Please check the CHE-WA website to stay abreast of the latest postings, news and events: http://washington.chenw.org.
To join the Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) and CHE-Washington, please complete the form at http://www.healthandenvironment.org/roles/register?&phase=registerform. Be sure to mark that you want to join the Washington State Regional Group at the bottom of the application.
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 5 - 6, 2006
Edmonds, Washington
at the Edmonds Convention Center
The Puget Sound Partnership meets regularly in its quest to develop an aggressive 15-year plan to solve Puget Sound's most vexing problems. The Partnership is holding a series of general public forums and specific scientific forums throughout the summer and fall.
Website: http://www.pugetsoundpartnership.org/
Contact: Martha Neuman, 206-625-0230 or mneuman@sharedsalmonstrategy.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
7:00 p.m.
Seattle, Washington
at NW Environmental Education Council, 650 S Orcas St. Ste. 220
The current state of climate change science has been summarized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Third Assessment Report, 2001) and the US National Academy of Sciences (5/01). These documents present strong evidence that global climate change has already begun and is now accelerating. Predictions of global-scale climate change in this century imply major impacts on both human societies and natural ecosystems worldwide. Lecture Objectives include a basic understanding of how the earth's climate system works and the best current predictions for human-caused climate change, both globally and here in the Pacific Northwest, as well as possible responses to this threat. Dr. Richard Gammon will speak.
Website: http://www.nweec.org/ea.htm
Contact: info@nweec.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 16 - 18, 2006
Yakima, Washington
at the Yakima Convention Center
The conference theme is "Health Across the Generations: Demonstrating the Value of Public Health." This statewide meeting is provided by the Washington State Public Health Association, the Washington State Department of Health and the Yakima Health District.
Website: http://www.wspha.org/JCH1.html
Contact: Kathy Kondakjian, kathy@wspha.org
October 19, 2006
9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Tacoma, Washington
This meeting is hosted by the Washington Department of Ecology, and People For Puget Sound is helping with logistics. This event will be free and open to all. The featured speakers will be Steve Weisberg from Southern California Coastal Water Research Project Authority (SCCWRP) and Jay Davis from San Francisco Estuary Institute. Steve and Jay will describe their regional monitoring programs, with a focus on lessons learned. These presentations will be followed by a group discussion about regional monitoring opportunities/challenges for WA.
Website: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/
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
CHE-Washington welcomes this new member:
For a searchable database of organizations with which CHE-WA members are affiliated, please visit http://washington.chenw.org/members.html.
by Julia R. Barrett, Environmental Health Perspectives
October 2006
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2006/114-10/niehsnews.html
Questions about the safety of the plasticizer di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), particularly in regards to exposure during medical procedures such as transfusions, have swirled for decades, but especially in the last several years, given growing concerns about endocrine disruption. In October 2005, an independent panel of experts convened by the National Toxicology Program Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (NTP-CERHR) sought to take stock of what is known and identify critical research needs regarding human exposure to DEHP, in particular its potential reproductive and developmental toxicity. Now that the independent experts have had their say, the NTP is weighing in with its interpretation.
Based on the expert panel's report, comments from stakeholders and peer reviewers, and new information published since the experts' meeting, the NTP released a draft brief in May 2006 about DEHP exposure and toxicity. With peer review completed in late August, the brief is now being finalized and will be added to the forthcoming NTP-CERHR monograph The Potential Human Reproductive and Developmental Effects of DEHP. This monograph will comprise the CERHR expert panel report, a list of the panel experts, all public comments made about the report, and the NTP brief on DEHP. Although the brief summarizes what the expert report says, it is more than just an executive summary -- it represents the NTP's view of the various public and peer-review comments and additional research studies received since the report was prepared.
The 2005 expert panel meeting marks the first time the CERHR has had a compound re-evaluated; a previous evaluation was published in 2000. The need for another just five years later underscores the intensity with which DEHP is being investigated. "[Assessing] DEHP again shows that the CERHR process is evergreen," says Paul Foster, deputy director of the NTP-CERHR. "This is the first time that CERHR has gone back and said there's now been a significant amount of water that's gone under the bridge, and we should go back and re-evaluate to see whether or not any of our original conclusions have changed."
According to Foster, the brief distills the intricate and detailed scientific knowledge of the monograph into information that educated laypeople can use to put concerns about the potential for DEHP toxicity into perspective.
Hard Science on a Softener
DEHP is an oily chemical that confers flexibility to rigid polyvinyl chloride plastic. DEHP-softened plastic appears in numerous products, including building materials, food packaging, and medical devices. Because DEHP does not form tight chemical bonds with the plastic, some amount can leach out, and the compound has been detected in packaged foods, indoor air, household dust, and various substances and paraphernalia associated with medical treatment (such as bagged blood and tubing).
DEHP has induced reproductive and developmental problems in male rodents, but there are scant and uncertain data for effects in humans. It is known, however, that low-level human exposure is widespread and that certain populations are more highly exposed. For example, according to the draft brief, newborns and infants undergoing particular medical procedures may have 100 to 1,000 times the exposure experienced by the general population.
Because animal studies indicate that the developing male reproductive system is especially vulnerable to adverse DEHP-associated effects, the expert panel, in its 2005 report, attached "serious concern" to critically ill male newborns and infants receiving prolonged medical treatment. The NTP concurred in its draft brief and also agreed that concern is warranted for male infants younger than 1 year and for the sons of women who underwent certain medical procedures while pregnant. Less concern was attached to low-level exposures in utero or after the first year of life, and there was minimal concern for adverse effects from typical background exposures.
Fairness and Balance
The draft brief is generally deemed fair by both scientists and stakeholders. "To me, it seemed to be very fair based on the discussions and deliberations at the expert review committee," says Foster. The American Chemistry Council's Phthalate Esters Panel considered both the brief and the expert panel's report "fair, but very conservative," says Marian Stanley, the panel's senior director. "We're certainly pleased to see that the areas of concern have been lowered [from the 2000 report] for a couple of cases [children older than a year and pregnant or lactating women]. We think that's justified."
The Phthalate Esters Panel disagrees, however, with the NTP's level of concern about DEHP exposure among newborns and infants. "DEHP medical devices have been used for better than fifty years, and there hasn't been any verified evidence of harm to humans. We don't believe that there needs to be as much concern for critically ill neonates because, as the FDA has said [in a July 2002 Public Health Notification], the treatment outweighs any risks from exposure to DEHP," says Stanley.
Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), a coalition of health and environmental groups that, among other issues, advocates replacing DEHP-containing medical devices with alternatives, was satisfied with the NTP's position. "We don't have any quibbles with [who was determined to be] medically exposed, because the panel has expressed serious concern about that and we agree with that," says Ted Schettler, science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, on behalf of HCWH.
