Opportunity to participate in Multiple Chemical Sensitivity research

The Multiple Chemical Sensitivity research team at James Madison University is currently looking for people to participate in current studies.

Experiencing Environmental Sensitivities

We are interested in interviewing people who have had environmental sensitivities for 5 years or more. The interview will last approximately 30 minutes and will explore the phenomenology of what it is like to experience sensitivities and to interact with others in a chemical culture.

If you are interested in participating, please click here to open the consent form and to complete the short demographic questionnaire. If you do not have computer access or cannot use a computer, please contact our lab for a hard copy of the short demographic survey. You can call us at 540-568-6195.

Client’s Perceptions of Services from Mental Health Providers for Persons with Environmental Sensitivities

In this study we will examine people’s perceptions of any services they have received from psychological providers. People with sensitivities end up in the offices of mental health providers for a variety of reasons: for counseling, for evaluations in regard to disability applications or as requested by Vocational Rehabilitation, or when referred by a physician who perceives the problem to be psychological. There may be other reasons as well. We are interested in the treatment that people receive, whether they are accommodated by these providers, and their perceptions of how knowledgeable mental health providers are regarding sensitivities.

In addition, as part of this study we invite anyone who has received a psychological evaluation from a psychologist to submit it so we can examine how people with sensitivities are being construed by psychologists. There has been an ongoing movement to frame MCS/ES as a psychological illness. We believe it is physical and would like to attempt to begin discussion of the ways that persons with MCS are framed in evaluations.

Click here to take our survey of psychological services on Qualtrics: http://jmu.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_6DpHHiwHSysPFgE&SVID=Prod

If you are unable to take the survey online or know of someone who would like to participate without taking the survey online, we can be contacted for either an e-mail copy or a hard copy of the survey. Phone 540-568-6195 or e-mail gibsonpr@jmu.edu.

Link

Thanks, Linda!

Panel confirms Gulf War Illness caused by toxic chemicals

A congressionally mandated report on Gulf War Illness is released.

Findings of a study just released on Gulf War Illness directly correlate the chemical exposure experienced by soldiers, notably pesticide exposure, to memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue, widespread pain, chronic digestive problems, respiratory symptoms, and skin rashes.

How many of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity have stories of being similarly exposed to toxic chemicals resulting in the same chronic symptoms? Do you think anyone will ever mandate a study about us?

WASHINGTON - At least one in four U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffers from a multi-symptom illness caused by exposure to toxic chemicals during the conflict, a congressionally mandated report being released Monday found.

For much of the past 17 years, government officials have maintained that these veterans — more than 175,000 out of about 697,000 deployed — are merely suffering the effects of wartime stress, even as more have come forward recently with severe ailments.

“The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that ‘Gulf War illness’ is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time,” said the report, being released Monday by a panel of scientists and veterans. A copy was obtained by Cox Newspapers.

Gulf War illness is typically characterized by a combination of memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue and widespread pain. It may also include chronic digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes.

Two things the military provided to troops in large quantities to protect them — pesticides and pyridostigmine bromide (PB), aimed at thwarting the effects of nerve gas — are the most likely culprits, the panel found.

[...]

It found that in terms of brain function, exposure to pesticides and the PB pills hurts people’s memory, attention and mood. Some people, it notes, are genetically more susceptible to exposures than others.

[...]

To ward off swarms of sand flies in Kuwait City and the eastern Saudi province of Dhahran, Hardie said trucks would come through at 3 a.m. and spray “clouds” of pesticides.

Fly strips that smelled toxic hung “everywhere,” especially near food. “The pesticide use was far and away (more) than what you’d see in daily life,” he said.

Several soldiers interviewed said they were ordered to dunk their uniforms in the pesticide DEET and to spray pesticide routinely on exposed skin and in their boots to ward off scorpions. Others wore pet flea collars around their ankles.

The federal panel added that it also could not rule out an association between Gulf War illness and the prolonged exposure to oil fires, as well as low-level exposures to nerve agents, injections of many vaccines and combinations of neurotoxic exposures.

Link to full story at Rome News-Tribune, well worth the read.

Photo by Lietmotiv: Oil well fires rage outside Kuwait City in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm. The wells were set on fire by Iraqi forces before they were ousted from the region by coalition force.

Canary’s Cry for Sunday, Nov. 16

In light of the recent fires in California, The New York Times says “In Fighting Wildfires, People Concerned About Chemicals.” The concern is about the fire retardant dropped from planes. “Yet while many residents praise — and even demand — the use of retardant to protect their homes and neighborhoods, the potent mix of chemicals in the most common type can leave scars of its own, hurting watersheds and the fish and other animals that live in them. Increasing concerns over retardant are prompting opposition to its use in certain situations and further stirring the debate in the West over how much is too much when it comes to fighting wildfires.”

DelawareOnline reports on “Study: Steel mill dust may be toxic.” A preliminary report measuring specific air pollutants near the Claymont Steel mill confirms what some residents have long suspected: Metallic soot that settles every day on cars, windows and porches might be hazardous to their health.

The Canton Rep says “Outdoor wood burners raise a stink.” Legislation that would severely restrict, essentially banning, outdoor wood-burning appliances is expected to get a vote at Monday night’s City Council meeting. Councilman James Griffin, D-3, introduced the legislation in an effort to help deal with what he considers a neighborhood nuisance — smoke coming from an outdoor wood-burning appliance at 336 Arlington Ave. NW. Griffin said he also wants to prevent more of the outdoor furnaces from cropping up throughout the city.

The New York Times has a report on “Exxon, making the case for oil.” Exxon has moved away from its extreme position debunking CO2 emissions as the cause of climate change and has stopped financing climate skeptics this year. One of Exxon’s ads says the company aims to provide energy “with dramatically lower CO2 emissions.” Yet even though the company acknowledges that climate change is a risk to the world, it dismisses most green alternatives and continues with hydrocarbons. The report says, “Ultimately, the biggest test for Exxon’s long-term business model is the fact that rising energy use — whether in the United States or in China — will eventually have to be reconciled with reducing carbon emissions and finding low-carbon energy sources.”

