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July 31, 2006
Investigative Report: Flavoring agent destroys lungs
CHRIS BOWMAN, SACRAMENTO BEE, JULY 30, 2006
By the time Irma Ortiz discovered she had been breathing toxic fumes on her job as a mixer at Carmi Flavors near Los Angeles, she had lost at least 70 percent of her lung capacity. Ortiz, 44, a nonsmoker who used to lift 50-pound bags routinely, now finds walking so difficult she spends most of her time indoors. Sacramento Bee/Hector Amezcua
LOS ANGELES -- Hacking and gasping, Irma Ortiz could cart her groceries only so far before she'd catch other shoppers glaring at her.
Mortified, she'd abandon her cart on the spot and bolt for the door.
Frank Herrera could gun his dirt bike only so far before choking on the rush of air. Go. Stop. Go. Stop. Exasperated, he gave up riding.
Ortiz, 44, and Herrera, 34, are odd candidates for lung transplants, being nonsmokers and having considerable youth on their side.
How they lost 70 to 80 percent of their breathing capacity is no less astonishing. They acquired the same rare, lung-ravaging disease from breathing the same chemicals on the same type of job.
The two weren't working in a chemical or pesticide plant. Nor in a weapons plant. They didn't metal-plate, fumigate, degrease, demolish, smelt or weld.
They made, of all things, artificial food flavorings.
Harmless as that seems, two big labor unions that champion ironworkers and meat cutters are now fighting for the workers who whip up piña colada, butterscotch and other flavors that sell America's snack foods. Just last week, 40 job health experts joined the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers in urging the Bush administration to issue an emergency order restricting worker exposure to a widely used butter flavoring -- a chemical called diacetyl.
"Although the precise number of workers already suffering respiratory effects from exposure to diacetyl is unknown, the potential magnitude of the problem is sizable," the experts said in a letter to U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
"It is now time … to use the scientific evidence to protect American workers from debilitating lung disease," the group said in support of a petition to Chao filed by the unions.
The lung disease is as bad as its name suggests: bronchiolitis obliterans. It's a condition that literally obliterates the bronchioles -- the lungs' tiniest airways -- resulting in drastically reduced breathing capacity.
Ortiz and Herrera are the first Californians known by state health officials to have developed the disease from working in a flavoring factory, most likely from inhaling diacetyl's powerful fumes, the health investigators said.
But the search for victims has only just begun.
Waking up to the threat
Many public health physicians and scientists believe they are on the verge of uncovering an occupational health epidemic among the thousands of men and women who have worked on production lines in the nation's flavoring factories.
Neither OSHA, the federal Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, nor Cal-OSHA, its state counterpart, has set limits for worker exposure to diacetyl.
In California, state health department staff and Cal-OSHA regulators are expanding their investigation beyond the two plants where Ortiz and Herrera worked to the estimated 28 other flavoring companies statewide.
Last week, state officials enlisted the help of physicians at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in testing the breathing capacity of current and former flavoring workers, beginning with the Los Angeles-area plant where Ortiz worked.
Some of the same NIOSH doctors found a strong link between diacetyl and the lung disease a few years ago among workers at microwave popcorn factories in the Midwest. The disease permanently disabled dozens of popcorn workers and killed at least three, according to the doctors.
The flavoring industry's largest trade association also assumed a leading role in the California investigation. The Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association recently arranged for its respiratory disease experts at the National Jewish Medical Center in Denver to evaluate workers and inspect operations at companies.
The flavor association is bringing health investigators from all sides together to share findings for the first time Wednesday at the medical center.
Consumers who prepare or eat frozen meals, pastries, candies, coffees and other foods containing these additives are not at risk, doctors say. That's because the chemical concentrations in the final products are much lower than those found in flavorings and snack food plants.
Grave risks, uneven protection
Without proper protections, workers who make the flavor mixes in batches of 50 to 5,000 pounds can inhale highly toxic fumes as they pour chemical liquids into huge blenders.
The level of worker protection in the flavoring business varies from company to company as with other industries where job safety is largely self-policed.
Several companies declined to give The Bee an inside look at their operations. Western Flavors and Fragrances, however, opened the doors of its Livermore plant for a tour at the encouragement of the flavoring industry.
By all appearances, the factory appeared to be a model of industrial hygiene, with workers fully suited in protective gear, with meticulous storage, handling and labeling of hazardous chemicals, and worker safety training that goes beyond the law.
"This plant is typical of those in our association," said John Hallagan, the flavor association's chief spokesman and attorney.
Yet the stories of Ortiz and Herrera provide fresh and powerful evidence that some of the estimated 3,700 flavoring production workers nationwide continue to be exposed to highly toxic fumes.
Their experience also exposes serious disconnects in job safety surveillance and enforcement that allow workers with little or no knowledge of the potential dangers to slip through the safety net and lose most of their capacity to breathe, according to interviews with several health experts and regulators and a review of Cal-OSHA inspection records on flavoring plants in Southern California.
Few of the flavoring workers are unionized. Many of the estimated hundreds in California are immigrants like Ortiz and Herrera, and primarily speak Spanish.
The two worked 60 miles apart in Southern California, which hosts most of the flavoring factories on the West Coast -- Herrera at Mission Flavors & Fragrances Inc. in Orange County, and Ortiz at Carmi Flavor and Fragrance Co. near Los Angeles.
"They never said nothing to us about the chemicals there, the kinds of dangers or give us a warning like, you know, 'This is bad for you guys, protect yourselves better,' " Ortiz said of her former employer. "They never say nothing to us like that."
Eliot Carmi, the company's president, did not return phone messages for comment. State job safety regulators declined comment on their ongoing investigation of conditions at the Carmi plant.
Airways narrowed in matter of months
The swiftness and severity of the disease alarmed Barbara Materna, California's chief of occupational health.
"When you have young people on a lung transplant list and unable to work, it's a very serious problem," said Materna, whose staff interviewed Ortiz in May and inspected the flavor blending room where she worked for eight years.
Breathing the toxic fumes can drastically lower breathing capacity in a matter of months. The vapors inflame the bronchioles, crucial airways branching like twigs at the ends of the respiratory tree where oxygen enters the blood. Scar tissue builds up in the inflamed bronchioles, shrinking or completely blocking the tiny air tubes.
"It's the difference between a Jamba Juice straw and a cocktail straw," said Michelle Fanucchi, a UC Davis researcher in respiratory disease. "Have you ever tried to drink a milkshake out of one of those really skinny straws? It takes a lot of effort."
Materna and other health scientists said a much broader worker population may be at risk: Those who manufacture chemicals supplied to the flavoring factories where mixers like Ortiz and Herrera labored, and the bakers, candy makers, beverage formulators and other who use the flavoring mixes.
And, while diacetyl is the leading suspect, health and industry officials are warning companies that other vaporous flavoring agents may be damaging workers' lungs: the already regulated acetaldehyde (common in citrus flavorings) and benzaldehyde (common in cherry and other fruit flavors), among others.
"These chemicals are still in use in industries that we haven't even begun to look at," Materna said.
For now, though, the spotlight is on flavoring workers. Ortiz and Herrera came to the attention of Cal-OSHA in the past two years by sheer serendipity and happenstance, said Dr. Philip Harber, a UCLA occupational health expert who is treating them both.
"If I'm randomly seeing a couple of cases, there's likely to be a lot more out there," Harber said.
Indeed, just in the past two weeks, doctors conducting breathing tests identified three more potential victims of bronchiolitis obliterans. Two worked at Carmi Flavor, Ortiz's former employer, and a third worked at the nearby Mastertaste plant in the City of Commerce, just outside Los Angeles, Materna said.
The flavoring industry cases, together with the sickened popcorn workers, provide "compelling scientific evidence linking occupational exposure to diacetyl to bronchiolitis obliterans," the health experts said in the letter sent Wednesday to Labor Secretary Chao.
Industry doctors in California began looking for that evidence a year ago by screening workers. Companies later struck a deal with Cal-OSHA to continue evaluating employees and to conduct their own safety inspections -- in exchange for avoiding visits from agency enforcers and possible citations. The catch was, the companies would then have to share the results with regulators, who would follow up on-site to make sure that the plants were safe.