Schettler avoids defining a level of concern for DEHP exposure of pregnant and lactating women: "We remain concerned about that group of women. Whether we want to say it's some concern or more than that, we think it should be emphasized that in the general population, pregnant and lactating women are exposed not only to DEHP but also to other phthalates that work through a common toxicological mechanism. The committee wasn't charged with addressing aggregate exposures to multiple phthalates, but that's the real world."
Outstanding Questions
The question of aggregate exposures is, of course, a scientific dilemma facing the risk assessment community at large, not just the CERHR. Still, says Foster, "I think one of our weaknesses is that we do these evaluations based on single chemicals. I think what's emerging from a lot of the exposure information that's being published, mainly from the CDC but also from others in Europe, is that the population at large is exposed to multiple phthalates. We have not really devised an appropriate method yet for how we handle that and put it into a risk context." He adds that the CERHR system will need to be adapted as new, appropriate methodologies become available.
Another notable challenge is extrapolating results from animal studies to human health. "I think we're going to continue seeing much more research trying to tease out and figure out if the effects we see in rodents are relevant to humans. This isn't cut-and-dried research," says Stanley. Research with nonhuman primates hasn't proven any simpler and represents one of the more contentious reactions to the brief. According to Schettler, there's disagreement about whether nonhuman primates, specifically marmosets, are less vulnerable to DEHP than rodents, as suggested by research published in the October 2005 issue of Birth Defects Research B: Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology. Industry-sponsored research indicates that marmosets are a good study model for predicting toxicity in humans, but the October 2005 study, published just as the expert panel meeting concluded, questions that belief, and the debate has not yet been satisfactorily resolved.
Also unresolved are questions about the metabolism of DEHP and its mechanisms of toxicity. The limited epidemiologic data reviewed in the draft brief raise questions that cannot be answered yet. Research is ongoing in all areas, however. "The science is still moving forward; the science is still being created," says Stanley. "As new techniques become available, there at some point is going to come where science suddenly takes a quantum leap and we can start understanding a lot more."
from Environmental Health Perspectives
October 2006
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/114-10/spheres.html
When the EPA announced on 3 August 2006 that it had completed a 10-year review of U.S. pesticide safety, the agency issued a statement full of optimism from administrator Stephen L. Johnson: "By maintaining the highest ethical and scientific standards in its pesticide review, EPA and the Bush administration have planted the seeds to yield healthier lives for generations of American families."
But Johnson's words were met with skepticism, not only by environmental activists, but also by some of the EPA's own scientists. In May, as the agency's deadline for completing its review neared, nine presidents of unions representing EPA scientists and risk managers had written a letter to the administrator, expressing their concerns that the EPA was about to give approval for organophosphate (OP) and carbamate pesticides that may be neurotoxic, especially in developing fetuses, infants, and children. "We think there's a lot of work that remains to be done in terms of getting [adequate] developmental neurotoxicity data," says William Hirzy, a senior scientist in the EPA's Office of Toxic Substances and vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 280. The union leaders are concerned that the EPA administration is too focused on "avoiding lawsuits from the regulated community," Hirzy says. Further, in the absence of adequate data, the leaders fear the EPA is making decisions that err on the side of less restriction rather than more precaution.
EPA administrators, however, have responded that they are confident that their assessments are scientifically valid and that no health risks are posed by the pesticides that have been approved for continued use. "We think we have really set a very high bar for pesticide safety in this country," says Anne Lindsay, deputy director of the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs. "If you are eating food purchased in the U.S., it's really safe."
Two Cancellations
The EPA's pesticide review began in response to the passage of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA). This act required that the EPA reassess the safety of tolerance levels for food-use pesticide residues in or on raw and processed foods. The EPA reviewed tens of thousands of new studies in order to decide which pesticides should be banned and which should have new tolerance assessments. These studies came from labs at the EPA, other governmental agencies, and pesticide companies. Over the past decade, the EPA has also developed new risk assessment tools and methods that they are using to better identify chemicals that may be hazardous to human health or the environment. Throughout the research and analysis phase of the review, the EPA also considered opinions from their own advisory committees, as well as from public health watchdog groups and from interested industries. Once all available research had been analyzed, the agency made decisions about each pesticide's allowed tolerance. After each decision was announced, a 60-day public comment period preceded finalization of the decision.
"The Food Quality Protection Act asked us to take a special look at infants, children, and other subpopulations that might have special sensitivities or susceptibilities," Lindsay says. The act also asked EPA scientists to examine both aggregate pesticide exposures from food, water, and household uses, as well as exposures to different food-use pesticides that might have cumulative effects in the body. From 1996 on, all newly registered pesticides had to meet these safety standards, Lindsay says, but there was still the problem of pesticides that had been registered before the FQPA was enacted. So the EPA embarked on a 10-year mission to reassess all food-use pesticides that had not been proven to meet the new requirements. "The idea was to get all tolerances in the U.S. up to this new high safety standard," Lindsay says.
Congress mandated that the EPA complete all food-use pesticide tolerance reassessment decisions by 3 August 2006. On that date, the EPA announced that it had completed more than 99% of these decisions. The safety reviews still to be completed are those for carbamate pesticides as a class and the carbamate aldicarb in particular. The EPA is currently finishing the assessment of aldicarb, a potent cholinesterase inhibitor. The agency will then be able to issue a review of carbamates as a class, Lindsay says. They've already made individual decisions on four other carbamates, proposing to ban carbofuran and limit the use of three others. In all, the EPA evaluated about 230 pesticide active ingredients and 870 inert pesticide ingredients with nearly 10,000 tolerances, according to Lindsay.
In the most recent actions, announced August 3, the EPA opened for public review its proposal to ban not only carbofuran but also lindane, an organochlorine. Carbofuran is an insecticide that is severely toxic to birds. Most carbofuran uses are being canceled immediately, and the remaining uses will be phased out over the next four years. Lindane is used as a seed treatment for several crops. It is known to build up in the environment and in the human body, and is a suspected carcinogen. Most organochlorines, including DDT, were banned in the 1960s and 1970s, and lindane has already been banned in 52 other countries. But in all states except California, lindane is still permitted for use directly on children for the treatment of scabies and lice -- an application that is regulated not by the EPA but by the FDA.
