Unless we realize that the technologies we are dealing with are of international consequence, that the technologies are very serious, we are headed down a very dangerous and possibly disastrous path.
|
Robert P. Gale, on nuclear power accidents such as Chernobyl
USA Today, 27 April 1988
|
|
Food for thought. Grilling meats releases heterocyclic amines which are potent animal carcinogens and may play a role in cancers in humans.
Photo: Kimberly Thigpen |
Accompanying each savory morsel of charbroiled meat are cancer-causing heterocyclic amines (HCAs). New studies indicate that HCAs may be involved in diseases such as cardiomyopathy, mammary cancers, and colon cancer. Even the fumes of cooked meats contain HCAs, which may pose respiratory risks for those who don't eat meat.
HCAs, formed during cooking when naturally occurring amino acids in meat react with muscle creatine, are among the most potent mutagens and carcinogens known. In a recent study completed at York University in London and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California, when patients scheduled for colon surgery were given trace doses of radiolabelled HCAs (equivalent to the amount in four well-cooked, quarter-pound hamburgers) beforehand, minute amounts were recovered from DNA in the tissue removed during surgery. "Even at these small levels, the carcinogen binds to DNA, showing how powerful it is," said Mark Knize, a biomedical scientist at the LLNL.
Early investigations of the health risks of HCAs have focused on ingestion as the primary route of human exposure and the colon as the primary target. Recent animal studies suggest that HCAs target other organs as well. In rats, HCAs trigger cardiomyopathy, the inflammation and deterioration of heart tissue that occurs with age. The primary cause of human cardiomyopathy remains unknown, but, "dietary factors like HCAs may play a role," says Elizabeth Snyderwine, chief of the Chemical Carcinogenesis Section at the National Cancer Institute.
Snyderwine and colleagues Richard Adamson and Unnur Thorgeirsson noticed that monkeys with HCA-induced liver cancer also developed an unexpectedly high incidence of degenerative heart damage. When they gave HCAs to adult rats (100 milligram per kilogram per day by gavage for two weeks) and cultured rat myocytes (200 micromolars for two hours), both experiments caused abnormal mitochondria, loss of myofilaments, and cell death. Studies in human cell lines and epidemiological evidence are needed to determine whether HCAs contribute to human cardiomyopathy.
Snyderwine's team also found that HCAs target the mammary glands of rats and are passed to their offspring through nursing. A study published in the 20 July 1994 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute showed that when lactating rats were fed a single oral dose of 10 mg/kg of HCAs, metabolites showed up in the urine of nursing, five-day-old rat pups. "This might be a model for the human situation," says Snyderwine. Humans are continuously exposed, starting early in life, to low doses of carcinogens like HCAs, which are promoted, not just later but early on as well, by factors like dietary fat to produce cancer. However, it's too early to say that eating meat and breast feeding don't mix. Antioxidants and other nutrients may counteract HCAs, and no investigation has been done in humans.
Because epidemiological studies (cited in the July 1994 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry) find an increased risk of respiratory tract cancers among cooks, researchers at the LLNL analyzed the amount of HCAs produced by frying beef hamburgers, bacon, and soy-based tempeh burgers. The results, published in the October 1995 issue of Food Chemistry and Toxicology, showed the total HCAs in the smoke condensate were 3 nanograms per gram (ng/g) from bacon and 0.37 ng/g from hamburgers, compared with 163 ng/g in cooked bacon and 110 ng/g in cooked beef. Levels of HCAs in tempeh, which lacks creatine, were nondetectable.
Airborne HCAs present the greatest risk to professional cooks who stand over a stove all day, says Knize. A fume hood could decrease the risk. For home cooks, eating meat, rather than breathing in the cooking fumes, poses the greatest hazard.
The consumption of HCAs in the United States averages 26 ng/kg/day. "The amounts are small, compared to other pollutants," says Knize, "but [HCAs] are powerful mutagens and carcinogens." And the recent culinary trend to switch from beef to chicken may not be quite so healthy when it comes to HCAs. In his study in the 15 October 1995 issue of Cancer Research, Knize found that pan-fried, oven-broiled, and grilled chicken contain two- to seven-fold more HCAs than fried beef.
Meat connoisseurs can lessen their intake by cutting away the HCA-rich char that forms during cooking. Reducing cooking temperatures helps, too. The LLNL researchers found that beef cooked at 198° C and 277° C contained 10.5 ng/g and 110 ng/g of HCAs, respectively.
