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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.
September 24 - October 1, 2006
simultaneous events will take place in the Northeast, the Southeast and the West Coast
The tour theme is "Environmental Justice for All; Reclaiming our Health and Communities Tour '06." The purpose of EJ Tour '06 is to bear witness to the casualties of our failed economic and environmental policies and how our addiction to oil and chemicals is causing Americans -- especially infants and children, workers, indigenous peoples, and communities near industrial facilities -- to bear the heavy burden of chemical contamination. Buses with environmental and health specialists will roll from city to city to work with local communities to highlight their toxic contamination problems. Each visit will include a public event or teach in about local problems and solutions, and will generate public attention and media coverage. The effect of the tour as a whole will be to build stronger links with local environmental justice organizations and raise the profile of environmental justice and health concerns nationally.
Website: http://ej4all.org/
Contact: Virginia Giordano, National Director, 212-598-2181 or vgpnyc@aol.com
October 3, 2006
1:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sustainability is more than a social, environmental, and economic concept; it is becoming a corporate imperative. With sustainability indexes, including the Dow Jones, ranking corporations on their implementation of sustainable practices, it is increasingly important to integrate business practices that will meet the "triple bottom line" -- economic prosperity, environmental quality, and social responsibility. Chemists and chemical engineers are in the driver's seat to affect sustainability from the molecular level. Green Chemistry is an innovative, non-regulatory, and economically driven approach toward sustainability. As defined, Green Chemistry is the design, development, and implementation of chemical products and processes in order to reduce or eliminate the use and generation of substances hazardous to human health and the environment (Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice). Panel discussions and active participation are an integral component to the teaching method.
Website: http://www.processSummit.com
Contact: 888-999-6288 toll-free in the U.S.
October 5, 2006
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EDT
Presenters at this first of a series of four webcasts will be Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH, Director, CDC National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry; Angelo Bellomo, Director, LA Unified School District Office of Environmental Health and Safety. A compelling speaker, and editor of the recently published book "Safe and Healthy School Environments," Dr. Frumkin will provide a broad overview of the many issues related to children's environmental health in schools. He will be followed by Angelo Bellomo, who will describe how he successfully manages environmental health issues for the largest public school district in California using a software tool designed by the district. To sign up for one of the Children's Health Month webcasts, send an email (with the date of the webcast in which you would like to participate) to ICF International at the address below.
Contact: ICF International, chm@icfi.com
October 10 - 14, 2006
St. Paul, Minnesota
The North American Association for Environmental Education's 35th Annual Conference will be a gathering of over 1,000 educators. Conference strands include sustainability; conservation and community education; EE leadership skills; schools, education, achievement, and literacy; and joining forces: environmental justice, health, and education.
Website: http://naaee.org/pages/conferences/index.html
Contact: conferencestaff@naaee.org
October 11, 2006
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EDT
The presenter at this second of a series of four webcasts will be Deane Evans, Executive Director, Center for Architecture and Building Science Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology. "High performance school" refers to the physical facility, the school building, and its grounds. High performance schools often have features such as energy efficient design and operation, use of environmentally preferable building materials, healthy indoor air quality, and easy maintenance. Good teachers and motivated students can overcome inadequate facilities and perform at a high level almost anywhere, but a well-designed facility can truly enhance performance and make education a more enjoyable and rewarding experience. Creating one is not difficult, but it requires an integrated, "whole building" approach to the design process. Key systems and technologies must be considered together, from the beginning of the design process. To sign up for one of the Children's Health Month webcasts, send an email (with the date of the webcast in which you would like to participate) to ICF International at the address below.
Contact: ICF International, chm@icfi.com
October 12, 2006
10:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Albany, New York
at the Legislative Office Building, Room 711
Key New York State policymakers, researchers and advocates will discuss the current and future status of children's environmental health policy in New York State. Recent advances in children's environmental health policy include the new state-level Children's Environmental Health & Safety Council. Top researchers will also present on key scientific research demonstrating the impacts of exposure to environmental toxicants on children.
Contact: Stephen J. Boese, 212-482-0204 or sboese@healthyschools.org
October 13, 2006
8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
San Francisco, California
at the University of California, San Francisco Laurel Heights Auditorium
This one-day national conference is hosted by the Collaborative on Health and the Environment. This second CHE national educational meeting will provide a solid overview of current scientific knowledge regarding environmental contributors to human disease and state-of-the-art efforts to prevent, treat and otherwise improve such impacts. Researchers and health advocates will come from around the country to provide summaries of their knowledge and work. Physician and nurse continuing education credits will be available through the California Academy of Family Physicians.
Website: http://www.healthandenvironment.org/articles/che-events/702
October 14, 2006
Oakland, California
This half-day training program will introduce participants to the Pediatric Environmental Health Toolkit, a new clinical resource for practitioners. The Toolkit was developed partially in response to the frequent requests by pediatricians for practical, clinical tools that enable providers to incorporate environmental health guidance into everyday practice. It includes materials for both providers and patients on preventing exposures to toxic chemicals and other substances that may affect child health.
Contact: Lucia Sayre, luciasayre@sbcglobal.net
October 19, 2006
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EDT
This is the third of a series of four webcasts. Schools use and manage a range of hazardous and toxic chemicals and products. Classrooms, science laboratories, art studios, vocational shops, athletic fields, maintenance facilities, boiler rooms, and storage closets are just a few examples of where hazardous chemicals and products may be found. Often, existing stocks of outdated, unknown, excessive, or unnecessarily hazardous chemicals are present in schools. These chemicals can pose safety and health risks to students and staff, and a number of widely reported incidents involving such chemicals have resulted in school closures and costly clean-ups. A Schools Chemical Cleanout and Prevention program insures that excess, legacy, unused, and improperly stored chemicals are removed, and puts mechanisms in place through which chemicals are purchased wisely, stored safely, handled by trained personnel, used responsibly, and disposed of properly. In addition, pesticide use can cause possible health hazards for school occupants and contribute to environmental pollution. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a safer, usually less costly option for effective pest management in the school community. A school IPM program employs commonsense strategies to reduce sources of food, water, and shelter for pests in school buildings and grounds. This webcast will share two chemical management success stories -- a schools chemical cleanout campaign with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama, and the Monroe County, Indiana IPM Program. To sign up for one of the Children's Health Month webcasts, send an email (with the date of the webcast in which you would like to participate) to ICF International at the address below.
Contact: ICF International, chm@icfi.com
October 21, 2006
8:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
The conference will address clinically important issues in children's health that are affected by the environment. Children of all ages, including those in the fetal stages of development, can be affected by environmental hazards. Exposure to environmental toxins via air, water, food or soil can have a significant impact on the health of children. The conference will focus on the following areas: the built environment, heavy metals exposure and neurocognitive issues, cancer and environmental exposures and newborn outcomes and environmental exposures. This continuing medical education activity is designated for 7.5 credit hours in Category I of the Physician's Recognition Award of the American Medical Association. Contact hours for nurses will be available through CNMC. Health educators seeking CHES Credits can claim the conference as a category II activity.
Website: http://www.gwu.edu/~macche/conference/
Contact: Aurora Amoah, 866-622-2431 or eohaoa@gwumc.edu
California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP) is looking for a lead scientist to provide leadership for the Special Research Initiatives by coordinating and directing statewide collaborative research focusing on the role of the environment and lifestyle in breast cancer and disparities in breast cancer. The lead scientist will drive funding strategies and manage a significant portion of the CBCRP's substantial grantmaking portfolio.
The CBCRP recently launched the $18 million Special Research Initiatives to identify and support research strategies that both increase knowledge about and create solutions to the environmental causes of breast cancer and the unequal burden of the disease. The CBCRP has convened a steering committee of nationally recognized advocates and scientists to guide these initiatives and has instituted a rigorous strategic development process. These planning efforts will lead to research that will not only change the state of breast cancer research, but will accelerate the elimination of the disease.
This is an amazing opportunity for the right individual to participate in a groundbreaking research opportunity. We are looking for someone with an advanced degree, publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, demonstrated knowledge, and previous management-level experience.
This position offers competitive compensation and excellent benefits.
To view the full position description and application instructions, please visit the web site of the search firm -- The 360 Group -- at http://www.360searchgroup.com/CBCRP_LS_PD.pdf
The position is open until filled. However, for priority consideration, The 360 Group should receive applications by September 30th. To learn more about the CBCRP Special Research Initiatives please visit http://www.cbcrp.org/sri/
by Rick Weiss, Washington Post
September 26, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501138.html
The United States is the world leader in nanotechnology -- the newly blossoming science of making incredibly small materials and devices -- but is not paying enough attention to the environmental, health and safety risks posed by nanoscale products, says a report released yesterday by the independent National Research Council. If federal officials, business leaders and others do not devise a plan to fill the gaps in their knowledge of nanotech safety, the report warns, the field's great promise could evaporate in a cloud of public mistrust. "There is some evidence that engineered nanoparticles can have adverse effects on the health of laboratory animals," the congressionally mandated report said, echoing concerns raised by others at a House hearing last week. Until the risks are better understood, "it is prudent to employ some precautionary measures to protect the health and safety of workers, the public, and the environment."
The 176-page report, "A Matter of Size," was prepared under the auspices of the National Academies, chartered to advise Congress on matters of science. It focuses on the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which coordinates and prioritizes federal research in nanotechnology -- the fledgling but potentially revolutionary science that deals with materials as small as a billionth of a meter. At that size, even conventional substances behave in unconventional ways. Some materials that do not conduct electricity or are fragile, for example, are excellent conductors and are extremely strong when made small enough. But nanoparticles can also enter human cells and trigger chemical reactions in soil, interfering with biological and ecological processes.
The report concludes that the U.S. research effort is vibrant and almost certainly the strongest in the world, though a few other countries are close behind. Among the more important unmet needs, it says, is stronger collaboration with the departments of Education and Labor to boost the supply of scientists and technicians with the skills the sector needs.
The report's concerns about the lack of a federal focus on nanotech health and safety were foreshadowed at a House Science Committee hearing Thursday at which Republicans and Democrats alike took the Bush administration to task over the lack of a plan to learn more about nanotech's risks. Committee Chairman Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) accused the administration of "sauntering" toward solutions "at a time when a sense of urgency is required." Ranking Democrat Bart Gordon (Tenn.) went further, calling the administration's latest summary of nanotech research needs, released at the hearing, "a very juvenile piece of work."
