Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 10/20/2006
This is the weekly bulletin of the TURI Library, reporting a selection of recently published titles we have acquired. Our pledge is to keep the bulletin relevant to your work and brief -- no more than 10 titles. You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of the articles listed here.
Titles here, abstracts below them:
- Cosmetic Firms Nail DBP
- Carnegie Mellon Scientists Use "Green" Approach
To Transform Plastics Manufacturing Process
- Mortality among US employees of a large computer
manufacturing company: 1969-2001
- Nanotechnology Is Extending the Range of Additive
and Polymer Performance
- Hispanics Show Growing Clout in Environmental Debate
- Antique Whale Oil Provides Insights to Origin of
Pre-Industrial Chemicals
- The Pollution Within
- Organic Foods
- 145 Businesses, Groups Issue Sustainable Energy Blueprint
- Exposures to Environmental Toxicants and Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in US Children
1. Cosmetic Firms Nail DBP
SOURCE ICIS Chemical Business Americas, v270 n9,
September 11-17, 2006, p11
ABSTRACT A number of manufacturers producing nail polish
have started removing chemicals that are said to be linked with cancers and
birth defects from their products. The move by Del Laboratories, OPI Products
and Orly International follows rising criticism from consumers, and health and
environmental groups. The brand Sally Hansen, which is made by Del
Laboratories, said that it would reformulate its products to remove dibutyl
phthalate (DBP), formaldehyde and toluene. All three chemicals are listed on California state's list
of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.
2. Carnegie Mellon Scientists Use "Green" Approach
To Transform Plastics Manufacturing Process
SOURCE
Carnegie Mellon
University, October 10,
2006
ABSTRACT Using environmentally safe compounds like sugars
and vitamin C, scientists at Carnegie
Mellon University
have vastly improved a popular technology used to generate a diverse range of
industrial plastics for applications ranging from targeted drug delivery
systems to resilient paint coatings. The revolutionary improvement in atom
transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) now enables large-scale production of
many specialty plastics, according to the scientists. The new "green"
version of ATRP will allow existing materials to be made more efficiently,
reducing industrial purification costs before and after running a reaction and
permitting the production of new, unprecedented materials.
WEB LINK
http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/061010_pnas.html
3. Mortality among US employees of a large computer
manufacturing company: 1969-2001
AUTHOR Clapp, Richard W.
SOURCE Environmental Health: A Global Access Science
Source, v5 n30, 19 October 2006
ABSTRACT Background: Previous studies suggested increased cancer
incidence and mortality in workers exposed to solvents and other chemicals in
computer manufacturing jobs. Most previous studies were of small cohorts and
findings were inconsistent. A lawsuit involving a large U.S. company
produced a data file for analysis. This study sought to elucidate patterns of
mortality in workers who were engaged manufacturing computers and related
electronic components in the largest database available to date. Methods: A
proportional mortality and proportional cancer mortality analysis of deaths in
eligible workers between 1969 and 2001 was carried out, with U.S. population
mortality data as the standard for comparison. Mortality and work history data
was from corporate mortality and work history files produced during litigation
and standard U.S.
and state mortality files. The study base comprised 31,941 decedents who died
between 1969 and 2001, who had worked for at least five years and whose death information
was collected in the corporate mortality file. Proportional mortality ratios
(PMRs) and Proportional Cancer Mortality Ratios (PCMRs) and their 95%
confidence intervals were computed for 66 causes of death in males and females.
Results: PMRs for all cancers combined were elevated in males (PMR=107; 95%
CI=105-109) and females (PMR=115; 95% CI=110-119); several specific cancers and
other causes of death were also significantly elevated in both males and
females. There were reduced deaths due to non-malignant respiratory disease in
males and females and heart disease in females; several specific cancers and
other causes of death were significantly reduced in both males and females.
