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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.
April 19 - 20, 2006
10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.
New York, New York
at the United Nations Headquarters, Conference Room 2
The theme is "Living with Radiation in the Modern World Commemorating Chornobyl -- Remembering Hiroshima/Nagasaki."
Website: http://www.worldinfo.org/
Contact: WIT at 212-686-1996 or wit1986@aol.com
April 19 - 20, 2006
Seattle, Washington
CleanMed is a national conference for environmental leaders in health care. The agenda for 2006 includes preconference workshop on green building, design and operation of green buildings, environmentally preferable products for health care, reducing waste and toxicity, and healthy food in health care. The keynote speakers for CleanMed 2006 are leaders in defining emerging environmental problems and promoting safer alternatives. Tyrone B. Hayes, PhD, and Paul Hawken will be presenting.
Website: http://www.cleanmed.org/
by Tammy Webber, Indianapolis Star
April 10, 2006
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060410/NEWS01/604100400
Almost 1,600 Indiana streams and lakes are too polluted for fishing or swimming, according to a new report representing the most comprehensive attempt yet to assess the health of the state's waterways. Some are fouled with bacteria from sewer overflows, manure runoff and failing septic systems. Some cannot support aquatic life at all because too much sediment and fertilizer have washed into them. And others are contaminated with mercury and PCBs, prompting health officials to advise against eating too many fish caught in the waters.
Thirty percent, or more than 9,500 miles, of the state's 31,844 miles of streams are classified as too polluted for swimming, fishing or both because of pollutants such as bacteria, fertilizer, chemicals, mercury and sediment. Lakes fare better -- 93 of 1,504 are similarly classified. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management submitted the report March 31 to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Although the state's list of polluted waterways has more than tripled since 2002 -- the list is produced every two years -- Indiana's waters aren't necessarily getting dirtier. The state simply is doing a more thorough job of assessing them, as required by the federal Clean Water Act, said Jody Arthur, a senior environmental manager at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. But the sheer size of the list underscores the need to reduce pollution that largely has gone unregulated, including runoff from developments and farms, and pollution in even some of the smallest waterways, experts said. "People might argue, 'Who cares about bugs and fish in a ditch?' " Arthur said. "Sometimes there is a failure to recognize that this is all an interconnected system. Pollution gets transported."
Since the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972, Indiana's waterways have improved markedly. Waste from livestock packing plants and industry no longer is dumped directly into the water. Most municipal and industrial wastewater, including sewage, now is treated before being discharged. But Indiana has a long way to go to meet the goals of the federal law: making all waters fishable and swimmable, and eliminating pollution discharges.
The state environmental agency is working on a federal requirement to determine the amount of pollution that can be handled daily by the waterways. But there is no law that says the state or federal government must reduce excess pollution unless it's coming from industry -- and most of those sources already are controlled. That means municipalities, developers, farmers and homeowners must take the lead and work together, experts said.
Lenore Tedesco, director of the Center for Earth and Environmental Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, is working on a project to improve the 162-square-mile Eagle Creek watershed, where pollution runoff from farms is a major source of nitrates, found in fertilizers. But residential development, which easily can cause twice the fertilizer runoff of farms, soon will be the major nitrate source to Eagle Creek, she said. "It's going to take a huge shift in people's attitudes about our waterways," she said. "You can't use streams as a discharge point for everything and expect them not to be impaired."
The Eagle Creek Watershed Alliance recently received a $500,000 federal grant to work on a plan to improve the watershed, which includes parts of Boone, Hamilton, Hendricks and Marion counties. Veolia Water Indianapolis, operator of Indianapolis Water, will contribute another $180,000, Tedesco said. The company draws water from Eagle Creek Reservoir. Farmers will be asked to leave strips of vegetation along stream banks to slow runoff, and to fence cattle out of streams. Homeowners will be asked to use less fertilizer or buy nonphosphorus fertilizer. Planning and zoning boards will be encouraged to require developers to slow water runoff, including through swales along roadways, wetlands and retention systems. "Right now we do everything we can to accelerate the rate water gets to our streams, but we need to slow down water and hold it on the landscape," Tedesco said. "We need to change the way we think about our stream systems; they're not toilet bowls.
by Matt Pacenza, Albany Times Union
April 9, 2006
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=469390&category=REGION&newsdate=4/9/2006
More than two years after New York banned the gasoline additive MTBE, hundreds of public drinking wells across the state remain tainted with the toxic chemical. Worse, neither state nor local government has any reliable information about how many private wells are at risk, although 1.3 million New Yorkers get their water from private wells. Even though it's gone from gasoline, methyl tertiary butyl ether -- still unknown to many New Yorkers -- has quietly become the state's single largest water pollution problem and a public health threat expected to linger for years.
The bitter irony is clear: MTBE was put in our gasoline to make our air cleaner, but it is poisoning our water. A four-month investigation by the Times Union found that state authorities have frequently reacted slowly and have failed to protect the public from MTBE spills. Worst of all, many residents who live near leaking storage tanks, sources of most of the MTBE that enters the environment, say they were never told they might have a problem -- or urged to have their wells tested.
MTBE has been found at levels above the state safety limit in 46 public water supplies since 2004, when New York first required tests for the chemical, according to state computer records. At least 172 water supplies were found to have at least some MTBE. Untold numbers of private wells across the state have dangerous levels of MTBE. "MTBE is an issue from the end of Long Island to Buffalo," said Bill Cooke of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment. "All you have to do is look for it."
New York has been wrestling with the threat posed by MTBE for at least 15 years, ever since evidence grew that the gasoline additive moved swiftly into groundwater from sites like gas stations with underground storage tanks. Unlike other toxins found in gasoline, MTBE dissolves in water, doesn't cling to soil and persists for years underground -- properties that make it a potent threat to groundwater. The danger posed by the toxin could soon become much more worrisome: Federal officials have considered reclassifying MTBE as a "likely carcinogen," a move that would put it in the same category as potent poisons like DDT and benzene. The toxin is currently considered only a "potential carcinogen," based on research that showed mice and rats develop higher rates of certain cancers after ingesting it. Most experts say there has not been enough research about MTBE to determine how dangerous it is. One exception is Mobil's former worldwide director of environmental health, Myron Mehlman. "MTBE causes cancer," said Mehlman, a retired toxicologist. "Most regulatory bodies have totally miscalculated what the threat levels should be."
To read the rest of this seven-page article, please visit http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=469390&category=REGION&newsdate=4/9/2006.
by Rick Weiss, Washington Post
April 8, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040701725.html
RENO, Nev. -- To tour the gleaming offices of Altair Nanotechnologies Inc. is to see why the U.S. Commerce Department calls nanotech "the next industrial revolution" -- a revolution not of smelters and smokestacks but of precision-engineered carbon "buckyballs" one-ten-thousandth the size of the head of a pin and microscopic nanospheres that can pack the power of a car battery in a napkin-thin wafer. What could be more 21st-century? But pass through heavy doors into the heart of Altair's manufacturing area and the future looks a lot like the past. Men in grease-stained blue coats navigate catwalks atop hulking, two-story-tall spray-drying machines. Forklift drivers steer 55-gallon drums of chemicals from one area to another. Other workers attend to noisy milling operations, their face masks gathering a thin film of pale dust as they empty buckets of freshly made powders to be used in nanotech batteries and premium paints.
As the U.S. economy strides into the age of nanotechnology, thousands of workers like these are participants in a seat-of-the-pants occupational health experiment. No state or federal worker-protection rules address the specific risks of nanomaterials, even though many laboratory and animal studies have shown that nano-size particles -- those on the order of a millionth of a millimeter -- spur peculiar biological reactions and can be far more toxic than larger granules of the same chemicals.
Regulators say they need more data before setting standards. But of the $1.2 billion the government has proposed spending on its National Nanotechnology Initiative in 2007 -- a research funding program to help jump-start the promising sector -- only about two-tenths of 1 percent is earmarked to study workplace safety issues.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration does have a general "nuisance standard" for airborne particles, "but that standard is not going to be very useful for nanomaterials," said John M. Balbus, a physician and health program director for Environmental Defense, a watchdog group. Just three weeks in a workplace with that level of engineered nanospecks would be equivalent to the exposure that caused animals to choke to death in experiments in 2004, Balbus said.
