2011

It’s glymes time: EPA takes on obscure chemicals in consumer products.

Hardly anyone has heard of them, but millions of pounds of glymes are used every year to make household products. Now time is running out for glymes – at least when it comes to new uses in consumer products. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it plans to clamp down on these little-known ingredients used by a broad array of industries, including manufacturers of lithium batteries, inkjet cartridges, paints, prescription drugs and microchips. Three glymes pose a “high concern to workers, consumers and children” because they may have reproductive or developmental effects, the EPA says. A study more than a decade ago found links to miscarriages among semiconductor plant workers.

Inkling of concern: Chemicals in tattoo inks face scrutiny

Although sleazy "scratcher shops" with unskilled artists and dubious safety records are becoming a thing of the past, scientists are growing concerned about what's going into tattooed skin, not just how it got there. New research has turned up troubling details about chemicals in tattoo inks, including some endocrine disruptors and toxic metals, and a compound that has been called one of the most potent skin carcinogens. The FDA has launched an investigation into concerns about ink safety. But that doesn't seem to concern tattoo artists or their clients. More than 45 million Americans – including nearly 40 percent of adults in their late 20s – have a tattoo.

It's elemental: Many private wells across U.S. are contaminated with arsenic and other elements

In Nebraska, along the Platte River, it’s uranium. In Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, it’s arsenic. In California, boron. And in the Texas Panhandle, lithium. Throughout the nation, metals and other elements are tainting private drinking water wells at concentrations that pose a health concern. For one element – manganese – contamination is so widespread that water wells with excessive levels are found in all but just a few states. Arsenic, too, is a national problem, scattered in every region. In the first national effort to monitor well water for two dozen trace elements, geologists have discovered that 13 percent of untreated drinking water contains at least one element at a concentration that exceeds federal health regulations or guidelines. That rate far outpaces other contaminants, including industrial chemicals and pesticides. The most troubling finding involves the widespread contamination of private wells, which are unmonitored and unregulated.

A toxic tour: Neighborhoods struggle with health threats from traffic pollution.

The nation's top environmental health official visited the Los Angeles/Long Beach harbor area to witness first-hand how communities are struggling with health issues related to pollution. “Los Angeles has its share of health problems and we suspect many of them are environmentally related,” said Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Several times a year, Birnbaum visits communities – many in low-income, minority areas – where federal research dollars are spent to study pollutants and human health. The harbor area is what environmental activists call the “diesel death zone.” Emissions from trucks, ships and other diesel-powered sources envelop the region, and scientists from USC have found connections to an array of health effects.

Environmental chemicals may be obstacle for infertile couples

Kira Testin knew that something was wrong before she and her husband ever saw the fertility specialist. “We weren’t naïve, but it still was devastating to hear that we would be unable to conceive naturally,” she said. For the Testins and millions of other couples, in vitro fertilization is their only chance at pregnancy. And their chances are low at that. More often than not, IVF takes repeated, costly attempts. Now scientists have found another potential obstacle for would-be parents. New research has turned up evidence of a link between endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment and poor IVF outcomes.

Special report: Chlorine accidents rupture life for workers, townspeople

Over the past 10 years, chlorine has been involved in hundreds of accidents nationwide, injuring thousands of workers and townspeople, and killing some. In one California town, more than a year after a chemical cloud forced them to run for their lives, the employees of a recycling business are back to work – but not back to normal.

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Special Report: Flame retardant industry spent $23 million on lobbying, campaign donations

A 5-month investigation by Environmental Health News reveals that the chemical industry spent at least $23.2 million over the past five years to lobby California officials and donate to campaigns in an effort to defeat bills that would have regulated flame retardants. The four top recipients, three Democrats and one Republican, never voted in favor of any of the five bills. During the years of lobbying, the flame retardants have been building up in people’s bodies, including breast milk, around the world.

Breakdown of industry's $23 million

 

Atrazine in water tied to menstrual irregularities, low hormones

Women who drink water contaminated with low levels of the weed-killer atrazine may be more likely to have irregular menstrual cycles and low estrogen levels, scientists concluded in a new study. The most widely used herbicide in the United States, atrazine is frequently detected in surface and ground water, particularly in agricultural areas of the Midwest. The newest research, which compared women in Illinois farm towns to women in Vermont, adds to the growing scientific evidence linking atrazine to altered hormones.

Brominated battle: Soda chemical has cloudy health history

Patented as a flame retardant for plastics, and banned in food throughout Europe and Japan, a brominated chemical called BVO has been added to sodas for decades in North America. Now some scientists have a renewed interest in this little-known ingredient, found in 10 percent of sodas in the United States. Research on its toxicity dates back to the 1970s, and some experts now urge a reassessment. After a few extreme soda binges – not too far from what many video gamers regularly consume – a few patients have needed medical attention for skin lesions, memory loss and nerve disorders, all symptoms of overexposure to bromine. Other studies suggest that BVO could be building up in human tissues. In mouse studies, big doses caused reproductive and behavioral problems.

Opinion: News stories miss important points of breast cancer report.

Some media reported that a new analysis of environmental links to breast cancer tells women to stop worrying about consumer products. But these stories ignore the report’s explanation that definitive evidence is not attainable and lack of human evidence of harm doesn’t mean something is safe.The real news is that for the first time, an authoritative medical group stated that scientific evidence plausibly links pollutants and industrial chemicals with biological activity that suggests breast cancer risk. The Institute of Medicine recommends that women “limit or eliminate workplace, consumer, and environmental exposures to chemicals that are plausible contributors to breast cancer risk while considering risks of substitutes.” That advice was ignored by most media.

Top topics of 2011: A nuclear meltdown, fracas over fracking and Keystone, BPA beyond bottles

EHN's roundup of the most important and intriguing topics of 2011 includes issues that exploded onto the media scene as well as those that left their mark quietly. Over the year, the EHN team hand-selected 56,888 articles from media around the world on a wide variety of environmental topics.

Study documents Nigerian children died from families’ gold mining.

Large numbers of infants and toddlers have died from lead poisoning in Nigerian villages where their parents process gold ore inside their family compounds, according to a report published Tuesday by an international team of researchers. In two Nigerian communities, 118 children under the age of 5 died in a single year – 25 percent of the children in that age group. For the first time, the researchers uncovered strong evidence that points to lead poisoning as the likely cause for nearly all of those deaths. “To our knowledge, this is the first documentation of an outbreak of childhood lead poisoning associated with artisanal gold mining,” the team, led by lead experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote.