Environmental Health Perspectives articles from February 2006

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from February 2006

Norton Nelson's legacy: the science of environmental health.(Guest Editorial)
February 1, 2006... The field of environmental health science is now a recognized and respected branch of science in American and worldwide academia. One of the pioneers who had a major role in the establishment of environmental health as a true scientific...

Environmental health sciences and the community.(NIEHS: DIRECTOR'S PERSPECTIVE)
February 1, 2006... Environmental health science investigators train for many years to acquire the in-depth knowledge and expertise critical to successful research. The inherent components of hypothesis generation, study design, methodology, analysis, and...

Phosphine toxicity: ethical questions.(Perpectives / Correspondence)
February 1, 2006... In their article McDaniel et al. (2005) presented three case studies, one involving an evaluation by Sciences International, Inc. (Pepelko et al. 2004), of which I am the president and CEO. This case study was related to the reregistration of...

Phosphine toxicity: McDaniel et al. Respond.(Perpectives / Correspondence)
February 1, 2006... We appreciate the opportunity to respond to Anderson's letter. We do thank Anderson for providing details on the review process for the article eventually published in Risk Analysis (Pepelko et al. 2004) that was based on Sciences...

Effects of lead on IQ in children.(Perpectives / Correspondence)
February 1, 2006... Lanphear et al. (2005) pooled data from seven prospective studies that had been initiated to test the effect of prenatal and early childhood lead exposure. The primary investigators of these studies had planned the studies so that the sequence...

Lead and IQ in children: Lanphear et al. respond.(Perpectives / Correspondence)
February 1, 2006... As described in our original article (Lanphear et al. 2005), we decided apriori to focus our analyses on the blood lead (BPh) variable that had the strongest association with IQ (intelligence quotient) scores. This decision was made to limit...

Sheep reared on sewage sludge-treated pasture: flawed conclusions.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
February 1, 2006... I read the article by Paul et al. (2005) with interest. Although the authors devoted considerable energy and resources to their study, I believe that the experimental design is fundamentally flawed and the authors' conclusions are not supported...

Sheep reared on sewage sludge-treated pasture: sharpe responds.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
February 1, 2006... We thank Evans for his interest in our article (Paul et al. 2005) and for his comments. He appears to have misunderstood the purpose of our study, which was to provide evidence as to whether or not the complex mixture of chemicals that are...

Prenatal phthalate exposure and anogenital distance in male infants.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
February 1, 2006... In our article "Decrease in Anogenital Distance among Male Infants with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure" (Swan et al. 2005), we reported results of our recent study on the relationship between anogenital distance (AGD) in boys and their mother's...

Phthalates not in plastic food packaging.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
February 1, 2006... I am writing with regard to a misleading photograph and caption in the article "Children's Centers Study Kids and Chemicals" (Phillips 2005) published in the October 2005 issue of EHP. The article includes the following caption (p. A 665): ...

Errata.(Correction notice)(Correction Notice)
February 1, 2006... Azziz-Baumgarmer et al. noticed two errors in "Case-Control Study of an Acute Aflatoxicosis Outbreak--Kenya?" [Environ Health Perspect 113:1779-1783]. The units in Figure 2 and Table 2 should be nanograms per milligram instead of micrograms per...

Marine toxin hinders cognitive development.(Neurology)
February 1, 2006... Domoic acid, a naturally occurring marine toxin, causes acute symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting, seizures, and memory loss in people sickened by eating contaminated shellfish. Now a recent study reveals that exposure to even tiny amounts of domoic...

Cloud banks: airlines save halon.(Policy)
February 1, 2006... The airlines of the developing world are being advised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to bank their stocks of halons--chemicals vital for extinguishing aircraft fires--as the 2010 deadline to cease production approaches....

Back-door cigarette marketing?(The Beat)
February 1, 2006... At a time when marketing restrictions make it harder for tobacco manufacturers to reach the youth market, a number of new candy- and liqueur-flavored tobacco products are hitting the market. A review of internal tobacco industry documents...

In my skin.(The Beat)
February 1, 2006... Rates of melanoma, the deadliest skin cancer, continue to climb, more than tripling in Caucasians between 1980 and 2002, according to the American Cancer Society. Now skin cancer experts at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne have developed a...

The healing quiet.(The Beat)
February 1, 2006... A new study from The Johns Hopkins University shows that a noisy hospital environment may make patients sicker and lead to higher stress levels and burnout among staff. The study, presented at the 2005 annual meeting of the Acoustical Society...

PD gene and oxidative stress.(Parkinson Disease)
February 1, 2006... A gene linked to familial Parkinson disease (PD) may protect neurons from oxidative damage, according to two independent studies in the fruit fly Drosophila. Flies lacking the DJ-1 gene showed selective sensitivity to widely used agricultural...

