Environmental Health Perspectives articles from May 2003

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from May 2003

Converging paradigms for environmental health theory and practice. (Research Commentary).
May 1, 2003... Converging themes from the fields of environmental health, ecology and health, and human ecology highlight opportunities for innovation and advancement in environmental health theory and practice. In this commentary we outline the role of...

Association of expired nitric oxide with occupational particulate exposure. (Research).
May 1, 2003... Particulate air pollution has been associated with adverse respiratory health effects. This study assessed the utility of expired nitric oxide to detect acute airway responses to metal-containing fine particulates. Using a repeated-measures...

Meta-analysis of dioxin cancer dose response for three occupational cohorts. (Research).
May 1, 2003... This article presents a meta analysis of data from three cohorts occupationally exposed to TCDD and related compounds. A statistically significant (p = 0.02) trend was found in total cancer mortality with increasing dioxin exposure. The trend...

The relationship between water concentrations and individual uptake of chloroform: a simulation study. (Research).
May 1, 2003... We simulated the relationship between water chloroform concentrations and chloroform uptake in pregnant women to assess the potential extent of exposure measurement error in epidemiologic studies of the health effects of exposure to water...

Disturbed sexual characteristics in male mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) from a lake contaminated with endocrine disruptors. (Research).
May 1, 2003... Previous laboratory studies have demonstrated that estrogenic and antiandrogenic chemicals can alter several sexual characteristics in male poeciliid fishes. Whether similar disturbances occur under field conditions remains to be confirmed....

A longitudinal examination of factors related to changes in serum polychlorinated biphenyl levels. (Research).
May 1, 2003... Consumption of sport-caught fish from the Great Lakes is a recognized source of human exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Understanding temporal changes in PCB body burden is crucial for evaluating exposure levels and augmenting...

Environmentally relevant metal and transition metal ions enhance Fc[epsilon]RI-mediated mast cell activation. (Research).
May 1, 2003... Upon contact with allergen, sensitized mast cells release highly active proinflammatory mediators. Allergen-mediated mast cell activation is an important mechanism in the pathogenesis of atopic asthma. Asthmatic patients are especially...

Chronic exposure to high levels of particulate air pollution and small airway remodeling. (Research).
May 1, 2003... Recent evidence suggests that chronic exposure to high levels of ambient particulate matter (PM) is associated with decreased pulmonary function and the development of chronic airflow obstruction. To investigate the possible role of PM-induced...

Mercury derived from dental amalgams and neuropsychologic function. (Environmental Medicine).
May 1, 2003... There is widespread concern regarding the safety of silver-mercury amalgam dental restorations, yet little evidence to support their harm or safety. We examined whether mercury dental amalgams are adversely associated with cognitive functioning...

Health impacts of pesticide exposure in a cohort of outdoor workers. (Environmental Medicine).
May 1, 2003... We compared mortality of 1,999 outdoor staff working as part of an insecticide application program during 1935-1996 with that of 1,984 outdoor workers not occupationally exposed to insecticides, and with the Australian population. Surviving...

Recruitment, retention, and compliance results from a probability study of children's environmental health in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. (Children's Health).
May 1, 2003... The School Health Initiative: Environment, Learning, and Disease (SHIELD) study used a probability sample of children (second through fifth grades) from two low-income and racially mixed neighborhoods of Minneapolis, Minnesota, to assess...

Blood lead levels and sexual maturation in U.S. girls: the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1994. (Children's Health).
May 1, 2003... Using data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, we assessed measures of puberty in U.S. girls in relation to blood lead levels to determine whether sexual maturation may be affected by current environmental lead...

Septic system density and infectious diarrhea in a defined population of children. (Children's Health).
May 1, 2003... One-quarter of U.S. households use a septic system for wastewater disposal. In this study we investigated whether septic system density was associated with endemic diarrheal illness in children. Cases--children 1 to < 19 years old seeking...

Contemporary-use pesticides in personal air samples during pregnancy and blood samples at delivery among urban minority mothers and newborns. (Children's Health).
May 1, 2003... We have measured 29 pesticides in plasma samples collected at birth between 1998 and 2001 from 230 mother and newborn pairs enrolled in the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health prospective cohort study. Our prior research has...

