Paying Attention

A couple of articles taken together here dealing with pesticides and with attention disorders in children. I suspect that we have little idea of the effect of chemical impact on the brain in developing children and what the effect it might have.

The first link related to the issue of inattention as another issue from hyper activity. The two may be related but this is not necessary.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110829070608.htm

The second link deals specifically with the pesticide issue. This is a useful one because the chemistry and distribution of pesticides are relatively a known and can be more easily identified than other contaminants.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100517132846.htm

Looking back it is clear these days that children are subject to a much greater battery of chemical intervention and content in their environment, the air they breathe, the food they eat and in many other ways.

If these affect other parts of the body one way or another then there must be some sort of effect on the brain.

I Talked To The Trees But They Stopped Listening

When we are looking at the substances in our homes and on our persons we can forget the others out there somewhere.

Notably, on our own or our neighbour’s gardens, or in the local parks and gardens and other green spaces.

Because we like to control what is there rather than letting nature take its course and we do not have the time or inclination these days to do it by hand so there has been a market created for chemicals to do the job for us.
The trouble is sometimes they do more than we expect or want them to.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/science/earth/15herbicide.html?_r=1

The Imprelis herbicide story is a recent one in a long list of questions about the various products used to control plants.

Essentially, what may get onto and into the plants is likely to get onto and into us.

Chemicals, Cancer & Others

Below is an article from the latest “Ecologist” on the subject of pesticides, chemicals and cancer. It is 1500+ words long but worth reading if you have the time.

Much of what is said about the way things work and the limitations of the medical profession and related agencies in respect of environmental health could apply equally to other areas of contamination and pollution.

Article:

Sandra Steingraber: “There's a taboo about telling industry and agriculture that practices must change to prevent cancer”

The Ecologist - Matilda Lee
30th November, 2010

Having survived cancer, biologist Sandra Steingraber wrote a book to expose its link to the environment. As the film version premieres in Europe, she tells the Ecologist why we must all take a stand on air, food and water pollution

Matilda Lee: Can you briefly explain the idea behind your book and film Living Downstream?

Sandra Steingraber: It represents my best attempts as a biologist to summarise the state of the evidence for the link between cancer and the environment. At the same time, as a cancer patient myself, it tells my own story of my diagnosis, aged 20, with bladder cancer, which has known links to the environment.

It's a personal memoir, and interwoven between the scientific analysis is a story about my return home as a woman in my 30s, a biologist investigating the environmental toxins in her home town.

You see the story of my family, who still farm in Illinois and still use some toxic pesticides; the story of the industrial chemicals that leaked into the drinking water wells there. I really went in search of my own ecological roots and became an environmental detective.

I discover that there is a cancer cluster where I grew up and I'm one data point in that cluster. But I also care for the other people who live there, and I care for the river and the farm fields.

It's a kind of love story between me and this place, but at the same time it's a scientific analysis.

ML: How strong are the links between chemicals and cancer?

SS: The evidence is quite compelling. It's my impression as a cancer patient that there is a disconnect between what we in the scientific community know about the evidence for the link, which is quite a lot, and what cancer patients are told when they talk to their doctors about it, which is very little.

This discontinuity was my motivating force for writing the book. I decided that I wanted to bring the evidence that I knew as a biologist to other cancer patients and have my own life serve as a kind of bridge.

ML: Why aren't we told about all the evidence for the link between cancer and the environment?

SS: For one, there is a double standard: the evidence for the link between, say, hereditary factors and cancer is actually not that strong, and we freely talk about the importance of family history to cancer patients.

We know there is a link between lifestyle factors, such as diet, and cancers such as colon cancer. But for breast cancer, the data are contradictory, yet we feel free to tell women to change their diet as a way of preventing breast cancer, even though the evidence is not very good.

At the same time, we have equally good if not better evidence for a link between air pollution and breast cancer.

To talk about that, the ‘cease and desist’ order would have to be directed at industry, or our energy sector, rather than individuals. Cancer is a disease that makes you feel helpless.

I think there is an intent to make people feel that they have control over their future, so they give them all kinds of tips about what to do in their individual lives. The idea that air pollution and breast cancer are related doesn't really offer an individual cancer patient advice on what to do – we leave it out.

Maybe that is rightfully so. Who needs to be told that the air they breathe is contributing to the disease that they are now trying to fight with chemotherapy and radiation? Maybe that would make cancer patients feel helpless, when we want them to have a fighting spirit.

But then comes the silence. Then we don't turn around and tell industry that we have evidence that combustion byproducts such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are contributing to breast cancer, so we need to stop and get off fossil fuels. That message never gets played out.

I think there is a cultural willingness to tell individual cancer patients what to do, and a cultural taboo about telling industry and agriculture that their practices need to change to prevent cancer.

