The authors investigated the association of early-life exposure to indoor air pollution with neuropsychological development in preschoolers and assessed whether this association differs by glutathione-S-transferase gene (GSTP1) polymorphisms. A prospective, population-based birth cohort was set up in Menorca, Spain, in 1997-1999 (n = 482).

Children were assessed for cognitive functioning (McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities) and attention-hyperactivity behaviors (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition) at age 4 years.

During the first 3 months of life, information about gas appliances at home and indoor nitrogen dioxide concentration was collected at each participant’s home (n = 398, 83%). Genotyping was conducted for the GSTP1 coding variant Ile105Val. Use of gas appliances was inversely associated with cognitive outcomes (beta coefficient for general cognition = -5.10, 95% confidence interval (CI): -9.92, -0.28; odds ratio for inattention symptoms = 3.59, 95% CI: 1.14, 11.33), independent of social class and other confounders.

Nitrogen dioxide concentrations were associated with cognitive function (a decrease of 0.27 point per 1 ppb, 95% CI: -0.48, -0.07) and inattention symptoms (odds ratio = 1.06, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.12).

The deleterious effect of indoor pollution from gas appliances on neuropsychological outcomes was stronger in children with the GSTP1 Val-105 allele. Early-life exposure to air pollution from indoor gas appliances may be negatively associated with neuropsychological development through the first 4 years of life, particularly among genetically susceptible children.

Reference: Morales E, Julvez J, Torrent M, de Cid R, Guxens M, Bustamante M, Künzli N, Sunyer J., Association of early-life exposure to household gas appliances and indoor nitrogen dioxide with cognition and attention behavior in preschoolers, Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, Am J Epidemiol. 2009 Jun 1;169(11):1327-36.

Particulate air pollution during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing constantly exceeded levels considered excessive by the WHO – World Health Organization, was far worse than other recent Olympic Games, and was about 30 percent higher than has been reported by Chinese environmental experts – even though some favorable weather conditions helped reduce the problem. 

The weather, in fact, turned out to be more valuable in addressing this concern than major programs by the Chinese government to heavily restrict automobile use, close factories and slow construction during and before the Olympic games. 

These findings are among the final results just published in Environmental Science and Technology, a professional journal, in the first comprehensive study of particulate air pollutants in Beijing and how they compared to past Olympics. 

The research was done before, during and after the 2008 Olympics by scientists from Oregon State University and Peking University, in work funded by the National Science Foundation in the United States and the National Science Foundation of China. 

“Considering the massive efforts by China to reduce air pollution in and around Beijing during the Olympics, this was the largest scale atmospheric pollution experiment ever conducted,” said Staci Simonich, an OSU associate professor of environmental and molecular toxicology. “Despite all that, it was some evening rains and favorable shifts in the winds that provided the most relief from the pollution. 

“This demonstrates how difficult it is to solve environmental problems on a short-term, local basis,” she added. 

And despite some favorable weather and the pollution control efforts, researchers said, the end result was some of the most severe particulate pollution that Olympic athletes have dealt with in recent games. The levels were about two to four times higher than that of Los Angeles on an average day. 

In some of the first comparisons of these type ever made, scientists determined that particulate matter air pollution in the Beijing Olympics were about double the levels of recent games in Athens, Greece; triple those of Atlanta, Ga.; and 3.5 times higher than the games in Sydney, Australia. However, the study also noted that, because of its control efforts, Beijing had the most significant decrease in particular air pollution compared to the other Olympic sites around the time of their games. 

Despite these efforts, levels of coarse particular matter were higher than considered safe by the World Health Organization 81 percent of the time during the Beijing Olympics. They reached unacceptable levels 100 percent of the time for the most dangerous particulate matter (smaller than 2.5 microns), which is more easily inhaled into the lungs and causes more serious health problems. Levels of the smaller, most harmful particulate matter was also the least affected by government efforts to reduce pollution output, the study concluded.

 The finding of levels of pollution higher than those announced previously by Chinese officials reflects a difference in measurement methodology, researchers said, although the approaches used in this study have been widely accepted for many years. 

