Remodeling contractors will have to pass a "white-glove" test under a new U.S. rule to prove their work doesn't stir up dangerous dust and debris from lead paint. The Environmental Protection Agency mandate, which takes effect in 2010, covers some 38 million homes and child-care facilities built before 1978, when lead paint for residential use was banned. Studies show that the lead in old paint can cause cognitive and developmental problems in children...

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As the use of DDT to fight mosquitoes spreading Malaria in Uganda begins to take shape, it is emerging that men born to mothers exposed to lingering amounts of the pesticide might have an increased risk of getting testicular cancer. This is according to a study published last week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, in the USA. The cancer that affects young men in their 20s and 30s is said to be on the increase around the world...

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DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1973, but a College of William and Mary graduate student has found that levels of the chemical remain steady in the tissues of penguins in Antarctica, where DDT was never used. The powerful pesticide remains in use sparingly around the world, primarily where malaria is a threat. Alternative chemicals and concern about DDT's effect on animal and human health led to widespread bans in most countries...

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The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday proposed tightening the federal limits for lead in the air, but the proposal fell short of what its own scientists said is required to protect public health. Lead, which is emitted by smelters, mining, aviation fuel and waste incinerators, can enter the bloodstream and affect young children's development and IQ, as well as cause cardiovascular, blood pressure and kidney problems in adults. The United States has not changed its atmospheric lead standards in 30 years, but the Bush administration is under a court order to issue new rules by September....

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Women who began hormone therapy soon after menopause did not show reduced blood vessel function raising the question of whether the negative effects of hormone therapy in recent trials might be avoided in younger patients...

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has substantially modified the way it updates a database on chemical hazards that influences how chemicals are regulated. The agency says the changes should make the process more transparent and more rigorous, and speedier. But critics argue that the new procedure is more secretive and gives too much clout to federal agencies that pollute or face massive cleanup costs. One result, they say, will be further delays in regulation...

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Perfluorinated compounds previously in stain repellents may be affecting the human immune system, according to new research published in Toxicological Sciences. After studying mice orally exposed to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) daily for 28 days, a group of researchers observed that the animals’ immune systems were affected at much lower levels than ever reported...

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The decreased incidence of invasive breast cancer in the United States seen in 2002 and 2003 did not extend to women of African ancestry, researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center report at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in San Diego...

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Common frogs that make their homes in suburban areas are more likely than their rural counterparts to develop the reproductive abnormalities previously found in fish in the Potomac and Mississippi Rivers, according to the study by David Skelly, a professor of ecology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies...

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Continuous oral contraceptives may be more effective than the standard 28-day birth control pills in suppressing the ovary, according to researchers. They say that the continuous pill also causes a significant improvement in pain and behavioral changes...

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The industry group for the widely used plastic compound bisphenol A, currently the subject of a safety assessment by Health Canada, bases its view that low exposures to the chemical are harmless on three studies it funded - research that critics contend contains serious flaws...

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Bisphenol A, a chemical that leaches into food and beverages from many consumer products, causes normal, non-cancerous human breast cells to express genes characteristic of aggressive breast cancer cells. That’s the finding of a “Priority Report” in the latest issue of the journal Cancer Research, the official journal of The American Association for Cancer Research...

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Researchers at Yale School of Medicine now have a clearer understanding of why synthetic estrogens such as those found in many widely-used plastics have a detrimental effect on a developing fetus, cause fertility problems, as well as vaginal and breast cancers...

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The iconic polar bear, already a marauding warehouse of toxic substances, is facing a new chemical assault that could trigger serious health problems in the bear population within the decade. The damage may include higher risk of cancers and impaired reproduction, say Danish environmental scientists in a study to be published shortly...

