angrytoxicologist
Posts by this author
April 21, 2008
A paper just published in Tox Sci shows that PFOS (the chemical that used to be the prime ingredient in Scotchgard) suppresses the immune system at levels, that didn't cause noticeable toxicity that are same as what are found in the general population. Great. So, basically, many people in the US…
April 18, 2008
I'm waiting around for a meeting (about animal testing!) and thought I'd share a few things that I've been thinking about.
1) While we're not going to stop using animals for testing in a long time it is a good idea to reduce them where we can and where industry and the public (at-large; I know…
April 14, 2008
The Post really screwed this one up, not so much because they took a side on an issue in news piece (this is close to an opinion piece), but because it gets so much wrong and doesn't even address the rest of the story.
Issue 1: Science will save them!
I've been over this before, here and here, but…
March 18, 2008
There is a animal testing karmic pass up in the exhibition hall! I'll post again when I return from my ego trip.
PS Since it's tangentally related, I'm going to use the opportunity to express some outrage at what the Chinese are saying about the Dalai Lama and doing to Tibetans. @#$@% $#%…
March 18, 2008
The poster sessions were largely a bust yesterday but I did come across a couple of interesting ones:
1) Definitive evidence that it was the melamine + cyuranic acid that caused toxicity in animals (by creating crystals inside the kidney). As I've noted before, neither is very toxic on it's own.…
March 17, 2008
In one of the sessions today there was a fantastic talk by Dr Dolinoy. Here are my notes with some explainations where needed:
Epigenetics (this is where you affect gene expression by means other than damaging DNA, messing with transcription or translation of DNA/RNA, for instance).
If you give…
March 17, 2008
Gee, I bet you're pumped, right? I'll be doing little updates now and then if I hear anything interesting.
The opening lecture was by Dr Lee Hartwell (2001 Nobel Laureate) on science - particularly toxicology, of course - in the 21 century. There were a couple of interesting points that he made,…
February 14, 2008
From the non-news that's news' department, Reuters reproted on a study that showed that ~15% of patients who took Sutent, a kidney and cancer drug, developed heart failure. Dr Melinda Telli presented information on 48 patients who took Sutent at an American Society of Clinical Oncology. You'd think…
February 8, 2008
For those of you in any field that deals with health, you may know this feeling.
Fortunately this is rare but in the past two weeks I've been completely exasperated at 3 different meetings and discussions I've been to. Without going into specifics, I'd like to say that as a group, us scientists…
February 6, 2008
Is this about a better environment, animal welfare or about better drug development? Take a guess.
Yesterday NIEHS (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) had a little symposium on animal testing to celebrate the 10th year of ICCVAM (Interagency Coordinating Committee on the…
February 1, 2008
There's something rotten in Bethesda
Public Citizen released, and the WaPo reported on, findings that the CPSC manytimes takes six months or more to alert the public of dangerous products. Never fear, says the National Association of Manufacturers, the CPSC only looked at the cases that were in the…
January 31, 2008
Everyone knows by now that the show Eli Stone misrepresents the facts about thimerosal and autism in it's fictional story of a lawyer going after a pharmaceutical after they put "mercuritol" in vaccines. It's clear that the story is supposed to mimic the thimerosal issue but as some defenders of…
January 29, 2008
Two things got me thinking about the upcoming topic.
1) I saw "Into the Woods" recently and there's a part where the old hermit asks the baker how much $ a son would be worth (he's trying to have a kid). The baker first thinks this is a insane question, but you can see a small bit of wheel turning…
January 28, 2008
In an Slate article critiquing Marian Burros' story about mercury levels in fish, Jack Shafer takes issue with the omission of any discussion of a review published in 2000 in Environmental Research entitled "Twenty-seven Years Studying the Human Neurotoxicity of Methylmercury Exposure". Mr Shafer…
January 25, 2008
Warning: Rambling screed approaching.
More mean? Maybe, but only if you can empower and inspire people to make a change. Let me give you a three good examples:
1) Breastfeeding is best. By miles. Still, not everyone really knows about the benefits. So there are intense campaigns around to pressure…
January 18, 2008
Okay so it's a sort of sciency Friday. I had a bit of fun reading the Washington Post this morning.
