Environmental Health Perspectives articles from March 2004

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from March 2004

Take HEED--if not now, when?(Guest Editorial)
March 1, 2004... As never before in history, humans can dramatically change the world and do it quickly. No more is there the need for millennia and the trials of natural selection of the cumulative effects of human-related alteration of the environment; we...

Relevance of the National Institutes of Health Roadmap initiatives to the field of environmental health.(Editorial)
March 1, 2004... Advances in biomedical research have been remarkable during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s. Yet, translation of the basic research discoveries into prevention and treatment strategies has been disappointing. In an attempt to make the...

Online submission begins this month.(Note from the Editors)
March 1, 2004... Beginning this month, authors will be able to submit manuscripts to EHP over the Internet. Since the late 1990s, EHP has been accepting manuscripts electronically as e-mail attachments. In fact, over 95% of submissions are currently received...

Industry testing of toxic pesticides on human subjects concluded "no effect," despite the evidence.(Correspondence)
March 1, 2004... The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) convened a panel of scientists in early 2003 to advise the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the scientific and ethical issues surrounding the use of toxicologic studies conducted by third...

Study criticisms unjustified.(Correspondence)
March 1, 2004... Sass and Needleman question the scientific value of data from human studies sponsored by the product's manufacturer. They also state that studies conducted by third parties on human subjects should not be considered. They base this on their...

Ethical standards of studies involving human subjects.(Correspondence)
March 1, 2004... In their letter, Sass and Needleman argue against the regulatory use of data from human subjects on both scientific and ethical grounds. The studies they evaluated were conducted in accordance with the same ethical standards that guide all...

Statement of CropLife America on pesticide testing involving human subjects.(Correspondence)
March 1, 2004... As the regulatory policy leader of CropLife America, the national trade association representing the crop protection industry, I would like to respond to the letter from Sass and Needleman, which criticizes human testing of pesticides. On...

Aldicarb study misrepresented in human testing debate.(Correspondence)
March 1, 2004... The pesticide industry is legally and ethically bound to provide government regulators with the studies needed to determine that our products do not cause "unreasonable adverse effects." The scientific tests we conduct under government...

Clarification.(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2004... Readers of the February Spheres of Influence article ("Does Secrecy Equal Security? Limiting Access to Environmental Information," EHP 112:A104-A107 (2004)] may have inferred that at the time Christopher Gozdor represented the Aberdeen citizens...

Reporting from Bangladesh.(International Health)
March 1, 2004... Bangladesh is a land of extremes. Home to an estimated 140-plus million people, it is among the most overpopulated and impoverished countries in the world. Its climate produces flooding in the monsoon season and severe droughts in the dry...

Groundwater problems spring to the surface.(Natural Resources)
March 1, 2004... Mankind's actions are noticeably harming groundwater resources worldwide, according to a recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Across the globe, states Groundwater and Its Susceptibility to Degradation: A Global...

Lead-Laden snack alert.(The Beat)
March 1, 2004... Chapulines (grasshoppers) seasoned with chili powder and lime area popular snack with many Mexicans. Now state and federal health departments have issued warnings against eating chapulines from the Mexican state of Oaxaca because many, for...

Global forum targets pesticide poisonings.(The Beat)
March 1, 2004... More than 600 delegates at the November 2003 Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety agreed to implement internationally binding measures to reduce the incidence of accidental poisonings by household and agricultural pesticides. Each year,...

The world's dumping ground?(The Beat)
March 1, 2004... Less-affluent nations may be bearing the brunt as developed nations including the United States crack down on mercury pollution. India's Centre for Science and Environment reports that India--already known to have some of the worst rural and...

Global warming kills.(Climate Change)
March 1, 2004... We're all going to die, but climate change may increase the risk of death, according to a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO). Many important diseases that affect developing countries are sensitive to climate variations, according...

