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Backyard Talk

Protect Your Grandchildren Today – Eat Fat Free – Less Dioxin

A few years ago a study conducted by the NY State Department of health on former Love Canal residents identified two very important facts.  First the rate of birth defects in Love Canal children (those who were children living in the area during the crisis) is as high as it was for adults during exposures while living at Love Canal (56% of children were born with birth defects). The second finding was that there were statistically more girls than boys born to Love Canal children.  Generally it is believed that that change in normal ratio of male/female children is an indicator of exposures to hormone disrupting chemicals.

You may have already heard about these health outcomes in our newsletter or other communications.  It was the recent news about a study of dioxin and rats that reminded me of  the Love Canal studies.  At Love Canal there were 20,000 tons of chemicals buried in the center of the community and one of the chemicals identified in backyards was dioxin.

When I read the recent animal studies around dioxin and how exposures impacts children across generations, I was worried again.  Not only about my family, friends and former neighbors but for all the communities like Time Beach, Mo, Pensacola, FL, the ones people may have heard about but also communities not in the news in Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Washington and every other community with a paper mill, wood treatment facility and pesticide sprayers.

Here is the scary news. “Pregnant rats exposed to an industrial pollutant passed on a variety of diseases to their unexposed great-grandkids.” Washington State University scientists found that third-generation offspring of pregnant rats exposed to dioxin had high rates of kidney and ovarian diseases as well as early onset of puberty. They also found changes in the great-grandsons’ sperm. The great-grandkids – the first generation not directly exposed to dioxin – inherited their health conditions through cellular changes controlling how their genes were turned on and off, the researchers reported. The dioxin doses used in the study were low for lab rats, but are higher than most people’s exposures from the environment. The study raises questions that won’t be easy to answer about people’s exposure to dioxins from food and industrial sources.

Dioxin builds up in the body and has up to a decade-long half-life in humans, so scientists say a woman who becomes pregnant even 20 years after exposure is at risk of transmitting the consequences of her exposure to later generations.  Most human studies of dioxins have focused on the direct exposure in adults and fetuses. A study of a 1976 industrial accident in Anshu Seveso,  Italy, documented health defects in the grandchildren of women that conceived as long as 25 years after exposure to dioxin. No human studies have investigated how a person’s dioxin exposure will affect their great grandkids.

So what does this mean for the millions of people directly exposed dioxin and almost everyone eating dioxin contaminated foods daily?  The average American is at 77% of the level below which exposures are considered to be safe.  That level is set for adults not babies and small children.  Children have different eating habits than adults. They tend to eat more dairy products that are high in dioxin. Dioxin is prevalent in foods that are high in saturated fat, primarily meat and dairy.

This information really reaffirms that everyone needs to eat foods with little animal fats and fat free dairy to protect our great, grandchildren.  It also should send an urgent message to EPA to get industries to clean up and stop producing dioxin pollution now.  We can’t wait nor can our grant grand babies.  Read more:

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Backyard Talk

Petrochemical America: Picturing Cancer Alley

Last month, when news outlets around the country covered our press event revealing toxic phthalates in children’s Back To School supplies, we were proud of the work we’d done. Tens of thousands of Americans had been educated about how to avoid real risks to their children’s health.

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Abandoned trailer, Mississippi River, Near Dow Chemical Plant, Plaquemine, LA, 1998. From Petrochemical America, photographs by Richard Misrach, Ecological Atlas by Kate Orff (Aperture 2012).

But as so often happens, absent from the coverage were the stories of the people who live near the chemical plants that produce the vinyl, whose land, air, and water has been harmed for decades by some of the most profitable companies in the world.

This month, CHEJ is proud to help present those stories in a way they have never been presented before.

Petrochemical America: Picturing Cancer Alley is a groundbreaking new collaboration by photographer Richard Misrach and landscape architect Kate Orff, debuting at Aperture Gallery and Bookstore in NYC tonight. Through haunting photographs and innovative composite images employing ecological and sociological data, gathered over the course of 14 years on the banks of the Mississippi river in Louisiana, the book and gallery exhibition provide a moving and deeply informed portrait of the American “sacrifice zones” upon which our use of plastics, oil, and gas depends. Read more about Plaquemine, LA, pictured above.