Some see conflict of interest
Some public health experts question whether regulators should be satisfied with information that comes secondhand from an industry with a financial stake in the outcome.
"It's terrific that industry wants to play a role in solving the problem, but it's the responsibility of regulators to ensure that employers provide a safe workplace," said David Michaels, who has studied the Midwestern popcorn workers disease as a public health professor at George Washington University.
An industry-paid doctor, Michaels said, no matter how professional, has an inherent conflict of interest that could taint the process.
"It's not a question of how honest you are, or how good you are," Michaels said. "It's that the financial relationship clouds your judgment. And Cal-OSHA is not there to watch the data being collected."
The leading industry physician, Dr. Cecile Rose at National Jewish Medical Center, did not return phone messages for comment.
Cal-OSHA acting director Len Welsh said it's the employer's responsibility to screen workers' health and that Rose is highly reputable and renowned in her field.
But, said UCLA's Harber, Cal-OSHA should have issued an emergency order requiring the state's flavoring plants to reduce chemical exposures once it learned of Herrera in March 2004.
"Certainly there was enough evidence to justify intervention in time to have prevented injury to Irma, or at least reduced the harm," said Harber, who diagnosed Ortiz's disease in March.
Cal-OSHA doesn't see it that way.
"There was a real question as to whether there was a problem (beyond Herrera's case), although this second diagnosis (Ortiz) adds some real urgency to it," Welsh said.
Before ending up at UCLA's Occupational-Environmental Medicine Clinic, Ortiz and Herrera had visited several primary-care doctors who misdiagnosed their conditions as asthma or bronchitis.
Recalling their initial doctors' visits, Ortiz and Herrera told The Bee that they were at a loss to account for their illness.
"I just thought I had a bad cough," Herrera said.
His breathing declined to the point where he slept tethered to an oxygen tank. Still, he didn't want to lose his job. He shopped around for a doctor who would attest to his job fitness -- to no avail.
"My biggest concern was that I couldn't go back to work," said Herrera, who was supporting his then-wife and their two young children in Riverside.
Mission Flavors provided Herrera with a breathing mask that filtered out chemical vapors, but, apparently, with no instruction, according to Cal-OSHA records of its 1,050-hour investigation of the company.
"He thought it inhibited his breathing toward the end of his employment, and thought it was safer not to wear it," an inspector noted after interviewing Herrera.
Mission Flavors also failed to tell authorities about Herrera, who left on medical disability and was hospitalized "due to his illness from diacetyl," Cal-OSHA records show. The agency instead found out through Harber.
Cal-OSHA fined Mission Flavors $45,575 in January 2005 for several violations, including "failure to report illness." Moreover, it found that Herrera "became ill because employer failed to implement proper controls and respiratory equipment."
The company is appealing the enforcement action. Its president, Patrick Imburgia, could not be reached for comment.
Herrera, meanwhile, is suing diacetyl manufacturers. He has lost 70 percent of his breathing capacity, Harber said.
Toxicity known early on
Bronchiolitis obliterans is known to result from extraordinary injury to the lungs. Those suffering the disease, according to the medical literature, include survivors of mustard gas attacks in Iraq and Iran; residents of Bhopal, India, poisoned in 1984 by chemical gases released from a Union Carbide pesticide plant; and those who have had lung transplant complications.
At that level, every breath takes a toll, said Dr. Marc Schenker, an occupational health expert and chairman of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
"People who have that describe it as a living hell," Schenker said. "Because you are out of breath just sitting."
Diacetyl's potent punch was no secret to its manufacturers.
At least one of them, the German giant BASF, had performed experiments in the 1970s showing diacetyl fumes to be extraordinarily effective at killing lab rats.
"That was a big surprise to everybody," said the flavor industry's Hallagan. His trade group did not learn of the internal study until October 2001.
But the flavoring group apparently did know as early as 1985 that breathing high concentrations of diacetyl posed a breathing hazard -- to humans -- according to the association's "ingredient data sheet" on the chemical.
"Harmful. Sore throat, coughing; may be absorbed," the report states under the heading, "Human Health Effects Data, Known Effects of Acute Exposure" for inhalation. "High concentrations may cause irritation of respiratory tract; capable of producing systemic toxicity."
The diacetyl "ingredient data sheet" had taken on a different look by 2001, the year the industry first learned of the cluster of popcorn worker cases in the Midwest. Under the same heading, the new report states, "Not Found" for both ingestion and inhalation.
Hallagan said the industry had not yet gotten around to updating the data sheet, using a "place-keeper" to fill in the blanks.
And the "place-keeper" went by the term "Not Found."
To this day, the manufacturers' Material Safety Data Sheet on diacetyl does not mention bronchiolitis obliterans among the potential hazards.
Warning signs misread
By the time Irma Ortiz learned she had been breathing highly toxic fumes on her job, her lungs were all but destroyed.
She enjoyed her job at Carmi Flavor. The plant was a short commute, getting her home to South Gate in time to make dinner for her three boys and husband, an auto-parts salesman.
She took pride in her physical strength, routinely lifting 50-pound cartons, driving a forklift and being the only female on the production floor.
Starting in 1997 at $6 an hour, she prepared secret recipes for about every imaginable flavor -- pineapple, pistachio, cappuccino, key lime.
Ortiz worked with four or five others in a room the size of a two-car garage -- with no ventilation system, no vapor-tight goggles and -- for years -- no vapor mask.
As a mixer, Ortiz got the brunt of the fumes. She routinely poured the pungent chemical solutions by hand into a giant electric blender.
"When I pour the liquids into the funnel, you can smell the fumes," Ortiz said. "They were always there. There is no way to take the fumes out, because we only have one door … that's it."
Less than a month into her job, Ortiz began to complain about constant irritation in her eyes. A company doctor said she had developed photophobia -- an usually strong sensitivity to light. Ortiz noticed that her co-workers in the mixing room also had red eyes.
Her husband, Victor Mancilla, said he couldn't help but notice something funny when she came home from work -- something coating her eyelashes. That was dust from the chemical powders.
And there was something peculiar about her long, coal-black hair. To the touch, it felt like cotton candy.
"Like she had put a gel on," Mancilla said. "And it was real thick. You can go ahead and grab her hair, and you could squeeze it together. It would just stay there."
The flavoring odors also stuck to Ortiz, even after she changed out of her work clothes.
"A couple times she was going to the doctor, and the good thing about it, she was smelling real good, like a strawberry."
Patients in the waiting room "would go, 'Ah, you smell good,' " Ortiz said.
Carmi Flavor eventually got her a vapor mask -- after she developed a nasty, persistent cough.
"I couldn't even talk with nobody. I just cough, and cough and cough."
An investigator with Carmi Flavor's insurance company had to abort his interview with Ortiz. She couldn't complete a sentence without retching out a ghastly chorus of coughs.
Doctors told her she had asthma or bronchitis. But the bronchodilators and oral corticosteroids didn't improve her breathing.
Everyday activities had her gasping for air. A walk around the neighborhood park was like a marathon. A flight of stairs -- Mount Everest.
"I see the steps, and I think, 'Oh my God, how many steps do I have to go?' I say, 'Wait a minute. Let me get air. Wait a minute.' "
The breakthrough in diagnosis came this past spring.
The fourth doctor she visited, Dr. Arthur Gelb of Long Beach, had read about the popcorn workers' lung problems. That prompted him to ask about the chemicals she used at work.
"Diacetyl" topped her list.
Gelb referred her to Harber, a colleague at UCLA. Following an open-lung biopsy, Harber confirmed that, like Herrera, she had bronchiolitis obliterans.
Ortiz -- a nonsmoker and a one-time robust worker -- has lost 80 percent of her breathing capacity.
"Before I used to be more healthy, but not no more. I gave all my strength to Carmi, to the company. I leave all my strength there."
The disease is irreversible. And it could worsen over time.
Already, doctors have deemed Ortiz eligible for a double-lung transplant. She plans to add her name to the waiting list in August.
