Environmental Health Perspectives articles from November 2003

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from November 2003

Public health literacy for lawyers: teaching population-based legal analysis.(Guest Editorial)
November 1, 2003... Throughout the world of public health, and environmental health in particular, we work with lawyers; yet, many of us remain unaware of recent developments in the law and legal scholarship that may be critical to the success of our work. Many...

Note from the editors: full disclosure policy.(Editorial)
November 1, 2003... EHP has a long-standing requirement for authors to disclose competing financial interests. Corresponding authors are required to submit a declaration of competing financial interests on behalf of all authors involved. However, until recently we...

Are A-bomb survivor studies an appropriate basis for nuclear worker compensation?(Correspondence)
November 1, 2003... Wakeford (2003) and Little (2003) wrote in response to our comments about the use of A-bomb survivor studies as a basis for U.S. nuclear worker compensation decisions (Wing and Richardson 2002). Wakeford (2003) disagrees with our statement...

Developmental effects of herbicides in mice.(Correspondence)
November 1, 2003... We would like to respond to criticisms of our paper (Cavieres et al. 2002) raised by Lamb et al. (2003) and Ashby et al. (2003) in the July 2003 issue of EHP. The order of our responses generally follow the sequence in the letter by Ashby et...

Ethics of pesticide testing in humans.(Correspondence)
November 1, 2003... With some dismay, we read the article by Meaklim et al. titled "Fenitrothion: Toxicokinetics and Toxicologic Evaluation in Human Volunteers" that appeared in the March 2003 issue of EHP (Meaklim et al. 2003). The ethical aspects of testing...

Ethics of pesticide testing: response.(Correspondence)
November 1, 2003... We thank Landrigan et al. for raising the important issue of ethics in relation to human studies of pesticide exposure. This issue was considered in great detail before we began our study with fenitrothion. We agree that ethical standards...

Corrections.(Correspondence)(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2003... In "Developmental Toxicity of a Commercial Herbicide Mixture in Mice: I. Effects on Embryo Implantation and Litter Size" [Environ Health Perspect 110:1081-1085 (2002)], by Cavieres et al., some values in Tables 2 and 3 were incorrect. In...

Mercury in Japan's whale meat.(Food Safety)
November 1, 2003... Whale meat and organs have long been featured ingredients in traditional Japanese dishes. Today, the meat and organs of small cetaceans including whale and dolphin are not as widely eaten, but they are readily available ithroughout Japan. Now...

New data on methylmercury and fetuses.(Food Safety)
November 1, 2003... Eating fish is the main way most people are exposed to methylmercury, a neurotoxicant that in large doses causes mental retardation, seizures, cerebral palsy, and death. Because the fetal brain is particularly sensitive to methylmercury, the...

EC environment strategy.(The Beat)
November 1, 2003... Research suggests that some 30% of disease in the European Union may be triggered by environmental agents. So on 11 June 2003, the European Commission adopted a strategy for environment and health aimed at filling in knowledge gaps about...

Hydrogen booster.(The Beat)
November 1, 2003... A new nickel/tin/aluminum catalyst developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides a renewable, cheap, less energy-intensive way to turn biomass products such as the natural sweetener sorbitol into hydrogen fuel. Other methods to...

The risks of nonstick.(The Beat)
November 1, 2003... This summer saw the launch of an intensified U.S. EPA investigation of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a component in the production of Teflon, Gore-Tex, and hundreds of other consumer goods. On 6 June 2003, the EPA held the first public meeting...

Chilling out with sound.(Innovative Technologies)
November 1, 2003... Keeping food cold but easily accessible is a resource-intensive undertaking, involving electricity, compressor motors, and insulation, as well as gases such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons, which contribute to ozone depletion...

Methyl bromide ups prostate risk.(Cancer)
November 1, 2003... While many men know more about prostate cancer from firsthand experience than they want to, scientists know less than they would like. They do know, however, that African Americans and men with a family history of the disease are much more...

American society on aging.(ehpnet)
November 1, 2003... The American Society on Aging (ASA) is a nonprofit organization working to strengthen the skills and knowledge of professionals who work with older adults. Since its founding in 1954, its membership has grown to 6,000, with scientists, health...