Andrew Maynard, chief science adviser for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, funded in part by the Smithsonian Institution, said the government is spending about $11 million a year on nanotechnology's potential harms when industry and environmental groups have jointly called for at least $50 million to $100 million a year. Equally important, Maynard said, is the need for a coordinated strategy to spend that money wisely. About 300 consumer products already contain nanoscale ingredients, Maynard said, including several foods and many cosmetics, with little or no research to document their safety. The industry is expected to be worth about $2 trillion by 2014.
Norris Alderson, associate commissioner for science at the Food and Drug Administration and chairman of the working group that created the administration's summary research plan presented to Congress last week, said the document -- which was supposed to be delivered six months ago -- was meant as "a first step." Asked by Boehlert if he understood that much more is expected of him and his working group, Alderson responded: "I think your message is loud and clear."
by Mike Lee, San Diego Union-Tribune
September 26, 2006
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060926-9999-1n26water.html
At homes across San Diego, thousands of residents take medications each day for everything from Alzheimer's disease to sexual dysfunction. But their bodies don't absorb 100 percent of each drug. The unused portion is excreted and -- literally -- flushed down the toilet along with whatever outdated pills that people might dump into the bowl for disposal. From there, the medicine mixes with cleaning agents, hormones, plasticizers and a plethora of other compounds in the city's wastewater.
Under a controversial proposal to be considered by a City Council committee tomorrow, some of the water treated at San Diego's North City Water Reclamation Plant would be purified enough to become drinking water. The effort is designed to reduce the region's reliance on imported water. But what about drugs and other possibly dangerous substances that might remain in the recycled water?
Water providers don't routinely check for pharmaceuticals, personal-care products or numerous other substances that scientists call "emerging contaminants." Sewage plants aren't designed to remove them. Neither federal nor state agencies regulate them in water supplies. And California hasn't taken some of the most basic steps to keep them out of the state's waters. Public health officials, water-quality experts and policymakers have been worried for years about the potential effects of these compounds, which show up widely in the nation's lakes and streams. The prospect of recycling wastewater into drinking water has amplified those fears.
The environmental and human health consequences of such pollutants are not well known. However, two common concerns are that even trace amounts may hasten the growth of more antibiotic-resistant bacteria and disrupt animals' endocrine systems, which regulate hormones. "We know that many of these things can have biological effects at very low concentrations ... but there is a paucity of data suggesting that there is any real adverse (human) health effect," said William Cooper, director of the Urban Water Research Center at the University of California Irvine. "It's an unsettled question."
Historically, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has focused on a relatively small suite of industrial pollutants such as chemicals from manufacturing plants. Now, the EPA is trying to standardize detection methods for emerging contaminants, figure out how the compounds work biologically and help sewage plants remove them more effectively. The uncertainty leaves the public and pollution watchdogs uneasy, particularly in the wake of numerous reports about waterborne drugs altering the sexual characteristics of fish in Europe and the United States. "You don't want to see a mirror image of that showing up in human life 20, 30, 40 years down the line," said William L. Rukeyser, spokesman for California's State Water Resources Control Board.
Widespread pollutants
When San Diego first tried -- and famously failed politically -- to turn wastewater into drinking water seven years ago, skeptics expressed deep reservations about what unknown and untested pollutants might still lurk in purified sewage. Scientists have since detected a dizzying array of previously ignored chemicals in rivers and lakes worldwide, including waterways that are the source of drinking water for San Diego County. Common contaminants include detergents, fragrances, caffeine, estrogen and painkillers. Basically anything that people consume or lather on their bodies eventually ends up in the water. "Drugs that are flushed down the toilet or are thrown in our landfills are coming back to haunt us," said Virginia Herold, interim executive officer of the California Board of Pharmacy, which oversees the state's pharmacies. "We are not sure what the effect is."
Four years ago, federal researchers found that 80 percent of U.S. streams contain traces of medications and other emerging contaminants. Since then, the number of pharmaceuticals has continued to rise. Nationwide, some 3.4 billion prescriptions were filled last year, an increase of 59 percent since 1995, according to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Foundation. A recent analysis done for San Diego found a handful of emerging contaminants in the city's source water, which mostly comes from the Colorado River and Northern California. The detected substances included minute amounts of ibuprofen, the bug repellent DEET and the anti-anxiety drug meprobamate. That study likely understated the water's average chemical content because samples were taken in the spring, when huge volumes of snowmelt dilute the effluent from 227 wastewater treatment plants that are allowed to discharge into the Colorado River.
A much larger group of emerging contaminants -- about 20 -- can be found at comparatively high levels in the treated wastewater that comes out of the North City Water Reclamation Plant, the same report showed. Some North City water is reused by irrigation and industrial customers.
Technological catch-up
San Diego's water-recycling options include super-purifying wastewater at the North City plant through a process known as advanced treatment, which uses ultraviolet light and peroxide disinfection. The resulting water would replenish the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside and be treated again on its way to filling drinking-water pipes. San Diego has tested advanced treatment at a research-scale facility. Recent studies conducted there showed that the process reduced all 29 emerging contaminants that were tested to undetectable levels. "This data indicates that (advanced-treated) water is superior to San Diego's current raw water supply," said Ronald Coss, technical manager for the city's Water Reuse Study.
Most water industry scientists echo Coss' confidence in recycled water, but they are careful not to oversell their conclusions, given the unsettled nature of the research. Part of the difficulty is that detection methods are outpacing scientists' efforts to determine the implications of what they are finding. Current tests commonly show results down to 1 part per trillion, which is comparable to one square inch for every 250 square miles.
Some of the biggest concerns about emerging contaminants center on how they affect aquatic life. For example, fish caught near ocean sewage outfalls in Southern California were found to have abnormal hormone levels, and some had both male and female sexual tissue, according to a recent analysis by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. The office, which does field research for public sewer agencies, is expanding its study to include fish caught off San Diego County's coast. "We see some potential effects off Los Angeles, so the next question to answer is, 'Is it just here or is it more widespread?' " said Ken Schiff, deputy director for the research agency.
Little research
There are some 80,000 chemicals commercially available in the United States, most of which lack independent research about their environmental effects. Based on the law of averages, "you could speculate that some (emerging contaminants) could end up being regulated, but ... we can't make that conclusion until we have the science to back it up," said Luisa Valiela at the EPA's San Francisco office.
California, which often has stricter standards than the federal government, requires monitoring for several emerging contaminants in recycled water that is used to replenish aquifers in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Otherwise, the Department of Health Services does not track or require reporting of any of these compounds in water supplies, an agency spokeswoman said. Nonetheless, wastewater agencies are starting to take precautions against waterborne drugs. One main goal is to persuade people to stop flushing medications down the toilet. Doing so has been standard advice for years as a way to keep outdated or unneeded pills away from children. "There is just this sense that when you flush your toilet, everything disappears. People haven't really thought about where those waste pharmaceuticals go," said Ann Heil, supervising engineer for the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County.
San Diego's Metropolitan Wastewater Department already works with local hospitals to keep drugs out of the drain and it is considering a flushing-prevention program for the public. However, previous efforts by agencies in the region to collect unused medicines have generated little public interest. California also lacks a coordinated program for the disposal of drugs from residences, said Herold, of the pharmacy board. "We don't have an answer right now," she said.
Emerging contaminants will remain a concern even if drug flushing wanes, said Alan Langworthy, deputy director of San Diego Metropolitan Wastewater. That's because the use of chemicals continues to grow and seemingly countless medications enter the water through excretion. "The way I look at it, we're at the tip of the iceberg on this issue," Langworthy said.
Union-Tribune library researcher Denise Davidson contributed to this report.
from Reuters
September 25, 2006
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-09-25T201117Z_01_N25275664_RTRUKOC_0_US-HEART-SMOKING.xml
DALLAS -- A Colorado city ban on smoking at workplaces and in public buildings may have sparked a steep decline in heart attacks, researchers reported on Monday. In the 18 months after a no-smoking ordinance took effect in Pueblo in 2003, hospital admissions for heart attacks for city residents dropped 27 percent, according to the study led by Dr. Carl Bartecchi, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. "Heart attack hospitalizations did not change significantly for residents of surrounding Pueblo County or in the comparison city of Colorado Springs, neither of which have non-smoking ordinances," said the American Heart Association, which published the study in its journal Circulation.
The association said this was further evidence of the damage wrought by secondhand smoke. "The decline in the number of heart attack hospitalizations within the first year and a half after the non-smoking ban that was observed in this study is most likely due to a decrease in the effect of secondhand smoke as a triggering factor for heart attacks," it said. It said the researchers had taken into account other variables such as air pollution and community-wide changes in preventive care and concluded that they did not have an impact on their findings.
The American Heart Association estimates that more than 35,000 nonsmokers die each year in the United States from coronary heart disease because they inhale secondhand smoke. Working-class Pueblo has a higher percentage of smokers -- 22.6 percent -- than the statewide average of 18.6 percent. "Adopting a non-smoking ordinance has the potential to rapidly improve the cardiovascular health of a community," Bartecchi said in a statement. Pueblo forbids smoking in indoor workplaces and all public buildings, including restaurants, bars and recreational facilities such as bowling alleys.
"You can save lives with drugs and expensive, sophisticated devices, but this single community action led to 108 fewer heart attacks in an 18-month period," Bartecchi said. "Each hospital admission for a heart attack costs an average of $20,000 here in Pueblo," he said. "So in addition to saving lives, non-smoking ordinances also save a lot of money."
by Carol Azizian, Flint Journal
September 25, 2006
http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/features-5/1159192354252150.xml&coll=5
Don Wolfe, owner of Dale's Natural Foods, loves walleye, whitefish and wild salmon. But because of the recent health scares about contaminants, he doesn't eat fish as frequently as he once did. "I'm not saying don't eat fish," Wolfe said. "I strongly recommend taking omega-3 (fatty acids) in capsule form and eating fish less often." Do the risks of consuming fish outweigh the health benefits? Should you can the tuna? Sack the salmon? The debate continues to evolve with new studies coming out all the time.
