To join the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative (LDDI), please complete the form at http://www.iceh.org/LDDImembers.html.
March 15 - 18, 2006
Boston, Massachusetts
at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel
The conference theme is "Visions of the Future of Our Field: Intellectual Disability and Mental Health."
Website: http://www.thenadd.org/content/conferences/icviall.shtml
March 16, 2006
9:00 a.m. Pacific / Noon Eastern
Please join this special call, scheduled for Thursday, March 16th. This call will last one hour. This teleconference will be a timely discussion on the current status and overview of the National Children's Study (NCS), why the study is important to organizations that work with children, and information about the ongoing legislative efforts that hope to restore funding for the NCS. For more information about call background and resources.
Moderator: Elise Miller, MEd, Executive Director, Institute for Children's Environmental Health. Confirmed Speakers Include:
To RSVP for this call and receive dial-in information, please email Julia Varshavsky, CHE Program Associate, at Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org.
Website: http://www.healthandenvironment.org/articles/partnership_calls/384.
March 16, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Washington, DC
at 121 Cannon House Office Building
The purpose of this briefing is to inform members of congress and their staff regarding the rate of disabilities especially as it differs from state to state as well as the differences in health status of people with disabilities. This information can be used to guide policy decisions affecting people with disabilities and to inform health strategies at the state and national levels. Moreover, congressional staff will know where to obtain information about disability and be aware of initiatives to help their constituents through state and national health promotion interventions designed for people with disabilities.
Contact: Kim Musheno, 301-588-8252 or kmusheno@aucd.org
March 16 - 20, 2006
Washington, DC
Featuring 106 documentary, feature, archival, children's and animated films. Most are free and include discussion.
Website: http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org
Contact: 202-342-2564 or envirofilmfest@igc.org
by Rebecca Vesely, Oakland Tribune
March 14, 2006
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3600714
California faces costly health and environmental problems that will put it at a disadvantage in the global economy unless it regulates the use of toxic chemicals, according to a report being released today to the state Legislature. The report, by University of California, Berkeley researchers, is the first in the nation to recommend a state framework for "green chemistry" -- policies designed to motivate industry to reduce toxic chemicals in manufacturing. "We don't need to shut down the chemical industry and go back to the Stone Age; we can design greener chemicals," said the report's lead author, Michael Wilson, assistant research scientist at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health.
The report was commissioned in 2004 by the state Senate Environmental Quality Committee and the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials. The state's burgeoning population -- expected to grow by 50 percent to 55 million residents by 2050 -- will experience more environmental and health problems unless immediate steps are taken, the report authors warn. "What this report is trying to say is we can link economic growth in the state to improved health and environment," Wilson said.
Scientists are sounding the alarm about the adverse effects of hundreds of everyday chemicals to humans. They are especially concerned about exposure to toxic chemicals during fetal and child development. Chemical exposures contribute to pervasive childhood diseases such as asthma, neurological disorders and some cancers. Asthma is the No. 1 reason for children's hospital visits in the state.
About 23,000 California workers each year are diagnosed with chronic disease attributable to chemical exposures in the workplace, and another 5,600 die from diseases tied to workplace chemical exposure, according to the report. Federal laws governing the use of chemicals in industry are weak compared to European laws, the report authors said. For instance, the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act does not require chemical producers to generate toxicity and exposure information for 99 percent of synthetic chemicals in commercial use. The European Union is clamping down on toxic chemicals in industry with laws, including one that bars the use of hazardous substances such as lead and mercury in electrical and electronic equipment sold in EU countries.
John Ulrich, senior consultant for the Chemical Industry Council of California, said the industry is more heavily regulated in California than anywhere else in the nation. The report does not say how much it would cost the state to adopt greener chemicals. The industry does not have any cost estimates either, but Ulrich said "the burden of the costs would extend way beyond California."
Wilson said that bills introduced in recent years seeking to ban specific chemicals or regulate certain products, such as children's toys, are missing the target. "These are tiny nicks, symptoms of a regulatory system on chemical policy that is not working in the U.S.," he said. "What California actually needs is a comprehensive, modernized chemical policy." Ulrich agreed that a better approach would be to look at the overall industry but that greener chemistry is not a panacea. "Whether or not green chemistry alone can solve the problems, I'm not sure that's the case," he said.