OP Pesticides and Neurotoxicity
Although the EPA's August decisions proposed complete cancellation only of carbofuran and lindane, while approving many other controversial pesticides, Lindsay points out that the agency had already cancelled numerous pesticides and uses over the 10-year period, most notably on the 32 OP pesticides. A number of these pesticides have been associated with possible cancer effects, fertility problems, or developmental neurotoxicity in animal studies. The primary mechanism through which OP (and carbamate) pesticides work is cholinesterase inhibition: they prevent the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, causing a variety of neurotoxic effects. Although 17 OP pesticides have been cancelled over the past 10 years, many environmental groups -- and some EPA scientists -- were hoping that the agency would refuse to re-register the others in this class. "The OP decision, I think, is a bad one," says Margaret Reeves, a senior scientist with Pesticide Action Network North America. She says her organization recognizes and supports the EPA scientists who sent the letter to Johnson, advising against approval of some of the remaining OP and carbamate pesticides.
According to that letter, too few studies have been done on the developmental neurotoxicity of the remaining food-use OP and carbamate pesticides to make a solid scientific decision about their possible health effects. "[I]n the absence of a robust body of data, FQPA requires EPA to use an additional 10-fold safety factor in its risk assessments when setting pesticide tolerances," the letter stated. The authors requested that the EPA retain this 10-fold safety assurance "as a precaution when reassessing the tolerances for the remaining OP and carbamate pesticides given the existing uncertainty about developmental neurotoxicity."
According to Reeves, even that 10-fold measure of safety might not be enough. Several studies have shown there is a large range of vulnerability to OP exposure among different people, especially infants, due to genetic variability in paraoxonase, an enzyme that breaks these chemicals down in the body. "The intraspecies variability is much greater than often considered and much greater than would be [covered by] the FQPA 10-fold factor," Reeves says.
In a response to the EPA union leaders' letter, however, EPA acting assistant administrator Susan B. Hazen responded that the absence of an official developmental neurotoxicity study on any given pesticide does not automatically warrant retention of the 10-fold safety factor. "Rather," she wrote, "EPA should make a judgment, based on the weight of all of the available scientific evidence, to determine what safety factors provide the statutorily required protection for infants and children."
According to Lindsay, the decision about whether to require a developmental neurotoxicity study of a particular pesticide rests on previous evidence and toxicity data. "We will look at the whole body of evidence that we have," Lindsay says. "If there are signs the chemical has the capacity to cause neurotoxicity, we would go ahead and ask for a developmental neurotoxicity study to be done." Signs that a chemical could be neurotoxic to humans include animal studies that show neurotoxicity, human epidemiological studies that support a causative link between a pesticide and neurological problems, or evidence that the pesticide works through a mechanism already known to be neurotoxic. Says Lindsay, "We think we're pretty much asking for them when it's likely they're going to be needed."
According to Ray McAllister, regulatory policy and science leader for the trade organization CropLife America, the EPA has done a thorough job of investigating the toxicity of OP and carbamate pesticides. "I don't think any two groups of pesticides have been more thoroughly investigated by EPA than these two have," McAllister says. Since 1999, he points out, industry has conducted dozens of developmental neurotoxicity studies on OP and other pesticides, which the EPA took into account in its decision-making process. He adds, "If anything, the approach EPA has taken has been more conservative, more protective, than perhaps they actually need to be, so I don't think we need to worry about the decision not being protective enough."
Others aren't so sure. The authors of the May letter stated they were "concerned that the Agency has not, consistent with its principles of scientific integrity and sound science, adequately summarized or drawn conclusions about the developmental neurotoxicity data received from pesticide registrants." They cited a January 2006 Inspector General report, Opportunities to Improve Data Quality and Children's Health through the Food Quality Protection Act, that points out flaws in the EPA testing process that have yielded a less than "complete and reliable database on developmental neurotoxicity of pesticides ... upon which to base any final tolerance reassessment decisions as required by the FQPA." Among other issues, they wrote, the EPA's required pesticide testing does not include sufficient evaluation of behavior, learning, or memory in developing animals.
It is well known that acute high-level exposure to OP and carbamate pesticides can cause profound neurotoxicity, says Brenda Eskenazi, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the NIEHS Center for Children's Environmental Health Research there. But now there is some evidence that lower-level exposure to OPs could be linked to neonatal neurotoxicity, she says, and a number of studies are now being conducted on potential health consequences to older children.
Most people who are exposed to pesticides are exposed to more than one simultaneously, Eskenazi says, "so it's really hard to say that a single agent is the 'cause' of an observed health problem in human epidemiologic studies."
Precaution and Progress
The EPA union leaders believe that such uncertainty is grounds for banning many of these pesticides under the precautionary principle, which advocates erring on the side of safety in the absence of full scientific certainty. In contrast, say some observers, the current FQPA reregistration process puts the onus on parties other than registrants to demonstrate that a pesticide is unsafe. "Until EPA can state with scientific confidence that these pesticides will not hurt the neurological development of our nation's born and unborn children, there is no justification to continue the registration of the use of the remaining OP and carbamate pesticides," the union leaders wrote. The union letter also argued that the EPA failed in its risk analyses to consider the effects on farmworker families of agricultural pesticide application. According to the letter, the EPA's analyses did not take into account that homes near agricultural fields may be exposed to pesticides that are not approved for home use.
But Lindsay responds that "we actually think that the way we do our risk assessments ensures that, in that scenario, kids and folks in the home will be safe." With the fate of just one pesticide yet unclear, the EPA sees its task as nearly done. "When we've done both the individual reassessment for aldicarb and then the cumulative for those five carbamates, we will have completed all of the FQPA tolerance reassessments," Lindsay says. "It's a real priority for us to get it completed."
Hirzy, for one, doesn't see the pesticide reassessments as a completed task, however. "[EPA officials] think they have dealt with our concerns that we raised in the letter, and we don't think that they have," he says. "I think we need to sit down with them ... and reach some sort of agreement on how the agency will deal more forthrightly with specific concerns that have been raised on the record by EPA scientists."
by John Reid Blackwell, Richmond Times-Dispatch
September 30, 2006
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149190899664
A controversial man-made chemical has been found in blood samples taken from some employees of a DuPont Co. plant in Chesterfield County. The substance, known as PFOA, was detected at varying levels in blood samples taken in May and June from workers at the company's Spruance plant, a union representing workers there said. The company confirmed the results. The company offered the blood tests, and 89 employees accepted, after a union that represents many DuPont workers raised concerns about the chemical. The substance has been found in the blood of workers at other DuPont sites such as a plant in Fayetteville, N.C.
PFOA, short for perfluorooctanoic acid, is used in the production process for Teflon, an ingredient in nonstick cookware and all-weather clothing. The federal Environmental Protection Agency says PFOA does not pose a concern to consumers using those products, but the potential health effects on people exposed to higher levels of the chemical are still being investigated and are disputed. Some studies have indicated it can cause liver, developmental and reproductive problems in laboratory animals, the EPA said.
