Environmental Health Perspectives articles from August 2004

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from August 2004

Olden times: looking back on a career at the NIEHS.(Editorial)
August 1, 2004... After 13 years of distinguished service as director of the NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program (NTP), Kenneth Olden is stepping down to return to the laboratory to continue his work on cancer biology. His tenure at the NIEHS has been...

Impacts of our built environment on public health.(Guest Editorial)
August 1, 2004... We spend more than 90% of our lives indoors (National Research Council 1981), yet we know much more about ambient environmental factors and health than we do about the "built environment" and health. Conceptually, the built environment includes...

Studying human fertility and environmental exposures.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
August 1, 2004... In their review of approaches to studying the influence of environmental exposures on human fecundity, Tingen et al. (2004) compared several ways of assessing fecundity. Fecundity--the probability of pregnancy in couples having regular...

Studying human fertility.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
August 1, 2004... We very much welcome the National Children's Study, which promises to raise the study of factors affecting reproduction and development to a new level. An impressive and exciting range of new methodologies is being developed (Chapin and Buck...

Studying human fertility: response to Slama et al. and Joffe et al.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
August 1, 2004... Slama et al. provide valuable comments on sampling frames to study fecundity, and we agree that the sampling frame is a major methodologic problem in fecundity studies of all designs. The current duration strategy of enrolling couples currently...

The WTC disaster and asbestos regulations.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
August 1, 2004... Landrigan et al. (2004) reported on exposure to asbestos as a result of events involving the World Trade Center (WTC). Their results are somewhat lower than that reported by others (Lange 2004) for this unfortunate event. I reported a single...

The WTC disaster: Landrigan's response.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
August 1, 2004... My colleagues and I thank Lange for his letter confirming our finding that asbestos was present in settled dust as well as in airborne samples obtained at Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center, and for his having agreed with us that...

Trichloroethylene and cardiac malformations.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
August 1, 2004... In a report of cardiac malformations in rats exposed to trichloroethylene (TCE) in drinking water, Johnson et al. (2003) used two (1.5 and 1,100 ppm) of the four treatment concentrations that they reported in a previous study (Dawson et al....

Trichloroethylene: Johnson et al.'s Response.
August 1, 2004... We share Hardin et al.'s belief that any apparent conflict of interest should be reported. We note that Brent provided testimony for the defense in TCE litigation, notably for the same case in which Goldberg (based on his extensive...

Mother's thyroid, baby's health.(Children's Health)
August 1, 2004... Since the 1970s, epidemiologic studies have linked maternal thyroid insufficiency during gestation with fetal brain malformation, fetal death, and miscarriage. The fetus is wholly dependent on the maternal thyroid during the first 10-20 weeks...

Asia's two-stroke engine dilemma.(Air Pollution)
August 1, 2004... Asian cities face a serious air pollution problem from two- and three-wheeled vehicles that run on two-stroke engines. Global experts shared their knowledge about these vehicles at an international conference held 30 March-1 April 2004 at the...

Further support for sustainable cities.(The Beat)
August 1, 2004... In February 2004, representatives at the Asia and Pacific Leadership Forum adopted the Hong Kong Declaration on Sustainable Development for Cities. The document stems from Agenda 21, recently reaffirmed at the World Summit on Sustainable...

BBC 'toons tout healthier snacks.(The Beat)
August 1, 2004... No longer will popular BBC cartoon characters like the Teletubbies and the Tweenies grace the labels of unhealthy snack foods. In April 2004, network officials announced the characters' removal from labels of products with high sugar, salt, and...

Fast food premieres.(The Beat)
August 1, 2004... Director Morgan Spurlock has documented the impact the fast-food industry has on Americans' waistlines in his film Super Size Me. With obesity affecting growing numbers of adults and children alike, Spurlock wanted to find out what was causing...

EU ramps up road improvements.(Noise Pollution)
August 1, 2004... Noise costs the European Union (EU) 10-40 billion annually, by various estimates, with roughly half of this due to road noise. Contributing factors include medical costs, reduced worker productivity, and de facto condemnation of noise-exposed...

Surf's yuck.(Marine Science)
August 1, 2004... To get the real skinny on the health effects of coastal water pollution, talk to a surfer. While catching the waves, surfers are also catching colds, stomach bugs, and more. Surfers long ago made the connection between sick days and urban storm...