The report authors are urging the Legislature to convene a task force to review the report and come up with concrete legislative proposals by 2007. Among the recommendations: Require chemical producers to provide information on chemical toxicity, strengthen the state's ability to identify and prioritize chemical hazards and support research and development of green chemistry, similar to support of green energy sources.
by Kristin Collins, News & Observer (North Carolina)
March 12, 2006
http://www.newsobserver.com/150/story/417424.html
submitted to this bulletin by Michele Gagnon with AAMR
Two field workers who gave birth to deformed babies were illegally exposed to pesticides more than 20 times each while they picked tomatoes in Eastern North Carolina, N.C. Department of Agriculture data show. A third worker, who spent most of her pregnancy working in Florida, was exposed four times during the less than six weeks she worked in North Carolina, the data show. All worked for Ag-Mart, a Florida-based tomato grower, and they were illegally exposed to a host of chemicals as often as three times a week, the documents show. Three of the 15 chemicals are linked to birth defects in lab animals.
One baby had no arms or legs. Another had a deformed jaw. The third had no nose and no visible sex organs and died soon after birth. The women's exposures were illegal because they worked fields too soon after pesticides were sprayed, agriculture data show. To protect workers from harmful effects, many pesticides require that workers be out of the fields for anywhere from a few hours to two days after spraying.
Ag-Mart says that none of its workers were illegally exposed to pesticides and that the Agriculture Department misinterpreted its records. Andrew Yaffa, a lawyer who represents the three women, said the documents tell only part of the story."Sometimes it was more than once a day," Yaffa said. "They would come out of the fields covered. Their clothes would be green with pesticides. Their throats would be dry. They would be coughing. They were suffering from skin ailments."
Ag-Mart, which is privately held, grows about 1,100 acres of grape tomatoes in Brunswick and Pender counties, 125 miles southeast of Raleigh. The company employs about 500 people there during the growing season. It sells tomatoes under the brand name Santa Sweets. State officials have been investigating Ag-Mart for nearly a year. The Agriculture Department has charged the company with 369 violations of state pesticide law, the largest pesticide case in state history. The company will have a hearing before the state Pesticide Board on March 28.
The state Department of Health and Human Services is investigating whether the three babies' deformities are linked to pesticides. That report is expected in the next few weeks. Until now, the evidence against Ag-Mart has remained private, because neither the state Health Department nor the Agriculture Department has finished its investigation. Last week, the Agriculture Department opened its files to The News & Observer. State agriculture officials went through reams of data that Ag-Mart provided to determine whether workers went into fields too soon after pesticides were sprayed. The News & Observer looked at the dates of violations and at the work records of the three mothers to determine how often they were working in fields where violations occurred. The data show that the women frequently worked in fields on days when pesticides were applied.
Ag-Mart spokesman Leo Bottary said last week that pesticides were always applied to sections of the field where workers were not present. He said the company's records aren't detailed enough to show which part of a field each worker was in. "There's nothing in those records that would put anybody in a particular section" of a field, Bottary said. The company will keep better records in the future, he said.
State agriculture officials say they can work only with the data the company provided. "We put the burden of proof on them," said Patrick Jones, enforcement manager for the Agriculture Department's pesticide section.
Worker advocates who have spent years following Ag-Mart employees say Ag-Mart often exposes its workers to pesticides. Greg Schell, a lawyer with Florida Legal Services, said his staff surveyed 89 Ag-Mart workers in June. About half said they had been sprayed with pesticides within the past three months. Some, whose job it was to apply pesticides, said they sprayed fields filled with workers, Schell said. "We've interviewed applicators who said they did that all the time for Ag-Mart," Schell said. "They just told us all kinds of stories, and I don't think they're all making it up."