Cradle-to-cradle stewardship of drugs for minimizing their environmental disposition while promoting human health. I. Rationale for and Avenues toward a Green Pharmacy. (Green Pharmacy Mini-Monograph).
May 1, 2003... Since the 1980s, the occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) as trace environmental pollutants, originating primarily from consumer use and actions rather than manufacturer effluents, continues to become more firmly...

Cradle-to-cradle stewardship of drugs for minimizing their environmental disposition while promoting human health. II. Drug disposal, waste reduction, and future directions. (Green Pharmacy Mini-Monograph).
May 1, 2003... Since the 1980s, the occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) as trace environmental pollutants, originating primarily from consumer use and actions rather than manufacturer effluents, continues to become more firmly...

Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: progress and implications for health and the environment. (Guest Editorial).
May 1, 2003... The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the first international treaty ever negotiated by the member states of the World Health Organization (WHO). The final draft of the FCTC (WHO 2003) addresses a wide range of issues including...

Carcinogenicity of EBDCs. (Perspectives Correspondence).
May 1, 2003... In 1997 we published an article in EHP on cytogenetic and thyroid hormonal changes in 49 heavily exposed workers applying ethylene bisdithiocarbamate (EBDC) fungicide to tomatoes, based on a collaborative study done by the U.S. National...

Comment on "use of A-Bomb survivor studies as a basis for nuclear worker compensation". (Perspectives Correspondence).
May 1, 2003... I read with interest the letter of Wing and Richardson (2002), which raised concerns about using cancer risks derived from the Life Span Study (LSS) cohort of Japanese atomic-bomb survivor data in radiation worker compensation plans. Wing and...

Corrections.
May 1, 2003... In the article by Wilhelm and Ritz [Environ Health Perspect 111:207-216 (2003)], a negative sign was omitted from the equation on page 208. The correct equation appears below. EHP regrets the error. Y = (1 / 0.4 [square root (2[pi])]) x esp...

Teaching sustainability. (Environmental Education).
May 1, 2003... "I want to make a case for fighting poverty, protecting the environment, and in particular protecting people's rights as the path to human security and the foundation, in the long term, for global security," said Jonathan Lash, president of the...

Terminating e-trafficking. (Regulations).
May 1, 2003... In December 2002, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered American Biotech Labs of Alpine, Utah, to stop selling a product advertised online as an "anthrax killer," it was the fifth time in a 12-month period that the agency...

Green desktop. (The Beat).
May 1, 2003... NEC Solutions America recently introduced the PowerMate[R] eco PC to the U.S. market. The PowerMate eco is made without any of the estimated 36 potentially toxic chemicals (such as lead, barium, boron, and cobalt) used in the manufacture of...

High on hydrogen. (The Beat).
May 1, 2003... On 10 October 2002, European Commission officials announced the formation of the High Level Group on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells. The group--which includes industry, research, government, and user association representatives--will develop a...

EUGENE label means clean power. (The Beat).
May 1, 2003... Europeans can now be assured that the "green" electricity they choose to buy really is more sustainably produced. Environmental and consumer organizations have joined with researchers to form the European Green Electricity Network (EUGENE), an...

Engineering allergy relief? (Molecular Biology).
May 1, 2003... A new engineered protein known as GE2 may pave the way for future advances in allergy treatment. Since first describing the protein in the May 2002 issue of Nature Medicine, cocreators Andrew Saxon, director of the Asthma, Allergy, and...

Pinpointing DDT resistance. (Genetic Research).
May 1, 2003... Insecticide resistance is a major global health issue, with 40% of the world's population at risk for malarial diseases carried by Anopheles mosquitoes and these disease vectors showing increasing resistance to DDT. Now research published in...

National Council for Science and the Environment. (Forum).
May 1, 2003... The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), a nongovernmental organization based in Washington, D.C., works to develop and promote a comprehensive and integrated scientific basic for environmental decision making. The NCSE,...

Chips' impact stacks up. (The Beat).
May 1, 2003... The resources employed in turning raw quartz into silicon-based computer chips include fossil fuels, water, and chemicals including potentially toxic solvents, lead, chromium, mercury, arsenic, and silica. Researchers at the United Nations...

The weight of the world's tobacco use. (The Beat).
May 1, 2003... Worldwide, tobacco use contributes to the deaths of 4.9 million people every year--or 560 people every hour. This number is expected to reach 8.4 million per year by 2020, with more than 70% of these deaths occurring in developing countries. To...