Though physicians and nutritionists have recommended substituting fish for red meat for years, Americans are not big on fish. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that people eat about 3.4 ounces a week, according to a Los Angeles Times article. By comparison, USDA estimates that per capita meat consumption totals nearly 21 ounces. But Americans do eat tuna. Some 26 percent of all fish consumed in 2004 was canned tuna, according to the USDA.
Scientists have been saying that the health benefits of fish are largely due to omega-3 fatty acids, especially two known as DHA and EPA, which are plentiful in oily fish such as salmon, trout and herring, the Times noted. Fish in fast-food restaurants, on the other hand, is often high in the unhealthy trans fats used to cook it.
Since 2002, the American Heart Association has recommended that adults eat at least two servings of fish a week. Fish is good brain food. One recent study suggested that a fish-rich diet keeps the mind sharp, slowing age-related mental decline by the equivalent of three or four years. But here's the catch -- some types of the high- protein, low-calorie food contain toxic contaminants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury, a heavy metal found in lakes, streams and oceans. A study of 1,833 men in Finland, for example, reported that those who ate mercury-contaminated freshwater fish (and who ended up with higher mercury blood levels) suffered twice the rate of heart attacks and deaths from strokes as those who did not eat contaminated fish, the Times reported.
For years, mercury has been used in a range of products (thermometers, thermostats, light switches). It rarely poses a direct health hazard in these products. But when it's released into the air by power plants, chemical manufacturers or industrial facilities and then settles into oceans and waterways, it builds up in the fish that we eat, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental action organization. Once mercury enters a waterway, it's transformed by bacteria into methyl mercury and works its way up the food chain as large fish consume smaller fish. Predatory fish such as large tuna, swordfish, shark and mackerel have higher concentrations of mercury because they live longer and consume smaller fish that also contain mercury.
Mercury can be toxic to the brain, heart and nervous system and is especially damaging to the neurological development of babies and young children. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advised pregnant and nursing women, women of child-bearing age and children to avoid certain fish, such as swordfish, king mackerel, tilefish and shark, because of the mercury content. "Mercury can affect the fetus' brain function," noted Kathy Peshke, a registered dietitian at Genesys Regional Medical Center. "I had one pregnant lady in here who was eating tuna every day," she said. "That's too much for somebody who's pregnant."
Peshke said she recommends eating salmon because it's not high in mercury. White fish doesn't have omega-3 fatty acids, but it's still a good substitute for red meat, she said. Shellfish is another option, but it tends to have a little more cholesterol than fish. "The trouble with a lot of shellfish (like lobster or crab) is that you dip it in butter," she said.
The EPA recommends that women of child-bearing age and young children eat up to 12 ounces (two average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury. Those include shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock and catfish. Albacore (or white) tuna has higher mercury levels than canned light tuna.
"In the state of Michigan, I think we definitely need to be concerned about mercury," said Jennifer English, registered dietitian at Hurley Medical Center. A Michigan Family Fish Consumption Guide (put out by the Michigan Department of Community Health) notes that no one should eat more than one meal a week of certain fish from Michigan inland lakes, including rock bass, perch or crappie over 9 inches long, walleye, northern pike, largemouth and smallmouth bass and muskie. Women of child-bearing age and children under 15 should not eat more than one meal per month of those fish, it says.
English said she recommends people get their omega-3 fatty acids from foods rather than supplements. She tells clients to include soybeans, canola, walnuts and flaxseed in their diets to help the body make omega-3 fatty acids. "For people who don't get enough from foods, they can take capsules," she said.
The concern over mercury consumption has prompted some companies, such as Carvalho Fisheries on the West Coast, to sell a "minimal-mercury" tuna. But the price is high -- $34.95 for six 7.5-ounce cans. The company's owners, Bill and Margaret Carvalho, had samples of albacore tuna of different sizes tested at a private laboratory, discovering that young albacore consistently had lower mercury content than older, larger fish. They drew the line at .3 parts per million or less "since that would put it lower than most all other seafood deemed low in mercury, like cod, halibut, crab, etc.," notes their Web site, www.carvalhofisheries.com.
What happens to the mercury that accumulates in your system? "Every 50 days on average, we eliminate half the mercury in our bodies," Peshke said. "If you've eaten too much mercury, you may exhibit (these symptoms) -- headaches, hair loss, slurred speech, memory problems, tremors, being tired or depressed and having a metal taste in your mouth." The Environmental Working Group has a tuna calculator on its Web site, www.ewg.org/issues/mercury. Plug your weight into the calculator and it will tell you the amounts of albacore tuna and light tuna that you can consume per week, according to FDA health standards.
Mike Donlan of Donlan's Fish Co. said ahi tuna is still a "wonderful seller." "People love that fish," he said. "We see an increase in sales on that every year." West Coast salmon also is popular, he noted. Dave Isbell, co-owner/operator of Grand Blanc Toyota/Mercedes Benz/BMW, said he never had a taste for fish until changing his eating habits for health reasons. "I was trying to lose weight and not eat as much beef," said Isbell, who enrolled in Genesys Athletic Club's Body by Design nutrition/workout program. "I was afraid to try it, but once I started eating fish, I liked it." Now he's hooked on fish five times a week. By changing his lifestyle, he lost 58 pounds, he said. "Florida grouper is my favorite," he added. "I like all kinds of white fishes. I eat ahi tuna about once every other week."
Wolfe, whose health food store also carries cans of tuna and some frozen fish, said he sells "omega-3 oils in rivers." "Ten years ago, when I said the word fat to a customer, it was a cuss word," he said. "People now understand the difference between good fats (in fish, raw nuts and seeds) and bad fats."
by Rebecca Smithers, London Guardian
September 25, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1880087,00.html
Consumers are being routinely exposed to unsafe levels of pesticide residues in their food which are nevertheless still within legal limits, campaigners warn today. More than 5% of fruit, vegetables and other foods carried harmful pesticide residues which posed "appreciable" health risks to consumers. One pesticide, Imazalil, exceeded the safe limit on 79% of oranges sampled, according to the Pesticide Action Network. Imazalil is "moderately hazardous" and a likely human carcinogen, according to the World Health Organisation, but most of the pesticide might be in the peel and therefore not eaten.
Apart from oranges, about 1.6% of fresh produce was found to contain pesticides above internationally agreed safety levels, which means that anyone eating large quantities of fruit and vegetables might expect to exceed the safe intake five or six times a year. The Pesticide Action Network conducted its own analysis of official government data. The government's own pesticide residues committee report for 2005, due out in the next few days, will analyse the same data.
The campaigners' report indicates that more rigorous safety checks are needed to allay consumers' concerns about pesticide residues in their food. They can lead to chronic illnesses and cause disruption to endocrine systems at low doses. The campaigners analysed the data to show which foods are most likely to be contaminated with pesticides and which pesticides appear most frequently. They also give advice -- such as eating organic -- on how to cut pesticide intake while still eating the recommended five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
The government report generally focuses on the legal limits of pesticides in food, which are set by the EU. Yet this limit, known as the maximum residue level, does not actually relate to how safe the pesticide is. The campaigners' analysis of the government's 2005 data compared residues against the safety limit for consuming an amount that would be eaten within one meal, or a day. This safety limit was exceeded in 97 cases, indicating that there could be an appreciable health risk to the consumer. These samples were at levels typically between 100% and 500% of the safety limit, although one sample reached 1,600%.
Clare Butler Ellis, of the Pesticide Action Network, said: "The pesticide residues committee almost always find no cause for concern with these levels of pesticides, but we think the public are right to be concerned and to try to do something about it."
by Lindy Washburn, West Paterson [New Jersey] Herald News
September 25, 2006
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2OTk2MDAyJnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==
A single word -- autism -- changed Christine Bakter's life. It explained her son Alex's strange behavior. It clouded her dreams for her second son, Ben, who was just 3 weeks old when Alex was diagnosed. Would he, too, have autism? And it plunged her family into a world of scientific research -- a world to which they have contributed as much as they've received.
Autism researchers today are pushing to identify the genetic changes linked to autism. They're unraveling the brain's role in reading facial expressions, understanding spoken language and making friends. They're trying to develop effective ways to teach those affected. They're helped by people like the Bakters who -- in the midst of their own difficult lives -- are offering themselves for research. Baby Ben was enrolled in a study of 300 siblings of children with autism -- children who are 50 times as likely as the general population to develop the disorder. Alex is signing up for a study on computer software that trains autistic children to make eye contact and read facial expressions. The whole family has given blood samples for the Autism Genome Project, the largest-ever genetic study of autism.
But despite dramatic increases in research and funding, surprisingly little is known about autism. It still has no known cause or cure. "Autism is an extremely complex disorder," says James Millonig of Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He is a mouse geneticist and one of the state's top autism researchers. "The more ways we attack it scientifically, the better off we are."
Among the questions researchers are trying to answer:
Genetic research
The research is taking place in labs in New Jersey and across the nation. At the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, a joint institute of Rutgers and UMDNJ in Piscataway, researchers are examining thousands of mice with a genetic defect similar to one found in humans with autism. They are hoping to understand the effects of this mutation on their behavior and brain chemistry.
In the New Jersey Language and Autism Genetics Study at Rutgers, cell DNA is scanned for gene changes shared by people with autism and their relatives with language impairments. This may pinpoint the genes involved with language use -- and one day lead to a genetic test for autism. "Trying to understand autism is like trying to do one of those really hard jigsaw puzzles," says Linda Brzustowicz, a professor of genetics at Rutgers and a psychiatrist at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. "Anytime you get a few more pieces in place, it makes others easier to fit in."
Most research focuses on the causes of autism.
Clearly, genes play an important role. Virtually every special school for children with autism has at least one pair of siblings. Studies of identical twins have shown that if one twin is diagnosed with autism, nine out of 10 times the other will be, too. "This is a highly genetic disorder," says Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom, professor of neuroscience and cell biology at Robert Wood Johnson, part of UMDNJ.
But it's not a simple matter of one gene being passed on by both parents. Rather, several genes must mutate simultaneously for autism to develop -- "at least three genes, if not up to 15," he says. Several research groups, in New Jersey and elsewhere, are trying to discover which genes are involved. They use samples from gene banks like the one storing the Bakters' DNA, and from the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository of 518 families, each with multiple autistic children. The researchers are looking for genes that govern the development of regions of the brain that appear different in autopsies of people with autism. They look for gene changes linked to such symptoms of autism as repetitive movement and poor communication skills.