Exposed in pregnancy
In 2004, the three women, Francisca Herrera, Sostenes Salazar and Maria De La Mesa Cruz, were among hundreds of Ag-Mart workers who traveled with the harvest, picking tomatoes in the company's fields in North Carolina, Florida, New Jersey and Mexico. All three are illegal immigrants. Herrera and Salazar became pregnant in April, De La Mesa Cruz in May. Yaffa said none of the women were available to comment for this story. With Yaffa's help, Herrera filed suit against the company Feb. 28, claiming that pesticide exposure is responsible for her son's deformities. She is asking for an undisclosed amount in damages. The agriculture records show that Herrera, whose boy was born in December 2004 with no arms and legs, started working in North Carolina in mid-April. During her first trimester, when a baby's limbs form, she was illegally exposed on 11 different days, the Agriculture Department data shows. By the end of September, she had been exposed on 22 days. On four of those days, records show, she was exposed at least twice -- once at the company's Brunswick County farm and once at the Pender County farm.
Salazar, whose son had a severely underdeveloped jaw, started work in North Carolina in June 2004. She was illegally exposed on 25 days during the next 3 1/2 months, the analysis shows, seven of them during her first trimester. De La Mesa Cruz, whose child died, didn't start work in North Carolina until mid-September. She was exposed four days by the end of that month, the analysis shows. Salazar and De La Mesa Cruz also worked in Florida and were exposed to pesticides there during their pregnancies, a Florida study shows. Their babies were born in February 2005. Among the chemicals that the women were exposed to are Monitor, Agri-Mek and Penncozeb. Ag-Mart has dropped those three because some studies link them to birth defects.
The Collier County (Fla.) Health Department studied the women's exposure there and concluded last fall that there was no definitive link between the deformities and pesticide exposure in that state. That study did not look at the women's exposure in North Carolina. North Carolina officials say they are looking at the workers' exposures in both states. Experts say it is nearly impossible to prove that pesticide exposure caused a specific baby's birth defect.
Ted Schettler, a Massachusetts doctor and science director with the Science and Environmental Health Network, an Iowa-based nonprofit that studies the impact of pesticides on health, said medical literature is full of stories about farmworkers with deformed children. But he said he doesn't know of a single completed study in which farmworkers were monitored during their pregnancies. As a result, when a deformed child is born, no one knows what pesticides, if any, were in the mother's bloodstream during her pregnancy. "Assigning responsibility here is incredibly difficult," Schettler said. "The reality is that we don't know what causes most birth defects."
by Jim Jeffords and Julie Fox Gorte, Op-Ed Contributors, New York Times
March 10, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/opinion/10jeffords.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
HOW would you like to have lawfully sold your Tyco stock months before the corporate scandal hit the front pages? That's precisely what the Calvert Group did when a disturbing trend in Tyco's annual toxic emission disclosures led to questions about how well Tyco was managing the rest of its operations.
Now, President Bush and the Environmental Protection Agency want to weaken the largely successful Toxics Release Inventory program, which requires companies to tell the public how they dispose of or release nearly 650 chemicals that may harm human health and the environment. The disclosure program makes data available for anyone -- journalists, policymakers, investors or parents -- to learn exactly which chemicals are being released from corporate smokestacks and discharge pipes.
Congress developed this critical program in 1986, in response to the catastrophic deaths of thousands of people after a spill of toxic chemicals at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. It has worked well since its inception, but the Environmental Protection Agency is now proposing three detrimental changes that could go into effect within the next year.
The first would relax the current annual reporting requirement and let companies make reports every other year instead; the second would allow polluters to release 10 times more toxic chemicals -- up to 5,000 pounds annually -- without disclosing the volume released or where the pollutants went; and the third would permit companies to conceal releases of up to 500 pounds annually of particularly dangerous toxic materials, like PCB's, lead and mercury, which can accumulate in people's bodies. All three changes effectively increase the amount of pollution that companies can emit without telling anyone.
Investors should be particularly concerned about the effects of the agency's proposal. Sound investment requires sound information. We have long honored the disinfectant power of sunshine in our securities laws, dating back to the reforms after the stock market crash of 1929, as well as the reforms that followed the more recent governance scandals. The Toxics Release Inventory provides an additional mechanism by which investors can tell the difference between well and poorly managed companies before the consequences show up in portfolios.
