Canary’s Cry for Wednesday, Nov. 12

Salon tackles the Bush Administration’s policy on environmental protection with “The EPA’s Stalin Era.” The highly critical essay by Rebecca Clarren says: As a coalition of more than 40 national and local environmental organizations put it in a letter to EPA administrators this past April: “EPA, under pressure from the Bush White House, has given the foxes the keys to the environmental protection henhouse.” (Thanks Eloise and Will!)

ABC News in Chicago finds problems at the post office. Those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity know that mail is toxic, right? We get sick when we go into post offices and we dread having to sort through our own mail not knowing whether or not we’re going to get knocked on our butt by some toxic chemical embedded in the paper. Miss Molly, one of our flock over at I Learned Something Today, found yet another story about something that can kill you– this time it’s the air inside U.S. postal service hubs. From ABC News in Chicago, “Sorting Through a Sickness,” (click on link to see video):

Nationwide, hundreds of postal employees say they’re ill with what they call severe, mysterious, respiratory problems. Many of them are right here in the Chicago area.

Current and former postal workers blame paper dust inside the post offices. The last government studies on postal dust were ten years ago. The U.S.P.S says the science can’t verify their theory. That’s not acceptable for people who say they’re “sorting through a sickness.”

“I do believe that my life is going to be shortened,” says former postal employee Delphine Howard. She and other former US postal workers in the Chicago area say they’re all fighting chronic respiratory illness. Their medical records reflect their claims. They all say they’ve never smoked.

“I began to have breathing problems, asthma symptoms ,bronchitis,” said former employee Betty Booker.

Sandra Sutton echoed that, saying, “I turn asthmatic and it shuts my lungs down.”

More than 450 employees and former employees on a petition to occupational health officials and postal unions blame health concerns on paper dust fibers inside post offices. Several are fighting for health benefits.

[...]

Postal workers continue to fight for more studies.

As for people on the petition who have since passed away, some of their family members still blame the post office work environment and postal dust. Dr. Oliver says that would be a rare instance, but studies do show that postal dust does contain volatile organic compounds from ink jet printers, which can be harmful. [My emphasis added because to this VOC finding I say: D'oh.]

Health reports “Both Indoor and Outdoor Pollutants Linked to Heart Problems” :

Inhaling air pollution during your daily routine—both inside and outside your home—appears to cause a small rise in blood pressure and have an impact on blood vessel function, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans.

These short-term changes may help explain why long-term exposure to air pollution is linked to a greater risk of heart attack and death due to heart disease.

The researchers looked specifically at particulate matter, a type of air pollution that is smaller than 2.5 microns. (A human hair, by comparison, has a diameter of about 100 microns.) These tiny particles can be inhaled deep in the lungs and are more dangerous than larger particles, which tend to be trapped in the nose or upper airways and sneezed or coughed out of the body.