Environmental Health Perspectives articles from November 2004

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from November 2004

Environment and health: capacity building for the future/ Environnement et sante: augmenter le potentiel pour le futur.(Editorial)
November 1, 2004... In October 2002, the World Health Organization (WHO) sponsored a workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, to address the problems faced by medical journals in the developing world regarding their efforts to provide critical, timely health information...

Are maternal thyroid autoantibodies generated by PCBs the missing link to impaired development of the brain?(Perspectives / Correspondence)
November 1, 2004... In her interesting review addressing endocrine disruption and the developing brain, Colborn (2004) asked rightly for special attention to the role of a disruption of thyroid hormones and thyroid hormone metabolism, which negatively influence...

Update of residential tetrachloroethylene exposure and decreases in visual contrast sensitivity.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
November 1, 2004... In "Apartment Residents' and Day Care Workers' Exposures to Tetrachloroethylene and Deficits in Visual Contrast Sensitivity," Schreiber et al. (2002) reported significantly lower visual contrast sensitivity (VCS) in apartment residents exposed...

More recent studies on fragrances.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
November 1, 2004... In response to Curtis (2004), I would like to cite more recent studies by researchers at the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials, Inc. (RIFM) that address the health and environmental effects of fragrances. The RIFM strives to be...

Pesticides and organic agriculture.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
November 1, 2004... I read with horror the article "Pesticides and Parkinson Disease" by Renee Twombly (2004) in which she implied that rotenone is "often used in organic gardening and farming." She went on to describe the effects of rotenone and the even more...

Agricultural task not predictive of children's exposure to OP pesticides.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
November 1, 2004... Coronado et al. (2004) reported that the agricultural task of plant thinning by adults was associated with higher urinary pesticide metabolite concentrations in children. Their analysis was based on data from a 1999 study of farmworkers in the...

Olden's contributions.(Perspectives / Correspondence)
November 1, 2004... I read with mixed feelings of approval and sadness your editorial about the end of tenure for Kenneth Olden as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) (Brown et al. 2004). I have been greatly impressed with...

Methylmercury and children's heart function.(Children's Health)
November 1, 2004... Pregnant women who consume significant amounts of seafood may have a new reason to take precautions against methylmercury, the most hazardous form of mercury: a recent study suggests that when expectant women consume fish containing high levels...

Showdown in El Dorado.(Asbestos)
November 1, 2004... Taken at face value, northern California's El Dorado County has a lot going for it--the dramatic Sierra Nevada foothills scenery, lots of room for spacious new homes, and its short distance from Sacramento. That's why the population has nearly...

Jakarta's new monorail.(The Beat)
November 1, 2004... Jakarta has begun a monorail project to combat the air pollution and massive traffic jams that plague the city of nearly 9 million people and 5 million vehicles. The monorail system, still in the planning phases, is expected to consist of two...

U.S. climate changes.(The Beat)
November 1, 2004... In August 2004, the Bush administration delivered a report to Congress acknowledging that emissions of greenhouse gases are the best explanation for the global warming trend of the past 30 years. The report, which is available on the Internet...

LA's shipshape terminal.(The Beat)
November 1, 2004... The Port of Los Angeles is home to the world's first container terminal using Alternative Maritime Power (AMP) technology. Although this technology has been used by the U.S. Navy since World War II, the shipping industry has resisted adopting...

Literature searchlight.(Bioinformatics)
November 1, 2004... The time and cost required to bring a new drug to market can exceed 10 years and $800 million, according to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. Now researchers at etexx Biopharmaceuticals in Dallas, Texas, are using software...

Young hearts suffer in poorer countries.(Environmental Justice)
November 1, 2004... Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a well-known killer of older people in affluent countries. In developing countries, however, the disease is striking a younger age group. In India, South Africa, Brazil, and the Russian republic of Tatarstan,...

American Heart Association.(ehpnet)
November 1, 2004... Many diseases fall under the umbrella of "cardiovascular disease," including high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, and congenital heart disease. These conditions affect young and old alike, as well as every ethnic group. In the United...

Rain theft in China.(The Beat)
November 1, 2004... With some agricultural areas of China in the grip of an extended drought, cities have turned to rainmaking technology to extract precious water from the skies. Now neighboring cities in Henan province are accusing one another of an unusual...