Another reason is the medical education of physicians. Having taught in the medical and pre-medical programmes at universities myself, I would say that the doctors that are training are not getting a good background in environmental health. It's not part of their curriculum.

The evidence has become much more rigorous in the past decade, and there have been many breakthroughs. Epigenetics shows how environmental signals alter the expression of genes in a way that can place cells on the path way to tumour-formation.

If a physician, like an oncologist or cancer doctor, has not graduated recently, they may not have had that information.

ML: Why is there so little money given to researching prevention (rather than cure) in the major cancer charities?

SS: I don't know. It's a mystery to me as well. In the US, the latest report by the president's cancer panel, part of the National Cancer Institute, was about the link between cancer and the environment.

The panel that reviewed the literature, in the same way that I did, and came to many of the same conclusions that I did, also heard testimony from some 40 experts on the issue of cancer and the environment.

The panel became so persuaded of the strength of the evidence, and so alarmed at how little attention has been given to this, that they took the unusual step of accompanying their report with a letter to the president that said the ‘burden of environmental cancer has been grievously underappreciated’ and urged the president to use the power of his office to remove carcinogens from the air, food and water.

Yet we did not see our cancer charities rally around this report. In fact, the American Cancer Society immediately moved to downplay the report. I find it mysterious and distressing.

The data are there, and we have the opportunity to prevent all kinds of suffering and save lives before cancer even gets started. Our treatments aren't that good. Half of all cancer patients go on to die from it; this hasn't changed very much. I can only speculate about why more money is directed to look at new treatments rather than to prevention.

ML: What has been the response of the chemicals industry to your book?

SS: I haven't heard from them, so I don't know.

ML: What do you want people to do after becoming aware of the link between cancer and the environment?

SS: The bulk of the chemicals that cause cancer are derived from fossil fuels, petrochemicals. Moving our economy away from fossil fuels is already something we need to do because of climate change.

Even though the environment and cancer seems like this big, overwhelming and depressing problem, in fact its root causes are the same as the causes that are killing the planet.

I often use a metaphor: we are all musicians in this great human orchestra. It really is time now to play the ‘save the world’ symphony. None of us has to play solo, but we do have to know which instrument we hold and play it as well as we can.

Everyone has some expertise to bring to this huge human-rights issue: people who are chefs can source from local, organic farmers. I work with young girls who are trying to promote non-toxic makeup and nail varnish.

Architects can design more energy-efficient buildings and find substitutes to materials such as polyvinyl chloride, which causes cancer in workers. Athletes can promote organic playing fields and golf courses; fashion designers can take on the dry-cleaning industry and source organic fabrics.

We all have a role to play. Cancer patients have a role to play, too: we don't give up easily; we fight – I want us to bring that same fighting spirit to cancer-prevention.

ML: The US premiere of Living Downstream took place in your home town. Have things there changed for the better?

SS: I have been delighted to learn that now there is a thriving, organic farm culture instead of endless fields of soy and corn, which were very intensively farmed and used for ethanol production, animal feed or snack food. Now there are famers' markets.

At the same time, in the area where the cancer rates are high, there is a plan to build a mega-hog-farm operation. There are so many chemicals used to raise animals in that way, my concern will be drinking-water contamination. It's the last thing that community needs.

The second edition of Sandra Steingraber's book Living Downstream: An ecologist's personal investigation of cancer and the environment (Da Capo press, March 2010) is available in North America
.
The European premiere of Living Downstream takes place tonight in Brussels. Sandra Steingraber will be speaking at the European Parliament on behalf of HEAL, a non-profit that advocates greater protection from exposure to environmental chemicals, including carcinogens.

Matilda Lee is the Ecologist's Community Affairs Editor

Flowers Of The Field

If safety, the environment and health are critical factors in the application of nanotechnology to pesticides then why are they not in the use of fine particles in household, personal care and beauty products?

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New approaches needed to gauge safety of nanotech-based pesticides
Published: esciencenews dot com Monday, October 4, 2010
12:33 in Physics & Chemistry

Nanotechnology is about to emerge in the world of pesticides and pest control, and a range of new approaches are needed to understand the implications for public health, ensure that this is done safely, maximize the potential benefits and prevent possible risks, researchers say in a new report.

In a study published today in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, scientists from Oregon State University and the European Union outline six regulatory and educational issues that should be considered whenever nanoparticles are going to be used in pesticides.

"If we do it right, it should be possible to design nanoparticles with safety as a primary consideration, so they can help create pesticides that work better or are actually safer," said Stacey Harper, an assistant professor of nanotoxicology at Oregon State University.

Harper is a national leader in the safety and environmental impacts of this science that deals with particles so extraordinarily small they can have novel and useful characteristics.