A new grill, invented by microbiologist Richard Basel at Lebensmittel Consulting in Fostoria, Ohio, allows people to enjoy grilled meats without the carcinogens. Named the Safe Grill, it blocks both HCAs and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which form when fat drips into the fire. A special filter placed between the fire and the meat blocks carcinogens from rising and coating the meat. The filter contains special fractionation packing that separates the desirable lower-boiling-point flavor compounds from the undesirable higher-boiling-point carcinogenic compounds, allowing only the desirable flavor compounds to pass through.
In addition, the Safe Grill cooks meat at a lower temperature, which prevents flames from directly charring the meat. Taste panels judged meats cooked on the Safe Grill to be more flavorful and tender than those cooked on conventional grills. The invention of the Safe Grill was funded by National Cancer Institute to reduce the threat of cancer from foods.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is now a champion of the environment. In 1991 the IOC, with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), amended the Olympic charter to include a policy that requires each candidate for hosting future Olympic games to include an environmental plan as part of its bid.
"It is natural that the International Olympic Committee, as leader of a world-wide humanistic movement, should be concerned with the integration of the activities of the Olympic movement with the well-being of the world in which we live," said Richard W. Pound, an IOC executive board member, in the IOC's Olympic Message in March 1993. "The IOC must seek a balance between the needs of our generation and those of the next and succeeding generations. It is, after all, the youth of the world who will inherit the earth which we leave them."
Lillehammer, home of the 1994 Winter Olympic Games, was awarded the games before the environmental plan requirement was passed, but was the first city to voluntarily address environmental issues, and proclaimed the 1994 events the first "Green Games." Environmental activist groups were highly involved in the planning and implementation of the games. The city emphasized environmental protection in land use and venue construction, as well as during the games through programs such as recycling and composting.
|
Stadium sunrise. Parts of a new stadium built for the 1996 Olympic games, including the track surface, will be reused after the games.
Atlanta Comm. for the Olympic Games |
This year's Olympic Games host, Atlanta, Georgia, was awarded the games in 1990, also before the IOC environmental requirement went into effect. The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) is not proclaiming the Atlanta events as the second green games, but is concentrating instead on being known as the "Centennial Games." The committee has, however, taken measures to be environmentally friendly.
On 13 July 1995, ACOG presented an environmental policy statement detailing ACOG's efforts on behalf of the environment to the IOC at the World Conference on Sport and the Environment held in Lausanne, Switzerland. Early in the planning for the games, ACOG developed the Olympic Environmental Support Group (OESG), a citizen advisory group of 23 people, to educate and advise ACOG on environmental issues and recommend environmentally responsible decisions on Olympic issues. The group assisted in setting environmental guidelines for venue sites, making recommendations for solid waste management and recycling, and developing ACOG's environmental policy statement.
Environmentally friendly measures taken include constructing the new Olympic stadium on the site of the parking lot for the Fulton County stadium, which will be used during the games and then torn down. The asphalt and concrete from the old parking lot and stadium will be used as filler in constructing a new parking lot. In addition, the new stadium's capacity will be reduced after the games from 85,000 seats to 45,000. The materials removed will be reused or recycled, including the Olympic track surface, which will be placed at a local university.
ACOG has also tried to avoid unnecessary waste in construction. According to the committee's statement, many of the venues will use rented equipment and furniture to avoid consuming excess resources and generating construction debris. For example, at a rowing/canoeing venue on Lake Lanier, spectator seating will be rented and placed on a temporary platform on the lake to avoid clearing trees on a nearby hill for spectators, as was originally planned. ACOG has also reduced the number of outdoor trap and skeet shooting ranges at the Wolf Creek shooting venue in order to minimize the impact of lead shot deposit on nearby wetlands. ACOG is advocating the use of alternative shot in future games because of the environmental damage caused by lead shot. In the area of transportation, ACOG will encourage the use of Atlanta's mass transit system rather than automobiles. Two hundred of the 2,000 buses designated for the games are powered by natural gas.