JS Online says “BPA leaches from ’safe’ products.”

Products marketed for infants or billed as “microwave safe” release toxic doses of the chemical bisphenol A when heated, an analysis by the Journal Sentinel has found.

The newspaper had the containers of 10 items tested in a lab - products that were heated in a microwave or conventional oven. Bisphenol A, or BPA [link added], was found to be leaching from all of them.

The amounts detected were at levels that scientists have found cause neurological and developmental damage in laboratory animals. The problems include genital defects, behavioral changes and abnormal development of mammary glands. The changes to the mammary glands were identical to those observed in women at higher risk for breast cancer.

The newspaper’s test results raise new questions about the chemical and the safety of an entire inventory of plastic products labeled as “microwave safe.” BPA is a key ingredient in common household plastics, including baby bottles and storage containers. It has been found in 93% of Americans tested.

For the Exxon and BPA stories: Thanks, Linda!

Photo by Kevitivity.

Aerial spraying in California put public at risk

In the Open Forum at SF Gate, Mike Lynberg writes that “Aerial pesticide spraying put people at risk.”

Lynberg is referring to the spraying that occured in the fall of 2007 when the State of California sprayed pesticides over Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties to control the potentially invasive Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). Thousands of Californians participated in a grass roots effort called Stop the Spray, and asked Governor Schwarzenegger to investigate the health complaints and end the LBAM Eradication Program. And in June 2008, the State announced a moratorium on aerial spray of urban areas. However, according to the Stop the Spray website, the LBAM Eradication Program still continues with the use of controversial toxic ground treatments and aerial pesticide spray of rural/mountainous areas.

Writes Lynberg:

The state’s long-awaited report on the human health risks of aerial pesticide spraying for the light brown apple moth was released last week. The report says what thousands of outraged people from Monterey to Marin County had feared: the product sprayed put some people at risk.

“We cannot exclude the possibility that one or more ingredients in the LBAM product could cause an allergic response in sensitive individuals,” reads the report, issued by the Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and the Department of Public Health.

The report acknowledges that some of the ailments suffered by people in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas - namely asthma and reactive airway disease - “may be associated with exposure to a sensitizer or allergen.”

[...]

Seventy-four doctors filed pesticide illness reports. Several people ended up in emergency rooms.

There is more in the new report to validate the outrage many people felt about aerial spraying. State agencies now say there is a “paucity of data” on long-term exposure to the pesticides. Lab animals were tested for very short periods of time, whereas people in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas were exposed to chemicals that persisted in the air for 30 to 60 days.

The report also admits that laboratory tests on a small number of animals might not be an adequate predictor of human health effects when large numbers of people - with different levels of sensitivity - are exposed to a pesticide.

Link

Photo from VeganReader.com.

We’re toxic “from womb to tomb”

There’s an excellent story by Simran Sethi at The Huffington Post on toxic chemicals found in everyday household products making their way into our bodies. Featured is information from the Environmental Working Group on studies showing hundreds of chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. The full story is laced with links to more information. Note that all the products mentioned as toxic are the same products to which people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity have bad reactions from low level exposure.

Here’s an excerpt from Sethi’s report:

We can thank WWII for inventions like SPAM, plastic wrap, and modern-day chemical cleaning products. When hostilities ended, the same companies that had been manufacturing chemicals for nerve gas and other weapons began to bottle their concoctions for the general public, who used them to disinfect their homes. Sixty years later, Mr. Clean may seem well intentioned, but a toxic chemical is still a toxic chemical, no matter how diluted or how many “Danger! Do not swallow” warnings a bottle is branded with. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that household chemicals label info on poison control and toxicity, but doesn’t mandate ingredient disclosure. We each have our own allergies and sensitivities, so what may be deemed “safe” for one person may be harmful for another.

Kids are among the most vulnerable peeps. Children under the age of six are more likely to die from ingesting dish soap than any other product in the home. Luckily, most of us ingest or inhale dish soap residue in doses much too small to be lethal, but the chemicals are still having an effect. Women who work at home are 54% more likely to die from cancer, because of a higher exposure to household cleaning products. And the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that indoor air quality may be twice as polluted as outdoor air.

Environmental Working Group (EWG) has found that everyday products like dish soap and laundry detergent are polluting our air and our bloodstreams with toxic chemicals linked to cancer, infertility, and stunted development. You’re probably thinking sure, you’re fill-in-the-blank age, you’ve been exposed to a lot in your short/long life. But here’s the kicker: we’re toxic from womb to tomb. A recent EWG study tested the umbilical chord blood of 10 unborn babies, and found a total of 287 toxic chemicals, an average of 200 per fetus. (You can find out more in the accompanying video.) The chems in babies included 28 waste by-products, 47 consumer products like Teflon and Scotch Guard, and 212 industrial chemicals and pesticides (such as PCBs and DDT) that were already banned more than 30 years ago. Our newborns are coming into the world with a heavy “body burden” of toxins that will impact their health and development.

Link to full story and video at The Huffington Post.

Link to more videos on the topic of chemicals and children from a conference sponsored by Seventh Generation.

Photo by Brittany Bush.

A letter to President-Elect Obama

Dear President-Elect Obama,

I am jubilant at your victory! I wish you a heartfelt congratulations. It was a long, hard campaign that you managed flawlessly, and if your skills at running a campaign are any indication of the way you will run the federal government, then we are in good hands indeed.

I know many people and organizations are petitioning you this week, pleading their case or personal issue and hoping you will deliver the change you’ve promised. Those of us who have suffered under the policies of the Bush Administration are desperate for relief and we each want to make sure that our corner of the universe is touched by your promise of change.

