Environmental Health Perspectives articles from June 2006

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from June 2006

Assessing risks and benefits of genistein and soy.(Guest Editorial)
June 1, 2006... Yet again, the humble soybean has undergone a further cycle of critical scrutiny. The extent to which soy foods and products--or, more relevantly, one of the constituent bioactive components, genistein--pose potential health benefits or risks...

A hitchhiker's guide to the NIEHS strategic plan.(DIRECTOR'S PERSPECTIVE)
June 1, 2006... In the lexicon of organizations, government ones especially, the words "strategic plan" may often be perceived as a synonym for "long, boring, inscrutable document full of jargon." Not so the NIEHS Strategic Plan. Conceived as a means of...

Exposure to a Fungal Volatile Compound: significance of effects.(Correspondence)
June 1, 2006... In contrast to what Walinder et al. (2005) concluded in their article "Acute Effects of a Fungal Volatile Compound," I interpret the article to report essentially no effects beyond chance. In all, the authors carried out some 76 comparisons...

Exposure to a Fungal Volatile Compound: Walinder et al. respond.(Correspondence)
June 1, 2006... There are different opinions on the use of Bonferroni's corrections. Everitt (1995) stated that it gives too conservative estimates if there are more than five tests performed. In environmental medicine, one exposure can have different health...

Organophosphates and outdoor air concentrations.(Correspondence)
June 1, 2006... Harnly et al. (2005) suggested that measured air concentrations of organophosphate insecticides may pose a particular concern for children's health. However, when considering the current scientific weight of evidence, their conclusions cannot...

Organophosphates and outdoor air: Harnly et al. respond.(Correspondence)
June 1, 2006... Peterson is incorrect in stating that we did not conduct a risk assessment. We summarized in our article (Harnly et al. 2005) and detailed in a previous article (Lee et al. 2002) a human health risk assessment demonstrating elevated acute and...

Effects of BPA in snails.(Correspondence)
June 1, 2006... It is an ethical requirement that new findings be presented in light of and in conjunction with a balanced evaluation of the current knowledge and published literature. We believe that Oehlmann et al. (2005) violated this general principle in...

Effects of BPA in snails: Oehlmann et al. respond.(Correspondence)
June 1, 2006... We welcome critical appraisals that help to provide balance; however, Dietrich et al. gave an unjustified reproach. We feel that Dietrich's position is severely compromised because he serves as an expert for the bisphenol A (BPA) Industry Group...

Erratum.(Correction notice)
June 1, 2006... In the article by Colbert et al. [Environ Health Perspect 113:700-707 (2005)], the authors discovered an error in the units of exposure estimates in the tenth paragraph of the "Discussion." These estimates are expressed in milligrams but should...

High-test mothers' milk.(HERBAL MEDICINE)
June 1, 2006... A lack of regulation means that herbal remedies can be ineffective or, conversely, far more potent than users may suspect. Researchers in Taiwan have found a new reason for consumers to be wary of certain herbal remedies: some herbs used in...

Will work for air.(OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH)
June 1, 2006... Indoor air specialists Olli Seppanen of the Helsinki University of Technology and William Fisk and Q.H. Lei of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are not the first to establish a link between work performance and ventilation--for several...

Do antibiotics now mean asthma later?(CHILDREN'S HEALTH)
June 1, 2006... Asthma affects 1 in 8 school-aged children in industrialized countries, making it the most common chronic illness in this group. Now a meta-analysis of child asthma studies led by pharmaceutical scientist Fawziah Marra of the University of...

Live from Dubai: a new chemical agreement.(POLICY)
June 1, 2006... After late-night, last-minute negotiations, a voluntary international agreement to protect humans and the environment against harmful chemicals was adopted on 6 February 2006. Representatives from 140 countries, environmental advocacy groups,...

New UNEP leader chosen.(The Beat)
June 1, 2006... The UN General Assembly has unanimously selected Achim Steiner of Germany to succeed Klaus Topfer as the fifth executive director of UNEP. Steiner is presently director-general of the World Conservation Union, the world's largest environmental...

China approves environment plan.(The Beat)
June 1, 2006... China is currently home to 16 of the world's smoggiest cities, many of the country's waterways are severely contaminated, and piles of construction refuse are being dumped in rural areas. Acid rain, industrial pollution, nuclear risks, and...