DuPont said it believes PFOA does not pose a health risk to the general public. The company said a health study it is conducting on more than 1,000 workers at a plant near Parkersburg, W.Va., has indicated no association between exposure to PFOA and health problems. The company hired an independent laboratory to analyze the Spruance employees' blood samples. Because the results of individual tests are confidential, neither the company nor the union said how many of the 89 employees tested positive for PFOA. Those who did test positive had PFOA in their blood ranging from 0.5 parts per billion to 800 parts per billion, the union said. The average of those tested was 66 parts per billion.
Because PFOA is a persistent chemical that does not break down in the environment, it has been found at low levels in the blood of the general U.S. population, at a mean level of about 5.6 parts per billion, but it has been found in much higher levels in workers, the EPA said. Jay Palmore, president of Ampthill Rayon Workers, a union that represents about 1,200 local DuPont employees, said the highest PFOA level at the plant -- 800 parts per billion -- was detected in a female employee, but he declined to offer specifics. Palmore said he was one of the employees who took a blood test and that his results showed a PFOA level of 8 parts per billion. "I haven't worked in Teflon since 1976," he said. Now a technical assistant in the research department, Palmore said he has worked in almost every part of the plant in his 33 years there. "We don't know for sure what it is going to do to humans," Palmore said. "To me, it would be a good idea to keep track of it. I don't want to put DuPont out of business. No one wants to do that. I really think it should be a regulated material. The government needs to step in and do that."
An EPA science advisory board said this year that PFOA should be considered a "likely carcinogen." DuPont disputes that. "To date, there are no human health effects known to be caused by PFOA," the company said in a statement. "Based on health and toxicological studies conducted by DuPont and other researchers, DuPont believes the weight of evidence indicates that PFOA exposure does not pose a health risk to the general public."
PFOA was not manufactured at the Spruance plant, and DuPont says only small amounts of it were present in the Teflon production line that operated there from 1953 to 2004. The PFOA controversy has been a repeated source of tension between DuPont and the United Steelworkers Union, which represents 1,800 DuPont employees at other plants, but none at Spruance. That union claims DuPont has failed to protect workers from the potential hazards of PFOA, while DuPont says the union is engaged in a campaign to make the company look bad.
Several times this year, the Steelworkers Union and the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental-protection group, have collected water samples from sites nearby the plant and its discharge site into the James River. Those samples, the groups said, have shown PFOA contamination in trace amounts in ground and surface water around the plant. After those concerns were raised, DuPont agreed to collect water samples from wells on plant property and the James River in cooperation with the EPA. The results from those tests are pending.
Last year, DuPont agreed to pay a $16.5 million penalty to the EPA for allegedly withholding information about the potential health and environmental risks posed by PFOA after the chemical was found in the blood of workers and in groundwater around the plant in Parkersburg. The company also agreed last year to pay $107 million to settle a lawsuit filed by residents near the plant.
by Douglas Fischer, Oakland Tribune
September 30, 2006
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_4422814
Starting in 2010, Californians will have access to some possibly unsettling information about what's in their bodies. We'll know, for instance, how much ScotchGuard -- or at least its chemical precursors -- contaminate our veins. We all have some, scientists from the manufacturer, 3M, learned a decade ago. The question is how much. We'll have a sense of how much pesticide migrates from the fields to our plates. Or how much flame retardant has seeped from our automobiles, TV consoles and seat cushions into our kids.
On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a program to track such pollutants and other chemicals. The effort -- the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program -- is the first to track such compounds in a state's citizenry. It should provide some of the best and only data in the nation on how these chemicals contaminate communities and populations, such as farm workers. "Biomonitoring is the triumph of knowledge over ignorance," said Jeanne Rizzo, a registered nurse and the executive director of the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund, which has lobbied hard for such a program. "A statewide biomonitoring program will help us find out what we need to know to protect public health so that serious diseases such as breast cancer can ultimately be prevented from occurring in the first place."
The program will select 2,000 Californians for testing of various pollutants. An advisory panel created by the governor and legislature will pick the chemicals, though many expect the program to mimic a similar effort by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That program, widely seen as the "gold standard" for biomonitoring in the United States, has catalogued levels of 148 pollutants -- from lead, mercury and uranium to plastic additives, PCBs and herbicides -- in Americans age 1 and older. Its results helped ban lead from gas.
But how does it work? Biomonitoring tests the body directly for contamination and differs dramatically from other methods of assessing the risk and extent of pollution. Before sophisticated tests could measure the tiny quantities of such compounds in our blood or urine, regulators often measured the amount of pollution in the environment -- dioxin in the air, for instance, or pesticide applied to crops -- and made assumptions on how much worked its way into our bodies. Biomonitoring eliminates such guesswork. "There are literally thousands of chemicals ... used in our everyday products in the United States," Schwarzenegger said. "It's important to know more about how those products are building up in our bodies or how they might be affecting our health ... Biomonitoring will do just that."
The CDC information provides a national snapshot but no state or regional data. Health officials say California data will help them assess public health decisions. One example: Eastern Contra Costa County. Streets in several communities and a school yard have pavement laced with trace amounts of dioxin, an industrial byproduct and perhaps the most potent carcinogen known. Parents, fearful the pavement poses a risk, have asked county officials for testing. Dr. Wendel Brunner, the county's public health director, understands their fears but is equally ignorant of the risk. "Yes, you can be tested for dioxin, but I can't even tell you if your results are above or below average."
by Mike Hughlett, Chicago Tribune
September 29, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0609290243sep29,1,4912607.story?coll=chi-business-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
The nearly 600 bottles of shampoo seized by Cook County sheriff's police this summer said "Head & Shoulders." But the stuff inside was good for neither head nor shoulders: It was contaminated. The shampoo was counterfeit, falsely labeled with a venerable brand owned by consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. It was one of the first busts in Cook County involving potentially hazardous fake goods.
The traffic of counterfeit goods into this country, usually originating from China, is growing steadily. Counterfeit-related seizures by the U.S. Customs Service rose 125 percent during the past five years ending in September 2005, topping 8,000 busts last year alone. Increasingly, those fakes are ordinary household goods--shampoo, batteries, razors--not just the usual luxury knockoffs like Gucci handbags or the ubiquitous fake prescription drugs like Viagra. "We are seeing a little more of a broader range of products counterfeited," said Therese Randazzo, risk management director in U.S. Customs' Strategic Trade Office. "There has been a growth in consumer products, everyday products."
Sometimes those everyday fakes can be dangerous, too, much more so than a counterfeit Rolex watch or bogus Nike shoes. For instance, the Head & Shoulders seized in Cook County could have sickened people with weak immune systems, said Penny Mateck, a sheriff's spokeswoman. The shampoo contained several types of "gram-negative" bacteria. Many species of gram-negative bacteria can cause disease.
