Environmental health
sb admin | March 26, 2007A few weeks ago, we detailed some of the concerns about the review of the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) coordinated by the contractor Sciences International for the National Toxicology Programâs (NTP) Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR). The story broke shortly before an expert panel on BPA was scheduled to meet, when Environmental Working Group reported that Sciences International has worked closely with tobacco and chemical companies â including Dow Chemical, a BPA manufacturer. We noted that these were evidently previous clients of Sciences International, which…
revere | March 23, 2007Pregnant Latina women in the Salinas Valley in CAlifornia have pesticides in their bodies. The surrounding farmland is loaded with pesticides. But how is it getting from the land to them? Or is it? Tom McKone and his colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs set out to find out. It turned out not to be that easy.
McKone and company concentrated on organophosphate pesticides (OPs). These are long acting nerve poisons for pests but can also affect humans and are of concern for neurodevelopmental effects on fetuses and children. When taken into the body they are metabolized to other…
sb admin | March 22, 2007Today is World Water Day, and this yearâs theme is âCoping with Water Scarcity.â In its WWD report (PDF), UN-Water (the official United Nations mechanism for follow-up of the Millennium Development Goals), warns that water scarcity will increase in the coming decades, driven by four main factors:
Population growth will increase water use
Increased urbanization will further concentrate the demand for water
Per-capita water consumption increases as the world becomes more developed
Climate change will alter freshwater resources
The reportâs authors also note that polluting or otherwise…
sb admin | March 16, 2007By David Michaels
OMB Watch has just released its newest report on the recent changes President Bush has made to the federal regulatory process. The report A Failure to Govern: Bush's Attack on the Regulatory Process explains in clear, compelling language how two arcane but pernicious documents, one amended the other new, threaten to significantly reduce the ability of government agencies to protect our health and environment. The two documents are:
Executive Order 13422 (amending the way the White Houseâs Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) reviews the rules issued by EPA…
sb admin | March 15, 2007Congressman George Miller, chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, will hold on hearing on March 22 on the explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, TX which killed 15 workers and injured 180 others.Â
"The BP-Texas City Disaster and Worker Safety"Â hearing will feature testimony from:
Eva Rowe, 22, who lost both of her parents in the disaster
Carolyn W. Merrit, chair of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board
Kim Nibarger, safety specialists, United Steelworkers
Admiral Frank Bowman, member, BP Refineries Independent Review Panel
Two days before the hearing, the U.S. Chemical Safety…
sb admin | March 9, 2007By Jennifer Sass and Sarah Janssen
As described in earlier posts (here and here), the NIHâs National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has contracted the work of the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) out to the consulting company Sciences International. This issue received public attention just as CERHRâs scheduled review of the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) was taking place.
We submitted comments to CERHR detailing concerns about the content and the process of the BPA review. Our concerns include:
The NIEHS NTP Center for the Evaluation of Risks…
sb admin | March 9, 2007By David Michaels
Since my post on privatizing federal science, I have learned more about Sciences International and owe them an apology. I said in my post, âSciences International is not a hack company; it employs some very respected scientists who do excellent work.â But that was buried in the post.
Since writing the post, I have been assured that Sciences International no longer works for chemical manufacturers involved in producing bisphenol A (BPA). I noted in the post that the previous head of Sciences International, who had been involved in work for the tobacco industry, has left…
sb admin | March 7, 2007by Liz BorkowskiÂ
On Sunday, Marla Cone of the LA Times wrote about a federal health center contracting out the work of assessing potentially dangerous chemicals to a company with chemical-industry ties (see David Michaelsâs post for reasons to be wary of this particular contractor). Her story in todayâs paper shows that shining a light on such shady ties can sometimes have an effect.
The nonprofit Environmental Working Group drew issue to this attention on February 28th, when it released the results of an investigation that found the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction…
sb admin | March 4, 2007By David Michaels
Marla Cone, in the Los Angeles Times, reports on a complaint raised by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) that the National Toxicology Programâs Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) is being run not by federal scientists but by a consulting firm that also works for manufacturers of chemicals CECHR is charged with evaluating.
EWGâs charges are true, but not surprising if youâve ever worked in a federal agency. The number of government activities that are actually performed by contractors is enormous and growing rapidly. CERHR, whose mission is…
sb admin | February 23, 2007Christopher Thomas needed to make some extra money. The 51-year old welderâalso a husband and father of twoâhad begun work in the GMD Shipyard in Brooklyn Navy Yard about a week before. It was mid-morning on a Saturdayâhis day offâbut Thomas had come into work anyway.
He and some colleagues were using a pulley to move a massive steel plate weighing more than 6,000 pounds when the plate came loose and plummeted, hitting Thomas in the head before pinning him beneath. He died not long after.