The studies were initially prompted due to traditionally high levels of air pollution in Beijing and the potential risk they posed to athletes and spectators, Simonich said. The city of 17 million people is surrounded by mountains in several directions that trap air pollutants, and has faced significant increases in particulate air pollution in recent years due to increasing industrialization, numbers of automobiles, coal and biomass burning, and other causes. 

Atmospheric particulate matter, researchers say, is a concern because various sized particles have potentially toxic chemicals “sorbed” to them. The fine particles have been linked to increased respiratory morbidity and mortality. In China, particulate matter air pollution is believed to be responsible for about one million premature deaths per year, researchers said in their study. 

Of some note, the scientists said, is that efforts taken to constrain air pollution may be having a lasting value – particulate matter air pollution in Beijing was as much as 27 percent lower last fall than in the same months a year earlier. Some of this, however, may have been attributable to lower levels of industrial and economic activity. 

Simonich said that there is no scientific evidence so far of any health problems that have been linked to the short-term exposure of athletes or spectators to this pollution during the Olympic competition. 

“The athletes and visitors were only exposed for a very short time,” Simonich said. “Millions of other people there face this air quality problem their entire lives. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen – you could look directly at the sun and not have a problem, due to the thickness of the haze.” 

Reference: Oregon State University, Athletes, spectators faced unprecedented air pollution at 2008 Olympic Games, CORVALLIS, Oregon, June 19, 2009

Searchable database shows pesticide residues still common

San Francisco, June 17, 2009 — Ever wonder about pesticides on your food? Or in your drinking water? In particular, which of those pesticides are most hazardous? A new tool from the nonprofit group Pesticide Action Network sheds new science-driven light on the invisible problem of pesticide residues.
 
Today’s launch of the What’s on My Food? database makes the results of government tests for pesticide residues in food available online in a searchable, easy-to-use format. The database shows what pesticides are found on each food, in what amount, and – for the first time – links those residues to the health effects associated with exposure to each of the chemicals.
 
“This kind of public visibility around pesticides is particularly needed in the U.S.,  since regulators base their decisions on toxicology studies that are almost all done by industry,” explains Dr. Brian Hill, Senior Scientist with Pesticide Action Network and the primary developer of the What’s on My Food? database. “Nearly 900 million pounds of pesticides are used in the U.S. every year, yet regulations depend on studies that are not peer-reviewed and are kept hidden behind the veil of ‘confidential business information.’” Hill notes that the 900 million figure is long overdue for updating, as the most recent pesticide use figures from the Environmental Protection Agency are for 2001.
 
In addition to highlighting the potential direct health effects of pesticide residues, the What’s on My Food? database points to the many problems associated with pesticide use before food reaches the kitchen table. Widespread use of agricultural chemicals threatens the health of workers and those in nearby communities and schools, as well as harming wildlife and contaminating ecosystems, according to the site.
 
“It’s time to shift away from reliance on these dangerous chemicals,” says Kathryn Gilje, Pesticide Action Network’s Executive Director. “In Europe governments have recognized that a healthy population and clean environment are worth more than short-term industry profits. They are moving toward safer and healthier ways to produce food, and we need to do the same.”
 
In the Take Action section of the site, Pesticide Action Network calls on consumers not only to vote with their dollars by choosing organic foods whenever possible, but also to become involved as “food citizens” demanding a clean, green and fair food production system.
 
Launch of the new database coincides with the release of Food, Inc., a film by the producers of An Inconvenient Truth that documents the dangerous health and environmental impacts of industrialized food production. Food reporter Michael Pollan calls Food, Inc. “the most important and powerful film about our food system in a generation.”
 

Reference: Pesticide Action Network North America, Searchable database shows pesticide residues still common, June 18, 2009

Resources:

• What’s On My Food? Database
• U.S. Department of Agriculture site re: food residue testing
• Food, Inc. “Hungry for Change” interactive cafeteria featuring WhatsOnMyFood? Database

‘No Family History’ author makes compelling case for environmental link to breast cancer and urges women, advocates, and policymakers to focus on prevention.   

PHILADELPHIA – Has the key to reducing breast cancer gotten lost in the race for a cure? A new book, No Family History, presents compelling evidence that exposure to everyday products such as cosmetics and toiletries, hormones in food, household cleaners and pesticides is behind the dramatic increase in breast cancer and argues that the solution is simple: prevention.  