Anti-insect ozone.(Agriculture)
March 1, 2004... In attempts to control insects and the diseases they bring, farmers have relied on variety of pesticides, many of which are highly toxic to humans. Meanwhile, insect resistance is growing. Replacement technologies are critical. Now associate...

Toxmap.(ehpnet)
March 1, 2004... As more information makes its way into the popular media on the potentially toxic chemicals that are released into the nation's soil, water, and air, consumers want to find out how news reports and feature stories about chemical releases relate...

Lead shows differential effects on stem cells.(The Beat)
March 1, 2004... Unpublished new findings by neuroscientists from Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College reveal that prenatal exposure to low lead concentrations may affect brain cell differentiation. In studies presented at the 2003 Society for Neuroscience...

New CDC Center for Public Health Law.(The Beat)
March 1, 2004... The CDC recently announced funding to establish a second Center for Public Health Law at the University of Louisville. The new center will work collaboratively with the Georgetown University/Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Law to develop...

Green-e for savvy shoppers.(The Beat)
March 1, 2004... The nonprofit Center for Resource Solutions has launched its new Green-e logo as a way to help energy-conscious U.S. consumers make informed purchasing choices. Under the voluntary certification program, manufacturers may use the logo on any...

Fogarty program HEEDs the call to action.(NIEHS News)
March 1, 2004... Interdisciplinary research designed to inform international policy decisions on health, economic, and environmental ills got a boost last fall with the September 2003 award of the first-ever Health, Environment, and Economic Development (HEED)...

Childhood obesity.(Headliners: NIEHS--supported research)
March 1, 2004... Obesity and Asthma Risk in School-Age Children Gilliland FD, Berhane K, Islam T, McConnell R, Gauderman WJ, Gilliland SS, Avol E, Peters JM. 2003. Obesity and the risk of newly diagnosed asthma in school-age children. Am J Epidemiol...

NIH roadmap for medical research.(NIEHS News)
March 1, 2004... In May 2002, Elias Zerhouni became director of the NIH and promptly set out to enhance the agency's capacity to foster state-of-the-art science utilizing current technology. The NIH, Zerhouni reasoned, had to streamline the process by which...

Welcome to Hydroville!(beyond the bench)
March 1, 2004... You won't find Hydroville on any map of Oregon. Yet the town is one of the most important factors in the improved science and environmental education being offered to many Oregon high school students. Hydroville is a fictitious town, but its...

Global resources: abuse, scarcity, and insecurity.(Focus)(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... Central America has always been prone to earthquakes and hurricanes, but when Hurricane Mitch struck in October 1998, the countries of the region were paralyzed by a scale of destruction that seemed, to many, unbelievable. The storm caused more...

Rich map poor map.(Innovations)
March 1, 2004... The fact that poverty and public health are related is widely understood, but the relationship is often difficult to quantify. Recognizing this, researchers, activists, and policy makers are beginning to combine "poverty maps" that locate the...

'Farmhouse fears: outdoor pesticides come inside.(Science Selections)
March 1, 2004... Multiple studies have described the widespread presence of pesticides in American residences, while another body of research indicates that pesticides used in agriculture find their way into farmworkers' homes. Exposure to in-home pesticides...

Children's exposure to ETS: race and ethnicity matter.(Science Selections)
March 1, 2004... Parental smoking at home has long been known to increase children's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). It is also recognized that adults' smoking rates vary by ethnicity, race, and immigrant status. But little is known about how...

The demographics'of decline: populations age differently.(Science Selections)
March 1, 2004... Health differences between racial and ethnic groups often have complex causes that range from genetic risk factors to socioeconomic status (SES) to exposure to environmental toxicants. Cognitive decline in middle-aged and older people can be a...

The asbestos cancer epidemic.(Commentary)
March 1, 2004... The asbestos cancer epidemic may take as many as 10 million lives before asbestos is banned worldwide and exposures are brought to an end. In many developed countries, in the most affected age groups, mesothelioma may account for 1% of all...

A reassessment of the nomenclature of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) metabolites.(Commentary)
March 1, 2004... Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a widespread class of persistent organic chemicals that accumulate in the environment and humans and are associated with a broad spectrum of health effects. PCB biotransformation has been shown to lead to...

Critical periods for chlorpyrifos-induced developmental neurotoxicity: alterations in adenylyl cyclase signaling in adult rat brain regions after gestational or neonatal exposure.(Research)
March 1, 2004... Developmental exposure to chlorpyrifos (CPF) alters the function of a wide variety of neural systems. In the present study we evaluated the effects in adulthood of CPF exposure of rats during different developmental windows, using the adenylyl...

Reductions in blood lead overestimate reductions in brain lead after repeated succimer regimens in a rodent model of childhood lead exposure.(Research)
March 1, 2004... Although many studies have demonstrated the efficacy of succimer chelation in reducing blood and brain lead levels, the relative efficacy of the drug in the two tissues is less well understood. This issue is important because blood lead levels...

Biologically plausible particulate air pollution mortality concentration-response functions.(Research)
March 1, 2004... In this article I introduce an alternative method for estimating particulate air pollution mortality concentration-response functions. This method constrains the particulate air pollution mortality concentration-response function to be...

Disparities in cognitive functioning by race/ethnicity in the Baltimore Memory Study.(Research)
March 1, 2004... The Baltimore Memory Study is a cohort study of the multilevel determinants of cognitive decline in 50-70-year-old randomly selected residents of specific city neighborhoods. Prior studies have demonstrated that cognitive function differs by...

Glyphosate biomonitoring for farmers and their families: results from the farm family exposure study.(Research)
March 1, 2004... Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup agricultural herbicides and other herbicide formulations that are widely used for agricultural, forestry, and residential weed control. As part of the Farm Family Exposure Study, we evaluated...

Mono(2-ethyl-5-hydroxyhexyl) phthalate and mono-(2-ethyl-5-oxohexyl) phthalate as biomarkers for human exposure assessment to di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate.(Research)
March 1, 2004... Exposure to di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is prevalent based on the measurement of its hydrolytic metabolite mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP) in the urine of 78% of the general U.S. population studied in the 1999-2000 National Health...

Urinary levels of seven phthalate metabolites in the U.S. population from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2000.(Research)
March 1, 2004... We measured the urinary monoester metabolites of seven commonly used phthalates in approximately 2,540 samples collected from participants of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 1999-2000, who were [greater than or...

Ambient particulate air pollution, heart rate variability, and blood markers of inflammation in a panel of elderly subjects.(Research)
March 1, 2004... Epidemiologic studies report associations between particulate air pollution and cardiopulmonary morbidity and mortality. Although the underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms remain unclear, it has been hypothesized that altered autonomic...

Androgenic and estrogenic activity in water bodies receiving cattle feedlot effluent in Eastern Nebraska, USA.(Research)
March 1, 2004... Studies reveal that surface waters worldwide are contaminated with hormonally active agents, many released from sewage treatment plants. Another potential source of aquatic hormonal contamination is livestock feedlot effluent. In this study, we...

Endocrine-disrupting effects of cattle feedlot effluent on an aquatic sentinel species, the fathead minnow.(Research)
March 1, 2004... Over the last decade, research has examined the endocrine-disrupting action of various environmental pollutants, including hormones, pharmaceuticals, and surfactants, in sewage treatment plant effluent. Responding to the growth of concentrated...

Abnormal bone composition in female juvenile American alligators from a pesticide-polluted lake (Lake Apopka, Florida).(Research)
March 1, 2004... Reproductive disorders have been found in pesticide-exposed alligators living in Lake Apopka, Florida (USA). These disorders have been hypothesized to be caused by exposure to endocrine-disruptive estrogen-like contaminants. The aim of this...