Proportional cancer mortality ratios (PCMRs) for brain and central nervous
system cancer were elevated (PCMR=166; 95% CI=129-213), kidney cancer
(PCMR=162; 95% CI=124-212), melanoma of skin (PCMR=179; 95% CI=131-244) and
pancreatic cancer (PCMR=126; 95% CI=101-157) were significantly elevated in
male manufacturing workers. Kidney cancer (PCMR=212; 95% CI=116-387) and cancer
of all lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue (PCMR=162; 95% CI=121-218) were
significantly elevated in female manufacturing workers. Conclusions: Mortality
was elevated due to specific cancers and among workers more likely to be
exposed to solvents and other chemical exposures in manufacturing operations.
Due to lack of individual exposure information, no conclusions are made about
associations with any particular agent.
WEB LINK http://www.ehjournal.net/content/5/1/30/abstract
4. Nanotechnology Is Extending the Range of Additive
and Polymer Performance
AUTHOR Toensmeier, Patrick A.
SOURCE Plastics Engineering, v62 n6, June 2006, pp12-14
ABSTRACT A quiet revolution is under way in plastics
materials, one that is having a major impact on their performance and use. The
revolution is nanotechnology, a small and in many cases experimental branch of
materials science that's beginning to affect a number of applications. Though
perhaps less than 5% of plastics now utilize nanotechnology, those that do are
creating a future in which resins, additives, and reinforcements achieve
significantly greater levels of performance with few tradeoffs in properties or
processability. Initial grades of "nanostructural pigments," designed
for use as masterbatches, are slated for commercialization this year by
Clariant Masterbatches Division, Holden,
Mass. The company worked with a
university spinoff that developed a technique for utilizing a substrate into
which it attaches nanosize chromaphores, the molecules that reflect color.
5. Hispanics Show Growing Clout in Environmental Debate
AUTHOR Flaccus, Gillian
SOURCE Associated Press, October 15, 2006
ABSTRACT Maria Valdez didn't consider herself an
environmentalist when she pressed this city east of Los Angeles to buy land ringed with factories
and railroad tracks for a new neighborhood park. The trash lot is now on its
way to becoming a green oasis with a butterfly sanctuary and community garden -
and Valdez is
undergoing a transformation of her own. Next month she will be sworn in as
president of the El Monte
chapter of Mujeres de la Tierra, a two-year-old environmental group that caters
to Hispanic immigrants and translates as "Women of the Earth."
Spurred by high rates of asthma and lead poisoning among their children,
Hispanic immigrants such as Valdez, a U.S. citizen who left Mexico as a child, are embracing
green values like never before - on their own terms. Hispanic activists and
politicians talk openly about building a unique green movement that distances
itself from mainstream environmental groups, even as those organizations hope
to tap into newfound Hispanic political clout. Those involved in the nascent
movement cite a gap between the priorities of traditional environmentalists,
who may focus on saving endangered species and preserving roadless areas, and
the practical concerns of many Hispanic immigrants, who confront thick smog and
lead-laced water every day in inner-city neighborhoods. Many also are wary of
groups like the Sierra Club, which has debated whether to make U.S.
immigration control part of its platform.
WEB LINK http://www.examiner.com/
a-344696~Hispanics_show_growing_clout_in_environmental_debate.html
6. Antique Whale Oil Provides Insights to Origin of
Pre-Industrial Chemicals
SOURCE Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, October 12,
2006
ABSTRACT One of the last remaining New
England whaling ships has provided unexpected insights into the
origin of halogenated organic compounds (HOCs) that have similar chemical and
physical properties as toxic PCBs and the pesticide DDT. HOCs are found everywhere and degrade slowly,
but some are naturally produced and others are produced by humans. While large
scale industrial production of HOCs did not begin until the late 1920s,
scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts say
naturally produced HOCs were bioaccumulating in marine mammals before major
chemical companies like Monsanto, Dupont, and 3M were making HOCs for industrial
uses. In the past decade, scientists
conducting routine analyses of animal and food samples began to discover
unknown HOCs in their samples. Detective work led to their identities, but
where these compounds were coming from has been a mystery. While some of these
"unknown" compounds can be loosely traced to a possible industrial or
natural source, the majority of these compounds have no known industrial or
natural sources. Emma Teuten and Christopher Reddy found their pre-industrial
HOC samples in a most unlikely place: whale oil from the Charles W. Morgan, one
of the last whaling ships operating during the 19th and early 20th century. Built
in 1841 in New Bedford, Mass., the ship traveled the world looking
for whales, often on voyages of three years or more. The ship is now preserved
and on public display at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Conn. The researchers received the whale oil
samples from the New Bedford
Whaling Museum.