In an important development, New Jersey researchers have found one gene involved in 40 percent of autism cases. It is associated with reduced growth in the cerebellum, one of many parts of the brain that affect movement and the ability to switch tasks. The next step is to understand how these DNA changes cause the brain to develop differently. "We'll create mice, to address this question," Millonig says. The changes in their brain anatomy will add to the understanding of how the human brain develops.
Role of environment
Genetics, of course, doesn't explain everything. Even with identical twins, there is still a 10 percent chance that if one develops autism, the other will not. Environmental scientists look at that 10 percent and ask why. What difference was there in the way the baby developed -- in utero, and in the first months of life -- that explains why the child doesn't have the disorder? Was it the position in the uterus? Exposure to a chemical or a virus? A medication the baby or the mother took?
A lot of attention has focused on vaccines, which -- until the last lots expired in early 2003 -- contained thimerosal, a mercury preservative. The symptoms of autism often appear about the same time that toddlers receive a batch of immunizations, which has led some parents and scientists to suspect a connection. A study by the national Institute of Medicine concluded in 2004 that neither thimerosal-containing vaccines nor the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is associated with autism. Several studies, it said, "consistently provided evidence of no association." However, the issue hasn't been put to rest for some people.
In the search for other environmental causes, researchers in New Jersey have tested dust, water and air in the homes of dozens of children with autism. Scientists at the Center for Childhood Neurotoxicology and Exposure Assessment, a joint program of UMDNJ and Rutgers in Piscataway, are looking at whether levels of metals, pesticides, volatile organic compounds and other pollutants in these children's homes are higher than normal. Preliminary results indicate they are not, said Clifford Weisel, a professor of environmental and occupational medicine at Robert Wood Johnson. In particular, New Jersey researchers are interested in the type of autism in which babies develop normally until about the age of 2, then regress. Could there be something about the way these children are affected by their environment -- by mouthing their toys or by ingesting more pollutants -- that explains the regression?
Other researchers are exploring how the brain works and what goes wrong in children with autism. A typical baby, for example, quickly learns to focus on a caregiver's face and imitate the expression she sees. But a child with autism looks elsewhere: at the caregiver's plaid shirt, for example, or the light switch over her shoulder. Without that dance of smile and response, the autistic child misses out on social understanding.
With the big money going to basic research into the causes of autism, some on the front lines -- those who work with children and adults who have autism -- are frustrated. "It's wonderful to understand 'why,' " says John Brown, director of the REED Academy, a small independent school in Garfield for children with autism. "But it's more important to do something about it. The research questions important to me are about how to help kids who have this and how to help adults who have it." He'd like specific studies on the best way to teach eye contact and conversational skills, for example. At REED Academy, his teachers have studied the use of video to teach students to tie their shoes.
Most of that research receives little outside support, though there are signs of change. Autism Speaks, the largest private philanthropy for autism research, and the Governor's Council on Autism have invited applications for funding of treatment studies this fall. But the big pharmaceutical companies stay out, because there's no pill to cure autism -- and little prospect of finding one, because medicine can't make the brain develop differently. The absence of drug-company interest is a shame, says Charles Cartwright, a psychiatrist and head of UMDNJ's Center for Autism. He prescribes dozens of drugs -- strong ones, for long periods -- to patients with severe autism, to suppress seizures or self-injurious behavior. Little research has been done on their long-term use in such patients.
Autism's ground zero
One piece of the autism puzzle that soon will be known is its prevalence. Five years ago, a study in Brick Township in Ocean County drew national attention when it documented an autism rate of 1 in 149 children -- higher than had ever been found elsewhere. The cases included kids with Asperger's syndrome and high-functioning autism as well as severe autism. Researchers in the federal study delved into medical records and dug through school files to come up with an accurate count. They were galvanized by parents who worried that something in the air or water was harming their children. "Brick Township is where everything started for this generation of autism research," says Andrew Shih, chief science officer for Autism Speaks.
But there was no way of knowing whether Brick's rate was typical or abnormally high. There was no way to know whether it had increased over time or stayed the same. No other studies were comparable. "It really alerted the scientific community that maybe what we assumed to be the prevalence rates were not accurate," Shih said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then sponsored studies in eight states -- including New Jersey -- to determine the rate of autism in the general population and monitor it over time. In New Jersey, researchers combed through records in Ocean, Essex, Hudson and Union counties to find children classified as autistic. From a population of 34,000 8-year-olds in 2000, they came up with an exact count. The results are to be published this fall, and, until then, researchers are mum.
The study will answer, once and for all, whether the Brick children were a cluster or a trend. It will also compare the rates among different ethnic groups. Above all, says Walter Zahorodny, the UMDNJ psychologist who is the study's principle investigator, "it will be very clear what the tremendous personal and educational burden of autism is."
Meanwhile, he is working on another project, the New Jersey Answers for Autism Survey. The 25-page questionnaire for parents of children with autism asks about family history, the circumstances of the child's birth, interventions the family has tried and the child's educational placement. As of July, 1,100 surveys had been returned, making this the largest voluntary biomedical database of autism in the country. Also unprecedented is its ability to track people over time. Analysis of the results is just beginning.
Early warning signs
The autism research with the greatest practical impact right now concerns early diagnosis -- studies such as the High-Risk Baby Siblings Research Project that Ben Bakter joined. Every few months until Ben turned 3, his family traveled to Maryland, where he was observed by researchers. Caught in time, the course of autism can almost be reversed in some children. The brain can grow new nerve connections with structured, repetitive stimulation. It can, in effect, rewire itself to make up for some of the deficiencies caused by autism.
Though Ben was a smiling, social baby, by his first birthday, his parents noticed slight changes in his eye contact. He interacted with them from across the room, but he tuned out when they moved into conversational range. It was very subtle, but the Baltimore researchers also picked up on it. At Ben's 14-month observation visit, Rebecca Landa, director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, told his mother: "I'm seeing a lot of red flags here. ... You need to get intervention services for this child immediately." It took only a few hours a week of skilled intervention, but, Christine Bakter says, "I firmly believe that because we acted when we did ... we really got it. We stopped the autism in its tracks. We brought him back."
This month, Ben, now 5, entered kindergarten in Hamilton Township, in a class that integrates special-education children with typical ones. He talks well and has friends, his mother says. "This is like a dream come true for us." His brother, diagnosed at 3½, has progressed less than Ben. Now 8, Alex is in a school for children with special needs. Although it's impossible to say definitively that early diagnosis was the sole reason for Ben's improvement, Christine Bakter believes it made a powerful difference. With her family's help, research may make it possible for such dreams to come true for other families, too.
by Mike Keller, Biloxi [Mississippi] Sun Herald
September 24, 2006
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/15595899.htm
A global controversy is being trucked to Pascagoula, traveling some 1,100 miles in tanker trucks from New Jersey to DuPont's First Chemical Corporation plant daily. The trucks, if taking the shortest route, get to Jackson County after traversing seven states on as many as nine highways. For a long stretch on that route, drivers run in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains. The trucks are hauling fluorotelomer alcohol, an ingredient in DuPont's line of surface-protection coatings. The alcohol is being brought from New Jersey to purify it of an unintended byproduct called perfluorooctanoic acid, also called PFOA or C8.
The alcohol is pumped through a process DuPont officials said will chemically destroy about a thousand pounds of PFOA a year. Remnants of the impurity, totaling about two pounds a year, leave the plant through Pascagoula's municipal sewage lines and go to the Moss Point/Pascagoula wastewater-treatment plant. From there, PFOA flows with treated wastewater into the Pascagoula River, according to the company's plans submitted to Mississippi's Department of Environmental Quality. Clean fluorotelomer alcohol is then hauled back to New Jersey to create the coatings used on a range of products.
Donald Scharr, First Chem's environmental manager, said the project involved a $20 million upgrade to existing facilities and created nine new jobs. It is also part of DuPont's agreement to the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce PFOA in its products and emissions, he said.
First Chemical the solution
Asked why DuPont found it cost-effective to haul the alcohol to the purification process over long distances for an indefinite amount of time instead of bringing the process to the alcohol, plant manager James Freeman said First Chemical had available expertise and idle equipment. "They don't have it at the New Jersey site," Freeman said. "To carry the equipment somewhere else is impractical and too expensive. But it's not just a matter of money; there is also a timing aspect that we have committed to the EPA."
Neither the EPA nor Mississippi's Department of Environmental Quality has placed any emissions or exposure limits on PFOA. The EPA, along with research scientists around the world, are looking into whether the chemical causes people or the environment any health problems. A DuPont spokesman said the company will monitor and report concentrations of PFOA in wastewater emissions to MDEQ, as requested by the state agency.
A group of residents led by the Mississippi Chapter of the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers union have begun to voice their opposition to the project, hoping either the company or regulators will put a hold on the project until health hazards are better understood. The company began processing fluorotelomer alcohol Sept. 19, to the dismay of several residents and local elected officials. "They are imposing upon my life and everybody else's life in the city of Pascagoula," Pascagoula resident Paula Tolleson told the City Council recently after she turned in a 10-page petition of residents opposed to the project. "This will hurt us. We have to come to (the council) because we want you to say to DuPont, 'No, we want to wait for the EPA to rule on this.'"
The science of PFOA
Fluorotelomer alcohol is part of a family of products used as ingredients in making firefighting foams and nonstick coatings with stain, oil and water resistance, according to DuPont. PFOA is found as an unintentional byproduct in the alcohol. According to the journal Environmental Science & Technology, DuPont estimated global production of fluorotelomer alcohols at around 13,000 tons a year in January 2005. The company sold the stuff for about $700 million annually. DuPont is one of five producers of the fluorotelomer products in the world. It is the only one based in America.
Separately, PFOA is an important and intentional component in creating fluoropolymers, used in the manufacture of telecommunications wires, semiconductors, aerospace materials and more. PFOA has been manufactured and used widely since the 1950s. As DuPont representatives told a forum in England this year, fluoropolymers are an important company product because it is "the slipperiest substance known to man." The company is one of six around the world that manufacture or use fluoropolymers.