I’ve worked in Democratic politics at both the local and national level enough to know that campaigns are one thing and governing something else entirely. I know that you will not be able to deliver on absolutely everything you hope to. But rather than feeling desperate that my particular issue will not be addressed and righted in the coming eight years, I instead feel great confidence that indeed it will.

My issue is the environment. Not the Big Picture of climate change that most of the world is focusing on right now– of course arguably the most important issue of our times–, but rather the immediate environment of our homes, places of work, and public spaces. You see, I have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and so my issue is the need for strong, enforced policy that forces corporate entities and businesses to stop polluting our air, water, soil and bodies with toxic synthetic chemicals.

I am especially concerned about the 80,000 synthetic chemicals that are being put into everyday household and other commercial products, most of which have not undergone rigorous study as to their impact on public health. This is disconcerting given that many of these toxic chemicals from the marketplace are showing up in our blood, and most disturbing, the blood of our children.

The Bush Administration has allowed corporate interests to run rough shod over environmental and consumer policy. Bush officials have lied to the American people and to the international community about the severity of toxic chemicals in the marketplace, which left the European Union no choice but to take control of the issue on the global stage. I am grateful for that, but deeply ashamed that my country is not at the forefront of this pressing issue.

Of all the images produced during your stirring campaign, what sticks with me the most are the faces of the people in the crowd at Grant Park as you addressed the nation as the new president-elect. I don’t believe I have ever seen such unbridled joy and optimism at any political event. But now comes the time for the real work, and I know in my heart of hearts that you will do what’s right and lead the federal government to do its job in protecting the health, safety and welfare of the American people.

Aloha and mahalo to you, our native son. Go do us proud. Imua!

Susie Collins

Be a smart cosmetic shopper

Yesterday’s post in Enviroblog entitled “Tips from the make-up artist” makes a good point about the importance of paying attention to the ingredients in our personal care products. Those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity are probably more concientious than the average shopper, but I have to admit that up until very recently, I relied more on what my nose and body told me than what was on the label.

But now, I not only do the sniff test for all my cosmetics and personal care products, I also check labels and consult the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database, the bible of concientious shoppers. I do this because it’s not just the toxic chemicals that trigger MCS symptoms that I need to eliminate from my life, it’s all toxic chemicals and products.

Here are some practical shopping tips from Skin Deep, most of which I’m sure you are already following, but it never hurts to review, especially for those of you who do not have MCS but are interested in living a healthier lifestyle:

Use our What Not To Buy list to avoid especially problematic ingredients - like mercury, lead, and placenta - and the products that contain them.

Use fewer products. Is there something you can cut from your daily routine, or a product you can use less often? By cutting down on the number of chemicals contacting your skin every day, you will reduce any potential health risks associated with your products.

Use the “Advanced Search” feature of Skin Deep to find products that have fewer potential health issues. Choose a product category and exclude the hazardous ingredients - carcinogens and neurotoxins, for instance - and Skin Deep will generate a custom shopping list for you.

Read labels. Marketing claims on personal care products are not defined under the law, and can mean anything or nothing at all, including claims like organic, natural, hypoallergenic, animal cruelty free, and fragrance free. Read the ingredient label carefully to find evidence that the claims are true.

Use milder soaps. Soap removes dirt and grease from the surface of your skin, but also strips away your body’s own natural skin oils. Choosing a milder soap may reduce skin dryness and your need for moisturizers to replace oils your skin can provide naturally.

Minimize your use of dark hair dyes. Many contain coal tar ingredients that have been linked to cancer in some studies.

Cut down on your use of powders; avoid the use of baby powder on newborns and infants. A number of ingredients common in powder have been linked to cancer and other lung problems when they are inhaled. FDA warns that powders may cause lung damage if inhaled regularly.

Choose products that are “fragrance”-free. Fragrances can cause allergic reactions. Products that claim to be “fragrance free” on the packaging may not be. They could contain masking fragrances that give off a neutral odor. Read the ingredient label - in products truly free of fragrance, the word “fragrance” will not appear there. Find “fragrance”-free products with our advanced search.

Reduce your use of nail polish. It’s one of the few types of products that routinely contains ingredients linked to birth defects. Paint your toenails and skip the fingernails. Paint nails in a well-ventilated room, or outside, or avoid using nail polish altogether, particularly when you are pregnant. Browse our custom shopping guide for advice on nail polishes that contain fewer ingredients of concern.

Link

Photo by smcgee

High level of toxic pesticide found in homes

Here’s yet another reason to go organic with your pesticides, use HEPA vacuums and air filters (and use them frequently), and remove your shoes before entering your home so as not to track toxic substances in from outside sources.

By the way, as the report below suggests, I use a boric acid and powdered sugar mix (50-50) for cockroaches and ants in the house, and diatomaceous earth for flies and mites in the chicken coops, all with great results.

(Beyond Pesticides, November 3, 2008) A new study, Pyrethroid pesticides and their metabolites in vacuum cleaner dust collected from homes and day-care centers (doi:10.1016/j.envres.2008.07.022), by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Exposure Research Laboratory finds concentrations of 13 synthetic pyrethroids and their degradates in indoor dust collected from homes and childcare centers in North Carolina and Ohio. The study results show the extent to which hazardous pesticides are present in indoor environments and threaten the public’s health, especially the health of children. With 85 vacuum cleaner bags analyzed, permethrin was present in all 85 dust samples, at least one pyrethroid pesticide was found in 69 samples and phenothrin was found in 36 samples.

[...]

Children are especially sensitive to the effects of permethrin and other synthetic pyrethroids. A study found that permethrin is almost five times more toxic to eight-day-old rats than to adult rats due to incomplete development of the enzymes that break down pyrethroids in the liver. Additionally, studies on newborn mice have shown that permethrin may inhibit neonatal brain development.

