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	Environmental Justice Links	Chicago Lead Web Sites: http://www.leadsafehomes.info/chicago/mainpage.jsp Communities For A Better Environment: http://www.cbecal.org/ Bucket Brigade Home Page: http://www.bucketbrigade.org/cccindex.htm Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League: http://www.bredl.org/\ Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ) http://www.lejyouth.org St. Croix Environmental Association (SEA): http://www.seastx.org/ EPA Enviromapper: http://maps.epa.gov/enviromapper/ Resurgence Magazine: http://www.gn.apc.org/resurgence/home.ht
	Let's Add Some Color to the Greening of America By Mick Dumke - Sunday, September 16, 2007 Download Original Article as a PDF For some people, "going green" is more than just a trendy cause, a way to score points on the campaign trail or a means to achieve the abstract goal of preserving nature for future generations. For neighborhoods such as Chicago's Little Village, it's a matter of survival. Standing on an abandoned railroad bridge over the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Lilian Molina points to a mechanical claw scooping coal from a barge. A conveyor belt drops the coal into a nearby energy plant that will provide power to homes across the city. But it also spews nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury, which eventually turn to toxic smog and soot and taint waterways. Those who live in this mostly Latino neighborhood also have to worry about the steel-drum reprocessing facility around the corner. It emits glycol ether, which causes eye and skin irritation, anemia and birth defects. Another empty lot is a federal Superfund site, and another has an old oil-storage tank buried in contaminated soil. Molina works for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, a nonprofit that raises awareness of and lobbies to eradicate environmental health hazards. "What we do isn't the same as environmental conservation -- we don't chain ourselves to trees," she says. "What we're really doing here is telling people, 'Our health is not disposable.' " These days, the country seems to be experiencing a rebirth of environmental awareness, prompting discussion about climate change and corporate responsibility and passionate debate about the pros and cons of bottled water. But if a new and different "green revolution" is underway in America, it's not liberating everyone. If you drive a Prius and buy tofu at Whole Foods, going green may be a lifestyle choice. If you live in a poor neighborhood near a toxic factory, going green is a human rights issue. The movement has been slowed by a divide that is visible in everything from local recycling policies to the complexions of environmentalists. On one side are mostly white middle- and upper-class populations with plenty of money and political clout. On the other side are minority and low-income communities with little of either. The tragedy is that the communities that are left behind often have the most at stake -- and the most to contribute. Because not only is environmentalism a human rights issue, it is also an economic opportunity. Many of the best-intentioned environmental activists assume that poor and nonwhite communities aren't interested in environmental issues. Poor folk, they seem to reason, don't have the time or energy to worry about pollution and global warming because they're struggling to make ends meet or just aren't educated enough to "get it." Take recycling, one of the simplest ways that households can conserve natural resources and reduce pollution. It has now caught on in thousands of middle-class communities nationwide; nearly every suburb and midsize city offers curbside recycling. There is an initial outlay for the effort, but in the long run, recycling saves tax money that would have been spent on shipping and landfills. In contrast, many of the country's most dense and diverse urban areas have been slow to adopt recycling programs. Recycling officials I've spoken with in several rust-belt cities have blamed cultural gaps, saying they just can't stoke environmental interest in working-class, minority neighborhoods. In response, environmental organizations have tried new approaches, such as "buy-back" programs that pay residents and community groups for their recyclable goods, in poor, isolated communities in Chicago and Detroit. But others have given up. They shouldn't. History shows that low-income communities have always been among the nation's most active recyclers. They've had to be. New York's sanitation department reports that low-income areas generate the lowest recycling rates in the city but also produce among the smallest amounts of waste -- partly because residents reuse items more often and do more of their own recycling. Even now, in my mixed-race, mixed-income neighborhood in Chicago, scavengers prowl the alleys and dig through dumpsters in search of aluminum cans, steel scraps and appliances that they see as repairable and salable. And a series of studies over the past decade in New Jersey, California and Scotland has confirmed what grass-roots groups around the United States already knew: When people understand how an environmental program works, how it benefits them and how they can join in, they recycle -- regardless of their ethnicity or economic status. Stereotyping has also hampered other parts of the environmental movement. People of color make up only about 15 percent of the staffs of government environmental agencies and mainstream environmental organizations, according to a recent study by University of Michigan sociologist Dorceta E. Taylor. "It's this running stereotype Black people aren't interested in the environment," she says. But it's simply not true. Taylor also found that minorities account for more than three of every four staffers of environmental justice groups such as the Little Village. Often run on a shoestring budget, these organizations focus on the ways that pollution and lax enforcement hit poor and minority communities the hardest. Let's be frank: The people most affected by environmental degradation aren't white or well-off. Fifty-six percent of the 9.2 million people who live within 1.86 miles of the country's most serious hazardous waste sites are people of color, according to a 2007 report for the United Church of Christ. Seven in 10 people living near clusters of toxic waste sites are minorities, the report found. Moreover, doctors believe that environmental factors may be partly to blame for the higher rates of asthma, cardiovascular disease, birth defects and cancer found among people of color and low-income whites, according to several studies. United Nations scientists have reported that unless climate change is countered, it is likely to cause ecological emergencies and dire food shortages, particularly among the world's poorest. If that's not alarming on a moral level, it should be on a political one. Social chaos breeds political chaos, and we've seen how rogue leaders can set up dangerous shops in lawless corners of the world. Still, we are far from doomsday. In fact, our environmental challenges may offer the best opportunity since the decline of U.S. manufacturing to create jobs in depressed parts of the country. Recycling offers a great example again. While the practice may have started as environmental activism, it's now a powerful economic force. More than 1 million people are employed by recycling firms, which generate more than $236 billion in annual revenue, according to a 2001 study by the National Recycling Coalition. Or, consider the urban areas pockmarked with "brownfields" -- plots of formerly industrial, abandoned land that can't be reused until they have been cleared of pollution. There are close to half a million of them across the country, mostly in poor, minority neighborhoods, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Each brownfield costs an average of $500,000 to $600,000 to clean up, according to the Northeast Midwest Institute. That's a hefty tab for state and federal governments to pick up, but consider the return on this investment: Every acre of brownfield redevelopment saves 4.5 acres of undeveloped land, and every dollar invested generates $4.50 to $10 in economic benefits. These benefits include new business development, tax revenue and jobs, according to a forthcoming report by the institute. Turning brownfields into parks or gardens would also have social and economic benefits. University of Illinois research shows that violence decreases when neighborhoods are greener, probably because trees, flowers and gardens create a greater sense of community and make people feel more relaxed. The benefit of tackling environmental