But controversy over PFOA's impacts on people and the environment has been going on for years. The scientific consensus is it takes a long time to break down, making it persistent in the environment. There is disagreement about whether it builds up in organisms over time. DuPont's studies say it does not accumulate. Other studies, such as one by 12 scientists from Ford Motor Company and universities in America, Canada and Denmark that looked at the atmospheric distribution of telomer alcohols, say it does accumulate. There are also conflicting opinions in the scientific community about whether PFOA builds up in the food chain as predators eat prey contaminated with it, a process called biomagnification.
Though an overwhelming majority of the world's population has detectable levels of the chemical in their blood, the EPA has said the normal use of products that may contain PFOA, such as DuPont's Teflon-coated nonstick pans, carpeting and fabrics treated for stain-resistance and all-weather clothing material such as Gore-Tex do not pose a risk to consumers. The agency also said there is no reason to stop using such products as they do not emit PFOA if used normally.
But with some estimates saying PFOA is detectable in 96 percent of the global human population and studies indicating it is present in the livers of Arctic polar bears, the chemical, which does not occur naturally, must be reaching the environment somehow.
PFOA risk assessment
An independent panel of scientists advising the EPA on a PFOA risk assessment said the chemical should be labeled as a likely trigger of human cancers. In fact, three-quarters of the group, after reviewing the most current studies, said it should be classified as a likely carcinogen; one-quarter said studies only suggested it was carcinogenic to humans.
No matter what scientists finally determine to be the effects of PFOA exposure, studies have shown a direct connection between concentrations of the chemical in the blood and a person's proximity to a PFOA source. A government-funded study near the West Virginia Washington Works plant led by University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine physician and toxicologist Dr. Edward A. Emmett found residents in the Little Hocking water district had 340 parts per billion PFOA in their blood. Washington Works production employees had 490 parts per billion PFOA levels. Average PFOA levels in the American population are 5 ppb. The study's authors also found significantly higher levels of the chemical in the elderly, children younger than six, and residents who ate more locally grown fruits and vegetables.
The authors raised an earlier study of workers exposed to PFOA that seemed to show higher levels of prostate cancer, but said the findings had not been confirmed by another investigation. There is "no proof to date of a cancer risk, but (it) needs more study," they said.
Here is a brief history of DuPont regarding PFOA:
from BBC News
September 22, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5355466.stm
The World Health Organization recommends children should not be exposed to blood levels of more than 100 microgram/litre. But US scientists found increased risks at levels up to five times lower. The Tulane University findings, in the journal Circulation, suggest the safety limits should be reassessed.
The researchers examined data on 13,946 adults whose blood lead levels were measured between 1988 and 1994. They also looked at death rates and cause of death for this group up to the end of 2000. They found that the risk of death from all causes, and cardiovascular disease, increased progressively at higher lead levels.
Compared to people with a blood lead level below 19 micrograms/litre, those with a level of between 36 and 100 micrograms/litre had:
Chief researcher Dr Paul Muntner said the study also found evidence that lead blood levels as low as 20 micrograms/litre were associated with a raised risk of cardiovascular death. He said the public health implications of the findings were potentially significant, as 38% of US adults were estimated as having blood lead levels higher than 20 micrograms/litre in 1999-2002. Dr Muntner said: "Future research is needed to identify the level of lead exposure that is not associated with major health outcomes. Although markedly reduced, the current blood lead levels may not be low enough, and we believe that practical and cost-effective methods for reducing lead exposure in the general population are needed."
UK measures
A spokesman for the UK's Health Protection Agency said the UK had cut lead emissions by 97% since the 1970s. Measures had included a ban on the use of lead pipes for drinking water in new installations, and the phasing out of lead-based petrol. However, he said there was evidence to suggest that even exposure to small amounts of lead could pose a risk -- particularly to the development of children's brains. He said: "We do not believe that any exposure to lead is entirely harmless, and it has been government policy for many years to reduce exposure wherever reasonably practical. As a result of these efforts, blood lead levels in the UK have fallen dramatically in recent decades and surveys indicate that the great majority of UK children are now well below the target level. It is reasonable to expect further reductions in blood lead levels, as older legislation continues to have an effect and newer actions -- such as lowering limits for lead in drinking-water -- are introduced."
Ellen Mason, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "Because lead does not stay around in the bloodstream for long it makes it difficult to tell whether it is linked to heart disease. Further studies are needed to establish whether a link exists and whether it would take short or long term exposure to lead to put the heart at risk."
The researchers found no association between blood lead levels and death from cancer.
by David Ellison, Houston Chronicle
September 22, 2006
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4208550.html
Environmentalists and activists will board a bus in Port Arthur on Sunday for a weeklong, multistate tour of minority and poor communities that they say are devastated by pollution from refineries, landfills and hazardous sites. The event -- part of the Environmental Justice for All, Tour '06 -- will cover a dozen cities between Port Arthur and Washington, D.C. Two other routes, which start in Buffalo and California's Bay Area, will travel through another 24 cities and communities. The buses will be occupied by activists, health researchers, environmental scientists and public policy experts. "The tour is basically designed to help link grass-roots organizations together and also make each group aware of the other being there," said Hilton Kelley of Port Arthur, one of the tour's regional coordinators.
Organizers said another purpose is to put pressure on congressional leaders to make the elimination of environmental hazards a priority issue in the upcoming elections. Kelley said the tour will visit areas that are polluted by landfills, oil and chemical refineries and military bases that were closed because of contamination. He said poor black residents in Port Arthur live near oil and chemical refineries in an area they call "Gasoline Alley." Air pollution is emitted legally and illegally, he said. "And either way, whether the emissions are legal or illegal, they still have a negative impact on our community," Kelley said.
Port Arthur Mayor Oscar Ortiz said Kelley seems to forget that these plants provide work for all the people in the area, including minorities. "They (refinery officials) are not deliberately trying to pollute the air," Ortiz said. "And they are monitored by the federal agencies, and there are (air pollution) monitors out there on the highways. The city would be the first one to be all over them if they did some serious pollution."
Georgie Volz, regional director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in Beaumont, said the six major industries in the Port Arthur area include Motiva, Huntsman, Chevron Phillips, Valero, KMTX and Great Lakes Carbon. She said the TCEQ received 15 air complaints from citizens between Sept. 1, 2005, and Aug. 31. The complaints range from seeing flares to smelling odors. Volz said her agency has conducted investigations on every facility each year, whether they resulted from citizens' complaints or TCEQ surveillances. "Every facility in that Beaumont area has had violations, has had enforcement actions and things like that," she said. She said the violations include a range of problems, from paperwork to emissions.
Refinery officials defended their operations as being safe and environmentally sound. They say they are sensitive to the nearby communities. "We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on improvements to those facilities, and they are safer and cleaner than they have ever been in their history," said Russ Stolle, Huntsman Corp.'s senior vice president for global public affairs and communications. Stan Sehested, a Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. spokesman, said the firm has a huge commitment to environmental stewardship and has been consistently lowering plant emissions. "For us, that means working to do things like modernize plants and lower emissions, handle chemicals safely, focus on reducing waste and recycling," Sehested said.
by Charley Able, Rocky Mountain News
September 22, 2006
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5012017,00.html
A long-awaited study suggests living close to radio and television towers possibly could affect people's health, but does little to settle debate over whether a proposed tower should be built on Lookout Mountain. The study, the first to examine the possible effects of radio frequency emissions, indicates a possible link between proximity of homes to radio and television broadcast devices and biological effects of radio frequency exposure, but one of its authors said many questions remain. "Just like all good scientific research, more questions have been raised than answered," said James B. Burch of the University of South Carolina's Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. "I don't know that we have the data to make the determination of just exactly what it means, or exactly what is going on, or whether it is significant or not," Burch said.
For years, opponents of proposals to place digital television broadcast transmitters on a tower atop Lookout Mountain have argued that the RF emissions from the towers are endangering the health of nearby residents. That is disputed by supporters of broadcasters, who are under a federal mandate to provide free, over-the-airwaves high definition television broadcasts. Lake Cedar Group, a consortium of four local television stations, wants to build a 730-foot broadcast tower to house the HDTV transmitters on a 65-acre site atop the mountain. Three existing towers would be removed if the plan is approved.
The Lake Cedar application was approved by former Jefferson County commissioners in 2003, but it has been returned twice for further consideration by a district court judge. Commissioners have not set a hearing date to respond to the latest court remand.
The study, conducted by Burch and other researchers at Colorado State University and the University of Washington in Seattle, measured the production of "markers" believed to play significant roles in the human immune system. "A robust immune system is important for people who have cancer. It is thought that the immune system plays a role in tumor surveillance, detecting microscopic tumors, and eliminating them before they become cancerous growths," Burch said. Previous studies by the Colorado Department of Health and Environment found increases in tumors among residents of two areas on Lookout Mountain, but found no conclusive link between the cancers and the broadcast towers. The new study found the closer people live to the towers the higher their exposure to radio frequency emissions.
The study indicates changes in immune system markers such as white blood cells, lymphocytes and T-cells could be related to increased RF levels because the markers "were all significantly increased among persons" in the highest areas of exposure as compared with those in the areas of lowest RF exposure. "The study shows there are biological effects that are associated with increased RF power densities within the homes," Burch said. "But what does an increase in immune markers mean? Those are difficult things to interpret."
The study indicates people with lower than normal levels of melatonin may be more susceptible to the effects of RF radiation, Burch said. But he also said the results of the study could be "a spurious finding" or could mean there is a direct biological effect. Melatonin regulates the sleep cycle and is associated with the performance of the human immune system. The increased counts of white blood cells, lymphocytes and T-cells, which are a type of lymphocytes, usually signal viral infections, said Dr. Mark Johnson of the Jefferson County Department of Health and Environment. The level of the increased markers found by the study is within the normal range of variance from person to person, Johnson said.
The study means any decision on the tower should be approached with caution, said Deb Carney, spokeswoman for Canyon Area Residents for the Environment. "We are seeing warning signs. If you wait until it is absolutely 100 percent certain that it does something to us, then there has been a whole lot of harm done in the meantime," Carney said.