Then again, government scientists admit, the science is so young that they do not even know what they should be focusing on: Is it the number of particles a person is exposed to that matters most? Is it their chemical composition or size? Or, as recent research suggests, is it the total surface area of each intricately etched nanoparticle -- a complex spatial dimension that instruments can barely measure? "We have very little data to make any kind of informed societal decisions about how to deal with nanomaterials in the workplace," said Paul Schulte, the director of education and information at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
That is why a swarm of NIOSH scientists recently spent the better part of a week at Altair with nearly a ton of equipment for measuring worker exposures to nanoparticles. Altair was not in trouble -- far from it. The inspection was at the invitation of the company's chief executive, Alan Gotcher. Unlike many of his corporate peers, who have kept their heads down amid a flurry of questions about what, exactly, they are making and how they are assuring worker safety, Gotcher thinks the industry should share what it knows about nanotech manufacturing methods and safety strategies. "We need to be responsible and we have to be proactive, and if we've got products that have problems, we've got to do something about it," Gotcher said. "On the flip side, we should not let fear of the unknown cause an overreaction."
Occupational settings have often served as bellwethers of toxic trouble. A spate of skin cancers in radiologists 100 years ago revealed the link between X-rays and cancer. "Mad hatters," who worked with mercury-exposed felt, demonstrated that metal's neurotoxic effects. And the link between asbestos and lung disease first came to light in workers handling the fibrous mineral.
Engineered nanomaterials, including geometric spheres smaller than viruses and hollow tubes just a few atoms in diameter, have just begun to be incorporated in a wide range of products, from sunscreens and clothing to aircraft parts. Early studies suggest many are likely to be innocuous. People are exposed to naturally occurring nanoparticles all the time, industry boosters note, including nanospecks of salt blowing in from the ocean. But with their complex, chemically reactive surfaces, engineered nanoparticles act differently than natural ones. That can be helpful, allowing them to ferry drug molecules to cells that need them or conduct electricity through materials that would otherwise be resistant. At the same time, animal studies show they can also clog airways, trigger intense immune-system reactions and toast living cells.
Time will tell how much of a health risk various nanomaterials pose. But experts agree that workers producing them face the greatest danger because they are exposed to the free-floating motes directly, before they have been integrated into finished products. And although only a fraction of the estimated 210,000 workers involved in nanomanufacturing are being exposed directly to free particles, the industry is growing fast, according to Lux Research in New York. By 2014, Lux predicts, the value of goods made with new nanotechnologies will be $2.6 trillion -- 200 times as much as in 2004. "We don't want to be sitting around 20 years from now saying, 'Gee, I wish we had looked into this,'" said Charles Geraci, a NIOSH branch chief who was part of the team visiting Altair.
For starters, that means figuring out how to measure worker exposures. A central goal of the NIOSH visit was to compare readouts from the agency's cumbersome and expensive instruments with those from cheaper, handheld devices, to see if the latter can suffice. "We want to know if you can do this without a $75,000 piece of equipment and 6 PhDs," said NIOSH scientist Mark Hoover. That is important, because most nanotech companies are small start-ups with limited resources, said David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "A lot of these companies are powder and metallurgy companies that used to make products at the micron [1,000-nanometer] scale and have found there's money to be made at the nano scale," he said.
That certainly describes Altair's earthy roots. Among other products, it makes nanoparticles of lithium and titanium dioxide from minerals dug from the ground. In his office, Gotcher held up a vial of brilliant white powder. "This is pigment-grade titanium dioxide, made from dirt," he said, noting that the "dirt" cost him $60 a ton and the powder goes for $2,000 a ton. The process of getting from dirt to riches involves creating droplets bearing microscopic amounts of the desired chemical and spraying them into the air in huge tanks; evaporating the droplets, which leaves behind tiny spherical crusts; shrinking them in kilns that reach nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit; and milling them to break free the naturally formed nanocrystals.
At Altair, it was not difficult to identify at least some of the major points of risky exposure. In some areas, workers pour powders from bin to bin, or lift lids off 55-gallon containers, releasing visible puffs of white dust into the air. "This is an area where we have some concern about exposure," said Gotcher, the CEO, with a mix of candor and discomfort. Coming to a kiln where powders get baked in an unenclosed area, Gotcher grimaced again. "I don't like this," he said, "but we're monitoring it and we'll see."
To quantify those and other less obvious exposures, the NIOSH team rolled in carts loaded with advanced air sampling machines the size of large desktop computers, which tally the number, size and in some cases surface areas of airborne particles as they get trapped on a series of increasingly fine-grained filters. Some employees were fitted with wearable devices that sampled the air directly in front of their faces. A variety of handheld and portable devices were also deployed. "We'll collect enough data here to keep us busy for a few months," Geraci said.
In line with NIOSH recommendations, Altair employees wear gloves and gas-mask-like respirators in dusty areas, but little is known about the reliability of those protections. Preliminary studies on latex gloves suggest outright holes, or pores, large enough to allow nanoparticles through may be rare. But definitive studies have yet to be funded. Similarly, a few studies have suggested that high-quality respirators can trap 95 percent of nanoparticles. But "whether 95 percent efficiency is good enough or not is still open to discussion," said Hung Min Chein of the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Chutung, Taiwan, who is studying the issue.
Nanoparticles pose other workplace risks. They can be hundreds of times more combustible than common, micron-size particles, raising the possibility of explosion. Some behave like little ball bearings and can cause slips and falls, prosaic events that already account for one in seven workplace deaths.
It is not too late to get nano workplace safety right, said Andrew Maynard of the Wilson Center. But the spending trends are discouraging, he warned. Government and private sources are expected to invest about $4 billion in nanotech this year. Less than 10 percent of that is focused on potential risks -- with most of that going to general toxicology and environmental impact studies. Only NIOSH is focused specifically on nanotech workplace issues -- a task it has had to accomplish with about $3 million a year it cobbles together from its general budget.
Worse than the funding crunch is the lack of overarching strategy, Maynard and others said. Research so far has produced a patchwork of results that largely reflect individual investigators' interests. Many experts want to see a national or even international plan that would rank the most pressing health and safety questions and allocate money to get them answered. E. Clayton Teague, director of the National Nanotechnology Coordinating Office, which advises the White House on nanotech policy, said last month that the government is close to completing a two-year multi-agency effort to define those priorities. By summer, he said, recommendations should be released to guide the nation's nanotech research for the next five years.
by Tom Pelton, Baltimore Sun
April 7, 2006
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-te.md.power07apr07,0,7247236.story
After fighting similar legislation for two years, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. signed a bill yesterday that will make Maryland one of a handful of states taking steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which most scientists believe cause global warming. The Healthy Air Act, passed by veto-proof margins in the Senate and House of Delegates, also would reduce mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen pollution from the state's six largest coal-fired power plants by requiring hundreds of millions of dollars in filtration equipment. The law will supersede air pollution regulations that Ehrlich proposed as a cheaper alternative that would have allowed a slower pace in reductions in mercury emissions and would not have dealt with global warming.
"Together with the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Act, today's announcement makes Maryland an undisputed national leader in air and water quality protection," Ehrlich said in a news release. An amendment attached by Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, a Southern Maryland Democrat with a power plant in his district, allows the state to waive penalties if the cost of pollution-control equipment rises and could lead to significant rate increases for electricity.
Sen. Paul G. Pinsky, a Prince George's County Democrat who sponsored the bill, said he was pleased that Ehrlich signed the legislation. Pinsky said he received a scare last Friday when Ehrlich's staff initially refused to accept the legislation, saying it came after the governor's office closed at 5 p.m. Pinsky said it was "sophomoric" for Ehrlich to attempt to take credit for the bill during a news conference yesterday while refusing to invite the sponsors to the bill-signing and having fought previously to kill the legislation. "It's clear the governor was dragged kicking and screaming to sign this bill, and I think he did it for political expediency," Pinsky said. "He realized what a veto of the Healthy Air Act would do for his re-election efforts."
In a written statement yesterday, Ehrlich praised the law, saying it will "cut air pollution by record levels." But in a news release issued March 10, Ehrlich warned lawmaker not to vote for the bill. "This bill will dramatically increase the costs of electricity for consumers, force at least one power plant to close, and potentially cause rolling blackouts across Maryland," the governor said. His administration worked closely with Constellation Energy Group, the state's largest owner of power plants, to defeat a similar proposal last year.