In a separate incident this summer, Cook County sheriff's police seized almost 60,000 phony Duracell batteries from a warehouse in Elk Grove Village. The batteries contained mercury, a hazardous material not used in real Duracells. They were also improperly made, and prone to explode. The Duracell seizure led to the arrest of an Elk Grove Village wholesaler, a man believed to be a supplier for local convenience stores. In both cases, the fake goods were imported from overseas. The two seizures marked the first time the Cook County sheriff's police uncovered fake goods that could actually hurt consumers, Mateck said, adding that the department has been "very active" for years in pursuing counterfeiting.
There are several examples of potentially dangerous fakes outside of Illinois, too. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in recent months has issued two recalls of extension cords prone to shock or fire hazards. The cords came with counterfeited Underwriters Laboratories (UL) labels. Northbrook-based UL is an independent, non-profit testing lab that certifies the safety of thousands of products, from appliances to bulletproof vests. The UL label was the 25th most counterfeited brand globally in 2005, according to the International Chamber of Commerce. So, it's not surprising that UL spends a lot of time working with the Customs Service to ferret out fakes. During the past 11 months or so, customs has made 105 seizures of goods with phony UL labels, 395,804 products in all. "It has been escalating and escalating," said Brian Monks, director of UL's anti-counterfeiting operations. And UL, he says, has lots of company. "There is probably no industry in the world that does not encounter counterfeiting."
Cigarettes, perfume, sunglasses, consumer electronics, auto parts--all have fallen prey to counterfeiting, a business worth hundreds of billions of dollars globally. "If you don't have a counterfeiting problem, you don't have a successful product," said Paul Fox, a spokesman for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble. The company has more than $60 billion in annual sales, and about $100 million worth of counterfeit P&G goods are seized each year. "You can say, `that's not much [on a percentage basis],' but that's not the point," Fox said. "Counterfeiting fundamentally undermines the trust consumers place in our brands."
Duracell, Head & Shoulders and Gillette are the P&G brands that are most often counterfeited. A common thread among all three, and for that matter, all counterfeits: They're made on the cheap and thus have poor quality, Fox said. The fake Duracells seized in Elk Grove Village contained mercury because they were made with an old technology, one that hasn't been used for years by legitimate battery-makers, Fox said. Manufacturing shortcuts led to the tainted Head & Shoulders, too. "Whoever put this stuff together, they didn't use sterile conditions," said John Flaherty, a professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
Traditionally, flea markets and street vendors have been the main retail outlets for counterfeit goods. The Internet also has become a big distribution point in recent years. But the probable destination for the goods seized recently in Cook County -- convenience stores -- is particularly alarming, said Caroline Joiner, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's anti-counterfeiting effort. "The scariest part is when [counterfeits] are in the legitimate supply chain," she said.
Yet Randazzo, of U.S. Customs, said counterfeits are increasingly making their way onto retailers' shelves. In August, for example, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Dollar Tree Stores announced a recall of 600,000 counterfeit extension cords tagged with phony UL labels. Virginia-based Dollar Tree Stores is a publicly traded company with about 3,000 stores nationwide. The bum cords, made in China, posed a shock hazard. Earlier this month, another 42,000 counterfeit extension cords with fake UL labels were recalled. The Chinese-made cords, which posed a fire hazard, were sold at local drug, discount and grocery stores.
UL's Monks said it's very rare to find bogus UL labels at established retailers. Flea markets are a more common destination for the fakes. Counterfeiting has flourished because it is highly profitable and less risky than other illegal activities, said Joiner of the U.S. Chamber, which is hosting its third annual anti-piracy summit this week in Washington, D.C. U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez are slated to speak at the event.
Anti-counterfeiting efforts have gotten a higher profile at federal agencies in recent years. But they're also knee-deep in anti-terrorism initiatives. Plus, the distribution and retailing of phony goods is often the terrain of local law enforcement authorities. And they are already straining to cope with drug dealing and violent crimes. Cook County's anti-counterfeiting offensive is more the exception than the rule. "We want to see more [efforts like Cook County's]," Joiner said, "but we understand it's a resource issue."
by Jeremy Laurance, London Independent
September 29, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article1771835.ece
It is the disease women fear more than any other, and its incidence is soaring. Breast cancer cases have hit a new record, official figures show, and the increase shows no sign of slowing. A total of 36,939 women were diagnosed in England in 2004, an 81 per cent increase in incidence of the cancer since 1971, after statistical adjustment for the ageing of the population. Over the year, 41,000 cases were diagnosed in the UK. Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in the UK, even though it principally affects only one gender (there are a few hundred cases each year in men). Lung cancer, the next most common which affects both sexes, was diagnosed in 30,408 individuals in 2004.
The relentless upward trend in breast cancer is driven by increasing prosperity and modern lifestyles, experts say. It accounts for one in three of all newly diagnosed cases of cancer in females. The age-standardised incidence in 2004 was 120.8 per 100,000 population, the highest figure on record, up from 66.9 in 1971. The figures are in Cancer Registrations, the annual statistical report issued by the Office for National Statistics, published yesterday.
The charity Breast Cancer UK has demanded action to halt the rise in the disease. "We believe women have a right to know these frightening statistics and should be asking the Government what it is doing to tackle the causes and prevention of the disease." One woman in nine now develops breast cancer but lifestyle factors, including diet, obesity and family size could account for only half of the increase, and exposure to pesticides and other carcinogens in the environment must be investigated, the charity said.
Cancer is a disease of the elderly and most cancers, including breast cancer, are commoner in older age groups. But breast cancer is increasing in every age group. Among those aged 20 to 34, the disease, though rare, increased by 50 per cent in the three decades from 1971 to 2001. In the 45 to 49 age group it rose by 41 per cent over the same period. The biggest increases have been in the 50 to 64 age group, in which the incidence has more than doubled after introduction of breast-screening which detects tumours too small to be picked up by a doctor performing a clinical examination. Breast-screening was introduced in 1990 but did not become established throughout the country until the mid-1990s. In 2004, it was extended to cover women up to the age of 70.
The rise in breast cancer, seen in all developed countries, is linked with exposure to the female hormone oestrogen, influenced by changes in reproduction and diet. Improved nutrition has meant girls go through puberty and start their periods earlier and women reach the menopause later. Economic progress has led to smaller families, delayed childbirth and less breastfeeding as women have gone out to work. Increased alcohol consumption, obesity and the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) have also contributed. Professor Sir Richard Peto, Britains foremost cancer epidemiologist, of the University of Oxford, said: "There has been a slow drift upwards since the 1950s , basically due to society becoming more prosperous. Breast cancer is roughly a disease of prosperity. The rise was much more rapid in Spain because their rate of [social] progress was quicker. "Having fewer children before the age of 30, early menarche [first period], late menopause and being obese or overweight after menopause are all factors behind the increase. "On top of that, there has been the increase due to HRT, though use of HRT has dropped sharply. Women are drinking more and that probably already has an appreciable effect. They are all minor factors but taken together they mean a general trend up."