Marv Rockford, spokesman for the broadcaster's group, said the study furthers Lake Cedar's position that no link exists between the Lookout Mountain broadcast devices and health risks. "I would support the statement that this has to be weighed against the vast body of research that has been done in this area, which ... does not support the contention that there is any adverse impact on health from exposure to RF below the safety guidelines," Rockford said.
statement from John L. Kirkwood, American Lung Association
September 21, 2006
http://www.lungusa.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=34893&ct=2948571¬oc=1
NEW YORK -- We are extremely disappointed with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter pollution announced today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Unfortunately, EPA's standards fail to protect the health of the public, despite the requirement in the Clean Air Act that they must. Overwhelming evidence shows that millions of people suffer unnecessarily -- even face an earlier death -- because they breathe this pollution. EPA could have -- should have -- done better. The American Lung Association recommended much more protective fine particle standards, an annual standard of 12 µg/m3 and a daily standard of 25 µg/m3.
Particulate matter remains a threat to public health. Those most at risk are members of all of our families: our children; our seniors; those with asthma, with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and other lung diseases; those with stroke and heart diseases; and those with diabetes. They face increased risk of dying early, having severe asthma attacks, heart attacks, stroke, and lung cancer.
While almost any improvement in the weak 1997 standards is better than nothing, EPA's modest revisions cannot be justified. The EPA chose not to tighten the annual PM 2.5 standard, 15 µg/m3 and the 24-hour standard was only lowered to 35 µg/m3. Thousands of studies -- most funded by EPA itself -- unmistakably demonstrate that particulate matter is a dangerous air pollutant, endangering life and health at levels well below those announced by EPA today. We are not alone in that conclusion: an unprecedented array of scientists, physicians, state and local government leaders, and organizations joined the American Lung Association to tell EPA these standards were not acceptable, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Thoracic Society and the American Public Health Association. Even EPA's own staff scientists and independent scientific advisors all recommended stronger standards than the ones announced today.
National air quality standards matter. The standards tell us when the air is officially safe to breathe. The standards are the goals that each county and state must meet, and therefore they drive nearly every effort nationwide to clean up air pollution.
EPA has failed to do what Congress and the American public charged them to do. Each of us should demand clean air and ask our elected officials to tell EPA to correct this erroneous decision.
by Eileen O'Grady, Reuters
September 21, 2006
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21232336.htm
HOUSTON -- Texans may consume more electricity than other Americans, but they're suddenly debating the wisdom of doubling the number of coal-fired power plants in the state -- plants critics say will worsen air quality and increase health risks. The threat of more smog-forming emissions from 12,000 new megawatts of coal-fired generation on the books for Texas has sparked a robust debate involving citizens, business groups and big-city mayors at recent air-permit hearings around the state. Even the prospect of new jobs, additional tax revenue and cheaper electricity have not been sufficient to quell anxiety about increased pollution.
"If we can't stop these plants, we can make sure they are as clean as possible," said Robert Cervenka, who lives in Riesel, Texas, within a mile of a proposed 858-MW coal plant. It will replace a 1950s era power plant which Cervenka blames for asthma problems in his family.
After a decade of building natural gas-fired plants that drew little opposition on environmental grounds, companies are rushing to permit more than 120 new coal-fired plants across the United States because coal is cheaper to burn than gas. A spike in gas prices after hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted Gulf of Mexico gas production in 2005 accelerated the trend. Even at current prices, which have dropped by half, coal is cheaper. Illinois, Texas and Florida are seeing the most interest in coal-plant development because of rising electric demand. Texas will need additional generation as early as 2008 to avoid blackouts.
Some of the most vocal opposition to the Texas coal rush has been heard in McLennan County, about 95 miles south of Dallas. Companies want to build four new coal generators in the county, which is home to Baylor University and President George W. Bush's Crawford ranch. Ten of 17 proposed coal units are located in five central Texas counties. The concentration of plants in one area of the state has raised concern among residents, business owners and elected officials who normally support new investment, said Jim Vaughan, president of the Waco Chamber of Commerce. The number of coal plants in Texas would double if all new plants are built. "That's got people saying we need to know more about this," he said. Vaughan said his members worry that ever-rising power prices will hurt economic growth, but they also fear more coal plants will worsen polluted air, boost mercury levels in lakes and add to global warming.
Environmentalists are heartened by the chorus of concern. "When you hear the chamber of commerce president talk about global warming, it's clear the tipping point has been reached," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, Texas director of Public Citizen.
Escalating the debate is a plan by Dallas-based TXU Corp. to build 11 new coal units totaling 9,000 MW, including three units in McLennan County. A permit was granted earlier this year to LS Power for an 800-MW coal plant in the county. Other power companies, including NRG Energy and PNM Resources, also are moving quickly to build coal plants as natural gas prices rising above $5 made coal generation highly profitable in the state's deregulated market.
Err on the side of health
Opponents want TXU and others to consider using coal-gasification and other technology to limit pollution. Everyone is really concerned about the environment," Waco Mayor Virginia DuPuy said at one of two McLennan County public hearings held last week which attracted more than 300 people. DuPuy urged the state agency that issues permits to require TXU to stagger plant construction to match the state's rising demand for power. "Give the new technology time to develop," said DuPuy. "We've got to err on the side of health."
While several utilities have proposed construction of coal-gasification plants, the majority would use eastern U.S. coal which has a much higher carbon content and is therefore more efficient than the western U.S. coal or lignite TXU wants to burn, said Steve Jenkins of URS Corp., an engineering firm that designs plants and has consulted with TXU. "To use low-quality coal, you'd have to burn significantly more coal," Jenkins said. "Such a plant would be much more expensive than one designed for eastern coal."
Opponents are skeptical of TXU's commitment to spend $2 billion to retrofit its existing 5,800 MW of coal generation to offset emissions from the new plants and lower its overall emissions by 20 percent. TXU has yet to offer specifics of its emission-reduction plan while it negotiates with vendors, said TXU spokeswoman Kim Morgan. "We know we can do it," she said. Detractors also are skeptical of TXU's promise that more coal-fired generation will serve to lower consumer prices by reducing the state's reliance on higher-priced natural gas. Gas fuels 70 percent of Texas generation.
Since retail competition began in Texas in 2002, electricity prices charged by TXU's retail unit in North Texas have risen 82 percent to 15 cents a kilowatt-hour, based on higher gas. The cheapest residential rate offered by a competing retailer is 13.3 cents. That hurts consumers because Texans typically use 40 percent more electricity in a year than the national average, mostly for air conditioning, according to Energy Information Administration data. Mike McCall, chief executive of TXU's wholesale generation unit, said cheaper coal generation will replace aging gas-fired units and "significantly lower the cost of baseload generation to the grid."
Rancher Paul Rolke, a critic of TXU's proposal to build two lignite-fired units in Robertson County, said the lower-cost plants will only enrich TXU's bottom line. Rolke said he would oppose the current plant design even if he believed his monthly power bill would drop. "We are not going to give a pass on 50 years of pollution," Rolke said.
by Alex Nussbaum, Bergen County [New Jersey] Record
September 21, 2006
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2OTk1MDU2JnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==
Cindy Snyder knew something was wrong by counting the asthma inhalers on the sidelines at soccer matches. Every year, more players left the field with breathing problems, said the mother from White Township, a rural community tucked amid the cow pastures and cornfields of Warren County. Her 13-year-old son Andrew was hospitalized after a recent attack. For her 16-year-old daughter Annmarie, breathing sometimes gets so hard she needs help just raising her asthma medication to her lips.
Two New Jersey researchers unveiled a study Wednesday that confirmed the fears of parents in rural New Jersey: Asthma rates are surprisingly high. The results also have wider implications, suggesting that children's lungs can be affected even at air pollution levels well below what the government considers safe. "Asthma continues to be a serious concern in New Jersey," said Stanley Weiss, a professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. "The problem is certainly not going away statewide."
Weiss and his UMDNJ colleague, Clifford Weisel, released the results as the federal government nears an announcement on revising some of its air quality standards. The Environmental Protection Agency could finalize a new limit for fine particulate pollution -- the soot belched out of trucks and industry smokestacks -- as early as today. Activists and public health groups are already condemning the proposal as too weak. "There's a fairly lengthy list of scientists telling the EPA that their [latest] proposal was not good enough to protect public health," Janice Nolen, the American Lung Association's national policy director, said during a Washington press conference Wednesday unrelated to the UMDNJ study. "We are not looking forward to what we anticipate the EPA doing."
Where the government sets new pollutant standards could have a broad effect on millions of Americans who suffer from asthma, heart disease and other disorders linked to air quality. Asthma rates have doubled during the past 20 years, despite an overall drop in smog, soot and other pollution. In New Jersey, the state Health Department estimates 450,000 adults have asthma, about 7 percent of the population, and that nearly one in eight children has been diagnosed with the disease.
Not every asthma attack is triggered by air pollution. Allergies, colds, the weather and other factors also play a role. Still, there's no doubt that enforcing stringent pollution standards could reduce some suffering, said Mary Ann Michelis, director of the Center for Allergy, Asthma and Immune Disorders at Hackensack University Medical Center. On a hot, humid day, with high ozone, the ER is humming," she said. "There's obviously many more people in there."
In Warren County, the four-year study was prompted by surveys in 2001 that found 20 percent of students in White Township and neighboring Belvidere had been diagnosed with asthma. The surprisingly high number put the rural area near the Delaware River on par with cities like Paterson and Passaic that typically report higher asthma numbers. At the same time, a local vitamin factory admitted to having violated federal air pollution limits for years and the state was in negotiations to reduce emissions from a coal-fired power plant just across the river in Pennsylvania. Warren County was already out of compliance with federal standards for sulfur dioxide, a power plant pollutant that contributes to acid rain and soot problems.
Weiss and Weisel followed 64 children, taking daily surveys of their health and activity, and comparing them with data from pollution monitoring stations set up in the communities. It may be the most comprehensive look at the relationship between asthma symptoms and air quality in a rural setting, the two doctors said. Among other results, the researchers found children's lung capacity declined when sulfur levels rose, even when the pollutant was still "well, well within" federal levels, Weiss said. Weisel, whose research has helped push the EPA toward lower pollution limits in the past, was cautious about the implications. "It's one data point, and it needs to be considered among many as we decide where these levels should be," he said.
The EPA is in the process of reviewing its sulfur dioxide standard, said John Millet, an agency spokesman. In the meantime, it has ordered bigger pollution reductions from power plants in the eastern U.S. that emit much of the sulfur, he noted. "We always set the standard, and then more science continues, and you review the standards," he said.
