To join the Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) and the LDDI Working Group, please complete the form at http://www.healthandenvironment.org/roles/register?&phase=registerform. Be sure to mark that you want to join the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative Working Group at the bottom of the application.
For information about additional events, please visit our searchable calendar of events at http://www.iceh.org/calendar.html.
November 9, 2006
Paris, France
at UNESCO, Room 1, 125 Avenue de Suffren, 75015
The Paris Appeal, and international declaration on disease due to chemical pollution, has been signed by more than one thousand key scientific and medical personalities and by 200,000 European citizens. It is also supported by the Standing Committee of European Doctors which represents all medical doctors (i.e. 2 million) in the 25 member states of the European Union. This conference is being organized by the Association for Research and Treatments Against Cancer (ARTAC), Health and Environment Alliance and the Collaborative on Health and the Environment.
Website: http://www.healthandenvironment.org/articles/che-events/739
November 14 - 15, 2006
San Diego, California
at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina
Tracks include air quality, climate change, hazardous materials, chemical policy, water quality, sustainability, biotech and plating. Tracks will feature current and emerging legislative, regulatory, and public policy issues and trends presented by top governmental officials and business leaders.
Website: http://www.cmta.net/conference.php?event_id=211
Contact: Cheryl Lartigau, 619-544-9684 or iea@iea.sdcoxmail.com
November 18, 2006
8:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
at the University of Minnesota, 300 West Bank Office Building, Room 142, 1300 S 2nd St
This half-day training program will introduce participants to a new clinical resource for practitioners, the Pediatric Environmental Health Toolkit. The toolkit, endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), was developed partially in response to the frequent requests by pediatricians for practical, clinical tools that enable providers to incorporate environmental health guidance into everyday practice. It includes materials for both providers and patients on preventing exposures to toxic chemicals and other substances that may affect child health. For more information, visit the website or contact Kathleen Schuler as listed below.
Website: http://www.iatp.org/foodandhealth/peht.cfm
Contact: Kathleen Schuler, kschuler@iatp.org
February 1 - 2, 2007
Washington, DC
at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
discounted registration rate until November 17th
The conference theme is "Integrating Environment and Human Health." Over 850 scientists, policymakers, businesspeople, and civil society representatives will explore the linkages between the environment and human health. The conference will address the many essential roles the environment plays on our well-being as well as the multi-dimensional relationships between human health and environmental components, which may have far-reaching consequences for society. Over 120 experts will speak in plenary sessions, symposia, and topical breakout sessions.
Website: http://www.NCSEonline.org/2007conference/
Contact: conference2007@ncseonline.org
December 4 - 6, 2006
Atlanta, Georgia
at the Hilton Atlanta Hotel
Presented by Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Environmental Health, The 2006 Environmental Public Health Conference has a theme of "Advancing Environmental Public Health: Science, Practice, New Frontiers." The conference will address the need to revitalize environmental public health, and it will chart the nation's vision for the future. There will be six plenary sessions, up to 75 workshops, and up to 40 exhibits and poster displays that will address a wide range of topics from emerging threats to a myriad of everyday environmental public health issues. Topics will include bio-monitoring; climate change; environmental justice; environmental public health tracking; food and water protection; health disparities; healthy places and healthy homes; indoor air quality; injury prevention; laboratory science and service; preparedness & response; public health policy and law; toxicants, exposures, and contaminants; vector management; and workforce development.
Website: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/conference/
Contact: smargolis@cdc.gov
This part-time position (20-30 hours/week) involves organizing and coordinating activities and programs of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment in Pennsylvania (CHE-Penn). The primary focus is on identifying and collaborating with key constituencies including health-affected groups, health professionals and researchers regarding critical regional environmental health issues. Candidates with a proven record of exceptional collaboration-building skills among diverse constituencies and a background in health are strongly desirable. For more information on CHE-Penn visit http://www.che-penn.org/, and for information regarding CHE National visit http://www.healthandenvironment.org.
If interested, please email your resume and cover letter to Eleni Sotos, CHE National Coordinator at eleni@HealthandEnvironment.org (please do not send duplicate copies by mail). Commonweal is an Equal Opportunity Employer. No phone inquiries please.
by Lisa Stiffler, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
November 6, 2006
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/291217_cosmetics06.html
When Tracey Naly shops for beauty products, she reads the label to make sure it doesn't contain alcohol because it dries her skin. Naly's friend, Katie Fordham, admits that she doesn't really check the ingredients in her makeup, perfumes and shampoos at all. If it's a reputable brand, "I trust the company," said Fordham, as the two toted bags from their shopping trip in downtown Seattle. That trust could be misplaced.
Scientists say that some of the chemicals found in commonly used health and beauty products can, in sufficient quantity, cause cancer, birth defects or disrupt hormone function. Ingredients called dibutyl phthalates -- a chemical used to soften plastics and found in nail polish and countless other consumer items -- have been linked to development problems in the male genitals of humans and rats. "The government is supposed to protect the people from these sorts of things," said Jimm Harrison, co-owner of Spirit of Beauty Nutritional Skin Care, a Bellevue-based company that strives to make safer, environmentally friendly products. "Women for the most part thought that someone was minding the store in terms of the ingredients in cosmetics," said Janet Nudelman, a policy director at the non-profit Breast Cancer Fund in San Francisco. That's not happening, she said. "The cosmetics industry in the United States regulates itself," Nudelman said. "That's not the case in other countries."
The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for overseeing the safety of cosmetics, soaps, deodorants, shampoos, fragrances and other personal-care products. Unlike the medicines regulated by the agency, these items aren't reviewed by the FDA before they're sold to consumers. If a product causes health problems once it's on the market, the FDA can ask for safety information from the manufacturer to prove it's OK. Industry officials say the system works well and that there's no cause for alarm. "The proof is in the marketplace," said John Bailey, former director of the FDA's Office of Cosmetics and Colors. "FDA gets very few consumer complaints about cosmetic products."
Manufacturers must make sure the chemicals are safe, and if the products are used as instructed, they should not cause ill effects -- even after years of use, said Bailey, now the vice president of science with the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association, a national trade group.