Better diagnosis through screening and improved recording of cases in local cancer registries had also contributed to the increase, Professor Peto added. He dismissed as "rubbish" suggestions that exposure to pesticides or other chemicals was fuelling the disease. "There isn't any good evidence [for other causes] over and above changes in lifestyle and improvements in diagnosis and registration," he said.
Ruth Yates, head of statistical information at Cancer Research UK, said it was difficult to offer advice to women on how to avoid breast cancer. "There isn't one thing women can do, such as giving up smoking [to avoid lung cancer]. You can control your weight, eat fresh fruit and vegetables and curb your drinking but it won't make a huge difference, though it will have an impact." She added: "Where women do have a choice is over breastfeeding. In terms of influencing the reproductive factors, that is the most practical thing they can do. We don't want women to beat themselves up over things they can't do."
by Susan Gordon, Everett News Tribune
September 28, 2006
http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/09/28/100wir_b5seals001.cfm
Draw blood. Sample bits of contaminated blubber. Swab nostrils, mouths and behinds to pick up signs of disease. Most important: Avoid nasty bites. That's the protocol for biologists who poke and prod dozens of frightened harbor seals each September, then quickly release the animals to an isolated rookery off McNeil Island. The exams help gauge the survival of the South Sound's resident harbor seals, for decades burdened by harmful concentrations of toxic chemicals. "For all intents and purposes, they look healthy. These hidden contaminants are invisible. You can't see them," said Steve Jeffries, a state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist who has studied harbor seals for 30 years.
The dangerous compounds -- such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs -- show up in the blubber, affect the metabolism and make the animals vulnerable to illness, scientists said. They are the state's biggest population of marine mammals. They don't migrate, and they occupy a niche near the top of the marine food chain, consuming a variety of fish, many of which also are eaten by people. For scientists trying to define the scope and the effects of toxic contamination, harbor seals "perform a canary-in-a-coal-mine service," said Canadian marine mammal toxicologist Peter Ross, who collaborates with Jeffries. "They are the laboratory animal of the ocean around here."
Round 'em up
Harbor seals are reclusive. Their favorite South Sound hangout is a sandy, protected spit on Gertrude Island, which punctuates an isolated cove on the north side of McNeil Island. Although best known as a prison, McNeil also is host to a state wildlife sanctuary, off limits to the public. Because harbor seals shy away from people and can be fierce, there's no easy way examine them up close. So biologists do it the cowboy way, with an annual roundup. The biologists use fast boats and strong nets. Like cowboys, they use muscle to haul the seals to shore and hold them still. And the seals, like cattle, are branded. "By branding animals we get to follow individuals throughout their lifetime. It's a mark they don't lose," said marine mammal biologist Harriet Huber. She works for the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle and has studied South Sound harbor seals since 1990.
Huber's research focuses on about 600 permanently marked South Sound harbor seals, their sides branded with 3-inch digits, large enough for long-distance identification by a biologist with a spotting scope. Huber's project is the country's only long-term life-history study of the species. The federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, which has safeguarded seals since 1972, requires federal officials to manage the critters based on population work such as Huber's.
A few decades ago, scientists in Canada and Alaska based their analyses on animals killed, then dissected. Dyanna Lambourn, a state wildlife biologist, prefers the live option. From June through November, Lambourn watches the seals that haul out on Gertrude and other hideaways around the South Sound. She records each sighting of a branded seal in Huber's database, noting births, deaths and other happenings. On a recent visit to Gertrude, she donned rubber gloves and carefully removed a fishhook from a young pup's mouth. People who throw fish to seals may not realize that bait can be a dangerous lure, said Lambourn, admittedly partial to the critters.
Lambourn, also a veterinary technician, orchestrated the recent roundup, which took place over several days earlier this month. On the beach, in her wet suit, she took the lead on blood draws, blubber punches and mucous-membrane swabs. The big seals struggled to get free. Some yelped or growled. While Lambourn and others marked and examined them, one person crouched on top to hold each still.
Jeffries, who coordinates a state Fish and Wildlife Department team of Lakewood-based marine mammal biologists, has used similar capture methods since 1978. He cautioned volunteers not to put too much pressure on the animals because they might stop breathing. Ordinarily, that's not a problem. Of about 4,000 animals captured, eight have died, Huber said. The biologists work fast. The entire exercise, from capture to release, took minutes.
New chemicals show up
Statewide, harbor seals number about 32,000. In the South Sound, the total is between 2,000 and 3,000, Jeffries said. They were not so numerous 35 years ago. People shot them. Because fishermen complained that seals took too many fish, the state paid a bounty to reduce their numbers. That ended in 1960. In 1970, the statewide seal population numbered about 5,000, Jeffries said. After the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, which banned killing, the population began to recover.
In the early 1970s, a couple of early researchers noticed problems. Harbor seals were giving birth prematurely. Some pups were born with birth defects. "They raised the alarm," said biologist John Calambokidis, of Cascadia Research in Olympia. Later, Calambokidis analyzed archived blubber samples for contaminants such as DDT and PCBs. They have been banned in the U.S., but are persistent and build up in the food chain. Harbor seals get them from eating fish. Contaminant concentrations in South Sound seals have declined since the 1970s, but the levels remain high enough to cause harm, scientists said. Moreover, newer chemicals, such as flame retardants, have begun to show up in harbor seals. "The big concern is that not only are there still legacy contaminants, but new ones are being created and used that are essentially unrestricted, but similar to ones that have been banned that we know cause problems," Jeffries said.
Ross, the toxicologist, and other researchers have recently found a link between South Sound harbor seal contaminants and impaired immune system response. Thyroid hormones also appear affected, he said. And the pollution problem isn't limited to chemicals. Disease-causing bacteria -- probably waste runoff from people and livestock -- also affects the seals. The combination of chemical and biological pollution means "South Sound seals are hit with a double whammy," Ross said. Ross and Jeffries have compared South Sound seals with others from less-polluted areas. "The simplified conclusion is that animals that live in more industrialized, urban environments are more contaminated," Jeffries said. "There's a huge human shadow we cast by our presence."
from the University of Alberta, ScienceDaily
September 27, 2006
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060926183059.htm
submitted to this bulletin by Chemical Sensitivity Network
A study of construction workers in the Netherlands, conducted in part by the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, links low birth weight and birth defects to paternal, airborne exposure to organic solvents such as paints, thinner and cleansers. The study, although preliminary in its parent-reported assessment of birth outcomes and small numbers of reported cases, is the first of its kind to link concentrations of solvents in the air to these health outcomes, said Dr. Igor Burstyn, a University of Alberta professor of occupational and environmental health, who co-authored the study with researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in the Netherlands. "This is the first time we have good exposure data in such a study, but more robust investigations are needed to guide policy-makers," Dr. Burstyn said.