In March 2005, Ehrlich's deputy environmental secretary, Jonas Jacobson, a former Constellation Energy lobbyist, cheered, "Ain't the beer cold!" in an e-mail to colleagues at the Maryland Department of the Environment when their lobbying helped to kill the "Four Pollutants Bill." Constellation and the Atlanta-based Mirant Corp., which each own three of the six power plants affected by the bill, are expected to add a combined $1.4 billion in air pollution control equipment by 2015 to meet new requirements. About $1.1 billion of that is required under new federal air regulations released last year, said David Schoengold, an energy analyst who worked for the Wisconsin Public Service Commission from 1975 to 1990 and was hired by the National Wildlife Federation to analyze the Healthy Air Act.
Much of the money will be spent to add pollution-control devices called scrubbers. The technology has been available for three decades, but Maryland's plants haven't had to add them until now because the facilities were approved before the federal Clean Air Act was passed in 1970. All new coal-fired plants must have scrubbers. The Healthy Air Act will require slightly less than $355 million in pollution filtration systems, Schoengold said. That's about $15 million more than Ehrlich's proposed regulations would have mandated.
In an election year, Ehrlich jockeyed with the bill's sponsors for credit for attacking the state's chronic air quality problems. The Healthy Air Act would reduce mercury emissions from power plants by 80 percent by 2010, compared with 75 percent under the Ehrlich proposal. Both would cut nitrogen dioxide emissions by 69 percent by 2009 and sulfur dioxide emissions by about 78 percent by 2010. Under the Healthy Air Act, but not Ehrlich's proposal, Maryland must join a coalition of seven other Northeastern states, including New York and New Jersey, that require their power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent by 2018. Most scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere, melting glaciers and causing rising sea levels that increase storm damage along the Eastern Shore and other coastal areas.
Schoengold said it's unlikely that the pollution controls will lead to blackouts or electricity price increases in Maryland. The cost can't be passed on directly to consumers, he said, because under deregulation, Maryland's power plants must sell their electricity to distributors in competition with plants outside the state that don't have the same restrictions. Power company officials have disagreed, saying that such costs are always passed on to consumers.
State Del. James W. Hubbard, a Prince George's County Democrat, and a lead sponsor of the bill, said the public should not be fooled by a recent ad campaign by the coal industry that tries to link the new environmental laws to an expected spike in electric rates this summer. "That 72 percent rate hike is because of deregulation and has nothing to do with clean air laws," Hubbard said. "We will have cleaner air and fewer mercury advisories for fish in the Chesapeake Bay."
"This is an excellent bill," said Brad Heavner, executive director of the Maryland Public Interest Research Group. "I think it's great that Maryland elected officials have finally decided that its time to really do something about global warming."
by Rick Weiss, Washington Post
April 6, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502149.html
Government officials in Germany have reported what appears to be the first health-related recall of a nanotechnology product, raising a potential public perception problem for the rapidly growing but still poorly understood field of science. At least 77 people reported severe respiratory problems over a one-week period at the end of March -- including six who were hospitalized with pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs -- after using a "Magic Nano" bathroom cleansing product, according to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin. Symptoms generally cleared up within 18 hours, though some had persistent breathing problems for days.
The spray is meant to be used on glass and ceramic surfaces to make them dirt- and water-repellant. "The distributors have launched a recall and advised against using the sprays," according to a statement from the institute, which is conducting tests on the product.
Nanotechnology is an emerging field of materials science involving substances smaller than one-ten-thousandth the width of a human hair. The tiny specks have chemical properties that make them potentially useful in engineering and medicine. But some can clog airways or trigger immune responses. Studies of health effects have just begun in several countries, and regulatory agencies are still formulating their stances, but hundreds of nano products are already for sale.
It was unclear yesterday what kind of nanomaterial is in the spray, or even whether the particles were to blame. Every case has involved the aerosol spray-can form (the product was previously available in a pump bottle, without complications). And the propellant used in the aerosol has long been used uneventfully in hair sprays and other products.
David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said he has not seen the German product on the U.S. market. But a recently released survey of nano consumer products, compiled by his organization, lists other aerosolized nano products, including a foot spray. "This really raises a bunch of interesting questions, since the public has been told that nano will cure diseases, not cause them," Rejeski said. "I think this is an important event in the nano world."
Michael Holman, an analyst at Lux Research in New York, which tracks the industry, said the spray may even be one of many products that lack engineered nanoparticles but claim to be "nano" for high-tech appeal. Even so, he said, "this is certainly a cautionary tale from a public perception standpoint." "We've been encouraging companies and governments to be very careful and get their act together from a regulatory standpoint," he said, "to avoid the kind of problem that this potentially could be."
Alison Young, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
April 6, 2006
http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/news_44437aaa906db0c7003f.html
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rarely the subject of public controversy, is facing an emerging credibility crisis on the emotional issue of whether old-style vaccines containing a mercury preservative caused autism in thousands of children. The agency is being accused of cover-ups and scientific manipulations by vocal advocates of autism awareness. It also is facing questions from some high-profile members of Congress.
As the debate and controversy increasingly find their way into pediatricians' offices, average parents of healthy children are questioning whether vaccines are safe, sometimes even refusing inoculations. The CDC and other public health officials insist such questions lack a basis in fact or science. Their greatest concern is that the broadening debate holds the potential to put a new generation of children at certain risk of deadly diseases if confidence in the safety of vaccines is lost and they don't receive recommended shots. "I think it's huge," said Dr. Julia McMillan, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee that makes vaccine recommendations. "There's no pediatrician in practice that doesn't confront this on a weekly basis: families who are questioning the need for --- and in some cases refusing --- vaccines for their children."
But the academy and the CDC are in agreement. They say there is no evidence to support a connection between autism and the mercury-based preservative thimerosal, which they stress is no longer used in most pediatric vaccines. "We simply don't know what the cause of autism is," Dr. Robert Davis, the CDC's director of immunization safety, said Wednesday. Nonetheless, the CDC is at the center of criticism.
A full-page ad scheduled to run in today's editions of USA Today, the nation's largest circulation newspaper, accuses the CDC of "causing an epidemic of autism" by recommending that children receive a series of vaccines that until 2001 contained thimerosal. The ad, placed by various advocacy groups, quotes environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as saying: "It's time for the CDC to come clean with the American public."
But what stings public health advocates more is a letter sent Feb. 22 by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and seven other members of Congress. The bipartisan group asks that the CDC not take the lead on a new study examining the vaccine-autism issue. "If the federal government is going to have a study whose results will be broadly accepted, such a study cannot be led by the CDC," the group wrote Dr. David Schwartz, new director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health, will convene a panel in May to discuss how to analyze a key CDC database to determine whether autism rates have dropped since thimerosal was removed from vaccines. The letter was also signed by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y,) and Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.).
Agency officials said Wednesday they are proud of the CDC's work on thimerosal safety issues and that they have looked hard to find a link as well as to find any other cause of autism. "It was an unfortunate choice of language," Davis said of the Lieberman letter. "They and everyone else are certainly entitled to their opinion. We stand by all the research we have done."
Public health officials who work with the CDC are more blunt. "I think it's shocking," said Dr. Martin Myers, executive director of the National Network for Immunization Information and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas medical branch in Galveston. "The loss of public trust in one of the most extraordinary institutions in the world. I'm not quite sure how that has occurred, but it has, and that's one of the unfortunate consequences," Myers said.
The controversy, which erupted as a rally was scheduled on Capitol Hill today in conjunction with National Autism Month, is gaining political traction. It is moving well beyond an initial core of autism activists, the CDC amd public health and congressional officials all agree. There are many parents of autistic children who believe, as do most pediatricians and scientists, that there is no scientific evidence that thimerosal caused autism and other neurological disorders. That issue was settled for most in a widely publicized 2004 report by an expert panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. But the report has been the subject of controversy and intense scrutiny since it was published.
Parents of many autistic children insist that thimerosal caused the disorder, because it appeared around the time their children received vaccinations. Their advocates also point to what they say is intriguing new research in animal models indicating that some individuals may be more sensitive to thimerosal than others. Martin Cowen, whose family lives in Jonesboro, is one such parent. Cowen is convinced thimerosal-containing vaccines caused his son Lindsey's autism. Lindsey, who turned 8 last week, does not speak, has not been toilet trained and cannot be allowed outdoors without being restrained for fear he'll run into traffic, his father said.