A bipartisan group of 12 state attorneys general have joined in opposition to the agency's proposal, arguing that it would impede governments, first responders and citizens from protecting people from the harm caused by toxic chemicals. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, first responders used Toxics Release Inventory data to identify factories and industrial sites where toxic chemical releases would have been possible. A Texas community used such data to inform the public when companies were polluting the rich shrimp and oyster breeding grounds in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many companies intend to continue annual reporting, regardless of the E.P.A.'s proposed rule change. For example, Edwin L. Mongan III, DuPont's director of energy and environment, says that his company will probably continue to collect and release information about toxic materials annually, noting, "It's just a good business practice to track your hazardous materials." According to Mr. Mongan, DuPont uses this information internally and is "committed to being transparent about its environmental performance."
The E.P.A.'s weakening of the Toxics Release Inventory program does not require Congressional approval, only notification. This is just one more example of the Bush Administration's efforts to quietly undermine our nation's environmental protections. Washington should be working to expand corporate disclosure and accountability, rather than moving to allow polluters to conceal their toxic releases.
Jim Jeffords, independent of Vermont, is the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Julie Fox Gorte is a vice president and the chief social investment strategist for the Calvert Group.
by Mike Dennison, Billings Gazette
March 09, 2006
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/03/09/news/state/25-environment-case.txt
HELENA -- At a rare packed-house hearing before the Montana Supreme Court Wednesday, a pair of attorneys said Montana residents must be able to use their right to a "clean and healthful environment" to seek damages from corporate polluters. Without that course of action, the right is essentially meaningless, argued Tom Lewis, a Great Falls attorney representing Sunburst residents whose groundwater was polluted by gasoline from a Texaco refinery. "If this right isn't extended to protect against the polluters, we've lost the battle," he said. "If we don't have this to enforce our constitutional rights, then the Constitution doesn't have any meaning."
Yet attorneys for companies in three major environmental-damage cases said the "clean and healthful environment" right does not enable residents to sue private entities for damages caused by pollution. The right instead must be enforced by laws set down by the Legislature -- and if those laws aren't enforced properly, residents can force cleanup action by suing the government, said Ron Waterman, a Helena lawyer representing mining firm Canyon Resources Corp. Lawyers for the companies said it makes more sense to rely on those laws for awarding damages or forcing cleanup.
The right to a clean and healthful environment is too vague and inconsistent to be used as a standard for determining liability and damages, they said. "From one jury to the next jury they may have their own idea about what is clean and healthful," said Stan Kaleczyc, a Helena attorney representing Texaco Inc.
Wednesday's unusual hearing dealt with appeals on the three separate cases, each of which raises the question: Can residents successfully sue a private business, asking for damages because their right to a clean and healthful environment has been violated? The seven-member high court will decide the question later, as it wrestles with multiple issues in the three complex appeals.
Supreme Court oral arguments usually attract only a handful of people, but more than 150 people packed the chamber Wednesday and overflowed into the lobby, where court personnel had set up a television monitor on which people could view the proceedings.
The cases are the Sunburst residents' lawsuit against Texaco, a lawsuit by the town of Superior and others against Asarco for pollution of drinking water and soil, and the suit of several Lewistown-area landowners against Canyon for damages allegedly caused by its defunct Kendall gold mine. Texaco is appealing most of a $41 million verdict against the company, and the other cases could involve damages in the millions of dollars.
The cases also feature some of the state's most prominent plaintiffs' and business defense lawyers, who argued at Wednesday's hearing. The justices peppered all five attorneys with questions during the two-hour hearing. Justice John Warner asked why the "clean and healthful environment" action is needed, when landowners damaged by pollution could sue under other actions, such as illegal trespass. Cliff Edwards, a Billings lawyer representing the Lewistown-area landowners and the town of Superior, replied: "We need it because we have it (in the Constitution) and we're entitled to it. "I can't imagine a better expression of Montana public policy than this," Edwards said, noting its adoption by the people and elected delegates to the 1972 Constitutional Convention. Justice Brian Morris said if the law doesn't allow landowners hurt by pollution to seek "restoration damages," to repair their property, how can they recover them without invoking the constitutional right? Don Robinson, a Butte attorney representing Asarco, said they can ask the Legislature to address the issue and define in law damages that can be obtained. "Those are all issues that are best left to the legislative process so we all know what the rules are going in," he said.
But what if the Legislature does nothing, asked Justice James Nelson -- can residents still raise a legal challenge? Robinson said they still can sue the government, to force regulation of polluters, invoking the right to a clean and healthful environment. But they can't use the same right to sue polluters directly, he said.
