu agrees more efforts need to made to give "all of our kids equal opportunities" to be healthy and productive adults. "It's disconcerting to think about how little we know about the other artificial and manmade things we expose our children to in utero and later in life," Hu said.
The U.S. government's allowance of lead in blood has plummeted over time, from 60 micrograms per deciliter -- a metric measure of lead -- to 10 micrograms today. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency phased out lead in gasoline in the 1980s. In 1978, around 4.7 million children had blood lead levels at or greater than 10 micrograms per deciliter due to this change -- by 1999 to 2000, this number dropped to about 430,000, according to the EPA.
"Over the past 45 years, there has been a real change and evolution in our understanding of lead," Deborah Cory-Slechta, a toxicologist at the U.S. Environmental Occupational Health Sciences Institute in New Jersey, said at an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in St. Louis in February. "But it's not as rosy as one would like to see." For instance, imported products continue to be a source of lead; some candies from abroad have lead in their wrappers. The metal is still unfortunately "ubiquitous" in modern society, according to Binns. "I see this as a health concern that touches the most vulnerable proportion of the population, and it's addressable," she said.
by Rebecca Renner, Environmental Science & Technology
November 15, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/nov/science/rr_milk.html
Cow's milk in Japan contains more perchlorate than U.S. milk, even though Japan lacks an extensive military-industrial base, according to new research published today on ES&T's Research ASAP website. The study could put an end to the notion that widespread low-level perchlorate contamination comes mainly from military sources. Analytical chemist Purnendu "Sandy" Dasgupta, formerly at Texas Tech University and now at the University of Texas, Arlington, and his colleagues in Japan obtained 54 samples of mostly whole milk from 48 different locations throughout Japan. The perchlorate concentrations averaged 9.39 parts per billion (ppb) and ranged from 5.47 to 16.40 ppb. A 2004 U.S. Food and Drug Administration study reported concentrations of 1.9-11.3 ppb in U.S. milk, with an average of 5.74 ppb.
The results confirm that perchlorate is ubiquitous, says Dasgupta. "Many countries may have greater perchlorate contamination than the U.S., regardless of the fact they did not have a great deal of military-industrial use," he adds. In the U.S., the historic use of Chilean nitrate fertilizer probably accounts for more low-level perchlorate contamination than military industrial sources do, according to a recent Dasgupta paper. The authors suggest that natural sources and perchlorate produced for fireworks may be responsible for the higher levels in Japan. Relative to the U.S., more naturally formed perchlorate likely rains down on Japan. The country gets more rainfall than the U.S., and perchlorate forms more readily in coastal areas where sea-salt aerosols can react with lightning or ozone. At the same time, perchlorate usage in Japan is greater in comparison to its size (more perchlorate per hectare).
But some researchers question the paper's significance. "We already know that perchlorate is nearly everywhere. It is not clear where it all is coming from, and this paper doesn't answer that question," says one thyroid scientist. The authors should have measured perchlorate in multiple foods and drinks, and they should have measured iodine in all the milk samples, the scientist adds. "With Japan's excellent iodine nutrition, it is unlikely to see the association between perchlorate exposure and perturbation of thyroid hormones observed in the U.S.," Dasgupta says, noting that international health organizations consider Japan to have an excessive iodine intake. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported an association between elevated levels of perchlorate in urine and perturbed thyroid hormones in U.S. women with low levels of iodine nutrition. It would appear that for perchlorate there are still more questions than answers.
by Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times
November 15, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/highway1/la-hy-wheels15nov15,1,1340948.story
Sliding inside almost any new car and taking a deep breath has long been euphoric for new car buyers and owners, but increasingly prompts the question whether that smell is also signaling exposure to a toxic, and potentially carcinogenic, brew of gases. A wide range of environmental groups contend that new car interiors contain a mix of unhealthy substances that come from vinyl, flame retardants on seats, lubricants and hidden sealants that collectively make up the new car smell.