Not everyone is convinced. A forum is being held in Seattle tonight to discuss the risks posed by these products and to educate the public about their exposure to these chemicals. The first meeting was held Sunday in Bellevue, and another is in Tacoma on Wednesday. By late last week, more than 300 people had signed up to attend the forums. The free events are being hosted by the Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition, an alliance of advocacy groups, along with multiple health, environment and community non-profit organizations and the Puget Sound Action Team, a state agency overseeing the protection of the Sound.
People are exposed to the chemicals when they are absorbed by the skin, inhaled as fumes or ingested, when applied as lipstick, for example. Environmentalists also worry about the ingredients getting swept up in the food chain as the chemicals are released with the millions of gallons of treated sewage waste that empties into rivers and Puget Sound each day.
"The amount of absorption of cosmetics either through the skin or ingested from lipsticks is small, and thus the laws as written have been sufficient to ensure safety," said Linda Katz, director of the FDA's Office of Cosmetics and Colors, in an e-mail. "If a safety issue arises, FDA does have the ability through enforcement to ensure that unsafe products are removed from the market." Agency spokeswoman Veronica Castro said no one was available to speak in person for this story.
Consumers are advised to read ingredient lists and shop carefully. "The product choices they make impact their health and the environment," said Margaret Shield of the Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition. But the labels on shampoo bottles and eye shadow can be tough to decode. Shoppers more interested in whether an item will give their hair bounce or extra shine can be stymied by dozens of tongue-twisting ingredients. And seemingly more-straightforward labels calling items "natural," "organic" or "hypoallergenic" can be misleading. That's because the FDA hasn't established official definitions for these terms. "So companies can use them on cosmetic labels to mean anything or nothing at all," according to the FDA's Web site.
Critics note that consumers use dozens of personal-care products daily and argue that potentially hazardous chemicals shouldn't be used in the first place. The European Union has banned more than 1,000 ingredients considered unsafe for use in cosmetics. The FDA has banned nine.
Some big-name nail polish companies recently agreed to phase out the dibutyl phthalates. The chemical has been banned from use in personal-care products sold in the EU, but it is legal here. Bailey said the nail polishes are safe: "In the (United States), the use of phthalates was well below any level of concern. The phasing out is a marketing decision, not a safety decision."
There also are concerns about the increased use of nanotechnology -- compounds thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair. Because of their size, there's potential for these nano-sized ingredients to penetrate human cells and tissues. The technology is already being used in anti-aging creams and sunscreens -- but the labels don't have to specify its use. In the absence of stricter regulations, California lawmakers adopted the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2005. It requires cosmetic manufacturers to give the state a list of ingredients in their products that can cause cancer or reproductive harm. Washington has a program for reducing exposure to select hazardous chemicals, but nothing specific to safeguards for cosmetics.
Nudelman is leading the national Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which drafted a pledge that more than 450 companies have signed onto vowing not to use chemicals that can cause cancer, birth defects or mutations. "You have to learn to trust the manufacturer that you're buying from," said Harrison, owner of Spirit of Beauty. "It's difficult," he said. "The consumer is really up for a challenge."
by Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune
November 2, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-061102mercury,1,4490093.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
Taking a swipe at the Bush administration's environmental policy, Illinois moved closer Thursday to requiring deep cuts in mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. The limits endorsed by a state rule-making panel would make Illinois one of two dozen states that have rejected a slower, more lenient approach adopted by the federal government. What makes the Illinois regulations stand out is that Illinois is a major coal producer and user.
Half of its electricity comes from aging power plants that burn coal. Those smokestacks are major sources of mercury, a toxic metal that can damage the developing brain and nervous system of a fetus or young child. "Mercury shouldn't be contaminating our lakes and rivers," said Steve Frenkel, director of policy development for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who has made the tougher state rules a key part of his re-election campaign. "We know it's a potent neurotoxin," Frenkel said. "And now we know we can reduce it effectively and inexpensively."
After initially complaining the state's rules would be too costly and impossible to achieve, two major utilities cut a deal with the Blagojevich administration under which they will get more time to comply with the state's standards. Those companies, Ameren and Dynegy, pledged to reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2015, instead of by 2009. In return, they agreed to tighter limits on other forms of air pollution that causes smog, soot and acid rain. A third company, Midwest Generation, continues to fight the requirements and could be forced to comply with Blagojevich's original proposal.
The federal rules, by contrast, call for a 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions by 2018. The EPA's inspector general reported earlier this year that allowing utilities to trade the right to release mercury could make it more difficult to reduce high levels of the toxic metal in parts of the nation. Mercury pollution is so pervasive that Illinois and 43 other states advise anglers to limit consumption of freshwater fish, mostly large predator species that can accumulate large amounts of the metal. About 40 percent of the fish sampled statewide during the past two decades had mercury levels above the federal exposure limit for an average-size woman, according to state records reviewed by the Illinois Public Interest Research Group.
State officials have declined to say if the new rules would enable them to drop the fish advisories. But some researchers have found that reducing pollution from nearby sources leads to lower mercury levels in fish. Following more than 7,300 public comments and 18 days of hearings, the Illinois Pollution Control Board found the mercury regulations are "economically feasible" and "technically justifiable." Before taking effect, the rules still must pass muster with a panel of state lawmakers. The last roadblock could be Midwest Generation, owner of coal-fired power plants in Chicago's Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods as well as Romeoville, Joliet and Waukegan.
Equipment tested during the summer at the Crawford plant in Little Village reduced mercury emissions by more than 80 percent but failed to consistently achieve the 90 percent target, said spokesman Doug McFarlan. "We agree it's a relatively cost-effective way to get significant reductions," McFarlan said. "But we think it's premature to say we can guarantee a 90 percent reduction." Company executives are trying to negotiate a compromise with state officials that would give them more time and flexibility to reduce mercury and other forms of air pollution, including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.
