Environmental health
revere | June 10, 2007Maybe you didn't hear about the poison gas attacks on American communities this year. No? Well in January two towns in Kentucky were attacked, a day apart. OK, there weren't exactly not exactly attacked. That part isn't true. But assume for a moment that each of the following two incidents was the result of terrorists:
Irvine, Kentucky, January 15, 2007: Four railway training cars were sent careening twenty miles down a track before colliding with unoccupied engines in a town of 3000 people. On impact, a flammable solvent, butyl acetate, ignited and then exploded. People living in twenty…
sb admin | June 8, 2007Given the lack of encouraging global warming developments coming out of the G8 summit, itâs nice to have good news on other topics:
After a two-year boycott by doctors, authors, and healthcare and peace advocates, Lancet publisher Reed Elsevier has agreed to end its involvement in weapon sales â Grrl Scientist at Living the Scientific Life has the details.
Revere at Effect Measure notes that, in addition to this piece of good news, Chiquita management has agreed to work towards re-hiring workers who were fired for complaining about exposure to a toxic nematicide and to address plantation…
sb admin | June 6, 2007By Dick ClappÂ
Rachel Carson has been in the news quite a lot recently, first as the object of a diatribe by a U.S. Senator, and also in a series of news stories commemorating what would have been her 100th birthday last week. Tim Lambert at Deltoid has addressed the false allegations about Carson and DDT, so I will focus on Dan Gardnerâs rant (Ottawa Citizen, May 25, 2007) denouncing Rachel Carson and the Prevent Cancer Now coalition spokespeople, Liz Armstrong and Angela Rickman, which was startlingly wrong-headed and riddled with errors.Â
Gardnerâs piece was apparently intended both…
sb admin | June 5, 2007By Liz BorkowskiÂ
In a commentary in the latest issue of JAMA, Sheldon Krimsky (a member of the planning committee for the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, and a contributor to this blog) and Tania Simoncelli examine the EPAâs guidelines for testing pesticides on humans and find that the agency is making âa fundamental shift in moral thinking â and a striking departure from the moral codes that have provided the guidance for human experiments.â
The rule in question is âProtections for Subjects of Human Research,â and the authors begin by summarizing their concerns about it…
sb admin | June 4, 2007By David Michaels
The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.
-Barry Commoner
Tomorrow in New York City Barry Commonerâs friends are gathering to celebrate his 90th birthday. In 2007, Barryâs statement on ecology seems obvious if not trite, but that was not the case in 1966, when his landmark book Science and Survival was first published, or even in 1971, with the publication of his best-seller The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology.
Barryâs work has had a huge impact on several generations of scientists. Ten years ago, on the occasion of Barryâs…
sb admin | June 4, 2007The editors at the Charleston Gazette and the Louisville Courier-Journal deserve a pat on the back for allowing their reporters to follow-up on worker safety and health stories.  Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette is still covering important matters related to MSHA and the Sago mine, more than 15 months after the terrible January 2, 2006 disaster.  In "MSHA citations detail Sago problems" (June 3) he describes 169 pages of citations released by MSHA because of a Freedom of Information Act request.  Likewise, the story by Ralph Dunlop at the Louisville Courier-Journal "Mine scrutiny…
sb admin | June 1, 2007Caution: Put down your fork before reading this post.
In a recent op-ed published in the Baltimore Sun, colleagues at Johns Hopkins University put in perspective the recent revelations about contaminated animal feed imported from China.Â
...we should be at least as concerned about the "business as usual" ingredients that are routinely fed to the animals we eat...[which are] produced within an industrial system reliant on feeds that include...chicken manure, factory wastes, plastics, and cyanuric acid---all deemed acceptable ingredients in feed for animals that end up on our dinner tables.…
sb admin | May 22, 2007The public (that's you) have until May 24 to comments on EPA's list of nominees for its Science Advisory Board panel on asbestos. David Michaels has weighed in on this issue  and is submitting his comments today to EPA. Another organization providing input is the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Writing on behalf of NRDC, senior scientist Jennifer Sass writes: Â
On the whole, industry-employed scientists and scientists working for industry-supported research institutions tend to downplay the effects of toxic chemicals. ...Here, many, if not most of the industry nominees…
sb admin | May 18, 2007With all the interesting new research coming out, itâs good that we have bloggers to help us stay on top of it all. The Olive Ridley Crawl explains the basics behind the reports on chemicals linked to breast cancer; Corpus Callosum looks at a Health Affairs article that helps put drug risks in perspective; Andrew Leonard at How the World Works highlights a paper on undocumented migrant berry pickers in the Pacific Northwest and Oaxaca; Kate Shepard at Gristmill summarizes new thinking on the long-cherished âthe dose makes the poisonâ idea; and Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily describes a study…
sb admin | May 17, 2007By David Michaels
Many people first heard about hexavalent chromium, or chromium 6, from the movie Erin Brockovich, which is based on the true story of a lawsuit over chromium-contaminated groundwater in the town of Hinkley, California.