The Vinyl Institute, which represents manufacturers of PVC plastic used in a growing number of automotive components, says its plastic repeatedly has been proven safe not only for cars but medical devices and children's toys. In the latest development, a report made public today by the Ecology Center, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based group, finds that Toyota, Ford and Honda are making key strides in improving the quality of air inside their new cars, though the majority of the industry has done little. Daimler Chrysler ranked in the middle and Volkswagen at the bottom. The rankings were based on 19 factors involved in plastics and synthetics that affect cabin air quality. "PVC is the worst plastic," said Claudette Jusca, author of the report and a former automotive engineer. "With every part of its lifecycle it is causing problems, from the people in manufacturing to the consumers to the general public when it reaches the end of its useful life."
Whether you like or hate vinyl interiors really doesn't matter, because automakers depend on the petroleum-based product for about half of the materials inside the cabin. Its usage is increasing, despite a crusade against vinyl by the environmental lobby. Polyvinyl chloride, the miracle product invented in the 1920s, can be rigid in the form of water supply pipes, flexible in the form of shower curtains or even tacky in the form of clothing sold on the Hollywood strip.
PVC is not listed as an environmental or health hazard, though it is manufactured with toxic materials such as vinyl chloride. One potential problem for consumers involves phthalate (pronounced thall-late), a petroleum-based chemical that is used as a plasticizer to make PVC flexible. As PVC ages, the plasticizers form gases that escape from the plastic. Outgassing causes oily fogs on interior car windows that are a headache to clean up and ultimately restrict visibility. Although all PVC undergoes some outgassing of plasticizers, it is more pronounced in a car. On hot sunny days, a PVC dashboard can reach 200 degrees. Ultraviolet rays also accelerate PVC aging and outgassing.
But outgassed phthalate is not a human health risk and environmental groups are wrongly maligning PVC, said Allen Blakey, a spokesman at the Vinyl Institute. "We have seen no evidence that the public has lost its appreciation for PVC, though some sectors of the industry are under attack," he said. Blakey said PVC use in medical tubing and blood bags has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has also reviewed the use of PVCs in toys and found nothing of concern, he said.
But environmental groups say there is plenty of evidence that phthalates cause health problems and that PVC should be banned. Medical research shows exposure to high levels of phthalate has caused development problems in the testes of rats. PVC also can contain lead, a toxic heavy metal, a factor that led the FDA to ask retailers earlier this year to stop selling lead-contaminated PVC school lunch boxes.
Marian Stanley, who manages the phthalate ester panel of the American Chemistry Council, said the crusade against PVC is badly misplaced. The rat studies so often cited by environmental groups are contradicted by primate research, showing no health consequences to high levels of phthalate exposure.
The Center for Health Environment and Justice, a New York-based group, has branded PVC "the poison plastic," and called for its elimination, noting that the widespread incineration of PVC at the end of product lives causes the production of cancer-causing dioxins. Wal-Mart has pledged to stop using PVC packaging in its store brands, and Microsoft has pledged to stop using PVC wrapping materials.
Apart from phthalates, other materials in vehicle interiors raise serious concerns. An Australian study of cabin air several years ago found a brew of 30 to 40 volatile organic compounds were present in a sample of new cars. The most prevalent were toluene, acetone, xylene, styrene and benzene, some of which are suspected or known to cause cancer. The Ecology Center's report, which can be accessed today at http://www.ecocenter.org , noted that Toyota, Ford and Honda have adopted policies to limit or reduce the amounts of PVC used in its vehicles. It also ranked manufacturers on other factors, including a commitment to improve cabin air quality.
The group, funded by the John Merck Fund and the New York Community Trust, is the only environmental organization to focus on cabin air quality in cars, Jusca said. "We work with industry whenever we can," she said. "We do our best to encourage them and congratulate them when they do the right thing." Earlier this year, the center published research that showed swabs of dust and windshield deposits taken in new cars were high in phthalates. After publishing the report, the group was besieged by motorists who reported they had experienced nausea and headaches from the fumes in their new cars.
If you are sensitive to new car fumes, you might consider a few common sense steps:
by Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
November 14, 2006
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/1500AP_Climate_Health.html
NAIROBI, Kenya -- A warmer world already seems to be producing a sicker world, health experts reported Tuesday, citing surges in Kenya, China and Europe of such diseases as malaria, heart ailments and dengue fever. "Climate affects some of the most important diseases afflicting the world," said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum of the World Health Organization. "The impacts may already be significant." Kristie L. Ebi, an American public health consultant for the agency, warned "climate change could overwhelm public health services."
