Environmental Health Perspectives articles from September 2006

Environmental Health Perspectives archives from September 2006

The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis.
September 1, 2006... The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis By Paul A. Offit New Haven:Yale University Press, 2005. 238 pp. ISBN: 0-300-10864-8, $27.50 This entertaining, well-written book provides...

New books.(Announcements)
September 1, 2006... A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy J. Timmons Roberts, Bradley C. Parks Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 2006. 384 pp. ISBN: 0-262-18256-4, $65 Academic Scientists at Work Jeremy M....

A year in review.(DIRECTOR'S PERSPECTIVE)
September 1, 2006... A little more than a year ago, I joined the NIEHS as director. As I reflect on this past year, I am proud of the many accomplishments I and the staff of the NIEHS have worked together to achieve, particularly our strategic plan, New Frontiers...

Testing needed for acesulfame potassium, an artificial sweetener.(Correspondence)
September 1, 2006... In their article "First Experimental Demonstration of the Multipotential Carcinogenic Effects of Aspartame Administered in the Feed of Sprague-Dawley Rats," Soffritti et al. (2006) present interesting data on the carcinogenic effects of...

Acesulfame potassium: Soffritti responds.(Correspondence)
September 1, 2006... Karstadt makes an important point regarding the need for more adequate long-term carcinogenicity testing of the artificial sweetener acesulfame K. The issues raised in her letter stimulated me to offer some additional considerations. As...

Chemical mixtures: greater-than-additive effects?(Correspondence)
September 1, 2006... Various combinations of chemicals are being detected in the environment with increasing frequency. This has raised awareness that we are not exposed to individual chemicals in isolation and heightens concern that the toxicity of individual...

Chemical mixtures: Hayes responds.(Correspondence)
September 1, 2006... LeBlanc and Wang point out that we did not demonstrate synergy; they stated that "to invoke synergy, one must--at a minimum--exclude the possibility of concentration or response additivity." In fact, we did not "invoke synergy": in our...

Comparing risk of West Nile virus against risk of adulticiding.(Correspondence)
September 1, 2006... Peterson et al. (2006) compared the risk of ground-based ultra-low-volume (ULV) adulticiding against the risk of West Nile virus (WNV). They concluded that [B]y virtually any current human-health measure, the risks from infection by...

West Nile virus: Peterson et al. Respond.(Correspondence)
September 1, 2006... We thank Schofield et al. for their interest in our article and for their comments. We would like to clarify that Peterson et al. (2006) is simply a screening-level (tier 1) risk assessment in which we separately and conservatively examined the...

Prostate cancer and early BPA exposure.(CHEMICAL EXPOSURES)
September 1, 2006... In animal models, estrogens can drive carcinogenesis of the prostate and have long been suspected of playing a role in human prostate cancer. Scientists have hypothesized that prenatal exposure to estrogenlike compounds, including monomeric...

WHO/ILSI affiliation sustained.(POLICY)
September 1, 2006... The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is set to be honored for its Physical Activity and Nutrition program as part of the September 2006 National Congress on Accelerating Improvement in Childhood Obesity in Washington, DC. The...

A deadly MIF.(INFECTIOUS DISEASE)
September 1, 2006... Up to 2 million children die each year from malaria, with about half dying from malaria-induced anemia. Scientists aren't sure why some malaria patients develop this life-threatening complication and others don't. A study published in the 15...

Ozone: good, bad, or indifferent?(ENVIRONMENTAL DISEASE)
September 1, 2006... Following up on their eye-catching finding that the human body generates its own ozone for beneficial purposes, a team of U.S. and British researchers now describe specific processes through which ozone can react with cholesterol and contribute...

Tracking toxicants in Canadians.(The Beat)
September 1, 2006... Health Canada announced in May 2006 that it would begin a national biomonitoring program to measure levels of toxic chemicals in the bodies of Canadians. The announcement came as the NGO Environmental Defense prepared to release the results of...

Citizens want free access to research findings.(The Beat)
September 1, 2006... The results of an online Harris poll released 1 June 2006 show that 82% of U.S. adults believe the findings of federally funded research should be available for free online, and that 62% believe free access would lead to quicker discoveries...