Global GM food standards.(The Beat)
November 1, 2003... Landmark guidelines for determining and managing the safety risks from genetically modified (GM) foods were recently approved by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the highest international body on food standards. The new regulations are an...

Future uncertain for stockpiled mercury.(The Beat)
November 1, 2003... Mercury is a potent human neurotoxicant and, in some forms, may cause cancer in humans. Until sales were stopped in 1994, mercury stockpiled by the U.S. Department of Defense almost dominated the world mercury market, keeping prices low and...

Starstruck smokers.(The Beat)
November 1, 2003... A number of studies have shown that tobacco marketing influences the initiation of smoking in adolescents. Now a study led by Dartmouth pediatrics professor Madeline A. Dalton published in The Lancet explores whether smoking in movies triggers...

Toward a new understanding of aging.(NIEHS news)
November 1, 2003... By the year 2050, 21% of the U.S. population will be age 65 or older, according to the Population Reference Bureau. As our bodies age, our ability to defend against environmental insults diminishes, and exposures can accelerate the aging...

DDT and DDE: effect on second generation time to pregnancy.(Reproductive Toxicants)
November 1, 2003... Cohn BA, Cirillo PM, Wolff MS, Schwingl P J, Cohen RD, Sholtz RI, Ferrara A, Christianson RE, van den Berg BJ, Siiteri PK. 2003. DDT and DDE exposure in mothers and time to pregnancy in daughters. Lancet 361:2205-2206. Reproductive tract...

Aging research: the future face of environmental health.(Focus)
November 1, 2003... With the baby boom generation quickly becoming the geriatric generation, getting old is practically trendy these days. In 1900, the over-65 age bracket accounted for only 4.1% of the population, according to the nonprofit Population Research...

REACHing for chemical safety.(Spheres of Influence)
November 1, 2003... A new chemical policy under consideration by the European Union (EU) will, if implemented, initiate a significant change in the way industrial chemicals are regulated in the world's second largest economy. It will be the most comprehensive such...

Digital diagnosis: new tool for detecting skin cancer.(Innovations)
November 1, 2003... There are tradeoffs to enjoying one's day in the sun. The obvious pleasures of outdoor recreation come at the cost of accelerated aging of the skin, formation of cataracts and other damage to the eyes, and increased risk of skin cancers. The...

PBDEs in breast milk: levels higher in United States than in Europe.(Science Selections)
November 1, 2003... The commercial flame retardants that manufacturers add to electrical appliances and building materials undoubtedly save lives. However, mounting evidence shows that these chemicals--which bioaccumulate in the tissues of fish, animals, and...

Ethics in environmental health: a mini-monograph.(Science Selections)
November 1, 2003... Environmental health science is by nature an applied endeavor. Scientists who study environmental toxicology or cancer epidemiology arrive at conclusions that frequently have a direct and immediately apparent relevance to human health....

Oxidative stress-related mechanisms are associated with xenobiotics exerting excess toxicity to Fanconi anemia cells.(Commentary)
November 1, 2003... An extensive body of evidence has demonstrated the sensitivity of Fanconi anemia (FA) cells to redox-active xenobiotics, such as mitomycin C, diepoxybutane, cisplatin, and 8-methoxypsoralen plus ultraviolet irradiation, with toxicity mechanisms...

Is the decline of the increasing incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in Sweden and other countries a result of cancer preventive measures?(Commentary)
November 1, 2003... Is the decline of the increasing incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in Sweden and other countries a result of cancer preventive measures? The yearly age-standardized incidence of NHL increased significantly in Sweden during 1971-1990, for...

Association between essential tremor and blood lead concentration.(Article)
November 1, 2003... Lead is a ubiquitous toxicant that causes tremor and cerebellar damage. Essential tremor (ET) is a highly prevalent neurologic disease associated with cerebellar involvement. Although environmental toxicants may play a role in ET etiology and...

Changing heat-related mortality in the United States.(Research Article)
November 1, 2003... Heat is the primary weather-related cause of death in the United States. Increasing heat and humidity, at least partially related to anthropogenic climate change, suggest that a long-term increase in heat-related mortality could occur. We...