Expanding the medicine chest.(Asthma)
February 1, 2006... About 10% of the asthmatic population has a severe form of the disease that can require progressively higher doses of corticosteroid drugs to manage the symptoms. Now a new therapeutic approach, described in the December 2005 issue of Thorax,...

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.(ehpnet)
February 1, 2006... More than 600 disorders affect the nervous system, and neurological disorders strike an estimated 50 million Americans annually. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) is the NIH institute charged with overseeing...

New guidelines for pediatric asthma.(The Beat)
February 1, 2006... More than 6 million U.S. children have asthma, the leading cause of school absenteeism attributable to chronic conditions and the third leading cause of hospitalization among children under age 15. In November 2005, the National Environmental...

Own private Kyoto.(The Beat)
February 1, 2006... Despite producing 24% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, the United States has not signed on to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases. An analysis in the 17 November 2005 Nature shows, however, that as much as one-third of the...

Software for sorting satellite images.(The Beat)
February 1, 2006... NASA satellites generate enough data daily to fill 1,500 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica, but satellite data maps often have blank spots where a satellite wasn't able to record data on a particular day. Now statisticians at The Ohio State...

Making progress on breast cancer.(Environews / NIEHS News)
February 1, 2006... For the last two years, scientists across the country have been working together in a highly collaborative effort to uncover the links between exposure to environmental pollutants, puberty, and development of breast cancer. On 10-11 November...

Decreased melatonin production linked to light exposure.(Headliners / Breast Cancer)
February 1, 2006... Decreased Melatonin Production Linked to Light Exposure Blask DE, Brainard GC, Dauchy RT, Hanifin JP, Davidson LK, Krause JA, et al. 2005. Cancer Res 65(23):11174-11184. The incidence of breast cancer is up to fives times higher in...

New thinking on neurodevelopment.(Environews / Focus)
February 1, 2006... The notion that some substances in the environment can damage the nervous system has an ancient history. The neurotoxicity of lead was recognized more than 2,000 years ago by the Greek physician Dioscerides, who wrote, "Lead makes the mind give...

Flu vaccine production gets a shot in the arm.(Environews / Innovations)
February 1, 2006... The world is holding its collective breath. Governments and health organizations are feverishly preparing, stockpiling drugs and vaccines, and formulating contingency plans. Headlines are coughing out dire predictions of up to 100 million...

OP pesticides in children's bodies: the effects of a conventional versus organic diet.(Environews / Science Selections)
February 1, 2006... Conventional agriculture includes the use of pesticides to control insects in vegetable, fruit, wheat, and other crops, so it's no surprise that foods derived from these crops can therefore contain pesticide residues. What's in question,...

Endocrine disruption and flame-retardant chemicals: PBDE-99 effects on rat sexual development.(Environews / Science Selections)
February 1, 2006... Chemical flame retardants containing polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) have attracted growing attention in recent years from toxicologists. Unlike their chemical cousins, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), environmental levels...

Proteomic insights into brain development: neurotoxic effects of PBDE-99 in mice.(Environews / Science Selections)
February 1, 2006... The amounts of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) found in human tissues, particularly breast milk, are rising steadily. PBDEs are flame retardants that reduce fire risks when added to electronic equipment and household products....

Pressed for hard facts: multiple tetrachloroethylene--cancer links go unconfirmed.(Environews / Science Selections)
February 1, 2006... Recent U.S. studies have linked dry cleaners' exposure to tetrachloroethylene, a solvent used in the industry, to an increased risk for a number of cancers, including esophageal, lung, and cervical cancer. Results of other studies on bladder...

Elemental mercury spills.(Commentary)
February 1, 2006... Sources of elemental mercury ([Hg.sup.0]) include old natural gas regulators, manometers, sphygmomanometers, thermometers, and thermostats. Causes of [Hg.sup.0] spills include improper storage, container breakage, children playing with...

Assessing the reliability and credibility of industry science and scientists.(Commentary)
February 1, 2006... The chemical industry extensively researches and tests its products to implement product stewardship commitments and to ensure compliance with governmental requirements. In this commentary we argue that a wide variety of mechanisms enable...

Pesticides and Parkinson's disease--is there a link?
February 1, 2006... Parkinson's disease (PD) is an idiopathic disease of the nervous system characterized by progressive tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and postural instability. It has been postulated that exogenous toxicants, including pesticides, might be...

A toxicologic review of quantum dots: toxicity depends on physicochemical and environmental factors.
February 1, 2006... As a growing applied science, nanotechnology has considerable global socioeconomic value, and the benefits afforded by nanoscale materials and processes are expected to have significant impacts on almost all industries and all areas of society....