Roadside meth risk.(The Beat)
September 1, 2006... According to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse, every pound of methamphetamine produced means 5 to 7 pounds of toxic materials. Now roadside cleanup volunteers and maintenance workers are being educated about the dangers of picking up...

Cairo hails new fleet of Eco-cabs.(The Beat)
September 1, 2006... Cairo is known for its poor air quality, with its near-permanent haze a mix of industrial emissions, desert sand, and car exhaust fumes. In March 2006, a small fleet of new taxis hit the streets of Egypt's capital city. Unlike their...

Living low poses risk.(The Beat)
September 1, 2006... Although only 2.2% of the world's land area is less than 10 meters above sea level, 10% of the world's population--some 600 million people--lives at these low elevations. Of these, 60% live in urban areas. A report in the April 2006 news...

A plan for farm plastics.(The Beat)
September 1, 2006... Farmers use "ag plastics" for a wide variety of purposes--dairy and silage bags, coverings for crops, wrappings for hay bales, and more--and thousands of tons are burned, buried, or dumped annually. Now Cornell University researcher Lois...

Collaborative on health and the environment Toxicant and Disease Database.(ehpnet)
September 1, 2006... From huge industrial spills to exposure to everyday products, there are a number of ways people come in contact with potentially hazardous chemicals. To help educate those wanting more in-depth information about the health effects of chemicals,...

RTP leaders unite to advance environmental health.(NIEHS News)
September 1, 2006... When North Carolina's Research Triangle Foundation provided 509 acres of land to the U.S. Surgeon General's Office in 1967 as the site for the newly established Division of Environmental Health Sciences, the area was probably not foreseen as a...

An integrative curriculum: science by design.(BEYOND THE BENCH)
September 1, 2006... With our increased awareness of the need to understand human-environment interactions, it is more critical than ever to spark and nourish children's interest in science. Now an NIEHS-sponsored program at the Baylor College of Medicine Center...

Sperm DNA changes as men age.(Reproductive Health)
September 1, 2006... Wyrobek AJ, Eskenazi B, Young S, Arnheim N, Tiemann-Boege I, Jabs EW, et al. 2006. Advancing age has differential effects on DNA damage, chromatin integrity, gene mutations, and aneuploidies in sperm. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 103:9601-9606. ...

Monitoring environmental exposures: now it's personal.(Focus)
September 1, 2006... Most diseases are thought to arise from the combined effects of genes and the environment. While great strides have been made in our understanding of human genetics, the contribution of environmental exposures to disease remains poorly...

T rays vs. terrorists: widening the security spectrum.(Innovations)
September 1, 2006... The 10 August 2006 arrest in Britain of 24 terrorists bent on smuggling bomb components aboard airplanes and combining them en route is just the latest salvo in the Darwinian battle between developers of terrorist weaponry and those seeking to...

Pyrethroids in the home: nondietary pesticide exposure in children.(Science Selections)
September 1, 2006... Because pyrethroid pesticides are often used in conventional agriculture, people are routinely exposed to trace amounts in foods. Similar exposure to organophosphorus (OP) pesticides has been described previously in results from the Children's...

Heavy traffic can be a pain in the ... ear? Vehicle emissions linked to otitis media.(Science Selections)
September 1, 2006... Traffic is a major source of air pollutants, and more studies are looking at the role of traffic-related air pollution in children's health. Researchers report in this issue that young children exposed to higher levels of traffic pollution have...

A lethal change in the weather: temperature extremes and premature mortality.(Science Selections)
September 1, 2006... Extremely hot and cold days can be fatal to certain vulnerable populations, as the more than 160 deaths in two weeks during California's July 2006 heat wave clearly showed. The elderly and lower-income individuals are generally acknowledged to...

Tiny intensifiers: nanoparticles worsen lung effects of bacterial endotoxin.(Science Selections)
September 1, 2006... Exposure to particulate matter in the air, especially extremely fine particles, has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality from lung and cardiovascular disease. Effects grow more significant with decreasing particle size....

Update on the NIEHS hurricane response portal.(NIEHS Extramural Update)
September 1, 2006... In the aftermath of devastation of the Gulf Coast, teams of NIEHS staff responded by mobilizing resources. Within the Division of Extramural Research and Training, a group of Superfund Basic Research Program grantees pooled resources to create...