Environmental groups already are trying to increase pressure on the company to drop its opposition. "It's time for Midwest Gen to step up and be a responsible corporate citizen," said Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. "They should be part of the solution along with the other utilities."
by Ted Agres, The Scientist
November 2, 2006
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/home/27334/
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has begun shutting down its national library network by closing regional research libraries in Chicago, Dallas, and Kansas City and reducing access to collections in New York, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco. While those actions had been expected, the EPA has also shuttered its chemical pollution and toxic substances resource library in Washington, DC, a move that caught observers off guard. The decision to close the libraries is budget-driven. The EPA plans to cut $2 million from the library system's $2.5 million budget for Fiscal 2007. The agency's total budget request is $7.3 billion for the fiscal year beginning October 1.
Scientists and research advocates say the library closings are short-sighted because they will jeopardize the EPA's ability to properly assess environmental issues. "Science-based decision making is central to the mission of the EPA, and access to world-class libraries is essential for that," said Craig M. Schiffries, director of science policy at the National Council for Science and the Environment. "Cutting what appears to be a small dollar value relative to the size of the agency will have a disproportionate effect on EPA's ability to achieve its stated mission and goals," he told The Scientist.
In addition to the library closings, the EPA is seeking to markedly reduce funding for research laboratories by 2011. A June 8 internal budget planning document directs assistant and regional administrators to develop plans to reduce laboratory physical infrastructure costs by at least 10 percent by 2009 and by another 10 percent by 2011 through a combination of staff reductions and consolidations or closings of lab/field facilities nationwide. EPA spokesperson Suzanne Ackerman said she had no information about the budget document.
Budget cuts are a growing concern not only at EPA, but also at other federal agencies, said Robert Gropp, director of public policy at the American Institute of Biological Sciences. "It's a concern across the board, particularly for an agency like EPA that has such a direct impact on public health and the environment," he told The Scientist. "How will they get work done if they scale back on research and people?"
On October 20, the EPA closed its Office of Prevention, Pollution, and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) chemical library, a specialized facility whose holdings included information on properties and toxicological effects of pesticides, genetically engineered chemicals and biotech products, as well as emergency planning and chemical risk assessments. The library's paper-only collection was boxed up and moved to a basement cafeteria and five staffers were laid off, according to Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit whistleblower group that has been fighting the library closings. Without the library, EPA scientists will have fewer resources to analyze industry requests to bring new chemicals to market, Ruch said. "There was no public announcement, and this library was not in EPA's original closure plan," he told The Scientist.
Jessica Emond, the EPA's deputy press secretary, said the closing was part of the agency's "overall strategy for streamlining/consolidating the libraries." "EPA is committed to ensuring unique library materials are available to the general public, the scientific community, the legal community, and other organizations," Emond said in an email to The Scientist. "Physical holdings of the OPPTS chemical library will be made available online, and other services will be made available electronically." As the EPA closes libraries across the country, monographs and paper documents not available electronically will be digitized, the EPA's library plan states, with materials from libraries that have already been closed receiving first priority. Documents pending digitization will be sent to one of three national repositories, from which they can be retrieved through inter-library loan, according to the agency.
But the EPA lacks a clear plan and the budget to perform the digitization, Ruch contends. Three senior Democratic congressmen -- Bart Gordon, Henry Waxman, and John Dingell -- have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the EPA's library closing plans, citing "grave concerns" that "access to many documents will be temporarily or permanently lost" due to "inadequate planning and lack of funding for digitizing documents." The GAO plans to begin the investigation later this year or early in 2007.
by Kellyn S. Betts, Environmental Science & Technology
November 1, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/nov/science/kb_pbde.html
Older computers can be a significant source of toxic polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants, according to research published today on ES&T's Research ASAP website. The study also finds that air inside older automobiles is an important source of PBDEs and that newer homes can harbor unidentified sources of PCBs.
Stuart Harrad, who is an environmental chemist at the University of Birmingham (U.K.) and the paper's corresponding author, stresses that serendipity played a major role in his discovery that older computers can be a significant source of lighter PBDEs, which are more toxic than their heavier counterparts. Harrad and his coauthor Sadegh Hazrati stumbled across the new data only because they happened to be monitoring PBDE levels in an office where a computer purchased in 1998 was replaced with a newer model. After the new computer was put in place, total PBDE concentrations in the office air dropped by more than 75%, from 431 picograms per cubic meter (pg/m3) to less than 95 pg/m3. These indoor air PBDE levels aren't terribly high in comparison with what is being found in North America, where people's PBDE levels tend to be 10 times those of Europeans. But the sharp drop that Harrad's group recorded is particularly noteworthy because the researchers did not measure levels of the heavier PBDE compounds, or congeners, associated with the Deca formulation of PBDEs used in electronics products.
Hazrati, who analyzed the data as a graduate student, was "very worried that he'd done something wrong," Harrad remembers. At the time, in October 2004, most researchers familiar with brominated flame retardants believed that the only PBDEs found in computers were associated with the heavier Deca formulation. "This paper highlights the problem [of] relying upon information from industry sources regarding applications of commercial [PBDE formulations] to specific types of products," says Heather Stapleton, an assistant professor at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. When researchers actually analyze such products in the laboratory, they sometimes find PBDE levels that do not match what industry has told them to expect.
In recent months, other researchers have also reported that both older computers and televisions can be significant sources of the lightweight PBDEs associated with the commercial Penta formulation, which has been banned in Europe and discontinued in the U.S. since 2004. Researchers have known that older computer monitors can contain the Octa formulation, which also includes a small amount of the lighter PBDEs found in the Penta formulation. However, Harrad's group conducted their tests with passive polyurethane-foam samplers, which are known to underestimate levels of the heavier PBDE compounds associated with the Octa formulation.
Rene Montaigne of the European Chemical Industry Council's Brominated Flame Retardant Industry Panel acknowledges that the Penta formulation was previously used in printed circuit boards and microprocessor packaging. However, none of the researchers contacted for this article were aware of this use of Penta PBDEs. The presence of these lighter PBDEs in older computers raises the question of whether their hot, volatile air emissions could contribute to the inexplicably large concentrations of PBDEs sometimes found in house dust, says Miriam Diamond, a professor at the University of Toronto. The findings suggest that by the time they are retired, such electronics could be a source of more toxic PBDEs than previously believed, she adds.