Nolen, the Lung Association executive, hadn't seen the Warren County study, but she criticized the EPA for dragging its feet on assessing the sulfur standard. A promised five-year review is several years overdue, she said. "They haven't done the review, so, by definition, they don't know whether those standards are where they should be or not and neither do we," she said.
by Meera Selva, London Independent
September 21, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article1640485.ece
One August morning, people living near the Akouedo rubbish dump in Abidjan, capital of the Ivory Coast, woke up to a foul-smelling air. Soon, they began to vomit, children got diarrhoea, and the elderly found it difficult to breathe. "The smell was unbelievable, a cross between rotten eggs and blocked drains," said one Abidjan resident. "After 10 minutes in the thick of it, I felt sick."
As they live near the biggest landfill in Abidjan, the people of Akouedo are used to having rubbish dumped on their doorstep. Trucks unload broken glass, rotting food and used syringes. Children try to make the best of their dismal playground, looking for scraps of metal and old clothes to sell for a few cents. But this time, the waste would benefit no one. By yesterday, at least six people, including two children, had died from the fumes. Another 15,000 have sought treatment for nausea, vomiting and headaches, queuing for hours at hastily set up clinics. Pharmacies have run out of medicines and the World Health Organisation has sent emergency supplies to help the health system. The Ivorian government had resigned over the matter and, so far, eight people have been arrested.
The tragedy is said to have begun on 19 August, after a ship chartered by a Dutch company offloaded 400 tons of gasoline, water and caustic washings used to clean oil drums. The cargo was dumped at Akouedo and at least 10 other sites around the city, including in a channel leading to a lake, roadsides and open grounds. The liquids began to send up fumes of hydrogen sulphide, petroleum distillates and sodium hydroxides across the city. As the tidy-up operation begins, environmental groups have begun to ask how this occurred. "We thought the days when companies shipped toxic waste to poor countries were over," said Helen Perivier, toxics co-ordinator for Greenpeace. "It peaked in the 1980s but since then the determination of African countries to stamp the trade out has helped yield results. That this has happened again is extraordinary."
Probo Koala, the ship that offloaded the waste, is registered in Panama and chartered by the Dutch trading company Trafigura Beheer. Trafigura had tried to offload its slops in Amsterdam, but the Amsterdam Port Services recognised its contents as toxic and asked to renegotiate terms. Trafigura said shipping delays would mean penalties of at least 250,000 US dollars (£133,000) so handed it over to a disposal company in Abidjan alongside a "written request that the material should be safely disposed of, according to country laws, and with all the correct documentation."
This story is a common one. All down the West Africa coast, ships registered in America and Europe unload containers filled with old computers, slops, and used medical equipment. Scrap merchants, corrupt politicians and underpaid civil servants take charge of this rubbish and, for a few dollars, will dump them off coastlines and on landfill sites. Throughout the 1980s, Africa was Europe's most popular dumping ground, with radioactive waste and toxic chemicals foisted on landowners. In 1987 an Italian ship dumped a load of waste on Koko Beach, Nigeria. Workers who came into contact with it suffered from chemical burns and partial paralysis, and began to vomit blood. Thereafter, the UN drew up plans to regulate the trade in hazardous waste through the Basel Convention. By 1998, the European Union had agreed to implement the ban, which prohibited the export of hazardous wastes from developed countries to the developing world, but the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand refused to sign up; global waterways are still filled with ships looking to unload their toxic waste.
And now, there is a new threat -- the dumping of electronic waste, or e-waste: unwanted mobile phones, computers and printers, which contain cadmium, lead, mercury and other poisons. More than 20 million computers become obsolete in America alone each year. The UK generates almost 2 million tons of electronic waste. Disposing of this in America and Europe costs money, so many companies sell it to middle merchants, who promise the computers can be reused in Africa, China and India. Each month about 500 container loads, containing about 400,000 unwanted computers, arrive in Nigeria to be processed. But 75 per cent of units shipped to Nigeria cannot be resold. So they sit on landfills, and children scrabble barefoot, looking for scraps of copper wire or nails. And every so often, the plastics are burnt, sending fumes up into the air. "There is a tradition of burning rubbish all over Africa, but this new burning of electronic equipment is incredibly dangerous," said Sarah Westervelt of the Basel Action Network, a pressure group that monitors the trade in hazardous waste. In China, workers burn PVC-coated wires to get at the copper, and swirl acids in buckets to extract scraps of gold.
The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that worldwide, 20 million to 50 million tons of electronics are discarded each year. Less than 10 per cent gets recycled and half or more ends up overseas. As Western technology becomes cheaper and the latest machine comes to be regarded as a disposable fashion statement, this dumping will only intensify. "Electronic goods are the fastest growing area of retail," said Liz Parkes, head of waste regulation at the Environment Agency. "We need to encourage people to think about whether they really need a new electronic item, and to consider what happens to the goods they throw out."
Where does our rubbish go?
by Lewis Smith, London Times
September 21, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2367948,00.html
TRACES of a cocktail of toxic chemicals linked to cancer and foetal deformities are being eaten even in the healthiest of diets. Man-made pollutants and chemicals were found in every one of 27 food products, including staples such as bread and eggs, that were tested by experts. In further tests carried out by WWF, formerly the World Wide Fund for Nature, every one of 352 people who provided blood samples over the past five years was found to be contaminated with toxic chemicals. All the contaminants found in the samples were at low levels, well within legal limits, but there are serious fears for long-term health. None of the contaminants in the quantities detected is thought to pose an immediate, direct risk. There is concern among toxicologists, however, that even at low concentrations the chemicals may represent a serious risk when they mix together in the body.
The eight man-made contaminants, some of which have already been banned, have been linked to many medical conditions. Foetal health and hormone disruption are the most frequently linked effects on health and others include cancer, asthma, allergies, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. The tests were carried out as part of a WWF campaign to persuade the EU to ban various man-made chemicals or introduce stiffer regulations on their use. The chemicals found in the food were organochlorine pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated chemicals, phthalates, organotins, alkylphenols and artificial musks. All are or have been used in everyday products such as food packaging, saucepans, electrical wiring and computers. In Britain 15 food types, including meats, dairy products, honey and olive oil, were tested and all contained at least two types of contaminant. Twelve foods from Finland, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Spain and Greece also showed traces of pollutant.
Paul King, the director of campaigns for WWF-UK, said: "Because of decades of inadequate legislation, even healthy diets are exposing us all to potentially harmful chemicals, and nowhere near enough is known about the long-term effects. While each item of food we tested is probably safe to eat on its own, taken together over long periods the food we eat contributes significantly to our body burden of chemicals." Elizabeth Salter Green, head of the WWF-UK toxics programme, said: "Our food is contaminated, our air is contaminated and our bodies are contaminated. Something is desperately wrong here and we need to resolve the problem." She called on the EU to introduce strict controls on the use of chemicals when it meets to vote on new laws next month. "If the new legislation is not effective in controlling harmful chemicals, our generation will leave behind a legacy of health problems and pollution to the people and wildlife of the world," she said.
The study by the WWF was welcomed by Andreas Kortenkamp, of the London School of Pharmacy, University of London, who is investigating the potential "cocktail effect" of contaminants in the body. "We need to know more about these chemicals so that we can give scientific assessments of their possible health effects," he said.
However, John Hoskins, of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: "Having contaminated the world we have to live with it. I'm not at all concerned with the findings. We can't do anything about the contamination. There's no point in hand-wringing as the WWF do because we can't get rid of this from the environment. What we are working for is stopping further contamination." The Food Standards Agency said: "The levels don't pose health concerns because they are well below the levels set for daily intake. Adverse reactions are unlikely."
by Larry Wheeler, Gannett News Service, Hattiesburg [Mississippi] American
September 20, 2006
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060920/NEWS01/60920011
WASHINGTON -- The nation's youngest and oldest citizens are suffering the most from a fragmented, wasteful and in some cases dangerous health care system, according to a new study. When compared to nearly two dozen other industrialized countries, the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy for people who have reached the age of 60. Those statistics were part of a sobering new look at the U.S. health care system released today by The Commonwealth Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System. "There are many pockets of excellence in health in this country, but overall we are performing far below our national potential," said James Mongan, a physician and chairman of the commission.
The study looked at 37 national indicators of health outcomes, quality, access, equity and efficiency and assigned a score to each. The U.S. scored an average of 66 out of a possible 100, a failing grade. If performance were improved in key areas, the nation could save an estimated 150,000 lives and perhaps as much as $100 billion annually, the report's authors concluded. For example, if health care providers increased the proportion of patients who have their diabetes and high blood pressure under control, as many as 40,000 deaths per year could be prevented at a savings of at least $1 billion, according to the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
Other troubling symptoms:
The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation supporting independent research on health and social issues.
by Melinda Wenner, Science Line
September 20th, 2006
http://scienceline.org/2006/09/20/env-wenner-arsenic/
When Gwen Cox raised broiler chickens for Pilgrim's Pride from 2001 to 2004, she had to use poultry feed provided by the company. After a few incidents when she felt physically ill working with it -- "I would start coughing and could hardly stop, or I'd get lightheaded or nauseous," she remembers -- she checked the feed labels and noticed that they listed roxarsone, an organic arsenic compound, as an ingredient. Concerned about her chickens as well as her own health, she asked Pilgrim's Pride why she was being forced to use feed containing arsenic. "I was told to mind my own business," she says. "[They told me] ‘it's a microbe inhibitor and is proven to be safe in the quantity used in the feed.' But you know some of this stuff is bad when the tickets instruct you not to feed it to any other animals due to it being proven fatal if ingested."
Pilgrim's Pride, the second largest chicken company in the country, wasn't doing anything uncommon: over 70 percent of all broiler chickens grown in the U.S. are fed roxarsone, according to a 2000 article published in the journal Poultry Science. Roxarsone prevents the growth of microscopic intestinal parasites called coccidia that frequently infect livestock, and it provides the added bonus of better growth -- i.e., bigger chickens. (Despite repeated requests, Pilgrim's Pride would not confirm whether it still uses roxarsone.)