The specialists laid out recent findings as the two-week U.N. climate conference entered its final four days, grappling with technical issues concerning operation of the Kyoto Protocol, and trying to set a course for future controls on global greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists attribute at least some of the past century's 1-degree rise in global temperatures to the accumulation in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, byproducts of power plants, automobiles and other fossil fuel-burning sources.
The Kyoto accord requires 35 industrial nations -- not including the United States, which rejects the pact -- to reduce such emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. President Bush says such emissions cuts would harm the U.S. economy and complains that poorer countries also should be covered. In Nairobi, the Kyoto parties are discussing what quotas and timetables should follow 2012 and how to draw the United States into a plan for mandatory emissions caps.
Britain's environment secretary, David Miliband, an early arrival for high-level talks here, said participation of the United States, the world's biggest emitter, was "essential. I can't think of a greater legacy for the last two years of the Bush presidency than to work on a bipartisan basis with Democrats as well as Republicans" for a deal to cut emissions, Miliband said.
Besides disrupting normal climate zones, continued temperature rises will "increase threats to human health, particularly in lower income populations, predominantly within tropical-subtropical countries," a U.N. network of climate scientists has projected. Those problems are arising in parts of the world that have contributed little to global warming, Campbell-Lendrum noted. "It's a global issue and a global justice issue," one that demands action by the industrial north to alleviate the disease burden on the south, the WHO scientist said.
In Kenya, where temperature increases have tracked the global average, malaria epidemics have occurred in highland areas where cooler weather historically has kept down populations of disease-bearing mosquitoes, said Solomon M. Nzioka, a Kenyan Health Ministry consultant. Research shows that even a seemingly small rise in temperatures can produce a 10-fold increase in the mosquito population, he said. "Highland malaria seems to be on the increase in the rainy season and when temperatures are high," Nzioka said.
The WHO's Dr. Bettina Menne said malaria, which two decades ago was present in only three southeastern European countries, has spread north to Russia and a half-dozen other nearby countries. Russian news media reported in September that larvae of the anopheles mosquito, the malaria carrier, had been found in Moscow. Menne cited a threat from other mosquito-borne diseases as well. "There's an increased risk of local outbreaks, especially in the Mediterranean, of dengue and West Nile virus," she said.
China is trying to track excess deaths from rising average temperatures, said Jin Yinlong of China's Institute for Environmental Health. Authorities are particularly concerned about surging mortality from strokes and heart disease under warming conditions, he said. Global warming has been linked to more prolonged heat waves. A study of three Chinese cities found annual excess deaths totaled between 173 and 685 per million residents, Jin said. Projected over the huge Chinese population of 1.3 billion, this could amount to as many as 890,000 deaths nationwide per year.
by Jeff Montgomery, Wilmington [Delaware] News Journal
November 14, 2006
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061114/NEWS/611140353
With crude oil prices near record highs and the global thirst for gasoline growing, some refineries along the Delaware River and across the nation are accepting more partially refined, bottom-of-the-barrel oil. The trend means the dregs of oil processed elsewhere are arriving at the Delaware City refinery from different spots around the world -- from Cameroon to Trinidad. And fewer barrels of regular, high-sulfur crude are arriving from Saudi Arabia's vast fields.
The oil industry argues that the use of cheap "residual" leftovers benefits consumers. Processing the oil has helped generate record profits for the refinery's owner, Valero. But environmentalists worry that the practice might cause dirtier emissions, which will jeopardize some reductions in pollution at the Delaware City refinery and elsewhere. "It is curious. It's like you're taking everyone's slag," said Eric Schaeffer, a former Environmental Protection Agency attorney who once led federal efforts to tighten pollution controls in Delaware.