Harrad's new paper also provides one of the first peer-reviewed reports of levels of PBDEs in cars. The paper shows that the levels varied by two orders of magnitude. The highest level of 8200 pg/m3 represents "the most contaminated microenvironment of all the homes, offices, public microenvironments, and cars studied," Harrad says. "Given that the average American spends a lot of time in their car, [which can] get pretty darn hot in the summer, cars might be an important source of PBDEs for some people," points out Tom Webster of the Boston University School of Public Health's environmental health department.
Although PCBs have been banned for more than 30 years, Harrad says that his paper -- when considered together with other research -- also suggests that some as-yet-unaccounted-for sources of these compounds may be present in newer homes. For example, the levels inside his 1994 home are more than 5 times the levels outside the home.
by Janet Pelley, Environmental Science & Technology
November 1, 2006
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/nov/policy/jp_cachemicals.html
Canada is poised to release an assessment of 23,000 chemicals, making it the first country in the world to systematically review all of the chemicals in current use within its borders. Coupled with the impending adoption of a new chemicals policy in Europe, the Canadian action could change the mix of products on store shelves worldwide, experts say. In 1986, rules in Canada mandated that all newly introduced substances undergo toxicity screening. At the time, 23,000 chemicals already on the Canadian market were "grandfathered" in without proof of their safety.
Now, after 7 years of study, Environment Canada and Health Canada officials have combed through all 23,000 substances. They flagged 4000 that are toxic and either persistent or bioaccumulative or that present the greatest potential for human exposure. Of these, 400 were found to be persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals, a combination that calls for immediate action, says Fe de Leon, a researcher with the Canadian Environmental Law Association. Although the list was submitted to the ministers of environment and health in September, it won't be made public until the end of the year, says Steve Clarkson, director of the Bureau of Risk and Impact Assessment at Health Canada. The government will conduct another screening process for the 4000 chemicals, based on the scientific literature and other existing data to determine whether they need to be managed. Clarkson predicts that it will take 10-15 years to get through all of them.
In Europe, an even slower pace of risk assessments -- 5 years for only 150 substances -- led in part to the EU's proposed chemicals law, Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH), says Rob Donkers, an environment counselor with the European Commission's delegation to the U.S. Instead of the government taking responsibility for proving that a chemical is "unsafe to handle", which is the practice in the U.S. and Canada, draft REACH legislation puts the onus on industry to prove that products are safe. Expected to be adopted by the end of this year, REACH will require companies to register roughly 30,000 high-production-volume chemicals. Companies will have to seek authorization to use the more than 1500 chemicals that are either PBT or cause cancer, genetic mutations, or birth defects, Donkers says. "This information from Canada is very important because that will enable us to quickly establish a list in Europe for these 1500-2000 chemicals," he says. REACH was further strengthened on October 10, when the European Parliament's environmental committee approved new rules compelling chemical producers to replace dangerous chemicals with safer alternatives when those alternatives exist.
The establishment of a list of 4000 suspect chemicals in Canada has already raised doubts for industry over the continued use of some of the substances, de Leon notes. Even before a chemical is listed as being of concern, simply the fact that information is requested about it could cause manufacturers to decide that sales in Canada are not worth the trouble, says Karen Levins, vice president of the chemicals group at Cantox Health Sciences International. However, environmentalists fear that little will change unless the government sets aggressive timelines for further assessment of the chemicals and takes steps to ban or eliminate PBT substances, de Leon says.
The measures taken by Canada and the EU should be adopted by the U.S., says Mike Wilson, an environmental health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. California is getting ahead of the U.S. EPA by crafting a comprehensive chemicals policy. In a report commissioned by the California legislature, Wilson found that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is at the root of flaws in the regulation of the U.S. chemical market. Wilson's critique was echoed in testimony from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) at an August 2 Senate oversight hearing on TSCA. EPA hasn't adequately screened chemicals, because the burden of obtaining data is on EPA rather than on chemical companies, said John B. Stephenson, the director of natural resources and environment at GAO.
from CBC News
November 1, 2006
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2006/11/01/environmental-petition.html#skip300x250
Thirteen Canadian municipalities plan to file a petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday that calls for reduced emissions from 150 coal-fired plants in seven U.S. Midwestern states. Albert Koehl, a lawyer for the Sierra Legal Defence Fund in Toronto, said the 150 coal-fired plants are polluters on a massive scale and are among the oldest and dirtiest in the United States.
The defence fund will file the petition on behalf of municipalities representing more than five million people in Central and Eastern Canada, including Toronto, Halifax, Windsor, Cornwall, Peel Region, Durham Region and Essex County in Ontario and Laval, Gatineau and Chāteauguay in Quebec. "It shows there's a groundswell of support among communities and their leaders to take matters into their own hands when it comes to protecting their own air, either from pollutants coming from abroad or even domestically," Koehl said. Under U.S. law, the EPA is supposed to force power plants to lower their emissions if evidence exists that the emissions are harming the health of Canadians. The petition refers to evidence from international reports that document the flow of air pollution from the United States into Canada.
May have limited success under Bush administration
However, Koehl warned that under the administration of President George W. Bush, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has actually been trying to loosen air pollution laws rather than enforce them. The petition may have a limited chance of success, he said.
He said it was nonetheless important for Canadian municipalities to join a fight by U.S. cities, states and environmental groups. There is already a slate of lawsuits by U.S. states calling for a reduction in emissions. If the EPA fails to act, the Canadian municipalities have the right to sue the agency in U.S. courts.
Pollution from plants dwarfs Canadian totals
According to a news release from the defence fund, the 150 U.S. plants emit about 4.5 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 1.6 million tonnes of nitrogen oxides annually -- double the amount produced by all of Canada's major industries combined. These contaminants produce smog and acid rain. "Windsor is in the eye of this toxic storm. Windsor gets about 90 per cent of its pollutants that cause smog from the U.S.," Koehl said. The 150 plants emit about the same amount of greenhouse gases as does all of Canada, including its transportation, industry and oil sands industries, the news release said.