woes is one of the ideas inspiring Michael Howard, a burly former construction contractor who formed a nonprofit development organization with his wife 16 years ago on Chicago's South Side. At the center of their work is Eden Place, an environmental-education center that Howard built on what had been a vacant lot used for illegal dumping. Nestled between an elevated freight-train track and blocks of working-class homes, boarded-up buildings and empty lots blanketed in old lead-paint dust, Eden Place stands out almost shockingly, 3.5 vibrant acres of color and natural life. It boasts a large vegetable garden, flower beds planted by neighborhood youth and seniors, a wooded area, a swath of prairie grass, a bustling chicken coop and a composting center. Howard likes to take troublemakers from the nearby grade school and have them work in the garden until they're exhausted. He has taught unemployed men and women how to plot and plant throughout the neighborhood. "Most of our ancestors were part of the great migration of African Americans from the South," Howard says. "When we left, we left the land. One of my dreams is to reconnect people to the land. If you're growing on that land, you're not going to abuse it." Mick Dumke is a Chicago-based journalist who writes about the environment. mickdumke@gmail.com Download Original Article as a PDF Environmental risks greater for Latinos National study points to lead poisoning, pollution in Arizona Mary Jo Pitzl - The Arizona Republic - Oct. 20, 2004 12:00 AM Latinos in Arizona are at greater risk from environmental threats than the general population, a national study being released today concludes. The increased risk is due to a combination of where Latinos live, where they work and how they get, or don't get, information. Latinos make up about 25 percent of Arizona's population. The report by the Natural Resources Defense Council reaches similar conclusions for Hispanics nationwide, noting that many environmental threats are most prevalent in urban centers and agricultural areas, where many Hispanics live. advertisement The report cites several Arizona specifics while painting a broader national picture of environmental perils. They include: • Latino children in Arizona constituted 77 percent of the children diagnosed with lead poisoning in 2002. • The Arizona-Mexico border, where air pollution from Mexican truck traffic and pesticide use from agriculture increase farmworkers' risk of respiratory problems, such as asthma. The report says nearly 90 percent of the nation's farmworkers are Latino. • South Phoenix, where exhaust from vehicle traffic contributes to the state's highest asthma rates, centered in the 85040 ZIP code. The area population is 60 percent Hispanic, so that population takes a bigger hit from the effects of traffic exhaust from Interstate 17 and Interstate 10, as well as area road traffic. South Phoenix also is home to the greatest concentration of businesses that emit toxic pollutants, according to an ongoing study by state environmental officials. In fact, a citizens advisory council recently issued a set of recommendations to reduce pollution in the area, such as asking certain businesses for voluntary pollution reductions and increasing public awareness. But those recommendations didn't include any move to publicize the environmental information in Spanish, a key conclusion of the nationwide study being issued today. "It didn't come up, and that's a lack on our part," said Greta Rogers, chairman of the advisory council that is working on the South Phoenix Toxics Reduction Project. "I will try and address that." In the report, "Hidden Dangers, Environmental Health Threats in the Latino Community," the authors note that most environmental information from different government offices is in English only and gets limited distribution. They suggest that the government, along with public-interest groups, could fill the gap with their own campaigns. But it's important to properly target the message, not simply to put it in Spanish, said Will Humble, bureau chief for epidemiology and disease control at the Arizona Department of Health Services. The agency launched a lead-awareness program three years ago to convince a mostly Latino population of the danger of cooking with Mexican pots, many of them covered in lead-based paint. The ad campaign sported billboards and brochures in Spanish, as well as public-service announcements on Spanish-language radio stations. But the key was targeting those ads to the grandmothers in Hispanic households, Humble said. "If you're going to throw out lead pottery, you've got to make sure she knows it's a problem," Humble said of the grandmother. After all, she's the one cooking with the pottery and making many of the household's dining decisions, he said. However, bilingual outreach doesn't always equal success. Humble noted that the state health agency used to send a Spanish speaker into the farm fields of Yuma County to talk to workers about how to minimize their exposure to pesticides, such as washing their hands and clothes and waiting a certain number of hours between exposures. But the health staffer had little success. Workers ignored much of the advice, in part because their employers needed them to get back to work, Humble said. The national report makes dozens of recommendations to improve Latinos' environmental health, most of which call for greater government funding and research. The lack of Latino-specific research makes it hard to draw meaningful conclusions on environmental problems, the report states. "We have an information gap," said Elliott Negin, a researcher with the New York-based environmental group. "The data is a little spotty." That means it can be difficult to tease out direct impacts on Hispanics from the environmental problems documented in the 80-page report: air and water pollution, pesticides, and exposure to mercury and lead. State Rep. Linda Lopez, D-Tucson, a member of the House Health Committee, said she can't recall any state efforts to address specific Latino environmental-health issues in her four years at the statehouse. But, she said, neighborhood groups also play a pivotal role, citing strides she has seen in Tucson when local groups banded together to get concessions from an industrial plant that was next to a school. "I do think minority community and poor communities are getting more organized," Lopez said. Reach the reporter at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8963 Montreal, 17 April 2003 - Class of 15,000 industrial facilities report 32% more pollution Your local manufacturing, power or disposal facility is likely releasing more toxic chemicals into the environment, says the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). The trinational organization released its annual Taking Stock report today, which revealed that a group of 15,000 industrial facilities across North America released and transferred 32 percent more toxic chemicals from 1998 to 2000. These facilities, with chemical releases and transfers up to 100 tonnes, represent the majority of polluters in Canada and the United States. "It's very discouraging to see such a large number of facilities report releasing more pollution in our environment, since they are found in communities across the continent," said Victor Shantora, Acting Executive Director for the CEC. "The small 'p' polluter might not grab the same headlines as a large power plant or chemical manufacturer, but their effect is being felt throughout the North American environment." In Canada, these "small p" polluters registered a 66 percent increase in chemical releases and transfers. In the United States, the same group recorded an increase of 29 percent. By comparison, 3,600 facilities reporting more than 100 tonnes of chemical releases and transfers, recorded a seven percent reduction in pollutants. However, they still account for 90 percent of the total pollution, with hydrochloric acid credited for the largest amount of releases. All told, the report found more than 3.3 million tonnes of chemicals released and transferred in 2000, including known carcinogens and substances linked to birth defects. Six jurisdictions (Texas, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana) accounted for 37 percent of the total releases that year, with reports in excess of 165,000 tonnes of chemical releases and transfers each. The top 15 facilities reported 255,600 tonnes of releases and transfers, or 8 percent of the total. And while the cross-border movement of pollutants is limited, Canada became a net exporter of toxic chemicals by virtue of a 43 percent drop in US exports to Canada from 1998 to 2000. Canadian facilities sent roughly 36,000 tonnes of chemicals