Prenatal exposures to phthalates among women in New York City and Krakow, Poland.(Article)
November 1, 2003... Experimental evidence has shown that certain phthalates can disrupt endocrine function and induce reproductive and developmental toxicity. However, few data are available on the extent of human exposure to phthalates during pregnancy. As part...

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in U.S. mothers' milk.(Article)
November 1, 2003... No previous reports exist on polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) congeners in human milk from individual U.S. mothers. This article on PBDEs is an extension of our previous studies on concentrations of dioxins, dibenzofurans, polychlorinated...

The sea urchin embryo as a model for mammalian developmental neurotoxicity: ontogenesis of the high-affinity choline transporter and its role in cholinergic trophic activity.(Article)
November 1, 2003... Embryonic development in the sea urchin requires trophic actions of the same neurotransmitters that participate in mammalian brain assembly. We evaluated the development of the high-affinity choline transporter, which controls acetylcholine...

Serotonergic systems targeted by developmental exposure to chlorpyrifos: effects during different critical periods.(Article)
November 1, 2003... During brain development, serotonin (5HT) provides essential neurotrophic signals. In the present study, we evaluated whether the developmental neurotoxicity of chlorpyrifos (CPF) involves effects on 5HT signaling, as a potential mechanism...

Arsenic exposure accelerates atherogenesis in apolipoprotein [E.sup.-/-] mice.(Article)
November 1, 2003... Epidemiologic studies have shown an association between elevated arsenic levels in drinking water and an increased risk of atherosclerosis and vascular diseases. The studies presented here were performed to evaluate the atherogenic potential of...

Environmental, occupational, and genetic risk factors for [alpha]-1 Antitrypsin deficiency.(Meeting Report)
November 1, 2003... [alpha]-1 Antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency is an inherited genetic disorder currently diagnosed in approximately 5,000 people in the United States. Although some individuals with AAT deficiency are asymptomatic, the condition often leads to...

Radiographic abnormalities and exposure to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite in the community of Libby, Montana, USA.(Environmental Medicine)
November 1, 2003... Mining, handling, processing, and personal or commercial use of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite have led to widespread contamination of the Libby, Montana, area. We initiated a medical testing program in response to reports of respiratory...

Urinary biomarkers of exposure to jet fuel (JP-8).(Environmental Medicine)
November 1, 2003... Benzene, naphthalene, and 1- and 2-naphthol were measured in urine samples obtained from 322 U.S. Air Force personnel categorized a priori as likely to have low, moderate, or high exposure to jet fuel [jet propulsion fuel-8 (JP-8)]. In...

Neurobehavioral performance and work experience in Florida farmworkers.(Environmental Medicine)
November 1, 2003... Farmworkers experience many work-related hazards, including exposure to neurotoxicants. We compared neurobehavioral performance of 288 farmworkers in central Florida who had done farm work for at least 1 month with 51 controls who had not. Most...

Association between gaseous ambient air pollutants and adverse pregnancy outcomes in Vancouver, Canada.(Children's Health)
November 1, 2003... The association between ambient air pollution and adverse health effects, such as emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and mortality from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, has been studied extensively in many countries, including...

Measurement of pesticides and other toxicants in amniotic fluid as a potential biomarker of prenatal exposure: a validation study.(Children's Health)
November 1, 2003... Prenatal pesticide exposures may adversely affect children's health. However, exposure and health research is hampered by the lack of reliable fetal exposure data. No studies have been published that report measurements of commonly used...

In utero exposure to Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate and duration of human pregnancy.(Children's Health)
November 1, 2003... Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), the most commonly used plasticizer in flexible polyvinylchloride formulations, is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant. To date, no information exists on the potential health hazards from exposure to DEHP...

Ethical issues in environmental health research.(Ethics and Environmental Health)
November 1, 2003... Environmental health research encompasses a wide range of investigational topics, study designs, and empirical methodologies. As that arm of public health research concerned with understanding the health effects of the many environments in...