Thyroid toxicants: assessing reproductive health effects.(Workshop Summary)
March 1, 2004... A thyroid toxicant workshop sponsored by the National Toxicology Program Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction convened on 28-29 April 2003 in Alexandria, Virginia. The purpose of this workshop was to examine and discuss...

Effects of particulate air pollution on blood pressure and heart rate in subjects with cardiovascular disease: a multicenter approach.(Environmental Medicine)
March 1, 2004... Given the hypothesis that air pollution is associated with elevated blood pressure and heart rate, the effect of daily concentrations of air pollution on blood pressure and heart rate was assessed in 13l adults with coronary heart disease in...

Latex allergy and occupational asthma in health care workers: adverse outcomes.(Environmental Medicine)
March 1, 2004... The prevalence of natural rubber latex (NRL) allergy has been estimated to be 5-18% in health care workers, and latex exposure has been one of the leading causes of occupational asthma in the last several years. We present the cases of two...

Agricultural and residential pesticides in wipe samples from farmworker family residences in North Carolina and Virginia.(Children's Health)
March 1, 2004... Children of farmworkers can be exposed to pesticides through multiple pathways, including agricultural take-home and drift as well as residential applications. Because farmworker families often live in poor-quality housing, the exposure from...

In utero pesticide exposure, maternal paraoxonase activity, and head circumference.(Children's Health)
March 1, 2004... Although the use of pesticides in inner-city homes of the United States is of considerable magnitude, little is known about the potentially adverse health effects of such exposure. Recent animal data suggest that exposure to pesticides during...

Children's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke: using diverse exposure metrics to document ethnic/racial differences.(Children's Health)
March 1, 2004... Four metrics were used to assess exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) for a probability sample (n = 152) of elementary school-age children in two economically disadvantaged neighborhoods: a) caregiver responses to a baseline...

Toward the effective surveillance of hypospadias.(Children's Health)
March 1, 2004... Concern about apparent increases in the prevalence of hypospadias--a congenital male reproductivetract abnormality--in the 1960s to 1980s and the possible connection to increasing exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals have underlined the...

Cellular, Organs, and Systems Pathobiology Branch.(NIEHS Extramural Update)
March 1, 2004... Editor's note: This is the first in a series of articles describing the four extramural program branches at the NIEHS. The Cellular, Organs, and Systems Pathobiology Branch (COSPB) develops and administers programs of extramural grants that...

Strategic partnering to evaluate cancer signatures.(Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
March 1, 2004... The National Cancer Institute (NCI) invites investigators to form strategic partnerships that will bring together the multidisciplinary expertise and resources needed to determine how the information derived from comprehensive molecular...

Revolutionary genome sequencing technologies: the $1,000 genome.(Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
March 1, 2004... The purpose of this request for applications (RFA) is to solicit grant applications to develop novel technologies that will enable extremely low-cost genomic DNA sequencing. Current technologies are able to produce the sequence of a...

Calendar.(Calendar)
March 1, 2004... April 12-18 April, Mon-Sun. Molecular Mechanisms of HIV Pathogenesis. Whistler, British Columbia. Information: Keystone Symposia, 221 Summit Place #272, Drawer 1630, Silverthorne, CO 80498 USA, 800-253-0685, fax: 970-262-1525, e-mail:...

Environmental Health Science: Recognition, Evaluation, and Control of Chemical and Physical Health Hazards.
March 1, 2004... Environmental Health Science: Recognition, Evaluation, and Control of Chemical and Physical Health Hazards by Morton Lippmann, Beverly S. Cohen, and Richard B. Schlesinger New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 540 pp. ISBN: 0-19-508374-1,...

New Books.(Announcements)
March 1, 2004... Advice for a Young Investigator Santiago Ramon y Cajal; tr. by N Swanson, L.W. Swanson Cambridge, MA:Bradford Books, 2004. 176 pp. ISBN: 0-262-68150-1, $18.96 Arctic Ecological Research from Microwave Satellite Observations Gennady...