Cowen is highly skeptical of the CDC, a position shared by a cohort of parents and advocates across the country. "An enormous effort is being made to deny the connection," he said of the CDC. "What do I think their motive is? They are very interested in having the herd vaccinated. . . . They don't think of people as people suffering individually. It's the greatest good for the greatest number."
The National Immunization Program, run by the CDC, coordinates immunization activities across the country. Increasing the rate of immunization against disease is a cornerstone of public health. At the same time, the CDC also is charged with monitoring vaccine safety. It's an inherent conflict of interest, said Weldon, a doctor before he was elected to Congress. "They really do have a credibility problem," said Weldon, who serves on the committee that decides the CDC's budget. "Part of the credibility problem is it's asking them to investigate a problem that they may have created."
Weldon became involved in the thimerosal issue seven years ago. "Honestly, at first I was very dubious," he said. "As I looked at it more and more, I began to feel there is some validity to this." Weldon said the recent interest by Lieberman and others on Capitol Hill is a sign the issue is gaining currency. Lieberman was unavailable for comment.
The controversy and public debate is likely to be further fueled by the full-page ad being paid for by a coalition of the autism activist groups led by Generation Rescue. The ad promotes a sophisticated Web site, www.PutChildren First.org, which includes links to CDC documents, e-mails and transcripts the groups say support their contention of an agency cover-up.
CDC spokesman Glen Nowak said many of the documents on the site have been in the public domain for years, and are presented out of context and in ways that may "look quite ominous" when they're not. "It's a very challenging issue," he said. The CDC is bracing for a spike in calls today from parents with questions and is increasing staffing at its public help line, 1-800-232-4636. This advertisement, scheduled to run in today's USA Today newspaper, complains that the CDC has covered up the connection between childhood vaccines and autism.
by Lizz Thrall, Environmental Science & Technology
April 5, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/apr/tech/lt_redbloodcells.html
A study posted today to ES&T's Research ASAP website shows that many different types of particles with diameters below 100 nanometers (nm) can penetrate human red blood cells. The research adds to the growing body of evidence that nanoparticles do not behave like other fine particles.
Although previous studies have shown that nanoparticles can penetrate various cell types, corresponding author Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser, a researcher in Peter Gehr's lab at the University of Bern (Switzerland), and her colleagues set out to determine whether red blood cells take up particles of different composition (polystyrene, gold, and titanium dioxide) and surface charge (positive, neutral, and negative). Using laser scanning microscopy and transmission electron microscopy to visualize the particles, researchers observed how nanoparticles of all material types and surface charges interact with the cells. Many nanoparticles tend to cluster together in solution, and Rothen-Rutishauser found that even these aggregates, as long as the diameters are less than 100 nm, could also enter the cells.
Rothen-Rutishauser and her colleagues report the interaction of nanoparticles with only the relatively simple red blood cells, which lack a nucleus and other organelles. Paul Borm, the director of the Center for Expertise in Life Sciences at Zuyd University (The Netherlands), cautions that the findings cannot necessarily be generalized to living organisms. Whole blood contains several different kinds of specialized white blood cells that recognize antigens and engulf them, in a process known as phagocytosis. "The question is really whether this is an artificial situation," says Borm. "In whole blood, there are plenty of phagocytic cells available to recognize the particles and 'eat' them."
But researchers are concerned that nanoparticles may evade the body's defenses -- possibly by penetrating the membranes of nonphagocytic cells before they can be recognized and engulfed by phagocytes. "There are so many routes into the body," explains Vicki Stone, a professor of toxicology at Napier University (U.K.), "that I think it's conceivable that nanoparticles might come into contact with red blood cells."
Various nanoparticles are known to cross the lung epithelium and the blood-brain barrier, and some penetrate cell membranes and lodge in mitochondria. According to Ken Donaldson, a professor of respiratory toxicology at the University of Edinburgh (U.K.), nanoparticles might interfere with cell functions. "This idea that nanoparticles can get places that other particles can't get has become a driver for research."
Another difficulty in extrapolating from studies with cells to living systems is determining how the nanoparticle surface is modified, says John Balbus, the health program director at Environmental Defense, a nonprofit environmental group that is monitoring the environmental, health, and safety implications of nanotechnology. "This is a big research need," Balbus explains, "to see how these alterations affect cellular uptake quantitatively."
Rothen-Rutishauser and her colleagues are expanding their research to more biologically relevant systems, including a cell-culture model of the respiratory tract. They have also begun to quantify the uptake of fluorescently labeled particles and to look at how the process unfolds in real time -- a technique that may shed more light on the mechanism by which nanoparticles enter nonphagocytic cells.
As the field of nanotoxicology progresses, Rothen-Rutishauser explains, researchers will depend upon accurate and reliable imaging techniques to study particles in biological systems. "Nanoparticles are very difficult to find in cells because they are so small," she says. "So you need advanced techniques to really show them."
by Rebecca Renner, Environmental Science & Technology
April 5, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/apr/science/rr_sorting.html
As regulators in Canada and the U.S. search for ways to limit human exposure to perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), scientists are working furiously to develop a clear picture of how people worldwide have become contaminated with the compounds. Two ES&T research papers add important details to the exposure picture. Research published today on ES&T's Research ASAP website reports the first measurements of PFCs in human breast milk, pointing out a source for newborns. Meanwhile, another paper recently posted to the ASAP website finds that the structure of the PFCs in human blood suggests that the source is due to current manufacturing processes and not a legacy.
PFCs are widely used in stain repellents, waterproof and greaseproof paper coatings, and a host of industrial applications. In the environment, they are persistent, tend to bioaccumulate, and may pose long-term health risks. Two of these chemicals, PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate) and PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), have been detected in human blood worldwide. But few researchers have looked for these chemicals in other human organs or tissues.
Paul Lam of the City University of Hong Kong and colleagues report detecting PFOS, PFOA, and several other PFCs in the breast milk of 19 new mothers in the rural seaside town of Zhoushan, China. PFOS levels range from 45 to 360 parts per trillion (ppt), with PFOA at 47-210 ppt. The researchers also found longer-chain PFCs at lower concentrations. These levels are far less than those in human blood. By comparison, a similar group of women from the same hospital had about 100 times more PFOS in their blood and 10 times more PFOA.
The authors attempt to estimate the risk of this exposure and suggest that the highest concentration of PFOS in milk, 360 ppt, may pose a small potential health risk. But they acknowledge that such estimates are fraught with uncertainty. "It is premature to make any conclusions about what these data mean," says 3M epidemiologist Geary Olsen, whose views were echoed by other scientists contacted for this article.
The low levels are good news, says University of Alberta biochemist Jonathan Martin. "It is not surprising that perfluorinated chemicals should be found in breast milk, but it is reassuring that they are not concentrated in breast milk like other contaminants of concern, such as polychlorinated biphenyls," he notes.
Kurunthachalam Kannan of the New York State Department of Health says, "This is an interesting study suggesting that infants can be exposed to perfluorinated chemicals through breast feeding in addition to transplacental transfer." But he notes that scientists in Japan have found much higher levels of PFCs in fetal cord blood; this suggests that breast milk is a minor source by comparison.
Zsuzsanna Kuklenyik and colleagues at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier had looked for PFCs in two breast-milk samples from the U.S. but found very little. However, the China study uses a new analytical approach that is more sensitive than CDC's method.
In the second paper, University of Toronto chemists report on PFC isomers in human blood. PFCAs (perfluorocarboxylic acids), such as PFOA, exist in two isomers: linear forms produced by the telomer process currently used by DuPont and other manufacturers, and branched isomers from a now-mothballed process developed by 3M. Amila De Silva and colleagues studied the isomer distribution in 16 pooled human-blood-serum samples from North America. They report that most of the PFCAs are the linear isomers. As long as biological mechanisms, such as greater elimination of branched isomers, are not in play, this finding strongly suggests that the telomer process is a significant source.
De Silva and colleagues also measured the relative abundance of PFCAs in blood samples on the basis of the carbon chain lengths. In human blood, they find that chains with even numbers of carbon atoms are relatively more abundant than those with odd numbers. Arctic biota, on the other hand, have more of the chemicals with odd-numbered carbon chains. The Arctic biota pattern is consistent with one event -- the breakdown of fluorotelomer alcohols to yield PFCAs. The pattern in North American blood indicates that the sources of human exposure are more complex than just abiotic degradation of a volatile precursor, says De Silva.