If Ortiz undergoes the operation, at best she could resume an active life for several years. At worst, she could suffer a known complication of lung transplants:
Bronchiolitis obliterans -- all over again.
About the writer: * The Bee's Chris Bowman can be reached at (916) 321-1069 or cbowman@sacbee.com. Bee researcher Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.
Posted by bhola at 07:05 AM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2006
Federal investigators begin probe of latest BP explosion:
DINA CAPPIELLO, PEGGY O'HARE and THAYER EVANS, HOUSTON CHRONICLE, JULY 29, 2006
TEXAS CITY - Federal investigators expect to be on the scene by midday today to begin a probe into Thursday's explosion at BP's Texas City plant, the second such incident this year.
Smoke and flames again erupted there early Thursday evening, shaking windows and testing nerves still raw from an explosion four months ago that ranked as one of the deadliest refinery accidents in U.S. history.
No injuries were reported in Thursday's blast, which occurred about 6 p.m. in a part of the sprawling 1,200-acre complex far removed from the unit that exploded in March. BP spokesman Neil Geary said there was no connection between the two incidents.
"It's nowhere near as bad as the one a few months ago," said lifelong Texas City resident Mike Martin, who stepped outside of his house to see smoke.
The company would not speculate about the cause of the explosion Thursday night.
The U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board is sending a two-man team to study the damage. Investigators Giby Joseph and Francisco Altamirano, will meet with plant officials to get more details about the accident..
All fires stemming from the explosion Thursday evening at BP's Texas City plant were extinguished early this morning, and all employees are accounted for, officials said today.
Air monitoring in the area continues, but authorities said this morning no harmful substances have been detected as a result of the explosion, and a precautionary "shelter in place" request issued after the blast Thursday was lifted overnight.
Gloria Randle, who lives near 6th Avenue North and 9th Street South, said she was cleaning her fingernails and waiting for Wheel of Fortune to come on television when she heard the blast, which some residents said sounded like thunder.
"All of a sudden, I heard a boom. A real big boom," said Randle, a Texas City native who estimates she lives less than a mile from the BP plant. "I thought al-Qaida was here. I did, I'm not going to lie."
Her son Nathan Randle, who was working about five blocks away from the plant, said, "I was like, here it goes again."
Nearly two hours after the blast, the wind shifted, prompting BP and Texas City officials to recommend that residents living nearby remain indoors, close all windows and turn off air-conditioning units. That recommendation was lifted earlier this morning.
Although monitoring conducted by the company and the city's hazardous materials team detected no pollution past the company's fences, the company said there was a risk of hydrogen sulfide gas in the smoke and haze.
The gas, which smells of rotten eggs, can cause headaches, fatigue and eye irritation when people are exposed at low doses, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Don Thompson, regional director for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said that from what he saw on television, pollution did not appear to be a problem.
"You have white steam," he said. "White steam means it's clean."Despite the assurances, Ruby Luna, who lives less than a quarter mile from the facility, said she experienced symptoms from some kind of chemical.
"We've started getting real strong headaches, because of the smell," she said. "It's bad. It's gassy, and there are a lot of chemicals."
BP emergency response crews, assisted by the Texas City Fire Department, Chocolate Bayou Emergency Response Team and personnel from the nearby Valero and Marathon plants, said they had the fire contained to the unit and under control an hour after the blast. But it was still burning at 11 p.m., and BP officials said they expected the blaze to be snuffed by midnight.
Earlier in the night, Texas City Fire Chief Gerald Grimm said pipes containing fuel were rupturing and feeding the fire.
"We now believe we have additional fuel being provided to the fire," Grimm said.
BP reported that all of the plant's estimated 1800 workers had been accounted for.
"Whenever you have something happen at one of your facilities, you don't want to see it happen. It's something you feel bad about," said Hugh Depland, a BP spokesman.
The latest incident comes as BP faces scrutiny for its environmental and safety record. The company leads the nation in refinery deaths during the last 10 years, with 22 since 1995. In 2003 and 2004, its Texas City refinery — built in 1934 and the third largest in the U.S.— had more than 100 accidental releases of air pollution, the most of any facility in the Houston area.
The company's internal investigation into the March explosion, which killed 15 people and injured about 170, found that workers had made "surprising and deeply disturbing" mistakes during the startup of an octane-enhancing unit and that on numerous occasions the company failed to replace an antiquated piece of equipment that vented emissions into the atmosphere.
BP is still facing litigation brought by injured workers and families of the dead, which could cost the company as much as $700 million .
Ed Hartman, 66, who has lived in Texas City for 40 years, said he'd like to see the company improve its performance.
"There's something going on out there that they can't put their finger on," he said.
Lucy Sullivan, who lives about two miles from BP's complex, said, "If you live in the area, you just sort of take it in stride. ... If there's not a big flame, you just go about your business." She said she felt her dining room floor shake.
When fully operational, the Texas City plant processes 3 percent of the nation's crude oil supply. Each day its towers, tanks and pipes convert 460,000 barrels of oil.
The explosion occurred along a hydrogen line in a part of the refinery called the Resid Hydrotreating Unit, which removes sulfur from heavy crude oil.
The unit — one of 30 at the 1,200 acre site — was completed in 1984, after the refinery's previous owner, Amoco, conducted years of study into how to get the most oil out of a barrel. It processes 60,000 barrels of oil per day and allows BP to convert 75 percent of a barrel of oil into useful products, according to a 1992 article in the Chicago Tribune.
It's also responsible for a fair share of the company's profits. In 1991, according to the Tribune report, the Texas City refinery made $75 million with high sulfur crude, out of a company total of $1.4 billion in profits.
Earlier this year, the unit was shut down for 12 days of maintenance.
And according to a press release, PROGNOST Systems Inc. was recently hired by BP to install a system in the hydrotreating unit that would "provide early warning of mechanical problems or changes in performance."
It was unclear if these upgrades had any role in the explosion.
Chronicle reporters S.K. Bardwell, Tom Fowler, Bill Hensel, Anne Marie Kilday and Zeke Minaya contributed to this report.
Posted by bhola at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2006
Families open doors for ailing children of Chernobyl
EVA SALINAS, GLOBE AND MAIL, CANADA, JULY 21, 2006
VANCOUVER — The day of the world's worst nuclear disaster passed without notice by 12-year-old Galena Datenkova and her family.
Less than a week later, after Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded on April 26, 1986, the Datenkova family kept their annual camping holiday tradition in Belarus.
"I don't remember the day it happened because we were not told," says Ms. Datenkova, now 32. "We realized it was serious 10 years after, when people started getting really sick."
The explosion killed 31 people and its aftermath is held accountable for the deaths of at least 9,300, many from cancer caused by radioactivity spewed into the air and ground across Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
Twenty years later, thousands of people -- including children born years after the blast -- continue to be treated for related illnesses.
While the disaster fades from public consciousness, save the marking of its anniversary, families around the world continue to play host to affected children each summer for a health respite -- a chance to give their chronically ill bodies a boost.
Hundreds of children have stayed with Canadian families since 1991, when the Canadian Relief Fund for Chernobyl Victims in Belarus brought its first group from overseas. Since then, many communities across the country have been sponsoring children with the help of small charitable organizations, but the relief fund remains the biggest player.
Ms. Datenkova has come as an interpreter for the children since 1995, and has stayed with the B.C. and Atlantic chapters.
This year, she arrived in Chilliwack, B.C., on June 23, with her five-year-old daughter, Nastya, in the hopes that her child will be healthier when they return to Belarus in two weeks.
"Since she was born, she's been having colds the whole year," Ms. Datenkova said yesterday during a visit to the Vancouver Aquarium, where she joined some of the 14 children visiting British Columbia for a special outing.
"The radiation makes them be born with low immunity, and the body just doesn't resist any infection," she explained.
"[The respite in Canada] benefits their health, they get stronger, their system clears up, most of them can go through winter with no colds," she added.
Charles Ruud, national secretary of the organization, arranged a partnership with the medical and dentistry departments at the University of Western Ontario in London, where he is a history professor. University staff treat the children, who stay with families in the area, and have told him they were overwhelmed by what they saw.