to the US in 2000, equal to the amount of transfers from the US to Mexico. The amount of exports from Mexico to the US is not known. Overall, North America has reduced industrial releases and transfers of chemicals by 5 percent in the six years from 1995 to 2000. Decreases were most dramatic in the US where on-site air releases dropped 31 percent over six years. Off-site releases increased by 41 percent. This is the seventh report in the Taking Stock series, which matched 206 chemicals from the national pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTR) from Canada and the United States to present common 2000 data, as well as three and six-year overviews. Mexico did not require mandatory reporting in 2000, but the country is currently developing a mandatory and publicly accessible PRTR. Do you have a question about a particular facility, industrial sector, province or state? The Taking Stock Online web site http://www.takingstockquery.org/index.php?varlan=english allows users to customize reports by chemical, facility, sector or geographic region. For more information, please visit www.cec.org/takingstock Commission for Environmental Cooperation 393, rue Saint-Jacques Ouest, Bureau 200 Montreal (Quebec) Canadá H2Y 1N9 Tel: (514) 350-4300; Fax: (514) 350-4314 E-mail: info@ccemtl.org Web site: http://www.cec.org Pesticides, Chemicals can cause SARS, Asia-Pacific Experts Say - Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 Citing a World Health Organization report in 2001, a University of the Philippines pharmacology professor says that in Third World countries alone 25 million farm workers are poisoned everyday due to constant exposure to harmful pesticides and chemicals that destroy not only the present but the future generations as well. Their lives are further harmed by ill-effects that could lead to SARS and other new forms of diseases, he says. By Karl G. Ombion and Edgar A. Cadagat Bulatlat.com/Cobra-Ans The use of pesticides and chemicals in farming and livestock industry could be behind the rise of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and other new diseases, a resource person at the Pesticide Action Network (PAN)-Asia and the Pacific Congress said over the weekend. Some 150 delegates from 17 countries attended the international gathering held at the Rembrandt Hotel, in Quezon City last week. Dr. Romeo Quijano, a toxicologist and health and human rights activist, said prolonged use of chemicals and their ingestion by humans could weaken or even destroy the immune system. SARS has been recorded in several countries, including China, Vietnan and Hong Kong, with many of those afflicted already confined in hospitals. A whole building and its tenants were also quarantined in Hong Kong. Reports also said the virus-causing SARS could have been resistant to antibiotics with a strain already strong enough to overcome the virus-killing medicine. In a press conference, delegates to the PAN-Asia Pacific Congress delegates noted that antibiotics resistant strain of the virus had also swept China and Hong Kong the past months. Tens of thousands of chickens were and burned to kill the virus, they said. Toxic substances But the disease's onslaught upon the human body has also been exacerbated by the widespread ingestion of toxic substances coming from food we eat that had been fertilized with chemicals, they said. "The toxic substance whose residue remain in the body, could also damage or destroy the brain in the long run," said Quijano, who is also an associate professor at the Department of Pharmacology of the College of Medicine in UP-Manila. The widespread use of pesticides and chemicals in agriculture in the world today is causing a new variety of illnesses in humans as well as problems in environment. Citing a World Health Organization report in 2001, Quijano said that in Third World countries alone 25 million people are being poisoned everyday due to constant exposure to harmful pesticides and chemicals that destroy not only the present but the future generations as well. And the rate of human exposure is increasing everyday, he said. "Nobody is free now from pesticides and chemicals," the UP professor said. "Many of us may not feel it now, but its effects are long term. It steadily destroys our immune system, our genes and our minds." Experts on pesticides and leaders of farmers' organization in the Asia-Pacific region who presided over the press conference discussed the effects of pesticides on millions of people worldwide. Among them were Executive Director Sarojeni Rengam of PAN-AP of India; Dr. Irene Fernandez, founder and director of Tanaganita, a women's workers organization in Malaysia; P. Chennaiah, an official of a federation of farm workers' union in India; and Rafael Mariano, chair of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas. Bulatlat.com http://www.bulatlat.com/news/3-10/3-10-sars.html US EPA proposes cancer guidelines for children ------------------------------------------------------------------------ USA: March 5, 2003 WASHINGTON - Infants and toddlers have 10 times the risk of cancer from hazardous chemicals than adults do, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said this week in its first guidelines that define the greater risks that children face. The draft guidelines, published on the Internet for public comment at http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid=55445, greatly strengthen the EPA's requirements for considering a potential carcinogen's effects. Environmental groups welcomed the draft guidelines while saying they could be tougher. "The government's message is simple: children are at greater risk from exposure to carcinogens than adults," said Jane Houlihan, vice president of research at the non-profit Environmental Working Group. The EPA has always acknowledged that children with their rapidly growing bodies, have a greater risk of cancer caused by chemicals, said Kris Thayer, senior scientist at the EWG, a non-profit research organization. "They found (the risk) was up to 65 times more potent in childhood. It's first time they have given numbers for increased susceptibility." The agency said the draft document updates 1986 guidelines. "EPA has been working to revise the 1986 guidelines in light of significant advances in scientific understanding of how cancer may be caused," it said in a statement. "These guidelines discuss hazards to children that may result from exposures during preconception and prenatal or postnatal development to sexual maturity," the report reads. For instance, it is clear that exposure to radiation is much more likely to cause cancer in the very young, the EPA said. Chemicals also can affect babies more. They include vinyl chloride - a gas used in making PVC or polyvinyl chloride - diethylnitrosamine - found in tobacco smoke - and the insecticide DDT. Thayer said the EPA could have been tougher, and her group is preparing a response. "This document doesn't go far enough," she said. The EWG and the Natural Resources Defense Council both said the EPA document only covers mutagens - chemicals or radiation that cause cancer by damaging DNA. But hormones and hormone-mimicking chemicals can also cause cancer not by damaging DNA but by altering how cells work. "Some carcinogens act on proteins in the cell, which then act to disrupt cell cycle regulation. These are called epigenetic carcinogens, because they don't contact the DNA directly," said the NRDC's Jennifer Sass. "Examples are asbestos, steroidal estrogens, tamoxifen, saccharin, DES, dioxin. All the 'abnormal' cells that divide will pass on their abnormality to the daughter cells. The result is a tumor." Story by Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent REUTERS NEWS SERVICE FDS Shows Pollution Risks to Children By JOHN HEILPRIN.c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Children are getting asthma at more than double the rate two decades ago, and one of every dozen women of childbearing age has blood mercury levels that could hinder brain development in a fetus, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday. EPA's report, only its second exhaustive roundup on environmental hazards to children's health, shows success in areas where the government has taken aggressive action, such as reductions in levels of children's blood lead poisoning and children's exposure to secondhand smoke. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said the agency has done a lot to ``improve the environment for children where they live, learn and play.'' Between 1980 and 1995, the report says, the percentage of children with asthma doubled, from 3.6 percent in 1980 to 7.5 percent in 1995. The percentage dropped in 1996 to about 6 percent, but by 2001 it had risen again, this time to 8.7 percent: 6.3 million children. Researchers don't know precisely why childhood asthma is increasing, but a number of factors in air quality, both outdoors and indoors, have been studied. Those varied factors include exposure to dust mites, cockroaches, pesticides, tobacco smoke, ozone and soot. The EPA says its officials are intent on examining the role of indoor air pollutants especially, since they note modest improvements in the numbers of children exposed to several outdoor air pollutants since 1990. About 5 million women - 8 percent of those at the childbearing ages of 16 to 49 - had at least 5.8 parts per billion of mercury in their blood as of 2000, the report says. EPA officials said this is the first time this kind of data has been measured. EPA has found that children born to women with blood concentrations of mercury above 5.8 parts per billion are at some risk of adverse health effects, including reduced developmental IQ and problems with motor skills such as eye-hand coordination. Mercury, a naturally occurring metal, is a persistent pollutant that accumulates in fish and becomes more concentrated as it moves up the food chain. The three major sources for mercury emissions have been power plants and municipal waste and medical waste incinerators. EPA has been regulating since the late 1990s mercury dumped in water and air from municipal waste and medical waste incinerators and considers it another success to have reduced levels emitted from each of those sources by 90 percent, EPA spokesman Joe Martyak said. The agency is writing regulations for mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants that are due to be completed in the next two years and are scheduled to take effect by 2007. The number of children with elevated levels of lead in their blood was 4.7 million in 1978 but had plunged to about 300,000 in 2000, the report says. EPA attributes most of that success to the phaseout of lead in gasoline between 1973 and 1995 and the reduction in the number of homes with lead-based paint from 64 million in 1990 to 38 million in 2000. The number of children whose blood levels showed effects from secondhand smoke declined by about one-fifth to one-half between 1988 and 2000, depending on levels of exposure. Those figures are obtained by tracking the amount of cotinine, a breakdown product of nicotine in blood. New Reports Find Pesticides in People - February 14, 2003 Dozens of pesticides and other chemicals are in the blood and urine of people in the United States, according to two reports released in late January. Together, the two studies offer startling new evidence of the chemical body burden carried by the U.S. population. The first study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tested thousands of people for 116 chemicals, 34 of them pesticides. The CDC's Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals is a significant expansion from the first study released in 2001, which focused on nine pesticides and 27 chemicals in total. This year's report includes evidence of the U.S. population's chemical body burden of three types of pesticides: organochlorines, organophosphorus compounds and carbamates. CDC scientists also tested for a few widely used weed killers and other pesticides that don't fall into any of these categories. Nineteen of 34 pesticides were detected in the blood or urine of test subjects. CDC highlights two specific pesticide-related findings in their report. First, metabolites of the pesticide chlorpyrifos are nearly twice as high in children (age 6-11) than adults. Most home uses of chlorpyrifos (widely known by the Dow product name Dursban) were recently banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but an estimated 10 million pounds of the pesticide continue to be used each year in agricultural production. The second CDC highlight relates to the organochlorine pesticide DDT, which was banned in the U.S. in 1972. DDT breakdown products (DDE) were found in Mexican Americans at levels more than three times that of non-Hispanic whites. DDT use for malaria control continued in Mexico until its phase out in 2000. In addition, DDE was present in the bodies of youth aged 12-19 born after the U.S. ban, indicating continued exposure from residues in the environment. This is consistent with PANNA's findings of ongoing contamination of the U.S. food supply with DDT residues (see PANUPS, December 4, 2000, http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20001204.dv.html The second study, Body Burden: The Pollution in People, was led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and conducted in collaboration with Environmental Working Group and Commonweal. Researchers found 167 industrial chemicals, pesticides and pollutants in the blood and urine of nine adult subjects. Each subject carried an average of 91 compounds. Seventeen of the chemicals found were breakdown products from organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides. Though the sample size for the Body Burden study was too small to be scientifically significant, the study was unique in that the nine subjects were not anonymous. Individual profiles and personal reactions to the study are included in the report, giving a human face to the chemical body burden data. Other chemicals found in the two studies include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins and furans (industrial by-products) and phthalates (softening agents widely used in cosmetics, toys and other consumer products). Individuals vary widely in their sensitivity to individual chemicals, and it is difficult to predict the specific health effects of long term, low-level exposures like those found in the two studies. The pesticides found in the U.S. population have a wide range of known health effects, including cancer, birth defects, neurological damage, infertility and weakened immune systems. There are insufficient studies on the possible health effects of exposure to multiple chemicals. Recent research shows that surprisingly low levels of exposure to young children or fetuses in the uterus can cause irreversible damage if the exposure occurs when a certain organ or system is in a critical stage of development. The effects of this damage may not become apparent until later in life--a specific example is infertility or other damage to the reproductive system. (See PANUPS, August 2, 2002, http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20020802.dv.html The pesticide body burdens found in the new studies result from a variety of exposures. Pesticide residues in food are a major source of exposure, as are pesticides in drinking water. Farmworkers and people in communities and schools located near farms where pesticides are sprayed may inhale fumes from the applications or come in contact with residues of spray drift that have settled in their yards or homes. And pesticides used in the home can be absorbed through skin contact, inhalation or accidental ingestion. Reducing or eliminating pesticide use in the home and supporting organic agriculture are two concrete ways consumers can respond to the body burden news. Not surprisingly, new evidence shows that children who eat more organic food have fewer chemicals in their bodies. (See PANUPS, January 31, 2003, http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20030131.dv.html. Supporting organic production will send a powerful message to farmers and will lead to falling demand for agricultural pesticides. CDC will be checking levels of these and additional chemicals every two years, and will make the full data set for both the first and second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals available in mid-March. PANNA plans to do further analysis on the pesticide body burden findings at that time. For more information: CDC's Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals: http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/ PANNA's Pesticide Backgrounder and additional body burden resources: http://www.panna.org/campaigns/docsPops/docsPops_030130.dv.html Body Burden: The Pollution in People: http://www.ewg.or LVEJO Youth Corner: "Cillantro" - LVEJO Youth Newsletter- Online NOW Youth & The Military For general information please email us here. Other important topics (Download as Adobe pdf): Environmental Research Foundation / Rachel's News Archive now housed with LVEJO (En Español) Clean Air/Lulac Study Healthy Schools In Latino Communities flyer "Tips on Base Building" from LVEJO Board Member Carlos Fernandez
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Let's Add Some Color to the Greening of America
By Mick Dumke - Sunday, September 16, 2007
Download Original Article as a PDF