Teuten and Reddy studied one sample of antique whale oil and found the HOCs in
all the samples . The results provide further evidence that naturally produced
HOCs were accumulating in marine mammals long before the human-produced
varieties. “What is most interesting to us is that we still find these
’natural’ compounds in recent samples from marine mammals, human breast milk,
and commercially available fish in Canada,” said study co-author Christopher
Reddy, an associate scientist in the WHOI Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry
Department. With co-author Emma Teuten, now at the University of Plymouth,
England but previously at WHOI, Reddy studied one of the previously unknown
HOCs and determined that it was from a natural source, not industrial
pollution. The approach was time consuming, taking more than six months of lab
work to complete, and required more than ten pounds of whale blubber. “Our main
goal now is to identify who is making them, why, and how toxic they are,” said
Teuten. “We suspect that many of these
compounds were and are made by bacteria, plants, animals as chemical defense
mechanisms.” Reddy says the properties of these natural compounds he and Teuten
found in the archived whale oil are similar to those of industrial HOCs. “Most
industrial HOCs do degrade in the environment, although very slowly. With
adequate regulations regarding the manufacture and release of the industrial
versions, we expect in the future that natural HOCs, rather than industrial
ones, will again be the only HOCs found in animal and human tissue.” Reddy says
these results should motivate science to consider the ecological role and
bioactivity of these natural HOCs and how pre-exposure to these compounds
prepared bacteria, plants, animals, and humans for industrial HOCs introduced
during the past century. It is well known that organisms have evolved defensive
mechanisms against chemicals in their environment, and until recently the
sources of these chemicals were primarily natural. The importance of HOCs like
those identified by Teuten and Reddy in the evolution of these defenses is not
yet understood. Industrial HOCs have been accumulating in the environment since
the 1930’s. Production of PCBs began in 1929, DDT in the late 1930s. “Knowing
that the natural compounds have been produced for much longer times, we can use
the natural sources as tools in studying the industrial ones,” Teuten
said. “For example, we may be able to
use these natural HOCs as chemical tracers, just like dyes are used in
medicine.”
WEB LINK http://www.whoi.edu/mr/pr.do?id=16528
7. The Pollution Within
AUTHOR Duncan, David Ewing
SOURCE National Geographic Interactive Edition, October
2006
ABSTRACT My journalist-as-guinea-pig experiment is taking
a disturbing turn. A Swedish chemist is on the phone, talking about flame
retardants, chemicals added for safety to just about any product that can burn.
Found in mattresses, carpets, the plastic casing of televisions, electronic
circuit boards, and automobiles, flame retardants save hundreds of lives a year
in the United States
alone. These, however, are where they should not be: inside my body. Åke
Bergman of Stockholm
University tells me he
has received the results of a chemical analysis of my blood, which measured
levels of flame-retarding compounds called polybrominated diphenyl ethers. In
mice and rats, high doses of PBDEs interfere with thyroid function, cause
reproductive and neurological problems, and hamper neurological development.
Little is known about their impact on human health. "I hope you are not
nervous, but this concentration is very high," Bergman says with a light
Swedish accent. My blood level of one particularly toxic PBDE, found primarily
in U.S.-made products, is 10 times the average found in a small study of U.S. residents and more than 200 times the
average in Sweden.