Blood mercury reporting in NHANES: identifying Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, and multiracial groups.(Research)
February 1, 2006... INTRODUCTION: Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans are a potentially high-risk group for dietary exposure to methylmercury through fish consumption. However, blood mercury levels in this group have not been identified in recent...

Apparent half-lives of hepta- to decabrominated diphenyl ethers in human serum as determined in occupationally exposed workers.(Research)
February 1, 2006... The aim of the present study was to model apparent serum half-lives of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) with 7-10 bromine substituents. Workers with occupational exposure to PBDEs have elevated serum levels of PBDEs, but these substances...

Dermal exposure to jet fuel JP-8 significantly contributes to the production of urinary naphthols in fuel-cell maintenance workers.(Research)
February 1, 2006... Jet propulsion fuel 8 (JP-8) is the major jet fuel used worldwide and has been recognized as a major source of chemical exposure, both inhalation and dermal, for fuel-cell maintenance workers. We investigated the contributions of dermal and...

Mortality from ischemic heart disease and diabetes mellitus (type 2) in four U.S. wheat-producing states: a hypothesis-generating study.(Research)
February 1, 2006... In this ecologic study I examined ischemic heart disease (IHD) and diabetes mortality in rural agricultural counties of Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, in association with environmental exposure to chlorophenoxy herbicides,...

Effects of developmental exposure to 2,2',4,4',5-pentabromodiphenyl ether (PBDE-99) on sex steroids, sexual development, and sexually dimorphic behavior in rats.(Research)
February 1, 2006... Increasing concentrations of polybrominated flame retardants, including polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), in breast milk cause concern about possible developmental effects in nursed babies. Because previous studies in rats have indicated...

Breast milk dioxins in Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta.(Research)
February 1, 2006... There are no previous reports from South China on chemically determined polychlorinated dibenzo-para-dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in human breast milk expressed as...

Effects of multiday exposure to ozone on airway inflammation as determined using sputum induction.(Research)
February 1, 2006... Single short-term exposures to ozone are known to cause acute changes in pulmonary function and neutrophilic airway inflammation. The respiratory health effects of repeated exposures are not as well studied. Pulmonary function decrements are...

Cancer in persons working in dry cleaning in the Nordic countries.(Research)
February 1, 2006... U.S. studies have reported an increased risk of esophageal and some other cancers in dry cleaners exposed to tetrachloroethylene. We investigated whether the U.S. findings could be reproduced in the Nordic countries using a series of...

Assessing the measurement precision of various arsenic forms and arsenic exposure in the National Human Exposure Assessment Survey (NHEXAS).(Research)
February 1, 2006... Archived samples collected from 1995 to 1997 in the National Human Exposure Assessment Survey (NHEXAS) in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 (R5) and the Children's Study (CS) in Minnesota were analyzed for total arsenic, arsenate...

A randomized controlled trial assessing infectious disease risks from bathing in fresh recreational waters in relation to the concentration of Escherichia coli, intestinal enterococci, Clostridium perfringens, and somatic coliphages.(Research)
February 1, 2006... We performed epidemiologic studies at public freshwater bathing sites in Germany to provide a better scientific basis for the definition of recreational water quality standards. A total of 2,196 participants were recruited from the local...

Exposure to fumonisins and the occurrence of neural tube defects along the Texas-Mexico border.(Research)
February 1, 2006... Along the Texas-Mexico border, the prevalence of neural tube defects (NTDs) among Mexican-American women doubled during 1990-1991. The human outbreak began during the same crop year as epizootics attributed to exposure to fumonisin, a mycotoxin...

Survival analysis to estimate association between short-term mortality and air pollution.(Research)
February 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Ecologic studies are commonly used to report associations between short-term air pollution and mortality. In such studies, the unit of observation is the day rather than the individual. Moreover, individual data on the subjects are...

Radio frequency nonionizing radiation in a community exposed to radio and television broadcasting.(Research)
February 1, 2006... Exposure to radio frequency (RF) nonionizing radiation from telecommunications is pervasive in modern society. Elevated disease risks have been observed in some populations exposed to radio and television transmissions, although findings are...

Proteomic evaluation of neonatal exposure to 2,2',4,4',5-pentabromodiphenyl ether.(Research)
February 1, 2006... Exposure to the brominated flame retardant 2,2',4,4',5-pentabromodiphenyl ether (PBDE-99) during the brain growth spurt disrupts normal brain development in mice and results in disturbed spontaneous behavior in adulthood. The neurodevelopmental...

Organic diets significantly lower children's dietary exposure to organophosphorus pesticides.(Research / Children's Health)
February 1, 2006... We used a novel study design to measure dietary organophosphorus pesticide exposure in a group of 23 elementary school-age children through urinary biomonitoring. We substituted most of children's conventional diets with organic food items for...