Originally filed in 2005 on behalf of a coalition of environmental groups, the amended petition includes new information on smog, acid rain and climate change. U.S. pollution blamed for thousands of Ontario deaths According to the Ontario government, about half of the 5,000 premature deaths caused by smog in the province every year can be attributed to air pollution that crosses the Canada-U.S. border. Dr. David McKeown, Toronto's medical health officer, said the city has a serious air pollution problem, a large part of which is blowing in from across the U.S. border. "About half of our airborne pollution comes from across the border in the United States. That pollution is coming from dirty coal-fired plants in the Ohio valley and in the Midwest," he said.
McKeown said he agrees that the petition will face an uphill battle. "In the U.S., efforts to weaken laws and regulations will make things worse for Ontario and people in Toronto," he said. The Ontario government has joined one of the lawsuits launched by a U.S. state, but McKeown said the move is questionable, given its recent decision to withdraw its promise to close coal-fired plants in the province by 2009.
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia also affected
Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly said the air pollution is also causing problems in the Maritimes. "As I understand it, over 50 per cent of air pollutants over New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are from the U.S. For us, we're trying to deal with what's coming our way, but also what we generate here as well."
The seven states in which the plants are located are Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
by Wade Rawlins, Raleigh News & Observer
November 1, 2006
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/505023.html
From 1988 through 2000, Duke Energy modernized eight aging, coal-burning power plants in North and South Carolina that allowed each to run more hours and consequently produce more emissions. Those changes -- and whether the utility should have also installed new pollution controls -- are the subject of a closely watched case being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court today. The court's decision, expected in early 2007, could affect not only Duke but also plants across the eastern United States that are under pressure from regulators to match plant upgrades with better pollution controls.
A decision in support of the regulators could force power companies to install pollution equipment costing hundreds of millions of dollars per plant. It could also lead to greatly improved air quality, environmentalists say. The plants collectively emit about 1.6 million tons per year of sulfur dioxide, a harmful pollutant that contributes to respiratory problems in children and the elderly, acid rain, and a white haze that sometimes shrouds the mountains. "If cleanup is ordered on those plants, we're talking about a very major reduction of those 1.6 million tons," said Blan Holman, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents advocacy groups, including Environmental Defense, Sierra Club and Environment North Carolina.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, a utility must install pollution controls on old plants whenever modifications are made that result in an increase in emissions. That seems clear enough. But it gets fuzzy, depending on what interval of time is used to measure the emissions. An older plant that is renovated may not be more polluting hour to hour, but if the improvements allow it to run for more hours, its annual output of pollution may increase. The industry argues that a plant's compliance is based on the hourly standard, while regulators say the plant's annual level of pollution is what matters.
The legal path to today's Supreme Court debate started in 2000 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a lawsuit, contending Duke spent hundreds of millions of dollars updating the plants and should have installed new pollution controls. Environmental Defense and others joined the suit the following year. Duke says its renovations to the plants were routine and done in full view of federal and state air regulators, who made no mention of new pollution controls. Then starting in the late 1990s, Duke contends, EPA took a new stance and tried to force utilities to retrofit old plants with new controls with threats of civil penalties and litigation. "EPA changed its interpretation of the rules," said Tom Williams, a Duke Energy spokesman.
Lower court rulings
As the legal case has worked its way through the courts, the U.S. District Court and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have agreed with Duke's reading of the law. The appeals court said the regulations were open to an "hourly rate only interpretation." "The U.S. District Court and 4th Circuit Court of Appeals have both issued solid rulings, supporting the fact that Duke Energy has -- for decades -- understood and lawfully complied with the requirements of the Clean Air Act," Williams said.
Contending that the renovations were anything but routine, the EPA has cited Duke's modifications of its Buck Steam Station unit 4 in Rowan County as an example in legal briefs. The World War II-era coal burning unit had been shut down for modernization under a plan to extend the operating life of old plants. After Duke spent $17 million to rehabilitate Buck unit 4, it resumed operation in 1995 -- more than a decade after it was shut down. It was one of 29 units at eight plants -- seven of them in central and western North Carolina -- that underwent renovations.
Lawyers for Environmental Defense added that Duke's project manager compared the modernization of Buck unit 4 to taking a 1932 Ford and "rebuilding it completely" so it could run from North Carolina to Denver every day. "It raises a question: Are you doing routine maintenance or something more major?" Holman asked.
Emissions are being cut at some plants. Because of requirements under North Carolina's 2002 Clean Smokestacks Act, Duke plans to add scrubbers to four of its eight coal-fired plants. Those four plants are responsible for 90 percent of its power production from coal, Williams said. The first of three scrubbers planned for the Marshall plant in Catawba County began operating Monday.
by Harvey Black, Environmental Health Perspectives
November 2006
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/114-11/spheres.html
Biomonitoring of tissues such as blood, urine, and breast milk is an extremely valuable tool for identifying population exposure to harmful chemicals. The data gathered through biomonitoring can provide guidance on how to prioritize toxicological research, and can result in measures to control and prevent exposure. Despite these benefits, however, "tremendous challenges" still surround the use of this technology, according to Human Biomonitoring for Environmental Chemicals, a report released 24 July 2006 by a committee of the National Research Council (NRC). The report noted, for instance, that there should be much more emphasis on communicating the results of studies in the design of the research. It also called for a "consistent rationale for selecting chemicals to be studied based on exposure and public health concerns."
More Data than Information
The report was requested in an EPA appropriation in a 2004 House-Senate Conference Report. The NRC committee was charged with the goal of reviewing current practices and recommending ways to improve the interpretation and uses of human biomonitoring data on environmental chemicals. The committee held four public sessions in which it heard presentations on the conduct and importance of biomonitoring research from a variety of authorities representing government, industry, and academia. Biomonitoring is going to play a major role in the future of environmental health, says committee chair Thomas Burke, a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Our biggest challenge is figuring out what this biomonitoring data means in terms of public health, particularly," he says.
