|
||||||
|
While all links worked when entries were posted to the database, different publishers
have different policies about retaining articles and providing access to archived material.
Thus some of the links, particularly older ones, may no longer be functional.
For links no longer working, you may be able to gain paid access to text via the publisher's site.
Flourescing fish may offer a quick and easy way to test if specific chemicals – or complex mixtures found in the environment – will affect the thyroid gland and its normal hormonal functions.
With so many chemical contaminants in the environment, rapid screening tools that target specific physiological processes or tissues are increasingly valuable to regulators and researchers. 2 October 2009. More...
Levels of contaminants in breast milk are more complicated than once thought; instead of a constant decline during nursing, levels may fluctuate from beginning to end, finds a new study that contradicts the long-held belief that the pollutants steadily wane.
The pollutants include flame retardants, dioxins and pesticides. Sometimes, concentrations actually increased over the course of breast feeding. 11 August 2009. More...
People who eat meat and poultry have significantly higher levels of common flame retardants compared to vegetarians.
The findings indicate that food may be a more important source of the contaminants, known as PBDEs, than previously thought. 22 July 2009. More...
New research indicates that smoking during pregnancy can lead to impulsive behavior in children.
Preteenagers whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are more impulsive on a standard behavior test and use different regions of their brain while performing the test when compared to children whose mothers did not smoke. 26 May 2009. More...
A new study reveals that by interfering with thyroid hormone, exposure to low levels of bisphenol A (BPA) slows the rate at which tadpoles develop into frogs.
Thyroid signals are necessary both for normal frog metamorphosis and for fetal development in people. In these experiments, exposure to levels similar to those found in human infants prevented key genes from turning on, thus delaying tadpole development. 12 May 2009. More...
Lead released from a woman's bones during pregnancy can affect her developing baby's DNA in ways that can alter gene expression and possibly increase the child's lifelong susceptibility to disease.
This is the first study to show that lead can influence genetic programming in human cells, and hence, gene expression, throughout life. 21 April 2009. More...
Lead poisoning may be the reason a globally threatened species of vulture is frequently found dead in the wild.
Researchers examined 20 dead birds found in the the demilitarized zone in Korea and found very high levels of lead. The authors suggest that the birds may pick up the poisonous lead during their migration by feeding on animals that are contaminated with the heavy metal. 4 March 2009. More...
For the first time, scientists find that extremely low levels of some types of environmental estrogens disrupt specialized brain cells and their ability to regulate brain chemistry. All of the EEs tested changed the way cells released and reabsorbed dopamine, an important chemical messenger that governs movement and pleasure.
These changes may explain how EEs contribute to nervous system diseases, such as Parkinsons and schizophrenia, that are caused by abnormal dopamine responses. 3 March 2009. More...
A PCB mix altered reproductive hormones and organ growth in two generations of female rats that were never directly exposed to the chemicals themselves.
The abnormalities worsened in the granddaughters when compared to the daughters. The worst effects were seen at the mid -- not the highest or lowest -- level tested. Levels were within the range of human exposure. 27 February 2009. More...
Children are at risk of eating more than they bargained for if they don't wash their hands before eating. Researchers have found that dust contaminated with chemical flame retardants called PBDEs can stick to skin and may be a significant source of human exposure to the widely used compounds.
The findings suggests that small children -- who had 10 times the levels of the chemicals on their hands as adults -- may be at a significant risk of accumulating the chemicals from dust. 13 February 2009. More...
Greenlandic Inuit with high levels of certain, long-lived industrial pollutants in their bodies also have DNA with altered function.
Inuit with higher blood levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) also had decreased methylation of their DNA. Although long-term health consequences are not known, altered methylation patterns have been associated with cancer. 5 February 2009. More...
Using a mathematical model based on enzymatic differences between newborns and adults, scientists estimate that the amount of bisphenol A (BPA) circulating in the blood of babies is more than 11 times higher than the amount in adult blood, given the same exposure.
The striking disparity is most likely due to natural differences in metabolism and body size between babies and adults. This study points to the need for chemical exposure standards to better incorporate differences in vulnerabilities between children and adults. 12 January 2009. More...
A mix of two pesticides had greater toxic effects on exposed salmon than would be expected from one separately, adding to concerns that health risks from pesticides are underestimated.
Almost all risk assessments are conducted one chemical at a time, even though wildlife and humans are always exposed to many chemicals at a time. 19 December 2008. More...
A study of new, oil-based paints sold in Chinese retail stores finds that more than half have lead levels above the government's standards.
55% of paints tested in this study exceeded the Chinese standard of 90 parts per million (ppm) of soluble lead. Fifty percent of paints also exceeded the US standard of 600 ppm of total lead, with 24% of samples containing more than 5,000 ppm of total lead. 17 December 2008. More...
In a unique study, researchers show that exposure to PCBs in rats interferes with learning by stopping the brain from forming complex nerve networks essential for memory and intellect.
This effect could underpin some of the impacts that PCBs have on children's ability to learn. 7 November 2008. More...
A review of health risks of bisphenol A is flawed by errors of omission, commission, misrepresentation and misinterpretation.