Decoding the riddle: the dawn of RNAi for the study of gene-gene and gene-environment interactions.(Editorial)
March 15, 2004... The advent of RNA interference (RNAi) technology has truly revolutionized modern biology. The ability to scrutinize biological function by knocking out virtually any gene using small interfering (si)RNAs now allows genetic studies to be...

Silent advances.(Innovative Technologies)
March 15, 2004... A growing body of research shows that gene silencing is a critical component of many diseases. In particular, scientists continue to learn more about how enzymes known as histone deacetylases, or HDACs, work to silence genes. Better...

FDA eyes pharmacogenomics data.(Policy)
March 15, 2004... The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is looking at how microarray and toxicogenomics data may be incorporated into its drug review process. Field insiders expect microarray data will eventually be a standard component of submissions for...

Sequencing a zoo.(Genomics)
March 15, 2004... Recent comparative sequencing and analysis of 10 genes in 13 vertebrate species has found hundreds of identical and potentially functional sequences in stretches of the genome that scientists once referred to as "junk,' DNA. A recent report...

RNAi@elegansNet.(TXGnet)
March 15, 2004... Caenorhabditis elegans was the first multicellular organism to be completely sequenced. With that 1998 achievement came a fresh appreciation for this popular and valuable research model, which has become a staple of genomics studies. Today,...

Cluster busters.(Bioinformatics)
March 15, 2004... Bioinformatics experts are always working to design better statistical algorithms to comprehend the expression patterns of tens of thousands of genes. Different algorithms may better serve diverse scientific goals, such as screening for...

Microarrays demystified.(NCT Update)
March 15, 2004... Scientists are continually searching for new, better, and faster ways to determine which chemicals found in the environment cause adverse health effects, and how they do so. At the same time, the development of new drug therapies depends upon a...

RNAi: what's all the noise about gene silencing?(Focus)
March 15, 2004... It all began with petunias. In the late 1980s, geneticist Richard Jorgensen, then working at a California plant biotechnology company, attempted to deepen the hue of purple petunias by introducing more of the gene that gives them their color,...

Expression and immunity: new findings on Ahr interactions.(Science Selections)
March 15, 2004... The transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor (Ahr) can activate a multitude of genes that regulate the growth and division of ceils, including processes leading to cancer. To date, little is known about the biochemical processes that...

Taking stock of toxicogenomics: mini-monograph offers overview.(Science Selections)
March 15, 2004... Many early concerns about the utility of genomics technologies have largely been put to rest, but several issues remain to be resolved if toxicogenomics is to live up to its full potential. Chief among these is the concern that, although there...

Unraveling gene-gene interactions regulated by ligands of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor *.(Toxicogenomics)
March 15, 2004... The co-expression of genes coupled to additive probabilistic relationships was used to identify gene sets predictive of the complex biological interactions regulated by ligands of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (Ahr). To maximize the number of...

Applying new biotechnologies to the study of occupational cancer--a workshop summary.(Workshop Summary)
March 15, 2004... As high-throughput technologies in genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics evolve, questions arise about their use in the assessment of occupational cancers. To address these questions, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and...

Toxicogenomics in risk assessment: an overview of an HESI collaborative research program.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... The value of genomic approaches in hypothesis generation is being realized as a tool for understanding toxicity and consequently contributing to an assessment of drug and chemical safety. In 1999 the membership of the International Life...

The utility of DNA microarrays for characterizing genotoxicity.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... Microarrays provide an unprecedented opportunity for comprehensive concurrent analysis of thousands of genes. The global analysis of the response of genes to a toxic insult (toxicogenomics), as opposed to the historical method of examining a...

Overview of an interlaboratory collaboration on evaluating the effects of model hepatotoxicants on hepatic gene expression.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... DNA microarrays and related tools offer promise for identification of pathways involved in toxic responses to xenobiotics. To be useful for risk assessment, experimental data must be challenged for reliability and interlaboratory...