After the hearing, environmental leader Jim Jensen said if the right to a clean and healthful environment is restricted only to cases suing the government, it would be "an extremely hollow right." Large corporations, which are the big polluters, wield wide influence at the Legislature and with state regulators, and residents need the ability to sue them directly if the state doesn't adequately protect the environment, he said. "If the citizens can only (rely on) the government to defend their property, then the right to a clean and healthful environment is an extremely limited right," said Jensen, executive director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, which has been involved in one of the cases.
by Barbara J. Culliton, Health Affairs
March 9, 2006
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.25.w94/DC1
Abstract:
National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Elias Zerhouni is pushing hard for innovation and the risk taking required to make major leaps in medicine. Fully attuned to cutting-edge work that crosses disciplines, he cites nanotechnology, clinical databases designed to answer research questions, systems biology, and an openness to radical ideas among his top priorities. The NIH director's job, he says, "is to have a vision." This requires leveraging NIH funding so that money is spent more wisely and has a cumulative effect on population health. Knowledge can be extracted from science, and health system transformation is made possible.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Increasingly, contemporary biomedical science is an interdisciplinary endeavor. Real innovation often requires collaboration among traditional bench researchers, computer scientists, scholars talented in writing complex mathematical algorithms, and bioengineers, among others. Genomics and all the other "-omics," nanotechnology, modern epidemiolgy to fight novel infectious disease, and health information technology (HIT) are interdisciplinary by nature. And they are surely innovative.
In an effort to bring information from the world of research to the readers of Health Affairs, and to introduce biomedical scientists to the world of health policy and economics, Health Affairs is initiating a series of interviews with leading innovators in the biomedical sector. The series is sponsored by the not-for-profit Institute for Health Technology Studies, or InHealth, which recognizes that innovation in medical technology plays a vital role in better and more cost-effective health care. Its goal is to provide solid, unbiased information to the public, as well as to policymakers, payers, and scholars in all areas of medical technology. Health Affairs is pleased to announce this new collaboration.
The series will focus on individuals who are either innovators in their own right or in a position to foster novel research. We begin with a conversation between Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Barbara Culliton, a Health Affairs deputy editor. Zerhouni, a native of Algeria, became NIH director in May 2002. Formerly executive vice dean at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he is also an innovator in medical imaging who was chair of the Department of Radiology and Radiologic Sciences and professor of bioengineering at Hopkins. As the following interview reveals, he is deeply committed to fostering research that will lead to the very best innovative technology for medical care and the health care system. Zerhouni's "Roadmap" for NIH makes it clear that real interdisciplinary research will be essential for major advancement in science and medicine.
To read the full interview, please visit http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.25.w94/DC1.
by Bruce Henderson, Charlotte Observer
March 9, 2006
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/14053371.html
North Carolina's first limits on industrial releases of mercury, a potent pollutant that can permanently damage newborn babies, come before a state board today. Power companies -- coal-fired power plants are leading mercury sources -- say it will be hard for them to make the proposed 70 percent cuts. Environmental advocates claim 90 percent removal, the target some other states have proposed, is within reach.
Mercury now contaminates some fish species across the eastern two-thirds of North Carolina. People who eat those fish swallow the mercury in them.
The state Environmental Management Commission is expected today to schedule public hearings before settling the issue. The Bush administration adopted the nation's first mercury-control rules last year. Each state can adopt the same rules, or toughen them. Fourteen states, joined by environmental and public-health groups, say the federal rule doesn't go far enough and have challenged it in court.
North Carolina's proposed rule takes a middle road. It follows the federal approach in calling for a nearly 70 percent mercury reduction from existing coal-fired power plants by 2018. Most N.C. plants will come close to achieving that as a side benefit of pollution-control "scrubbers" installed under the state's Clean Smokestacks Act to curb soot and smog. The state rule would apply mercury controls to plants that don't fall under the act, or shut them down.
John Suttles of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill said it's "gutless" for North Carolina not to call for more aggressive limits. A trade group of air-quality regulators estimates controlling mercury would add 15 to 60 cents monthly to typical home electric bills. "This boils down to, do you protect profits or children's health?" Suttles said.