The study focused on questionnaires filled out by a random sample of 398 painters exposed to a mixture of chemicals present in organic solvents and 302 carpenters with little or no exposure, in the period of three months before the last pregnancy. Workers employed as painters three months before their partners became pregnant were on average six times more likely than the carpenters to father congenitally malformed babies (e.g. defects of cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, urogenital and central nervous systems.) In addition, the painters exposed to the chemicals were 50 to 100 per cent more likely to produce low birth-weight babies, depending on the level of exposure, compared to unexposed carpenters.
The researchers are unsure of how the chemicals are contributing to birth defects, and previous studies are inconclusive. Of particular concern, said Dr. Burstyn, is that all of the levels of exposure to solvents investigated in the study were well within Dutch regulations and occupational exposure limits established in the United States and Canada. Therefore, they had previously been considered safe. "Now it is less certain whether these exposures are safe," Dr. Burstyn said.
The findings show a need for more research, especially among workers who are exposed to supposedly less harmful water-based paints that were introduced to replace traditional solvent-based paints formerly common in the Netherlands. "We need to evaluate and compare the influence of resulting solvent exposures on reproductive health," said Dr. Burstyn, who collaborated previously on a study showing that water-based paints did not eliminate solvent exposure among construction painters.
Organic solvents are widely used in many industries including plastics, metals, electronics, shoemaking, furniture manufacturing, painting, printing and dry cleaning. The study was funded in part by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research with support from the Dutch Union for Construction Workers.
by Gilbert Chan, Sacramento Bee
September 27, 2006
http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/29918.html
In the past six months, nearly 50,000 toxic mercury light switches have been pulled from clunkers sitting in auto junkyards across California as a new environmental initiative took off, state officials announced Tuesday. The program, backed by nine automakers and the California Auto Dismantlers Association, is aimed at easing the financial burden on the state's 1,400 auto recyclers and reducing dangerous mercury air emissions. The initiative also has served as a framework for a landmark national program unveiled in August. "We established a model in California that other states are going to follow ... in order to get mercury out of the environment," said Bill George, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
This spring, the state, automakers and dismantlers group reached a three-year accord over the collection and disposal of mercury light switches found in cars and pickups built before 2003. The auto industry has phased out mercury in newer models. In 2005, California law started requiring auto dismantlers to take out the switches before vehicles are crushed or shredded for their steel. Dismantlers, however, have argued that automakers should bear the cost of managing the recycling effort. As part of the accord, the manufacturers' alliance, which includes DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., will pay for collecting containers of the switches from the dismantlers and disposing of them.
Mercury, a toxic liquid metal, can cause mental impairment, memory loss and other problems in the nervous system. It is especially dangerous to pregnant women and young children. From 1974 to 2002, U.S. automakers installed more than 200 million light switches containing 250 tons of mercury. If these hood and trunk switches are not removed, the mercury is released as the junkers are crushed and melted for the steel.
About 13 million cars and trucks are recycled annually nationwide. Officials estimate a single switch contains a gram of mercury, enough to contaminate a 20-acre lake and make the fish unsafe to eat. In California, 700,000 of the 2.5 million vehicles shipped to dismantling yards are shredded annually. The state leads the nation with an estimated 11.6 tons of mercury that can be salvaged.
Just four states -- California, Maine, Minnesota and New York -- have enacted mandatory switch removal laws. Eight others have voluntary programs. In August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a national program financed by the auto and steel industries. The $4 million program includes incentives for auto dismantlers to collect and ship the mercury switches.
Under the California program, nearly 50,000 switches containing about 100 pounds of mercury have been collected since March. No comparable figures were available for last year. "The amount of mercury that has been recovered already ... is enough to contaminate one-third of the drinking water in the state of California," said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste during a news conference outside the Capitol.
Ron Dumas, owner of Autogater in Roseville, said the program provides some financial relief to mom-and-pop operations. While the total disposal cost can range from $300 to $700 a year, dismantlers estimate they shoulder expenses such as recordkeeping and labor that equal about $3 for each switch removed. "It's one of those things that incrementally leads to putting guys of out business," Dumas said.
by Rebecca Renner, Environmental Science & Technology
September 27, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/sep/science/rr_fertilizer.html
Researchers recognize three major sources of perchlorate in the food chain: military-industrial activities, agricultural use of Chilean nitrate fertilizer, and natural atmospheric sources. The relative magnitude of each source has long been subject to speculation. New research published today on ES&T's Research ASAP website shows that the historical use of Chilean nitrate fertilizer is as large a source of perchlorate in food as military-industrial activities are, with natural atmospheric sources coming in far behind.
Perchlorate is as controversial as it is ubiquitous. The potential health risks from this thyroid disrupter and the huge potential costs of cleaning it up have made the issue one of the most highly politicized scientific debates of the decade. "We wanted to address the general pervasive presence of perchlorate," says Purnendu "Sandy" Dasgupta of Texas Tech University, who led the team that wrote the paper. "Precipitation was attractive, but it's not enough. Most people, including myself, have focused on military-industrial sources of perchlorate," he says. "But the numbers don't support it. Stepping back, the best way to get something into the food chain is fertilizer."
In the past, perchlorate contamination from military activities occurred during manufacture, or when rocket fuel past its prime was washed out of missiles and other devices onto the ground and eventually into groundwater. Chilean nitrate fertilizers, produced from rock deposits, are naturally contaminated with perchlorate, but their use diminished in the 1950s with the advent of synthetic fertilizers. Military and agricultural activities no longer lead to perchlorate contamination. Rocket fuel washout is now properly contained, and in 2000, Chilean nitrate producers instituted processing changes that removed perchlorate from their product. Atmospheric reactions generate small amounts that fall to earth when it rains.
Production and use estimates of perchlorate are hard to come by: the military considers the numbers secret, and fertilizer producers won't share them, saying they are proprietary information. Dasgupta's team engaged in document detective work to check and cross-check estimates for each military-industrial and agricultural source. The researchers used their own analyses of rainwater and others' analyses of ancient groundwater to estimate atmospheric sources.