For some people, "going green" is more than just a trendy cause, a way to score points on the campaign trail or a means to achieve the abstract goal of preserving nature for future generations.

For neighborhoods such as Chicago's Little Village, it's a matter of survival. Standing on an abandoned railroad bridge over the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Lilian Molina points to a mechanical claw scooping coal from a barge. A conveyor belt drops the coal into a nearby energy plant that will provide power to homes across the city. But it also spews nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury, which eventually turn to toxic smog and soot and taint waterways.
Those who live in this mostly Latino neighborhood also have to worry about the steel-drum reprocessing facility around the corner. It emits glycol ether, which causes eye and skin irritation, anemia and birth defects. Another empty lot is a federal Superfund site, and another has an old oil-storage tank buried in contaminated soil.

Molina works for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, a nonprofit that raises awareness of and lobbies to eradicate environmental health hazards. "What we do isn't the same as environmental conservation -- we don't chain ourselves to trees," she says. "What we're really doing here is telling people, 'Our health is not disposable.' "

These days, the country seems to be experiencing a rebirth of environmental awareness, prompting discussion about climate change and corporate responsibility and passionate debate about the pros and cons of bottled water. But if a new and different "green revolution" is underway in America, it's not liberating everyone.

If you drive a Prius and buy tofu at Whole Foods, going green may be a lifestyle choice. If you live in a poor neighborhood near a toxic factory, going green is a human rights issue. The movement has been slowed by a divide that is visible in everything from local recycling policies to the complexions of environmentalists. On one side are mostly white middle- and upper-class populations with plenty of money and political clout. On the other side are minority and low-income communities with little of either.

The tragedy is that the communities that are left behind often have the most at stake -- and the most to contribute. Because not only is environmentalism a human rights issue, it is also an economic opportunity.

Many of the best-intentioned environmental activists assume that poor and nonwhite communities aren't interested in environmental issues. Poor folk, they seem to reason, don't have the time or energy to worry about pollution and global warming because they're struggling to make ends meet or just aren't educated enough to "get it."

Take recycling, one of the simplest ways that households can conserve natural resources and reduce pollution. It has now caught on in thousands of middle-class communities nationwide; nearly every suburb and midsize city offers curbside recycling. There is an initial outlay for the effort, but in the long run, recycling saves tax money that would have been spent on shipping and landfills.

In contrast, many of the country's most dense and diverse urban areas have been slow to adopt recycling programs. Recycling officials I've spoken with in several rust-belt cities have blamed cultural gaps, saying they just can't stoke environmental interest in working-class, minority neighborhoods. In response, environmental organizations have tried new approaches, such as "buy-back" programs that pay residents and community groups for their recyclable goods, in poor, isolated communities in Chicago and Detroit. But others have given up. They shouldn't. History shows that low-income communities have always been among the nation's most active recyclers. They've had to be. New York's sanitation department reports that low-income areas generate the lowest recycling rates in the city but also produce among the smallest amounts of waste -- partly because residents reuse items more often and do more of their own recycling.