Less well-known is the campaign waged by companies that manufacture or use chromium 6 to convince regulatory agencies that the chemical, which has recognized as a lung carcinogen for more than 50 years, just isnât so dangerous. Thereâs a lot of chromium-contaminated water out there, and if chromium 6 in drinking water were acknowledged to be a cause of cancer…
sb admin | April 26, 2007In a year-long investigation that involved more than 100 Freedom of Information Act requests to EPA, the Center for Public Integrity discovered that Superfund site cleanups are being started and completed more slowly than in the past; that the reimbursements the Superfund program is getting back from companies for cleanups has steadily declined; and that a lack of funds has delayed needed work at some hazardous sites.
Superfund sites are areas that companies or government entities have moved away from, leaving hazardous materials behind. The Superfund program was initiated in 1980 to "locate…
revere | April 16, 2007There's a curious story in the UK newspaper, The Independent, on mobile phones and the collapse of bee colonies (hat tip Randy, aka MRK). I don't quite know what to make of it, although I am skeptical:
[Some scientists] are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe -…
sb admin | April 16, 2007By Dick ClappÂ
Opponents in the debate over conflict of interest in cancer research are duking it out, and the current forum for their fight is the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. The article that touched off this particular scuffle was âSecret Ties to Industry and Conflicting Interests in Cancer Research,â by Hardell L, et al. (Am J Ind Med 2007;50:227-233), which details a number of examples of researchers working for industries and not disclosing their ties. The most widely publicized revelations (see this Guardian story) were about Sir Richard Doll, one of the icons of 20th…
sb admin | April 13, 2007Revere at Effect Measure updates us on the medical communityâs latest plea for Libya to release the six health care workers unjustly sentenced to death for âdeliberately infectingâ children with HIV, and links to Physicians for Human Rightsâ campaign to get the U.S. government to exert more pressure on Libya to free the nurses and doctor. Time is running short: The Libyan Supreme Court may hear the health workersâ appeal as early as the end of the month.
The IPCC Working Group II published their âSummary for Policymakersâ on the impacts of climate change, and reports surfaced about…
sb admin | April 12, 2007By James Celenza
Driving a private car is probably a typical citizenâs most âpollutingâ daily activity, yet in many cases, individuals have few alternatives forms of transportation. Thus urban planning and smart growth are imperative.
-- American Academy of Pediatrics Ambient Air Pollution: Health Hazards to Children
Public Transit is an Environmental Health Issue.
The built environment is a summarizing concept that links issues like housing, transportation, neighborhoods and jobs. Safe and efficient public transit is a key component of healthy environments. How so? Numerous studies…
sb admin | April 6, 2007The Supreme Courtâs decision in Massachusetts v. EPA was big news this week; Justin Pidot at Gristmill takes an in-depth look at the rulingâs implications, while Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog scrutinizes the stances of the parties opposing it. Then, of course, there was Bushâs recess appointment of Susan Dudley to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which Ian Hart at Integrity of Science describes as part of larger White House assault on science in policymaking.
At the state level, Lisa Stiffler at Dateline Earth notes that Washington State is the first in the nation to ban…
sb admin | April 5, 2007When President Bush nominated Susan Dudley to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) last year, her nomination didn't make it out of the Senate committee. (See Celeste Monforton's post on Dudley's underwhelming performance before the committee.) Yesterday, Bush avoided Senate opposition by giving Dudley a recess appointment.
As head of OIRA, Dudley will be able to block regulations proposed by government agencies -- and since she thinks that markets do a better job of regulating than the government does, she'll probably do a lot of blocking.
"Dudley's record is one of…
sb admin | April 2, 2007A few hours ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA that EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide from auto emissions. (For background on the case, see this post.)
David Stout of the New York Times summarizes:
In a 5-to-4 decision, the court found that the Clean Air Act expressly authorizes the E.P.A. to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, contrary to the E.P.A.âs contention, and that if the agency still insists that it does not want to regulate those emissions, it must give better reasons than the âlaundry listâ of invalid considerations it has offered so far.
Todayâs…
sb admin | March 29, 2007The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) announced a record $1.5 million penalty against Massey Energy Company for violations related to the January 19, 2006 deaths of Ellery Hatfield, 46 and Don Bragg, 33 at the Aracoma Alma #1 Mine in Stollings, WV. The investigators, led by MSHA district manager Kenny Murray of Pikeville, KY, found more than two dozen violations of MSHA standards. Twenty-one of the 25 violations were classified as "reckless disregard," the most severe category of negligence under MSHA's penalty structure. In a prepared statement, the company said…
sb admin | March 27, 2007By Eula BinghamÂ
It was 30 years ago this month that I was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health.  I vividly remember my visits to Capitol Hill and the questions of lawmakers regarding my vision for worker health and safety. Perhaps it was because I had been a teacher for 20 years; or had accompanied members of the United Auto Workers to Sweden to witness first-hand a model worker training program; or perhaps it was the influence of Selikoff, Mazzocchi and Samuels (who all knew the value of providing workers with information) that caused me to…