To rank the sources, Dasgupta's team estimated the historical sources of perchlorate that could account for the current legacy of water pollution. In terms of production or importation, over the past 60 years, the military-industrial estimate dwarfs the others: 10,600 metric tons (t) per year (yr) compared with 750 t/yr for Chilean nitrate fertilizer and 130-640 t/yr for precipitation. But not all of the perchlorate produced for military and industrial use was washed out to become a water contaminant. Some was used to propel missiles and for outer-space exploration, and some still resides in existing devices. As a result, no one knows how much of the military-industrial perchlorate contributed to water pollution. "This is a big uncertainty," says Dasgupta.
The Chilean nitrate, however, was used exclusively on agricultural land. This increases the impact of that perchlorate by 5.5 times, to 4200 t/yr, the paper shows. For military-industrial dumping to equal fertilizer as a source, some 40% of the military-industrial perchlorate had to have been dumped. This seems unlikely, the authors note. Dasgupta hastens to add that pockets of high levels of perchlorate pollution may still exist for which the military-industrial complex is solely responsible.
William Herz, Vice President, Scientific Programs at the Fertilizer Institute, a trade group, says that he is skeptical of the paper's conclusions because the estimates ignore studies on the current impacts to food crops of irrigation water contaminated by military-industrial sources. The estimates for these sources also appear low and are based on sketchy data, he says. In addition, Herz questions the detailed calculations that Dasgupta's team used.
Other scientists welcome the work. "The relative contribution of different perchlorate pollution streams has been a hot topic of debate for years," says Renee Sharp of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. "It is good to see a quantitative treatment of the subject, rather than one that relies on guesses or conjecture," adds Sharp, whose comments reflect those of most other scientists contacted for this article. "The scientific community's understanding of perchlorate in the environment, while incomplete, continues to grow, and this paper makes an important contribution," says U.S. Air Force scientist Greg Harvey. "I think additional studies in areas like Orange County, Calif., and others that went through intensive agricultural development in the first half of the 20th century should be illuminating," he adds.
by Tanya Talaga, Toronto Star
September 25, 2006
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1159180391467
More than 5,800 Ontario residents are expected to die prematurely this year because they are breathing dirty air, warns a new report from the Ontario Medical Association. Breathing pollutant-laden air will cost the province almost $1 billion this year in lost productivity and treatment of smog-related illnesses, the OMA says in the report obtained by the Star.
The Greater Toronto Area was under a smog alert yesterday. "The impact polluted air is having on the health of Ontarians is dramatically worse than we had initially estimated," said Dr. Greg Flynn, president of the OMA. "We are paying the price for poor air quality with our lives and if we don't take action immediately, the cost will continue to rise significantly." Science is now available to see the long-term effects of pollution, of how the toxins affect tissue, causing adverse health reactions beyond asthma attacks and breathing difficulties -- including contributing to heart attacks and lung cancer.
Smog is a mix of pollutants, made up of mostly ground-level ozone, created from burning gasoline and from other volatile organic compounds found in things like solvents and paints. The OMA says it now has "clear scientific evidence" of premature deaths for a number of other pollutants such as ozone, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. "The cost of inaction is clearly much higher than any price our province could pay to improve air quality," Flynn said. The report estimates the cost of lost workdays from illnesses related to air pollution -- including caregivers' time -- at $374 million this year, rising to almost $467 million by 2026. Health care for air pollution related illnesses, including hospital stays and medications, will cost about $507 million this year, and nearly $702 million by 2026.
The last OMA study, released five years ago, estimated 1,900 deaths that year due to smog-related illnesses. The sharp increase is a result of two factors: Improved understanding of how pollutants harm the body over time and the fact many more pollutants are now being tracked. The additional deaths expected this year are also the result of lifetime exposure to dangerous pollutants and the permanent effects on our body, the OMA report notes. "A physician cannot cure someone whose tissue has accumulated the effects of smog over time," the report says. "All that we can do then is try to manage the illness."
People with asthma suffer greatly for days, even weeks, after a smog alert, said Dr. Mark Greenwald, vice-president of the Asthma Society of Canada, and co-founder of the Asthma Summit happening at York University today. "The asthmatic takes a much longer time to recover," he said. "The trigger is sudden but the effects are longstanding." Asthmatics say breathing the bad air feels like a plastic bag is over their heads, said Greenwald. "They are afraid and living with this on a daily basis." Greenwald said the problem of premature deaths caused by air pollution is worse for asthmatics because they don't have good, long-term control of their disease.
A news conference today will outline some of the major findings of the Illness Costs of Air Pollution report, including:
The report was created using a sophisticated software model developed by the OMA in 2000 to estimate the health effects and economic costs of smog in Ontario.
from Reuters, Scientific American
September 22, 2006
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=1592104031CEAA405B8A103C399E2633
NEW YORK -- The risk of death due to stroke is associated with exposure to high concentrations of air pollution about 2 hours before death, Japanese investigators report. Because this risk appears to be independent of 24-hour particulate matter levels, they suggest that air quality standards be based on hourly data, as well as 24-hour levels. Particulate matter, or PM, is the term used to describe the tiny particles emitted by automobiles, especially diesel vehicles.
Dr. Shin Yamazaki, an epidemiologist at Kyoto University, and associates collected data from the 13 largest cities in Japan regarding concentrations of suspended particulate matter 7 m diameters or higher (PM7), ambient temperature, plus other components of air pollution, from January 1990 to December 1994. During that period, 17,354 residents age 65 or older died due to hemorrhagic or bleeding stroke, and 46,370 died from ischemic stroke, the type caused by blood clots.
According to their analyses, reported online in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the odds ratio (OR) of death from ischemic stroke was increased with temperatures above 30 degrees centigrade in the warmer months compared with moderate temperatures of 15 to 22 degrees (OR 1.333). In contrast, the risk of death due to bleeding in the brain was increased in cold weather (0 to 8 degrees, OR 1.225). However, during warmer months, high 1-hour mean concentrations of PM7 increased the risk of death from hemorrhagic stroke nearly 2.4-fold, an association independent of 24-hour mean PM7 concentrations.
In contrast, death due to ischemic stroke was not associated with 1-hour PM7 levels. Yamazaki's team suggests this discrepancy may be due to the longer interval from ischemic stroke onset to death, or to the fact that inhaled particles raise blood pressure, a risk factor for bleeding in the brain.
Moreover, they write, "during the 4 years covered by this study, there were 443 hours in which the concentration of PM7 was over the 1-hour air quality standard (in Tokyo), and that 49 of those hours (11 percent) occurred on days when the 24-hour mean concentration of PM7 was within the air quality standard for 24-hour periods." They propose that, if hourly measures of air quality are not available, stricter standards for 24-hour mean levels of suspended particulate matter may be an effective substitute.