European Pollutant Emission Register.(ehp net)
August 1, 2004... Pollutant release and transfer inventories are a relatively new database-driven means of providing information on the who, what, and how much of industrial emissions. Though governments have for some time collected such data for their own use,...

London hits volume control.(The Beat)
August 1, 2004... Noting that noise can affect a person's speech, learning, and concentration, the mayor of London, England, has set forth a citywide plan for a quieter capital. The plan requires reductions by all sources of ambient noise, at all times of...

U.S. signs tobacco treaty.(The Beat)
August 1, 2004... In May 2004, the United States became the 108th country to sign the WHO's international treaty on tobacco control, which outlines a plan of action for issues ranging from tobacco advertising to cigarette smuggling. The action was praised by...

Where does the old oil go?(The Beat)
August 1, 2004... The United States generates approximately 1 billion gallons of used automotive, hydraulic, and cutting oils each year, 75% of which is resold untreated as a cheap industrial fuel. This practice leads to significant emissions of toxic metals...

Fighting obesity through the built environment.(Environews / NIEHS News)
August 1, 2004... Although it's easy to point the finger at everyone from Ronald McDonald to Bill Gates, no one entity or factor is specifically to blame for the nation's raging obesity epidemic, according to speakers at the first-ever national conference on...

Keeping migrant families safe.(beyond the BENCH)
August 1, 2004... For the thousands of migrant farmworkers who come to the United States in search of jobs, this country may seem like the land of opportunity. For their children, however, it also offers the opportunity for serious injury or even death from...

Hepatitis B virus mutation predicts liver cancer.(Headliners / Liver Cancer)
August 1, 2004... Kuang SY, Jackson PE, Wang JB, Lu PX, Munoz A, Qian GS, Kensler TW, Groopman JD. 2004. Specific mutations of hepatitis B virus in plasma predict liver cancer development. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:3575-3580. Liver cancer is the fifth most...

Sprawl: the new manifest destiny?(Environews / Focus)
August 1, 2004... Seen from 400 miles above the Earth, the greater Washington, D.C.--Baltimore area is an aggressive consumer of farmland and open spaces. Computer-enhanced satellite images of the area show paved surfaces as crimson tentacles, pushing steadily...

Vehicular manslaughter: the global epidemic of traffic deaths.(Environews / Spheres of Influence)(Cover Story)
August 1, 2004... Even though traffic-related death rates in the United States and other high-income countries have been declining steadily for several decades, death tolls on the roadways of the world s poorer countries have been skyrocketing. The number of...

Formula for a new foam.(Environews / Innovations)
August 1, 2004... By 2010, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) will be banned globally because of their adverse impact on the planet's protective ozone layer. One industrial activity that has been significantly impacted by this ban is the manufacture of plastic...

Measuring lead effects: blood and bone together are better.(Environews / Science Selections)
August 1, 2004... Many studies have reported impaired renal function and kidney disease at high levels of lead exposure, as estimated mainly through concentrations of serum creatinine (SCr) and rates of creatinine clearance from the body. However, lower-level...

Risky trade-offs: Bangladeshi quest for safe water.(Environews / Science Selections)
August 1, 2004... In an attempt to eliminate epidemic levels of diarrhea and other infectious diseases associated with the use of surface waters, millions of shallow tube wells were drilled into the Ganges Delta alluvium in Bangladesh beginning in the early...

Spraying on a summer night: a safer way to stop West Nile virus.(Environews / Science Selections)
August 1, 2004... A population-level study has shown that night-time pesticide spraying in the late summer and early fall, aimed at controlling adult mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus, can be done in a way that does not drive up the number of people seeking...

The need to decide if all estrogens are intrinsically similar.(Research / Commentary)
August 1, 2004... We used gene expression profiling m investigate whether the molecular effects induced by estrogens of different provenance are intrinsically similar. In this article we show that the physiologic estrogen 17[beta]-estradiol, the phytoestrogen...

Using human disease outbreaks as a guide to multilevel ecosystem interventions.(Research / Commentary)
August 1, 2004... Human health often depends on environmental variables and is generally subject to widespread and comprehensive surveillance. Compared with other available measures of ecosystem health, human disease incidence may be one of the most useful and...