"We now have considerable evidence that people are exposed to precursors," says Scott Mabury, who is coauthor of the paper. "Now, we need to find out about these precursors: Are they reactive? Are they toxic? We don't know, but we should find out," he says.
by Anton Caputo, San Antonio Express-News
April 5, 2006
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA040506.01B.school_buses.4150164.html
That old yellow school bus might look kid-friendly, but its diesel engine spews pollutants that could be harmful to the precious cargo inside, an environmental group charges. Some 35,000 Texas school buses transport 1 million students a day. Most run on diesel fuel, and more than one-third were built before 1994, according to the report released today by the Environmental Defense advocacy group. The older buses can emit 25 to 60 times the fine particle pollution produced by cleaner models mandated in 2007. Such pollution can trigger asthma attacks, cause dizziness and coughing, and -- with long-term exposure -- has been linked to heart disease and premature death, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Some research suggests it collects inside school buses at far higher levels than can be found on the side of roads or highways. One study by Yale University researchers that used a monitor in a child's backpack found levels five to 10 times higher. "It's not just much higher, but it goes up very rapidly as soon as they enter the bus, and goes down very rapidly as soon as they leave the bus," said Dr. Bonnie New, a Houston occupational and environmental health specialist.
Many districts have instituted programs to run cleaner buses. For example, Northside and Judson independent school districts use clean-burning propane buses for at least half their fleets. Northeast Independent School District uses a grade of clean-burning diesel fuel for three-quarters of its fleet, and plans to buy 20 or 30 of the new 2007 models this year at a cost of $60,000 to $65,000 a bus.
But Environmental Defense thinks the state should take the lead in phasing in cleaner buses. The group wants buses built before 1994 replaced, and those built in 1994 and after retrofitted with pollution-control equipment to put them on par with the 2007 models. That pollution control costs about $7,300 a bus, said Betin Santos, who helped write the report. "The schools are facing so many challenges in just paying their teachers or putting books in the classrooms," she said. "We don't think the fix should come from education money."
Environmental Defense has targeted a $50 million surplus in the Texas Emissions Reduction Program fund projected by the end of 2007. The money is collected from fees on commercial vehicle inspections, registrations, title transfers and sales tax on certain vehicles. Most is used for projects to reduce nitrogen oxide pollution to help the state meet the federal government's new ground-level ozone standards. Diane Mazuca, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality legislative liaison, said the money can't be used for clean school buses unless approved by the Legislature. There is a caveat in the fund that would allow it to pay for such a project if the state was meeting its federal ozone pollution standards. But, with Houston and Dallas failing those standards and San Antonio and the Longview-Tyler area in danger of failing, she doesn't see that happening soon.
New hopes political pressure forces the Legislature's hand. In the meantime, while she doesn't recommend parents keep their kids off school buses, she suggested they urge their school districts to provide the cleanest fleets possible. "I want people to understand the risk to themselves and their kids," she said. "It is very frustrating for us to keep treating symptoms. Without real change in air quality, we're just committed to treating symptoms."
By Matthew Brown, New Orleans Times-Picayune
April 5, 2006
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-14/114421839599410.xml
Fourteen neighborhoods in the New Orleans area have dangerously high lead levels, and one residential neighborhood around the old Agriculture Street landfill has high levels of a cancer-causing petroleum constituent, federal and state environmental regulators said Tuesday, as they released the latest results from contamination tests following Hurricane Katrina.
The announcement marked the first time in the government's 7-month environmental investigation since the storm that officials have acknowledged contamination problems in neighborhoods beyond a million-gallon oil spill in St. Bernard Parish. While high levels of contaminants have been reported in at least 150 individual sites, officials previously cautioned against interpreting the results as neighborhood-wide problems that could cause long-term health issues.
In releasing the latest information, government officials blamed the lead contamination not on flooding caused by Katrina, but on a pre-existing condition attributed to New Orleans' long urban history. Precise locations of contamination were not immediately available.
EPA and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality officials said Tuesday that they have not decided how to address the contamination. In the interim, they offered recommendations to individual homeowners that include cleaning children's hands after they play outside, frequently wiping dusty surfaces and floors, and covering bare dirt in residential yards with grass, bushes or four to six inches of new topsoil, mulch or sand.
Howard Mielke, a Xavier University researcher considered one of the nation's foremost experts on lead contamination, said the new information put out by the Department of Environmental Quality and EPA obscures a much broader lead contamination issue affecting as much as 40 percent of the city. "It's overlooking the severity of the problem that we have in New Orleans," Mielke said. "Twenty-five percent of children in the inner city were lead-poisoned before Katrina. I'm afraid that the city remains about as contaminated as it was before the storm."
Department of Environmental Quality toxicologist Tom Harris said the 15 areas identified as contamination hot spots were narrowed down from almost 800 sites initially tested. "It was less than 2 percent of the data set we're looking at," Harris said. "It's not by a long shot a city-wide issue. It is fairly isolated if you look at the relatively small number that exceeded 400 parts per million." The lead-contaminated areas had levels of the heavy metal greater than 400 parts per million -- the amount considered a threat to human health. One location had lead as high as 3,900 parts per million, and "six or seven" locations had lead levels topping 1,000 parts per million, said Don Williams, an EPA risk assessment expert.
Lead can cause severe neurological problems, particularly among young children whose bodies are still developing. Used for decades in paint and gasoline, it breaks down into a fine powder that can be ingested or inhaled. At the Agriculture Street landfill site, a residential area built on top of a closed landfill off of Almonaster Avenue, the EPA found the petroleum constituent benzo(a)pyrene at a concentration of 15.6 parts per million. That's almost 50 times the screening standard of 0.33 parts per million. EPA Regional Hazardous Waste Director Sam Coleman said his agency would "discuss with property owners and the city what actions are appropriate for that location."
by Jonathan Takiff, Philadelphia Daily News
April 5, 2006
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/living/14266563.htm
CLEARLY, WE LOVE our TV sets, computers, cell phones and mobile music makers. We've got 2 billion of these gizmos humming in our homes and small businesses. But do we also love our electronics enough to offer them a decent burial when we're done with them? That's a question of rapidly escalating concern to ecological activists and some environmentally conscious state governments.
More than half-a-billion pounds of toxic electronic products are now going into the U.S. waste stream every year, polluting the groundwater with lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, plastics and brominated flame retardants. And with a rapid uptick in technological advancements looming, there's strong potential for the e-waste tonnage to rise by a factor of four or more in the coming years.
HERE COMES THE BIG ONE: Eco-alarmists envision a virtual "tsunami" of high-tech garbage as consumption escalates, and we consumers finally feel compelled to empty our private "closet dumps," where 75 percent of discarded electronics still reside, estimated Elizabeth Grossman, author of the forthcoming "High Tech Trash -- Digital Devices, Hidden Toxins and Human Health" (Island Press, $25.95).
In recent months, Washington state and Maine have enacted comprehensive laws to require proper recycling or disposal of e-waste. These consumer-friendly laws put all the burden on established electronics manufacturers to foot the bills, even for recycling "orphan" TVs, PCs and such whose makers are no longer in business. California, the old-timer in e-waste environment legislation (harking way back to 2003), takes a different tack, with electronics recycling laws more akin to a "bottle bill." There, consumers make an advance recycling payment whenever buying a new product, with that money going into a treatment fund for today's discarded goods. The fee is modest -- $5-$35 -- noted Panasonic's Dave Thompson, "because for every five new products bought, only one old one will actually be thrown away."
Most product makers applaud these advance fees "as more equitable and consciousness raising," said Consumer Electronics Association environmental policy spokesperson Christine Taylor. Iowa, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maryland also have e-waste laws on the books, and about 20 other states have pending legislation. A bill floating around the Pennsylvania House of Representatives would ban the dumping of TVs and computer monitors in landfills, said the EPA's Charles Young. There's also been discussion of forming a regional "compact," several states collaborating in a joint recycling system.
CEA's members also believe the current "patchwork" of laws, volunteer recycling projects and sporadic product drop-off days is confusing and inefficient. "Ultimately, we think a national recycling policy should be established," said Taylor. One major point of contention -- the Maine law puts no payment burdens on new electronic brands -- so these producers can price their Third World-sourced goods even more competitively. "This could drive even more American operations out of business," grumbled one executive.