Safe Harbor for fish lovers.(The Beat)
June 1, 2006... A number of recent public advisories have warned women of childbearing age to limit intake of swordfish, shark, tuna, and other fish with high levels of mercury, since studies show that brain development in young children is affected when their...

America's Best Development Projects.(The Beat)
June 1, 2006... As part of its efforts to curb the expansion of low-density, vehicle-dependent communities, the Sierra Club has released its first Guide to America's Best Development Projects. The guide spotlights 12 U.S. projects that the group holds up as...

Building eco-cities in China.(The Beat)
June 1, 2006... The London-based consulting firm Arup has signed a multibillion-dollar contract with Chinese officials to design and build up to five self-sustaining "eco-cities" around China. The first eco-city, Dongtan, on an island near Shanghai, is...

Maine mandates e-recycling.(The Beat)
June 1, 2006... In January 2006, Maine became the first state to require that TV and computer monitor makers pay for the cost of recycling their products once they are discarded by consumers. The state has approved five waste services to gather and sort the...

The World of Food Science.(ehpnet)
June 1, 2006... The International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) is a nonprofit network of national food science organizations and is the only global food science and technology group, while the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) is a U.S....

NTP multigenerational study of environmental Estrogens.(NIEHS News)
June 1, 2006... Nearly 10 years ago, researchers with the National Toxicology Program (NTP) and the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) began a complex set of experiments in rats to determine whether exposure to estrogenic compounds throughout...

Bringing EXCITEment to the classroom.(BEYOND THE BENCH)
June 1, 2006... Who are the scientists, public health officials, and policy makers who will monitor our relationship with the environment 20 years from now? Right now a lot of them are students in middle and high schools throughout the country. And it's a...

Genomewide screen reveals candidate genes for neural tube defects.(Neurodevelopment)
June 1, 2006... Rampersaud E, Bassuk AG, Enterline DS, George TM, Siegel DG, Melvin EC, et al. 2005. Whole genomewide linkage screen for neural tube defects reveals regions of interest on chromosomes 7 and 10. J Med Genet 42:940-946. Neural tube defects...

The science of soy: what do we really know?(The Science of Soy)
June 1, 2006... A stroll through nearly any American grocery store or pharmacy yields ample proof of the soybean's increasing role in the U.S. diet. Food packaging offers statements about products' soy content and the purported associated health benefits....

A rule gone awry?(Human Experimentation)
June 1, 2006... The U.S. EPA's new Protections for Subjects in Human Research rule, which came into force on 7 April 2006, was born of a need to tighten the ethical guidelines controlling nonmedical human experimentation. The rule was ostensibly designed to...

Enlisting tobacco in the fight against Anthrax.(Plant vs. Pathogen)
June 1, 2006... Just weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to newspapers and television stations in New York and to two U.S. senators on Capitol Hill. Although only a few...

A most irregular threat: old gas regulators can present mercury exposure.(Science Selections)
June 1, 2006... Residential gas regulators reduce the pressure of gas from main feeder lines to usable levels for household pipes. Gas regulators built before 1961 were commonly located within dwellings and incorporated a component that contained, on average,...

PCBs are endocrine disruptors: mixture affects reproductive development in female mice.(Science Selections)
June 1, 2006... Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a broad group of chemicals that includes 209 aromatic chlorinated hydrocarbons used for products ranging from fluorescent light fixtures to coolant fluids inside parts of consumer electronics. Short-term...

Putting a load on your bones: low-level cadmium exposure and osteoporosis.(Science Selections)
June 1, 2006... High-level exposure to cadmium is known to cause bone damage, including osteoporosis, but the effects of low-level exposure have been less clear. A group of Swedish researchers now shows for the first time that low-level exposure to cadmium...

The public health payoff of "no smoking allowed": quantifying decreases in SHS exposure.(Science Selections)
June 1, 2006... Secondhand smoke (SHS), the cigarette smoke involuntarily inhaled by a nonsmoker, was recognized as a serious health problem as early as 1972. Studies have shown that SHS causes lung cancer and leads to other adverse effects, including lower...

Community Outreach and Translation Core: translating research findings to improve the health of our children.(NIEHS Extramural Update)
June 1, 2006... A key goal of the Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research is translating basic research findings into intervention and prevention methods to enhance awareness among communities, health care professionals, and...