In late 1995, ACOG hired an environmental consulting firm, CH2M HILL, as an advisor to assist with activities such as waste management services. According to CH2M HILL, one of the major accomplishments of the Atlanta games will be waste management. "The Atlanta games should establish some new benchmarks in solid waste management at a sporting event of this magnitude," said Bill Wallace, CH2M HILL's Olympic program manager. According to Bill Steiner, an EPA consultant to ACOG, the committee estimates that athletes and fans will generate about 9,000 extra tons of garbage over the 30-day period of the games, not including waste from venue construction. ACOG will attempt to divert about 85% of the waste away from landfills through recycling and composting, Steiner said. For example, horse manure from the equestrian sites will be composted for fertilizer.
Local environmental groups seem satisfied with the way ACOG has handled environmental protection in planning for the Olympics. Carolyn Hatcher, president and CEO of the Georgia Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, served as co-chair of the OESG. She said, "ACOG officials were eager to be responsive on environmental concerns, but they were working within . . . budgetary and timetable [constraints]. They did a good job, considering the constraints they were operating under. They weren't able to do everything they would've liked to have done, but they did many very positive things."
Marcia Bansley, executive director of Trees Atlanta, a nonprofit organization that plants and conserves trees, agrees. "ACOG is doing the best they can with limited resources," she said, pointing out that these Olympics are being funded entirely through private sources, without tax dollars. Therefore, many private groups are helping to foot the bill on behalf of the environment during the games. Trees Atlanta has raised $4.5 million to plant trees around the city. "This will be an environmental improvement," Bansley said. "We have a terrible pollution problem when it's extremely hot, and downtown is the hottest part of the city. Trees are the best way we can cool the area off. If we can cool this area down, we can help our air quality. Trees also help stop runoff from nonpoint source pollution."
The Atlanta Bicycle Campaign (ABC) is also taking measures to help control air pollution during the games by encouraging the use of bicycles for transportation. ACOG and the city of Atlanta are helping the group with publicity and parking, and ABC will staff the bicycle parking lots. "Our goal is to provide access to the Olympics by bicycle," said Dennis Hoffarth, director of ABC's Olympic Bicycle Access Project. "Atlanta already has a severe air pollution problem, and this campaign will help with pollution control.
|
Sportsmanlike conduct. Organizers are working to protect the environment at the site of the Olympic Winter Games of 2002.
Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee |
Salt Lake City is also facing the challenge of protecting the environment when it hosts the Winter Olympics in 2002. "The environment has always been a contentious issue [here] because the small mountains around the city contain delicate watersheds," said John Hoagland, a winter sports and resorts specialist for the U.S. Forest Service, and a member of the Environmental Advisory Committee of the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee.
During preliminary planning, the organizing committee selected two major canyons outside the city to serve as ski venues, but environmental groups protested and the committee withdrew the proposal. "Withdrawing the venues from those canyons calmed down the environmental community," Hoagland said. "Now the community is more supportive of the Olympics."
The organizing committee is cooperating with environmental groups through representatives on the advisory committee. A preliminary environmental platform is now in place in which the organizing committee says it "intends to carry on and improve on the environmental progress initiated in Lillehammer." Plans include requiring contractors to guarantee that the environment will be restored after the games, ensuring that cultural events such as the opening ceremony have an environmental theme or message, educating students and the community on the importance of a healthy environment to human health, mandating that spectators use mass transit, and contracting with green vendors and green hotels. "The city has always been sensitive to the environment," Hoagland said, "and Lillehammer cranked up the heat a little bit."
The American Medical Association (AMA) passed a policy resolution in December 1995 urging its members to help spread the word to health care colleagues, patients, and the public about the negative health effects of indoor and outdoor air pollution. The resolution was proposed by the National Association of Physicians for the Environment (NAPE), which sponsored a conference on 18 November 1994 to examine the impact of air pollution on body organs and systems.
"It is important that people understand that air pollution can affect not only the lungs, but virtually every organ and system in the body," said John Kimball Scott, an otolaryngologist and president-elect of NAPE, who served as floor manager of the AMA resolution, in a press release announcing its passage.
According to the conference summary, published 20 September 1995, air pollutants can enter the body through various ways--not just by inhalation. They can be absorbed through the skin or ingested by eating food or drinking water that has been contaminated, possibly through bioaccumulation in the food chain. The pollutants in food and water that humans and animals are most likely to be exposed to include pesticides, PCBs, dioxin, and heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, and mercury, says the report. Such pollutants can cause a variety of adverse health effects including respiratory ailments, damage to the blood system leading to anemia or leukemia, heart disease, including hypertension and cardiac arrhythmias, and damage to the urogenital system resulting in kidney disease, bladder cancer, and reproductive problems. In addition, the skeletal system stores heavy metals such as lead that may accumulate over time. During times of bone loss such as pregnancy, lactation, or osteoporosis, the stored toxins may be released back into the body causing health problems, especially in women, newborn children, and senior citizens.