The news about another PBDE variant—also toxic to animals—is nearly as bad. My
levels would be high even if I were a worker in a factory making the stuff,
Bergman says. In fact I'm a writer engaged in a journey of chemical
self-discovery. Last fall I had myself tested for 320 chemicals I might have
picked up from food, drink, the air I breathe, and the products that touch my
skin—my own secret stash of compounds acquired by merely living. It includes
older chemicals that I might have been exposed to decades ago, such as DDT and
PCBs; pollutants like lead, mercury, and dioxins; newer pesticides and plastic
ingredients; and the near-miraculous compounds that lurk just beneath the
surface of modern life, making shampoos fragrant, pans nonstick, and fabrics
water-resistant and fire-safe. The tests are too expensive for most
individuals—National Geographic paid for mine, which would normally cost around
$15,000—and only a few labs have the technical expertise to detect the trace
amounts involved. I ran the tests to learn what substances build up in a
typical American over a lifetime, and where they might come from. I was also
searching for a way to think about risks, benefits, and uncertainty—the complex
trade-offs embodied in the chemical "body burden" that swirls around
inside all of us. Now I'm learning more than I really want to know. As
unsettling as my journey down chemical lane was, it left out thousands of
compounds, among them pesticides, plastics, solvents, and a rocket-fuel
ingredient called perchlorate that is polluting groundwater in many regions of
the country. Nor was I tested for chemical cocktails—mixtures of chemicals that
may do little harm on their own but act together to damage human cells. Mixed
together, pesticides, PCBs, phthalates, and others "might have additive
effects, or they might be antagonistic," says James Pirkle of the CDC,
"or they may do nothing. We don't know." Soon after I receive my
results, I show them to my internist, who admits that he too knows little about
these chemicals, other than lead and mercury. But he confirms that I am
healthy, as far as he can tell. He tells me not to worry. So I'll keep flying,
and scrambling my eggs on Teflon, and using that scented shampoo. But I'll
never feel quite the same about the chemicals that make life better in so many
ways.
WEB LINK
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0610/feature4/index.html
8. Organic Foods
AUTHOR Winter, Carl K.
SOURCE Food Technology, v60 n10, October 2006, pp44-48
ABSTRACT The organic foods industry in the United States
has grown dramatically in the past two decades. Organic foods constitute more
than 2% of all food in the U.S.,
and organic sales are estimated to have increased by nearly 20% annually since
1990, reaching $13.8 billion in 2005 (OTA, 2006). This rapid growth may be
traced to increased consumer confidence in organic foods as well as to concern
about possible health risks and environmental impacts of conventional food
production methods. Surveys frequently indicate that consumers purchase organic
foods because of a perception that organic foods are healthier; one recent
survey reported that the main reasons consumers purchased organic foods were
for> the avoidance of pesticides (70%), for freshness (68%), and for health
and nutritional benefits (67%). While initial organic food production primarily
involved small farms and local distribution of fresh produce, today’s organic
food system is a complex combination of small and large food producers, local
and global distribution networks, and a wide variety of products, including
fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy, and processed foods. This article is a
synopsis of the Institute
of Food Technologists’
latest Scientific Status Summary entitled “Organic Foods” that comprehensively
compares organic and conventional foods with respect to pesticide residues,
nutritional components, naturally occurring toxins, and microbiological safety.
