Environmental Health Perspectives articles from April 2008

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from April 2008

A new day for global environmental health.(Editorial)
April 1, 2008... doi:10.1289/ehp.11322 This April marks the celebration of two significant global events relevant to the mission of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated 7 April...

The Cuyahoga is still burning.(Editorial)(Editorial)
April 1, 2008... doi:10.1289/ehp.11419 Almost 40 years ago, in 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire as it flowed through Akron and Cleveland, Ohio. Although it was not the only river to burn, the image of this burning river--the terrible wronging of...

Aggregation and toxicology of titanium dioxide nanoparticles.(Correspondence)
April 1, 2008... doi:10.1289/ehp.10915 In their study of inhalation exposure of titanium dioxide particles, Grassian et al. (2007) presented a transmission electron micrograph (TEM) (their Figure 2A) as an image of "dispersed" Ti[O.sub.2] nanoparticles....

DDT and breast cancer.(Correspondence)(Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane)
April 1, 2008... doi:10.1289/ehp.11025 In a recent article, Cohn et al. (2007) noted an association between increased breast cancer risk and p,p'-DDT [1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane] exposure early in life. Their article should be...

Comments on "The Sweet Scent on Baby's Breath?".(Correspondence)
April 1, 2008... doi:10.1289/ehp.10993 The stated mission of Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) is to serve as a forum for the discussion of the interrelationships between the environment and human health by publishing in a balanced and...

The interaction of agricultural pesticides and marginal iodine nutrition status as a cause of autism spectrum disorders.(Correspondence)
April 1, 2008... doi:10.1289/ehp.11010 Roberts et al. (2007) recently reported on the results of their investigation into the relationship between agricultural pesticides and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and found an association between organochlorines...

An eye to the sea.(CHEMICAL EXPOSURES)
April 1, 2008... Gardening, choosing contraception, driving to work--we don't typically think of these actions as having a high impact on fisheries, but they can. A session titled "From Kitchen Sinks to Ocean Basins: Emerging Chemical Contaminants and Human...

A climate for pollution.(URBAN ISSUES)(Report)
April 1, 2008... Carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) emissions may be killing people by increasing airborne concentrations of other pollutants including ozone, particulate matter, and carcinogens such as formaldehyde and benzene, a Stanford University scientist reports...

Acrylamide study suggests breast cancer link.(DIET & NUTRITION)(Report)
April 1, 2008... The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies acrylamide as a probable human carcinogen. It has only been in recent months that an epidemiologic study first found a link between dietary acrylamide and human cancer risk. Now Danish...

Fe-TAML takes on estrogens in effluent.(REMEDIATION)(Report)
April 1, 2008... For more than a decade, endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have been an environmental and health worry, linked to cancer and reproductive abnormalities in humans and animals. The European Union's new REACH (Registration, Evaluation,...

WHO ultraviolet radiation website.(ehpnet)(World Health Organization)(Website overview)
April 1, 2008... http://www.who.int/uv/en/ The World Health Organization (WHO) has devoted a section of its website to activities related to the health effects of sunlight. The homepage for this section provides a brief overview of the topic along with...

Dust up in the west.(The Beat)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... A study published in the 24 February 2008 issue of Nature Geoscience shows that the western United States has become 500% dustier over the past two centuries, with dust deposition higher than at any other point in the past 5,000 years. The...

Tiny particles a great solution?(The Beat)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... University of South Australia researchers have discovered a new approach that could help prevent waterborne disease for millions of people. Their method, described in volume 5, issue 2/3 (2008) of the International Journal of Nanotechnology, is...

Bright nights and breast cancer.(The Beat)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Using NASA satellite data showing the amount of nighttime light, reaching space, scientists at the University of Haifa have shown that living in a brightly lit area may contribute to greater risk of breast cancer. The scientists generated a map...

Pollution's effects on intelligence.(The Beat)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Unlike links between air pollution and effects on the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, which have been well documented, associations between such pollution and neurologic effects remain largely unexamined. In one of the first such...

Flour mill fathers have fewer sons.(The Beat)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... A body of research has shown that exposures to a number of chemicals can affect men's reproductive health as well the survival of male fetuses. Now a study in the February 2008 issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine adds to this...

Nigeria taxes e-waste imports.(The Beat)(Brief article)
April 1, 2008... Nigeria's information minister John Odey announced in February 2008 the Nigerian government's plans to impose duties on imported "e-waste"--used computers, appliances, cell phones, and other electronic goods sent to developing countries for...

Benefits of sunlight: a bright spot for human health.(Focus)
April 1, 2008... Each day, Apollo's fiery chariot makes its way across the sky, bringing life-giving light to the planet. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, Apollo was the god of medicine and healing as well as of sun and light--but Apollo could bring sickness...