Air pollutants can also cause immune suppression or overstimulate the immune response, which can lead to allergies and immune-mediated diseases. Air pollutants have also been linked to psychological disorders and toxic damage to the nervous system and the brain, especially in developing fetuses or young children. In addition, air pollutants are thought to have detrimental effects on the reproductive and endocrine systems, but according to the conference summary, these effects require more research to be fully understood. The report points out that certain populations, including children, the elderly, and minorities, are at a higher risk of being affected by air pollutants.
Not only should people be concerned about the direct impact of air pollution on human health, says the report, but they should also be concerned about the adverse effects of air pollution on plants, animals, and ecosystem functions, which affect agriculture, fishing, wildlife, tourism, and recreation. "Human health is inseparable from the health of the natural world," says the report.
The report emphasizes the need for more research and public education on the consequences of air pollution. "There is no question that air pollution can be a serious public health hazard and that prevention of air pollution will lead to disease prevention," says the report.
Every year millions of Americans take aspirin and other drugs such as ibuprofen and naproxen for relief of headaches and other minor aches and pains, for chronic pain relief of arthritis, and as a preventive against colon cancer and heart attacks. Referred to collectively as nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), they are the most widely used drugs in human medicine.
Most people who take NSAIDs do not experience severe side effects, although in some people, especially those taking the drugs chronically, NSAIDs can cause stomach ulcers and irritate the stomach's lining. NSAIDs that retain their positive benefits and do not cause adverse side effects could significantly benefit the individuals taking them.
Collaborative research by investigators at the NIEHS and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), has produced two strains of transgenic mice that may lead to better NSAID development. The mice should help scientists obtain a clearer idea of how NSAIDs work. "The importance of this research goes beyond aspirin/NSAIDs," said Robert Langenbach, a microbiologist at the NIEHS who, with other investigators, developed one of the mouse strains. "It may lead to better treatments and prevention of diseases like arthritis and, as importantly, colon cancer, because these mice give us a better tool for understanding how these diseases may actually develop," he said.
Langenbach and Scott Morham, an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellow at UNC-CH, used powerful genetic engineering techniques to eliminate, or "knock out," the genes Ptgs1 and Ptgs2 that produce the enzymes cyclooxygenase 1 (COX-1) and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX-2), respectively, in mice. These enzymes are the first enzymes in the prostaglandin biosynthesis pathway.
Prostaglandins, hormone-like compounds, are believed to play a role in cell proliferation, inflammation, and many other biological processes. Scientists had believed that inhibition of COX-1 synthesis by NSAIDs was the cause of the adverse side effects such as occasional stomach upset and more seriously, at higher, continual doses, ulcers and kidney damage. Evidence for this belief was that ingested prostaglandins protected against these effects. Scientists also thought that NSAIDs blocking COX-2 produced the beneficial effects. "NSAIDs inhibit these enzymes. When you knock out the gene, it eliminates the enzyme and that mimics the drugs," Morham said.
However, Langenbach discovered that the mouse lacking COX-1 displayed no ulceration. "Probably the most surprising finding was that the COX-1 knock-out mouse is really quite a healthy animal," he said. "This animal is surviving very well with the basal level of prostaglandins reduced by greater than 99.5%." Given the role prostaglandins are supposed to play, most scientists would have thought that these animals would not have survived. Also surprising was that when the investigators administered one particular NSAID, the mice were more resistant to developing ulcers. "It might suggest that it is the interaction of the enzyme itself with the drug that is causing this ulcerative problem," Morham said.
Morham's mouse lacking COX-2 also displayed an unexpected result. This mouse was able to mount an inflammatory response, but was born with kidney problems. Previously, researchers believed that COX-2 was primarily involved in the inflammatory process, "but our data show that both genes contribute somehow to the process," Langenbach said. "Quite a bit of what we see is contradicting current dogma," Morham added.
"The results," Langenbach said, "suggest that what we know about the role of prostaglandins may have to be modified in terms of how important they are, or that there are other pathways and molecules in the body that can compensate for their lack. The therapeutic effect of aspirin-like drugs may be on other gene products rather than these, or in addition to these; we really cannot say."