AHA links pollution to heart disease.(The Beat)
November 1, 2004... In the 1 June 2004 issue of Circulation, the American Heart Association made its first firm policy statement linking heart disease and long-term exposure to air pollution. The statement, written by University of Michigan researchers, is based...

Seaweed attacks DDT.(The Beat)
November 1, 2004... An international research team funded by the Royal Thai government has found that applying powdered seaweed to soil contaminated with the pesticide DDT can accelerate the breakdown of the contaminant. DDT was widely used from its introduction...

National Toxicology Program: landmarks and the road ahead.(Environews / NIEHS News)
November 1, 2004... The National Toxicology Program (NTP), a cross-agency unit of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), is one of the focal points for government efforts aimed at generating, collecting, and coordinating data used for guiding public...

Mother's pre-pregnancy diet may influence child cancer risk.(Maternal Nutrition and Child Cancer)
November 1, 2004... Jensen CD, Block G, Buffler P, Ma X, Selvin S, Month S. 2004. Maternal dietary risk factors in childhood acute lymphoblastic Leukemia (United States). Cancer Causes Control 15(6):559-570. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most...

Problems along the New "Silk Road".(beyond the BENCH)
November 1, 2004... The inexpensive sweater you buy in New Jersey, the bargain dresser you buy in Wisconsin, and the low-cost toys you buy in Ohio all have one thing in common: most likely they were made in Asia, and chances are they entered the United States...

Environmental cardiology: getting to the heart of the matter.(Environews / Focus)
November 1, 2004... Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading killer in many developed countries, and is soon expected to be the leading killer in all countries. A number of factors have raised CVD to this unsavory stature, among them lack of exercise, poor...

COAL: poised for a comeback?(Environews / Spheres of Influence)
November 1, 2004... Coal could be called energy's comeback kid: sometimes forgotten, perhaps underappreciated, but always available for one more shot at the big time. It is one of humankind's original sources of energy, and is used worldwide for cooking, heating,...

Underwater logging: submarine rediscovers lost wood.(Environews / Innovations)
November 1, 2004... The global market for industrial wood products (including wood and paper) is a $400 billion industry, according to From Trends in Industrial Roundwood Production and Consumption, a 2001 report from the World Resources Institute. The report...

The big picture: mapping-SARS in Hong Kong.(Environews / Science Selections)
November 1, 2004... Epidemiologists have long used maps to track the spread of disease, and in the past decade, geographic information system (GIS) technology has added powerful new tools that help reveal far more than simply the "where" and "when" of epidemics....

A hazard in utero? Bisphenol a more potent than expected.(Environews / Science Selections)
November 1, 2004... Environmental estrogens are a structurally diverse group of chemicals that partially mimic the effects of endogenous estrogens. Scientists believe the wide use of environmental estrogens such as bisphenol A (BPA), a component of epoxy resins...

The safety of xenoestrogens: challenging the genomic model of effects.(Environews / Science Selections)
November 1, 2004... Current thinking holds that environmental estrogens cause endocrine disruption when these steroid mimics enter the cell's nucleus and turn genes on or off, or up or down, by binding to DNA. According to this genomic-nuclear pathway model, many...

Listing occupational carcinogens.(Research / Review)
November 1, 2004... The occupational environment has been a most fruitful one for investigating the etiology of human cancer. Many recognized human carcinogens are occupational carcinogens. There is a large volume of epidemiologic and experimental data concerning...

Organochlorine exposure and colorectal cancer risk.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Organochlorine compounds have been linked to increased risk of several cancers. Despite reductions in their use and fugitive release, they remain one of the most important groups of persistent pollutants to which humans are exposed, primarily...

Androgenic and estrogenic response of green mussel extracts from Singapore's coastal environment using a human cell-based bioassay.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... In the last decade, evidence of endocrine disruption in biota exposed to environmental pollutants has raised serious concern. Human cell-based bioassays have been developed to evaluate induced androgenic and estrogenic activities of chemical...

Cumulative dietary energy intake determines the onset of puberty in female rats.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Laboratory animal diets for studies to determine the endocrine-disrupting potential of chemicals are under scrutiny because they can affect both assay control values and assay sensitivity. Although phytoestrogen content is important, we have...