Gene-environment interactions: fundamentals of ecogenetics.
June 1, 2006... Edited by Lucio G. Costa and David L. Eaton Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. 450 pp. ISBN:0-471-46781-2. $110. Specific hereditary susceptibility has now evolved into the field of ecogenetics. If you have ever pondered why an...

New books.(Announcements)
June 1, 2006... Academic Scientists at Work, 2nd ed. Jeremy Boss, Susan Eckert New York:Springer, 2006. 296 pp. ISBN: 0-387-32176-4, $29.95 Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Wee Keong Ng, Masaru Kitsuregawa, Jianzhong Li,...

Estimated daily phthalate exposures in a population of mothers of male infants exhibiting reduced anogenital distance.
June 1, 2006... Phthalate diesters have been shown to be developmental and reproductive toxicants in animal studies. A recent epidemiologic study showed certain phthalates to be significantly associated with reduced anogenital distance in human male infants,...

Origin and health impacts of emissions of toxic by-products and fine particles from combustion and thermal treatment of hazardous wastes and materials.(Review)
June 1, 2006... High-temperature, controlled incineration and thermal treatment of contaminated soils, sediments, and wastes at Superfund sites are often preferred methods of remediation of contaminated sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response,...

Incidence of leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma in Czech uranium miners: a case-cohort study.(Research)
June 1, 2006... OBJECTIVE: Uranium miners are chronically exposed to low levels of radon and its progeny. We investigated whether radon exposure is associated with increased incidence of leukemia, lymphoma, or multiple myeloma in this population. DESIGN:...

Biomarkers signal contaminant effects on the organs of English sole (Parophrys vetulus) from Puget Sound.
June 1, 2006... Fish living in contaminated environments accumulate toxic chemicals in their tissues. Biomarkers are needed to identify the resulting health effects, particularly focusing on early changes at a subcellular level. We used a suite of...

Cadmium-induced effects on bone in a population-based study of women.(Research)
June 1, 2006... High cadmium exposure is known to cause bone damage, but the association between low-level cadmium exposure and osteoporosis remains to be clarified. Using a population-based women's health survey in southern Sweden [Women's Health in the Lund...

Chronic arsenic exposure and oxidative stress: OGG1 expression and arsenic exposure, nail selenium, and skin hyperkeratosis in Inner Mongolia.(Research)
June 1, 2006... Arsenic, a human carcinogen, is known to induce oxidative damage to DNA. In this study we investigated oxidative stress and As exposure by determining gene expression of OGG1, which codes for an enzyme, 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase, involved in...

Trichloroethylene exposure during cardiac valvuloseptal morphogenesis alters cushion formation and cardiac hemodynamics in the avian embryo.(Research)
June 1, 2006... It is controversial whether trichloroethylene (TCE) is a cardiac teratogen. We exposed chick embryos to 0, 0.4, 8, or 400 ppb TCE/egg during the period of cardiac valvuloseptal morphogenesis (2-3.3 days' incubation). Embryo survival,...

Residential mercury spills from gas regulators.(Research)
June 1, 2006... Many older homes are equipped with mercury-containing gas regulators that reduce the pressure of natural gas in the mains to the low pressure used in home gas piping. Removal of these regulators can result in elemental mercury spills inside the...

Trends in the exposure of nonsmokers in the U.S. population to secondhand smoke: 1988-2002.(Research)
June 1, 2006... The objective of this study was to describe the exposure of nonsmokers in the U.S. population to secondhand smoke (SHS) using serum cotinine concentrations measured over a period of 14 years, from October 1988 through December 2002. This study...

Cadmium induces the expression of Grp78, an endoplasmic reticulum molecular chaperone, in LLC-PK1 renal epithelial cells.(Research)
June 1, 2006... To reveal the effects of cadmium exposure on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response, we examined the expression and function of 78-kDa glucose-regulated protein (Grp78), an ER-resident molecular chaperone, in LLC-PK1 cells. In cells...

Interaction of the onset of spring and elevated atmospheric C[O.sub.2] on ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) pollen production.(Research)
June 1, 2006... Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is responsible for climate changes that are having widespread effects on biological systems. One of the clearest changes is earlier onset of spring and lengthening of the growing season. We designed the...