"Signaling by prostaglandins is very important in almost all biological processes. This research should have an impact on our understanding of how prostaglandin-signaling molecules may be involved in fundamental processes such as the development of colon cancer," said David DeWitt, a biochemist at Michigan State University.
To produce the mice, the investigators used a molecular biology/biotechnology technique developed by Oliver Smithies, a pathologist at UNC-CH in whose laboratory this work was started. The investigators inactivated the gene of interest, or "knocked it out," in cultured cells. The modified genetic material is inserted into mouse embryonic stem cells. This fragment scans the existing genetic material, locates a matching strand, and binds there. Cells with the altered gene are inserted into a developing mouse embryo and the resulting offspring carry the defective gene. A male and a female mouse with the defect are mated to produce the "knock-out mice." "These mice are highly valuable for studying the function of a gene in a whole animal model," Langenbach said.
Langenbach is continuing to use the mice to study how NSAIDs cause stomach ulcers, and is also studying the role of Ptgs genes in the development of various cancers, including colon cancer, and studying how these genes may interact with other genes to predispose people to cancer.
Morham is looking further at the inflammatory responses of the COX-2 knock-out mice, and is also studying ulceration in these mice. Both researchers hope this work will produce better NSAIDs in the future, as well as benefit patients who take these drugs.
Cleanup costs. New legislation provides funds for cleanup of livestock waste such as the spills that caused fish kills in Iowa and North Carolina rivers last year.
Pamlico-Tar River Foundation
Widespread coverage by both the popular and scientific press in the last year pointed out the seriousness of environmental problems associated with livestock waste, particularly waste lagoons. Feces and urine from confinement buildings are typically washed into earthen lagoons, from which they can leak into groundwater at a rate of 500 gallons per acre each day, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, a public interest environmental group. Lagoons can also spill directly into surface waters. In the wake of last year's spills that dumped millions of gallons of animal waste into North Carolina and Iowa waterways, Congress recently adopted a bill in the 1996 Farm Act intended to address the livestock waste problem.
Known as the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP), the bill provides technical assistance to livestock operators such as incentive payments to keep farmers from spraying liquid waste from lagoons along stream banks, and cost-share assistance for building livestock waste facilities. Farmers would be eligible to receive as much as $10,000 a year with a cap of $50,000.
In a March letter to Alice Rivlin, director of the Office of Management and Budget, EPA Administrator Carol Browner lauded EQIP and recommended that President Clinton sign the 1996 Farm Bill. EQIP also enjoys overwhelming support in Congress and is supported by environmental groups, with one caveat. Environmentalists favored the Senate version of EQIP, which had set a limit on the size of farms that are eligible to receive cost-share funds; livestock operations would have to be smaller than those defined as point sources of water pollution in the Clean Water Act (i.e., 1,000 beef cattle, 2,500 hogs, or 100,000 poultry). In contrast, while the version of EQIP that passed prohibits "large confined livestock operations" from receiving these cost-share funds, it stops short of defining "large" and leaves that decision to the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture.
Some livestock operations can have more than 100,000 beef cattle, 10,000 hogs, and 400,000 chickens. The question being asked is whether operations this large should be eligible for federal cost-sharing funds to build animal waste management facilities. The answer depends on who you talk to. "We support LEAP [the Livestock Environmental Assistance Program, which was the House version of EQIP and set no size limits]," says National Pork Producers Council spokeswoman Deborah Atwood. "This is an environmental bill, not a structure bill. The numbers are irrelevant." LEAP [would] give USDA Secretary Dan Glickman the freedom to protect the most impaired watersheds from the effects of livestock waste, she says. (EQIP also leaves the size of operations eligible for funds to the discrection of the USDA secretary).
Some environmentalist groups disagree. "We think it is a structure issue," says Lonnie Kemp, policy director of the Canton-based Minnesota Project, a nonprofit organization devoted to rural and environmental issues. "Big factory farms get loans and investors and should be able to pay for waste management facilities." However, Kemp does support EQIP for operations smaller than the Clean Water Act limits, saying that financial incentives are an excellent way of encouraging farmers to minimize their impact on the environment. There are also some dissenters in Congress who, like Kemp, think EQIP should set eligibility size limits. "We should target the money to family farmers," says Mark Rokala, spokesman for Representative David Minge (D-Minnesota). "It can cost $30,000 to $50,000 to get feedlots to prevent [environmental] impact, which is significant cost for a guy with 1,000 head of cattle."