EPA or EWTIFUBARTFSA?
First up, this article on the largest mining fine in EPA history: 20 million dollars! Now, $20 million isn't all that much for a huge company like Massey but forget that, let's…
January 16, 2008
So the FDA says that cloned meat is safe and this is making big news. Well, this isn't much of a surprise, it's unlikely that a clone would be unsafe (it's a clone of a naturally healthy animal!). What sucks is the media's take on this (and the government's complicity in them getting it wrong).…
January 10, 2008
A reader asked me for some help choosing a water bottle because of concerns about antimony, bisphenol A, and phthalates (BPA is really the only risk worth thinking about in this trifecta). She read this NYTimes article about plastic bottles and risks,...etc. She was rather confused by the article.…
January 8, 2008
A reader sent an article from The Pink Sheet (an industry rag focused on Pharma). If you've never read industry-specific news publications, you're really missing out. They're really facinating and instructive. Sometimes you get early knowledge about industry trends and others, if you're lucky, that…
January 7, 2008
Okay first: Where have I been? It's too complicated to answer and retain anonymity, so suffice it to say: "away". Thanks for all the e-mails over the past month asking for posts again.
An item in Science caught my eye yesterday: Revolutionizing China's Environmental Protection. I'm sure you all…
November 9, 2007
Elizabeth "never met a toxic chemical I didn't like" Whelan of ACSH fame posted on HuffPo Wed. an interesting little post that ripped the EPA for funding a study to figure out if/what environmental factors among children, over their childhood, contributed to their disease. To sum up her argument,…
November 7, 2007
A couple of weeks ago, as I'm sure you heard, the FDA held an advisory committee meeting that concluded that there should be no use of cough/cold products for children under 6. There is a good amount of evidence that the drugs (including antitussive, expectorant, nasal decongestant, antihistamine…
November 5, 2007
After the dust up last week about violent anti-animal testing groups (coast down through the comments on the linked Denialism post to get the short version of my take), two things stuck in my head. One, the Dalai Lama says my karma's okay as long as I'm following what looks like a version of the…
November 2, 2007
Let's redo the lungs, shall we? They are toxicologist's nightmare. First, let's point out what's great about our airway systems: the filtration provided by our nose, nasopharynx, pharynx and larynx; the clearance of foreign substances by dual layer of mucous in the airways (a thin layer in…
November 2, 2007
There are so many things I could write about today but this is just sitting in my head this morning: There are alot of crazies out there. By that I mean not people who are mentally ill, which deserve compassion, but those who are sane and act in crazy ways.
This was spurred by this post over at…
November 2, 2007
As promised yesterday, here's how I make breakfast sausage (I do it for taste but it will also lower your nitrate intake). And as to the old saying, I'd much rather make sausage than make laws.
You'll need a meat grinder. I like the food grinder that attaches to a Kitchen Aid mixer since I can use…
November 1, 2007
Or so says USA Today on the front page, paragraph two (regarding sausage, bacon and lunchmeat). Of course they are contradicted on paragraph 8 by someone who says that "you can still occasionally have a hot dog". The no safe level of bacon sounded fishy to me so I dug through the report (all 517…
October 31, 2007
If you haven't seen it yet, USA Today is doing a series called "toxic legacy". First was lead, then mercury, and today, plastics. Well, really it's about BPA. We've dicussed BPA here before and I'm not going to rehash it. The article is good but doesn't give a lot of new information if you have…
October 30, 2007
(Alternate title: jerks aren't always wrong).
Over at Moms Speak Up, Cristina shares her angerat a doctor that doesn't want to go along with a "modified" vaccine schedule that she made up herself. Over at Enviroblog (which I usually like) they chime in with a "good for you". While I share the…
October 16, 2007
So cancer death rates are going down. This is good. What's left out of all the news coverage is the question: So what's going up. Face it, we all die. The all cause, all age mortality rate isn't changing as fast as cancer, stroke, and heart disease. What's going up then? Alzheimer's, Parkinson's,…