"The health problems are by no means over," Prof. Ruud said.
It is common for children still living in the Chernobyl area (the Belarus border lies about 20 kilometres from the plant) to suffer from heart defects, birth defects and, most noticeably, thyroid cancer.
Prof. Ruud has been keeping track of the continuing debate on how much of the region's health problems can be attributed to the nuclear disaster. "There's also a lot of opinion to the effect that there's no longer a crisis as there was once," he said.
"It's been 20 years now . . . the distance in time has caused it to fade in the public memory."
About 100 Belarussian children have come to Canada this summer with the group but interest in the organization has waned since the mid-1990s when families once played host to 600 children.
Brian and Debbie Dolton, who live in Langley, B.C., have welcomed the same girl for the past eight years. Maryna, now 16, is from Minsk and for the past two years has been joined in the Dolton household by her younger sister, Luda. Both girls have minor health problems, such as stomach ulcers and an eye condition.
Canadian Friends of Chernobyl's Children in Elmira, Ont., is playing host to 21 children this year; Quinte's Children of Chernobyl, near Belleville, Ont., is sponsoring 60; and eight children are with the Hinton Association of Children of Chernobyl, near Alberta's Jasper National Park.
Posted by bhola at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
Chernobyl girl's joy after sight restored
THE precious sight of a teenager from Eastern Europe has been restored following two operations at a district hospital.
Ksenya Audzeyeva, 13, who comes from Mogilev in Belarus, a region contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in Ukraine in 1986, came to England blinded by cataracts.
She was with a party of other children for the annual life-giving month-long visit funded by the Friends of Chernobyl's Children charity.
Ksenya - who has been staying with Vic and Andrew Hobson in Duncombe Road, Hertford - underwent her first successful eye operation at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Welwyn Garden City, and has been due to have a second one.
Friends' trustee, Ian Livingstone, of Riversmead, Hoddesdon, said: "It's quite something to wake up on Wednesday morning blind and then go to bed being able to see.
"When she was going home in the car, she noticed leaves on a tree and looked up in the sky and saw a plane, which she had never seen before. As a young lady of 13 she is suddenly discovering the world through the generosity of people who donate to charity."
Ksenya paid a visit yo St Augustine's RC Church barbecue in High Street, Hoddesdon, with 15 other children who are in the area temporarily to improve their health.
The 7- to 13-year-olds from Mogilev spend about a month annually living with families in the area.
Many keep in touch after that time including Yulia Puzikova, 14, who has been paying a private visit to hosts Angela Phipps, a special needs teacher in Cheshunt, and Friends' coordinator Chris Sycamore from Hertford.
Four weeks of fresh air, wholesome food and free dental care, and staying with host families from around Hertfordshire boosts their immune system by two years, said Mr Livingstone.
They also attend Cuffley School in Theobalds Road and Goffs School in Goffs Lane, Cheshunt, while in Britain.
Ian's son, 34-year-old police officer Chris Livingstone, from Ware, is taking part in the gruelling 150-mile (240 km) Atacama Desert Run in Chile and hoping to raise £2,000 for the Friends.
Thirty people died and 135,000 were evacuated as a result of the nuclear explosion in April 1986, the worst the world has ever seen. People living around the plant are still suffering the consequences, particularly childhood cancers.
Posted by bhola at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
July 20, 2006
Vietnam to clean dioxin in hot spots
PHAP LUAT VIETNAM, LAO DONG, TRANSLATED THE VINH, JULY 19, 2006
Vietnam will carry out detoxification of dioxin in several “hot spots,” especially former US military bases that had stored chemical defoliants used during the Vietnam War, heard a conference last week.
The Vietnamese Defense Ministry would be in charge of the task, which would begin late this year, according to the conference on the consequences of US poisonous chemicals used during the war.
US forces used several toxic defoliants, mostly Agent Orange, in southern Vietnam during the war to deprive the Vietnamese liberation forces of forest cover and destroy food crops.
Those defoliants contained dioxin, an extremely stable carcinogen and toxic environmental pollutant.
Vietnamese scientist especially have pointed out three areas that have “high or very high” concentration of dioxin, all of them former US air bases – the Bien Hoa Airport in southern Vietnam, and the Danang and Phu Cat airports in central Vietnam.
The budget for detoxification of the Bien Hoa and Danang airports, which were contaminated more seriously, could reach some US$10 million each, according to the conference.
The government would pay for the mission in Bien Hoa and call for financial assistance for international organizations and governmental and non-governmental organizations in cleaning the environment of the other two spots.
Vietnam blames the US dioxin-contained defoliants for widespread health problems and birth defects, a claim backed by physicians and military veterans' groups from several countries including the US.
Vietnam says that between 1961 and 1971 the US military dropped more than 100,000 tons of toxic chemicals on southern Vietnam, exposing between 2.1 million and 4.8 million people many of whom, together with their progeny, suffer from a range of illnesses and birth defects.
According to a study presented at the conference, those exposed to dioxin were 14 times likelier to see birth defects in their children.
The study on 47,893 Vietnamese veterans and their families revealed that 2.95 percent of children and 2.69 percent of grandchildren of the veterans who had been exposed to dioxin suffered from birth defects.
Up to 16.14 percent of these children suffered from multiple disabilities, the study by the Vietnam Army Medical Institution also said.
The government has earmarked some VND23 billion ($1.43 million) on a birth consulting project for victims of Agent Orange/dioxin, according to the conference.
A New York court last year rejected a Vietnamese lawsuit against US chemical companies Monsanto and Dow Chemical who manufactured the herbicide during the war. The Vietnamese side has appealed.
In April visiting US Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson was pressed by Vietnamese journalists on why the US compensated its own veterans for health defects linked to the chemical, but not Vietnam's.
US veterans who claim health disorders caused by Agent Orange won a victory in 1984 when chemical companies paid $180 million into a veterans' fund without admitting any liability.
In January this year, a Republic of Korea court ordered Dow Chemical and Monsanto, US manufacturers which had supplied the herbicide for the US army, to pay 6,800 Vietnam War veterans about $65 million.
Posted by bhola at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Still more pieces to dioxin puzzle
THE SAGINAW NEWS, JULY 18, 2006
Officials at the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Association last week added new pieces to the Tittabawassee River toxin puzzle.
One of the new pieces: The level of the most potent form of dioxins -- while still potentially hazardous -- was lower than previously thought. The World Health Organization downgraded the toxicity assessment of some types of dioxins, which means the Tittabawassee is less polluted downstream from Dow Chemical Co.
Less toxic, however, is not safe. Fish and game consumption advisories remain in effect in the flood plain. The state Department of Health has advised residents to limit exposure to soil in the flood plain.
There remain plenty of questions about the health effects of dioxin exposure to humans. University of Michigan researchers don't intend to release the results of a two-year study on human exposure to dioxin until later this summer.
The National Academy of Sciences last week also asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to provide more justification for linking dioxin to cancer and other ailments. The academy, as part of its peer review process, didn't question the contention that dioxin is a health risk, it simply demanded better evidence from the EPA. Some observers said the academy's report provided little new information -- and there's a chance its questions will further delay the development of a cleanup plan.
Meanwhile, residents shouldn't shrug off the potential health effects of exposure to dioxin downriver from Dow. We still don't know if exposure levels are high enough to affect residents' health. The U-M study is designed only to report the extent of human exposure. There's no dispute that exposure to dioxin at some level is toxic and harmful to humans. The science behind those levels, the toxicity of types of dioxin and other factors that relate directly to the health effects remain a moving target, however.
Dow, the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Quality are developing a cleanup plan. Everyone agrees that the Midland-based chemical giant needs to conduct a cleanup in the flood plain -- including Dow. The greatest point of contention teeters on threshold for cleanup.
Reliable information from sources such as the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization are worthwhile considerations. The U-M study also promises to bring valuable information to the cleanup discussion.
Yet those discussions shouldn't last forever. The goal is to minimize the health risks of dioxin contamination in the flood plain and the cleanup's impact on the region.