Even now, in my mixed-race, mixed-income neighborhood in Chicago, scavengers prowl the alleys and dig through dumpsters in search of aluminum cans, steel scraps and appliances that they see as repairable and salable. And a series of studies over the past decade in New Jersey, California and Scotland has confirmed what grass-roots groups around the United States already knew: When people understand how an environmental program works, how it benefits them and how they can join in, they recycle -- regardless of their ethnicity or economic status. Stereotyping has also hampered other parts of the environmental movement. People of color make up only about 15 percent of the staffs of government environmental agencies and mainstream environmental organizations, according to a recent study by University of Michigan sociologist Dorceta E. Taylor. "It's this running stereotype Black people aren't interested in the environment," she says. But it's simply not true.

Taylor also found that minorities account for more than three of every four staffers of environmental justice groups such as the Little Village. Often run on a shoestring budget, these organizations focus on the ways that pollution and lax enforcement hit poor and minority communities the hardest. Let's be frank: The people most affected by environmental degradation aren't white or well-off. Fifty-six percent of the 9.2 million people who live within 1.86 miles of the country's most serious hazardous waste sites are people of color, according to a 2007 report for the United Church of Christ. Seven in 10 people living near clusters of toxic waste sites are minorities, the report found. Moreover, doctors believe that environmental factors may be partly to blame for the higher rates of asthma, cardiovascular disease, birth defects and cancer found among people of color and low-income whites, according to
several studies.

United Nations scientists have reported that unless climate change is countered, it is likely to cause ecological emergencies and dire food shortages, particularly among the world's poorest. If that's not alarming on a moral level, it should be on a political one. Social chaos breeds political chaos, and we've seen how rogue leaders can set up dangerous shops in lawless corners of the world. Still, we are far from doomsday. In fact, our environmental challenges may offer the best opportunity since the decline of U.S. manufacturing to create jobs in depressed parts of the country. Recycling offers a great example again. While the practice may have started as environmental activism, it's now a powerful economic force. More than 1 million people are employed by recycling firms, which
generate more than $236 billion in annual revenue, according to a 2001 study by the National Recycling Coalition.
Or, consider the urban areas pockmarked with "brownfields" -- plots of formerly industrial, abandoned land that can't be reused until they have been cleared of pollution. There are close to half a million of them across the country, mostly in poor, minority neighborhoods, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Each brownfield costs an average of $500,000 to $600,000 to clean up, according to the Northeast Midwest Institute. That's a hefty tab for state and federal governments to pick up, but consider the return on this investment: Every acre of brownfield redevelopment saves 4.5 acres of undeveloped land, and every dollar invested generates $4.50 to $10 in economic benefits. These benefits include new business development, tax revenue and jobs, according to a forthcoming report by the institute. Turning brownfields into parks or gardens would also have social and economic benefits. University of Illinois research shows that violence decreases when neighborhoods are greener, probably because trees, flowers and gardens create a greater sense of community and make people feel more relaxed. The benefit of tackling environmental woes is one of the ideas inspiring Michael Howard, a burly former construction contractor who formed a nonprofit development organization with his wife 16 years ago on Chicago's South Side. At the center of their work is Eden Place, an environmental-education center that Howard built on what had been a vacant lot used for illegal dumping.

Nestled between an elevated freight-train track and blocks of working-class homes, boarded-up buildings and empty lots blanketed in old lead-paint dust, Eden Place stands out almost shockingly, 3.5 vibrant acres of color and natural life. It boasts a large vegetable garden, flower beds planted by neighborhood youth and seniors, a wooded area, a swath of prairie grass, a bustling chicken coop and a composting center. Howard likes to take troublemakers from the nearby grade school and have them work in the garden until they're exhausted. He has taught unemployed men and women how to plot and plant throughout the neighborhood. "Most of our ancestors were part of the great migration of African Americans from the South," Howard says. "When we left, we left the land. One of my dreams is to reconnect people to the land. If you're growing on that land, you're not going to abuse it."

Mick Dumke is a Chicago-based journalist who writes about the environment.
mickdumke@gmail.com

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Environmental risks greater for Latinos
National study points to lead poisoning, pollution in Arizona
Mary Jo Pitzl - The Arizona Republic - Oct. 20, 2004 12:00 AM

Latinos in Arizona are at greater risk from environmental threats than the general population, a national study being released today concludes.

The increased risk is due to a combination of where Latinos live, where they work and how they get, or don't get, information. Latinos make up about 25 percent of Arizona's population.

The report by the Natural Resources Defense Council reaches similar conclusions for Hispanics nationwide, noting that many environmental threats are most prevalent in urban centers and agricultural areas, where many Hispanics live. advertisement

The report cites several Arizona specifics while painting a broader national picture of environmental perils. They include:
• Latino children in Arizona constituted 77 percent of the children diagnosed with lead poisoning in 2002.
• The Arizona-Mexico border, where air pollution from Mexican truck traffic and pesticide use from agriculture increase farmworkers' risk of respiratory problems, such as asthma. The report says nearly 90 percent of the nation's farmworkers are Latino.
• South Phoenix, where exhaust from vehicle traffic contributes to the state's highest asthma rates, centered in the 85040 ZIP code. The area population is 60 percent Hispanic, so that population takes a bigger hit from the effects of traffic exhaust from Interstate 17 and Interstate 10, as well as area road traffic.

South Phoenix also is home to the greatest concentration of businesses that emit toxic pollutants, according to an ongoing study by state environmental officials.

In fact, a citizens advisory council recently issued a set of recommendations to reduce pollution in the area, such as asking certain businesses for voluntary pollution reductions and increasing public awareness.

But those recommendations didn't include any move to publicize the environmental information in Spanish, a key conclusion of the nationwide study being issued today.