FROM BAD TO WORSE: Clearly, everybody loves electronics. Yearly U.S. sales of CE products have more than quadrupled over the past decade. On average, every person in America owns at least six high-tech items. Fashionable goodies like mobile phones are now found in the pockets of more than 200 million consumers, connecting two-thirds of the population. About 250 million TV sets are humming in American homes, almost one per person. Computer penetration in the United States is estimated at "over 500 per thousand of population." That's the highest concentration of any large country in the world. But thanks to planned obsolescence and changing fashion, many CE products that seem fresh today might look stale tomorrow.
At the moment, mobile phones are the most outrageous example. On average, each phone is replaced with a slimmer, more colorful or more gizmo-laden model every 18 months, though the old model often still makes and takes calls just fine. Looming improvements in the species will surely keep the mobilistas trading up. Coming attractions include higher-quality, multichannel video reception, high-data rate ("Wi-MAX") two-way video conferencing services and "near field" communications technology that will let you deploy a mobile phone as a credit card and instant data-capturing device.
Computer users are accustomed to a three-year replacement schedule, encouraged to upgrade by the lure of regularly doubling processing power (Moore's Law) and improved operating systems. Microsoft will spring its Vista OS on the world early next year, sure to kick off a whole 'nother cycle. It's even clearer that tens of millions of TVs will be going into the Dumpster this decade. This year alone, 12 million U.S. consumers will upgrade to the new look and quality of flat-panel TVs, as much for their decorative charms as their improved digital performance. And come February 2009, the 13 percent to 15 percent of TV viewers who still nab their signals over the air will be forced to upgrade to a digital set (or signal converting box) when analog TV broadcasts are shut off for good. On top of that, the widescreen formatting of most digital channels will get viewers with boxy-screened sets fully charged for a trade-up.
It's hardly a coincidence that Washington State's e-waste recycling program goes into gear the month before the digital TV transition is completed.
by Marian Burros, New York Times
April 5, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/dining/05well.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
ARSENIC may be called the king of poisons, but it is everywhere: in the environment, in the water we drink and sometimes in the food we eat. The amount is not enough to kill anyone in one fell swoop, but arsenic is a recognized cancer-causing agent and many experts say that no level should be considered safe. Arsenic may also contribute to other life-threatening illnesses, including heart disease and diabetes, and to a decline in mental functioning.
Yet it is deliberately being added to chicken in this country, with many scientists saying it is unnecessary. Until recently there was a very high chance that if you ate chicken some arsenic would be present because it has been a government-approved additive in poultry feed for decades. It is used to kill parasites and to promote growth. The chicken industry's largest trade group says that arsenic levels in its birds are safe. "We are not aware of any study that shows implications of any possibility of harm to human health as the result of the use of these products at the levels directed," said Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council.
Chickens are not the only environmental source of arsenic. In addition to drinking water, for which the Environmental Protection Agency now sets a level of 10 parts per billion, other poultry, rice, fish and a number of foods also contain the poison. Soils are contaminated with arsenical pesticides from chicken manure; chicken litter containing arsenic is fed to other animals; and until 2003, arsenic was used in pressure-treated wood for decks and playground equipment.
Human exposure to it has been compounded because the consumption of chicken has exploded. In 1960, each American ate 28 pounds of chicken a year. For 2005, the figure is estimated at about 87 pounds per person. In spite of this threefold rise, the F.D.A. tolerance level for arsenic in chicken of 500 parts per billion, set decades ago, has not been revised. A 2004 Department of Agriculture study on arsenic concluded that "the higher than previously recognized concentrations of arsenic in chicken combined with increasing levels of chicken consumption may indicate a need to review assumptions regarding overall ingested arsenic intake." "When this source of arsenic is added to others, the exposure is cumulative, and people could be in trouble," said Dr. Ted Schettler, a physician and the science director at the Science & Environmental Health Network, founded by a consortium of environmental groups.
Those at greatest risk from arsenic are small children and people who consume chicken at a higher rate than what is considered average: two ounces per day for a 154-pound person. The good news for consumers is that arsenic-free chicken is more readily available than it has been in the past, as more processors eliminate its use. Tyson Foods, the nation's largest chicken producer, has stopped using arsenic in its chicken feed. In addition, Bell & Evans and Eberly chickens are arsenic-free. There is a growing market in organic chicken and birds labeled "antibiotic-free": neither contains arsenic.
Dr. Paul Mushak, a toxicologist and arsenic expert, said that the fact that Tyson stopped using arsenic in 2004 is encouraging. "What that tells me as a toxicologist and health-risk assessor is that if a vertically integrated company like Tyson can do that then presumably anyone can get away from using arsenic."
But there are still plenty of chickens out there with arsenic. A report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in Minnesota, examined the levels of arsenic in supermarket chicken and chicken sold in fast-food outlets and found considerable variation. None of the samples in the study, collected in December 2004 and January 2005, exceeded the F.D.A. tolerance levels. (The report is at iatp.org.)
Dr. David Wallinga, a physician who is the director of the food and health program for the institute, a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes sustainability and family farms, tested 155 samples of raw chicken from 12 producers and 90 samples from 10 fast-food restaurants. Chicken from five of the brands had either no detectable levels of arsenic or levels so low they could be from environmental contamination: Gerber's Poultry, Raised Right, Smart Chicken and Rosie and Rocky Jr., both from Petaluma Poultry. None of the fast-food chicken purchased was arsenic-free, but some had extremely low levels. KFC thighs bought in Minnesota, where the company's supplier does not use arsenic, had 2.2 parts per billion. The company would not comment on its suppliers in other states.
The report offers many caveats to the findings, cautioning that the results "are not definitive" because the sample size is small. The method used, says the report, "gives a snapshot picture of the arsenic found in those brands on that one day of testing." Dr. Mushak described the Wallinga report as a pilot study. "It was done during a limited time period, with limited geographical reach and a limited number of sampling, but the information they came up with is not that far afield from the other information that is out there," he said, referring to the small amount of research that preceded Dr. Wallinga's work, including the Department of Agriculture study. Dr. Tamar Lasky, an epidemiologist and the lead researcher on the Agriculture study, commended Dr. Wallinga for taking the initiative. "We are at the beginning stages of understanding an issue that we, including scientists, knew very little about," she said.
In the Wallinga study, the chicken from Perdue, Foster Farms and Gold'n Plump tested positive for arsenic and the companies acknowledged that they sometimes use it. Trader Joe's samples also tested positive for arsenic but the company said it would have no comment. McDonald's, the country's largest fast-food chain, said it does not use chicken with arsenic but the test revealed the presence of more than incidental amounts. Perhaps the chickens were purchased before the company started demanding arsenic-free chickens a couple of years ago.
Because there are still many more arsenic-fed than arsenic-free chickens for sale, consumers can reduce their exposure by buying from companies that have stopped using arsenic, or by choosing chickens labeled organic or antibiotic-free. They can also remove the skin from the chicken treated with arsenic, which reduces levels significantly.
by Irwin Block, Montreal Gazette
April 4, 2006
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/montreal/story.html?id=50a34c28-106f-4ced-8376-619db1f348d9
A new era in pesticide use has begun in Quebec with the banning of many domestic products that have chemicals considered toxic to humans and the environment. The third and final phase of Quebec's Pesticide Management Code, first introduced in March 2003, went into effect yesterday. With its ban on 20 active ingredients, 210 lawn-care products are now off the market, giving Quebec the toughest standards in North America.
Home gardeners may no longer use such popular herbicides as Green Cross Killex, C-I-L Tri-Kill and Weedex that contain 2,4-D to rid lawns of dandelions and other weeds. Insecticides such as Sevin that include Carbaryl are also banned.
The move was hailed by concerned physicians and environmentalists. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, based in Toronto, said the code makes Quebec a leader in protecting human and animal health. "This bold action ... sets a standard for excellence that other governments ignore at their peril," said Warren Bell, an association board member.
Although Health Canada last month said 2,4-D is safe to use on lawns and turf "when label directions are followed," the association warned pesticides have been linked to childhood cancer, birth defects and neurological disease. Michel Gaudet, president of the Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, said that Quebec law is now in line with 2,4-D prohibitions in effect in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. "Sweden prohibited 2,4-D in 1977 and 12 years later they noted the increase in some of their cancers started to go down," he said.
