Environmental health
sb admin | August 4, 2009by Richard Denison, cross-posted from EDF Blogs
Today, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) unveiled its "10 Principles for Modernizing TSCA."Â Â Also today, the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition - of which EDF is a member - issued a news release and unveiled its 9-point "Platform for Reform of TSCA."Â How do they line up?
I'll leave to you readers to decide just how much alignment (or lack thereof) there is between these dueling manifestos. To get the ball rolling, I'll use this post to single out three key differences.
First, however, let me say I welcome the fact that ACC is…
revere | August 1, 2009The Revere troop is still on the road (we arrive at our beach destination later today), and while WiFi in motels is convenient, it's not so easy to blog without the usual creature comforts (a library, good coffee, my own workspace and lots of unread/half read papers with great sounding titles that might become blog posts). However I do have Mrs. R. for company and our old and hobbling dog is along to be a literal creature comfort for both of us. So I'm going to reprise an oldie but goodie from the archives (January 2007), this one the follow-up to an earlier post asking "why are man hole…
sb admin | July 21, 2009by Kas
On July 16, 2009, Wal-Mart announced that it will develop a sustainable product rating system that can be used to evaluate the sustainability of the products they sell in their stores. As a reminder, Wal-Mart sells a lot of products to a lot of people. According to its website, Wal-Mart âserves customers and members more than 200 million times per week at more than 7,900 retail units under 62 different banners in 15 countries.â Wal-Martâs sustainability initiatives are diverse and plentiful (a curious dichotomy given the stigma created by their propensity for union busing and low…
revere | July 11, 2009It's Saturday and it's summertime and Mrs. R. and I are still in the city. OK with me. I'm a city boy and find it easiest to maintain upright posture on asphalt, but my bride of 37 years likes the beach, so most summers we go off for a few weeks to the seashore (speaking littorally). It's down south where the water is warm but I still spend a lot of time inside in air conditioned splendor, listening to music and reading. Mrs. R. props herself up at the earth - water interface with her own pile of books, far from other people and the hazards of pathogenic viruses. It turns out, not really.…
sb admin | July 10, 2009by Kas
Approximately 100 people from Washington, DC-area universities, local government, and private industry shared an organic experience at the 2009 Policy Greenhouse held this morning at The George Washington University. The Greenhouse provided a forum for people to present, in five minutes or less, their ideas for innovative, sustainable solutions for local problems. The solutions may be addressed now, using some portion of the millions of stimulus dollars received by DC, or in the near future through changes to existing or development of new DC-specific environmental policies. The…
sb admin | June 23, 2009Miningâs environmental costs are high, but many residents of coal-mining communities support continued mining because they rely (directly or indirectly) on mining jobs. Now, reports Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette, two researchers have put price tags on the economic costs and benefits of coal mining in Appalachia, and found that the benefits donât even come close to covering the costs:
Writing with co-author Melissa Ahern of Washington State University, [West Virginia Universityâs Michael] Hendryx reports that the coal industry generates a little more than $8 billion a year in economic…
sb admin | June 18, 2009It might seem obvious that having an entire town heavily contaminated with asbestos and hundreds of residents sickened by asbestos-related illnesses would constitute a public health emergency. Getting the federal government â specifically, the EPA â to actually declare a public health emergency in Libby, Montana took years of effort, though. Yesterday, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson finally announced that a public health emergency exists at the Libby asbestos site, and the declaration will allow it to get more resources for cleanup and healthcare.
Andrew Schneider (whoâs now blogging at…
sb admin | June 18, 2009We wrote last month about the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Control's withdrawal of a report that omitted important information about the contamination of the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina - a move that seemed to indicate better prospects for the hundreds of former base residents who used contaminated water and are seeking damages for health problems. On Saturday, however, the National Research Council released a report (commissioned by the U.S. Navy at the direction of Congress) that concludes it may be impossible to know whether contaminants can be linked…
revere | June 18, 2009We were among the first to bring you the full text of the leaked minutes of the secret meeting of the bisphenol-A (BPA) cabal at a posh private club in Washington, DC on May 28. It turns out those minutes may be almost as toxic to the cabal as their endocrine disrupting chemical is to humans. I guess I am exaggerating. It would have to pretty toxic for that. But it is at least producing some unpleasant fall out (see also here). You may remember one element (besides describing as the "holy grail" finding a “pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the…
sb admin | June 17, 2009The 1,050 State public health experts who make up the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) is urging the States and CDC to adopt a new case definition for adults of elevated blood-lead levels (BLL) and to require laboratories to report ALL blood lead test results to NIOSH's Adult Blood Lead and Epidemiology (ABLES) Program. CSTE recommends the definition of an "elevated BLL" change from 25 ug/dl and greater, to 10 ug/dl and greater.Â
The CSTE's policy statement is grounded on the growing body of evidence linking "low" levels of lead in adults with decreased …
sb admin | June 8, 2009As the public health community mourns the loss of a great scientist and colleague, The Pump Handle would like to share some of what has been written about Kate Mahaffey. Please leave your own remembrances in the comments section below.