"It didn't come up, and that's a lack on our part," said Greta Rogers, chairman of the advisory council that is working on the South Phoenix Toxics Reduction Project. "I will try and address that."

In the report, "Hidden Dangers, Environmental Health Threats in the Latino Community," the authors note that most environmental information from different government offices is in English only and gets limited distribution. They suggest that the government, along with public-interest groups, could fill the gap with their own campaigns.

But it's important to properly target the message, not simply to put it in Spanish, said Will Humble, bureau chief for epidemiology and disease control at the Arizona Department of Health Services.

The agency launched a lead-awareness program three years ago to convince a mostly Latino population of the danger of cooking with Mexican pots, many of them covered in lead-based paint.

The ad campaign sported billboards and brochures in Spanish, as well as public-service announcements on Spanish-language radio stations. But the key was targeting those ads to the grandmothers in Hispanic households, Humble said.

"If you're going to throw out lead pottery, you've got to make sure she knows it's a problem," Humble said of the grandmother. After all, she's the one cooking with the pottery and making many of the household's dining decisions, he said.

Humble noted that the state health agency used to send a Spanish speaker into the farm fields of Yuma County to talk to workers about how to minimize their exposure to pesticides, such as washing their hands and clothes and waiting a certain number of hours between exposures.

But the health staffer had little success. Workers ignored much of the advice, in part because their employers needed them to get back to work, Humble said.

The national report makes dozens of recommendations to improve Latinos' environmental health, most of which call for greater government funding and research.

The lack of Latino-specific research makes it hard to draw meaningful conclusions on environmental problems, the report states.

"We have an information gap," said Elliott Negin, a researcher with the New York-based environmental group. "The data is a little spotty."

That means it can be difficult to tease out direct impacts on Hispanics from the environmental problems documented in the 80-page report: air and water pollution, pesticides, and exposure to mercury and lead.

State Rep. Linda Lopez, D-Tucson, a member of the House Health Committee, said she can't recall any state efforts to address specific Latino environmental-health issues in her four years at the statehouse.

But, she said, neighborhood groups also play a pivotal role, citing strides she has seen in Tucson when local groups banded together to get concessions from an industrial plant that was next to a school.

"I do think minority community and poor communities are getting more organized," Lopez said.

Montreal, 17 April 2003 - Class of 15,000 industrial facilities report 32% more pollution

Your local manufacturing, power or disposal facility is likely releasing more toxic chemicals into the environment, says the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).

The trinational organization released its annual Taking Stock report today, which revealed that a group of 15,000 industrial facilities across North America released and transferred 32 percent more toxic chemicals from 1998 to 2000. These facilities, with chemical releases and transfers up to 100 tonnes, represent the majority of polluters in Canada and the United States.

"It's very discouraging to see such a large number of facilities report releasing more pollution in our environment, since they are found in communities across the continent," said Victor Shantora, Acting Executive Director for the CEC. "The small 'p' polluter might not grab the same headlines as a large power plant or chemical manufacturer, but their effect is being felt throughout the North American environment."

In Canada, these "small p" polluters registered a 66 percent increase in chemical releases and transfers. In the United States, the same group recorded an increase of 29 percent.

By comparison, 3,600 facilities reporting more than 100 tonnes of chemical releases and transfers, recorded a seven percent reduction in pollutants. However, they still account for 90 percent of the total pollution, with hydrochloric acid credited for the largest amount of releases.

All told, the report found more than 3.3 million tonnes of chemicals released and transferred in 2000, including known carcinogens and substances linked to birth defects. Six jurisdictions (Texas, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana) accounted for 37 percent of the total releases that year, with reports in excess of 165,000 tonnes of chemical releases and transfers each. The top 15 facilities reported 255,600 tonnes of releases and transfers, or 8 percent of the total.

And while the cross-border movement of pollutants is limited, Canada became a net exporter of toxic chemicals by virtue of a 43 percent drop in US exports to Canada from 1998 to 2000. Canadian facilities sent roughly 36,000 tonnes of chemicals to the US in 2000, equal to the amount of transfers from the US to Mexico. The amount of exports from Mexico to the US is not known.

Overall, North America has reduced industrial releases and transfers of chemicals by 5 percent in the six years from 1995 to 2000. Decreases were most dramatic in the US where on-site air releases dropped 31 percent over six years. Off-site releases increased by 41 percent.

This is the seventh report in the Taking Stock series, which matched 206 chemicals from the national pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTR) from Canada and the United States to present common 2000 data, as well as three and six-year overviews. Mexico did not require mandatory reporting in 2000, but the country is currently developing a mandatory and publicly accessible PRTR.

Do you have a question about a particular facility, industrial sector, province or state? The Taking Stock Online web site http://www.takingstockquery.org/index.php?varlan=english allows users to customize reports by chemical, facility, sector or geographic region.

For more information, please visit www.cec.org/takingstock
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
393, rue Saint-Jacques Ouest, Bureau 200
Montreal (Quebec) Canadá H2Y 1N9
Tel: (514) 350-4300; Fax: (514) 350-4314
E-mail: info@ccemtl.org
Web site: http://www.cec.org

Pesticides, Chemicals can cause SARS, Asia-Pacific Experts Say - Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003

Citing a World Health Organization report in 2001, a University of the Philippines pharmacology professor says that in Third World countries alone 25 million farm workers are poisoned everyday due to constant exposure to harmful pesticides and chemicals that destroy not only the present but the future generations as well. Their lives are further harmed by ill-effects that could lead to SARS and other new forms of diseases, he says. By Karl G. Ombion and Edgar A. Cadagat Bulatlat.com/Cobra-Ans

The use of pesticides and chemicals in farming and livestock industry could be behind the rise of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and other new diseases, a resource person at the Pesticide Action Network (PAN)-Asia and the Pacific Congress said over the weekend.

Some 150 delegates from 17 countries attended the international gathering held at the Rembrandt Hotel, in Quezon City last week.