Although synthetic pyrethroids are often seen as safe alternatives to organophosphate insecticides, this study clearly demonstrates that when these chemicals are applied in houses, they do not disappear. Moreover, they are making their way into human bodies at alarming rates. At the same time, there are clear established methods for managing homes and schools that prevent infestation of unwanted insects without the use of synthetic chemicals, including exclusion techniques, sanitation and maintenance practices, as well as mechanical and least toxic controls (which include boric acid and diatomaceous earth). Based on the host of health effects linked to this chemical class, synthetic pyrethroid use in the home is hazardous and unnecessary.

Link to full release from Beyond Pesticides.

Photo by oneparticularwave.

EPA weakens pesticide standard at request of manufacturer

Environmental Protection Agency’s action at behest of manufacturer could double human exposure to food contaminant linked to asthma, infertility

Think the EPA is looking out for your health? Think again. Here’s a press release from the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization. Click on Skin Deep graphic for more info on the chemical benzalkonium chloride.

OAKLAND, CA - At the request of a single manufacturer - Edwards-Councilor Co., Inc. of Virginia Beach, VA - the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has weakened federal safety standards for a toxic chemical that is used in a broad range of cleaners and other consumer products that come in regular contact with food.

The chemical in question - alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride, or ADBAC - is a pesticide and antimicrobial agent that is suspected of causing asthma and reproductive system damage. Products containing this chemical are regularly used to sterilize surfaces and utensils used during food preparation. Residues that remain can accumulate in food and be consumed by unwitting diners.

“EPA should not give a free pass to this potent chemical, given its widespread use in commercial and consumer products, and growing concerns about its adverse impacts to human health and the environment,” says Environmental Working Group scientist Rebecca Sutton, Ph.D.

This toxic antimicrobial is a type of benzalkonium chloride, a class of antimicrobial chemicals used in a broad range of cleaning products and at least 207 personal care products, where it is completely unregulated,according to an EWG analysis. EPA’s action, effective Oct. 20, has rolled back a key federal safety standard in place to reduce consumers’ risks.

Reviews of available toxicological and epidemiological research on ADBAC and other quaternary ammonium compounds, or QACs, reveal substantial data gaps and significant cause for concern regarding impacts to human health and the environment. As EPA eased food safety standards for this particular pesticide, it neglected to consider evidence that ADBAC and other QACs may be reproductive and genetic toxicants. In addition, studies on people and lab animals have linked these compounds to increased risk of asthma.

In an interview in the leading scientific journal Nature in June of 2008, Washington State University scientist Dr. Patricia Hunt says she observed a severe decline in the fertility of her lab mouse population after moving her lab from Case Western University in Cleveland, OH to Pullman, WA. The culprit: the disinfectant Virex, that contains ADBAC and other QACs, and which was used to clean the mouse cages in the new animal facility.

Widespread use in hospitals of disinfectants containing ADBAC and QACs is believed to be one of the primary reasons asthma is on the rise among health care workers. A recent survey of 3,650 health care workers in Texas found that the likelihood that these workers developed asthma during their careers doubled if they performed general cleaning of surfaces.

“EPA’s action to remove these safety standards at the behest of a single company goes against the Agency’s own mission ‘to protect human health and the environment’,” Sutton said. “EPA’s acquiescence to Edwards-Councilor will increase human exposures to this toxic chemical, and may lead to more cases of asthma and infertility among Americans.”

Dr. Sutton’s entire letter to EPA can be found here.

###

Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.

Link

Thanks, Ruth!

Canary’s Cry for Tuesday, Oct 28

Blacksmith Institute in collaboration with Green Cross Switzerland issued a Top Ten List of the world’s most dangerous pollution problems [Urban Air Quality at left]. The report names pollution as one of the leading contributing factors to death and disability in the world and highlights the disproportionate effects on the health of children.

The Top Ten list includes commonly discussed pollution problems like urban air pollution as well as more overlooked threats like car battery recycling. The problems included in the report have a significant impact on human health worldwide and result in death, persistent illness, and neurological impairment for millions of people, particularly children.  According to the report, many of these deaths and related illnesses could be avoided with affordable and effective interventions. “Our goal with the 2008 report is to increase awareness of the severe toll that pollution takes on human health and inspire the international community to act,” said Richard Fuller, founder of Blacksmith Institute. “Remediation is both possible and cost-effective.”

Army Times reported that “Burn pit at Balad raises health concerns.”

Troops say chemicals and medical waste burned at base are making them sick, but officials deny risk.

An open-air “burn pit” at the largest U.S. base in Iraq may have exposed tens of thousands of troops, contractors and Iraqis to cancer-causing dioxins, poisons such as arsenic and carbon monoxide, and hazardous medical waste, documentation gathered by Military Times shows.

The billowing black plume from the burn pit at 15-square-mile Joint Base Balad, the central logistics hub for U.S. forces in Iraq, wafts continually over living quarters and the base combat support hospital, sources say.

Reuters INDIA picked up the Reuters Washington story “Does mold make you sick?” Fungus expert Joan Bennett did not believe in toxic mold — the cause of “sick building syndrome” and many lawsuits — until her New Orleans home was flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. When she got a whiff of the foul air that the black goo had created in her home, she decided to change her research focus and try to find out how and if the fungi that took over most of the flooded homes on the Gulf Coast might make people ill. “The overwhelming obnoxiousness of the odor and of the enveloping air made me start to believe in something that I had never believed in before — sick building syndrome,” Bennett, of Rutgers University in New Jersey, told a news conference.

Why I boycott Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Beware: Breast Cancer Awareness Month turns breast cancer into just another marketing campaign

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and before the month runs out, I’d like to add my two cents to the discussion.

Rather than jumping on the very popular pink bandwagon, I boycott all breast cancer “awareness” and pink ribbon campaigns, subscribing to a CAUSE not CURE approach to the epidemic of breast cancer.