Xenoestrogen-induced ERK-1 and ERK-2 activation via multiple membrane-initiated signaling pathways.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Xenoestrogens can mimic or antagonize the activity of physiological estrogens, and the suggested mechanism of xenoestrogen action involves binding to estrogen receptors (ERs). However, the failure of various in vivo or in vivo assays to show...

Effects of 1,3-butadiene, isoprene, and their photochemical degradation products on human lung cells.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Because of potential exposure both in the workplace and from ambient air, the known carcinogen 1,3-butadiene (BD) is considered a priority hazardous air pollutant. BD and its 2-methyl analog, isoprene (ISO), are chemically similar but have very...

Lead sources in human diet in Greenland.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Although blood lead levels have declined in Greenland, they are still elevated despite the fact that lead levels in the Greenland environment are very low, Fragments of lead shot in game birds have been suggested as an important source of...

Blood lead changes during pregnancy and postpartum with calcium supplementation.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Pregnancy and lactation are times of physiologic stress during which bone turnover is accelerated. Previous studies have demonstrated that there is increased mobilization of lead from the maternal skeleton at this time and that calcium...

Production of androgens by microbial transformation of progesterone in vitro: a model for androgen production in rivers receiving paper mill effluent.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... We have previously documented the presence of progesterone and androstenedione in the water column and bottom sediments of the Fenholloway River, Taylor County, Florida. This river receives paper mill effluent and contains masculinized female...

Evidence for concurrent effects of exposure to environmental cadmium and lead on hepatic CYP2A6 phenotype and renal function biomarkers in nonsmokers.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... We examined the interrelationships between phenotype of hepatic cytochrome P450 2A6 (CYP2A6), nephropathy, and exposure to cadmium and lead in a group of 118 healthy Thai men and women who had never smoked. Their urinary Cd excretion ranged...

Impact of the phytoestrogen content of laboratory animal feed on the gene expression profile of the reproductive system in the immature female rat.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... The effect of the dietary background of phytoestrogens on the outcome of rodent bioassays used to identify and assess the reproductive hazard of endocrine-disrupting chemicals is controversial. Phytoestrogens, including genistein, daidzein, and...

Relationship between composition and toxicity of motor vehicle emission samples.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... In this study we investigated the statistical relationship between particle and semivolatile organic chemical constituents in gasoline and diesel vehicle exhaust samples, and toxicity as measured by inflammation and tissue damage in rat lungs...

Lung cancer in railroad workers exposed to diesel exhaust.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Diesel exhaust has been suspected to be a lung carcinogen. The assessment of this lung cancer risk has been limited by lack of studies of exposed workers followed for many years. In this study, we assessed lung cancer mortality in 54,973 U.S....

In vivo imaging of activated estrogen receptors in utero by estrogens and bisphenol A.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Environmental estrogens are of particular concern when exposure, occurs during embryonic development. Although there are good models to study estrogenic activity of chemicals in adult animals, developmental exposure is much more difficult to...

Understanding the spatial clustering of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... We applied cartographic and geostatistical methods in analyzing the patterns of disease spread during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Hong Kong using geographic information system (GIS) technology. We analyzed an...

Assessing ozone-related health impacts under a changing climate.(Research / Article)
November 1, 2004... Climate change may increase the frequency and intensity of ozone episodes in future summers in the United States. However, only recently have models become available that can assess the impact of climate change on [O.sub.3] concentrations and...

Induced sputum assessment in New York City firefighters exposed to World Trade Center dust.(Environmental Medicine / Article)
November 1, 2004... New York City Firefighters (FDNY-FFs) were exposed to particulate matter and combustion/ pyrolysis products during and after the World Trade Center (WTC) collapse. Ten months after the collapse, induced sputum (IS) samples were obtained from 39...

Maternal and paternal risk factors for cryptorchidism and hypospadias: a case-control study in newborn boys.(Children's Health / Article)
November 1, 2004... Little is known on environmental risk factors for cryptorchidism and hypospadias, which are among the most frequent congenital abnormalities. The aim of our study was to identify risk factors for cryptorchidism and hypospadias, with a focus on...

Geographic analysis of blood lead levels in New York State children born 1994-1997.(Children's Health / Article)
November 1, 2004... We examined the geographic distribution of the blood lead levels (BLLs) of 677,112 children born between 1994 and 1997 in New York State and screened before 2 years of age. Five percent of the children screened had BLLs higher than the current...