Activation of the stress axis and neurochemical alterations in specific brain areas by concentrated ambient particle exposure with concomitant allergic airway disease.(Research)
June 1, 2006... OBJECTIVE: Exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) has been linked to respiratory diseases in people living in urban communities. The mechanism by which PM produces these diseases is not clear. We hypothesized that PM could act on the brain...

Periplaneta americana arginine kinase as a major cockroach allergen among Thai patients with major cockroach allergies.(Research)
June 1, 2006... Periplaneta americana is the predominant cockroach (CR) species and a major source of indoor allergens in Thailand. Nevertheless, data on the nature and molecular characteristics of its allergenic components are rare. We conducted this study to...

Development of a health-protective drinking water level for perchlorate.(Research)
June 1, 2006... We evaluated animal and human toxicity data for perchlorate and identified reduction of thyroidal iodide uptake as the critical end point in the development of a health-protective drinking water level [also known as the public health goal...

Differences in tumor-associated protein levels among middle-age Flemish women in association with area of residence and exposure to pollutants.(Research)
June 1, 2006... We measured tumor-associated proteins (TAPs) and pollutants in blood, serum, and urine of 200 nonsmoking women 50-65 years of age, residing in the rural municipality of Peer or in Hoboken or Wilrijk, industrial suburbs of Antwerp, Belgium....

Proximity to crops and residential exposure to agricultural herbicides in Iowa.(Research)
June 1, 2006... Rural residents can be exposed to agricultural pesticides through the proximity of their homes to crop fields. Previously, we developed a method to create historical crop maps using a geographic information system. The aim of the present study...

PCBs exert an estrogenic effect through repression of the Wnt7a signaling pathway in the female reproductive tract.(Research)
June 1, 2006... Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been proposed to have a weak estrogenic activity and therefore pose a risk as potential environmental endocrine disruptors to the perinatal development of the female reproductive tract. Perinatal exposure...

Exposures to air pollutants during pregnancy and preterm delivery.(Children's Health)
June 1, 2006... The association between preterm delivery (PTD) and exposure to air pollutants has recently become a major concern. We investigated this relationship in Incheon, Republic of Korea, using spatial and temporal modeling to better infer individual...

Low-level ozone exposure and respiratory symptoms in infants.(Children's Health)
June 1, 2006... OBJECTIVE: Recent studies indicate that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ozone standards may not protect sensitive individuals. In this study we examined respiratory effects of ozone in infants who may be vulnerable, particularly...

Childhood lead exposure in the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and Jordan: results from the middle eastern regional cooperation project, 1996-2000.(Children's Health)
June 1, 2006... In the Middle East, the major sources of lead exposure have been leaded gasoline, lead-contaminated flour from traditional stone mills, focal exposures from small battery plants and smelters, and kohl (blue color) in cosmetics. In 1998-2000, we...

Farmworker exposure to pesticides: methodologic issues for the collection of comparable data.(Mini-Monograph)
June 1, 2006... The exposure of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families to agricultural and residential pesticides is a continuing public health concern. Pesticide exposure research has been spurred on by the development of sensitive and reliable...

Environmental exposure assessment of pesticides in farmworker homes.(Mini-Monograph)
June 1, 2006... Farmworkers and their families are exposed to pesticides both at work and in their homes. Environmental exposure assessment provides a means to evaluate pesticides in the environment and human contact with these chemicals through identification...

Biomonitoring of exposure in farmworker studies.(Mini-Monograph)
June 1, 2006... Although biomonitoring has been used in many occupational and environmental health and exposure studies, we are only beginning to understand the complexities and uncertainties involved with the biomonitoring process--from study design, to...

Workplace, household, and personal predictors of pesticide exposure for farmworkers.(Mini-Monograph)
June 1, 2006... In this article we identify factors potentially associated with pesticide exposure among farmworkers, grade the evidence in the peer-reviewed literature for such associations, and propose a minimum set of measures necessary to understand farm...

Studying health outcomes in farmworker populations exposed to pesticides.(Mini-Monograph)
June 1, 2006... A major goal of studying farmworkers is to better understand how their work environment, including exposure to pesticides, affects their health. Although a number of health conditions have been associated with pesticide exposure, clear linkages...

A survey of laboratory and statistical issues related to farmworker exposure studies.(Mini-Monograph)
June 1, 2006... Developing internally valid, and perhaps generalizable, farmworker exposure studies is a complex process that involves many statistical and laboratory considerations. Statistics are an integral component of each study beginning with the design...