The Delaware City refinery is approved to handle about 190,000 barrels of crude oil daily, and produces about 70 percent of the gasoline used on the Delmarva Peninsula, along with most of the propane used by the region's multi-billion dollar poultry industry. Refineries have been in the spotlight in recent years as demand for refined oil worldwide, especially in China, has driven up prices of crude oil and gasoline. The price of crude -- used in everything from plastics to home heating fuel -- closed at $58.55 per barrel Monday, but it has hit the $70-a-barrel mark in recent months. And gasoline remains above $2 a gallon in most of the United States.
The Delaware City Refinery has long been known for processing thicker, dirtier sources of oil. But in recent years, its reliance on second-hand petroleum has skyrocketed. Delaware ranks third in the nation for residual imports, trailing Louisiana and Texas. Department of Energy records show that Delaware received more than 3.9 million barrels of partially refined oil this year through August, nearly 10 percent of the total delivered to the state. Just four years ago, it received none. Valero officials in Houston, Texas, could not be reached Monday. But the company's 2005 annual report acknowledged its steady hunger for petroleum dregs -- saying the trend at one plant had turned "garbage into gold." During a briefing for investors on Valero's record third-quarter profit of $1.6 billion last month, company chief Bill Klesse described the system as running "noticeably more" residual oil. The company earned $4.3 billion in the first nine months of the year.
Ravi Rangan, an environmental engineer for Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said that Valero's pollution control systems limit air pollution emission rates regardless of what goes into the plant. And state and federal mandates have steadily cleaned up the Delaware plant's smokestacks in recent years, ending its status as one of the nation's top refinery polluters. But Alan Muller, who directs the environmental group Green Delaware, said changing the refinery's supply could undo some of the gains. "There's a danger that some of the benefits that we're supposed to be getting may be in fact whittled away," Muller said.
Attorney Schaeffer and environmental consultant Alexander J. Sagady both said dirtier crudes could carry more toxic metals such as mercury and vanadium, and other compounds. Sagady added that the changing mix fed into the refinery could create higher stakes when things go wrong, assuring that higher levels of sulfur dioxide and hazardous hydrogen sulfide escape. "It's the very worst from the refining process," said Denny Larson, who directs the Refinery Reform Campaign. "That's where you'll find heavy metals and many of the toxic chemicals."
by Douglas Fischer, Oakland Tribune
November 14, 2006
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_4657812
OAKLAND -- The freight industry places a "staggering burden" on Californians, particularly low-income minorities, as it hauls in billions of dollars in profit distributing goods arriving at the state's major ports, according to a report released Tuesday by a coalition of community and environmental groups. Some 40 percent of the nation's containerized cargo travels via ports in Oakland, Long Beach and Los Angeles. It arrives on oil-burning ships, gets unloaded by soot-belching cranes, reloaded onto diesel-powered trucks and trains and then rumbles through some of the state's poorest neighborhoods and communities.
And it makes money -- lots of it for the companies involved. Ditching Dirty Diesel, a collaborative of 15 environmental, community, activist and labor organizations issuing the report, estimated the freight industry generated $231 billion in revenues from their California operations in 2005. But industry doesn't pay for the soot, smog, asthma and shortened life spans in the poor neighborhoods around California's freight hubs bearing the brunt of that activity, according to Dirty Diesel's report on the "real cost" of freight transport in California. "Many companies benefit from being able to use the port," said Margaret Gordon, a collaboration member who lives a mile from the Port of Oakland. "We are the ones paying with our health."
Shipping companies and ports countered Tuesday they are working on reducing emissions. Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine Corp. is building a fleet of environmentally friendly cargo ships. Cpenhagen-based Maersk has voluntarily switched from dirty bunker oil to low-sulfur diesel, said Port of Oakland spokesman Harold Jones. APL Ltd., a subsidiary of Singapore-based Neptune Orient has retrofitted yard tractors in both Oakland and Los Angeles and eliminated 6,000 to 10,000 truck trips a week in Los Angeles by extending rail lines to the dock. "We absolutely understand community concerns about the environment," said APL spokesman Mike Zampa. "We've seen the industry and APL innovate and improve to better manage environmental impact."
