News
Is cadmium the new lead? Link reported between the ubiquitous metal and kids with learning disabilities.
It’s a heavy metal. It’s linked to learning problems in school children. And every child is exposed. Sounds like lead? It’s cadmium. Signs are emerging that cadmium – a widespread contaminant that gets little attention from health experts and regulators – could be the new lead. Children with higher cadmium levels are three times more likely to have learning disabilities and participate in special education, according to new research. Absorbed from the soil, cadmium is found in certain foods, particularly potatoes, grains, sunflower seeds and leafy greens, as well as tobacco. It also is used in some inexpensive children’s jewelry, prompting new voluntary industry standards last fall. Harvard's Robert Wright said the links to learning disabilities and special education were found at commonplace levels previously thought to be benign. “One of the important points of the study is that we didn’t study a population of kids who had very high exposures. We studied a population representative of the U.S.," he said. "That we found any [effect] suggests this is occurring at relatively low levels."
Caught with the packaging? Doping tests clouded by widespread use of plasticizer
In the race to catch drug cheats, sports officials are turning to more sophisticated tests. Since cheaters are rarely caught red-handed, scientists devised a plan to catch them with the packaging – inside their bodies - by looking for residues of a plasticizer. But the chemical is so ubiquitous that it has clouded the results of these blood doping tests in the professional cycling world. Some experts – and Tour de France champion Alberto Contador, who was found guilty of doping Monday – say that these phthalate residues are so widespread that there is doubt about how they got into an athlete's body. But others say that spikes of these chemicals are a red flag for doping.
The Great Escape: Gene-altered crops grow wild.
Throughout North Dakota, little yellow flowers dot thousands of miles of roadsides. These canola plants, found along most major trucking routes, look harmless. But they are fueling a controversy: They prove that large numbers of genetically modified plants have escaped from farm fields and are now growing wild. About 80 percent of canola growing along roadsides in North Dakota contains genes that have been modified to make the plants resistant to common weed-killers.
Children near DuPont plant exposed to more PFOA than moms.
Children living near DuPont’s plant in West Virginia are exposed to much higher concentrations of an industrial chemical than their mothers, according to a newly published study. Children under 5, who are exposed from drinking water as well as their mothers’ breast milk, had 44 percent more of the perfluorinated chemical in their blood than their mothers. The study was undertaken by scientists who have spent seven years trying to determine whether the DuPont chemical is making people sick in the Mid-Ohio Valley. The discovery about moms and their children comes as scientists elsewhere linked the chemical, known as PFOA, and related chemicals to reduced effectiveness of childhood vaccinations. The compounds are used to manufacture Teflon cookware, food packaging and other products.
Children near West Virginia DuPont plant exposed to higher C8 concentrations than mothers.
Children living near DuPont’s plant in West Virginia are exposed to much higher concentrations of an industrial chemical than their mothers, according to a newly published study. Children under 5, who are exposed from drinking water as well as their mothers’ breast milk, had 44 percent more of the chemical in their blood than their mothers. The study was undertaken by a court-approved panel of three scientists who have spent seven years trying to determine whether the DuPont chemical is making people sick in the Mid-Ohio Valley. The chemical is perfluorooctanoate, or PFOA, also known as C8, and it is used in the manufacture of Teflon nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, food packaging and other products.
Departing words from EPA's Anastas: We must design 'less toxic and less polluting' chemicals and manufacturing
Paul Anastas, one of the fathers of green chemistry, is leaving his high-ranking post at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and returning to Yale. In a Q&A with Environmental Health News, Anastas said "it's time for me to go home." As science advisor and assistant administrator at EPA's Office of Research and Development, his goal was to shift EPA toward policies that would promote green chemistry, the movement to make chemicals and manufacturing systems more environmentally friendly. Anastas said there has been a "growing realization across EPA" that green chemistry "can meet environmental and economic goals simultaneously."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Exhaust-ing ride for cyclists: Air pollutants trigger heart risk
In big cities around the world, cyclists breathe an array of pollutants from exhaust-spewing cars. A new study has now found a link between cycling on high traffic roads and heart risks. Even healthy cyclists had harmful changes in their heart rates. Experts say cyclists should stick to their two-wheels, however, pointing to simple solutions to reduce exposure.