According to the report, biomonitoring has been extremely valuable in tracing time trends in children's exposure to lead, thus validating the success of public health initiatives such as the removal of lead from gasoline. Biomonitoring has also played an important role in assessing exposures to mercury and secondhand tobacco smoke, and thus in guiding development of exposure prevention strategies. These success stories notwithstanding, there are few chemicals about which enough is known to make public health pronouncements and provide risk information with confidence. This, the report notes, stands in contrast to scientists' ability to actually detect chemicals in people. "The problem is that the technology for measurement has in many cases exceeded the available information on animal health effects, let alone human health effects," says committee member Mark Cullen, a professor of medicine and public health at Yale University School of Medicine.
One reason for the gap is that there is not adequate testing of chemicals in the United States before they are marketed, says Philip Landrigan, a professor of community and preventive medicine and pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine who peer-reviewed. "We basically assume that chemicals are harmless until some injury is found," he says. Carol Henry, a member of the NRC committee and vice president for industry performance programs at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), notes that the difficulty of interpreting biomonitoring data and their relationships to exposure information is a significant barrier to more effective applications of such data -- in particular, for implementing intervention strategies.
Leveraging Resources
"There's a lot of useful information just about exposure to people that can be gained from doing biomonitoring and not just relying on models and assumptions about what's getting into people," says John Balbus, director of health programs at Environmental Defense. The NRC report points to the CDC's ongoing National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals as offering the most comprehensive biomonitoring information on a representative sample of the American population. The third National Report, issued in July 2005, provides exposure information about 148 chemicals in a sampling of 2,400 people.
Periodic notices in the Federal Register ask for chemicals to be nominated for study as part of the National Report. A number of criteria are used in selecting the chemicals to be measured by the CDC. These include the degree to which people are exposed to them, the gravity of the known or suspected health effects, the availability of accurate, repeatable methods to measure the chemicals, and the cost of testing. Scientists at the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) and outside reviewers use these criteria to make the final selection.
The CDC report is not a report on health, asserts John Osterloh, chief medical officer at the NCEH Division of Laboratory Sciences; it is a report on exposure. "We're very cautious in the report to say that we don't know whether or not the levels are related to health effects," he says. "Better exposure information will produce better decisions to protect people's health." The exposure information, he says, can steer science toward studying possible health effects of chemicals that are in people.
The NRC report points to changes it would like to see in the way the CDC goes about this survey. "We want to improve the chemical selection process to include more input," says Burke. "We feel there should be a multiagency group to look at our existing body of knowledge to make sure we're looking at the right kinds of things. We would like to get the program to look at what emerging issues might be, based upon both potential for population exposure and evidence of potential public health impacts." The report notes that the agencies routinely involved in selecting chemicals should include not just the CDC but also the EPA, the NIEHS, the National Toxicology Program, the FDA, and the USDA. The NRC committee further states that the CDC should improve its efforts to communicate the results of its survey to the public, agency members, and policy makers. "The CDC comes out with a report on exposure, but really leaves it up to the media to interpret the potential implications," says Burke. According to the NRC report, communicating results of biomonitoring has not played as important a role as it should -- too often in such studies, interpreting and communicating the results would appear to have been "an afterthought," notes Burke.
The design of communication strategies should take a higher priority so the public can be better informed. The strategy should include being ready to answer important questions that the public will ask, Burke says, such as why the chemical was selected and what is and isn't known about it. "This [strategy] can be designed up front to facilitate the process," he says. When there aren't answers to such questions, Burke says, it's perfectly legitimate for scientists to voice their ignorance. "But," he adds, "when you don't know, it's really important to communicate how you're going about learning."
But how does one craft messages about the presence of environmental chemicals in people's bodies? As the report notes, "Absence of evidence of effects is not identical with evidence of absence of effects -- a distinction that must be made clear to constituents." Researchers may sometimes appropriately conclude that, while high biomarker levels are not necessarily bad, low levels are not necessarily good; sometimes it is difficult to come up with easy answers to questions on the health impact of chemicals. The NRC committee calls for empirical research on how to convey such a conclusion without engendering the twin problems of baseless concern or apathy.
Closing the Gaps
The NRC report also points to the need for research that applies biomarkers for environmental chemicals in animal toxicology testing to understand how these biomarkers relate to adverse effects. "Right now we know what [test animals'] intake dose is, but we don't know how that translates into biomarker levels," says Burke. "For example, it would be so much more informative to the interpretation process if we could compare blood levels in test animals to blood levels in humans." Traditionally, he explains, toxicology studies have not examined blood levels in animal models.
As one example he points to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which is used in making Teflon and materials used in many consumer products such as food packaging and stain-resistant clothing. "Although we have found that there is widespread presence [of PFOA] in the environment and people, we have limited testing data to help us understand just how much the low levels found throughout the population might impact public health," says Burke. (Despite the uncertainty about the health effects of these low levels of PFOA, DuPont and other chemical companies using the compound pledged in January 2006 to work toward eliminating it by 2015.)
The need to make sense of human biomonitoring data and understand them as markers of exposure stimulated the ACC to hold a workshop shortly after the NRC report was issued, with the goal of identifying knowledge gaps and research needs. Among the concerns examined is a critical need for understanding what is found in the body and where and how the exposure occurred, explains Tina Bahadori, a senior scientist with the ACC who co-chaired the workshop. "Ultimately the goal is to know how you would intervene to either modulate the exposure or ascertain for sure there is no concern. If you don't know where and how it came from, there is no way you can do that," she says.
Biomonitoring has also drawn the attention of the California legislature. Law makers this year have passed a bill to set up a state biomonitoring program, which would sample state residents on a voluntary basis. According to Richard Jackson, an adjunct professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, such a program is important, considering some of the characteristics of chemical use in the state. "California uses well over a quarter of the most toxic pesticides in the nation," Jackson says. "We have a series of high-tech industries in the state that use chemicals that are really not used in other parts of the country." As former director of the NCEH, Jackson led the CDC's biomonitoring program from 1994 to 2003.
The new law makes California the first state to legislate a biomonitoring program. A 16-member scientific advisory panel will be appointed by legislative leaders and the heads of the California EPA and Department of Health Services by 1 July 2007 to recommend design and implementation of the program. The program would select communities that would be "reflective of the economic, racial, and ethnic composition of the state," according to the law. The law, however, also says that biomonitoring samples may be taken from so-called nongeographical communities -- that is, people who may share a common chemical exposure because they have similar jobs or lifestyles.