The relationship between housing and health: children at risk.(Children's Health / Workgroup Report)
November 1, 2004... In November 2002, the National Center for Healthy Housing convened a 2-day workshop to review the state of knowledge in the field of healthy housing. The workshop, supported with funds from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's...

Susceptibility and population health branch.(Announcements / NIEHS Extramural Update)
November 1, 2004... Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series of articles describing the four extramural program branches at the NIEHS. The Susceptibility and Population Health Branch (SPHB) plans and administers extramural programs that study the complex...

Obesity and the built environment.(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
November 1, 2004... In the United States, obesity and overweight have risen to an epidemic rate during the past 20 years and are among the most important health challenges of our time. Obesity in adults is associated with increased risk of a number of diseases and...

Novel approaches to enhance animal stem cell research.(Announcements / Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
November 1, 2004... The purpose of this program announcement (PA) is to encourage research to enhance animal stem cells as model biological systems. Innovative approaches to isolate, characterize, and identify totipotent and multipotent stem cells from nonhuman...

Calendar.(Announcements)(Calendar)
November 1, 2004... 2004 December 2-4 December, Thu-Sat. 5th Annual Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools National Symposium. Washington, D.C. Information: Symposium Coordinator, The Cadmus Group, Inc., 1901 N. Ft. Myer Drive, Suite 900, Arlington, VA...

Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas.
November 1, 2004... By Rod Fujita Gabriola Island, BC, Canada:New Society Publishers, 2003. 227 pp. ISBN: 0-86571-500-9, $16.95 paper In only 198 pages of text, Rod Fujita's Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas covers major threats to the health of...

New books.(Announcements)
November 1, 2004... A Scientist Audits the Earth Stuart L. Pimm Piscataway, NJ:Rutgers University Press, 2004. 304 pp. ISBN: 0-8135-3540-9, $19.95 Academia to Biotechnology: Career Changes at any Stage Jeffrey Gimble Burlington, MA:Elsevier, 2004. 186 pp....

Systems biology, the second time around.(Guest Editorial)
November 15, 2004... When T.S. Eliot (Eliot 1963) wrote And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where wee starred And know the place for the first time, he was probably nor thinking explicitly of science, but as science is deeply...

The year of the rat.(Genomics)
November 15, 2004... After two years of intensive efforts by an international consortium of researchers, the Brown Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) joins the human and the mouse as the third mammalian genomic sequence to be completed. The achievement is expected to...

Getting to the core of antimicrobials.(Molecular Biology)
November 15, 2004... Much research on host defenses against infection has concentrated on the amino acid sequences of antimicrobial peptides in the belief that the order of the acids and their replication reflect how they work against aberrant cells. Now...

Tackling innate immunity.(Infectious Disease)
November 15, 2004... According to the 1999 World Health Organization report Removing Obstacles to Healthy Development, infectious diseases cause one-third of all human deaths worldwide. These diseases also cost the livestock industry billions of dollars yearly,...

Cellular jigsaw puzzles.(Innovative Technologies)
November 15, 2004... Although scientists have great understanding of individual molecules, the limitations of modern technology have restricted the study of molecular groupings, or "machines," within cells. Now, however, scientists with the Structural and...

Y.F. Leung's Functional Genomics.(txg net)
November 15, 2004... With its sequencing completed in 2003, scientists set their sights on determining the basic structure and inner workings of the human genome. This movement has spawned numerous new scientific specialties that have been supported by the growth...

Mass spectrometry group has mass appeal.(NCT Update)
November 15, 2004... The field of proteomics seeks to define, on a global scale, the levels, activities, regulation, and interaction of proteins in a biological sample. Proteomics is analogous to transcriptomics--the global analysis of mRNA transcripts that arise...

Systems biology: the picture.(Focus)
November 15, 2004... Genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have all vastly advanced our understanding of human biology and disease. But the functioning of even a simple system such as a single yeast cell or bacterium is much more complicated than the sum of its...

Template for toxicants: gene expression varies by cell type.(Science Selections)
November 15, 2004... Gene expression profiling shows that cells generally respond to toxicant stress by repressing genes that guide cell growth and inducing those that govern DNA repair and other protective functions. However, the specific genes repressed or...

