Blogs / 80beats

As the cleanup continues of the billion gallons of ash that spilled out of a reservoir at a Tennessee coal-fired power plant two weeks ago, nearby residents continue to worry about the long-term health and environmental effects of the waste material. Residents of Kingston, Tennessee, say they’ve gotten conflicting messages regarding the gray sludge that poured into the Emory River and coated their fields and roads. Meanwhile, other coal-burning power plants around the country are inspecting their own waste storage systems for weaknesses.

Preliminary results from water samples taken in the spill area show no unsafe levels of toxins, said Leslie Sims, on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency. The testing includes municipal supplies and private wells, he said. However, samples of the fly ash scooped up along roadsides and river banks show elevated levels of arsenic that normally would trigger an EPA response, Sims said. “These are levels that we consider harmful to humans,” he said [CNN]. But the EPA is not responding because the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the plant, is already working on cleaning up the pollution, Sims said.

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It doesn’t matter if they only smoke when the kids are out of the house, or when they’re alone in the car, or even if they only smoke outside; researchers still warn that toxic chemicals exhaled by cigarette smokers cling to their clothes and hair, and linger in upholstery, curtains, and carpets. In a new study, researchers say the public is well aware of the health effects of second-hand smoke, when nonsmokers are directly exposed to the cigarette smoke of others, but hasn’t yet caught on to the danger of what they call “third-hand smoke.” Lead author Jonathan Winickoff explains that third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away’” [The New York Times].

The researchers say that there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke, and note that children are particularly susceptible to ill-effects from the toxic residue left behind long after a cigarette has been stubbed out. Among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, which is used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; carbon monoxide; and even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006. Eleven of the compounds are highly carcinogenic [The New York Times].

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To truly assess the risks posed by a ubiquitous group of chemicals found in everything from vinyl shower curtains to bug spray, researchers need to study their cumulative impact on human health, declares a new report from the National Research Council, a group that advises the government on science and health policy. The chemicals, called phthalates, are used to make plastic products soft and flexible, and are also found in cosmetics, personal-care products, and even pharmaceuticals. In rodent studies exposure to phthalates has been shown to interfere with the development of the male reproductive system, causing infertility, reduced sperm production, undescended testes, penile birth defects and other reproductive-tract malformations [Science News].

Traditionally, health agencies have studied the risk of each chemical individually, but experts say such a process doesn’t accurately reflect human exposure. “It is extremely important to conduct cumulative risk assessments to protect public health,” said [phthalate researcher] Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana…. “Unlike in scientific experiments, humans are exposed to multiple chemicals everyday,” she said, so combining the chemicals “can help identify how these multiple exposures could be leading to health outcomes in the general population” [Scientific American].

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The toxic chemical melamine that has already contaminated Chinese milk and eggs may also have been widely used in animal feed, according to new reports from the Chinese state media. Chinese consumers were horrified when it was revealed in September that four babies had died and more than 50,000 were sickened due to tainted infant formula, and the outrage grew in October when eggs from four large companies were also found to be tainted. Since then, the widening scandal has caused companies across Asia to recall products made with Chinese milk or eggs, and the new reports suggest that there may be broader recalls to come.

Melamine can be used to make food products appear to have a higher protein content, and the new admission from the state-run media, which usually suppresses bad news, shows that the trick was commonly used. “The feed industry seems to have acquiesced to agree on using the chemical to reduce production costs while maintaining the protein count for quality inspections,” the state-run China Daily said in an editorial. “We cannot say for sure if the same chemical has made its way into other types of food,” the newspaper added [BBC News].

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A new government report issues a harsh critique of the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate the tons of toxic electronic waste that are discarded each year. U.S. authorities have yet to develop a national approach for handling the waste, which often contains toxic metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium. Amounts are rapidly growing as consumers replace their laptops, cellphones and televisions [Washington Post].

These discarded devices often end up in slipshod recycling facilities in China, India, and Africa, the report says, where they both pollute the environment and threaten workers’ health. Jim Puckett, an activist with the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, which promotes responsible recycling, said he recently saw workers in Guiyu, China, burning wiring and using acid baths to extract usable ingredients. “It was a cyber-age horror show,” he said [San Jose Mercury News].

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New health concerns have been raised about the plastic chemical bisphenol A (BPA); a study suggests that there is a link between high levels of exposure to BPA and an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes. While the new study doesn’t prove a cause and effect relationship, only a correlation, it is the first human survey to follow up on troubling findings from animal studies.

The chemical, which is often found in baby bottles, sports water bottles, and other non-recyclable containers, has gotten several waves of bad press in the past few months. A recent experiment showed that extremely high doses of the chemical damage monkeys’ brains, and other work in animals has suggested that BPA has the potential to disrupt normal hormone signalling by mimicking the natural hormone, oestrogen. Such studies have linked the chemical to a wide range of conditions, including low sperm count, altered fetal development, behavioural disorders in children and prostate cancer [Nature News].

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A new study of a chemical commonly used in plastic containers found that it causes damage to monkey’s brains, raising new concerns over the chemical’s possible effects on humans. The chemical, called bisphenol A or BPA, has been the source of controversy for months as government agencies and scientists have gone back and forth on whether the substance is a health threat. BPA has been in commercial use since the 1950s, and is found in baby bottles, water bottles, in the lining used for canned goods, and many other items.

In the latest study, the research team exposed monkeys to levels of bisphenol A deemed safe for humans by the Environmental Protection Agency and found that the chemical interfered with brain cell connections vital to memory, learning and mood. “Our findings suggest that exposure to low-dose BPA may have widespread effects on brain structure and function,” the authors wrote [Washington Post].

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The Food and Drug Administration released a draft report on Friday saying that a chemical used in baby bottles and other plastics is not a health threat. The FDA announcement is just the latest twist to a health story that has already alarmed and confused consumers; the chemical, called bisphenol A or BPA, was recently declared a toxin by the Canadian government, and several states are considering banning products that contain it. In April, Wal-Mart announced that its stores will stop selling baby bottles containing BPA.

BPA, a plastic-hardening chemical, is similar to the hormone estrogen. A report in April from the U.S. National Toxicology Program said animal studies suggested its use may pose a cancer risk and lead to early or delayed puberty [Bloomberg]. But the new FDA report says that only small amounts of the chemical leach out from bottles and the lining used for canned foods, and says that it doesn’t pose a threat to infants or adults.

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In a congressional hearing yesterday, a supplier of the “FEMA trailers” used after Hurricane Katrina admitted that the company has known for years that the trailers contained dangerous levels of formaldehyde. But the chairman of Gulf Stream Coach said his company failed to disclose to Hurricane Katrina evacuees or the government its internal findings that formaldehyde in some units exceeded a federal health standard by as much as 45 times in 2006 [Washington Post].

Gulf Stream received over $500 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for 50,000 trailers that housed displaced Gulf Coast residents after the devastating 2005 hurricanes. But Gulf Stream chairman Jim Shea deflected blame for the evacuees’ chemical exposure to FEMA, saying that the agency turned down the company’s offer to conduct thorough tests on the trailers.

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It’s an odor familiar to anyone who has ever outfitted a home on a budget: “new shower curtain smell.” But the aroma that wafts from a newly purchased vinyl shower curtain is actually a sign that potentially dangerous volatile organic chemicals are being released into the air.

In a new report, an environmental group is sounding an alarm about the possible health effects of those chemicals. Researchers from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice say that pliable plastic shower curtains made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) release up to 108 chemicals in their first month, and that some of those chemicals are linked to developmental problems, damage to the liver and central nervous system, respiratory harm and reproductive damage [Seattle Post-Intelligencer].

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