Such firms as Rona and Reno-Depot, which also owns Botanix, and supplies as many as 400 outlets in Quebec, knew the ban was coming and began reducing inventory last fall, spokesperson Sylvain Cloutier said. Unused stock was transferred for sale in company stores in Ontario and western provinces, where 2,4-D may be sold. Don Cerone, merchandiser at its head-office nursery, said the ban means gardeners will have to get back to basics. "To have a healthy lawn, you need good soil, add lots of grass seed, and use fertilizer to put nutrients in your soil." The basic principle is "the more dense your grass, the less room there is for weeds," he said. Environment Canada suggests mowing less often so grass can be six centimetres tall to crowd out weeds and build deeper roots. As for getting rid of weeds, "the best way is pulling them out," Cerone said. "Technically, there are no safe products that have yet to be approved" for sale in Quebec, he added.
by DR. Danny Penman, [UK] Daily Mail
April 4, 2006
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/dietfitness.html?in_article_id=381958&in_page_id=1798&in_a_source=
The shaven-headed 'sushi master' bends over a choice cut of raw tuna. His head cocks slightly to one side as he sizes up the moist, firm flesh. After a moment's meditation, he slices up the tuna into a dozen bite-size morsels with a series of swift knife strokes. The slivers of fish are then laid lovingly atop small mounds of fragrant Oriental rice smeared with hot wasabi sauce. Simple, clean and fresh, sushi is the epitome of 21st century eating. Delicate fish, rich in essential oils, and nori seaweed loaded with minerals, are helping sushi to become the definitive lunch option for health conscious 20 and 30-something Britons.
Such is sushi's growth in popularity that it's now outselling the traditional BLT sandwich in many places. It is fast becoming a national staple alongside ploughman's, pizza and curry. But as the young and upwardly mobile tuck in, they would undoubtedly be horrified to learn what lies behind the neat little packets of rice and fish, wrapped in seaweed.
Chemical cocktail
The Mail can reveal that far from being a healthy alternative to the sandwich, sushi contains a cocktail of chemicals, heavy metals and pesticides which can potentially lower intelligence, reduce fertility and even lead to cancer. They are also, despite their healthy image, laden with calories. Rising sushi consumption is also leading to the destruction of some of the world's last great sea fisheries, as well as helping despoil the pristine lochs of western Scotland. "If you eat a meal of salmon sushi more than twice a year, you will increase your risk of cancer," says Professor David Carpenter, an environmental health scientist at the University at Albany, New York. "The contaminants found in fish often overpower its beneficial effects. People think they're improving their health by eating sushi but they are in fact poisoning themselves."
Sushi is a simple food made from rice steeped in vinegar and topped with a variety of fish -- most commonly in Britain, raw tuna, prawn and salmon -- called nigiri sushi. Its staple ingredients are, most commonly, rolled up inside a wrap of nori seaweed to produce the Oriental equivalent of the sausage roll. These rolls -- called maki or California rolls -- are then sliced into bite-size pieces, allowing them to be eaten with chopsticks, and they're becoming increasingly popular in Britain. They are sold with nigiri sushi in packs known as 'bento' lunchboxes. The dinky little packages contain chopsticks, a tiny bottle of soy sauce, a heap of pickled ginger and a blob of hot wasabi sauce.
But a single California roll, containing crabstick and avocado, can easily contain 400 calories and 2 g of salt. Many lunch boxes contain several of these mini rolls, so it's easy to over-indulge on carbs, fat and salt without realising it. Compared to the quintessentially British egg and cress sandwich, which has around 250 calories, a sushi box is hardly a slimmer's delight. According to Professor Tim Lang, a food policy expert at City University in London: "The problem arises because we're trying to bolt sushi on to our national diet, which is full of highly processed food already high in salt and fat. "Sushi comes from a culture that is inherently healthy. You can't just add sushi to our way of life and expect to get the same benefits." Nonetheless, cashing in on the ever-increasing desire for healthy food, sushi bars are springing up and exploit the fashionable desire for people to see their food lovingly prepared -- in this case -- in front of their eyes by dextrous chefs. But, like the bento boxes, these restaurants are only the final link in a long chain that begins in the polluted salmon lochs of Scotland and the filthy seas of southern Europe and the Far East.
The stench of old fish and diesel fills the air in a busy fish processing plant in southern Spain. The incessant hum of machinery is so powerful you feel they might shake your teeth loose. Every half hour or so a truck roars into the factory laden with tuna from the warm, yet polluted, waters of the Mediterranean. Dozens of workers clad in white overalls rush to attention and start toiling alongside conveyor belts liberally covered in tuna blood. Each worker grabs a 5 ft long fish and slices open its pinkish belly before reaching inside and ripping out its innards. Within a few minutes, the tuna has been cleaved, beheaded and 'flash frozen' into rectangular blocks, ready for the sushi bars and supermarkets of Britain, America -- and Japan.
In the intensity of the processing factory, the workers can be forgiven for overlooking the odd fish infested with parasitic worms. Spotting their tiny larvae is even more difficult, if not impossible, so the tuna bound for supermarkets is frozen for 24 hours at minus 20 C to kill off the worms. However, if diners are sensitive to worms -- as many people are -- they react to the dead worms in the tuna. Initial queasiness will swiftly lead to severe stomach pain and vomiting which will last for a few days.
Small worms
There is also fish -- particularly that which is prepared in small restaurants -- that is not frozen and still contains live worms. Eating this can cause serious intestinal problems. In extreme cases, the worms will trigger anaphylaxis, a potentially lethal reaction similar to that suffered by people with nut allergies. Vicious bugs such as salmonella and even typhoid can also be passed on through sushi, largely because the flesh is eaten raw.
However, in the long term, these bugs and worms are likely to be the least of your worries. Tuna and salmon are loaded with mercury and a mix of nasty industrial chemicals such as dioxins, pesticides and PCBs, which have been dumped in our seas and oceans. And once eaten, these poisons stay in the body for decades, reducing fertility and steadily weakening the immune system and potentially causing cancer.
Professor David Carpenter and his team at the prestigious Universities of Cornell, Indiana and Albany, recently studied the levels of these poisons in salmon fished from waters around the world. His work makes for uneasy reading. Out of the 15 poisons detected in frighteningly high amounts, 13 are carcinogenic. These poisons have also been linked to falling sperm counts, rising birth abnormalities, testicular and breast cancer, endometriosis and early puberty. And if all that wasn't enough, some scientists worry that they may be acting as 'gender benders' by making young boys more feminine and girls more masculine, which may also affect sexual orientation later in life.
The scientists also found worrying levels of these pollutants in farmed salmon, especially those from Scotland. Professor Carpenter's team was so shocked by the findings of their study, which remains the biggest and most comprehensive so far, that they recommended people eat farmed salmon at most twice a year. His findings are brushed off by the Scottish Salmon Producers' Organisation (SSPO). Spokesman Ken Hughes says: "The health benefits of eating oil-rich fish, such as salmon, outweigh any potential risks from contaminants that are ubiquitous in the environment."
Mercury levels
Like salmon, tuna sushi is often touted for its healthiness because it is rich in the omega three fatty acids. But it is also loaded with a particularly toxic form of mercury. An analysis of sushi from restaurants in Los Angeles in February, found dangerous levels of mercury in a quarter of the samples tested. Three quarters were above limits set by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and its US equivalent, which permits one thousandth of a gram of mercury per kilo of fish. This may not sound like a lot but it is two and a half times the amount permitted by the Japanese government because mercury has a cumulative effect and can build up in the body.
The FSA advises pregnant women not to eat shark, swordfish or marlin -- and to eat only two tuna steaks a week -- because of the high levels of mercury found in these fish. Although no one has analysed mercury levels in sushi in the UK, given that tuna is traded internationally, it is reasonable to suppose that they would be much the same as in LA.
In adults, the most common effect of methyl mercury poisoning is paresthesia, a sensation of prickling or tingling on the skin. People may also feel sick and generally off-colour. Children -- and foetuses -- are particularly vulnerable. Mercury can reduce their intelligence and lead to behavioural problems.