Determinants of bone and blood lead levels among minorities living in the Boston area.(Research / Article)
August 1, 2004... We measured blood and bone lead levels among minority individuals who live in some of Boston's neighborhoods with high minority representation. Compared with samples of predominantly white subjects we had studied before, the 84 volunteers in...

Age-related differences in susceptibility to carcinogenesis: a quantitative analysis of empirical animal bioassay data.(Research / Article)
August 1, 2004... In revising cancer risk assessment guidelines, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analyzed animal cancer bioassay data over different periods of life. In this article, we report an improved analysis of these data (supplemented with...

Behavioral alterations in response to fear-provoking stimuli and tranylcypromine induced by perinatal exposure to bisphenol A and nonylphenol in male rats.(Research / Article)
August 1, 2004... The purpose of this study was to examine whether perinatal exposure to two major environmental endocrine-disrupting chemicals, bisphenol A (BPA; 0.1 mg/kg/day orally) and nonylphenol [NP; 0.1 mg/kg/day (low dose) and 10 mg/kg/day (high dose)...

Hair mercury levels in U.S. children and women of childbearing age: reference range data from NHANES 1999-2000.(Research / Article)
August 1, 2004... Exposure to methyl mercury, a risk factor for neurodevelopmental toxicity, was assessed in U.S. children 1-5 years of age (n = 838) and women 16-49 years of age (n = 1,726) using hair mercury analysis during the 1999-2000 National Health and...

The effect of arsenic mitigation interventions on disease burden in Bangladesh.(Research / Article)
August 1, 2004... Many interventions have been advocated to mitigate the impact of arsenic contamination of drinking water in Bangladesh. However, there are few data on the true magnitude of arsenic-related disease in Bangladesh nationally. There has also been...

Lead, diabetes, hypertension, and renal function: the Normative Aging Study.(Research / Article)
August 1, 2004... In this prospective study, we examined changes in renal function during 6 years of follow-up in relation to baseline lead levels, diabetes, and hypertension among 448 middle-age and elderly men, a subsample of the Normative Aging Study. Lead...

Pesticide spraying for West Nile virus control and emergency department asthma visits in New York City, 2000.(Research / Article)
August 1, 2004... Pyrethroid pesticides were applied via ground spraying to residential neighborhoods in New York City during July-September 2000 to control mosquito vectors of West Nile virus (WNV). Case reports link pyrethroid exposure to asthma exacerbations,...

Increased risk of hepatocellular carcinoma and liver cirrhosis in vinyl chloride workers: synergistic effect of occupational exposure with alcohol intake.(Environmental Medicine / Article)
August 1, 2004... Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and liver cirrhosis (LC) are not well-established vinyl chloride monomer (VCM)-induced diseases. Our aim was to appraise the role of VCM, alcohol intake, and viral hepatitis infection, and their interactions, in...

The relationship between levels of PCBs and pesticides in human hair and blood: preliminary results.(Environmental Medicine / Article)
August 1, 2004... Human hair as a biologic measure of exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) has some advantages over the more commonly used blood and adipose tissue samples. However, one of the primary limitations is the difficulty in distinguishing...

The association between environmental lead exposure and bone density in children.(Children's Health / Article)
August 1, 2004... Osteoporosis is a decrease in bone mineral density (BMD) that predisposes individuals to fractures. Although an elderly affliction, a predisposition may develop during adolescence if a sufficient peak BMD is not achieved. Rat studies have found...

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and related perfluorinated compounds in human maternal and cord blood samples: assessment of PFOS exposure in a susceptible population during pregnancy.(Children's Health / Article)
August 1, 2004... Fluorinated organic compounds (FOCs), such as perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoate (PFOA), and perfluorooctane sulfonylamide (PFOSA), are widely used in the manufacture of plastic, electronics, textile, and construction material...

Fetal exposure to PCBs and their hydroxylated metabolites in a Dutch cohort.(Children's Health / Article)
August 1, 2004... Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are still the most abundant pollutants in wildlife and humans. Hydroxylated PCB metabolites (OH-PCBs) are known to be formed in humans and wildlife. Studies in animals show that these metabolites cause...

