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In the News:
Get quick access to breaking stories around the world.
19 August Worldwide battle for water. The wars of the next few decades could be fought over access to water, say some analysts. BBC, UK. 19 August Our good earth. Even as humankind is ratchetting up its demands on soil, we are destroying it faster than ever before. National Geographic. 19 August Toxic wastes alarm in Lagos, Nigeria. They are dangerous say experts. Residents of Babs Animasahun Surulere Lagos fear that some strange wastes dumped under the cover of darkness in the area may be toxic. Lagos Vanguard, Nigeria. 19 August EPA not spilling the beans on bees. The U.S. EPA is refusing to disclose records about a new class of pesticides that may be playing a role in the disappearance of millions of honeybees. San Francisco Chronicle, California. 19 August Battle over hazmat liability. The railroad industry is asking federal regulators to allow them to require chemical companies to assume much of the financial risk of transporting their dangerous commodities. Chemical & Engineering News. 19 August California assembly rejects chemical ban in baby items. California lawmakers rejected restrictions on two chemicals--one used in baby bottles and canned formula, and another used to keep food from sticking to packaging--despite consumer safety concerns. Associated Press. 19 August Sticks and carrots. From towns and counties to states to federal agencies, and even at the UN, governments are grappling with how to integrate environmental concerns into policies affecting people and the economy. Chemical & Engineering News. 19 August Anti-regulation aide to Cheney is up for energy post. A senior Cheney aide is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Dept. This would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of forming department policies on climate change. Washington Post. 19 August Biofuels, batteries, and solar cells: The future of driving. In the next decade, people may have to decide whether they want to pump or plug-in when purchasing a new car. If plug-in hybrid electric vehicles click with consumers, the way we refuel our cars could start to change drastically. Chemical & Engineering News. 19 August Living a green dream on Danish island. Concerns about energy security may run high elsewhere in Europe, but on the windswept Danish island of Samso the inhabitants have achieved a decade-long target of self-sufficiency in renewable power. Reuters. 19 August San Onofre nuclear power plant feeling regulatory pressure. San Onofre nuclear plant managers are scrambling to avoid stepped-up oversight from regulators and to resolve worker safety and operational problems that have put the facility's industry ratings significantly below its peers. Los Angeles Times, California. 19 August Coal's toxic legacy to the Arctic. Coal burning in western Europe and North America has been a prime source of heavy metal pollution in the Arctic; these substances accumulate in the bodies of plants and animals living in the region. BBC, UK. 19 August Coal king Peabody cleans up. In the USA, Peabody Energy is perhaps the staunchest opponent of stringent regulations to cap greenhouse gas emissions, even as stalwarts such as ExxonMobil and American Electric Power have softened their stances. USA Today. 19 August Bus workers file suit against diesel companies. Yesterday, Hartnett and 17 others filed suit against diesel engine manufacturers, claiming that exposure to the particulate matter in the emissions caused their severe illnesses. New York AM, New York. 19 August New, potentially damaging, pollutant is discovered. A previously unknown class of pollutants, formed in combustion ranging from cigarettes to power plants and diesel engines, was announced at the American Chemical Society's national meeting. Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania. 19 August Spokane River pollution study means sewers dipping. The Spokane River contains a toxic brew of PCBs, heavy metals, and the highest of levels of flame retardants found in Washington's rivers and lakes. Spokane Spokesman-Review, Washington. 19 August What's coming from your tap? Concerned about the cost of bottled water -- and its environmental consequences -- many people are turning back to tap water to quench their thirst. But as evidence mounts of contaminants in public systems, unease about the water supply is growing. Wall Street Journal. 19 August Mexican peppers posed health risks long before salmonella outbreak. Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy shipments of peppers in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was traced to Mexican chilies. Associated Press. 19 August After a recall, risks remain for consumers. While product recalls are touted as a powerful tool of regulators for keeping consumers safe, sometimes not enough done to follow-up the original announcement. Wall Street Journal. 19 August Six months later, did the Chino beef recall produce benefits? The mistreatment and illegal slaughter of "downer" cows at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, CA sparked the largest U.S. beef recall in history. Six months later, the impact is clear and far-reaching. Riverside Press-Enterprise, California. More news from today |
New Science:
Understand new scientific results that expand knowledge of environmental links to health.