As the California legislation and the NRC report demonstrate, biomonitoring is becoming an important tool in assessing environmental health. The report describes it as "a potentially powerful new lens for examining public exposure to toxic chemicals." Yet as the report also makes plain, effective use of this tool demands that the research community address a number of technical and communication challenges.
by Julia R. Barrett, Environmental Health Perspectives
November 2006
excerpted from http://www.ehponline.org/realfiles/members/2006/114-11/focus.html
In a world whose population exceeds 6.5 billion, declining human fertility might not seem to be a critical problem. After all, overpopulation has been a global concern for decades. Declining fertility rates in more advanced nations largely reflect the changing role of women and their rapidly growing presence in the workplace -- fertility declines may stem at least in part from the modern tendency to delay childbearing until later in life, when fertility naturally declines. But this doesn't explain the fact that, according to a December 2005 report of the CDC's National Survey on Family Growth (NSFG), the fastest-growing segment of U.S. women with impaired fecundity (the capacity to conceive and carry a child to term) is those under 25. The rising incidence of fertility-impairing health factors such as obesity also likely plays an important role. Clues from environmental exposure assessments, wildlife studies, and animal and human studies hint at additional factors: exposure to low-level environmental contaminants such as phthalates, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, pesticides, and other chemicals may be subtly undermining our ability to reproduce.
As recognized by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, infertility is a biological disease that impairs a couple's ability to achieve a viable pregnancy. It can be caused by hormonal, ovarian, uterine, urological, and other medical factors. Known risk factors include advanced age, being over- or underweight, lack of exercise, smoking, alcohol and substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and poor nutrition.
According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, a medical infertility cause can be identified, or perhaps only indefinitely suggested, in approximately 90% of cases and may be multifactorial in 25% of cases. Male factors include low sperm count and sperm abnormalities, such as altered morphology and low motility. Female factors stem from ovulation problems such as premature ovarian failure (early menopause), thyroid irregularities, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and fallopian tube obstruction.
Up to 10% of infertility cannot be explained medically. Fertility transcends the reproductive system, notes Louis Guillette, a professor of zoology at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "When you talk about infertility, you literally are talking about probably almost every system in the body -- infertility is an integrated signal of all these different systems," he explains. "Trying to tease out which system, or more than likely what multiple systems have been altered, leading to that phenomenon, is very tough work."
Infertility is generally defined as occurring when a couple cannot become pregnant after trying to conceive for at least one year (or six months if the woman is over age 35). According to the 2001 WHO report Current Practices and Controversies in Assisted Reproduction, at least 80 million people worldwide are estimated to be affected by infertility. Infertility rates range from less than 5% to greater than 30% depending on location and how infertility is defined, with higher rates associated with lack of medical care access. Based on the 2005 NSFG report, approximately 12% of American couples experienced impaired fecundity in 2002. This is a 20% increase from the 6.1 million couples who reported an inability to have children in 1995.
Determining whether infertility is actually increasing is more complicated than these numbers imply, however. In a paper published in the September 2006 issue of Fertility and Sterility, David Guzick and Shanna Swan of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry noted that "impaired fecundity" as defined by the NSFG implies a decrease in fertility, but the same study also showed that fertility, defined there as a married woman unable to become pregnant within 12 months, has increased. The absence of definitive information can frustrate couples experiencing fertility problems as well as experts. "There seems to be more to it than can be explained from traditional understanding about impacts," says Joseph Isaacs, president and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. "As a patient advocacy group, we believe more research into environmental impacts is needed. We fear that future generations may be at risk because of exposures to toxic substances as early as in utero."
Foundations of Fertility
A person's reproductive potential begins shortly after his or her own conception. Based on the embryo's chromosomal inheritance, hormonal signals are created to direct the structure and function of the reproductive tract. Normal development depends upon a correct balance of androgen and estrogen signals being delivered at appropriate times. Fetal development can be altered by external factors as demonstrated by the human experience with the synthetic estrogen diethylstilbestrol (DES), prescribed to prevent miscarriage between 1947 and 1971. The drug didn't affect mothers, and it didn't lower miscarriage incidence; in fact, it significantly increased it. It also induced changes in the developing reproductive tract of female offspring.
In the 15 April 1971 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, it was reported that daughters with prenatal DES exposure had significantly increased incidence of vaginal cancer, which is normally quite rare and was virtually unknown in young women prior to DES. Later research revealed structural abnormalities of these women's reproductive tracts and effects in their male offspring including increased risk of cryptorchidism (undescended testes) and low sperm counts.
The study of endocrine disruptors has raised concerns about the reproductive effects of exposure to certain environmental compounds that affect the endocrine system via estrogenic, androgenic, antiandrogenic, and antithyroid mechanisms. One key report was a 12 September 1992 review in the British Medical Journal indicating significant declines in sperm counts in many countries between 1938 and 1990. The findings were controversial because the reviewed studies used inconsistent designs and methods. In November 1997, however, a review published in EHP by Swan and others confirmed the findings for males in the United States and indicated an even sharper decline among European men. Other studies have found declines for specific areas or no decline at all. "I think the evidence across studies is mixed," says Russ Hauser, an associate professor of environmental and occupational epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. "Historical studies were not designed to explore this question. It wasn't that someone set out forty or fifty years ago to design a study to look at how semen quality is going to change over time." There are going to be limitations in the data because of that, he explains, so it's hard to determine whether there is a true temporal trend. "However," he adds, "the data suggest there are definite geographical differences between countries and regions within countries in semen quality."
According to Niels Skakkebęk of Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen and colleagues writing in the February 2006 issue of the International Journal of Andrology, comparisons of sperm quality among populations of European men have revealed that as many as 30% of young Danish men have low sperm count, and an additional 10% may be infertile. Denmark also has an unusually high rate of testicular cancer. Rates have been increasing in many countries over the last 50 years, but the Danish rate is noticeably higher; for example, four to five times higher than the Finnish rate.