My highly critical view of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is along the lines of  Samantha King’s, who, in her book Pink Ribbons, Inc., “traces how breast cancer has been transformed from a stigmatized disease and individual tragedy to a market-driven industry of survivorship.” King maintains that corporations,  under the guise of philanthropy, “turn their formidable promotion machines on the curing of the disease while dwarfing public health prevention efforts and stifling the calls for investigation into why and how breast cancer affects such a vast number of people.” I couldn’t agree more.

I also fully support Breast Cancer Action, an organization based in San Francisco helping to transform breast cancer from a private medical crisis to a public health emergency. And I love their Think Before You Pink campaign that “calls for more transparency and accountability by companies that take part in breast cancer fundraising, and encourages consumers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions.” Think Before You Pink also highlights “pinkwashers”—companies that “purport to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon campaign, but manufacture products that are linked to the disease.”

In the spirit of focusing on CAUSE not CURE, Rita Arditti at CommonDreams.org today writes about “Why Cancer’s Gaining on Us,” making the case about the rise in breast cancer coinciding with the flood of synthetic chemicals in our environment since the 1950s, calling for research into any possible links.

“Is there definitive evidence that these substances cause breast cancer?” she asks. “Have they been sufficiently studied? Well, no. We need to know more about the timing, duration, and patterns of exposure, which may be as important as dosage.”

Don’t miss that the chemicals she lists as examples are some of the very same chemicals to which those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity react negatively.

Since World War II, the proliferation of synthetic chemicals has gone hand-in-hand with the increased incidence of breast cancer. About 80,000 synthetic chemicals are used today in the United States, and their number increases by about 1,000 each year. Only about 7 percent of them have been screened for their health effects. These chemicals can persist in the environment and accumulate in our bodies. According to a recent review by the Silent Spring Institute in Newton, 216 chemicals and radiation sources cause breast cancer in animals.

Nearly all of the chemicals cause mutations, and most cause tumors in multiple organs and animal species, findings that are generally believed to indicate they likely cause cancer in humans. Yet few have been closely studied by regulatory bodies. There is concern about benzene, which is in gasoline; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are in air pollution from vehicle exhaust, tobacco smoke, and charred foods; ethylene oxide, which is widely used in medical settings; and methylene chloride, a common solvent in paint strippers and glues.

That’s where we should be focusing, not on the pretty ribbon in a feel-good color that pops up on the calendar once a year.

Link to photo of metastatic cancer cells by euthman on flickr

UPDATE: I forgot to include that I am a breast cancer survivor.

Bottled water is bad news

Bottled water is a big, nasty corporate business and may contain disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, and pain medication.

Bottled water is bad news for many different reasons. Many brands are contaminated with things you really do not want to be putting in your body, the discarded plastic bottles are polluting the environment, and too many companies who are bottling the water are greedy corporations without a thought to their impact on the environment or the rural communities surrounding their plants.

Take a look at some of the problems with bottled water.

A new EWG study shows that bottled water is polluted with a range of contaminants, including many of the same chemical pollutants typical in municipal tap water supplies. Laboratory tests – conducted for EWG at one of the country’s leading water quality laboratories – found that ten popular brands of bottled water, purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in nine states and the District of Columbia, contained 38 chemical pollutants altogether, with an average of 8 contaminants in each brand.

Two of ten brands tested, Walmart’s and Giant’s store brands, bore the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment — a cocktail of chlorine disinfection byproducts at concentrations that exceeded legal limits and industry-sponsored voluntary safety standards. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria. These results show that consumers should have no confidence in the purity of the bottled water they buy. If the water at the source is contaminated, so will be the water in the bottle. And bottled water production itself can contribute additional chemical pollutants.

Read full EWG blog post at Enviroblog

Read full EWG press release on the bottled water study

Read full report on EWG Bottled Water Quality Investigation

And take a look at comments to Enviroblog’s post:

[Comment] Your study on Bottle Water is coming under fire for bad research methodologies. I hope you will be able to clear all this up or it could seriously damage your organizations credibility. Link to the news story.

[Answer] To see EWG response to the statements from the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), “IBWA Claims Tests Show No Contaminants, But Test Results Nowhere to Be Found,” go to link.

Note that the “expert” at Yale, Stephen Edberg, who refuted the EWG study for “bad research methodologies,” works as a consultant to the International Bottled Water Association and Nestle Waters North America. Nestle is accused by environmental and community groups for damaging water tables and ripping apart rural communities in the areas where they have their plants. Stop Nestle Waters says:

Why are we targeting Nestle Waters?

• Because Nestle’s predatory tactics in rural communities divide small towns and pit residents against each other.
• Because Nestle reaps huge profits from the water they extract from rural communities - which are left to deal with the damage to watersheds, increases in pollution and the loss of their quiet rural lifestyle
• Because Nestle has a pattern of bludgeoning small communities and opponents with lawsuits and interfering in local elections to gain control of local water supplies.
• Because the environmental consequences of bottled water on our atmosphere, watersheds and landfills are simply too big to ignore.
• Because no international corporation should have the right to pilfer the public’s water for profit.

And if you want to blow your mind about the problems of discarded plastic on the environment, go visit Fake Plastic Fish.

Best solution in regards to your drinking water? Drink filtered tap water and use a glass or stainless steel container when you are on the go.

Photo and graphic design by CowGummy at flickr

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, still relevant in 2008

It was the ruthless destruction of that idyll of rural America that formed the basis of a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.

It’s nice to see Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962) still being reviewed and heralded as an important work, “a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.”

It’s bittersweet reading a review given in the context of 2008, and the reviewer’s assertion, “If Rachel Carson’s book has a central message today, it is that every action has its consequences, for in poisoning the world, we poisoned ourselves.”

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist who was only reluctantly drawn into researching [the impact of pesticides being aerially sprayed across North America], and at the time she penned her epic work, she was already suffering from the cancer that would, just two years later, take her life.

She begins Silent Spring with these words: “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.”

It was the ruthless destruction of that idyll of rural America that formed the basis of a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.