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It’s a bad idea to eat smallmouth bass caught near a heavily polluted area of Columbia River shoreline just upstream of Bonneville Dam. Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality and the Army Corps of Engineers this week revealed the sobering results of tissue samples taken from 19 bass caught by researchers in the area: The fish carried an average concentration of 3,000 parts per billion of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The concentrations are well above Oregon’s health safety standard of 1 ppb. Although public health officials are still reviewing the data, in the meantime they’re referring fishermen and consumers to an advisory already issued for bass with similar levels of PCBs in Portland’s notoriously polluted lower Willamette River...

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Both natural and synthetic chemicals that mimic estrogen can change how male birds sing by enlarging sections of their brains responsible for creating songs. Researchers have taken these findings to the field for the first time, showing that the more complex songs these birds sing attract more females. But the males' immune systems and their overall reproductive success may be compromised by exposure to the contaminants. European starlings in the U.K. are exposed to endocrine disrupters when they feed on contaminated worms...

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Traces of pain relievers and hormones, including one known to feminize male fish, are lurking in the water below Cherry Valley -- a rural Inland foothill community where debate has raged over whether to ban septic tanks and force people to hook up to a costly sewer system. A study that examined whether harmful nitrates already in groundwater serving roughly 100,000 residents in Cherry Valley, Beaumont, southeastern Calimesa and nearby areas was coming from septic-tank leach fields also tested for pharmaceuticals and personal care products...

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The Potomac River contains an array of man-made chemicals that could play havoc with animals' hormone systems, federal scientists have found in their best glimpse yet of the river's problems with a mysterious new class of pollutant. The research, unveiled at a conference last week, found more than 10 of the compounds, including pesticides, herbicides and artificial fragrances. Through an accident of chemistry, formulas designed to kill bugs or add smell to soap might also interfere with vital signals in fish, amphibians and other creatures...

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Sucralose, the sugar substitute better known to Canadians and Americans as Splenda, hit Norwegian food markets in 2005. A year later, scientists from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) found the chemical to be omnipresent in the environment—in Oslo Fjord and in raw and treated wastewater. Now, scientists in Sweden report (PDF: 1.3 MB) finding it completely unchanged in wastewater effluent in Stockholm and elsewhere in Sweden...

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Eggs from an array of Maine birds - from lordly bald eagles to timorous piping plovers; from swallows snarfing insects in suburban backyards to storm-petrels feeding hundreds of miles at sea - contain 100 industrial and household contaminants, scientists will report today. According to research to be presented to the Maine Legislature, all 60 eggs tested by biologists and chemists - taken from 23 wild species, inhabiting every major ecosystem in the state, from Kittery to Calais - carried at least trace amounts of the 100 chemicals, occasionally at levels believed to be harmful to the birds...

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A CHEMICAL SIGNAL released by plankton feeding along coral reefs can be artificially deployed to make hungry fish flock to the scene, a new study shows (Science 2008, 319, 1356). The chemical cue, dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), has an established role in global climate change, but the study suggests it also may function as a signal in marine food webs. Jennifer L. DeBose and Gabrielle A. Nevitt of the University of California, Davis, and Sean C. Lema of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, uncovered DMSP's new role by releasing the chemical at concentrations that fish encounter in nature. Coral-reef-dwelling algae naturally produce DMSP, which is released into the ocean when plankton feed on the algae. Marine microbes break DMSP down into dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a gas that contributes to cloud formation and thus to climate cooling...

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On this brisk, glittering morning, a flat-bottomed boat glides across the massive reservoir that provides Las Vegas its drinking water. An ominous rumble growls beneath the craft as its two long, electrified claws extend into the depths. Moments later, dozens of stunned fish float to the surface. Federal scientists scoop them up and transfer them into 50-quart Coleman ice chests for transport to a makeshift lab on the dusty lakeshore. Within the hour, the researchers will club the seven-pound common carps to death, draw their blood, snip out their gonads and pack them in aluminum foil and dry ice...