Disturbing though Professor Carpenter's findings are for humans, the environment may be paying an even higher price for our new found love of sushi. Every year, thousands of dolphins turtles, sharks and seabirds drown in tuna nets. Several species of tuna have already been driven to the edge of extinction. Salmon farming can cause massive environmental problems, releasing chemical pollutants into the sea and consuming vast amounts of 'fish chow' -- made from young fish caught at sea -- leaving bigger fish such as cod, herring and mackerel to go hungry. All of these problems have led some experts to conclude that the pleasures gained from eating sushi come at too high a cost.
by Karen Miltner, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
April 4, 2006
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060404/LIVING/604040310/1032
More consumers are eating salmon because of its heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, its ease in preparation and its rich, versatile flavor. But farmed salmon, which is less expensive and more readily available than its wild-caught counterpart, has gotten a bad rap in recent years. Studies have shown that some farmed salmon contains high levels of cancer-causing PCBs and dioxins. Environmentalists have also raised concerns about the impact of salmon farming (aquaculture) on surrounding marine life and wild salmon populations.
Last month, two companies with local ties helped form stringent new purchasing guidelines for farmed king salmon, and the hope is that other companies nationwide will also adopt the policy. Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. and Bon Appétit Management Co. -- a food corporation based in Palo Alto, Calif., that contracts with St. John Fisher College in Pittsford -- developed the criteria in collaboration with Environmental Defense, a national environmental advocacy organization. The new standards work to mitigate the most pressing environmental problems caused by salmon aquaculture. The policy also sets tighter rules on allowable PCB and dioxin levels, prohibits hormones and genetically modified stock, and minimizes anti-biotic use. "There are no purchasing policies that have such an emphasis on environmental impact," says Becky Goldburg, an Environmental Defense scientist who worked with both companies developing these guidelines. "We wanted to write a policy that was both aggressive yet achievable."
Salmon aquaculture involves an open net cage or pen in coastal waters where the salmon are raised and harvested. These pens allow fish waste and chemicals that are used to treat the fish to spread beyond the cages. Occasionally farmed fish escape, endangering wild fish with diseases and interbreeding.
George Leonard, science program manager at Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program in California, which educates the public on sustainable seafood choices, points to two different strategies on improving salmon aquaculture. The first embraces fully enclosed containment systems that would be located either on land or in water. While a closed system would eliminate nearly all environmental risks, its cost could make farmed salmon too expensive for most consumers. (Such closed-system tanks for farmed salmon are still mostly in the research and development stages, though they work well with other seafood, such as tilapia and shrimp, says Environmental Defense scientist Bruce Hammond.)
The other strategy, which guided Environmental Defense in this current purchasing policy, calls for much stricter controls and monitoring of open-container systems. These guidelines address all the major environmental concerns that conventional salmon aquaculture poses, says Leonard. More importantly, the guidelines mandate that farmers continuously improve their practices. "This is a good first step. But this is not the be-all, end-all in sustainable salmon," says Leonard.
Both Seafood Watch and Environmental Defense's Oceans First program classify the farmed king salmon that follow these rules as environmentally preferable to conventional farmed Atlantic salmon, but would still recommend wild salmon as the most eco-friendly. Alex Trent, executive director of Salmon of the Americas, a salmon aquaculture trade organization based in Princeton, N.J., says the Environmental Defense policy is but one of a proliferation of policies and standards that are being developed in the 25-year-old salmon farming industry. The public doesn't often hear about these policies because they are generally proprietary information shared only among the companies involved. These policies have similar criteria, such as low PCB tolerance and reduced reliance on wild-caught fish meal and oil for salmon feed. While numerous policies and standards are confusing for retailers and consumers, it is unlikely that the industry will adhere to a single uniform set of standards, Trent adds.
Wegmans is now selling farmed king salmon under its Food You Feel Good About label in its stores' fresh seafood case. Farmed king (also called Chinook) salmon is a new product for the company, says spokeswoman Jeanne Colleluori. Wegmans sells wild king salmon and other wild Pacific salmon varieties during the wild salmon run and offers the more common farmed Atlantic salmon year-round. The farmed king salmon costs a little more than the farmed Atlantic salmon -- $9.99 a pound versus $7.99 a pound -- but is far less expensive than wild king salmon, which currently sells for $27.99 a pound. These prices are subject to seasonal fluctuations, notes Colleluori.Wegmans gets the environmentally friendlier farmed king salmon from Marine Harvest, a British Columbian producer and so far the only farmed salmon supplier to meet these new guidelines. Wegmans will have farmed king salmon now through mid- or late May, and then availability will resume in December.
"Bon Appetit's first preference is and always will be for wild salmon. But they do support efforts in the aquaculture industry to improve," says spokeswoman Haven Bourque. She adds that it will probably be at least a year until that company starts making the farmed king salmon available to its clients. At St. John Fisher College, salmon is offered about once a month, as it "does not have wide appeal to students," says Bon Appétit general manager Jim Liebow.
Meanwhile Wegmans is working to expand these purchasing standards to all its farmed seafood, including Atlantic salmon, shrimp, tilapia and trout. "This is not just a program for Wegmans. We encourage all retailers to get involved," says Colleluori.
by Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
April 4, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040301588.html
A proposal to revise how the Environmental Protection Agency regulates airborne toxic emissions from industrial plants has sparked an outcry from the agency's regional offices, with a majority suggesting that the change would be "detrimental to the environment." The proposed rule, whose wording was disclosed yesterday by the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), would change the emissions standards for oil refineries, hazardous waste incinerators, chemical plants, steel mills and other plants that discharge thousands of pounds of airborne toxins such as arsenic, mercury and lead.
Under current law, plants that emit 10 tons or more of a single toxin in a year, or 25 tons or more of a combination of toxins, must install "maximum achievable control technology" to cut those emissions by 95 percent or more. The draft proposal would lift that requirement from polluters that have reduced their emissions to below 25 tons a year, potentially allowing emissions to increase so long as they stay under the 25-ton limit.
An internal EPA memo summarizing the position of eight of the agency's 10 regional offices, dated Dec. 13, contended the change could conceivably result in an increase in toxic emissions. Seven of the offices agreed that the proposal would allow polluters to "virtually avoid regulation and greatly complicate any enforcement." Individual regional offices occasionally object to proposed policy shifts by EPA headquarters, but it is rare for such a large number of regional offices to join forces in such a forceful rebuke. The new dispute follows a string of high-profile controversies over the administration's enforcement of national air-quality laws, many of them focused on regulation of aging coal-fired power plants.
The dispute also points to a broader polarization within the agency. The internal memo said that regional officials were eager to comment on the proposal, but EPA headquarters was "reluctant to share the draft policy with the Regional Offices. This trend of excluding the regional offices from involvement in the rule and policy development effort is disturbing."
One EPA official familiar with the proposal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the rule went further than many staff members thought was necessary. "There are ways you could make regulations less burdensome for industry," the agency official said. "This is beyond. . . . It seems to be driven more by political considerations."
Industries likely to be affected by the proposed change welcomed it. Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, said in an interview that the administration was trying to compensate for the fact that once a polluter becomes subject to the technology requirement, it remains stuck in the program permanently unless it can clean up its plants within three years. "All they're trying to do is explore ways they might encourage [industrial] sources to install pollution reduction measures or other emissions reduction mechanisms," Slaughter said.
The draft of the new rule acknowledges that some EPA officials believe it could result in higher levels of airborne toxins but calls the regional offices' concerns "unfounded. While this may occur in some instances, it is more likely that sources will adopt [emissions] limitations at or near their current levels to avoid negative publicity and to maintain their appearance as responsible businesses." The regional offices wrote in their Dec. 13 memo that "this statement is unfounded and overly optimistic."
John Walke, clean air director for NRDC, said the internal EPA memo highlights the flaws in the administration's proposal. "Such objections underscore how the EPA would weaken the law and allow even more cancer-causing pollution into the air we breathe. This proposal is indefensible," Walke said. "No wonder even some of EPA's own experts are outraged by this secretly hatched plan to please polluters and their powerful friends."
EPA spokeswoman Lisa Lybbert said in a statement that discussing the proposal at this point is premature. "This is a preliminary draft that is currently under development and internal review which could change before EPA issues it as a proposal. EPA will seek public comment when it issues the proposal," she said.
The proposal drew fire from some in Congress. "If this draft rule were to be put into effect, polluters could emit many more tons of cancer-causing air pollutants and heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead, seriously jeopardizing the health of millions of Americans," said Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), the ranking minority member on Environment and Public Works Committee. "This rule turns the Clean Air Act topsy-turvy by letting polluters run their controls at half-speed."
The proposed rule change was drafted under the oversight of William Wehrum, the acting assistant administrator for the EPA's air and radiation office, who has been nominated to that post on a permanent basis. He is slated to appear tomorrow before the environment committee as it considers his nomination.