Drought in the Southeast: lessons for water management.(Spheres of Influence)
April 1, 2008... Long spared the persistent droughts that have plagued the western United States this century, the Southeast suddenly finds itself the most rain-starved region of the country. In the face of this threat, policy makers and utility companies are...

Better than eating worms? Children's dietary exposure to OP pesticides.(Science Selections)
April 1, 2008... Widespread agricultural use of organophosphate (OP) pesticides frequently leads to low-level exposures in adults and children who eat conventionally grown foods. The frequently used one-time measurement of OP metabolites reveals only short-term...

Arsenic and erectile dysfunction: drinking contaminated well water increases risk.(Science Selections)
April 1, 2008... Age is the most common risk factor for erectile dysfunction (ED), the consistent or recurrent inability to attain and/or maintain a penile erection sufficient for sexual performance. The correlation between age and ED is attributed to declines...

Cooking with wood may fuel low birth weight: kitchen smoke puts babies at risk.(Science Selections)
April 1, 2008... The etiology of low birth weight (LBW; defined as weighing less than 2.5 kg at birth) is complex, with demographic, nutritional, reproductive, and socioeconomic factors each potentially playing a role. Inhaled tobacco smoke is the leading cause...

Bleached, but not by the sun: sunscreen linked to coral damage.(Science Selections)
April 1, 2008... Warm, shallow, sun-drenched seas sparkling with brilliantly colored fish and coral species--we've all seen dazzling images of tropical reefs. Coral reefs are among the most biologically productive and diverse ecosystems in the world, providing...

NIEHS extramural global environmental health portfolio: opportunities for collaboration.(Commentary)
April 1, 2008... Global environmental health (GEH) has evolved into a critical topic for environmental health researchers and practitioners. Emergent issues--such as health effects of climate change and electronic waste disposal--have joined more familiar GEH...

Phytoestrogens and breast cancer prevention: possible mechanisms of action.(Review)
April 1, 2008... Breast cancer is an important public health problem worldwide. In the United States, breast cancer represents the most common neoplasm and the second most frequent cause of cancer death in women (American Cancer Society 2006). Steroidal...

Transformation of human urothelial cells (UROtsa) by [As.sup.3+] and [Cd.sup.2+] induces the expression of keratin 6a.(Research)
April 1, 2008... This laboratory has demonstrated that both cadmium and arsenite can directly malignantly transform the UROtsa cell line (Sens et al. 2004). It was also shown that the tumor heterotransplants produced by the [Cd.sup.2+]- and...

Sunscreens cause coral bleaching by promoting viral infections.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Coral reefs are among the most biologically productive and diverse ecosystems in the world, representing hot spots of marine biodiversity, and directly sustaining half a billion people (Moberg and Folke 1999; Wilkinson 2004). Approximately 60%...

Contamination of potable water distribution systems by multiantimicrobial-resistant enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Escherichia coli, a normal inhabitant of the gastrointestinal tract of warm-blooded animals, is used as an indicator of water quality. Certain serotypes have been associated with waterborne disease outbreaks and mortality in humans (Bruneau et...

The impact of secondary particles on the association between ambient ozone and mortality.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Tropospheric ozone, a secondary pollutant, is a major constituent of photochemical smog. There is very strong scientific evidence that exposure to ozone leads to a variety of adverse health outcomes. Recent population-based time-series studies...

Fine particle sources and cardiorespiratory morbidity: an application of chemical mass balance and factor analytical source-apportionment methods.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Recent interest in the health effects of particulate matter (PM) has focused on identifying sources of PM that pose the greatest health risks. Because it is likely that not all PM is equally toxic, epidemiologic models that incorporate...

Characterization of phthalate exposure among pregnant women assessed by repeat air and urine samples.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Phthalates are a class of synthetic compounds used widely in polyvinyl chloride plastics, in cosmetics, and in building materials. Biomonitoring data suggest that > 75% of the U.S. population is exposed to phthalates, including...

Developmental exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls influences stroke outcome in adult rats.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Neonatal factors can cause latent functional changes that increase susceptibility to disease and/or dysfunction later in life. This hypothesis of the "developmental origins of adult disease" was originally derived from studies that identified...

Residential exposure to traffic-related air pollution and survival after heart failure.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Long-term exposure to particulate air pollution has been associated with increases in mortality, especially in cardiopulmonary mortality (Dockery et al. 1993; Hoek et al. 2002; Jerrett et al. 2005; Miller et al. 2007; Pope et al. 2002). Even...

Associations between recent exposure to ambient fine particulate matter and blood pressure in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA).(Research)
April 1, 2008... Exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) has been associated with increased hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease, and increased cardiovascular disease mortality (Dockery 2001; Miller et al. 2007). Studies have suggested that...