Asthma in elders. (The Beat).
May 1, 2003... The U.S. EPA has awarded $85,000 to the National Indian Council on Aging to assess environmental health threats of particular concern to Native Americans and Alaskan Natives. One focus of the project will be the environmental factors that can...

The environment-autoimmune link. (Environews NIEHS News).
May 1, 2003... Autoimmune diseases are chronic, frequently life-threatening conditions that strike when the immune system goes awry and attacks the body's own tissues. Although some autoimmune diseases--such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and...

Gene-environment interaction. (Headliners: NIEHS-supported research).
May 1, 2003... Effect of Polymorphisms on Biomarkers in Coal Miners Nadif R, Jedlicka A, Mintz M, Bertrand J-P, Kleeberger S, Kauffmann F. 2003. Effect of TNF and LTA polymorphisms on biological markers of response to oxidative stimuli in coal miners: a...

Short-circuiting environmental protections? (Environews Focus).
May 1, 2003... Despite the recent slowdown in computer sales, factories making computer chips as well as those that make other electronics products based on chips continue opening new facilities in Asian-Pacific nations, primarily in Taiwan, South Korea,...

The cleanroom: how clean? (Environews Focus).
May 1, 2003... Making chips has always required a long list of toxic solvents and heavy metals. Despite continual changes in processes, certain requirements remain, says Bruce Fowler, a professor of toxicology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine,...

Tobacco's profit, workers' loss? (Environews Focus).
May 1, 2003... Tobacco products--cigarettes, cigars, snuff, and chewing tobacco--are well known to pose a serious environmental health threat both to consumers themselves and, in the case of secondhand smoke, to the people around them. Today, vigorous tobacco...

Organic electronics: a cleaner substitute for silicon. (Environews Innovations).
May 1, 2003... Until recently, plastics--ubiquitous in most areas of modern life--had yet to make inroads into the electronics industry; their molecular configuration made them nonconducive to electrical flow, limiting their uses to shells for computers and...

Filling the gap: new data on safety of dental amalgams. (Environews Science Selections).
May 1, 2003... Controversy about the safety of dental amalgams--blends of mercury and other metals used in fillings--has been simmering for at least 150 years. An association between mercury vapor exposure and neurologic and neuropsychological deficits (such...

Septic suburbia: too many tanks increases disease. (Environews Science Selections).
May 1, 2003... Throughout the U.S. countryside and in many suburban subdivisions--in fact, in one-quarter of U.S. households--septic systems are used for wastewater disposal. Mark A. Borchardt and colleagues from the Marshfield Medical Research Foundation and...

Preventing pill pollution: keeping drugs and toiletries of the environment. (Environews Science Selections).
May 1, 2003... For two decades, evidence has been growing that residues from pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are continually contaminating the environment. Although details of the environmental health impacts are likely to remain sketchy...

Transition to Independent Positions (TIP) grant program. (Announcements NIEHS Extramural Update).
May 1, 2003... The Transition to Independent Positions (TIP) grant program is designed to help scientists transition from postdoctoral to research-intensive permanent faculty positions. The program provides grant start-up funding to establish an independent...

Announcements: fellowships, grants, & awards.
May 1, 2003... Gene Discovery for Complex Neurological and Neurobehavioral Disorders The goal of this program announcement (PA) is to promote the identification of susceptibility genes for complex neurological and neurobehavioral disorders. For this PA,...

Announcements: calendar.
May 1, 2003... 2003 June 2-5 June, Mon-Thu. 7th International Symposium on In Situ and On-Site Bioremediation. Orlando, Florida. Information: The Conference Group, 1580 Fishinger Road, Columbus, OH 43221, 1-800-783-6338 or 614-488-2030, fax:...

Environmental Health and Nursing Practice.
May 1, 2003... Edited by Barbara Sattler and Jane Lipscomb. New York:Springer Publishing Company, 2003. 380 pp. ISBN: 0-8261-428245, $49.95 cloth. Nursing has waited a long time for this book. Despite the conclusion of the Institute of Medicine's 1995...

Announcements: new books.
May 1, 2003... Animal Models for Asthma: Workshop on Asthma in Animal Models R. Pabst, eds Farmington, CT:S. Karger Publishers, 2003. 56 pp. ISBN: 3-8055-7589-0, $25.25 Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology: 2003 Arthur K. Cho, ed....

