Environmental health
sb admin | October 6, 2008A report released last week by staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee on EPA's handling of the massive asbestos contamination in the mining town of Libby, Montana is laden with words including "failure," "misled," "interference," and "delay." Refering to "EPA's Failure to Declare a Public Health Emergency in Libby, Montana," Senator Baucus said that he and the staff examined more than 14,000 internal documents and found:
"...a pattern of intervention from OMB, the White House, and political appointees at EPA that undermined cleanup efforts at Libby, delayed…
revere | October 1, 2008Yesterday we noted the intricate interconnections between the physical, biological and social environments that conspired to affect the risk that a person might become infected with West Nile Virus. The same Adjustable Rate Mortgages that are part of that public health problem are at work in the spectacular collapse of the global financial system. Effects span huge scale differences, from local to global. Tight interconnections with unpredictable effects are also at work in our food supply, which now has long chains of production and supply that often combine local and global scales in one…
sb admin | September 30, 2008Weâve written previously about Devra Davisâs The Secret History of the War on Cancer, which generated a lot of controversy. Dick Clapp, an environmental health professor at Boston Universityâ School of the Public Health (BUSPH), wrote for us about two opposing reviews of that book, and now heâs exploring the controversy surrounding another book that links environmental problems to disease.
Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children, by Philip Shabecoff and Alice Shabecoff, links toxic products to a rise in childhood disease and death. The journalist authors highlight polluted…
revere | September 30, 2008A fascinating paper in CDC's journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases has more details on a problem we first mentioned, on the basis of news reports, back in June. It's about a possible relationship between West Nile Virus infection and the mortgage crisis, but the paper also gives a dramatic example of how the physical, biological and social environment can affect disease patterns and risks in populations.
Infection with West Nile Virus is primarily a disease of birds. It is transmitted from bird to bird by mosquito bites and the disease is maintained by the cycling between birds and mosquitoes…
revere | September 29, 2008A new study of foodborne illness has just been published and has made quite a bit of news. The typical headline is something like: "Animals Farmed For Meat Are The No. 1 Source Of Food Poisoning Bug, Study Shows." That makes it sound like most cases of food poisoning are from a particular bug and that bug comes from farm animals. Although it is inaccurate, the stories beneath the headline don't do much to dispel it:
Researchers from Lancashire, England, and Chicago, IL, have discovered that animals farmed for meat are the main source of bacteria responsible for food poisoning.
They suggested…
revere | September 27, 2008The Chinese food adulteration scandal is spreading. I'm calling it a food adulteration scandal because it's not just milk any more. Products with milk derived ingredients are also suspect:
Seven instant coffee and milk tea products made in China are being recalled in the U.S. because of possible contamination with melamine, as health fears increased worldwide over the safety of Chinese dairy exports.
The Mr. Brown brand mixes are being recalled by King Car Food Industrial Co., based in Taiwan, and were made by China's Shandong Duqing Inc., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said today in a…
sb admin | September 23, 2008By Olga Naidenko
Maybe our government should listen to what the people have to say? I mean, not all the time, not every day â surely, that would be too much to ask for â but at least every once in a while? Occasionally? And even consider those public opinions with a modicum of respect? Ah, what a dream that would be!
On Tuesday September 16 Erica Engelhaupt reported in Environmental Science and Technology on the findings of the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) Panel on Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making. The opening phrase of the NRC report is incisive…
sb admin | September 22, 2008Environmental Health News is a key resource for people who want to stay up-to-date on environmental issues, and itâs now gotten even better. John Peterson Myers, whoâs made the site (especially its Above the Fold daily news update) an invaluable resource that so many of us rely on, has now recruited some new talent and moved into the role of publisher. Marla Cone, who many readers will recognize from her top-notch environmental reporting for the Los Angeles Times, has joined as Editor-in-Chief, and will be writing feature stories for the site.