Carson’s ability to make science understandable was formidable.

I have never read as simple or elegant an explanation of chemical composition as she provides for the organochlorides, the group to which the 200-odd chemicals that were then destroying her country belonged.

It was not just nature that was suffering.

Carson carefully details many instances of fatal human poisonings. A farmer’s wife was poisoned after her husband sprayed. A baby and a small dog died after returning to a house where endrin had been used to kill cockroaches.

In some programs, half the men who sprayed DDT for the World Health Organization suffered convulsions and death.

Link to full book review

Italian footballers’ deaths linked to chemicals

Medical investigators in Italy think they’ve found a link between chemicals used on football fields and the high incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease, among football players.

THE deaths of a growing number of Italian footballers from a rare and debilitating disease may be due to pesticides and fertilisers used on pitches in the 1980s and ’90s, an Italian magistrate has claimed.

Fifty-one professional and amateur players have now died from it, six times the average in the general population, said the Turin magistrate Raffaele Guariniello, who has run checks on every man who played in the top three divisions from the 1960s to 2006.

On Wednesday night, Roberto Baggio, Ruud Gullit and Franco Baresi played a charity game in Florence organised by the latest sufferer, former Milan, Fiorentina and Italy striker Stefano Borgonovo, 44.

Now paralysed and speaking with a computer-generated voice, Borgonovo is raising funds for research into the nerve-wasting condition known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or more commonly Lou Gehrig’s disease after the US baseball player who died of it in 1941. “I want to find the penicillin of 2008,” said Borgonovo, who scored the goal that put Milan into the 1990 European Cup final.

In Turin, investigators have identified heading the ball as well as doping, including the use of legal anti-inflammatory drugs, as possible triggers for the disease among the footballers, typically those who played for more than five seasons in Italy during the 1980s and ’90s.

Guariniello said the fertilisers used to treat pitches were also in the spotlight. “We are interviewing retired groundsmen and analysing chemicals they used, including those containing formaldehyde,” he said. “There could be a connection with the incidence of this disease among agricultural workers.”

Link to full story at The Sydney Morning Herald

Link to photo by Marcio at Flickr

Beware of chemicals in Halloween costumes

Despite repeated calls to ban toxic chemicals in children’s products, most states still allow them.

With the help of the Washington Toxics Coalition,  a reporter at komonews.com collected a variety of Halloween costumes and accessories from local stories, families, and online and tested them.

In a green monster mask clearly marked for kids as young as 3, our tests found PVC and a surprisingly high level of cadmium, a toxic heavy metal often used in color paints.

As with lead, even small amounts of cadmium accumulate in the body.

“I think the point is, it’s a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit all over the place,and sooner or later a little adds up to a lot,” said Gilbert.

It’s not easy to know what Halloween costumes are safe. Some of the products we tested turned up clean, but without testing you don’t know, and you can’t always trust the labels.

Rebecca Rockefeller bought a Snow White costume for her 5-year-old daughter and found that it had a warning label indicating that some of the colored decorations contained lead.

We tested the costume, and a costume medallion and tiara bearing similar lead warnings, with over-the-counter swab tests that turn pink or red if lead is present. But the tests indicated no lead.

“I don’t think you can really trust anybody,” Rockefeller said.

Dr. Gilbert said she’s not being unreasonable.

“We should be able to trust the labels on our products,” he said. “Trust that our products are safe, and we don’t have that trust right now.”

So what can you do?

Avoid costumes and masks made of soft plastics and vinyl, which often contain phthalates. And don’t let young kids wear or play with costume jewelry. Unfortunately a lot of costume jewelry on the market has high levels of lead, and without special, expensive equipment, there’s no way for a consumer to tell.

Link to full story at komonews.com

More on plastics and flame retardant

Critical health risks from plastic revealed by six environmental research studies

Exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates and flame retardants (PBDEs) are strongly associated with adverse health effects on humans and laboratory animals. A special section in the October 2008 issue of Environmental Research, “A Plastic World,” provides critical new research on environmental contaminants and adverse reproductive and behavioral effects.

Plastic products contain “endocrine disrupting chemicals” that can block the production of the male sex hormone testosterone (phthalates used in PVC plastic), mimic the action of the sex hormone estrogen (bisphenol A or BPA used in polycarbonate plastic), and interfere with thyroid hormone (brominated flame retardants or PBDEs used in many types of plastic).

Two articles report very similar changes in male reproductive organs in rats and humans related to fetal exposure to phthalates. Two articles show that fetal exposure to BPA or PBDEs disrupts normal development of the brain and behavior in rats and mice. Two other articles provide data that these chemicals are massively contaminating the oceans and causing harm to aquatic wildlife.

The other studies integrate new laboratory research with a broader view reflecting exposures to a variety of chemicals in plastic. These ubiquitous chemicals found in many plastics act independently and together to adversely affect human, animal and environmental health.

The articles show amongst others the massive contamination of the Pacific Ocean with plastic, and the amount of contamination has increased dramatically in recent years; animal brain structure, brain chemistry and behavioral effects from exposure to BPA and “phthalate syndrome” in rats’ male offspring.

“For the first time a series of articles will appear together that identify that billions of kilograms of a number of chemicals used in the manufacture of different types of plastic can leach out of plastic products and cause harm to the brain and reproductive system when exposure occurs during fetal life or prior to weaning,” emphasized Dr. Frederick vom Saal, Guest Editor of the “Plastic World”.

“Not only are these studies of scientific importance, they also contribute to the ongoing US congressional hearings involving the Food and Drug Administration,” remarked Gert-Jan Geraeds, Publisher of Environmental Research, “As such, “The Plastic World” has a broader societal impact and raises awareness of increasingly important environmental issues”.