Like the federal rule, the state would let utilities buy pollution "credits" instead of installing controls at some plants. A large, unresolved, question is what to require of new plants -- like those Duke Power may build in Rutherford County. Utilities say no mercury-control technology has proved itself in commercial use. Duke, using a Department of Energy grant, tested a method at its Buck and Cliffside plants. It's simple -- injecting carbon into smokestack gases -- and removed up to 80 percent of the mercury. But results vary from unit to unit, Duke says, and high removal rates rely on conditions that can't be regularly met.
Even if some old coal plants are retired and emission-free nuclear plants are built, Duke projects that it won't meet a second stage of mercury limits that takes effect in 2018. "We don't know how we'll get there," said George Everett, Duke's environmental affairs vice president.
Inside the Issue
Mercury threatens people when it takes a toxic form in water, accumulating in the tissue of long-lived fish such as tuna. Pregnant women who eat a lot of contaminated fish risk passing mercury to their fetuses. The babies may be born with lower intelligence and other developmental problems.
At least 10 percent of women of child-bearing age carry potentially unsafe mercury levels in their blood, the Environmental Protection Agency has estimated. No reliable N.C. estimates exist.
Coal-fired power plants release two-thirds of North Carolina's mercury emissions.
by Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune
March 8, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-060308mercuryhawthorne,1,3435809.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
One of the largest sources of toxic mercury in the United States is hidden in millions of tiny switches in cars and trucks. Although each switch contains only a few drops of the silvery metal liquid sealed in a capsule, state and federal regulators say the mercury becomes a major environmental problem when cars are scrapped and melted in steel mills.
Under pressure to reduce mercury emissions, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced a national agreement with the steel and auto industries to encourage collection of the switches before cars are shredded or crushed. The deal comes less than a week after Illinois lawmakers approved a measure that would require the auto industry to pay a bounty to auto recyclers unless at least 70 percent of the mercury-laden switches junked in the state each year are safely removed.
Seven states already have collection programs in place. Seven others are considering similar legislation, but most programs are voluntary and don't include the financial incentives that Illinois is moving to adopt. "It's very important to get this source of mercury cleaned up," said Jonathan Goldman, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council, a group that helped negotiate an agreement on the state legislation. "This is an effective way to achieve that goal."
Mercury can cause learning disabilities in children and neurological problems in adults. The chief source of exposure is eating fish contaminated by air pollution that falls into oceans, lakes and streams. Auto switches are responsible for nearly 400 pounds of mercury released into the air in Illinois each year, an amount equivalent to annual emissions from a large coal-fired power plant, according to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
Nationwide, there are 35 million mercury switches in vehicles on the road, according to industry estimates. The metal was used as recently as the 2002 model year in devices that control antilock brakes and convenience lights inside trunks and under hoods. When a trunk is opened, for instance, gravity causes mercury in a capsule to complete an electrical circuit that turns on the light.
Manufacturers started redesigning their vehicles with nontoxic alternatives after regulators figured out that mercury is released into the air when cars are scrapped and sold to steel mills. Switches in older cars account for as much as 11 tons of mercury waste each year, according to U.S. EPA estimates. Coal-fired power plants, the largest manmade source of the metal, release 48 tons a year. Though the amount of mercury in each switch is small, removing the devices from scrap metal incinerated by steel mills can significantly reduce mercury pollution.
Regulators in New Jersey, one of the first states to address the problem, estimate the switches were responsible for half of the mercury emissions from some steel mills. "There is no reason this toxic metal should be getting into our environment," said Illinois Rep. Karen May (D-Highland Park), who has been pushing legislation on the issue for two years.
May's bill sailed through the House last week on a unanimous vote, as did an identical measure in the Senate. Both chambers must approve one of the bills before it can be sent to Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The legislation requires the auto industry to start collecting switches from scrap yards and recyclers. If the program fails to remove 70 percent of the switches from junked cars each year by 2009, the automakers would be required to pay a $2 bounty for each switch removed.
Under the national program announced Wednesday, the auto and steel industries agreed to finance a three-year, $4 million fund to encourage automakers to collect auto switches from scrap yards. The mercury would be recycled or disposed of in landfills for hazardous waste. In a statement, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said it "continues to believe that a comprehensive strategy is necessary to reduce mercury in all consumer products."