Posted by bhola at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2006
Cleaning the river
Warning, this story contains dangerously high levels of irony
KELLY NANKERVIS, MIDLAND DAILY NEWS, JULY 16, 2006
Phil Sworden, a district forester with Conservation District, helps out at a water booth they have set up for children during Riverdays Saturday. The display is designed to educate people on water quality and what polution does to it.
Phil Sworden
A small group of people, a few canoes and a green raft helped a group of Midlanders accomplish what’s becoming tradition during Riverdays.
They volunteered their morning to wrestle pop bottles, car fenders, a 4 X 4 piece of lumber, a shovel blade and other trash from the water and banks of the Chippewa River.
The work began with registration at the Chippewa Nature Center, and the activity was overseen by Phil Stephens of the center. Before heading out along the river, Stephens guesstimated the effort would last until nearly 1 p.m., but the group was a bit ahead of schedule this year, reaching the Tridge at noon.
Why? Because as the years go by – this is the fifth – less and less junk is around to be hauled from the water.
"The canoes are getting a little less full as we do this," Stephens said. "That’s a good sign," however, the water’s been more muddy this year, hampering efforts to see the bottom and what might be resting there.
But that didn’t stop Carol Arnosky from becoming so involved in wrestling debris from the plants that grew around them on shore so hard that she fell a couple times. The end of the line was the canoe livery near the Tridge, and she and the others were covered with mud, walking in squishy and wet shoes, and sweating in the super hot sunshine.
The little flotilla garnered some attention from River Days visitors frolicking on the Tridge and at the Farmers Market, but swiftly emptied the trash and placing canoes on a trailer the canoes to head back to the center.
Marlena Saotome and her son, Hiroki, participated in the event with friends Arnosky, her husband and son. Arnosky said the clean up is part of her birthday celebration and since there wasn’t much to pick up, it mostly was a quiet canoe trip with friends. That’s a change from one year when there were so many people that they cleaned the Tittabawassee and the Pine rivers as well.
"One year, I found a salt and pepper shaker," Arnosky said.
Saotome said her interesting find of the day was a box of cigarettes that still contained the cigarettes, as well as a place where someone had fished but left behind their cooler and a T-shirt.
"I love to volunteer," but said she was nervous to help in the clean up.
"It’s a lot of fun," Saotome said.
Marie Andrews also helped out after seeing the event listed in a Chippewa Nature Center booklet.
"It’s not really work, we were doing it with friends and we’re helping the environment," said Bob Bissonnette.
If Dow Chemical would now clean up its dioxins from the Tittabawassee and the cocktail of deadly cocktails leaking from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, all would be hunky dory.
Posted by bhola at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
Halabja bears scars 18 years after chemical attack
MARGARET BESHEER, VOICE OF AMERICA
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is facing several trials on separate charges of crimes against humanity. One of those trials will focus on the 1988 gassing deaths of some 5,000 Kurds in the northern Iraqi city of Halabja.
Halabja's streets are very quiet on a hot afternoon, lending an eerie feeling to this city which was destroyed in a single day.
The attack on Halabja came in the last months of the eight year long war between Iraq and Iran. The town was a political stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, which had an alliance with Tehran. Many Kurds believe Halabja was a target because of that alliance.
Halabja resident, Abdullah, says the day before the chemical attack people in the town were saying Iranian troops had arrived to protect the Kurds from Saddam's army.
Abdullah says the next day, March 16, around 9 a.m. they heard reconnaissance planes above the city. About two hours later, he says, the first sortie of Iraqi aircraft bombed the city. He says the planes kept coming in 10 minute intervals for about nine hours.
Sixty-five year old Mustafa says the Iraqi planes first dropped leaflets to see which way the wind was blowing. Then they began to bomb using napalm and rockets and finally the chemical weapons.
A guard at the cemetery where many of the Halabja victims are buried says he was 16 years old at the time of the attack and living in Iran.
He says he remembers an Iraqi air force plane was shot down over the Iranian city of Esfahan, and the pilot was paraded on Iranian television. He says the pilot said his mission was to bomb the city, with the intention of blowing out all the windows and doors of buildings, so when the chemical weapons were dropped, the gas would filter everywhere and no one would be spared.
Halabja is near the Iranian border, and many residents tried to escape the bombing by going into the hills and crossing the mountains into Iran.
Mustafa says the bombs continued to fall as people fled toward the border. Inside Iran's border is the Sirvan river. He says those who reached the river survived, but many others were killed as they tried to reach it. Mustafa says he lost some 40 members of his extended family in the attack.
Abdullah, who also fled to Iran with his family, says "while we were escaping, they bombed us, and there were bodies of Iranian soldiers and Kurdish villagers scattered everywhere."
Abdullah says the Iranians helped many of the wounded, evacuating them to hospitals and a large sports stadium on the Iranian side of the border.
Today, the town still bears the scars of the attack 18 years ago. Many survivors suffered terrible injuries and remain disabled. Others suffer psychological problems, and many children of survivors have been born with birth defects. Survivors say they hope Saddam will soon finally face justice for his crimes.
Posted by bhola at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2006
Expert report on EPA dioxin reassessment suggests improvements: the view from Dow's home town newspaper
KATHIE MARCHLEWSKI, MIDLAND DAILY NEWS. JULY 12, 2006
The long-awaited and objective third-party review of the Environmental Protection Agency's reassessment of dioxin released Tuesday creates more work and more questions, but both The Dow Chemical Co. and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality agree the dialogue it creates is valuable.
The National Academies' National Research Council report confirms that dioxin is toxic, but questions the level at which it is harmful and the methods used to figure it out.
"The interpretation is controversial," said Dow Toxicologist Bob Budinsky. "Overall, I think it's an objective critique of how to conduct a dioxin risk assessment."
Equally important to the local contamination situation, Dow officials say, is this month's World Health Organization downgrading of the toxicity of the Tittabawassee River's primary contaminant, known as 2,3,7,8 pentachlorodibenzo furan. The furan makes up about 50 percent of the mix of dioxins and furans in river sediment, and a smaller percentage, about 5 percent, of what is in Midland-area soils.
Previously, the furan had been considered half as toxic as the most potent from of dioxin, TCDD, but now is considered less than one-third as toxic, and has been assigned a "toxic equivalency factor" in relation to TCDD of 0.3.
The lowered toxicity doesn't mean there will be changes to the way the state calculates its 90 parts per trillion direct contact criteria. Instead it could mean adjustments to the way dioxin in soil is measured. A soil sample containing 1,000 ppt of the dioxin/furan mix, for example, depending on the portion that is the penta furan, might now be recalculated to 800.
DEQ spokesman Robert McCann said the department will take the change into consideration for samples that have been analyzed to determine the variety and extent of each dioxin and furan congener.
He pointed out that when properties have contamination levels in the thousands -- some along the flood plain do -- the difference will be slight. "Does it lower the toxicity? Sure," McCann said. "But it doesn't suggest that now there's nothing to worry about."
The DEQ will be looking to the EPA for guidance on how to incorporate the report. EPA is reviewing the report and preparing a response, Project Manager Gregory Rudloff said.
"The report doesn't change anything," DEQ spokesman Robert McCann said. "It basically just tells the EPA they need to finish their reassessment."
In the report, the committee took issue with the way EPA estimated cancer risk, with the spectrum of studies it chose to rely on, and the extent to which -- or lack thereof -- it explains uncertainty that still exists.
Because the data indicating cancer and immune system health risk come from occupational and animal studies where exposure was higher than normal, models are used to extrapolate the effects of lower exposures. The committee said those models should be expanded and better explained.
According to the committee, the "linear" slope of risk EPA uses -- one in which the risk of cancer increases at the same rate as the level of exposure increases -- might not be the best method. EPA had said there was a lack of data to support another approach, but the committee pointed to recently released animal data from the National Toxicology Program to justify the use of nonlinear methods. The report recommends that EPA estimate cancer risk using both methods and thoroughly explain the pros and cons of each.
