Environmental health
revere | June 16, 2008Our post on what is behind the Right Wing attack on science drew a lot of attention and numerous comments. I'd like to emphasize some key points that may have gotten lost in the details (for the details, please see the original post). We'll use climate change skepticism as an example, but the principles hold for other kinds of assaults, for example, on public health concerns regarding bis phenol A.
The cardinal point is that the attacks aren't about science. Refuting false statements about whether CO2 is or is not a driver of global warming may seem (and be) necessary, but it is not the…
sb admin | June 13, 2008by revere (cross posted at Effect Measure)
If you want to see what difference environmental protection enforcement makes, just go to eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union. Or China. In the 1970s the US led the world in cleaning its environment and was consolidating its gains with well-staffed, motivated federal and state environment agencies. But that was then. Last weekend the US Senate couldn't even manage a paltry 60 votes to stop a filibuster of a bipartisan and none too strong global warming bill. This kind of failure isn't new. The US slow motion fall in environmental leadership has…
revere | June 13, 2008If you want to see what difference environmental protection enforcement makes, just go to eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union. Or China. In the 1970s the US led the world in cleaning its environment and was consolidating its gains with well-staffed, motivated federal and state environment agencies. But that was then. Last weekend the US Senate couldn't even manage a paltry 60 votes to stop a filibuster of a bipartisan and none too strong global warming bill. This kind of failure isn't new. The US slow motion fall in environmental leadership has been going on for decades. In the Bush…
sb admin | June 12, 2008Todayâs Washington Post includes a great article by Lyndsey Layton that contrasts European Union and U.S. chemical laws and explores how EU actions might affect products on U.S. shelves. Hereâs Laytonâs explanation of EU law and the philosophy that guides it:
From its crackdown on antitrust practices in the computer industry to its rigorous protection of consumer privacy, the European Union has adopted a regulatory philosophy that emphasizes the consumer. Its approach to managing chemical risks, which started with a trickle of individual bans and has swelled into a wave, is part of a European…
sb admin | June 11, 2008DuPont was busted a couple of years ago by U.S. EPA for failing to report information about adverse health effects associated with exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA or C8), the chemical used to make Teflon and other non-stick surfaces. Now it seems that DuPont is dutifully submitting information to EPA's TSCA 8(e) docket and we can thank the Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward for trolling through the docket to find items of public interest.* Ward recently reported on an analysis conducted by DuPont which identified 19 cases of carcinoid tumors among DuPont employees; 6 of the cases…
sb admin | June 10, 2008Devra Davisâs book The Secret History of the War on Cancer (which we covered favorably here and here) advocates shifting our emphasis from treating cancer to preventing it â and, in particular, focusing on environmental factors implicated in the explosion of certain types of cancer. The book has raised some controversy, and a recent exchange in the New York Review of Books exemplifies one of the points of contention. Gayle Green writes in a letter responding to Richard Hortonâs review:
Horton has granted that Davis has a point, that the inexplicably high incidences of cancer in some parts of…
sb admin | June 9, 2008An attorney representing a large group of PFOA-exposed individuals sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and ATSDR Director Howard Frumkin, urging them not to delay any further the release of hazard information and risk assessments on the contaminant perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, a.k.a. C8). Mr. Bilott was writing on behalf of residents who live near DuPont's Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, WV andÂ
"who continue to be exposed to this poison in their residential drinking water on a daily basis."  Â
In a 2005 legal settlement with the residents, DuPont agreed…
revere | June 8, 2008The controversy over the health of rescue workers at the World Trade Center site goes on. The Wall Street area was re-opened quickly after 9/11 despite EPA air tests that showed hazardous materials in the air by direct orders from Condeleeza Rice's office when she was National Security advisor to George Bush. High asbestos levels were omitted from press releases because of "competing priorities," according to an article in the New York Post in September 2006 (long pull quotes in the post linked above but the new link has since been taken down). So political interference has already been…
revere | June 7, 2008Like most public health scientists I am fascinated by the complicated relationship between the environment and disease. You build a military base somewhere and sexually transmitted diseases follow. You build a dam in Egypt and urinary schistosomiasis, a chronic debilitating disease that also predisposes to bladder cancer, entrenches itself in an area because infected workers are attracted from far away endemic areas. They work and often urinate in the water, seeding the shallows of rivers and lakes with schistosome eggs. When the eggs get into the snails, they germinate, the schistosome…
sb admin | June 6, 2008By Michael Stebbins, originally published at Scientists and Engineers for America Action Fund
The House just passed the National Nanotechnology Initiative Amendments Act of 2008 by a vote of 407 to 6. H.R. 5940 reauthorizes and refines the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), notably strengthening the commitment to environmental and safety research. This seems particularly important considering the recent news on the potential danger of carbon nanotubes.