Link to release at Medical News Today

Link to photo by Margaret Wertheim, the Institute For Figuring. The Toxic Reef is the latest spawn of the Institute For Figuring’s “Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef” project. As befits its name the Toxic Reef is a hybrid conglomeration made from yarn and plastic garbage. The purpose of this reef is to draw attention to the growing problem of plastic trash that is pouring into the world’s oceans and devastating marine eco-systems. Globally we now produce around 100 million tons of plastic a year - of this an estimated 10% ends up in the oceans, where it kills sea turtles and albatrosses and is ingested by jelly fish and other marine creatures. Much of this plastic accumulates in a great vortex in the north Pacific that is known formally as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This patch is now twice the size of Teaxs and 30 meters deep!! Scientists who study it say there is no way to clean up this mess - all we can do is to stop consuming so much plastic crap! More information about the Rubbish Vortex can be seen on the IFF website at www.theiff.org

Plastic sucks

I was raising a stink about plastics way before any of us knew about the dangers of BPA. I’ve carried my portable water with me in glass bottles for over 15 years because I cannot tolerate the taste of water that’s been stored in a plastic bottle, pleh!

But that’s not the only problem with plastic. Beth over at Fake Plastic Fish is dedicating her blogging life to the elimination of plastic because it’s not only bad for people, it’s bad for the planet: every scrap, every single molecule of plastic ever made still exists somewhere on the planet, a huge amount of which is floating around in the ocean as a big huge gross Plastic Island. Beth says:

What’s wrong with plastic anyway?

Good question. Here are some answers:

• Plastic is made from oil… This post lists the main problems with plastic from creation to disposal and beyond.
• Is your water cooler messing with your hormones? A post about the problems of #7 polycarbonate plastic.
• Woman Drinks Wine… Why plastic wine corks and screw caps are problems for the environment.
• …The Perils of PVC. What’s PVC and why should we avoid it?
• And here’s a link to a PDF version of the IATP Smart Plastics Guide, which lists the different types of plastics and explains which ones are the most harmful and why.

Link

Video snitched from Fake Plastic Fish

Our lichen kin are in trouble

Lichens may be canary in the coal mine

SEVEN-MILE HILL, Ore. — On a bluff overlooking The Dalles, Ore., and the east end of the Columbia River Gorge, Forest Service scientist Linda Geiser [at left] and two assistants climb out of their rig and set to work.

Geiser and graduate student Peter Nelson begin dismantling black plastic tubes called passive samplers that have gathered data on the nitrogen content of rain and fog at the site for the past three years.

Grad student Larissa Lasselle grabs two sample bags and heads downhill into a thicket of ponderosa pine and oak. Her job: to collect lichens from tree branches for laboratory analysis.

It was at this site that Geiser, a Forest Service ecologist, collected some of the first evidence that air pollution was damaging the gorge environment. The messenger — like a canary in a coal mine — was the community of lichens that grows here, both those that flourish and those that fail to thrive.

Lichens are neither plants nor animals. They belong to the fungi family, but are actually part fungus, part alga. They come in many shapes and colors, and reproduce both sexually and asexually. They can dissolve rock, survive severe cold, and remain dormant for long periods.

But for Geiser, their most useful characteristic is their sensitivity to nitrogen and acid rain, major forms of pollution in the gorge.

The Seven-Mile Hill site is 62 miles west of Portland General Electric’s Boardman, Ore., coal-fired plant, the largest source of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in the eastern gorge. Near the coal plant is a sprawling dairy feed lot, a major source of ammonia that contributes to acid rain and fog.

Together, those sources are responsible for most of the air pollution that blows west into the gorge during winter months.

Link to full story at columbian.com

Keep yourself safe from fire retardant

News out this weekend says researchers found Californians to have higher levels of flame retardant PBDEs in their blood than people elsewhere, and levels in California homes can be 10 times higher. This is a story of unintended consequences: while trying to protect people from risk of fire by implementing the strictest fire retardant laws, California lawmakers exposed the public to PBDEs, a highly toxic chemical. The Envionmental Protection Agency has been very slow and very lame in responding to the growing research showing PBDEs “in human breast milk, fish, aquatic birds, and elsewhere in the environment.”

I have a horrible reaction to flame retardant: my eyes itch, my throat gets scratchy, my chest hurts, and then brain fade and confusion kicks in. And it stinks! Not fun. I’ve known for years that the stuff is toxic, my body tells me so, and if you’re a canary, I’ll bet your body tells you the same thing. The most common exposures I encounter are from living room furniture in other people’s homes, but I’ve also had bad experiences from night gowns that were given to me as a gift and new TVs when they heat up.

My living room furniture is a futon couch and chair, with solid wood frames and cotton stuffing with organic cotton covers. I searched high and low to get quality frames at a good price, and the stuffing and covers were not cheap, but well worth the expense to keep the house nontoxic. I stay away from any fabric with flame retardant (or other chemical additives), and my last new TV was put in a well ventilated room until the chemicals burned off.

Here’s some info on fire retardants from MomsRising.org:

THE FIRE RETARDANT TOXICS LOWDOWN:

Recent tests have found that highly toxic fire retardant chemicals are present not only in furniture throughout California, but in baby products such as portable cribs, strollers, playpens, swings, nursing pillows, high chairs and changing table pads—items that infants and young children come into repeated intimate contact with on a daily basis. These products are required to meet California’s flammability standard, Technical Bulletin 117 (TB 117).

This standard, which regulates all furniture products (including children’s products), has led to the annual use of tens of millions of pounds of brominated and chlorinated fire retardants (BFRs and CFRs) in California since 1975.

Brominated and chlorinated fire retardants have been linked to endocrine disruption, neurological and developmental impairments, cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities such as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity, and a host of other health disorders.1,2

Today, virtually every Californian tested has been found to have these fire retardants stored in their bodies, with babies showing the highest levels. High levels have also been found throughout the food chain, including breast milk, dairy products, meat, poultry, and fish. 3,4 AB706 seeks to modernize TB 117 through the use of safer chemicals and fire safety methods that not only protect human and environmental health from fire, but hazardous chemicals as well.