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The 146 miles of the Columbia River from the Bonneville Dam to the Pacific Ocean, in some spots industrialized and in long stretches post-card beautiful, carries a low-level suite of toxics from flame retardants to prescription drugs to pesticides. But the monitoring sites to gauge toxics on the lower Columbia -- and potentially divine their sources -- have fallen from more than 350 in the early 1990s to just three, one in operation now and two planned. The drop-off means that long-known pollutants, such as PCBs, DDT and mercury, are going largely unrecorded and unmapped while concerns about river health grow and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent protecting endangered fish....

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Farmworkers who picked vegetables on Lake Apopka's shores have tried for years to get help for chronic medical conditions they say were caused by pesticide poisoning. Now, they are appealing to the United Nations to investigate their case. "The farmworker community wants a sense of justice. They've watched people die," said Jeannie Economos, pesticide project coordinator with the Farmworkers Association of Florida. "This community is very hurt, both physically and emotionally, because there's no response to their health-care issues. Their concerns have been ignored"...

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It was a farm idea with a big payoff and supposedly no downside: ridding lakes and rivers of raw sewage and industrial pollution by converting it all into a free, nutrient-rich fertilizer. Then last week, a federal judge ordered the Agriculture Department to compensate a farmer whose land was poisoned by sludge from the waste treatment plant here. His cows had died by the hundreds. The Associated Press also has learned that some of the same contaminants showed up in milk that regulators allowed a neighboring dairy farmer to market, even after some officials said they were warned about it...

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Scientists have been perplexed for years as to why large numbers of male smallmouth bass in the Potomac River basin contain immature egg cells, but they offer some clues in a recent journal article. Results published in the Journal of Aquatic Animal Health suggest that the high rate of “intersex” characteristics in smallmouth bass from the Shenandoah River and the South Branch of the Potomac appears to be linked to areas with large human populations or intense agricultural operations. The results were not a complete surprise. The presence of intersex is thought to be caused by exposure to estrogenic compounds in the water, many of which are byproducts from human activities or chemicals used in agriculture...

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The first follow-up of a landmark study of hormone use after menopause shows heart problems linked with the pills seem to fade after women stop taking them, while surprising new cancer risks appear. That heart trouble associated with hormones may not be permanent is good news for millions of women who quit taking them after the government study was halted six years ago because of heart risks and breast cancer. But the new risks for other cancers, particularly lung tumors, in women who’d taken estrogen-progestin pills for about five years puzzled the researchers and outside experts...

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Certain brands and sizes of trailers used to house victims of Hurricane Katrina release more formaldehyde than others and officials say they want to check a wider selection of temporary housing. A report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention obtained by Reuters did not find a clear enough pattern to state definitively that the products of any one manufacturer were more dangerous than another. But the CDC called for more investigation into the differences it identified...

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For a generation, scientists have documented the problems that pollution can cause wildlife. Particularly, the many ways that toxic chemicals interrupt, disrupt and prevent wildlife from reproducing has been a key part of research, and it has even been used to argue for strict cleanup standards at polluted sites. The most famous example is probably the bald eagle, the eggs of which were made so brittle by the pesticide DDT that they crumbled under the weight of the birds trying to incubate their brood...

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Dioxins are created through industrial processes such as waste incineration, and after being released into the air they enter human bodies through food. A new report claims dioxins found in the atmosphere could be behind a decline in sperm counts in recent decades...

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Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) end up in the tons of solid sludge left behind by wastewater treatment processes. Those so-called biosolids are often repackaged and sold as fertilizers for both industrial and small-scale agriculture. In a new survey, published in ES&T (DOI: 10.1021/es702304c), researchers show for the first time that those compounds can turn up in earthworms...

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You know all those half-full prescription bottles that've been in your medicine cabinet forever? Did you ever wonder what you're supposed to do with them? A lot of people apparently have found a solution, because modern medicines are increasingly ending up in wastewater. That water flows out to rivers and oceans, and it's given rise to what's being called "pharma-pollution."..