"Unlike some other applications of nanotechnology, which are further along in development, applications for pesticides are in their infancy," Harper said. "There are risks and a lot of uncertainties, however, so we need to understand exactly what's going on, what a particular nanoparticle might do, and work to eliminate use of any that do pose dangers."

A program is already addressing that at OSU, as part of the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute.

The positive aspect of nanotechnology use with pesticides, researchers say, is that it might allow better control and delivery of active ingredients, less environmental drift, formulations that will most effectively reach the desired pest, and perhaps better protection for agricultural workers.

"If you could use less pesticide and still accomplish the same goal, that's a concept worth pursuing," Harper said.

But researchers need to be equally realistic about the dangers, she said. OSU labs have tested more than 200 nanomaterials, and very few posed any toxic concerns – but a few did. In one biomedical application, where nanoparticles were being studied as a better way to deliver a cancer drug, six out of 40 evoked a toxic response, most of which was linked to a specific surface chemistry that scientists now know to avoid.

"The emergence of nanotechnology in the pesticide industry has already begun, this isn't just theoretical," said David Stone, an assistant professor in the OSU Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology.

"But pesticides are already one of the most rigorously tested and regulated class of compounds, so we should be able to modify the existing infrastructure."
One important concern, the researchers said, will be for manufacturers to disclose exactly what nanoparticles are involved in their products and what their characteristics are. Another issue is to ensure that compounds are tested in the same way humans would be exposed in the real world.

"You can't use oral ingestion of a pesticide by a laboratory rat and assume that will tell you what happens when a human inhales the same substance," Stone said. "Exposure of the respiratory tract to nanoparticles is one of our key concerns, and we have to test compounds that way."

Future regulations also need to acknowledge the additional level of uncertainty that will exist for nano-based pesticides with inadequate data, the scientists said in their report. Tests should be done using the commercial form of the pesticides, a health surveillance program should be initiated, and other public educational programs developed.

Special assessments may also need to be developed for nanoparticle exposure to sensitive populations, such as infants, the elderly, or fetal exposure. And new methodologies may be required to understand nanoparticle effects, which are different from most traditional chemical tests.

"These measures will require a coordinated effort between governmental, industry, academic and public entities to effectively deal with a revolutionary class of novel pesticides," the researchers concluded in their report.

Source: Oregon State University

Unquote

Everything said here applies to all those products now being put on the market and already available in supermarkets and other outlets.

Scratching Each Other's Backs

The article below taken from Science Daily deals with the effect of low concentrations of pesticides on life forms. The amount of research on pesticide effects is understandable. What others need to have in mind is that the content of pesticides is similar in some respects to other products used on the person and in the home.

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Fertilizer Chemicals Linked to Animal Developmental Woes
ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2010) — Science News

Fertilizer chemicals may pose a bigger hazard to the environment -- specifically to creatures that live in water -- than originally foreseen, according to new research from North Carolina State University toxicologists.

In a study published in the Aug. 27 edition of PLoS ONE, the NC State researchers show that water fleas take up nitrates and nitrites common chemicals used primarily in agriculture as fertilizers and convert those chemicals into nitric oxide. Nitric oxide can be toxic to many organisms.

The study shows that water fleas introduced to fertilizer chemicals in water were plagued with developmental and reproductive problems consistent with nitric oxide toxicity, even at what would be considered low concentrations.

This raises questions about the effect these chemicals may have on other organisms, says Dr. Gerald LeBlanc, professor of environmental and molecular toxicology at NC State and the corresponding author of the paper describing the results. He adds that additional research will be needed to explore those questions.

LeBlanc says that some of the study's results were surprising.

"There's only limited evidence to suggest that animals could convert nitrates and nitrites to nitric oxide, although plants can," he says. "Since animals and plants don't have the same cellular machinery for this conversion, it appears animals use different machinery for this conversion to occur."

LeBlanc was also dismayed at seeing toxic effects at low chemical concentrations.
"Nitrite concentrations in water vary across the United States, but commonly fall within 1 to 2 milligrams per liter of water," he says. "We saw negative effects to water fleas at approximately 0.3 milligrams per liter of water."

Harmful effects of nitric oxide included developmental delay -- water flea babies were born on schedule but were underdeveloped; some lacked appendages important for swimming, for instance.

LeBlanc now plans to identify the mechanism behind nitric oxide's toxic effects; evaluate the relationship between nitrite and nitrate concentrations in the environment and developmental toxicity; and consider possible risks to humans.

"It's not possible to eliminate nitrates and nitrites from our lives -- they do wonders in agricultural crop production," LeBlanc says. "But we can take measures to ensure that the benefits of these chemicals outweigh their risks by keeping them out of surface waters."

The research was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.

The Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology is part of the university's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Unquote

Bigger fleas have littler fleas, on their backs to bite ‘em. Little fleas have littler fleas, and so on ad finitum.