Dow officials agree. "Fundamentally, there's nothing in this report that is inconsistent with what Dow has been trying to implement as part of the framework process," Dow spokesman John Musser said. Dow's human health risk assessment proposal, not yet approved by the DEQ for the Tri-City areas, includes the use of a non-linear approach as well as a probabilistic risk method, both of which are endorsed by the report.
Midland State Rep. John Moolenaar, who successfully introduced legislation in the House last month requiring the DEQ to incorporate the committee's report into its work with Dow on local contamination remediation, said it, along with the U-M study, will be important to a local resolution.
The bill is expected to make it to the Senate by fall and was passed unanimously in the House. Moolenaar acknowledged the DEQ's agreement to use the report's suggestions, and said the bill provides legislative clarity.
"Where the science is going, that's where policy ought to be," he said.
Copies of the report, titled "Health Risks from Dioxin and Related Compounds: Evaluation of the EPA Reassessment," are available by calling the National Academies Press at (202) 334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at www.nap.edu.
Posted by bhola at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)
The Minamata disaster - 50 years on: Lessons learned?
DR STEPHEN JUAN, KULY 14, 2006
It is now 50 years since the most horrific mercury poisoning disaster the world has ever seen took place in Minamata, Japan.
In May 1956, four patients from the city of Minamata on the west coast of the southern Japanese island of Kyushu were admitted to hospital with the same severe and baffling symptoms. They suffered from very high fever, convulsions, psychosis, loss of consciousness, coma, and finally death.
Soon afterwards, 13 other patients from fishing villages near Minamata suffered the same symptoms and also died. As time went on, more and more people became sick and many died. Doctors were puzzled by the strange symptoms and terribly alarmed. It was finally determined that the cause was mercury poisoning.
Mercury was in the waste product dumped into Minamata Bay on a massive scale by a chemical plant. The mercury contaminated fish living in Minamata Bay. People ate the fish, were themselves contaminated, and became ill. Local bird life as well as domesticate animals also perished. In all, 900 people died and 2,265 people were certified as having directly suffered from mercury poisoning - now known as Minamata disease.
Beyond this, victims who recovered were often socially ostracised, as were members of their families. It was wrongly believed by many people in the community that the illness was contagious.
The chemical plant was suspected of being the culprit in the environmental disaster almost from the beginning of the illness outbreak, yet speaking out against the chemical plant was forbidden. The plant was a major employer and enjoyed considerable economic and political clout all the way to the national government.
Defenders of the chemical plant argued that it must be innocent since the plant had been in operation since 1907 without previous problems. It manufactured fertilizer.
A riot by local fisherman in 1959 finally moved the government to investigate the cause of the illnesses and deaths. Even so, it took officials 12 years from the first deaths to finally admit the cause of the contamination and order a halt to the mercury dumping into Minamata Bay.
Yet the Minamata disaster story is still not over. In 2006, in the Seishin Shinkeigaku Zasshi, Dr K Eto from the Japanese Ministry of the Environment and the National Institute for Minamata Disease, writes that: "Over the years, new facts have gradually surfaced, especially after 1995, with the resolution of the political problems surrounding Minamata disease".
For example, the mystery as to why the first 50 years of plant operation brought forth no disaster has been recently solved. It has been revealed that the plant modified its operations in August 1951 and started dumping large amounts of mercury directly into Minamata Bay only from that time.
The health of survivors and their children are being monitored. A permanent museum and annual community ceremonies commemorate the worst mercury poisoning environmental disaster ever. Today, 50 years on, the lessons of Minamata remain.
Interesting facts
* During his relatively long lifetime, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), perhaps the greatest scientist that ever lived, suffered two serious bouts of uncharacteristically erratic behavior. Some historians believe he suffered from a mild form of mercury poisoning. They point out that Newton was conducting experiments with mercury at the time of both occurrences.
* Mercury was used in the haberdashery industry into the 20th century. Hat makers were known to often suffer mental illnesses although the source of such illnesses was unknown. This is the basis of the name of the "Mad Hatter" character in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
Stephen Juan, Ph.D. is an anthropologist at the University of Sydney. Email your Odd Body questions to s.juan@edfac.usyd.edu.au
Posted by bhola at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2006
Vietnam to reveal studies of dioxin-infected people
VIETNAMNET, JULY 13, 2006
VietNamNet - Vietnamese scientists will present the findings of a study on changes in blood, gene and immune systems of those people who were exposed to dioxin at an international conference on dioxin studies.
This information was revealed by Dr. Le Ke Son, from the National Steering Board in charge of toxic chemical-involved issues, at a talk of the aftermaths of toxic chemicals sprayed by the US military held in Ha Noi on July 12.
According to Son, the findings of another study on war veteran's diseases will also be presented at the conference scheduled to be held in Oslo, Norway, from Aug. 21-26, with participation of about 1,000 scientists from all over the world.
The official said, the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs will coordinate with relevant agencies to conduct a national survey of Agent Orange/dioxin victims in order to issue a policy on provision of State allowances to third-generation victims.
During the Vietnam war, the US military sprayed at least 80 million litres of defoliant, including 1 tonne of dioxin over the south of Vietnam from August 1961 to July 1971.
According to the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, about 3 million Vietnamese people are AO victims out of 4.8 million people exposed to the toxic chemicals.
Posted by bhola at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)
Environmentalists applaud academy critique, and so does Dow Chemical
JEREMIAH STETTLER, THE SAGINAW NEWS, JULY 12, 2006
At the National Academy of Sciences, everyone's a winner ... or so it seems in the day since the scientific society released its critique of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's examination of dioxin.
Environmental groups applauded the academy's description of dioxin as a "likely" human carcinogen and released statements saying the academy has confirmed that the contamination still is toxic.
The state Department of Environmental Quality trumpeted the results as validating its approach to dioxin cleanup along the Tittabawassee River. While the report calls on the EPA to better justify its conclusions, state officials say it does not reject the methods the department used to determine risk.
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Lastly, Dow Chemical Co. touts the academy's review as a pillar of good science. While the review does not throw out the EPA's system for calculating risk -- a method that assumes that an increase in dioxin equates to an increase in health risks -- it states that the agency also should include models that assume no dioxin-related health risks until the toxin reaches a certain level.
The National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit institution commissioned by Congress, reported Tuesday on its findings regarding the EPA's dioxin analysis. Scientists did not comment on the agency's entire 1,800-page report, but focused on the EPA's discussion of health risks.
Dioxin, a contaminant that plagues properties downstream and downwind of Dow's Midland complex, is linked to some forms of cancer, reproductive problems and weakened immune systems in laboratory animals.
The academy urged the EPA to better explain its conclusions, assumptions and any uncertainties that swirl about the health risks associated with dioxin.
While scientists split on whether dioxin is a proven cancer causer, they settled on language that the contaminant is "likely to be carcinogenic to humans."
Scientists urged the EPA to include a model that assumes dioxin must reach a certain threshold before it hurts human health.
The academy's review is available online at the National Academies Press home page, www.nap.edu. Click on the environmental issues category and look for "Health risks from dioxin and related compounds: Evaluation of the EPA reassessment." v
Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9685.
Posted by bhola at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2006
Tittabawassee river "remains toxic, but not quite as bad" writes the Saginaw News (sort of like falling off an 800 foot cliff instead of a 1,000 foot one)
JEREMIAH STETTLER, THE SAGINAW NEWS, JULY 11, 2006
The Tittabawassee River is less toxic than once thought, a World Health Organization report suggests.
But it's still toxic.
The World Health Organization reported findings this month that dramatically downgrade the toxicity of one of the chief contaminants in the Tittabawassee River.
The organization found that a toxin known as 2,3,4,7,8 Pentachlorodibenzofuran -- a dioxin-like pollutant that makes up more than half of all contamination in the Tittabawassee River -- is about 40 percent less toxic than believed during its 1998 analysis.
The change could mean a 20 percent to 25 percent decrease in the overall toxicity of dioxin contamination downstream of Dow Chemical Co., state Department of Environmental Quality officials say.
Dow spokesman John C. Musser said the report "should be reassuring to people." He said it supports the company's position that dioxin levels along the Tittabawassee River pose no imminent health threat to residents.