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Jörg Rieckermann snaps on a pair of purple rubber gloves, picks up a crowbar, and levers a manhole cover out of the way. “Here’s my access to the underworld,” Rieckermann, who speaks with a faint German accent, says as he hoists up a barrel-shaped robot suspended above a stream of raw sewage. Rieckermann’s protective gloves and orange jumpsuit are a sharp contrast to the parched brown backdrop of San Diego. But there’s no guarding against the stench. I can almost see the vapor, a rank blend of excrement and vomit that hits me like nuclear-strength smelling salts. If hell has a smell, it has found its way to this suburban portal, sandwiched between train tracks and a highway just outside the city limits...

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NO ONE EVER planned for fish to take birth control pills. But they are. As treated wastewater flows into rivers and streams every day, fish all over the world get a tiny dose of 17α-ethinylestradiol, a synthetic steroidal estrogen that's used in birth control pills. They also get a little sip of the anticonvulsant carbamazepine, a nip of the antidepressant fluoxetine, and a taste of hundreds of other drugs that we take to make our lives better. Every drug begins its life as a promise—a promise to fight disease or improve our quality of life. It wends its way through the discovery process and clinical trials until it ends up in our bodies, ready to do its job...

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Open up any medicine cabinet and you'll probably see shelves crammed with expired and unused medications. The average American received more than 11 prescriptions in 2006, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, adding up to 3.3 billion prescriptions total. And that doesn't even take into consideration all the nonprescription drugs we've got stockpiled in our cupboards. No one knows just how many of those unwanted meds get flushed away each year, only to reemerge as trace contaminants in the environment...

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NIH and EPA last week unveiled a collaboration to rapidly test tens of thousands of chemicals for toxic effects. The work is expected to generate data specific to human health effects of exposure to a panoply of chemicals...

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Salmon in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, and elsewhere, have been in a world of hurt for decades. One of their main enemies is agricultural chemicals, such as chlorpyrifos. The pesticide interferes with salmon brains and harms their ability to feed, according to studies by zoologist Nathaniel Scholz of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, Washington. Now Scholz's research is showing that mixtures of pesticides are even worse for salmon and can be surprisingly lethal...

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Hot water in a polycarbonate plastic container can trigger the release of high levels of the endocrine disrupter bisphenol A (BPA), according to new research published January 30 in Toxicology Letters. Although previous research has shown that polycarbonate bottles release BPA when heated in a microwave or a hot dishwasher, the new study is the first to mimic real-life behavior, says endocrine-disrupter expert Frederick vom Saal of the University of Missouri...

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Food is the primary source of perchlorate for most Americans, and U.S. toddlers on average are being exposed to more than half of the U.S. EPA's safe dose from food alone, according to a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) diet survey designed to provide perchlorate and iodine intake averages from food for the entire U.S. Even though the new study is silent on intake by highly exposed populations, several lawmakers and environmental advocates renew their calls for a national perchlorate drinking-water standard, EPA is not divulging its plans...

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Birth control pills work wonders in preventing human reproduction. Unfortunately, they’re also effective on an unintended target—fish. In fact, the synthetic estrogen in contraceptives can wipe out entire fish populations, according to Karen Kidd of the Canadian Rivers Institute at the University of New Brunswick. Her findings, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in May, suggest that tougher sewage treatment could safeguard the little swimmers...

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A STUDY conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri, Columbia, strikes at the heart of a federal panel's conclusions about the health concerns of bisphenol A (BPA)—the high-production-volume chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic (Repro. Tox. DOI:10.1016/j.reprotox.2008.01.001), say experts in the field. Last August, a panel appointed by the National Toxicology Program's Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) reported that it had "some concern" that prenatal exposure to BPA causes neural and behavioral defects in infants and children, and "minimal" or "no concern" about any other health effects. It reached these conclusions by considering only those studies in which lab animals had been exposed orally to BPA and disregarding all experiments in which the animals had been injected or given the compound subcutaneously...