For those in New York City, we invite you to attend two free, upcoming gallery events:

  • Tuesday, Sept. 25th, at 6:30pm: A panel discussion with our own Mike Schade, joined by Ms. Orff and Wilma Subra of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
  • Tuesday, Oct. 2nd, at 6:30 pm: A talk and screening of the excellent and darkly comic film Blue Vinyl, with author David Rosner and landscape designer Gena Wirth.

Both events are free and include access to the exhibit. They will take place at Aperture Gallery and Bookstore, 547 West 27th Street, New York, NY.



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Human mismanagement is turning lush cypress trees into ghostly poles, jeopardizing Louisiana’s bayou ecologies, local economies, and cultures. Requiem for a Bayou. From Petrochemical America, photographs by Richard Misrach, Ecological Atlas by Kate Orff (Aperture 2012).


For our supporters around the country, we encourage you to explore the content of the book and consider purchasing a copy. Aperture Foundation is nonprofit, and book sales help sustain its exhibitions, books, and magazine.

As we continue to advocate in New York City to get PVC out of new construction, renovation, and school supplies in our public schools, projects like Petrochemical America help us and our supporters keep in mind the full scale of what’s at stake in shifting to a safer, more sane, and more just material economy.

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Backyard Talk

Identifying Disease Clusters – What Comes Next?

It’s hard to say how many disease clusters have been identified. The website of the National Disease Cluster Alliance (NDCA) which held a national conference last week has a map that identifies 73 clusters. Several people attending the meeting pointed out that their cluster was not on the map and there are no doubt many others not on the map. While identifying clusters is an important step, knowing how to respond and what steps to take once a disease cluster (even a suspected disease cluster) has been identified is, perhaps, more important. This and other questions about disease clusters were discussed at a National Disease Cluster Conference held in Washington, DC last week by the NDCA.

It was clear from several presentations that no guidelines exist for what action steps a government agency should take once a disease cluster has been identified. This is a big problem, especially since most health agencies typically close their investigation once a cluster has been identified, concluding that they could not determine the cause of the cluster. This is not the time to walk away from a community that is struggling to determine not just whether a disease cluster exists, but what‘s causing it as well.

There are plenty of examples of communities where a disease cluster was identified. There is the cleft palate cluster in Dickson, TN, increase cancers in Clyde, OH, and childhood cancers in Toms River, NJ, Sierra Vista, AZ and Fallon, NV to name a few (see NDCA map). There are few examples, however, of agencies being able to identify the cause of the cluster. Woburn, MA is the exception as the state health department was able to identify contaminated drinking water wells as the cause of a childhood leukemia cluster.

No doubt determining the cause of a disease cluster is a difficult question to answer. It took the MA state health department over 10 years to conclude that the contaminated drinking water wells were the cause of the cluster in Woburn. But because it’s difficult is not reason enough for public health agencies to walk away. This is unconscionable and irresponsible. Public health agencies need to come up with an action plan for how to follow-up the finding of a cluster. Part of the response needs to include an environmental investigation into what may be causing the cluster. In addition, the community would likely benefit from the distribution of educational materials about the disease in question and the methods used to investigate clusters and their causes. Whatever follow-up occurs, the government needs to include from the very beginning of the process the affected community as part of the planning group directing the investigation.

One example highlighted at the conference was the work of Dr. Paul Sheppard from the University of Arizona who conducted an environmental investigation following the identification a childhood leukemia cluster in Fallon, NV. Between 1997 and 2004, 17 children living in Fallon were identified with leukemia, three of them died. For three years Sheppard studied heavy metals in air, especially tungsten which had been identified as increased in Fallon. Sheppard used tree leaves and tree rings to measure tungsten and found a high concentration of tungsten in the center of Fallon, the home to a tungsten refinery and a tungsten plant since the 1960s.

Although Sheppard was unable to prove that exposure to tungsten caused the increase in leukemia, his work has clearly related the two. His work provides a model for how to follow-up finding a disease cluster. Investigating environmental exposures in a community with a cluster makes perfect sense. Now we need to convince the public health agencies that they need to include this step in as part of their responsibilities. For more about the conference, see www.clusteralliance.org.

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Backyard Talk

Phthalates and Asthma: What's going on with NYC children?