THE PROBLEM:

Toxic flame retardants threaten human health & the environment:
• Children are at greatest risk from exposure to brominated and chlorinated flame retardants.

In 1977, brominated Tris, which had been used to make children’s sleepwear fire resistant, was banned after it was found to be carcinogenic in animal tests and to leach into children’s bodies.5 Its replacement, chlorinated Tris, was also phased-out after it was found to be a mutagen, meaning it changed DNA. Today, chlorinated Tris is the second most-used fire retardant in furniture, and was recently cited by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to be “a likely carcinogen that could pose both cancer and non-cancer chronic health risks”.

• Brominated fire retardants known as PBDEs have been found in breast milk, in humans and animals.

PBDEs have increased 40-fold in human breast milk since the 1970s. Women in North America on average have ten times the levels of women in Europe or Asia. Recent studies found that pet cats in the U.S. have very high levels of PBDEs in their blood. Researchers have identified an association between PBDEs and the spike of hyperthyroidism rates in cats which emerged after PBDE’s began to be used in significant quantities in the consumer marketplace.

Link to full information

U.S. chemicals and companies impacted by European Union regulation

Report identifies companies in U.S. making chemicals called dangerous by EU

This is HUGE. It’s a major shift in interenational trade policy that will force U. S. chemical companies to stop putting toxic chemicals in every day household products. If U.S. manufacturers do not respond to this internatioal pressure, they will be at a distinct disadvantage in the global markerplace.

(Environmental Defense Fund, Washington, DC)

Hundreds of companies located in 37 of the 50 United States produce or import hundreds of chemicals designated as dangerous by the European Union (EU). As a result, these companies will be directly affected by controls imposed under the EU’s new chemicals regulation, concludes Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in a report released today, Across the Pond: Assessing REACH’s First Big Impact on U.S. Companies and Chemicals.

The report finds that many of the hundreds of chemicals already identified as dangerous by the EU are being produced or imported in the United States in large amounts and at many different sites. The findings provide compelling evidence for the U.S. Congress to protect public health by reforming the nation’s primary chemical safety law, the 32-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act.

“The fact that so many chemicals already designated as dangerous by EU officials are actively being produced and used in the United States should dispel any notion that the problem is limited to only a few ‘bad actors,’” said Richard A. Denison, Ph.D., EDF Senior Scientist and author of the report. ”Toxic chemicals grabbing recent headlines - such as bisphenol A used in baby bottles and food cans, phthalates used in kids’ toys, and flame retardants used in furniture - are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of chemicals that demand scrutiny.”

“This report serves as an early warning to companies making and using these dangerous chemicals that they will be at a competitive disadvantage unless they proactively seek to eliminate exposures and develop safer alternatives,” Denison cautioned. “Scrutiny of these chemicals is only going to grow, so chemical companies should support efforts to modernize the decades-old U.S. chemicals policy that has shielded chemicals from needed testing and appropriate control.”

Last year, the EU adopted its sweeping new chemicals regulation - Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) - under which companies must register all chemicals they place on the EU market in amounts above one metric ton. A hallmark of REACH is its identification of so-called “substances of very high concern” (SVHCs). REACH’s intent is ultimately to allow use of such SVHCs only when each use has been specifically authorized.

“REACH’s requirements will fully apply to U.S. companies that make chemicals for the EU market,” Denison concluded. ”This report is the first to determine which companies report making SVHCs in the United States.  Once these chemicals become subject to REACH’s authorization requirements, these companies will need permission from EU officials to sell them in the EU.”

EDF based its analysis on a list of nearly 300 SVHCs issued last week by the International Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec), a Swedish nongovernmental organization. ChemSec dubbed its list the “SIN List,” for “Substitute It Now,” which reflects the group’s interest in promoting safer alternatives to SVHCs wherever possible. The list represents the first effort to identify the range of chemicals expected to be subject to authorization under REACH.

EDF compared the SIN List to the most recent publicly available data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that identifies which companies reported making or importing these chemicals in the United States. EDF found that many, and likely most, of the SIN List chemicals are manufactured or imported in the United States.

Other findings of EDF’s report include:

• SIN List chemicals are produced or imported in 37 states as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, at as many as 78 sites per state (see Tables 3 and 4 on page 36 of this document).
• The number of SIN List chemicals per state varies from 1 to 37.
• Eight states have at least a dozen SIN List chemicals: New Jersey, Texas, Louisiana, Ohio, New York, North Carolina, Kentucky and Michigan.
• In the United States, at least 85 SIN List chemicals are produced annually in amounts of one million or more pounds, and at least 14 exceed one billion pounds annually.
• At least 173 companies are producing or importing SIN List chemicals in the United States.
• Some companies are associated with many SIN List chemicals-as many as 21 per company.
• The five companies reporting making the most SIN List chemicals are Dow, DuPont, Chemtura, Equistar and BASF.
• Many SIN List chemicals are produced or imported by multiple companies at numerous sites-as many as 36 companies at 52 separate sites. The five chemicals with the most companies and sites are benzene, formaldehyde, styrene, hexane and 1,3-butadiene.

EDF also found that only about a third of the SVHCs on the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory have been tested under TSCA.  Only two - asbestos and hexavalent chromium - have been regulated under TSCA, and even these only under narrow conditions.

EDF used the most recent publicly available data, which were collected by EPA in 2002 for calendar year 2001. Given the dynamic nature of the chemical market, some of the data in this report may have changed. In addition, because EPA allows companies to claim the identities of chemicals they produce, as well as their own identities, to be confidential business information, this report only includes chemicals and companies that are not claimed to be confidential business information.

EDF’s report is available at www.edf.org/AcrossThePond. The ChemSec SIN List is available at www.chemsec.org/list.

EDF analysis is consistent with a report just issued by Innovest that used the SIN List to assess, on a global basis, the financial risks and opportunities facing companies producing such chemicals.

Link

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