Some auto recyclers in Illinois already have started to remove the switches. By the time a wrecked car or truck is fed into a crusher outside Bionic Auto Parts on Chicago's West Side, anything that can be salvaged for resale has been stripped out. From entire engines to radio knobs, parts are neatly stacked and lined up for resale. Now there also are bins filling rapidly with mercury switches pried out of trunks and plucked from brake systems. "We didn't realize this was a problem until a couple of years ago," said owner John Catalano. "But mercury is a big issue now. We don't want to be part of the problem."
Press Release
Contact Karen Finney, Medical News Office, 916-734-9064
March 8, 2006
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/newsroom/releases/archives/mind/2006/phenomeproject3-2006.html
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Multidisciplinary teams of physicians and scientists at the University of California, Davis, M.I.N.D. Institute have launched the nation's most comprehensive assessment of children with autism to detect the biological and behavioral patterns that define subtypes of the disorder. Called the Autism Phenome Project, the large-scale, longitudinal study will enroll 1,800 children -- 900 with autism, 450 with developmental delay and 450 who are typically developing -- who will undergo a thorough medical evaluation in addition to systematic analyses of their immune systems, brain structures and functions, genetics, environmental exposures and blood proteins. Children will be 2 to 4 years old when they begin participating in the study, and their development will continue to be evaluated over the course of several years. The first phase of the research is funded by the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute and philanthropic donations.
"Children with autism clearly are not all the same," said David G. Amaral, research director of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute and co-director of the project. "The tremendous variation leads us to believe that autism is a group of disorders rather than a single disorder -- several autisms versus one autism. We are determined to provide the specific biomedical and behavioral criteria that accurately define distinct subtypes."
Autism has common hallmarks: difficulties initiating and sustaining social interactions, impaired communication skills and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior. However, these hallmarks vary in severity. In addition, some children with autism can have co-existing conditions such as cognitive impairments, seizures, coordination issues or gastrointestinal difficulties, while others do not. This heterogeneity has been a major obstacle to progress in autism science.
Another obstacle involves access to reliable data. Autism science includes many quality studies on specific aspects of the disorder -- from genetics and immunology to behavior and imaging -- that can be difficult to combine and compare. With the Autism Phenome Project, UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researchers aim to overcome this limitation. "We spent two years designing the project so that it would be both comprehensive in scope and fully capable of integrating data across disciplines," said Amaral, a neuroscientist who specializes in brain systems involved in memory, emotion and social behavior. "Our goal is to identify specific types of autism and develop a database of biomedical information that can be shared with the worldwide community of autism scientists. This is crucial to refining our understanding of autism and to developing targeted treatments for a specific 'type' of autism as early as possible so children can reach their fullest potential."
According to Thomas R. Insel, a physician who is director of the National Institute of Mental Health, the Autism Phenome Project is an important new direction in autism research. "Multifaceted biomedical approaches are exactly what is needed right now," said Insel. "This is a monumental task, but one that needs to be undertaken if we are to accurately diagnose and treat people with autism."
While the Autism Phenome Project is ambitious, Amaral believes its successful completion will shorten by decades the road to discovering the causes and treatments of autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder that now affects 1 in 166 children in the United States. The unexplained rise in autism prevalence has frustrated parents and scientists trying to find answers. "The extraordinary biomedical tools currently available at the M.I.N.D. Institute make it the ideal environment for launching this clinical research effort," he said. "The time is right for us to build a strong database of information that we can all share in order to speed the discovery process and clarify the variability that now plagues autism research. From there, we can more quickly identify causes and treatments, and by adding collaborative partners we will be able to gather as much information as quickly as possible."
The UC Davis M.I.N.D. (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) Institute is a unique collaborative center for research into the causes and treatments of autism, bringing together parents, scientists, clinicians and educators. For further information, go to http://www.mindinstitute.org.
from Davis Baltz, Commonweal, dbaltz@igc.org
March 8, 2006
The Berkeley City Council passed its Precautionary Principle Ordinance last night (7 March 2006). The broad support from the City Council, City Manager, and many (but not all) stakeholders including City Commissions was demonstrated by moving the ordinance to the consent calendar. Berkeley becomes the second U.S. city to pass a precautionary principle ordinance, after San Francisco.