Chemical plants remain vulnerable to terrorists: a call to action.(Commentary)
September 1, 2006... U.S. chemical plants currently have potentially catastrophic vulnerabilities as terrorist targets. The possible consequences of these vulnerabilities echo from the tragedies of the Bhopal incident in 1984 to the terrorist attacks on 11...

The Chernobyl accident 20 years on: an assessment of the health consequences and the international response.(Commentary)(Disease/Disorder overview)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: The Chernobyl accident in 1986 caused widespread radioactive contamination and enormous concern. Twenty years later, the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Authority issued a generally reassuring statement...

Climate change and human health impacts in the United States: an update on the results of the U.S. national assessment.(Review)
September 1, 2006... The health sector component of the first U.S. National Assessment, published in 2000, synthesized the anticipated health impacts of climate variability and change for five categories of health outcomes: impacts attributable to temperature,...

Effects of airway exposure to nanoparticles on lung inflammation induced by bacterial endotoxin in mice.(Research)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Although adverse health effects of particulate matter with a diameter of OBJECTIVE: In the present study we investigated the effects of nanoparticles on lung inflammation related to bacterial endotoxin [lipopolysaccharide (LPS)]...

Extreme temperatures and mortality: assessing effect modification by personal characteristics and specific cause of death in a multi-city case-only analysis.(Research)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Extremes of temperature are associated with short-term increases in daily mortality. OBJECTIVES: We set out to identify subpopulations and mortality causes with increased susceptibility to temperature extremes. METHODS: We...

Gene expression changes related to endocrine function and decline in reproduction in fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) after dietary methylmercury exposure.(Research)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Methylmercury (MeHg) is a known neurotoxic agent, but the mechanisms by which MeHg may act on reproductive pathways are relatively unknown. Several studies have indicated potential changes in hormone levels as well as declines in...

The relation between temperature, ozone, and mortality in nine French cities during the heat wave of 2003.(Research)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: During August 2003, record high temperatures were observed across Europe, and France was the country most affected. During this period, elevated ozone concentrations were measured all over the country. Questions were raised...

Reproductive hormone levels in men exposed to persistent organohalogen pollutants: a study of Inuit and three European cohorts.(Research)
September 1, 2006... OBJECTIVE: Persistent organohalogen pollutant (POP) exposure may have a negative impact on reproductive function. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of POP exposure on the male hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal axis. ...

The role of inflammatory mediators in the synergistic toxicity of ozone and 1-nitronaphthalene in rat airways.(Research)
September 1, 2006... Ambient air is polluted with a mixture of pulmonary toxicants. Previous studies indicate that prior exposure to atmospheric oxidant pollutants such as ozone may significantly alter the response to other pollutants, such as 1-nitronaphthalene...

Lung cancer attributable to indoor radon exposure in France: impact of the risk models and uncertainty analysis.(Research)
September 1, 2006... OBJECTIVE: The inhalation of radon, a well-established human carcinogen, is the principal--and omnipresent--source of radioactivity exposure for the general population of most countries. Scientists have thus sought to assess the lung cancer...

Apoptosis and Bax expression are increased by coal dust in the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-exposed lung.(Research)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Miners inhaling respirable coal dust (CD) frequently develop coal workers' pneumoconiosis, a dust-associated pneumoconiosis characterized by lung inflammation and variable fibrosis. Many coal miners are also exposed to polycyclic...

GIS approaches for the estimation of residential-level ambient PM concentrations.
September 1, 2006... Spatial estimations are increasingly used to estimate geocoded ambient particulate matter (PM) concentrations in epidemiologic studies because measures of daily PM concentrations are unavailable in most U.S. locations. This study was conducted...

Airborne mold and endotoxin concentrations in New Orleans, Louisiana, after flooding, October through November 2005.
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: The hurricanes and flooding in New Orleans, Louisiana, in October and November 2005 resulted in damp conditions favorable to the dispersion of bioaerosols such as mold spores and endotoxin. OBJECTIVE: Our objective in this study...

Lung toxicity of ambient particulate matter from southeastern U.S. sites with different contributing sources: relationships between composition and effects.
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Exposure to air pollution and, more specifically, particulate matter (PM) is associated with adverse health effects. However, the specific PM characteristics responsible for biological effects have not been defined. OBJECTIVES:...