"We would hope that this, as well as other credible science that comes out, would find its way into policy and reflect in the decisions by the DEQ and Dow in addressing the local situation," Musser said.
Yet with dioxin levels as high as 8,200 parts per trillion in some parts of the Tittabawassee River -- a concentration many times higher than the state standard of 90 parts per trillion -- state and federal officials say the toxin still is troubling.
"While the numbers will be lower, they will still be high enough to be of concern," said Greg Rudloff, corrective action project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
DEQ spokesman Robert McCann said his department plans to incorporate the new numbers, just as it did when the World Health Organization released its 1998 report. He called the report the "best available science" for dealing with dioxin.
"At face value, it seems like there is a lot of merit in what they are proposing," he said.
Dioxin is an industrial pollutant linked to reproductive problems, weakened immune systems and some forms of cancer in laboratory animals. The World Health Organization also suggested in its report that humans may have a higher resistance to dioxin-related ailments, such as cancer, than laboratory animals.
While the organization added that "the human data set is too limited to be conclusive," Dow officials say it supports their contention that people are less susceptible to dioxin's effects than rodents.
State officials counter that although humans are more resistant to dioxin on average, the report also notes wide variations in human health effects that deserve increased protection. v
Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9685.
Posted by bhola at 05:20 AM | Comments (0)
Panel clears way for tougher cleanup of dioxin
DEBORAH ZABARENKO, REUTERS, JULY 11, 2006
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The cancer-causing chemical dioxin -- present in some U.S. water, soil, food supplies and most Americans' bodies -- should be cleaned up to a new, much higher standard, a U.S. scientific panel reported on Tuesday.
Experts assembled by the National Academies' National Research Council confirmed many of the findings of a 2003 report on dioxin by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which found dioxin causes cancer and reproductive and immune-system disorders in humans.
Even though the EPA draft report was made public three years ago, its findings were not reflected in policy, letting a lower cleanup standard stay in force.
The National Academies panel said at a briefing that the EPA's recommended standards -- which are as much as 10 times more stringent than the current ones -- should be applied within a year or so, with no further data-gathering required.
"We're clearing the way for EPA to release this report," said panel chairman David Eaton, a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. "Our recommendation is not to go back and start over."
Dioxin and related chemicals have raised concern since the 1970s, when they were found in the herbicide Agent Orange, used by U.S. forces in the Vietnam War. These chemicals also are by-products of various industries, including paper and pulp production, incinerators and businesses that use chlorine.
Dioxin and dioxin-like compounds stay in the environment, allowing them to build up in the food chain. Most Americans ingest dioxin when they eat fatty foods including beef, pork, fish and dairy products, and others are exposed to the chemical on the job or by accident, the National Academies panel noted.
The Boston-based Center for Health, Environment and Justice hailed the National Academies report in a statement and accused industries that use chlorine of stalling enforcement of higher cleanup standards.
"The first health assessment of dioxin was in 1985," the center's executive director, Lois Gibbs, said in the statement. "Over the past 21 years, chlorine-based industries have demanded reviews, reassessments and analysis. ... Enough is enough. Let's get on with establishing health protective regulations."
Posted by bhola at 03:58 AM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2006
Visiting the homeland of the Ta Oi
HUU NGOC, VIET NAM NEWS, JULY 9, 2006
The Ta Oi, one of the 53 ethnic minorities of Viet Nam, has a population of 35,000, of which 26,000 live in A Luoi District (or 66 per cent of the district’s population). A Luoi is a name that evokes sinister memories of two Indochina wars: An important area on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the district is located in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue — the scene of bloody combat and the target of continuous US bombing raids during the American War. It was also the biggest victim of Agent Orange sprayed by the US air force.
Our car stopped in the main town. We were expecting to see a small town in the middle of a former no-man’s-land, but instead we saw a brand-new urban centre traversed by a highway replacing a path through the forest.
We profit from the brief stop to meet the Ta Oi who, before the Revolution of 1945 and along with all of the ethnic minority populations of the highlands of the south were named Moi (Savages). For half a century, they had been acquiring an individuality and socio-political equality with other ethnic groups, all the while fighting side-by-side for national independence. We don’t find Moi ca rang cang tai (savages with sawed and filed teeth, and with stretched earlobes) any more. These practices formed part of the personal aesthetics and initiation rites of ancient Ta Oi tribes. They were performed when people reached the age of 13, to mark their passage into adulthood and the possibility of marriage. The operation, always performed on three candidates at a time, was done near a stream. The concerned person, whether a boy or a girl, had his/her mouth widened by passing a piece of bamboo between the two rows of teeth. Laying down, the person was immobilised by people clenching his head and sitting astride his stomach and legs. One person would cut six teeth in the upper jaw and six others in the lower jaw with a serrated sword, which caused very intense pain. The operation on the ears was less painful. A grapefruit thorn was used to pierce the earlobes, and then short pieces of silver of increasing size were placed in the holes. A married woman wore silver rings the radius of a chopstick. After 30 years, the rings increased to the size of a little finger. The bigger the rings, the more beautiful and elegant the woman. Men could also have ear piercings done, or chose not to.
As strange as this concept of beauty may appear (concerning the teeth and the ears), the Ta Oi by contrast show a refined aesthetic in other domains: popular festivals, dress, food, dance, music and storytelling.
Let’s take traditional dress as an example. The pride of the culture is zeng fabric. A piece of zeng serves to make skirts for women and loincloths for men. They serve also as a monetary unit to barter for buffaloes, cows, gongs and silver coins. The friendly Pa Ko and Ka Tu tribes get supplies of zeng from the Ta Oi.
The making of zeng is above all an art. The threads are made up of a special type of cotton obtained from the wild cotton plant called kapas, which is transplanted in mountain fields. The vegetable-based dying process is very time-consuming because it depends a lot on the humidity. Blacks and the blues are obtained from infusions of the plant tardon and special shells. Yellow is produced by the roots of the dang dang plant which grows deep in the forest. To get red, one must trade with the Lao people.
Because of the sophisticated marriage of colours and wealth of motifs, the weaving of zeng demands a lot of skill and time, especially given that the technique is still very much a cottage industry. The dominant colour is black, which forms the base of all the designs and motifs. Five colours are used: Blue, white, red, yellow and above all, black. They are set off by artificial pearls. The fringes of the woven cloth are adorned with little spherical sparkling silver and copper bells. The weaving motifs, about 60 in all, are valued as powerful cosmological symbols: They represent the universe, myths, legends and history, genies and spirits. The ngkang kating assimilates the trunk of the secular tree kating with two zigzagging parallel lines that represent the Parsee slope (Slope of love), site of an unhappy love between a poor young man and a daughter of a rich man. The "leech of the mountain" motif is an image representing a cruel sorcerer in a fairy tale. Other motifs represent animals or parts of the body: swallow’s tail, rooster’s spur and objects of everyday use like a jar of hot chili, weapons, traps, plants, flowers, leaves, Father Sky and Mother Earth and the North Star. But man doesn’t have more than a fleeting representation, as a dancer at a popular festival.
All the motifs are governed by geometric traits, which amply describe the high degree of abstraction and stylisation of the Ta Oi. The decorations on a skirt or jacket tell us a lot about their concepts of life and the lives of the mountain people in A Luoi. — VNS
Posted by bhola at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)
Italian Speaker remembers Seveso
SEVESO TRAGEDY ANNIVERSARY: BERTINOTTI'S MESSAGE
(AGI) - Rome, Jul 10 - Speaker of the House Fausto Bertinotti sent the following message to national secretary Rino Pavanello at the convention organised by the "Environment and Work" association: "Thirty years after the fateful date of July 10, 1976, the tragedy of Seveso still arouses feelings of dismay, regret and worry in all of us. The accident which took place in the Meda ICMESA establishment, with terrible consequences for the people of various other towns in Brianza, was a real environmental disaster, the consequences of which can be seen by all of us even today in the health condition of people and the ecosystem's equilibrium. In sending out our most sincere solidarity to all the people involved in the tragic accident, it is necessary to speak of the commitment by institutions in creating more rigorous and exigent policies for work security and the respecting of higher standards of environmental protection. The activities of some Italian industrial plants still show high levels of risk today which must be monitored continuously. After Seveso, our country and the whole of Europe have the duty to use all the necessary instruments so that such calamities do not repeat themselves. I give my more cordial greeting and my best wishes to the present authorities and everyone who participated for the best possible result of today's initiative." (AGI) .