Qualitative methods in environmental health research.(Ethics and Environmental Health)
November 1, 2003... Public health researchers increasingly turn to qualitative methods either on their own or in combination with quantitative methods. Qualitative methods are especially important to community environmental health research, as they provide a way...

From general policy to legal rule: aspirations and limitations of the precautionary principle.(Ethics and Environmental Health)
November 1, 2003... The rapid spread of the precautionary principle (PP) demonstrates the need to explicitly address the role of precaution in environmental decision making. Unfortunately, the PP in its current form is limited by the vagueness of, and variations...

Science and social responsibility in public health.(Ethics and Environmental Health)
November 1, 2003... Epidemiologists and environmental health researchers have a joint responsibility to acquire scientific knowledge that matters to public health and to apply the knowledge gained in public health practice. We examine the nature and source of...

Objectivity and ethics in environmental health science.(Ethics and environmental Health)
November 1, 2003... During the past several decades, philosophers of science and scientists themselves have become increasingly aware of the complex ways in which scientific knowledge is shaped by its social context. This awareness has called into question...

Superfund Basic Research Program.(NIEHS Extramural Update)
November 1, 2003... The NIEHS is pleased to announce the recompetition of the Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP). Grants made under the SBRP will be for coordinated, multiproject, multi- and interdisciplinary programs. The objective remains to establish and...

Fellowships, grants, & awards.(Announcements)
November 1, 2003... Computational Toxicology and Endocrine Disruptors: Use of Systems Biology in Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is interested in the application of novel technologies that are derived...

Calendar.(Announcements)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... 2003 November 15 November, Sat. Medicine and the Environment: A Clinical, Scientific and Public Health Update. San Francisco, California. Information: Steve Heilig, CHE Conference, San Francisco Medical Society, 1409 Sutter Street,...

Health and Community Design: the Impact of the Built Environment on Physical Activity.
November 1, 2003... By Lawrence D. Frank, Peter O. Engelke, and Thomas L. Schmid Washington, DC:Island Press, 2003. 253 pp. ISBN: 1-55963-917-2, $30 cloth. This book grew out of a comprehensive research agenda on policy and environmental actions to promote...

New books.(Announcements)
November 1, 2003... African Environment and Development: Rhetoric, Programs, Realities William G. Moseley, B. Ikubolajeh Logan Brookfield, VT:Ashgate Publishing, 2003. 256 pp. ISBN: 0-7546-3904-5, $89.95 Apoptosis: Methods and Protocols H....

Toxicogenomic applications to drug risk assessment.(Editorial)
November 15, 2003... Over the past several years, genomic technologies have evolved that enable the simultaneous analysis of the expression of hundreds to thousands of genes. This capability has completely changed the types of questions and the quality of...

eTag, you're it!(Proteomics)
November 15, 2003... Researchers use microarrays to cull from the 30,000 genes identified by the Human Genome Project those that interact with environmental toxicants. Generally, anywhere from 50 to 200 genes stand out and are further scrutinized by time-consuming...

Silencing of mutant genes with RNAi.(Innovative Technologies)
November 15, 2003... RNA works hard at the business of expressing genetic information. It carries instructions from DNA in the cell nucleus into the cytoplasm, where basic housekeeping functions are carried out and proteins manufactured. When messenger RNA arrives...

ADDLs: a new explanation for Alzheimer disease.(Environmental Medicine)
November 15, 2003... Clumps of large, sticky proteins forming senile plaques have been observed in the brains of people with Alzheimer disease ever since neurologist Alois Alzheimer first described the disorder nearly a century ago. However, only in the last few...

TXGnet: Harvard Institute of Proteomics.(Forum)
November 15, 2003... The discovery, study, and characterization of the vast number of proteins in the human body is an enormous challenge. One research center that has been formed to take on this challenge is the Harvard Institute of Proteomics (HIP). The HIP's...

Crunching the bio-numbers.(Bioinformatics)
November 15, 2003... The quest is oil to extract useful information from the growing mountain of data from today's high-throughput, high-tech biology, and there is a constant demand for new data-mining techniques that are faster and smarter. The work presented at a...