In human fat tissues, bisphenol A suppresses levels of a key hormone, adiponectin, that protects people from heart attacks and Type II diabetes. These results implicate BPA as a potential cause of metabolic syndrome, one of the most serious and costly public health problems in the US. More... Women becoming pregnant in the San Francisco Bay area during the 1960's were a third less likely to give birth to a baby boy if their PCB levels were relatively high. The new study adds weight to the growing evidence that contamination in the womb can alter the relative proportion of boys and girls that are born. More... Scientists in Florida report that intersex conditions found in amphibians are associated with agricultural land use. In the most heavily farmed area, almost 40% of male toads have abnormalities that make them less male and more like females. The results suggest that agricultural chemicals may be responsible. More... A review of health risks of bisphenol A is flawed by errors of omission, commission, misrepresentation and misinterpretation. The review, carried out by a scientist at the California Dept. of Toxic Substance Control 'working on his own time' and thus not representing the agency's position, ignores a large body of literature on low-dose effects of BPA, uses criteria that would, if accepted, invalidate 30 years of well-established research on diethylstilbestrol (DES) and employs a statistical method that violates basic statistical principles. More... Pregnant women exposed to household pesticides may increase the risk of their children developing leukemia, according to a recent study conducted in France. In the study, parents of leukemia patients were more likely to have used pesticides and insecticides either at home or at work. Exposure to these chemicals is a risk factor for blood cancers, particularly if children are exposed in the womb, the authors' conclude. More... Phthalate exposure is widespread in infants and use of baby care products appears to be contributing, according to an analysis of babies' urine. Greater use of lotions, powders and shampoos were associated with higher phthalate levels. The associations were strongest in younger infants. Parents wanting to decrease phthalate exposures for their infants should reduce the use of baby products unless needed for medical purposes. More... Research in Japan reports a 50% reduction in risk of advanced prostate cancer is associated with drinking green tea. The findings may help understand why prostate cancer is much lower in Asian compared to Western populations. American Journal of Epidemiology. More... Researchers testing deep aquifers used for drinking water found human viruses, challenging the assumption that these crucial water supplies are protected from surface contamination. Samples from three public water supply wells that draw from a 240-foot deep aquifer in Wisconsin contained human intestinal viruses, which as a group are associated with diseases such as meningitis, encephalitis, newborn enteroviral disease and polio. More... New research by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control indicates that the analysis the CDC has used to estimate human exposure to atrazine and atrazine-related breakdown products has strongly underestimated its extent. By assaying for more than one atrazine metabolite, the new method finds exposures more consistent with the widespread use of the herbicide than indicated by the old approach. More... A new analysis by the CDC indicates that many Americans are exposed to bisphenol A at levels above the current safety threshold set by the EPA based upon decades-old data. These levels are significantly higher than those sufficient to cause a wide array of health effects in animals following exposure in the womb. Exposure to another industrial chemical, 4-tertiary-octylphenol, is also widespread. More... Minute quantities of a bacterial protein inserted in corn provoke immune reactions in mice. The protein is added to increase the effectiveness of plant-based transgenic vaccines. The results indicate that special care will be needed with transgenic corn to reduce exposure to workers and the public if this protein is used commercially in corn or other food crops, to avoid unwanted immune responses in people and decreased effectiveness of oral vaccines that use the protein. More... Three years after a year-long education effort to promote a healthy diet and discourage consumption of carbonated drinks, researchers found no effect on how many children were overweight. The number of overweight children had increased in both the control and experimental groups. British Medical Journal. More... New research confirms that estrogenic contaminants can seep into sediment after being carried by sewage into rivers. Standard water treatment doesn't remove them from waste water effluent, so they pass from treatment plants into rivers. Once in river waters, they move into river sediments and thus potentially reach groundwater, contaminating sources of drinking water. More... New experiments reveal that the synthetic estrogen used by women for birth control causes wide ranging health effects in minnows, but that the effects differed when the drug was tested alone compared with when it was mixed with wastewater effluent. The estrogen caused feminization of male fish, and altered DNA integrity, immune cell number, and ability to breakdown pollutants. The study highlights the need for more research on the potential health effects of exposure to complex mixtures. More... New data link low birth weight and body mass to very low levels of commonly used chemicals found in consumer products ranging