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A new study suggests that baby lotion, baby powder, and baby shampoo may be
exposing babies to potentially harmful chemicals called phthalates. "At this time, we do not know what the potential long-term health effects might be, but there is a large body of animal studies to suggest developmental and reproductive toxicity (from phthalates) and a few human studies with changes in health outcomes as well," Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana
told Reuters Health...

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At first, the East Oakland class project on local air quality was a lot like other schoolwork - science and math and writing up stuff. Then it got personal. The classroom samples taken by the 20 Excel High School students came back from the lab showing high levels of lead - a dangerous metal known to cause a wide range of neurological and developmental problems, with small children most at risk...

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Cambridge University scientists are advocating more research into the possible links between environmental pollution and type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. At least 171 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, according to estimates by the World Health Organization. In today's edition of the British medical journal "Lancet," Drs. Oliver Jones and Julian Griffin highlight the need to research the possible link between persistent organic pollutants, POPs, and insulin resistance, which can lead to adult onset diabetes...

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It’s no longer the fluoride we have to worry about—in a twist on the Dr. Strangelove paradigm, there is growing concern over hormones in the food we eat and the water we drink, particularly estrogen and the effects it may be having on females, possibly inducing early-onset puberty as well as adding to the rate of breast cancer...

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Of all the exports from our modern world, breast cancer ranks as among the most dubious. Once thought to be a disease of the rich, it is now a global epidemic. The rise of the cancer in Europe and America – cases have jumped 80 per cent in the UK since the 1970s – is being mirrored across the world. And scientists say increasing prosperity and the "Westernisation" of traditional lifestyles is to blame...

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In 2004 the Food and Drug Administration joined with the Environmental Protection Agency to warn women who might become pregnant and children to limit their consumption of certain varieties of canned tuna because the mercury it contained might damage the developing nervous system. Fresh tuna was not included in the advisory. Most of the tuna sushi in the Times samples contained far more mercury than is typically found in canned tuna. Over the past several years, studies have suggested that mercury may also cause health problems for adults, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and neurological symptoms...

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Scientists furious at conclusions reached by a federal panel charged with assessing the safety of a common household chemical have retaliated. And they're using science as their weapon...

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The highest estimates suggest humans have wrought $47 trillion worth of damage to the environment over 4 decades. (For comparison, the global gross domestic product in 2007 is estimated at $65 trillion.) Most of the blame lies with high- and middle-income nations. These countries have emitted the majority of greenhouse gases, for example, yet poor nations suffer more from the effects of the emissions, such as increased weather disturbances and increased incidence of infectious disease...

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Researchers are intensifying their scrutiny of fluoride, which is added to most public water systems in the U.S. Some recent studies suggest that overconsumption of fluoride can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland. A 2006 report by a committee of the National Research Council recommended that the federal government lower its current limit for fluoride in drinking water because of health risks to both children and adults...

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Triclocarban, an antibacterial compound widely used for about 45 years in personal-care and cleaning products such as soaps, lotions, and sanitizing wipes, exacerbates the effects of natural testosterone, according to a study published online November 29 in Endocrinology (2007, DOI: 10.1210/en.2007-1057). Other known endocrine disrupters are estrogenic, antiestrogenic, antiandrogenic, or androgen mimics...

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As scientists become increasingly concerned about the safety of chemicals that mimic hormones, a group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison remembers what could have been. The best scientific minds in big business, academia and environmental advocacy were to be plucked from across the globe to join forces in a think tank. Their charge: to investigate endocrine disruptors - chemicals in everyday products - to see if these compounds were making people sick...

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"Some studies suggest the omega-3 fatty acids in fish and seafood are beneficial to fetal growth and birth weight," explains first author Laurence Guldner, an epidemiologist at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, University of Rennes, "but others report no benefit or even a negative effect." The new report could help explain these discrepancies, because the results distinguish between the effects of fish and shellfish, and between even more specific subcategories of seafood—something most earlier work did not do...

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