But it's not enough, said Swati Prakash, program director at the Pacific Institute and a report co-author. The cost to significantly clean up industry -- 30 suggestions identified by regulators that range from buying out old diesel trucks to modernizing port equipment -- would be a fraction of the benefits derived from freight transport, the group said. Yet little progress is being made, they say. Transport companies using California's ports could pay that cost -- $6 to $10 billion over 15 years -- by kicking in one-third of a cent on each dollar earned. Wal-Mart alone could pay for it with less than a penny from every dollar of California-generated revenue, Prakash said.
Instead, citizens of hub cities like Richmond, West Oakland, San Leandro, Long Beach and Merced bear the cost of pollution. In California, 3,000 school children stay home from school any given day with a freight-related illness, usually asthma, according to the California Air Resources Board. Some 2,400 Californians will die prematurely this year because they lived too close to a freight hub. The 11 communities near hubs analyzed by Dirty Diesel have a median income of $31,829, two-thirds the California average. "This is a staggering burden." Prakash said. "Some of the biggest companies in the world are making billions at the expense of low-income communities in California. Those residents, she added, "cannot continue to subsidize industry with their health."
But getting industry to change isn't easy. The international shipping industry is a combination of national interests and private owners and wants an international standard, said Doug Webster, spokesman for the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo. It's a fiercely competitive industry where a few cents extras in fees could send millions of containers north to, say, Seattle. Which is why local or even state efforts to tack a few extra bucks onto the containers invariably fail, Webster added. "Everybody wants to add their $10, $15, $100," he said. "And there are powerful interests -- Sears, J.C. Penney, Wal-Mart -- that don't want to pay for that."
excerpt from the article by M. Nathaniel Mead, Environmental Health Perspectives
OAKLAND -- The freight industry places a "staggering burden" on Californians, particularly low-incom
November 2006
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2006/114-11/niehsnews.html#feed
Animal studies have long been a cornerstone of biomedical and environmental health research, and scientists need assurance that animals used in these studies are being cared for in ways that will not unknowingly influence experimental outcomes. But a growing number of scientists have voiced concern over the possibility that certain estrogenic compounds present in lab animal feed may skew test results. These compounds are deemed potentially problematic because they can bind to estrogen receptors and induce estrogen-like effects in animals, humans, and cells grown in culture. Some experts have advocated strict standardization of rodent chows and even the removal of dietary phytoestrogens.
This emergent controversy was the focus of "DIET II -- The Effect of Variability in Estrogenic Activity of Commercial Animal Feeds: Interaction with Manufacturers, NIH Officials, and Scientific Societies to Develop a Solution," a full-day meeting held 3 August 2006 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The meeting, the second in a series on the topic, was cosponsored by the NIEHS and the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS). Discussions at the meeting centered on the variation in estrogenic activity between feed batches, the effects of these estrogenic components on endocrine-related end points, and the difficulties inherent in comparing, interpreting, and reproducing these end points over time within and between different laboratories when background levels of diet-related estrogenic activity are not adequately documented. Findings presented at this meeting made it clear that researchers studying estrogen-related end points can not afford to overlook the influence of the test rodent's diet.
"This workshop is an excellent example of the cumulative and self-correcting nature of the scientific process," said ODS nutritionist Elizabeth Yetley, a conference co-organizer. "That is, through the accumulation of results from a body of experimental evidence, the importance of approaches for better-defined animal diets relative to their potential estrogenic activity have been identified, and measures to improve future research in this area are being undertaken by the scientific community."
Participants at the conference -- organized by NIEHS scientists Jerrold Heindel and Julius Thigpen, along with Yetley and University of Missouri-Columbia biologist Frederick vom Saal -- included investigators from the endocrine disruptor research community as well as representatives from animal feed companies. This spectrum of representatives reflected the fact that, in Heindel's words, "researchers and animal care divisions of research institutions are beginning to pay attention to the phytoestrogen issue, and feed manufacturers want to know what the scientific community wants."
Heindel described a sincere interest on the part of both sides to reach a "win-win" solution, one that would yield animal diets of a known estrogenicity that could be used by researchers in all fields of physiology and toxicology, but that also would not unduly burden the feed manufacturers.
To read the full article, please visit http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2006/114-11/niehsnews.html#feed