Clofibrate-induced gene expression changes in rat liver: a cross-laboratory analysis using membrane cDNA arrays.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... Microarrays have the potential to significantly impact our ability to identify toxic hazards by the identification of mechanistically relevant markers of toxicity. To be useful for risk assessment, however, microarray data must be challenged to...

Interlaboratory evaluation of rat hepatic gene expression changes induced by methapyrilene.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... Several studies using microarrays have shown that changes in gene expression provide information about the mechanism of toxicity induced by xenobiotic agents. Nevertheless, the issue of whether gene expression profiles are reproducible across...

Cross-site comparison of gene expression data reveals high similarity.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... Consistency and coherence of gene expression data across multiple sites depends on several factors such as platform (oligo, cDNA, etc.), environmental conditions at each laboratory, and data quality. The Hepatotoxicity Working Group of the...

Quantitative PCR deconstruction of discrepancies between results reported by different hybridization platforms.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... Differences in hybridization platforms used in gene array analysis experiments can lead to significant differences in hybridization results. In this study we used quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to...

Overview of the application of transcription profiling using selected nephrotoxicants for toxicology assessment.(Toxicogenomics)
March 15, 2004... Microarrays allow for the simultaneous measurement of changes in the levels of thousands of messenger RNAs within a single experiment. As such, the potential for the application of transcription profiling to preclinical safety assessment and...

Identification of putative gene-based markers of renal toxicity.(Genomics and Risk Assessment Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... This study, designed and conducted as part of the International Life Sciences Institute working group on the Application of Genomics and Proteomics, examined the changes in the expression profile of genes associated with the administration of...

Dye-bias correction in dual-labeled cDNA microarray gene expression measurements.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... A significant limitation to the analytical accuracy and precision of dual-labeled spotted cDNA microarrays is the signal error due to dye bias. Transcript-dependent dye bias may be due to gene-specific differences of incorporation of two...

Identification of platform-independent gene expression markers of cisplatin nephrotoxicity.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... Within the International Life Sciences Institute Committee on Genomics, a working group was formed to focus on the application of microarray technology to preclinical assessments of drug-induced nephrotoxicity. As part of this effort,...

Database development in toxicogenomics: issues and efforts.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... The marriage of toxicology and genomics has created not only opportunities but also novel informatics challenges. As with the larger field of gene expression analysis, toxicogenomics faces the problems of probe an notation and data comparison...

Annotation and cross-indexing of array elements on multiple platforms.(Genomics and Risk Assessment: Mini-Monograph)
March 15, 2004... On the surface, transcript profiling using microarrays seems to offer a way of looking at the global response of the cell to perturbation, with a focus on changes in gene expression. The difficulty, however. is that the response of a particular...

Bioengineering Research Partnerships.(Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
March 15, 2004... Participating Institutes and Centers (ICs) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invite applications for R01 awards to support Bioengineering Research Partnerships (BRPs) for basic, applied, and translational multi-disciplinary research...

Circulating cells in cancer detection.(Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
March 15, 2004... The purpose of this PA is to develop novel technologies for capturing, enriching, and preserving exfoliated abnormal cells and macromolecules in body fluids or effusions and to develop methods for concentrating the enriched cells for biomarker...

Developmental mechanisms of human structural birth defects.(Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
March 15, 2004... The purpose of this PA is to support new, innovative, multidisciplinary, interactive, and synergistic program projects that integrate basic, translational, and clinical approaches to understanding the developmental biology and genetic basis of...

Calendar.(Announcements)(Calendar)
March 15, 2004... 4-7 April Sun-Wed. HGM 2004: Human Genome Meeting. Berlin. Germany. Information: HUGO Secretariat. 144 Harley Street, London W1G 7LD, UK, +44 (0) 207 935 8085. fax: +44 (0) 207 935 8341, e-mail: hugo@hugo-internarional.org, Internet: http://...