How [E.sub.2] induces uterine effects: transcription coordinates cascade.(Science Selections)
November 15, 2004... The rodent uterotrophic assay, a standard method [or assessing a compound's estrogenicity, offers a model for phenotypic anchoring, or linking changes in gene expression to specific pathologic changes. Typically, when an immature rodent uterus...

Phenotypic anchoring of gene expression changes during estrogen-induced uterine growth.(Toxicogenomics)
November 15, 2004... A major challenge in the emerging field of toxicogenomics is to define the relationships between chemically induced changes in gene expression and alterations in conventional toxicologic parameters such as clinical chemistry and histopathology....

Prediction of toxicant-specific gene expression signatures after chemotherapeutic treatment of breast cell lines.(Toxicogenomics)
November 15, 2004... Global gene expression profiling has demonstrated that the predominant cellular response to a range of toxicants is a general stress response. This stereotyped environmental stress response commonly includes repression of protein synthesis and...

The TAO-Gen algorithm for identifying gene interaction networks with application to SOS repair in E. coli.(Toxicogenomics)
November 15, 2004... One major unresolved issue in the analysis of gene expression data is the identification and quantification of gene regulatory networks. Several methods have been proposed for identifying gene regulatory networks, but these methods...

Using decision forest to classify prostate cancer samples on the basis of SELDI-TOF MS data: assessing chance correlation and prediction confidence.(Toxicogenomics)
November 15, 2004... Class prediction using "omics" data is playing an increasing role in toxicogenomics, diagnosis/prognosis, and risk assessment. These data are usually noisy and represented by relatively few samples and a very large number of predictor variables...

Renal toxicogenomic response to chronic uranyl nitrate insult in mice.(Toxicogenomics)
November 15, 2004... Although the nephrotoxicity of uranium has been established through numerous animal studies, relatively little is known about the effects of long-term environmental uranium exposure. Using a combination of conventional biochemical studies and...

Subchronic exposure to TCDD, PeCDF, PCB126, and PCB153: effect on hepatic gene expression.(Toxicogenomics)
November 15, 2004... We employed DNA microarray to identify unique hepatic gene expression patterns associated with subchronic exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and other halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons (HAHs). Female Harlan Sprague-Dawley...

Tools for genetic and genomic studies in emerging model organisms.(Fellowships, Grants, & Awards)
November 15, 2004... This Program Announcement (PA) is to encourage investigator-initiated applications for research designed to generate genetic tools and genomic resources that will enable researchers to exploit the full potential of novel or developing model...

NLM research grants in biomedical informatics and bioinformatics (R01).(Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
November 15, 2004... The purpose of this PA is to reissue and update the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) research grant program for biomedical informatics and bioinformatics. NLM's research funding centers on understanding data, information and knowledge, in...

Quick-trials for novel cancer therapies: exploratory grants.(Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
November 15, 2004... Continuing progress in basic cancer research and drug development has led to discoveries of new agents or approaches for molecular targeting in novel cancer therapies. These new agents or approaches suppress tumor growth through multiple...

Genetics and pathobiology of vascular cognitive impairment.(Fellowships, Grants & Awards)
November 15, 2004... The purpose of this Program Announcement with set-aside funds (PAS) is to invite applications to study the biological basis of vascular cognitive impairment (VCI). VCI causes a burden of illness similar to that caused by Alzheimer's disease...

Calendar.(Announcements)(Calendar)
November 15, 2004... 2004 December 2-5 December, Thu-Sun. Drug Discovery in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Information: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Meetings & Courses Programs Office, PO Box 100, 1 Bungtown Road, Cold Spring...

Toxicogenomics: Principles and Applications.
November 15, 2004... Toxicogenomics: Principles and Applications Edited by Hisham K. Hamadeh and Cynthia A. Afshari Hoboken, NJ:Wiley-Liss, 2004. 361 pp. ISBN: 0-471-43417-5. $69.95 cloth This timely book presents basic toxicology for molecular biologists...

New books.(Announcements)
November 15, 2004... Algorithms in Bioinformatics Inge Jonassen, Junhyong Kim, eds. New York:Springer-Verlag, 2004. 476 pp. ISBN: 3-540-23018-1, $84 Antisense Therapeutics, 2nd ed. M. Ian Phillips Totowa, NJ:Humana Press, 2004. 344 pp. ISBN:...