As a glimpse of what the new EHN has to offer,…
sb admin | September 19, 2008The front page of today's Washington Post announces "Public Health Is a Hot Field," reporting that an understanding of epidemiology, community-based interventions, disease surveillance and study design are high-demand topics on college campuses for undergraduate students.  I learned this exact thing two years ago when I was asked to teach part of the required curriculum for the George Washington University's (GWU) Bachelor of Science in Public Health degree. Wash Post reporter Dan Brown writes:
Public health courses "...are drawing undergraduates to lecture halls in record numbers…
sb admin | September 18, 2008In 1971 under the National Cancer Act, Congresss authorized the 3-person President's Cancer Panel which is charged with monitoring the "development and execution of the National Cancer Program" and preparing periodic progress reports for the President. Over the years, the Panel has examined quality of life for cancer patients, access to care issues, and lifestyle risk factors related to cancer. The Panel's focus for 2008-2009 is "Cancer and the Environment," a topic endorsed by The Collaborative on Health and Environment (CHE) and the topic of a draft consensus statement released by CHE…
sb admin | September 17, 2008by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure
We've discussed the component of plastics bisphenol A (BPA) here before (here, here) but yesterday the Journal of the American Medical Association published a significant paper with an accompanying editorial that deserves mention. A panel of the FDA was scheduled to meet the same day to review FDA's draft assessment that BPA was not a safety problem in the US food supply and environment. As a result of the JAMA article, the ranking member of the Committee on Finance, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has written to the Commissioner of the FDA asking for a…
sb admin | September 15, 2008by Sarah Vogel
On Friday, August 15, the FDA released its draft assessment of the safety of bisphenol A (BPA). To the frustration and deep consternation of many, the regulatory agency upheld the current safety standard for human exposure to BPA in food. The agency based their decision on two large multigenerational studies funded by the American Plastics Council (part of the American Chemistry Council) and the Society of the Plastics Industry.[1]  As for the large body of literature on low dose effects of BPA that originally raised concerns about the chemicalâs ability to disrupt…
revere | September 12, 2008Bush has announced he will reduce the forces in Iraq by 8000 by early 2009. My first thought (after "that's it? I thought we were victorious"; and let's get all of them out now as fast as we can) was to wonder what condition they will be in and what's in store for them in the future? I thought about that particularly because of the emerging scientific literature on strange and rare diseases in Gulf region veterans. One of these diseases is Lou Gehrig's Disease (medical name, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS). ALS, while rare (about 1 - 2 cases per 100,000 population in the US each year),…
sb admin | September 3, 2008On Friday, August 29, Carolyn Merritt, 61, the former chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (2002-2007) passed away after a valiant battle against metastic breast cancer. Advocates for workers' safety will remember Ms. Merritt as an outspoken expert who minced no words when she insisted that work-related injuries and fatalities are PREVENTABLE.
Tammy Miser of United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities (USMWF) came to know the CSB chairwoman after Tammy lost her brother, Shawn Boone, in an aluminum dust explosion at his workplace in Huntington,…
sb admin | August 29, 2008by revere, cross-posted at Effect Measure
IÂ used to joke that the only plan the Bush administration had for dealing with air pollution was to put all the free radicals in jail. If you don't know what a free radical is, it is a highly reactive form of a chemical, usually involving an unpaired electron. Radicals often are short lived intermediates in other reactions and can have half lives in the microseconds or less. In any event we're talking seconds. It is free radicals that are formed by ionizing radiation. They quickly react with whatever chemicals are in their vicinity and if that…
revere | August 29, 2008I used to joke that the only plan the Bush administration had for dealing with air pollution was to put all the free radicals in jail. If you don't know what a free radical is, it is a highly reactive form of a chemical, usually involving an unpaired electron. Radicals often are short lived intermediates in other reactions and can have half lives in the microseconds or less. In any event we're talking seconds. It is free radicals that are formed by ionizing radiation. They quickly react with whatever chemicals are in their vicinity and if that chemical happens to be your genetic material, you…
sb admin | August 26, 2008Hmph!  I just read on the OMB/OIRA website that they have completed their review of Labor Secretary Chao's proposal to change the way that OSHA and MSHA assess workers' risk of health hazards. The OIRA website notice says their review was completed on August 25, and it was approved "consistent with change."Â
Well, I guess I didn't really expect Secretary Chao or one of her political associates to call me personally to discuss the August 14 letter that 80 public health scientists sent to her. In that letter, we urged Elaine Chao to withdraw her proposal from OMB review. I…
sb admin | August 25, 2008It looks like California is once again picking up the slack for a federal agencies failing in their regulatory responsibilities. In this case, theyâre addressing the issue of chemicals in consumer products, as a step toward a broader âGreen Chemistry Initiative,â which is âaimed at promoting development of safer chemicals with policies to spur green design, manufacturing, use and disposal.â
The Sacramento Beeâs Steve Wigand explains this latest move from California:
The two-bill deal, negotiated among legislators, the Schwarzenegger administration and environmental and chemical industry…
sb admin | August 20, 2008First, the good news: A federal appeals court has struck down a 2006 EPA rule that prohibited state and local governments from strengthening efforts to monitor pollution from power plants, factories, and refineries.
Under the Clean Air Act, state and local governments are tasked with issuing pollution permits to power plants, factories, and other polluters. Theyâre supposed to update their monitoring requirements with EPA guidance, but such guidance hasnât been forthcoming. When EPA proposed requiring that state and local governments improve their monitoring without that guidance, industry…
sb admin | August 19, 2008Weâve written before about the alarming rate of bee death (or colony collapse disorder) around the world, and last week the British Beekeepersâ Association revealed that one in three of the UKâs honeybee hives failed to survive the winter and spring.
Now, the Natural Resources Defense Council says that a new class of pesticides might be playing a role in beesâ destruction â but the EPA wonât turn over relevant studies. Jane Kay reports in the San Francisco Chronicle:
The Natural Resources Defense Council wants to see the studies that the EPA required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer…