Environmental health
sb admin | May 1, 2009University of Maryland Law Professor Rena Steinzor called for fundamental changes to the role of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in federal regulatory review, at a House Committee hearing held on April 30. The Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Science and Technology has been examining OIRA's functions and responsibilities, with the chairman stating:
"...Though rarely in the headlines, OIRA has, in the years since its creation under President Reagan, quietly become the most powerful regulatory office in the Federal government."…
sb admin | May 1, 2009Weâve written before about the problem of contaminated water at the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina. Between 1957 and 1987, the baseâs water was contaminated with the industrial chemicals TCE and PCE, which are linked to a long list of health problems, including leukemia and neural tube defects in children exposed in the womb. Although 1,500 former base residents had filed damage claims totaling $33.8 billion, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (part of the Department of Health and Human Services) stood by a report that claimed drinking and bathing in the…
sb admin | April 22, 2009The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, and it heralded a new era in the US. The New Yorkerâs Elizabeth Kolbert explains:
Among those who seemed unmoved was President Richard Nixon. He avoided the festivities and made no public comment on them. (One of his aides, John Whitaker, later acknowledged that the Administration had been âtotally unpreparedâ for the wave of environmental activism âthat was about to engulf us.â) Nevertheless, even Nixon seems to have got the message. Three months afterward, he created the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and…
sb admin | April 20, 2009by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure
When a small body of water, say a slow flowing creek or water in a drainage ditch, "goes septic" it starts to stink, often giving off a rotten egg odor (hydrogen sulfide, H2S). This isn't a sign that the water is polluted in the chemical sense of toxic materials. It means that so much organic matter has entered the water that the bacteria there have gone on a food orgy. The initial gluttons are aerobic bugs that need oxygen as a final electron acceptor to generate energy for their needs. When the feasting aerobes use up all the oxygen they die and…
revere | April 20, 2009When a small body of water, say a slow flowing creek or water in a drainage ditch, "goes septic" it starts to stink, often giving off a rotten egg odor (hydrogen sulfide, H2S). This isn't a sign that the water is polluted in the chemical sense of toxic materials. It means that so much organic matter has entered the water that the bacteria there have gone on a food orgy. The initial gluttons are aerobic bugs that need oxygen as a final electron acceptor to generate energy for their needs. When the feasting aerobes use up all the oxygen they die and are replaced by a new set of diners, the…
revere | April 15, 2009The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) calls it a "reality check," meaning, in their terms, a check against the mistaken idea that there is more foodborne illness these days. That's one way to look at it. Another is a look that is reality based. The reality is that there is a tremendous health burden from tainted food that is unaddressed, at least going by the same CDC Morbidity and Mortality (MMWR) report the WSJ was citing. MMWR was reporting on 2008 data from FoodNet on the incidence of infection from enteric pathogens commonly transmitted via food:
Despite numerous activities aimed at preventing…
sb admin | April 14, 2009by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure
If you have any of your clothes dry cleaned it's more than likely you are being exposed to a chlorinated solvent called PCE (for perchloroethylene aka perc aka tetrachloroethylene/tetrachloroethene). You may be lucky enough to also get some in your drinking water, too (which means you are also breathing it and absorbing it through your skin) -- because PCE is also one of the most prevalent groundwater contaminants in the US. It has some other nice properties: it causes cancer and birth defects and probably autoimmune disease. And it isn't needed to…
revere | April 12, 2009Fomites are inanimate objects that act as modes of transmission for infectious agents. You know. The doorknob or airplane armrest handled by someone who coughs on his hand or blows her nose. We know that some agents, like influenza viral particles, can remain viable (i.e., retain their ability to replicate in a host cell) for days or weeks. This doesn't automatically mean that fomites are an important mode of transmission, however. There is evidence those same viral particles lose their ability to replicate after only a few minutes on your hand. The apparent paradox is probably related to the…
sb admin | April 11, 2009
by Ken Ward, Jr., cross-posted from Sustained Outrage: A Gazette Watchdog blog
Last August, Kanawha Valley residents lived through the spectacle of their public safety officials practically begging the folks who run the Bayer CropScience chemical plant to tell them what was on fire, and what toxic chemicals residents nearby were being exposed to.
Remember the exchange between Metro 911 officials and the plant?
âWell, I canât give out any information, like I say, weâll contact you with the, with the proper information,â a plant gate worker who identified himself only as Steve told a 911…
sb admin | April 10, 2009Bill 167's purpose is quite simple:
"to prevent pollution and protect human health and the environment by reducing the use and creation of toxic substances, and to inform Ontarians about toxic substances"
The bill, introduced on April 7 in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, is compared favorably to the 1989 Massachusetts' Toxics Reduction Act (TURA). Under the Massachusetts' program, hundreds of companies have reduced their use of highly hazardous compounds like anhydrous ammonia, cyanide, trichloroethylene and lead and saved millions of dollars in the process. The Ontario…
revere | April 4, 2009If you know your bugs you know that Blattella germanica and Periplaneta americana are cockroaches. They aren't the only cockroach species. In fact there are an estimated 4000 different kinds of cockroach, many of them living in fields, forests or jungles. Unless they are living in your hospital's Intensive Care Unit:
Ectobius vittiventris (Costa) is a field-dwelling cockroach and 1 of 4,000 species worldwide. We describe a cockroach infestation of an intensive care unit (ICU).