I have asthma.   Just like millions of other Americans.

That’s why I was upset when only a week after we released our new report that found high levels of phthalates in children’s vinyl back-to-school supplies, researchers at Columbia University published a major new study linking phthalates to asthma in NYC children.

“While many factors contribute to childhood asthma, our study shows that exposure to phthalates may play a significant role,” says Allan Just, PhD, first author on the new Center study and current postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Phthalates are chemicals used to soften vinyl plastic, chemicals manufactured by big corporations like Exxon Mobil.

Phthalates in Harlem and Bronx children.

In the study, researchers found phthalates in the bodies of every single one of the 244 school-aged children in the study, ages 5 to 9. Every single one!  Do you believe that?!

All of the children live in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx, where the rates of asthma are high.

Higher levels of two different phthalates were associated with higher levels of nitric oxide in exhaled breath, which apparently is a biological marker of airway inflammation. They also found phthalate exposure and airway inflammation was especially strong among children who had recently reported wheeze, a common symptom of asthma.

One of the phthalates they investigated, butylbenzyl phthalate (BBzP), is commonly used to soften vinyl flooring in NYC schools and others across the country.

Not the first, and probably not the last.

In recent years, a number of other studies have found a correlation between phthalates emitted from vinyl products and asthma. A few highlights:

  • A study published in 2009 found a statistically significant link between PVC flooring and asthma.
  • A 2008 study found an association between concentrations of phthalates in indoor dust and wheezing among preschool children.  The presence of PVC flooring in the child’s bedroom was the strongest predictor of respiratory ailments.
  • A study of 10,851 children found the presence of floor moisture and PVC significantly increased the risk of asthma.
  • A study of adults working in rooms with plastic wall covering materials were more than twice as likely to develop asthma.

Asthma on the rise.

The new research comes at a time when asthma has been skyrocketing in our communities.

In the last decade, the proportion of people with asthma in the United States grew by nearly 15%. 

Today, one out of every 11 school-age children has asthma. In fact, asthma is a leading cause of school absenteeism: 10.5 million school days are missed each year due to asthma.  About 9 people die from asthma each day.

Additionally, asthma costs the United States $56 billion each year.  That’s right. 56  B-I-L-L-I-O-N.

What can we do?

We know phthalates have been linked to asthma, not to mention many other health problems.  We know there are safer alternatives. We don’t need to use vinyl school supplies, flooring and other products in our schools in the first place.  Why take an unnecessary risk with children’s health?

Chemicals that have been linked to asthma have no place in our children’s schools.

Getting these harmful chemicals out of our schools is a common sense precautionary solution.

Don’t you agree?

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Backyard Talk

The Answer to Climate Change-A Floating City

For years I’ve thought that those who advocate “clean coal” or hydro fracturing, oil drilling off shore or even nuclear power plants thought that once the earth has been totally contaminated, climate change has dried up our lakes and streams and deserts have replaced once lush farmland that they believed there was another planet where they could rebuild the new America. It is the only plan that made sense to me since they, their children and their children’s children have to live somewhere. All the money in the world can’t protect them when the air is no longer breathable or the water drinkable.

But I now know I was wrong. No, they can’t buy their way out of the nasty planet earth they have ruined. Nor is there another planet to move to. However, those with money could make a family reservation on the Seascraper. That’s right a self contained floating city. It was highlighted in National Geographic News.

Here’s the story.

The Seascraper—a self-sufficient community of homes, offices, and recreational space—was designed with the intention of slowing urban sprawl, according to its designers.

The vessel’s energy independence would come from underwater turbines powered by deep-sea currents as well as from a photovoltaic skin that could collect solar energy. The concave hull would collect rainwater and allow daylight to reach lower levels. Fresh water would come from treated and recycled rainwater via an on-board desalination plant.

This green machine would also help keep marine populations afloat, so to speak, with a buoyant base that serves as a reef and discharges fish food in the form of nutrients pumped from the deep sea, the U.S. design team says.

The idea that engineers and designers are even thinking about this floating city as an answer to climate change is ridiculous. Instead of getting our arms around and our policies focused on prevention or protection of our homeland and planet, we are designing and building a bigger mouse trap. Unbelievable.