This difference prompted researchers to also examine incidence of hypospadias (in which the urethra opens along the underside of the penis shaft rather than the tip) and cryptorchidism. Not only did both disorders occur more frequently in Danish boys compared with Finnish boys, but the Danish rates had risen in recent decades. These findings as a whole inspired Skakkebęk and colleagues to propose, in the May 2001 issue of Human Reproduction, an overarching disorder, testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS), in which perturbation of testis development in fetal life sets the stage for hypospadias, cryptorchidism, testicular cancer, and reduced sperm quality.
It's reasonable to suspect there might be a female corollary to TDS. "We have no really good reasons not to expect that women are as sensitive to environmental chemicals as the males are," says Jens Peter Bonde, a professor of occupational medicine at Århus University Hospital in Copenhagen. He points out that it's easier to study male fertility because men can easily provide sperm samples. "That's one basic reason that there has been so much attention on the males, but from a biological point of view one would definitely expect that the female reproductive system might be vulnerable also," says Bonde.
According to Guillette, another stumbling block is the accepted, but unproven, dogma that an embryo will develop as a normal female barring any hormonal signals to become male. "It hasn't been an area where there have been substantial amounts of work done. There's certainly very good work, but not the same kind of huge body of literature that one sees about the developing testis and the male reproductive system," he says.
One of the few epidemiologic studies to link low-level human exposure to an environmental contaminant with a specific end point was Swan and colleagues' investigation of prenatal phthalate exposure, published in the August 2005 issue of EHP. Their results suggested a subtle change in boys' development -- a shortening of the anogenital index (the distance between the anus and the scrotum, divided by weight) -- associated with prenatal exposure to several phthalates. This finding is not a predictor of future fertility and needs confirmation, but it is noteworthy as the first study to link verified prenatal exposure to a specific outcome.
To read the full article, please visit http://www.ehponline.org/realfiles/members/2006/114-11/focus.html.
by Hilary Thomson, University of British Columbia Reports
October 5, 2006
http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2006/06oct05/household.html
submitted to this bulletin by Chemical Sensitivity Network
What do popcorn bags, frying pans and mattresses have in common? Chemicals contained in these and other common household items may affect maternal thyroid function and may lead to impaired fetal brain development, according to PhD candidate Glenys Webster, of UBC's School of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. Webster is leading an investigation into the effects of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), chemicals that are used as flame-retardants, and perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), used as stain or water repellents. The chemicals are found at low levels in all Canadians. They leach out of many products, can last for a long time in both indoor and outdoor environments, and accumulate in both animals and humans via dust, foods and air.
Called the Chemical, Health and Pregnancy study (CHirP), Webster believes it is one of the first such studies in the world. She is collaborating with investigators from BC Women's Hospital & Health Centre, Health Canada, and the University of Alberta. Animal studies have shown that certain PBDEs interfere with the thyroid system, critical to fetal development. A butterfly-shaped gland in the lower front part of the neck, the thyroid controls metabolism and keeps basic functions such as body temperature, blood pressure and energy levels working properly.
It is known that thyroid disruption in early pregnancy can result in neurological damage in babies, but the mechanism -- including any negative environmental factors -- is not known. Although there are no known human health risks from common levels of PBDEs and PFCs, very few studies have been conducted in humans, says Webster, so at this point nothing is conclusive. She suspects the chemicals may put additional stress on the thyroid system. Animal and laboratory studies have shown that certain PBDEs can mimic thyroid hormones and bind to a transport protein that sends the damaging "imposter" hormone from the mother to the fetus, possibly directly to the brain.
"Until recently, we didn't have the analytical methods we need to measure low levels of these chemicals and study effects on human health," says Webster, whose previous research focused on environmental toxicology and looking at how chemicals move through the environment. "There is considerable new interest among scientists to start looking at human health effects, and governments, including Canada's, are now making decisions about regulating these chemicals."
Researchers will enroll 150 pregnant women for the study, which was launched last month and will extend to September 2008. Participants will be asked, during in-home surveys, about exposures to PBDEs found in mattresses, furniture foam, plastic casing of electronic equipment such as TVs and computers, and other household goods. The women will also be asked about exposure to PFCs via products ranging from microwavable popcorn bags to non-stick cookware coatings and self-cleaning ovens. Levels of PBDEs and PFCs will be measured in the air, dust and dryer lint in homes. Also, maternal blood samples will be collected in mid-pregnancy and a sample of umbilical cord blood will be collected at delivery. Levels of both groups of chemicals won't be analyzed until all 150 subjects have been recruited.
In humans, accumulation rates and toxicity relative to exposure levels are not well understood. It is known that PFCs are some of the most persistent compounds known, and the half-life of PBDEs in human tissues ranges from approximately 15 days to six years. However, fast-degrading PBDEs don't actually "clear" the body after two weeks. They transform into slower degrading chemicals and persist. A puzzling factor is that age doesn't necessarily affect PBDE accumulation.
In North America, PBDE levels in humans are approximately 10-100 times higher than levels found in Europe or Japan, according to a review of PBDE levels in humans conducted in 2004. Health Canada data showed PBDE levels in Vancouver mothers' breast milk increased approximately 15-fold from 1992-2002, but are still lower than levels found in certain areas of the US. Canada has this year prohibited the importation of certain chemicals that turn into PFCs.
Should expectant mothers be alarmed? "We're not expecting to see dramatic changes here -- the effects, if any, will be subtle but may still be important, and show a trend that should be monitored," says Webster. "I think it's important to start looking at connections so we can take precautionary measures, if needed. Even if effects are subtle, because virtually everyone is exposed to these chemicals, any small effects may still represent a public health concern."
from the US Environmental Protection Agency
October 2006
http://yosemite.epa.gov/ochp/ochpweb.nsf/content/chm.htm
The annual Children's Environmental Health Report highlights the agency's recent efforts to protect the health of children by addressing threats in the environments where they develop, grow, and thrive. Improving school environments, addressing indoor and outdoor air quality, and reducing exposures to chemicals and pesticides are a few of the activities described in the report, "Children's Environmental Health: 2006 Report; Environment, Health, and a Focus on Children," available at http://yosemite.epa.gov/ochp/ochpweb.nsf/content/CEH06_Final.htm/$file/CEH06_Final.pdf.