Toxicogenomics: an EHP section. (Editorials).
May 15, 2003... Toxicogenomics is one of the newest fields of study that will play a major role in future research breakthroughs in environmental health. In January, when we expanded Environmental Health Perspectives's (EHP) coverage of this new field by...

Model selection in genomics. (Editorials).
May 15, 2003... With the discovery of DNA, the completion of genome sequencing of a number of organisms, and the advent of powerful high-throughput measurement technologies such as microarrays, it is now commonly said that biology has gone through a...

On the 50th anniversary of solving the structure of DNA. (Editorials).
May 15, 2003... As biochemistry students at Aberdeen University in Scotland, our class studied and strategized together to prepare for our final honors degree exams, and in the British tradition, the results of those final exams would, alone, determine our...

Toxicogenomics: roadblocks and new directions. (Standards).
May 15, 2003... The toxicogenomics research community may be "building a Tower of Babel" unless it devises ways to communicate and share data in a meaningful way among assorted research groups and across research platforms. Or so Bennett Van Houten, acting...

Rapamycin throws a Master switch. (Cancer).
May 15, 2003... Research on the potential anticancer drug rapamycin has revealed a possible new mechanism for suppressing large numbers of genes simultaneously, rather than each gene individually. Normally, genes are individually activated or inactivated by...

TXG at SOT. (Meeting Report).
May 15, 2003... Since the first seminal paper on genomics appeared in the 20 October 1995 issue of Science, coverage has grown rapidly to some 3,000-4,000 reports yearly, many on gene-environment interactions, according to NIEHS deputy director Samuel Wilson....

Putting proteins in one place. (Bioinformatics).
May 15, 2003... The growing wealth of information about the human proteome--the hundreds of thousands of proteins at work in the human body--is useful only if scientists can get their hands on it. To give researchers faster worldwide access to high-quality...

Bioinformatics organization. (txgnet).
May 15, 2003... Bioinformatics--the rapidly evolving science of managing and analyzing biological data using advanced computing programs--is a vital tool for evaluating the volumes of data generated by genomics research. Bioinformatics Organization is a...

Phenotypic anchoring: linking cause and effect. (NCT Update).
May 15, 2003... Toxicogenomics combines genetics, transcriptomics (genomic-scale mRNA expression), proteomics (cell- and tissuewide protein expression), metabonomics (metabolite profiling), and bioinformatics with conventional toxicology in an effort to...

Data explosion: bringing order to chaos with bioinformatics. (Data Explosion).
May 15, 2003... Scientists say a clearer understanding of gene-toxicant interactions will provide significant new opportunities for protecting public health. But there's a catch: these toxicogenomics promises lie hidden in mountains of data. Thanks to...

Liver library: creating a microarray for hepatotoxicants. (Science Selections).
May 15, 2003... Mechanical improvements in high-throughput applications continue to increase the utility of the microarray approach for investigating toxic effects on genes. But improvements in the content of arrays may be the key to maximizing the value of...

Monitoring estrogenic effects: a genomics approach. (Science Selections).
May 15, 2003... Genomics, the revolutionary field that promises to one day reveal the genetic code of every living organism, is opening up unforeseen opportunities for advances in many areas of the life sciences. In this issue, a team led by Patrick Larkin of...

Metals leave their mark: fingerprints of low-dose exposure. (Science Selections).
May 15, 2003... As the emerging field of toxicogenomics continues to progress, the search for biologically relevant biomarkers of exposure, effect, and susceptibility is in full swing. Much of the current work focuses on the genomic effects of potentially...

The Biological Basis of Hutchinson-Gilford Syndrome (HGS): Relationship to Mutagens in the Lamin A/C Gene (LMNA) and to Other Known Laminopathies. (Fellowships, Grants, & Awards).
May 15, 2003... This PA is a new initiative to support research to understand how mutations in the gene for lamin A/C affect nuclear structure, thus leading to bothdysfunction of the nuclear envelope, and depending on the mutation, Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome...

Individual biomedical informatics fellowships. (Fellowships, Grants, & Awards).
May 15, 2003... Individual biomedical informatics fellowships provide support for the training of informatics scientists able to perform research into basic informatics problems or to application of informatics to any area of biomedicine, including clinical...

Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. (Fellowships, Grants, & Awards).
May 15, 2003... An individual may not have more than one individual NRSA fellowship or comparable application pending review or award at the NIH or other Department of Health and Human Services agencies at the same time. The CSR will not accept any application...

Calendar. (Announcement).
May 15, 2003... 2003 June 1-6 June, Sun-Fri. Mechanisms of Cell Signalling. Hong Kong, China. Information: Gordon Research Conferences, PO Box 984, West Kingston, RI 02892-0984 USA, 401-783-4011, fax: 401-783-7644, e-mail: grc@grcmail.grc.uri.edu,...

Pharmacogenomics: Social, Ethical, and Clinical Dimensions.
May 15, 2003... Edited by Mark A. Rothstein. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. 320 pp. ISBN: 0 471-22769-2, $59.95 cloth. This interesting and timely book presents a multidisciplinary analysis of the scientific, clinical, economic, ethical, social, and...

New books. (Announcements).
May 15, 2003... The Analysis of Gene Expression Data Giovanni Parmigiani, Elizabeth S. Garrett, Rafael A. Irizarry, Scott L. Zeger, eds. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 2003. 504 pp. ISBN: 0-387-95577-1, $89.95 Biological Sequence...

The Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD). (Commentary).
May 15, 2003... The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Salsbury Cove, Maine, USA, is developing the Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD), a community-supported genomic resource devoted to genes and proteins of human toxicologic significance. CTD...

The Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) and Environmental Health. (Commentary).
May 15, 2003... The Human Proteome Organization, or HUPO, was formed to promote research and large-scale analysis of the human proteome. By consolidating national proteome organizations into an international body, HUPO will coordinate international...

Application of toxicogenomic analysis to risk assessment of delayed long-term effects of multiple chemicals, including endocrine disruptors in human fetuses. (Commentary).
May 15, 2003... Our previous studies analyzing umbilical cords show that human fetuses in Japan are exposed to multiple chemicals. Because of these findings, we believe it is necessary to establish a new strategy for examining the possible delayed long-term...

Systems toxicology and the chemical effects in biological systems (CEBS) knowledge base.
May 15, 2003... The National Center for Toxicogenomics is developing the first public toxicogenomics knowledge base that combines molecular expression data sets from transcriptomics, proteomics, metabonomics, and conventional toxicology with metabolic,...

Genomic and proteomic profiling of responses to toxic metals in human lung cells. (Article).
May 15, 2003... Eight of the top 50 substances on the 1997 Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) priority list (ATSDR 2001) are toxic metals, including arsenic, chromium, cadmium, and nickel. Exposure to these metals is associated with a...

Expression profiling of estrogenic compounds using a sheepshead minnow cDNA macroarray. (Article).
May 15, 2003... A variety of anthropogenic compounds are capable of binding to the estrogen receptor (ER) of vertebrate species. Binding of these chemicals to the ER can interfere with homeostasis by altering normal gene expression patterns. The purpose of...

Gene expression profiles associated with inflammation, fibrosis, and cholestasis in mouse liver after griseofulvin. (Article).
May 15, 2003... Erythropoietic protoporphyria patients can develop cholestasis, severe hepatic damage, fibrosis, and cirrhosis. We modeled this hepatic pathology in C57BL/6J and BALB/c mice using griseofulvin and analyzed 3,127 genes for alteration of...

Intrinsic hepatic phenotype associated with the Cyp1a2 gene as shown by cDNA expression microarray analysis of the knockout mouse. (Article).
May 15, 2003... Several forms of cytochrome P450 (CYP) appear to metabolize principally pharmaceutical agents, as well as other dietary and plant chemicals. Other CYP forms have major roles in steroid, sterol, and bile acid metabolism. CYP1A2 expression is...

Development of a DNA microarray for toxicology based on hepatotoxin-regulated sequences. (Article).
May 15, 2003... Toxicogenomics is an emerging field combining genomics and bioinformatics to identify and characterize mechanisms of toxicity of compounds. One of the main tools used in toxicogenomics is DNA microarrays. We have used a novel strategy to create...

Exploiting genome data to understand the function, regulation, and evolutionary origins of toxicologically relevant genes. (Meeting Report).
May 15, 2003... The wealth of new information coming from the many genome sequencing projects is providing unprecedented opportunities for major advances in all areas of biology, including the environmental health sciences. To facilitate this discovery...