Use of a physiologically based pharmacokinetic model for rats to study the influence of body fat mass and induction of CYP1A2 on the pharmacokinetics of TCDD.
September 1, 2006... 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a highly lipophilic chemical that distributes into adipose tissue, especially at low doses. However, at high doses TCDD sequesters in liver because it induces cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2) that binds...

Exit from arsenite-induced mitotic arrest is p53 dependent.(Research)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Arsenic is both a human carcinogen and a chemotherapeutic agent, but the mechanism of neither arsenic-induced carcinogenesis nor tumor selective cytotoxicity is clear. Using a model cell line in which p53 expression is regulated...

Meeting report: development of environmental health indicators in Brazil and other countries in the Americas.(Research)
September 1, 2006... This report summarizes the Brazilian experience on the design and implementation of environmental health, with contributions from Argentina, Canada, and Cuba, presented at the International Symposium on the Development of Indicators for...

Experimental PVC material challenge in subjects with occupational PVC exposure.(Environmental Medicine)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) materials have been linked to asthma in several epidemiologic studies, but the possible causal factors remain unknown. PARTICIPANTS: We challenged 10 subjects experimentally to degraded PVC products...

Traffic-related air pollution and otitis media.(Children's Health)
September 1, 2006... BACKGROUND: Otitis media is one of the most common infections in young children. Although exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is a known risk factor associated with otitis media, little information is available regarding the potential...

A longitudinal approach to assessing urban and suburban children's exposure to pyrethroid pesticides.(Children's Health)
September 1, 2006... We conducted a longitudinal study to assess the exposure of 23 elementary school-age children to pyrethroid pesticides, using urinary pyrethroid metabolites as exposure biomarkers. We substituted most of the children's conventional diets with...

Exposure to phthalates in neonatal intensive care unit infants: urinary concentrations of monoesters and oxidative metabolites.(Children's Health)
September 1, 2006... OBJECTIVE: We previously demonstrated that among 54 infants in neonatal intensive care units, exposure to polyvinyl chloride plastic medical devices containing the plasticizer di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is associated with urinary...

Lung radiology and pulmonary function of children chronically exposed to air pollution.(Children's Health)
September 1, 2006... We analyzed the chest radiographs (CXRs) of 249 clinically healthy children, 230 from southwest Mexico City and 19 from Tlaxcala. In contrast to children from Tlaxcala, children from southwest Mexico City were chronically exposed to ozone...

Autism spectrum disorders in relation to distribution of hazardous air pollutants in the San Francisco Bay area.(Children's Health)
September 1, 2006... OBJECTIVE: To explore possible associations between autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and environmental exposures, we linked the California autism surveillance system to estimated hazardous air pollutant (HAP) concentrations compiled by the U.S....

Key scientific issues in the health risk assessment of trichloroethylene.(Mini-Monograph)
September 1, 2006... Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a common environmental contaminant at hazardous waste sites and in ambient and indoor air. Assessing the human health risks of TCE is challenging because of its inherently complex metabolism and toxicity and the...

Issues in the pharmacokinetics of trichloroethylene and its metabolites.(Mini-Monograph)
September 1, 2006... Much progress has been made in understanding the complex pharmacokinetics of trichloroethylene (TCE). Qualitatively, it is clear that TCE is metabolized to multiple metabolites either locally or into systemic circulation. Many of these...

Key issues in the modes of action and effects of trichloroethylene metabolites for liver and kidney tumorigenesis.(Mini-Monograph)
September 1, 2006... Trichloroethylene (TCE) exposure has been associated with increased risk of liver and kidney cancer in both laboratory animal and epidemiologic studies. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2001 draft TCE risk assessment concluded that it...

Key issues in the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor agonism and cell signaling in trichloroethylene toxicity.(Mini-Monograph)
September 1, 2006... Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor [alpha] (PPAR[alpha]) is thought to be involved in several different diseases, toxic responses, and receptor pathways. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2001 draft trichloroethylene (TCE) risk...

Trichloroethylene cancer epidemiology: a consideration of select issues.(Mini-Monograph)(Disease/Disorder overview)
September 1, 2006... A large body of epidemiologic evidence exists for exploring causal associations between cancer and trichloroethylene (TCE) exposure. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2001 draft TCE health risk assessment concluded that epidemiologic...