Drinking water contaminants, gene polymorphisms, and fetal growth.(Children's Health / Article)
August 1, 2004... There are still many uncertainties regarding the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with exposure to drinking water disinfection by-products. In Montreal, Quebec, Canada, we carried out a hospital-based case-control study including...

NIEHS Dual-Degree Predoctoral Fellowships for Training Clinician-Scientists.(Announcements / NIEHS Extramural Update)
August 1, 2004... Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards issued under the Dual-Degree Predoctoral Fellowships for Training Clinician-Scientists program provide training for clinical scientists. First announced by the NIEHS in 1999, the program was...

Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET).(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
August 1, 2004... The Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) invites applications from domestic and foreign applicants to support collaborative research using simulation and other modeling techniques to...

Defender of the Earth Book Award.(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
August 1, 2004... Red Hen Press announces the first annual Defender of the Earth Book Award to promote awareness and appreciation of the need to respect the beauty and fragility of the environment. This award is for a previously unpublished original manuscript...

Calendar.(Announcements)(Calendar)
August 1, 2004... 2004 September 4-9 September, Sat-Thu. 8th International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Conference. Christchurch, New Zealand. Information: Conference Innovators, PO Box 13494, Christchurch, New Zealand, +64 3 379 0390, fax: +64-3-379...

An Air that Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana, Uncovered a National Scandal.
August 1, 2004... An Air that Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana, Uncovered a National Scandal By Andrew Schneider and David McCumber New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2004. 440 pp. ISBN: 0-399-15095-1, $25.95 cloth. Asbestos has tragically...

New books.(Announcements)
August 1, 2004... Academic Health Centers: Leading Change in the 21st Century Linda T. Kohn, ed. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004. 216 pp. ISBN: 0-309-08893-3, $39 Bioethics in Complexity: Foundations and Evolutions Sergio De Risio, Franco F....

Toxicogenomics in risk assessment: communicating the challenges.(Guest Editorial)
August 15, 2004... In 1999 the membership of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) formed a multisector consortium to address challenges associated with the integration of genomics data into risk...

Regulatory acceptance of toxicogenomics data.(Guest Editorial)
August 15, 2004... Early identification of toxicologic side effects of a drug candidate is critical to an efficient drug discovery and development process. Toxicogenomics, the marriage of data-rich genomics approaches with traditional toxicologic end point...

Microarray data standards: an open letter.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
August 15, 2004... A fundamental principle guiding the publication of scientific results is that the data supporting any scholarly work must be made fully available to the research community in a form that allows the basic conclusions to be evaluated...

Encyclopedia of DNA.(Genomics)
August 15, 2004... The completion of the Human Genome Project in April 2003 was a landmark accomplishment, but much remains to be learned before scientists fully understand the true functionality of the DNA sequences in our genetic matter. To that end, the...

BAC to the future.(Systems Biology)
August 15, 2004... In a step forward into the future of gene expression research, molecular biologists and neurobiologists have joined forces to map the genes that control brain structure and neural circuits. The project, called the Gene Expression Nervous System...

The path to species comparison.(Bioinformatics)
August 15, 2004... Systems biology relies on integrating genetic, proteomics, and metabolic data, and on understanding interdependent cellular and intercellular events that are constantly in flux. To accomplish this feat, researchers have relied on DNA and...

Activating cancer drug discovery.(Pharmacogenomics)
August 15, 2004... Normal cells that transform into cancer cells undergo various metabolic changes, including shifts in activities of enzymes that mediate macromolecule synthesis and growth-signaling pathways. Proteomics technology now provides an elegant way to...

National Center for Biotechnology Information.(txgnet)
August 15, 2004... The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Library of Medicine was created as a means of developing new information technologies to help advance the field of molecular biology. Composed of a group of scientists...

Cooperation achieves results at UNC-CH.(Environews / NCT Update)
August 15, 2004... Now that scientists have solved the code for the human genome and are moving forward to sequence the genomes of other organisms, a significant challenge lies in how to harness this vast amount of new information to benefit society. Recognizing...

Toxicogenomics data: the road to acceptance.(Environews / Focus)
August 15, 2004... Questions abound regarding the use by regulatory agencies of data from microarray experiments. How does a regulator deal with risk assessment data that scientists are often unable to interpret--data that some companies are anxious to submit and...