According to House Science and Technology Committee chairman, Bart Gordon (D-TN) âThe federal interagency nanotechnology research…
sb admin | June 4, 2008By Susan F. Wood, PhD
Much has been written at the Pump Handle and elsewhere in the media and scientific literature about ensuring that science appropriately drives government policies. Questions and concerns have abounded regarding inappropriate non-scientific interference, while at the same time many health and environmental agencies (and the scientific staff within them) continue their incredibly important work in research, evaluation, development, regulation and service delivery. Several organizations have done surveys and developed principles on scientific integrity including the…
revere | June 4, 2008What do the US states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, Illinois and Indiana have in common? They are locations of reported illnesses from Salmonella Saintpaul infections, forty in Texas and New Mexico alone, with 17 hospitalizations. Thirty more cases have been reported in the other seven states. The cases are connected by being genetically identical. S. saintpaul is a less common cause of human infection than other non typhoid Salmonella strains and the bugs isolated from these cases are said to be identical. This makes a common source the only reasonable…
sb admin | June 3, 2008For the first time since 2005, the full Senate chamber is debating climate legislation: the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, or CSA. Although the chances of this legislation becoming law this year are slim, it could lay important groundwork for the next Congress and Administration.
If you want to know the key details about what the CSA proposes and what the remaining sticking points are, go read this excellent Gristmill post by Kate Sheppard â and donât seek your information from todayâs New York Times. As the title suggests, John M. Broderâs NYT article âSenate Opens Debate on…
sb admin | May 30, 2008A study just published in the journal PLoS Medicine (and written up in the LA Times) suggests a link between childhood lead exposure and adult arrests for violent crimes. Studying 250 adults for whom they had prenatal and childhood blood lead level measurements, University of Cincinnati researchers found that each 5-microgram-per-deciliter increase in blood lead levels at age 6 was associated with a nearly 50% increased risk of arrest as a young adult (the risk ratio was 1.48).
The good news is that overall, U.S. childrenâs blood lead levels have dropped dramatically since manufacturers…
revere | May 29, 2008Earlier in the month there was a hilarious piece on Fox News (where else?) by hack lawyer turned hack commentator Steven Milloy trying to counter the extremely bad publicity one of his closest friends was getting. This close friend was a chemical, bisphenol A (BPA; see here and here) which just got panned by the Canadian government, the US National Toxicology Program, Walmart, Nalgene (maker of BPA containing water bottles) and even the Washington Post. Here's Milloy turning away from the scientific evidence and standing on his head, a contortion guaranteed to bring you face to face with an…
sb admin | May 27, 2008Asbestos is internationally recognized as a carcinogen and blamed for 100,000 deaths each year, but neither the U.S. nor Canada has managed to ban its use. Two mines in Quebec still produce asbestos, and about 95% of their production is exported. Last year, The Globe and Mailâs Martin Mittelstaedt reported that Canadaâs government is a strong backer of asbestos, and spent roughly $19.2 million from 1984 to 2007 to promote asbestos use.
In February, Mittelstaedt reported that Health Canada, the countryâs health agency, had âquietly begun a studyâ on the dangers of chrysotile asbestos. He cited…
revere | May 23, 2008If you aren't in the business of figuring out if a chemical is a health hazard you might never have heard of the EPA's IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System) database but suffice it to say it is a wealth of valuable information on the topic. Considered authoritative by many states and countries, its judgements have become the basis for official standards. It's been around since the start of Reagan's second term (1985) so there is no claim it is some kind of fringe environmentalist fantasy. It's not the Last Word but it's a loud voice and taken seriously by anyone tasked with protecting the…
sb admin | May 23, 2008By Sarah Vogel
On Wednesday, May 14 the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing on Plastics Additives in Consumer Products to discuss the safety of two chemical compounds, bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, in consideration of new legislation and calls for regulatory reform. Both of these chemicals are used in plastics production and have long been known to be endocrine disruptors. In response to mounting evidence of the harmful health effects of BPA at very low doses of exposure, some manufacturers, the Canadian government, the State of California, and now…
sb admin | May 22, 2008By Ally Petrilla
I read the Jackson Sun's (Tennessee) headline "Churches 'go green' as they as they aim to protect God's creation from more harm" and said to myself, "Finally!" I am not that excited that my home state is catching the Go Green bug (although that's a great thing, too!); I was more excited to see that people are having enough sense to use churches as an outlet for health messages for people in the South.Â
For states like Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and the Carolinas, church is as much a part of life as fried chicken. We are people of the Word.…
revere | May 22, 2008Over the years I've seen more than enough of the murderous destruction "the magic mineral, "asbestos, has caused in the lives of workers and their families. Exposure to asbestos causes a serious, often fatal, scarring of the lungs called asbestosis and also two different kinds of cancer of the respiratory tract: lung cancer and mesothelioma. Both cancers are usually fatal, but while lung cancer can be caused by other agents like cigarettes and various occupational chemicals, mesothelioma is mostly a result of exposure to asbestos. "Meso," as it is often called, is a horrific disease. It…