"I have known Kathryn as a colleague for more than a decade, but most recently have been impressed with her steadfast scientific integrity while at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She always managed to honestly communicate scientific findings that while unpopular with some, were critically important to protecting public health.  ...Kathryn is a…
sb admin | June 5, 2009It is with deep sadness we inform you of the sudden passing of Kathyrn R Mahaffey, PhD.   Kate had an exceptional and diverse career, with appointments at FDA, NIOSH, NIEHS and EPA.  Most recently, Kate served as a Professorial Lecturer at the George Washington University School of Public Health.
Her husband, David Jacobs offers the following remembrance and tribute to her significant contributions to the public's health.  Information about a memorial service appears at the end of this post.
Kathryn R. Mahaffey passed away peacefully in her sleep June 2, 2009 after decades of…
sb admin | June 1, 2009by Kas
Introduction
The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) coordinates Federal R&D activities related to nanotechnology. Currently, the NNI involves the activities of 25 Federal agencies, 13 of which have budgets planned for 2010. Four of these agencies have specific responsibilities to address environmental, health, and safety (EHS) nanotechnology research needs as outlined by the 2008 NNI publication Environmental, Health, and Safety Research Needs for Engineered Nanoscale Materials. The four agencies are: USEPA, NIOSH, NIST, and NIH (thatâs the Environmental Protection…
revere | May 27, 2009We don't usually think of power outages as an important cause of poisoning but it is. Electrical power has become such a necessary part of basic needs -- think of light at night and refrigeration -- that if it is interrupted for more than a few hours people will turn to gasoline powered generators to provide it. Apparently, though, the fridge and the light bulb are not the only necessities. Experience with recent disasters is revealing that people have new kinds of imperatives:
Hours after Hurricane Ike roared ashore in Texas, more than two million homes were without power, which left some…
sb admin | May 21, 2009by Kas
The USEPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) will receive nutrient-rich fertilizer that will keep it from becoming obsolete. IRIS provides an overall characterization of the public health risks for a given chemical in a given situation. It is the place to go to find noncancer effects (reference doses (RfD), reference concentrations (RfC)) and cancer effects (cancer slope factors and unit risks) that may result from exposure to various substances in the environment. These kinds of numbers go into the calculations for remediation goals at Superfund sites.Â
IRIS values drive…
sb admin | May 14, 2009In honor of the Washington, DC Area Bicyclist Association and their annual Bike to Work Day (Friday, May 15)
by Reut Tenne
A couple of days ago, I announced to a few friends that I regret not participating in the District of Columbia's (DC) bicyclistsâ movement. I am not sure that there is such a thing, but I sure would have liked to create one. For the past two years, I have gotten myself everywhere with my little old bike, and it has become my pride and joy. When I bike down a street crowded with cars, I feel superior to all the drivers; I see them as trapped in their big polluting…
sb admin | May 13, 2009by Rena Steinzor, cross-posted from CPR Blog
With his attractive family and a phalanx of top aides in tow, Professor Cass Sunstein had a cordial, 45-minute hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee yesterday. He was introduced by former student and current Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) who praised Sunstein as a teacher, mentor, and eclectic thinker, all qualities for which he is rightly known. Ironically, however, the remainder of the hearing could be summarized as efforts by the three Senators in attendanceâ Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), ranking…
sb admin | May 8, 2009In a Montana courtroom earlier today, a jury returned a ânot guiltyâ verdict in the government's case against W.R. Grace and three of its executives. It's widely known that W.R. Grace's actions contaminated the entire town of Libby, Montana with asbestos, and that hundreds of Libby residents have died or become seriously ill from asbestos-related diseases. There's plenty of documentation showing that W.R. Grace knew about the dangers their operations posed to residents but concealed that information. So how could they be found not guilty?
From what I've been reading on Andrew Schneider's blog…
sb admin | May 8, 2009By Kas
What happens when Founding Fathers question the existence of the system they helped to create? No, not those Founding Fathers. Here weâre referring to William D. Ruckelshaus and J. Clarence âTerryâ Davies, two of our environmental policy champions and USEPA bricklayers. In the April 2009 publication Oversight of Next Generation Nanotechnology from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, Ruckelshaus provides a preface to Daviesâ report that only hints at the innovative facelift soon fleshed out in approximately 30 pages of text.…
sb admin | May 5, 2009By Angene Johnson
After a recent dinner at my uncleâs house in Virginia, I finally had a chance to look at the March edition of National Geographic on my train ride back to Foggy Bottom (Washington, DC).  As I flipped through the front of the magazine towards this monthâs cover article, on saving energy in homes, the âEnvironmentâ article caught my eye. Entitled âMosquito Hosts,â the short piece describes one consequence of the currently tanking economy that I hadnât previously considered.  Â
Apparently, the recent increase in home foreclosures has resulted in a spike in the number of…