The review, carried out by a scientist at the California Dept. of Toxic Substance Control 'working on his own time' and thus not representing the agency's position, ignores a large body of literature on low-dose effects of BPA, uses criteria that would, if accepted, invalidate 30 years of well-established research on diethylstilbestrol (DES) and employs a statistical method that violates basic statistical principles. 6 April 2008. More...
New research by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control indicates that the analysis the CDC has used to estimate human exposure to atrazine and atrazine-related breakdown products has strongly underestimated its extent.
By assaying for more than one atrazine metabolite, the new method finds exposures more consistent with the widespread use of the herbicide than indicated by the old approach. 27 November 2007. More...
Three years after a year-long education effort to promote a healthy diet and discourage consumption of carbonated drinks, researchers found no effect on how many children were overweight.
The number of overweight children had increased in both the control and experimental groups. British Medical Journal. 10 October 2007. More...
New experiments reveal that the synthetic estrogen used by women for birth control causes wide ranging health effects in minnows, but that the effects differed when the drug was tested alone compared with when it was mixed with wastewater effluent.
The estrogen caused feminization of male fish, and altered DNA integrity, immune cell number, and ability to breakdown pollutants. The study highlights the need for more research on the potential health effects of exposure to complex mixtures. 7 September 2007. More...
In a unique, new study, scientists report that women exposed to relatively high levels of DDT prior to mid-adolescence are 5 times more likely to develop breast cancer later in life than women with lower exposures.
In contrast, exposure after adolescence is not associated with increased risk. This new approach-- taking age of exposure into account-- may help explain why studies that depend upon exposure measurements after breast cancer develops often report no association. 30 July 2007. More...
Two recently published reports using data from the long running and large Normative Aging Study link elevated bone lead levels with increased heart disease in aging men.
Men with the highest lead levels suffered more heart attacks than those with lower levels. High levels of stress compounded the impact of lead to increase risk of higher blood pressure. 20 June 2007. More...
Scientists report that bacterial resistance to antibiotics important for fighting human disease is heightened in ground and surface waters downstream of a factory pig farm.
The water sources below the swine feedlot also contained higher concentrations of the three types of intestinal bacteria studied than the surface and groundwater tested above the facility. The results show that waste from a swine CAFO can contribute antibiotic-resistant fecal bacteria to natural water systems. 18 May 2007. More...
Extensive results from studies of endocrine-disrupting compounds indicate that toxicological testing can no longer assume high dose results predict the effect of low doses.
Because the design of all regulatory testing has been based upon this assumption, it is highly likely to have missed low dose effects and led to health standards that are too weak. 30 April 2007. More...
Scientists studying residents living in a 1970s era housing development built atop a retired oil field waste pit found an extraordinarily high incidence of lupus, an autoimmune disease.
Researchers calculated that the rate was 30 to 99 times higher in people living in this six-block area of Hobbs, NM, than what would be expected in the general population. The disease was significantly associated with higher than normal exposure to the environmental contaminants mercury and pristane, a hydrocarbon found in petroleum. 10 April 2007. More...
Arsenic interferes with the ability of human fat cells to regulate their blood sugar, according to new research.
The effect is evident at exposure levels below what is necessary for overt toxicity. This result may help explain how the heavy metal contributes to type II diabetes, a chronic, life-changing disease. 6 April 2007. More...
Traditional covert influence of industry on occupational and environmental health policies has turned brazenly overt in the last several years.
More than ever before the OEH community is witnessing the perverse influence and increasing control by industry interests. Government has failed to support independent, public health-oriented practitioners and their organizations, instead joining many corporate endeavors to discourage efforts to protect the health of workers and the community. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health [PDF]. 2 March 2007. More...
Data gathered by the US CDC reveal strong associations between exposures to persistent contaminants and risk of type 2 diabetes.
In a sample of 2,016 Americans, diabetes risk rose significantly with exposure to five of 6 studied contaminants (a PCB, two dioxins and three pesticides). Using an index reflecting simultaneous exposure to the mix of contaminants, the study found that people in the highest exposure category were almost 38 times more likely to have diabetes than those in the lowest. 4 December 2006. More...
The industrialization of livestock production and the widespread use of non-therapeutic antimicrobial growth promotants has intensified the risk for the emergence of new, more virulent, or more resistant microorganisms.
These have reduced the effectiveness of several classes of antibiotics for treating infections in humans and livestock. Recent outbreaks of virulent strains of influenza have arisen from swine and poultry raised in close proximity. Environmental Health Perspectives. 17 November 2006. More...
Six case-control studies by the same team of Swedish epidemiologists consistently found an increased risk of brain tumors associated with cell phone and cordless phone use.
Odds ratios ranged from 1.3 to 6.1, depending upon tumor type and phone technology, with confidence limits showing statistical significance. No consistent associations were found for salivary gland tumors, B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or testicular cancer. World Journal of Surgical Oncology. 25 October 2006. More...
Cancer-related death rates of IBM workers between 1969 and 2001 were elevated compared to the US general population.
All cancers combined were elevated in men and women. Specific cancers elevated in men were brain and central nervous system cancers, kidney, melanoma of skin, and pancreatic cancers. In women, kidney cancer and lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue cancers were higher. Environmental Health. 19 October 2006. More...
|
||||||
![[delete]](/images/x.gif)