Some observers believe the ordinance does not go far enough to compel the City to take action. Indeed, Ordinance sponsor and Councilmember Kriss Worthington said that while he was certainly going to vote for the ordinance, there is still work to be done, and the involvement of an interested public will be important to make implementation real in the world, and to build on the spirit of collaboration that accompanies the ordinance's passage.
Bay Area Working Group on the Precautionary Principle members Breast Cancer Action (Pauli Ojea), Breast Cancer Fund (Joan Reinhardt Reiss), and Commonweal (Davis Baltz) provided oral and/or written public comment in support of the ordinance's passage to the Council as did Community Health Commission member Tom Kelly. Council received numerous letters and emails in the run-up to the meeting.
If you would like to see the ordinance language, or to track implementation, please contact me.
by Erik Stokstad, ScienceNOW Daily News
March 7, 2006
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/307/2
submitted to this bulletin by Michele Gagnon with AAMR
SAN DIEGO -- As if living in the inner city wasn't bad enough. New research shows that the stresses of urban life -- a fear of crime, for example -- can exacerbate the cognitive problems associated with exposure to lead in older adults. Numerous studies have shown that in children, high lead levels can harm the kidneys and endocrine system and worsen academic performance. Less work has been done on adults who aren't industrial workers, however. New findings, presented here yesterday at the Society of Toxicology's annual meeting, come from a study of 1140 adults aged 50 to 70 years, who were randomly selected from 65 neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland.
To investigate the effects of stress on lead exposure, Thomas Glass, a social epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, first created a measure of "psychosocial stress." He pulled together a series of indicators, such as crime statistics, number of 911 calls, and complaints about abandoned cars. This measure correlated with salivary levels of cortisol, a stress hormone; residents of rougher neighborhoods tended to have more cortisol.The researchers then gave a battery of seven cognitive tests to the participants. On three of these tests, the worse the participants fared, the higher their lifelong lead exposure (as indicated by bone lead levels) tended to be. And when the researchers compared these volunteers to other people with the same lead levels, they found that stressed city-dwellers scored lower on these cognitive tests than less-stressed ones. "This is a question of exposure legacy," Glass says, who collaborated with Brian Schwartz and others at Johns Hopkins. "Some part of age-related cognitive decline may be the shadow of childhood lead exposure." In other words, lead exposure early on led to cognitive deficits that persist through life.
Because the effect of lead on cognition appears to be due to lifelong accumulation of the metal, rather than recent acute doses, there is no direct way to lessen exposure. However, the findings do suggest that lessening stress might help mitigate the cognitive decline. "There might be neighborhood interventions that might reduce the impact of exposure," says David Jacobs of the Center for Healthy Housing in Columbia, Maryland.
by John Vincent, the Scotsman
December 28, 2005
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=2465522005
THOUSANDS of seabirds are being killed each year after a massive rise in plastics pollution in the North Sea, according to a new report. Studies on the bodies of 600 fulmars washed up on beaches revealed that 95 per cent had plastic litter in their stomachs - with an average of 40 pieces of plastic per bird. One fulmar had 1,600 pieces of plastic in its guts, says the Save the North Sea project, which was set up by volunteers and professional organisations in all countries with North Sea coastlines.
Fulmars -- gull-like, tube-nosed birds with a massive colony on St Kilda -- are affected because they mistake discarded plastic for jellyfish floating on the sea's surface. The south-east area of the North Sea -- around the Channel exit to German Bight -- is the worst-affected and plastics pollution is not only killing birds but also putting off bathers, contributing to beach clean-up costs and causing fouled propellers and blocked water intakes.
Mark Grantham, of the British Trust for Ornithology, said yesterday: "Plastics pollution is a chronic problem in the North Sea. Heaven knows where some of this plastic comes from. They've found everything from balloons to shotgun cartridges in the birds' stomachs. But the commonest is beads of raw plastic before it is formed."
Fulmars, which are small albatrosses, have been breeding on St Kilda for centuries. They spread throughout northern Scotland in the 19th century and to England, Ireland and Wales by 1930. Fulmars lead long lives, with many reaching 40 and some even living to 100.