Posted by bhola at 01:38 AM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2006
Vietnamese wildlife still paying a high price for chemical warfare
JESSIE KING, THE INDEPENDENT, JULY 8, 2006
Forty years on, much of the environmental damage caused to Vietnam by American forces during the Vietnam War has still not been repaired, according to a new study.
In particular, the effects of the massive amounts of chemical defoliants sprayed from the air to destroy the jungle hiding places of the Vietcong guerrillas are still being felt, says the study, the first comprehensive account of Vietnam's natural history written in English.
Between 1961 and 1971, more than 20 million gallons of herbicides, the most notorious being "Agent Orange", were sprayed by the US to defoliate forests, clear growth along the borders of military sites and eliminate enemy crops.
Some of the herbicides also contained dioxins - compounds potentially harmful to people and wildlife - while one, "Agent Blue" - used mainly for crop destruction - was made up mainly of an organic arsenic compound. Repeated applications of the chemicals "sometimes eradicated all vegetation", according to the study - Vietnam: A Natural History - and the environment has still not recovered in many places. Weedy plant species such as alang-alang (also known as cogon or American grass) often invaded cleared areas, killing other plants and preventing normal regeneration of the forest. "In many areas, these weeds continue to dominate the landscape decades after the defoliants were sprayed," says the study.
As the spray was often concentrated along strategic waterways, it is believed to have had a long-term impact on wetlands and riverside vegetation. Scientists are finding that dioxins still surface in freshwater animals. The study adds: "In addition to effects on individuals, the defoliants undoubtedly modified species distribution patterns through habitat degradation and loss, particularly in wetland systems."
Direct attempts to eradicate Vietnam's forests were not the only military activities to affect its environment. The estimated 14 million tons of bombs or cluster-bombs dropped on to northern and southern Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia left an estimated 10 to 15 million large bomb craters.
In addition to the effects of these bombs, the impact of napalm, land mines, and other wartime technology on Vietnam's biological communities must also be taken into account, says the study.
It has been written by three wildlife specialists at the American Museum of Natural History - Eleanor Jane Sterling, Martha Maud Hurley and the Vietnamese expert Le Duc Minh. They say: "A country uncommonly rich in plants, animals and natural habitats, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam shelters a significant portion of the world's biological diversity, including rare and unique organisms and an unusual mixture of tropical and temperate species."
Most remarkably of all, in the past 15 years a whole suite of species hitherto unknown to science has been discovered in Vietnam, deep in jungles where scientific access had been made impossible by the war.
They include the saola, a large hoofed mammal of an entirely new genus - an antelope-like wild ox which is the world's largest land-dwelling animal discovered since 1937.
Vietnam: A Natural History is published by Yale University Press
Posted by bhola at 02:29 AM | Comments (0)
Higher thyroid cancer rate from Chernobyl confirmed
REUTERS, JULY 6, 2006
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study confirms a substantially increased risk of thyroid cancer among people exposed to radiation during childhood and adolescence after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident.
A total of 13,127 of the 32,385 individuals living in the most contaminated area of the Ukraine during the nuclear plant meltdown and who were under 18 at the time were screened between 1998 and 2000, Dr. Geoffrey R. Howe of Columbia University in New York and colleagues report. They found that 45 cases of thyroid cancer occurred compared with 11.2 cases that would have been expected in the absence of radiation exposure. Plus, the higher the dosage of radioactive iodine, the greater the thyroid cancer risk.
The study is the first to measure the risk of thyroid cancer associated with specific radiation dosage, Howe and his team note in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Radioactive iodine and cesium were the main components of the Chernobyl fallout. Because radioactive iodine is used frequently in medicine -- and is also likely to be a chief contaminant released in any future nuclear emergency -- understanding the risk associated with exposure is a public health concern, as well as of scientific interest, the researchers point out.
A spike in thyroid cancer cases had already been observed among Ukraine residents who were children and adolescents when the Chernobyl accident occurred. However, the researchers note, increased rates of screening for thyroid cancer and a low dietary iodine intake, which increases the uptake of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland, "almost certainly" were factors in this increase.
To investigate the specific risk associated with radiation exposure, the researchers estimated each person's radiation exposure using measurements made after the accident and from interviews.
They found a "strong" relationship between radiation exposure and thyroid cancer risk. While there was a tendency for risk to be greater among people exposed at younger ages, as well as among females, neither was statistically significant.
"We estimate that 75 percent of the thyroid cancer cases would have been avoided in the absence of radiation," the researchers conclude. "This estimate demonstrates a substantial contribution of radioactive iodines to the excess of thyroid cancer that followed the Chernobyl accident."
SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, July 5, 2006.
Posted by bhola at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2006
A story of triumph for congenitally joined twin
NGUOI LAO DONG, THANNIENNEWS.COM, TRANSLATED BY MINH PHAT
Nguyen Duc and his betrothed Thanh Tuyen
Once congenitally joined with his brother allegedly due to Agent Orange, one of the twins is set to marry this December at 25 years of age, famed after being successfully separated in 1988.
The success of the operation finally gave Nguyen Duc a new and independent life after being joined at the pelvis with a common digestive tract and three legs between the two boys.
Duc came out of the operation with the only operable leg, and finds himself in love, and ready to get married.
Duc and his girlfriend Nguyen Thi Thanh Tuyen often visit his home in Hoa Binh Village (Village of Peace) hostel [attached to Ho Chi Minh City’s obstetrics hospital Tu Du] to visit his twin brother Nguyen Viet, who was render immobile by the operation.
Duc is computer technology specialist who works as administrative staff for the Tu Du hospital where he has received a wealth of support from the beginning.
He now has a monthly salary of VND1.9 million (US$119), solid take-home pay for a disabled person in Vietnam.
Duc said he met his girlfriend Tuyen in April 2004 after the two had joined the Red Cross society to do charitable work and raise money and provide assistance for others in Hoa Binh Village.
Doctor Nguyen Thi Phuong Tan, director of the Hoa Binh Village said Duc is an example of the fact that anything is possible in life, an energetic man despite his disposition.
“Duc has persevered since he was young,” recalled the doctor.
“From a weak little boy, Duc struggled to overcome illness and obstacles to become a man with great computer skills and now marriage.”
Duc said his wedding party will be organized on December 16, 2006 at Bao Tran restaurant in the city-based Thuong Xa Tax shopping center in District 1 on Nguyen Hue street.
The wedding party is to be sponsored by Japanese company, Yasaka.
Historic operation
In 1981, a young woman in Sa Thay district of Kon Tum province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, gave birth to the unusually deformed twins, which has been attributed to coming in contact with Agent Orange.
Kon Tum, where the twin’s mother had lived during American War was an area that the Americans sprayed heavily from 1962 to 1970 with the herbicide that contains the highly toxic and stable chemical called dioxin – the source of Agent Orange causing deformities.
Seven years later, twin Viet contracted encephalitis – an inflammation of the brain, and doctors decided to separate them to prevent the other healthy boy from contracting the disease.
The operation started on October 4, 1988 at the Tu Du hospital with a squad of leading Vietnamese and Japanese surgeons and lasted some 12 hours, with Japan providing the expertise, tools and technical equipment.
The success of the operation was a first in Vietnam and only the seventh of its kind in the world.
After the operation, Duc traveled to Japan many times for rehabilitation operations, availing him his present healthy state.
The surgery gave Duc a better life, while his brother Viet suffers from brain shrinkage and has been bed-ridden his whole life.
Viet doesn't even flinch when his twin brother climbs awkwardly onto the bed next to him.
Duc opined, “we are the victims of Agent Orange and I think the United States must pay compensation to help those people who were victims of the war."
Doctors said the twins are representative of the third generation victims of Agent Orange.
Posted by bhola at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)