WEB LINK http://members.ift.org/NR/rdonlyres/
79831BA3-2224-4787-A9CC-A03E837F6148/0/1006organic.pdf
9. 145 Businesses, Groups Issue Sustainable Energy Blueprint
SOURCE SustainableBusiness.com, October 6, 2006
ABSTRACT 145 businesses, environmental organizations, and
other groups (representing 37 states) have released the "Sustainable
Energy Blueprint" - a policy paper that outlines a "plausible
strategy for achieving a no-nuclear, low-carbon, highly-efficient and
sustainable energy future." It provides a timeframe and series of policy
recommendations for rapidly expanding the use of energy efficient and renewable
energy technologies to enable a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gases while
simultaneously phasing out nuclear power and ending most energy imports. The
"Sustainable Energy Blueprint" argues that three primary, longer-term
objectives for the nation's energy policy should be: a.) reducing greenhouse
gas emissions to a level consistent with a world-wide goal of global climate
stabilization (assumes curbing U.S. CO2 emissions by 60-80% from current levels
by mid-century); b.) eliminating U.S. energy imports (i.e., oil and
natural gas - now 58% and 15% respectively), while reducing overall use of oil
and natural gas; c.) phasing out the current generation of nuclear power while
substantially curbing the production and consumption of fossil fuels, by
increasing the use of energy efficiency and making a transition to sustainable,
environmentally safer renewable energy sources. Towards this end, it suggests a
2025 energy scenario in which total energy use is reduced by 20%, renewable
energy provides more than 20% of domestic energy supplies, natural gas imports
are eliminated, oil imports are cut by more than 40%, greenhouse gas emissions
are 20% below current levels, and nuclear power is almost completely phased
out. By 2050, the "Sustainable Energy Blueprint" envisions a domestic
energy mix in which energy efficiency improvements have reduced energy use from
present levels by 40%, renewables account for at least half of total energy
supplies, greenhouse gas emissions have been slashed by two-thirds from 2005
levels, fossil fuel imports have ceased, and nuclear power is no longer in use.
The authors of the "Sustainable Energy Blueprint" acknowledge that
the mix of options presented are intended to be illustrative and is by no means
the only combination by which the Untied States could achieve a sustainable
energy future. In the coming months, as additional institutional sign-ons
continue to be solicited, the "Sustainable Energy Blueprint" will be
forwarded to government officials, candidates for elective office, and other
persons/institutions that are looking for ideas on how to advance a sustainable
energy agenda. This will be an on-going effort over the next two years - at
least through the 2008 presidential election.
WEB LINK
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/news/sbnews.cfm?id=11255
10. Exposures to Environmental Toxicants and Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in US Children
AUTHOR Braun, Joe; Kahn, Robert S.; Froehlich, Tanya;
Auinger, Peggy; Lanphear, Bruce P.
SOURCE Environmental Health Perspectives, EHP-in-Press,
Online 19 September 2006
ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of this study was to
examine the association of exposures to tobacco smoke and environmental lead
with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Methods: Data was
obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999- 2002.
Prenatal and postnatal tobacco exposure was based on parent report; lead
exposure was measured using blood lead concentration. ADHD was defined as
current stimulant medication use and parent report of ADHD diagnosed by a
doctor or health professional. Results: Of 4,704 children age 4 to 15 years,
4.2% were reported to have ADHD and stimulant medication use, equivalent to 1.8
million children in the U.S.
In multivariable analysis, prenatal tobacco exposure (Odds Ratio [OR]: 2.5; 95%
CI: 1.2, 5.2) and higher blood lead concentration (first vs. fifth quintile,
OR: 4.1; 95% CI: 1.2, 14.0) were significantly associated with ADHD. Postnatal
tobacco smoke exposure was not associated with ADHD (OR 0.6; 95% CI: 0.3, 1.3;
p=0.22). If causally linked, these data suggest that prenatal tobacco exposure
accounts for 270,000 excess cases of ADHD and lead exposure accounts for
290,000 excess cases of ADHD in U.S.
children. Conclusions: We conclude that exposure to prenatal tobacco and
environmental lead are risk factors for ADHD in U.S. children.
WEB LINK
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/9478/9478.pdf
You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of these resources. Also, please tell us what topics you are particularly interested in monitoring, and who else should see GREENLIST. An online search of the TURI Library catalog can be done at http://greenlist.turi.org/ for greater topic coverage.Compiled by the TURI Library, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 2006
This page updated Friday October 27 2006