from Teflon-coated cookware to water and stain repelling textiles. Analyzing the relationship between vital statistics of newborns born at a city hospital in Baltimore, MD--measurements such as weight, length, and head circumference-- scientists found that babies with higher levels of perfluorinated compounds in their cord blood tended to be slightly but significantly smaller than those with lower exposure. More... Thirty-eight of the world's leading scientific experts on bisphenol A have warned policymakers of potential adverse health effects of exposure to the widespread molecule used to make plastic and food can lining. They conclude that average levels in people are above those that cause harm to animals in laboratory experiments. And they calculate that average serum levels in people can only be explained by assuming that exposures today are already above the level that EPA considers safe. More... A new study with mice is the first to link low level neonatal exposure to bisphenol A to uterine diseases that women develop as they age, including fibroids, adenomysois and cystic ovaries. Some of the adverse conditions induced by BPA in mice have been previously described in daughters of mothers who took the drug diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic estrogen which is structurally and functionally similar to BPA. These uterine defects, which often require severe medical intervention, are common and appear to be increasing in women but remain poorly understood. More... In a unique, new study, scientists report that women exposed to relatively high levels of DDT prior to mid-adolescence are 5 times more likely to develop breast cancer later in life than women with lower exposures. In contrast, exposure after adolescence is not associated with increased risk. This new approach-- taking age of exposure into account-- may help explain why studies that depend upon exposure measurements after breast cancer develops often report no association. More... Exposure to bisphenol A during development changes gene behavior in mice, causing genetically identical animals to develop differently. BPA exposure reduces DNA methylation, thereby increasing the expression of genes that would have been silenced. The results can be counteracting by supplementing the maternal diet during pregnancy and lactation with nutrients that increase methylation, such as genistein, a phytoestrogen found in soy. More... New research exposing mice to a chemical used to make polyurethane foam and paints provides the first experimental confirmation that the compound causes respiratory tract disease. The findings corroborate epidemiological studies showing links between on-the-job exposure to toluene diisocyanate and both nasal inflammations, diseases that affect at least half the industrial workers in the US. The results help understand how breathing even small amounts of a chemical can lead to debilitating respiratory diseases. More... |
New Reports:
By organizations working to protect human health from environmental exposures.
Pyrethrins, extracted from the chrysanthemum plant, and their synthetic relatives, pyrethroids, have exploded in popularity over the last decade. The number of reported human health problems, including severe reactions, attributed to pyrethrins and pyrethroids, increased by about 300 percent over that period. Perils of the new pesticides. Published by Center for Public Integrity. Overall, several auto manufacturers showed improvement over last year’s findings, including Mazda, General Motors and Nissan. General Motors, whose average vehicle ranking improved by 27%, showed the most improvement of the domestic automakers. Average child car seat scores improved by 28% overall, proving that toxic chemicals are not required for the manufacturing of child car seats and interior automobile components. 2nd annual guide to toxic chemicals in cars and children’s car seats. Published by Ecology Center of Michigan. Regulators remain oblivious to the harmful effects of bisphenol A and need to act urgently to protect consumers. despite firm scientific consensus about the health hazards of the chemical, European authorities are shirking their responsibilities and attempting to postpone any decision on whether this substance should require authorisation until 2013. Blissfully unaware of bisphenol A: Reasons why regulators should live up to their responsibilities. Published by Friends of the Earth Europe. An investigation of nearly 1,000 brand-name sunscreen products finds that 4 out of 5 contain chemicals that may pose health hazards or don't adequately protect skin from the sun's damaging rays. Some of the worst offenders are leading brands like Coppertone, Banana Boat, and Neutrogena. Sunscreens. Published by Environmental Working Group. Millions of U.S. workers will all benefit from the project of defeating global warming and transforming the United States into a green economy. Constructing windfarms, retrofitting buildings, building and operating mass transit, installing solar all create jobs that are in the same areas of employment in which people work today. Job opportunities for the green economy. Published by Center for American Progress. The plastics problem is growing in scale and complexity due to a collision of factors. These include government neglect of endocrine disruption; explosive growth of the plastics industry; lack of labeling requirements; and near universal human exposure. Plastics that may be harmful to children and reproductive health. Published by Environment and Human Health, Inc. There is no evidence that industry-touted replacements being rushed to market to replace a Teflon chemical are safer. Instead, it appears that DuPont and other manufacturers are continuing a decades-long pattern of deception about the health risks of PFOA and related chemicals. Toxic chemicals in food packaging and Dupont's greenwashing. Published by Environmental Working Group. Commonly used baby and children’s products, and upholstered household furniture contain dangerous levels of halogenated fire retardants. 