“Every three minutes, one woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer. Yet, most women with breast cancer defy most or all of the risk factors, including weight, diet, whether they gave birth and breast fed, and family history,” says No Family History author Sabrina McCormick, Ph.D., a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The incidence of breast cancer has increased at an alarming rate over the past 60 years. In 1940, around one in 24 women who lived to be 80 was afflicted. By 2006, that number rose to one in eight.  

In her book, McCormick cites compelling evidence showing that the reason for this dramatic increase is the rise in the production and use of cancer-causing chemicals women are exposed to on a daily basis.  

Breast cancer “hot spots” from Long Island, N.Y., to Northern California have two common threads—industrial pollution and agricultural pesticides. These “hot spots” are pockets of the United States where breast cancer has risen six times faster than the national rate. In Long Island, the incidence of breast cancer is 200 percent higher than the national average. 

“In our race for a cure for breast cancer, we have ignored the overwhelming body of evidence that demonstrates a link between products from cosmetics to pesticides and breast cancer,” McCormick says. “We must focus on prevention by demanding safer products, reducing our exposure to chemicals and urging our policymakers to ban cancer-causing chemicals in everyday products.” 

European governments responded to this scientific evidence by banning cosmetic products with certain chemicals from being sold in their countries. According to No Family History, one American cosmetics company known as much for its “pink ribbon” marketing campaigns as for its pink lipstick removed these chemicals from products sold in Europe, but these same chemicals remain in the products the company sells in the United States. 

“Women and girls should not have to check the ingredients in every stick of lipstick and each bottle of moisturizer. Better regulation to ensure that these products are safe would go a long way to reducing the incidence of breast cancer,” McCormick says. 

Many companies that profit from “pink” marketing campaigns or breast cancer treatments, McCormick argues, are the same ones fighting against tougher regulations of cancer-causing chemicals in everyday products. McCormick dubs this the “political economy” of breast cancer.

“In the case of breast cancer, many activists have unwittingly bought into campaigns leading down the road away from a cause, and instead into more and more breast cancer,” McCormick writes in her book. 

No Family History: The Environmental Links to Breast Cancer (Rowman & Littlefield) is a provocative glimpse into environmental links to breast cancer, profiling research as well as women’s stories. McCormick recommends that women reduce their exposure to many cosmetics and toiletries and urges policymakers to strengthen regulations to ban cancer-causing chemicals from being used in everyday products. 

Reference: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars, Are everyday products from cosmetics to household cleaners causing the high rates of breast cancer? June, 15, 2009 

For more information on the book (in stores in June) and a documentary McCormick produced on the subject, visit www.nofamilyhistory.org

Recent epidemiological studies have revealed an increase in the frequency of genital malformations in male newborns (e.g., un-descended testes) and a decrease in male fertility.  

The role played by the growing presence in our environment of contaminants that reduce male hormone action could explain this phenomenon. 

It is known that the birth weight of males is higher than that of females due to the action of male hormones on the male fetus.If the exposure of pregnant women to environmental contaminants that diminish the action of male hormones has increased over the years, one would expect to see a decrease in the sex difference in birth weight.

This is exactly what a new study published in the July 2009 issue of Epidemiology shows. Investigators analyzed the Public Health Agency of Canada’s database on the birth weights of more than five million children born in Canada between 1981 and 2003.  

Using statistical methods that control for changes over time of mother’s age and parity, the investigators effectively show a sustained decrease in birth weight differences between boys and girls, which supports the hypothesis of growing endocrine disruption related to environmental contaminants. Contaminants found in plastic materials represent plausible candidates, since they are known to diminish the action of male hormones. 

“Our study underlines the importance of probing the impact of environmental contaminants on the health of mothers and fetuses and on the reproductive potential of future generations,” says lead researcher Dr. Guy Van Vliet, a pediatric endocrinologist and investigator at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center and a professor at the Department of Pediatrics of the Université de Montréal.

Reference: Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center, Newborn weights affected by environmental contaminants, University of Montreal, McGill University and Public Health Agency of Canada, June 15, 2009