Furthermore, everyone knows that decisions on what happens in this floating city will be the responsibility of the Captain not through a democratic process.

O.K. so I was wrong. The other planet to move earthlings to is out but the floating city, which looks like a Nike shoe by the way, is the alternative. Now all we need to do is figure out how to make a reservation for the next generation of our families.

Or we need to worker harder and smarter to save our planet and ourselves.

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Backyard Talk

Health Study at Huge Toxic Spill

After forty years, the NYS Department of Health is finally launching a health study of people who lived in an area affected by a huge toxic chemical spill south of Rochester, NY. About 35,000 gallons of trichloroethene, or TCE, was released during a 1970 train derailment in Le Roy, Genesee County, creating a 4 ½-square-mile plume of contaminated groundwater.

People in several dozen homes drank and bathed in private well water containing TCE for two decades until officials finally provided public water. Others inhaled indoor air containing trace amounts of the solvent until recent action to alleviate that problem.

Two state health surveys done years ago found nothing out of the ordinary. But public attention has re-focused on the derailment spill site in recent months, and some residents have asserted that people who lived above the plume did suffer a higher-than-normal rate of cancer. The study will examine the Le Roy-area site and eight other lightly populated locations around the state where TCE have been found. Data for the nine sites will aggregated, so the sample size being analyzed is larger and thus more statistically meaningful.

The other locations are in Cayuga, Cattaraugus, Dutchess, Greene, Rensselaer, Ulster and Washington counties. The study will look at cancer incidence and also at birth weight, birth defects and pre-term births among people living at those sites as far back as the early 1980s. (Source, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, 9/8/12)

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Backyard Talk

EPA Proposes Short-term Limit on TCE Exposures

The U.S. EPA has made a remarkable decision recently to protect the health of people exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE) in indoor air, primarily as a result of vapor intrusion of TCE vapors from groundwater. The Region 9 EPA has proposed a Remedial Action Level (RAL) for acute (short term) exposure to TCE of 15 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) or 2.8 parts per billion by volume (ppbv). RALs are developed to protect residents exposed to chemicals in indoor air. The regional EPA staff is awaiting approval from EPA headquarters. This exposure limit was proposed to prevent against possible cardiac birth defects when pregnant women are exposed to TCE vapors. TCE is one of the most common chemical contaminants found in the environment. It is used primarily as vapor degreasing solvent to clean metal parts.

This new RAL was proposed as part of the cleanup efforts for the Middlefield-Ellis-Whisman (MEW) Superfund site in Mountain View, CA. The proposed exposure limit is based on EPA’s recently completed health assessment of TCE that set a reference concentration (RfC) for chronic exposure to TCE of 2.0 ug/m3. This reference dose is a level that EPA estimates a person can inhale over the course of their lifetime without causing any adverse health effects.

What’s unique about this proposed exposure limit is that EPA chose to use the reference concentration, which is considered a continuous lifetime exposure, as a daily average exposure. The proposed RAL assumes that a single daily exposure during the first trimester of pregnancy could result in an adverse developmental effect. I believe this is the first time that EPA has proposed a short term exposure limit for any chemical. This is a remarkable event.

The chemical industry of course has cried foul, arguing that using the RfC to create a short term exposure limit is inappropriate and that there is too much uncertainty about short term exposures to TCE. A report prepared by consultants for the chemical industry went on to say that by creating the short term RAL, the agency is considering “an overly strict standard that will cause unnecessary precautions and alarm.” No surprises there.

What it actually does is provide genuine protection for people exposed to TCE (and likely other chemicals) in homes where vapor intrusion occurs from contaminated groundwater. This is a good thing that EPA should be applauded for and encouraged to do more of. Local residents in CA support the EPA’s proposal. The Center for Public Environmental Oversight who has been active at the MEW Superfund site and on vapor intrusion issues has written to EPA asking that headquarters adopt the Region 9 proposal nationwide. EPA has not yet made a decision.

In the meantime, several states including California and New Jersey are following the EPA Region 9‘s lead and have begun using or are considering developing short term exposure limits for TCE. If you are involved in a situation with vapor intrusion of volatile chemicals like TCE, use the short term exposure limit for TCE as a guide to evaluating the risks you face. It’s a lot better than what the chemical industry would have you use.