Supervised sorting: training computers to classify toxicants.(Environews / Science Selections)
August 15, 2004... A new application of an existing computer learning system can improve the use of gene expression profiles to classify toxicants to which an animal has been exposed, according to work published this month by Guido Steiner and colleagues at the...

It's all in the interaction: quantitating gene networks.(Environews / Science Selections)
August 15, 2004... Toxicologists who use microarrays hope to uncover relationships that link gene expression data to signal transduction pathways, gene networks that are often used to describe the sequence of biochemical events controlling cellular function. The...

Gene interaction network suggests dioxin induces a significant linkage between aryl hydrocarbon receptor and retinoic acid receptor beta.(Toxicogenomics)
August 15, 2004... Gene expression arrays (gene chips) have enabled researchers to roughly quantify the level of mRNA expression for a large number of genes in a single sample. Several methods have been developed for the analysis of gene array data including...

Valproic acid teratogenicity: a toxicogenomics approach.(Toxicogenomics)
August 15, 2004... Embryonic development is a highly coordinated set of processes that depend on hierarchies of signaling and gene regulatory networks, and the disruption of such networks may underlie many cases of chemically induced birth defects. The...

Discriminating different classes of toxicants by transcript profiling.(Toxicogenomics)
August 15, 2004... Male rats were treated with various model compounds or the appropriate vehicle controls. Most substances were either well-known hepatotoxicants or showed hepatotoxicity during preclinical testing. The aim of the present study was to determine...

Assessment of prediction confidence and domain extrapolation of two structure-activity relationship models for predicting estrogen receptor binding activity.(Toxicogenomics)
August 15, 2004... Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) methods have been widely applied in drug discovery, lead optimization, toxicity prediction, and regulatory decisions. Despite major advances in algorithms and software, QSAR models have...

Biokinetics and subchronic toxic effects of oral arsenite, arsenate, monomethylarsonic acid, and dimethylarsinic acid in v-Ha-ras transgenic (Tg.AC) mice.(Toxicogenomics)
August 15, 2004... Previous research demonstrated that 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) treatment increased the number of skin papillomas in v-Ha-ras transgenic (Tg.AC) mice that had received sodium arsenite [(As(III)] in drinking water, indicating that...

NHLBI Clinical Proteomics Programs.(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
August 15, 2004... This Request for Application (RFA) will establish Clinical Proteomics Programs to promote systematic, comprehensive, large-scale validation of existing and new candidate protein markers that are appropriate for routine use in the diagnosis and...

New technology for proteomics and glycomics (SBIR/STTR).(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
August 15, 2004... Notice: this program announcement (PA) must be read in conjunction with the current Omnibus Solicitation of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for...

Intellectual property rights in genetics and genomics.(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
August 15, 2004... The purpose of this RFA is to encourage the study of the role of laws and policies regarding intellectual property rights to genetics and genomics research and development, and the effect of such laws and policies on progress in these fields...

SBIR/STTR: circulating cells and DNA in cancer detection.(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
August 15, 2004... Notice: This Request for Application (RFA) must be read in conjunction with the current Omnibus Solicitation of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...

Calendar.(Announcements)(Calendar)
August 15, 2004... 2004 September 1-3 September, Wed-Fri. Genomes to Systems. Manchester, United Kingdom. Information: Consortium for Post Genome Science, e-mail: cossins@liverpool.ac.uk, Internet: http://www.postgenomeconsortium.com/conference_2004/...

Advances in Protein Chemistry, Volume 65: Proteome Characterization and Proteomics.
August 15, 2004... Advances in Protein Chemistry, Volume 65: Proteome Characterization and Proteomics Edited by Richard D. Smith and Timothy D. Veenstra San Diego, CA:Academic Press, 2003. 413 pp. ISBN: 0-12-034265-2, $139.95 cloth Proteins, like...

New books.(Announcements)
August 15, 2004... Bioethics in Complexity: Foundations and Evolutions Sergio De Risio, Franco F Orsucci, eds. London: Imperial College Press, 2004. 100 pp. ISBN: 1-86094-399-3, $34 Bioinformatics, Biocomputing and Perl: An Introduction to Bioinformatics...