[snip]
The University of Geneva Hospitals are a 2,200-bed tertiary healthcare center. The 18-bed medical ICU is…
sb admin | April 3, 2009The Associated Press is reporting that last month MSHA inspectors found tremolite asbestos at a quarry owned by the Ash Grove Cement Company, part of its Kaiser plant in Jefferson County, Montana. The article quotes MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere saying that asbestos is present in the pit as âisolated occurrencesâ due to geologic intrusions in certain zones of the quarry.
Isolated occurrences?....of asbestos?
I pray this quote was taken out of context. Surely no one at MSHA would dare minimize the serious risk to workers' health from exposure to asbestos---even if the source of…
sb admin | April 3, 2009by Madison Hardee
Studying public health over the last two years, drinking water in the US and in the developing world is a regular topic of conversation. In my studies, I was surprised to learn that only 1% of the worldâs fresh water is available for human use (drinking, sanitation crops, etc.) The rest of the worldâs water is salt water (97%) or locked in glaciers (2%).
In the developed world, water is something we rarely think about. When I am thirsty, I just turn the knob on my sink. When I want to take a shower, hot water comes out at the pull of a lever. But for every time I…
revere | March 30, 2009A little over a week ago the Environmental Protection Agency sent the White House its finding that global warming endangers public health and welfare. This doesn't sound like news, and except for a minority of scientists out there it is very, very old news. But in the context of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling it is indeed big news:
The proposal -- which comes in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision ordering EPA to consider whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act -- could lay the groundwork for nationwide measures to limit such emissions…
sb admin | March 27, 2009DuPontâs Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia used a chemical called perfulorooctampic acid â abbreviated as PFOA or C8 â to manufacture Teflon. A group of Parkersburg-area residents sued DuPont over PFOA contamination in their drinking water, and they eventually reached a $107.6-million settlement with the company. The settlement required DuPont to clean up local water supplies, included funding for research on the health effects of PFOA, and provided for additional medical funding if that research found health effects linked to exposure.
The settlement called for…
sb admin | March 26, 2009By Dick Clapp
A critically important verdict with far-reaching implications is soon to be rendered in an Ecuadorian Court. The court case involves the rights of 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorians to compensation from the Chevron oil company for destruction of their land and for devastating ecological and public health consequences throughout the Amazon region in Eastern Ecuador. The history of the lawsuit began in 1964 when Texaco, now owned by Chevron, began extracting oil using methods that are particularly damaging to the environment and continued this practice for decades. The oil…
sb admin | March 24, 2009Twenty years ago today, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in the Prince William Sound and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil. Hundreds of miles of Alaskaâs coastline were coated in oil, a quarter of a million seabirds died, and one estimate puts local fisheriesâ losses at nearly $300 million, reports TIMEâs Bryan Walsh.
In 1991, Exxon reached a civil settlement with the federal and Alaska government and agreed to pay $900 million for restoration of the affected area; $180 million of that has gone to research. At the same time, Exxon funded its own research efforts. Iâm sure few of our…
sb admin | March 16, 2009Updated 3/17 and 3/19 (see below)
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's newsroom heard the announcement this morning: The Heart Corporation, which owns the paper, will cease printing after tomorrow's edition.
The official word is that the P-I won't be going away, but transitioning to an online-only format with the goal of being "the leading news and information portal of the region." That's a quote from Hearst CEO Frank Bennack Jr. in an article that must have been wrenching for P-I reporters Dan Richman and Andrea James to write.
The portal "will feature breaking news, columns from prominent…
sb admin | March 13, 2009The Washington Postâs Juliet Eilperin reports that a âlittle-noticedâ provision in the spending bill signed into law this week will reverse the Bush administrationâs loosening of Toxics Release Inventory reporting requirements. (Check out our past posts on the watered-down requirements and the TRIâs importance for background.)
The TRI is important because it lets community members, lawmakers, government agencies, journalists, and researchers learn about the amount and type of toxic chemicals being released by thousands of facilities across the country. Corporations that manufacture, process…
sb admin | March 11, 2009A lot of our coverage of bisphenol A, the endocrine-disrupting chemical present in a host of plastic products, has focused on the FDAâs outdated stance. The agency has insisted that BPA is safe at levels currently found in food and liquid containers, even though its own panel of science advisors has determined that the FDAâs position is flawed. The FDA bases its assessment heavily on two industry-funded studies, while dozens of other studies have found adverse effects at levels of exposure comparable to current levels for US residents.
While FDA has resisted changing its position on BPA,…