The president of GMD Shipyard released a statement saying he was âsaddenedâ by the accident and that…
sb admin | February 20, 2007By Anthony Robbins
It has been many years, 26 in fact, since I left NIOSH, victim of the Reagan landslide of 1980. It is fair to say that I have spent little time engaged in worker health issues since then. Yet Michael Silversteinâs future oriented document offered surprisingly few new or unexpected insights as it forcefully argued for a better and more effective OSHA. His passion is admirable.
Perhaps I should not have been surprised to read about old hazards, old strategies, and old indictments of those in power. It has always been thus. For a view of worker health and environmental…
sb admin | February 16, 2007By Dick Clapp
This week, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection issued preliminary health-based guidance to local water companies on levels of perflurooctanoic acid (PFOA) in drinking water (PDF). Based on current knowledge of cancer and non-cancer effects of this chemical, they recommended a limit of 0.04 parts per billion, and they say this will be re-evaluated as additional data becomes available. This is the latest in what will be an on-going process of research and regulation of this ubiquitous and persistent bioaccumulative toxin. The saga that has been unfolding is…
revere | February 14, 2007Many years ago, so long ago she says she never remembers any such thing, Mrs. R. said to me that if I ever brought her flowers she'd think I'd done something wrong. I suspect this was prompted by the fact I wasn't much in the habit of bringing her flowers, but I chose to interpret it more literally and felt excused. Even on Valentine's Day. Even though she is really and truly my special Valentine.
And now I have another excuse:
It's probably the last thing most people think about when buying roses: By the time the bright, velvety flowers reach your valentine, they will have been sprayed,…
sb admin | February 12, 2007By David Michaels
âSunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.â - Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1914)
According to the Newark Star-Ledger, Lisa B. Jackson, Commissioner of New Jerseyâs Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has just issued a tough new standard for removing chromium 6 (a powerful lung carcinogen) from soil.
Three years ago, the same newspaperâs Alexander Lane wrote a series of articles (reprinted here and here) reporting how chromium companies Maxus Energy (formerly Diamond Shamrock), Honeywell (which took…
sb admin | February 12, 2007By Celeste MonfortonÂ
Last month, David Michaels wrote about a newly amended executive order from President Bush that gives the executive branch (through the Office of Management & Budget) more control over the work of federal agencies. This order seems designed to constrain the regulatory activities of federal agencies like EPA, FDA, and OSHA in fulfilling their Congressionally mandated duties â protecting us from hazards in our air, food, and workplaces. It places additional burdens on agencies attempting to issue new regulations or guidance, and it gives the OMB more authority over…
sb admin | February 8, 2007By David A. Sonnenfeld
It is rare that public health professionals, labor advocates, community activists, and university scholars come together at one place and time to discuss the past, present, and future of health and environmental challenges of a major industrial sector. It is even rarer that we manage to sustain a years-long collaboration in analyzing, documenting, and discussing such challenges, resulting in the publication of a peer-reviewed handbook for workers and advocates focused on that sector. Yet that is exactly what has been accomplished with last year's publication of…
sb admin | February 8, 2007Facing growing public concern about global warming, the US Chamber of Commerce is setting up another yet front group to oppose regulations that will limit greenhouse gases. The Chamber has tentatively named the new group the Institute for Energy Security, Competitiveness and American Jobs. It will be bankrolled by oil companies, electric utilities and automakers, who are expected to pony up about $20 million, according to Jeffrey Birnbaum of the Washington Post. It makes perfect sense, of course. General Motors, Ford, ExxonMobil, and the other corporations that sell products to the public…
sb admin | February 7, 2007By Joel TicknerÂ
The European Union (EU) recently issued new regulations requiring chemical firms to develop health and environmental data on chemicals used to make everyday products and provide reasonable assurances of safety. What a novel concept. The sad truth is that it is.  Despite the fact that most public surveys find that people believe (and expect) industrial chemicals are regulated like drugs (governments would never allow companies to place a dangerous, untested chemical into their products, would they?), most government toxics policies, do not follow this expectation. Until…
revere | February 7, 2007One of the places to see (and be seen?) in the public health blogosphere these days is the new group blog, The Pump Handle. Among the many terrific posts there recently was one by Boston University School of Public Health epidemiologist Richard Clapp, "Drop in Cancer Deaths hype - what's behind the numbers?" The numbers he refers to are the 0.5% drop in US cancer deaths, from 556,902 in 2003 to 553,888 in 2004.
The story made the newswires and big media outlets as good news. It certainly isn't bad news, but as Clapp points out, the drop in cancer deaths lags behind the drop in deaths from…
sb admin | February 5, 2007By Dick ClappÂ
Late last month, there was a series of news stories about the drop in cancer deaths reported in 2004 as compared to 2003. The Washington Post story ran under the headline âCancer Deaths Decline for Second Straight Year,â and the New York Times headline read âSecond Drop in Cancer Deaths Could Point to a Trend, Researchers Say.â President George W. Bush was quoted as saying âThis drop was the steepest ever recorded. . . Progress is being made.â What he did not say was that a drop in cancer deaths has been recorded in only two years since the data have been collected â and…