Tox/Path team takes on differential gene expression.(Environews: NCT update)
November 15, 2003... Toxicology and pathology are critical elements in toxicogenomics studies. The National Center for Toxicogenomics (NCT) has established a Tox/Path team that includes both NCT scientists and toxicologists and pathologists from the National...

Proteomics: characterizing the cogs in the machinery of life.(Focus)
November 15, 2003... Now that human genome sequence is complete, the quest to extract beneficial knowledge from it is on. One of the most promising, active areas of exploration lies in the human proteome--the global expression of proteins, those marvelouus strings...

Sequencing CYP: more data allows cross-species comparison.(Science Selections)
November 15, 2003... Although important elements of the human and mouse genome projects have been published and a sense of completion prevails, there remains much detail work to be done on both projects. This month, a team led by Haoyi Wang of Miami University in...

Finding genes for alcohol-related behaviors and risk for alcoholism.(Announcements: fellowships, grants, & awards)
November 15, 2003... The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) solicits research proposals to identify and characterize genes that contribute to individual susceptibility to alcoholism and alcohol-related behaviors. This PA encourages...

Neuroprotective CNS barriers in neurological diseases.(Announcements: fellowships, grants, & awards)
November 15, 2003... The goal of this Program Announcement with set-aside funds (PAS) is to invite applications for studying the neurobiological and cerebrovascular mechanisms through which the neuroprotective blood-brain and blood-csf barriers function in the...

Interactions between stem cells and the microenvironment in vivo.(Announcements: fellowships, grants, & awards)
November 15, 2003... National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism...

Metabolomics technology development.(Announcements: fellowships, grants, & awards)
November 15, 2003... The Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invite applications for development and application of new technologies in metabolomics to enable research aimed at elucidating biological pathways and networks. The purpose...

Calendar.(Announcements)(Calendar)
November 15, 2003... 2003 December 2-4 December, Thu-Thu. Understanding Biological Systems through Proteomics. Basel, Switzerland. Information: Conference Secretariat SPS'03, FontisMedia, Avenue Vinet 19, CH-1004 Lausanne, Switzerland, +41-21-6483972,...

Introduction to Proteomics: Tools for the New Biology.
November 15, 2003... By Daniel C. Liebler Totowa, NJ:Humana Press, Inc., 2002. 198 pp. ISBN: 0 89603-991-9, $49.50 cloth. ISBN: 0-89603-992-7, $29.50 paper The so-called New Biology is really a fresh approach to studying living systems by taking one step...

New books.(Announcements)
November 15, 2003... Algorithms in Bioinformatics: Third International Workshop, WAB12003, Budapest, Hungary, September 2003, Proceedings Gary Benson, Roderic Page, eds. Heidelberg, Germany:Springer-Verlag, 2003. 528 pp. ISBN: 3-540-20076-2, $72 Biochips:...

Arraytrack--supporting toxicogenomic research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration National Center for Toxicological Research.(Commentary)
November 15, 2003... The mapping of the human genome and the determination of corresponding gene functions, pathways, and biological mechanisms are driving the emergence of the new research fields of toxicogenomics and systems toxicology. Many technological...

Electrostatic potential on human leukocyte antigen: implications for putative mechanism of chronic beryllium disease.(Toxicogenomics: article)
November 15, 2003... The pathobiology of chronic beryllium disease (CBD) involves the major histocompatibility complex class II human leukocyte antigen (HLA). Although occupational exposure to beryllium is the cause of CBD, molecular epidemiologic studies suggest...

Organization and evolution of the Cyp2 gene cluster on mouse chromosome 7, and comparison with the syntenic human cluster *.(Toxicogenomics: article)
November 15, 2003... Genes from the cytochrome P450 (CY-P) superfamily encode a diverse group of monooxygenases that play important roles in both endogenous processes and in the metabolism of exogenous compounds, including most drugs. A cluster of Cyp2 genes on...

Functional characterization of polymorphisms in DNA repair genes using cytogenetic challenge assays.(Toxicogenomics: article)
November 15, 2003... A major barrier to understanding the role of polymorphic DNA repair genes for environmental cancer is that the functions of variant genotypes are largely unknown. Using our cytogenetic challenge assays, we conducted an investigation to address...