Measuring potential dermal transfer of a pesticide to children in a child care center.(Reseacrh / Children's Health)
February 1, 2006... Currently, the major determinants of children's exposure to pesticides are not fully understood, and approaches for measuring and assessing dermal exposure in a residential setting have not been sufficiently evaluated. In one approach, dermal...

Human breast milk contamination with phthalates and alterations of endogenous reproductive hormones in infants three months of age.(Research / Children's Health)
February 1, 2006... Phthalates adversely affect the male reproductive system in animals. We investigated whether phthalate monoester contamination of human breast milk had any influence on the postnatal surge of reproductive hormones in newborn boys as a sign of...

A case-crossover study of wintertime ambient air pollution and infant bronchiolitis.(Research / Children's Health)
February 1, 2006... We examined the association of infant bronchiolitis with acute exposure to ambient air pollutants. DESIGN: We employed a time-stratified case-crossover method and based the exposure windows on a priori, biologically based hypotheses. ...

The influence of large-scale airborne particle decline and traffic-related exposure on children's lung function.(Research / Children's Health)
February 1, 2006... Between 1991 and 2000, ambient air pollution in East Germany changed to resemble West German pollution levels: The concentration of total suspended particles (TSPs) decreased on a broad scale while traffic increased. During that time, we...

Preface: recent findings in mercury health effects.(Research / Mini-Monograph)
February 1, 2006... The four articles in this mini-monograph represent a cross-section of results from human studies on mercury exposure and health outcomes presented at the most recent International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant (ICMGP) held 28 June...

Personality traits in miners with past occupational elemental mercury exposure.(Research / Mini-Monograph)
February 1, 2006... In this study, we evaluated the impact of long-term occupational exposure to elemental mercury vapor ([Hg.sup.0]) on the personality traits of ex-mercury miners. Study groups included 53 ex-miners previously exposed to [Hg.sup.0] and 53...

The roles of serum selenium and selenoproteins on mercury toxicity in environmental and occupational exposure.(Research / Mini-Monograph)
February 1, 2006... Many studies have found that mercury (Hg) exposure is associated with selenium (Se) accumulation in vivo. However, human studies are limited. To study the interaction between Se and Hg, we investigated the total Se and Hg concentrations in body...

New evidence on variations of human body burden of methylmercury from fish consumption.(Research / Mini-Monograph)
February 1, 2006... Epidemiologic studies commonly use mercury (Hg) level in hair as a valid proxy to estimate human exposure to methylmercury (MeHg) through fish consumption. This study presents the results yielded by a complete data set on fish consumption...

Prenatal methylmercury exposure and developmental outcomes: review of the evidence and discussion of future directions.(Research / Mini-Monograph)
February 1, 2006... I conducted a review of the published literature to assess the strength of the evidence for an association between prenatal exposure to methylmercury (MeHg) and subsequent child development. I identified 12 studies on this subject published...

DERT WETP Katrina response.(Announcements / NIEHS Extramural Update)
February 1, 2006... As the Gulf Coast was being overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina on 31 August 2005, the NIEHS Worker Education and Training Program (WETP), its awardees, and its National Clearinghouse for Worker Safety and Health Training developed a PowerPoint...

Genetic and genomic analyses of xenopus.(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
February 1, 2006... For the past few years, the international research community has been generating genetic and genomic data and reagents for the model systems, Z tropicalis and X. laevis. These products include: 1) cDNA libraries and EST sequences; 2) UniGene...

Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01).(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
February 1, 2006... The Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01) provides support for a sustained period of protected time for intensive research career development under the guidance of an experienced mentor, or sponsor, in the biomedical, behavioral,...

Mentored Quantitative Research Development Award (K25).(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
February 1, 2006... A particular area of research is often invigorated by novel perspectives that may be provided by individuals trained outside that research arena. In an effort to advance research relevant to the mission of the National Institutes of Health...

Calendar.(Annoucements)(Calendar)
February 1, 2006... 2006 February 13-16 February, Mon-Thu. The Fourth Asia-Pacific Conference. Taipei, Taiwan. Information: Ueng-Chen Yang, e-mail: apbc@ym.edu.tw, Internet: http://www. binfo.ym.edu.tw/apbc2006/ 16 February, Thu. North Carolina...

Molecular Medicine: An Introductory Text, 3rd Edition.
February 1, 2006... Molecular Medicine: An Introductory Text, 3rd Edition By Ronald J. Trent Amsterdam:Elsevier, 2005.320 pp. ISBN: 0-12-699057-3, $79.95 The third edition of Molecular Medicine: An Introductory Text, like the previous editions, continues...

New books.(Announcements)
February 1, 2006... A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers, 2nd Ed. Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, Robin Marantz Henig, eds. New York:Oxford University Press, 2005. 368 pp. ISBN: 0-19-517498-4, $54.50 ...