Do targeted bans of insecticides to prevent deaths from self-poisoning result in reduced agricultural output?(Research)
April 1, 2008... Pesticide self-poisoning is a major problem in rural areas of the Asian Pacific developing world (Eddleston and Phillips 2004; Konradsen et al. 2005). Widespread agricultural use of pesticides and home storage make them easily available for...

Ecological uptake and depuration of carbon nanotubes by Lumbriculus variegatus.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Carbon nanotubes have been the subject of extensive research over the past decade because of potential breakthroughs in a broad range of applications. Discovered by Sumio Iijima in 1991 (Iijima 1991), nanotubes are essentially seamless...

Genetic variants associated with arsenic susceptibility: study of purine nucleoside phosphorylase, arsenic (+3) methyltransferase, and glutathione S-transferase omega genes.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Arsenic is recognized as a potent environmental toxicant that causes severe health problems in populations chronically exposed to arsenic-contaminated drinking water. However, the disease manifestations often depend on individual genetic...

Use of cell viability assay data improves the prediction accuracy of conventional quantitative structure-activity relationship models of animal carcinogenicity.(Research)
April 1, 2008... The traditional approaches for in vivo animal chemical safety testing are costly, time consuming, and have a low throughput (Bucher and Portier 2004). To improve the efficiency of assessing potential human health hazards of environmental...

Exposure to bisphenol a prenatally or in adulthood promotes [T.sub.H]2 cytokine production associated with reduction of CD[4.sup.+]CD[25.sup.+] regulatory T cells.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogenic endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC), has drawn attention because of its potential for human exposure. BPA is widely used, including in dentistry, food packaging, and lacquers to coat food cans and water pipes....

Angiogenic potential of 3-nitro-4-hydroxy benzene arsonic acid (roxarsone).(Research)
April 1, 2008... Arsenic contamination of drinking water is a worldwide public health concern. The extent of the concern in some countries has reached a point such that some are calling this humanity's largest mass poisoning (Bhattacharjee 2007). Even low...

Drinking-water arsenic exposure modulates gene expression in human lymphocytes from a U.S. population.(Research)
April 1, 2008... Arsenic exposure impairs development and can lead to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes [International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) 2004]. The mechanism underlying these effects remains unknown. Primarily because of geologic...

Risk of erectile dysfunction induced by arsenic exposure through well water consumption in Taiwan.(Environmental Medicine)
April 1, 2008... According to the definitions of the First International Consultation on erectile dysfunction (ED), co-sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), ED is considered "the consistent or recurrent inability to attain and/or to maintain a...

Dietary intake and its contribution to longitudinal organophosphorus pesticide exposure in urban/suburban children.(Children's Health)
April 1, 2008... Organophosphorus (OP) pesticides, a group of cholinesterase-inhibiting insecticides, have been widely used both in residential and agricultural environments because of their broad spectrum of insecticidal activity and effectiveness. The...

Prenatal exposure to wood fuel smoke and low birth weight.(Children's Health)
April 1, 2008... Low birth weight (LBW) is associated with high mortality and morbidity in infants (Ismail et al. 2003; Khan et al. 2005; Moss et al. 2002; Tripathy et al. 2002). LBW leads to postnatal stunting (Fikree et al. 2000), micronutrient deficiencies...

Personal and ambient air pollution exposures and lung function decrements in children with asthma.(Children's Health)
April 1, 2008... Acute adverse effects of air pollution on asthma outcomes in small cohorts of children have been reported in longitudinal studies using repeated daily measurements (panel studies). More recently, this includes positive associations between a...

Risk of childhood cancers associated with residence in agriculturally intense areas in the United States.(Children's Health)
April 1, 2008... Increased incidence of certain cancers among farmers and workers employed in agricultural settings has been reported in a variety of epidemiologic studies, raising concerns about exposure to agricultural chemicals in general and agricultural...

Calendar.(Announcements)(Calendar)
April 1, 2008... 2008 April 22-26 April, Tue-Sat. Ecocity World Summit 2008. San Francisco, California. Information: Kirstin Miller, Conference Director, 1560 Alice Street, #21, Oakland, CA 94612 USA, 510-419-0850, fax: 510-444-4508, e-mail:...

Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: From Basic Research to Clinical Practice.(Book review)
April 1, 2008... Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: From Basic Research to Clinical Practice edited by Andrea C. Gore Totowa, NJ:Humana Press, 2007. 361 pp. ISBN: 978-1-58829-830-0, $139 Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: From Basic Research to...

New books.(Announcements)(Bibliography)
April 1, 2008... Air Pollution XVI C.A. Brebbia, J.W.S. Longhurst Billerica, MA: WIT Press, 2008. 600 pp. ISBN: 978-1-84564-127-6, $396 Biological Monitoring: Theory and Applications M.E. Conti, ed. Billerica, MA: WIT Press, 2008. 256...