Roxarsone doesn't disappear once chickens eat it. Some is distributed throughout the animal's tissues, including the breasts, thighs and legs -- meat that is later eaten by consumers. The rest is excreted unchanged in poultry waste. Ninety percent of this manure is later converted into fertilizer that can contaminate crops, lakes, rivers, and eventually drinking water. Little research, however, has investigated the public health consequences of this practice, which was banned in the European Union in 1999. Although several studies have looked at the levels of arsenic present in chicken muscle meat, and some have looked at crop soil contamination, the results have been inconsistent. None have determined how extensively this practice contaminates drinking water. "There's been such a huge degree of regulatory attention paid to arsenic in drinking water, and yet here's this very widespread practice that has a real potential of adding to drinking water contamination and yet nobody's looking at it," says Dr. David Wallinga, director of the Food and Health Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a non-profit research and advocacy organization based in Minneapolis.
Any increase in Americans' levels of arsenic exposure is of great concern: The Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates drinking water, considers arsenic a class A carcinogen, meaning that data have definitively shown it to cause cancer. Other health effects from chronic low-level exposure include partial paralysis, blindness and diabetes. Although the EPA tightened its regulations for arsenic levels in drinking water this past January, lowering it from a maximum of 50 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb, this new level still exceeds the agency's recommendations for exposure to a carcinogen by a factor of 50. The EPA typically recommends that the amount of a carcinogen in drinking water should not cause more than one person in 100,000 to develop cancer as a result of drinking that water daily. But Americans who are regularly drinking water containing 10 ppb of arsenic are at a 50-fold higher cancer risk than this: in other words, one out of every 2,000 of those Americans is likely to develop cancer because of the arsenic in their tap water. And the EPA estimates that 12 million Americans are currently drinking water containing more than 10 ppb of arsenic -- making their cancer risk even higher.
The EPA isn't meeting its own safety standard for arsenic because the recommended amounts "are set at a level which water systems cannot meet," according to agency press officer Dale Kemery. After preparing a cost / benefit analysis, the EPA set its arsenic limits at a level that maximized risk reduction while minimizing cost to the consumer, he says.
Where is all of this arsenic coming from? Most arsenic contamination arises from natural sources or from its former use in pesticides and wood preservatives. Though these uses have since been banned, the arsenic remains in the environment and is extremely difficult to remove. The poultry industry's use of roxarsone, however, is one of the few easily preventable ways in which arsenic enters the food chain. Given that arsenic is already a significant health risk, many think that its use in poultry feed should be investigated and, if found to be a significant source of contamination, banned.
This debate isn't so cut and dried, however, because arsenic exists in both organic and inorganic forms, and experts disagree about the relative toxicity of the two. According to the FDA, which monitors the use of drugs in animal feed, organic forms of arsenic like roxarsone, which are bound to carbon and hydrogen, are "not considered to be carcinogens and are considerably less toxic than inorganic forms of arsenic," writes agency spokesperson Michael Herndon in an e-mail. But the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, states that "almost no information is available on the effects of organic arsenic compounds in humans." ATSDR also says that high doses of organic arsenic can produce some of the same effects as inorganic forms.
And although roxarsone starts as an organic molecule, it doesn't stay that way. When a chicken eats feed containing roxarsone, most of it -- about 150 milligrams over a chicken's lifetime -- is excreted unchanged in the chicken's waste. After 30 days, the excreted roxarsone naturally converts into other forms of arsenic, including highly toxic inorganic forms like arsenite, according to a study published this year in Environmental Science & Technology. Inorganic forms of arsenic, which are bound to oxygen, chlorine or sulfur, are therefore present in poultry manure. "This waste is then spread on fields near poultry farms," writes Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University, in an e-mail. "The poultry industry is processing and selling poultry waste as garden fertilizer for consumers to use in home gardens and lawns."
According to chemist John Garbarino, a co-author of the study in Environmental Science & Technology, the arsenite present in manure and fertilizer binds poorly to soil particles, making it highly mobile in the environment such that it can easily contaminate nearby lakes and streams. Arsenite "is considered to be one of the more toxic arsenic species," he writes in an e-mail.
Roxarsone meets the FDA's criteria for approval because it has been shown to be safe for chickens. The compound also meets the guidelines of the USDA, the agency that monitors food safety, because roxarsone residues in chicken tissue don't exceed the agency's safety levels. However, roxarsone's potential downstream effects are not being addressed by either agency. And the agency responsible for regulating roxarsone's byproducts in drinking water -- the EPA -- has no jurisdiction over roxarsone's use in chicken feed.
Richard Lobb, director of communications for the National Chicken Council -- a non-profit organization representing poultry producers and distributors -- argues that toxic forms of arsenic occur naturally in the environment and that the additional levels from the use of arsenic in poultry feed "are just so small" that they are most likely not a problem. "Arsenic is just there, it is elemental, it is in the rock in many, many areas and it just occurs naturally," he says.
The amount of arsenic released into the environment via poultry manure is approximately 250 to 350 metric tons per year, according to several recent peer-reviewed studies. This can be compared to natural releases of arsenic, mostly from volcanoes, which the EPA estimates are in the range of 2,800 to 8,000 metric tons per year. There are also other ways that arsenic gets into the environment, including metal smelting and coal burning, but the exact amount released from these other sources is unclear. How much of the "extra" arsenic entering the environment via feed is contaminating drinking water? No one seems to know for sure. "We do not know enough about this," writes Silbergeld in an e-mail. "In some parts of the U.S., naturally occurring sources of arsenic [like those found in rocks] are a very important source of arsenic in ground water. In other areas, disposal of poultry waste may be the most important."
According to Brian Fairchild, a poultry scientist at the University of Georgia, the best way to clearly determine roxarsone's downstream effects is to improve the technology used in the research. While some studies have been published on roxarsone's effects on soil, "there's no consistent data," he says. If the scientists studying it today "are using the same old techniques that have been used for the past 10 years, I don't think we're going to get any closer to the answer than we were five years ago." Lobb agrees that more -- and better -- studies would be helpful. "I think this area really cries out for some more objective research, and I hope somebody will supply that one of these days," he says. "But the reason that no one is doing it, I guess, is because there does not seem to be a problem here."
by Ken Leiser, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
September 20, 2006
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/E4FCF9C32C52084A862571F000159A8C?OpenDocument
Diesel-powered trucks, buses and automobiles across the nation soon will start filling up with a new diesel fuel formula designed to reduce soot and ozone-forming pollutants. The transition will be the first significant upgrade to diesel fuel in more than a decade -- a period that has seen major strides in cleaner-burning gasoline for passenger cars. While many have likened the new diesel's environmental benefits to the introduction of unleaded gasoline, some say the clean-air payoff won't come cheap.
Trucking companies are bracing for a dip in fuel economy and possibly higher costs at the diesel pump in the short term, as the "ultra-low sulfur" diesel makes its way to most of the marketplace by Oct. 15. Meantime, trucks built with improved diesel engines and emissions control systems designed to take advantage of the new fuel are expected to cost more than today's models. "We've made a public policy decision to invest additional money to facilitate cleaner air," said Rich Moskowitz, regulatory affairs counsel for the American Trucking Associations, who was in St. Louis this week for a conference. "That will translate into increased cost for hauling freight. . . . Ultimately, the public will pay for this clean-air benefit."
The new fuel has a sulfur content of no more than 15 parts per million to meet new Environmental Protection Agency standards. It's a significant reduction from the current standard, 500 parts per million. California, the nation's unofficial smog capital, rolled out the new diesel this month. Reducing sulfur levels will improve the effectiveness of pollution-fighting equipment on trucks and buses. Sulfur damages catalytic converters and clogs soot traps.
Diesel-powered vehicles built in 2007 and beyond will be manufactured to run exclusively on the lower-sulfur fuel and will provide the greatest pollution-busting gains, said Michael Coates, a spokesman for the Diesel Technology Forum. By 2030, about 90 percent of today's diesel vehicle-related emissions should be erased, according to the Clean Diesel Fuel Alliance. The public-private alliance includes government regulators, engine manufacturers and the petroleum industry.
The new engine and fuel technology will usher in "a whole new generation" of diesel-powered cars and light-duty trucks, Coates said. Ford and General Motors have announced light-duty diesel truck engines that will be as clean as comparable gasoline engines. "It's a systems approach," said John Millett, a spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "We had to look at the two together. Just requiring a cleaner fuel without a cleaner engine, or vice versa, wouldn't get the (emissions) reductions we are looking for."
Some trucking companies have accelerated their purchases of 2006-model trucks to beat the costly emissions upgrades, fueling record sales, Moskowitz said. Trucks outfitted with the new emissions controls are expected to cost $7,000 to $10,000 more than today's rigs -- or a roughly 10 percent price increase. But trucking industry officials worry that the new fuel could add costs to shipping because of slight reductions in fuel economy. Removing sulfur also can reduce the fuel's energy content, according to the Clean Diesel Fuel Alliance. "We are a bit apprehensive as to what it will do to our fuel mileage," said Bruce Stockton, vice president of maintenance at Contract Freighters Inc. of Joplin, Mo.
Truck stops have been preparing for the switch-over for years, said Mindy Long, spokeswoman for NATSO Inc., a trade group representing operators of truck stops and travel plazas. But the retailers are concerned about the supply of diesel that complies with the new regulations. "The challenge is that ultra-low sulfur diesel can leave the terminal at 15 parts per million of sulfur ... but by the time it gets put into the tank truck and distributed into an underground storage tank, it can be out of compliance," Long said, if it becomes contaminated by residual sulfur along the way.
Refineries have been churning out the new low-sulfur diesel since June, but the EPA has allowed extra time for the fuel terminals and retailers to make the transition. Production of the new diesel has reached 2.6 million barrels a day, reflecting about 90 percent of the nation's diesel supplies for highway vehicles, said Al Mannato, fuel issues manager at the American Petroleum Institute. "It definitely costs more to refine the ultra-low sulfur" diesel, Mannato said, adding that refiners made $8 billion worth of capital investments to get ready for the new lower sulfur standard. But he declined to speculate what that will mean for prices at the pump.
Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch in Washington, said Oct. 15 will be a "landmark date" in America's ongoing battle to tame a variety of air pollutants. "It will be like when we took lead out of gasoline," O'Donnell said.
At the TravelCenters of America truc