A more fundamental question about EQIP is whether waste lagoons are safe for the environment. Again, the answer depends on who you talk to. Waste lagoons are adequate when managed properly but many operators overfill them, making them more likely to spill over, says Deanne Morse, livestock waste management specialist at the University of California at Davis. Others say that waste lagoons are not safe even when managed properly, and that the real issue in livestock waste is large versus small operations. "There is as yet no workable technology for safely dealing with concentrated livestock waste from large operations," says Ferd Hoefner, the Sustainable Agriculture coalition's Washington representative. The coalition favors small family farms because they don't generate huge concentrations of animal waste and therefore can avoid the problem altogether, he says.
In response to concerns about the trend towards ever-increasing concentration in the livestock industry, the USDA appointed an advisory committee in February. The 21-member committee is expected to report on a variety of issues, including the effects of large livestock operations on the environment, by early June.
Rather than help farmers build waste lagoons, the federal government should develop and encourage alternative methods of managing livestock waste, says Paul Sobocinski, a farmer in Wabasso, Minnesota, who is also a staff member of the Land Stewardship Project, based in Marine, Minnesota. Existing alternative methods, which are more feasible for small livestock farms and are widely used in Europe, include dry bedding, which entails keeping the animals on straw and then composting the waste-laden straw.
"I don't need EQIP," says Dwight Ault of Austin, Minnesota, who uses the manure from his 700 hogs to fertilize his crops. "It will benefit the people who are the real polluters and is a short-term fix at best. In the long run it will do more damage than good because it will continue the push for largeness. Bigger is not necessarily better."
Part of society's recent increase in violence may be due to lead poisoning. According to a study by Herbert Needleman of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and colleagues published in February in the Journal of the American Medical Association, boys with higher bone-lead levels are more likely to be aggessive and delinquent.
"This is probably the most critical study that has been done on lead in the last five years," says Janet Phoenix, manager of public health programs at the National Lead Information Center of the National Safety Council, an international public interest organization. "The social implications are enormous."
Lead has been linked with behavioral problems since the early 1940s, when pediatrician R.K. Byers noted that some children he had treated for acute lead poisoning subsequently developed violent, aggressive behavioral difficulties such as attacking teachers with knives or scissors. Needleman's study, supported in part by the NIEHS, is the first to link asymptomatic levels of lead with aggressive behavior and delinquency.
Needleman and his colleagues studied 301 boys from primary schools in Pittsburgh. The researchers measured bone-lead levels by K X-ray fluorescence when the boys were about 12 years old. Based on the relative lead content of their tibias, the boys were divided into high- and low-lead groups. Bone-lead levels reflect lifetime exposure to lead because, like calcium, lead is stored in bones. The boys in the high-lead group had normal levels of lead in their blood by the time of the study, showing that their lead exposure had occurred in the past.
The researchers evaluated the boys' behavior at 7 and 11 years of age based on reports from three sources: the boys themselves, their parents, and their teachers. These data were from widely respected tests of antisocial behavior that had been administered by the Pittsburgh Youth Study, a longitudinal study of the developmental course of delinquency. At 11 years, the boys were given a self-reported delinquency interview, which comprises 35 questions such as how many times in the past six months a subject has "been drunk in a public place" or "attacked someone with a weapon." The parents and teachers filled out the child behavior checklist, which contains 113 symptoms of childhood behavioral disorders such as cruelty or bullying, shoplifting, setting fires, and apparent lack of guilt after misbehaving.
When the high-lead boys were 7 years old, neither they nor their parents reported significant behavioral problems, and their teachers reported only borderline tendencies toward symptoms such as social problems, delinquency, and aggressive behavior. By the time these boys were 11, however, they reported significant increases in antisocial acts, and their parents and teachers reported significant increases in symptoms such as delinquent and aggressive behavior. The researchers corrected for confounding factors such as the mothers' intelligence, the presence of the father, and socioeconomic status.