56% of all infant carriers, 44% of all car seats, 40% of all strollers and 19% of all portable cribs were found to have high levels of halogenated fire retardants. Killer cribs. Published by Friends of the Earth. A chemical used to make Teflon, food wrappers and dozens of other products may harm the immune system, liver and thyroid and cause higher cholesterol in children The health effects observed in research in Ohio are strong indicators of health problems that might be caused by PFOA in average Americans. Early life exposure to chemicals in food packaging linked to adult obesity. Published by Environmental Working Group. First synthesized nearly 120 years ago and now used ubiquitously in modern commerce, bisphenol A is headed toward phase-out. A turning point was reached in April 2008, as federal authorities in Canada and the US both raised health concerns about the material. Major retailers have begun pulling it from market shelves, and even Nalgene has said it will end use of BPA in its water bottles. Bisphenol A Timeline: From Invention to Phase-Out. Published by Environmental Working Group. Climate change is having a greater and faster impact on the Arctic than previously thought. Melting of arctic sea ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet is severely accelerated, prompting concerns that both may be close to their 'tipping point'; the point where, because of climate change, natural systems may experience sudden, rapid and perhaps irreversible change. Arctic impact accelerates. Published by World Wildlife Fund - UK, United Kingdom. The EPA is under siege from political pressure. On numerous issues—ranging from mercury pollution to groundwater contamination to climate change—political appointees have edited scientific documents, manipulated scientific assessments, and generally sought to undermine the science behind dozens of EPA regulations. Interference at the EPA. Published by Union of Concerned Scientists. The stakes in the debate over bisphenol A safety are exceedingly high—economically, politically and biologically. The FDA’s safety standard remains conspicuously out of date. The public should not have to wait for years for unequivocal epidemiological evidence to determine the risks of this chemical. Battles over bisphenol A. Published by Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy. Overwhelming evidence shows that exposures to natural and pharmaceutical estrogens are strong determinants of breast cancer risks. Some industrial chemicals and pesticides, as well as a large number of chemicals used in consumer products, have estrogenic characteristics. Risk reduction will not be achievable without considering preventable causes, particularly exposure to chemicals. Breast cancer and exposure to hormonally active chemicals: An appraisal of the scientific evidence. Published by ChemTrust, Health and Environment Alliance. The American West is heating up more rapidly than the rest of the world, according to a new analysis of the most recent federal government temperature figures. The average temperature rise in the Southwest's largest river basin was more than double the average global increase, likely spelling even more parched conditions. Warming in the West. Published by Natural Resources Defense Council. In 2008, a woman's lifetime risk of breast cancer is one in eight. New science indicates that timing of exposure, mixtures of chemicals and dose interact with genes and lifestyle factors to increase breast cancer risk. State of the Evidence 2006: Breast Cancer and the Environment. Published by Breast Cancer Fund. In 2006 alone, renewable energy and energy efficiency were responsible for $970 billion in industry revenues and 8.5 million jobs. This number will grow exponentially if our nation commits itself in earnest to reducing carbon emissions and making economy-wide improvements in energy efficiency. Green-Collar Jobs in America's Cities. Published by Center for American Progress. Across the West, mining claims are encroaching on hundreds of sprawling cities, destination resorts, retirement communities and remote recreation retreats. Since 2003, mining interests have staked 16,282 claims within five miles of cities and towns in twelve western states, for a total of 51,579 active mining claims within five miles of these communities as of January 2008. Mining claims threaten western cities and towns. Published by Environmental Working Group. A survey of thirty-seven electronics products finds that even though no individual product can claim to be truly green, there are many innovations moving in the right direction. Advances by different companies include toxics reductions, increased energy efficiency, longer lifecycles and better plans for recycling. What is a green electronics product? Published by Greenpeace International. The Canadian government is failing to uphold its duty to clean up the Tar Sands. Weak targets will allow Tar Sands greenhouse gas emissions to doubly by 2020. And toxic tailing ponds are seeping into the region's groundwater, as pollution rises in the Athabasca River. Canada’s Toxic Tar Sands: The Most Destructive Project on Earth. Published by Environmental Defence Canada. |
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