Many U.S. children have toxic bone-lead levels and--provided that their results are found to extend to the population at large--Needleman and his colleagues conclude that lead makes a substantial contribution to delinquent behavior. Other researchers hail the Needleman study as the first to rigorously demonstrate a link between lead and antisocial behavior. The study was well-designed and its implications are likely to be valid, according to Terrie Moffitt of the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Self-reporting is trustworthy when the period reported on is less than a year, the interviews are private and face-to-face, and confidentiality is guaranteed, she says, and the Needleman study met these conditions. Furthermore, Needleman's conclusions are strengthened by the fact that reports from three sources--the boys, their parents, and their teachers--all linked lead with antisocial behavior.
Lead is a neurotoxin and human studies indicate that its neurological effects are likely to be irreversible. However, delinquency is also associated with factors such as weak parent-child attachment, lax parental supervision, and school failure. Addressing these issues can mitigate the effects of lead. "These kids need help. They need support from teachers and parents," says Phoenix. "No one knew they were lead-poisoned." The good news is that environmental lead exposure can be avoided. "Lead-related delinquency is the easiest to prevent," says Needleman. "We should be able to wipe this disease out by removing old lead-based paint."
Almost 10 years after the explosion and full-scale meltdown of a graphite core at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, officials finally agreed to close the plant.
The governments of Ukraine, the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations, and the Commission of the European Communities signed a memorandum of understanding on 20 December 1995 that outlines a comprehensive program for the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant by the year 2000. The program's provisions include a focus on nuclear safety; the development of a financially sound electric power market with market-based pricing to encourage energy efficiency and conservation; and a social impact plan to address the effects of the closure of the plant on its employees and their families. Representatives of Ukraine, the G-7, and international financial institutions plan to meet annually to monitor the implementation of the program.
The memorandum allocates $2.3 billion in aid, including $349 million for nuclear safety and decommissioning activities and $1.9 billion for new energy investments. The funding will come from grants by G-7 countries and loans from international financial institutions, although the financing has not yet been worked out.
Financial details and the fact that the agreement is not legally binding have caused environmental groups to remain skeptical about the agreement. "If the West does not provide what Ukraine feels is sufficient capital, it's quite possible that Chernobyl might not be shut down," said Miriam Bowling, a research associate for the Natural Resource Defense Council's nuclear program. In addition, Bowling said, Ukraine faces political pressure from the Russian government, which prefers that Chernobyl stays open.
Environmental groups are also disappointed that the agreement includes the exchange of the closure of Chernobyl for the completion of two more nuclear reactors in Ukraine. However, as Bowling said, "It is a very important agreement, and it's great to see the words 'Chernobyl' and 'closure' on the same piece of paper."
|
EHPnet
"Pollution prevention is disease prevention" is the theme of the National Association of Physicians for the Environment (NAPE), founded in 1992 to help physicians and medical specialty organizations examine the impacts of environmental pollutants on health; educate physicians, patients, and the public about these impacts; and work for the reduction or elimination of environmental pollutants. NAPE also works to involve physicians in global environmental issues such as biological diversity.
NAPE has developed a site on the World Wide Web called "NAPEnet" to provide information about its activities and to make scientific information about health and the environment widely available. Located at http://intr.net/napenet, the site offers four major links: About NAPE, What's New on NAPEnet, Documents on NAPEnet, and News Releases.
About NAPE provides the history of NAPE and offers links to a NAPE fact sheet, newsletters, an annual report of activities for 1994, and membership information.
What's New on NAPEnet offers links to recent additions to the site. Among these is a link to 1996 Summer Olympics and Your Health: Sun Protection While at the Olympics, which offers warnings about the risks of skin damage, eye damage, and potential immune system effects from sun exposure, as well as advice on how to prevent such damage.
Documents on NAPEnet offers links to items such as conference reports and UV index documents. The full text of the conference report, National Conference: Air Pollution Impacts on Body Organs and Systems Summary of Proceedings (see Forum article, "Airing the Word on Pollution"), is available under Conference Reports.
News Releases offers press releases about the work of NAPE and its member organizations. For example, there is a link to a press release from 8 December 1995 on the American Medical Association's resolution on the importance of the protection of biodiversity on human health. The release highlights the AMA resolution to encourage its members to take part in a national effort to inform their colleagues, patients, and the public of the importance of protecting biological diversity, particularly because of the value of pharmaceuticals and biologicals that are derived from nature.
NAPE is working to spread the word on environmental health issues through NAPEnet and other outlets because the association maintains that every environmental and pollution problem is, or will become, a medical or public health problem.
Last Update: June 10, 1997