Dr. Romeo Quijano, a toxicologist and health and human rights activist, said prolonged use of chemicals and their ingestion by humans could weaken or even destroy the immune system.

SARS has been recorded in several countries, including China, Vietnan and Hong Kong, with many of those afflicted already confined in hospitals. A whole building and its tenants were also quarantined in Hong Kong.

Reports also said the virus-causing SARS could have been resistant to antibiotics with a strain already strong enough to overcome the virus-killing medicine.

In a press conference, delegates to the PAN-Asia Pacific Congress delegates noted that antibiotics resistant strain of the virus had also swept China and Hong Kong the past months. Tens of thousands of chickens were and burned to kill the virus, they said.

But the disease's onslaught upon the human body has also been exacerbated by the widespread ingestion of toxic substances coming from food we eat that had been fertilized with chemicals, they said.

"The toxic substance whose residue remain in the body, could also damage or destroy the brain in the long run," said Quijano, who is also an associate professor at the Department of Pharmacology of the College of Medicine in UP-Manila.

The widespread use of pesticides and chemicals in agriculture in the world today is causing a new variety of illnesses in humans as well as problems in environment.

Citing a World Health Organization report in 2001, Quijano said that in Third World countries alone 25 million people are being poisoned everyday due to constant exposure to harmful pesticides and chemicals that destroy not only the present but the future generations as well. And the rate of human exposure is increasing everyday, he said.

"Nobody is free now from pesticides and chemicals," the UP professor said. "Many of us may not feel it now, but its effects are long term. It steadily destroys our immune system, our genes and our minds."

Experts on pesticides and leaders of farmers' organization in the Asia-Pacific region who presided over the press conference discussed the effects of pesticides on millions of people worldwide.

Among them were Executive Director Sarojeni Rengam of PAN-AP of India; Dr. Irene Fernandez, founder and director of Tanaganita, a women's workers organization in Malaysia; P. Chennaiah, an official of a federation of farm workers' union in India; and Rafael Mariano, chair of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas. Bulatlat.com http://www.bulatlat.com/news/3-10/3-10-sars.html

US EPA proposes cancer guidelines for children
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USA: March 5, 2003
WASHINGTON - Infants and toddlers have 10 times the risk of cancer from hazardous chemicals than adults do, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
said this week in its first guidelines that define the greater risks that children face.

The draft guidelines, published on the Internet for public comment at http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid=55445, greatly strengthen the EPA's requirements for considering a potential carcinogen's effects. Environmental groups welcomed the draft guidelines while saying they could be tougher.

"The government's message is simple: children are at greater risk from exposure to carcinogens than adults," said Jane Houlihan, vice president of research at the non-profit Environmental Working Group. The EPA has always acknowledged that children with their rapidly growing bodies, have a greater risk of cancer caused by chemicals, said Kris Thayer, senior scientist at the EWG, a non-profit research organization.

"They found (the risk) was up to 65 times more potent in childhood. It's first time they have given numbers for increased susceptibility." The agency said the draft document updates 1986 guidelines. "EPA has been working to revise the 1986 guidelines in light of significant advances in scientific understanding of how cancer may be caused," it said in a statement.

"These guidelines discuss hazards to children that may result from exposures during preconception and prenatal or postnatal development to sexual maturity," the report reads. For instance, it is clear that exposure to radiation is much more likely to cause cancer in the very young, the EPA said.

Chemicals also can affect babies more. They include vinyl chloride - a gas used in making PVC or polyvinyl chloride - diethylnitrosamine - found in tobacco smoke - and the insecticide DDT. Thayer said the EPA could have been tougher, and her group is preparing a response. "This document doesn't go far enough," she said. The EWG and the Natural Resources Defense Council both said the EPA document only covers mutagens - chemicals or radiation that cause cancer by damaging DNA.

But hormones and hormone-mimicking chemicals can also cause cancer not by damaging DNA but by altering how cells work. "Some carcinogens act on proteins in the cell, which then act to disrupt cell cycle regulation. These are called epigenetic carcinogens, because they don't contact the DNA directly," said the NRDC's Jennifer Sass. "Examples are asbestos, steroidal estrogens, tamoxifen, saccharin, DES, dioxin. All the 'abnormal' cells that divide will pass on their abnormality to the daughter cells. The result is a tumor."

FDS Shows Pollution Risks to Children

WASHINGTON (AP) - Children are getting asthma at more than double the rate two decades ago, and one of every dozen women of childbearing age has blood mercury levels that could hinder brain development in a fetus, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.

EPA's report, only its second exhaustive roundup on environmental hazards to children's health, shows success in areas where the government has taken aggressive action, such as reductions in levels of children's blood lead poisoning and children's exposure to secondhand smoke.

EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said the agency has done a lot to ``improve the environment for children where they live, learn and play.''

Between 1980 and 1995, the report says, the percentage of children with asthma doubled, from 3.6 percent in 1980 to 7.5 percent in 1995. The percentage dropped in 1996 to about 6 percent, but by 2001 it had risen again, this time to 8.7 percent: 6.3 million children.

Researchers don't know precisely why childhood asthma is increasing, but a number of factors in air quality, both outdoors and indoors, have been studied. Those varied factors include exposure to dust mites, cockroaches, pesticides, tobacco smoke, ozone and soot.

The EPA says its officials are intent on examining the role of indoor air pollutants especially, since they note modest improvements in the numbers of children exposed to several outdoor air pollutants since 1990.

About 5 million women - 8 percent of those at the childbearing ages of 16 to 49 - had at least 5.8 parts per billion of mercury in their blood as of 2000, the report says. EPA officials said this is the first time this kind of data has been measured.

EPA has found that children born to women with blood concentrations of mercury above 5.8 parts per billion are at some risk of adverse health effects, including reduced developmental IQ and problems with motor skills such as eye-hand coordination.

Mercury, a naturally occurring metal, is a persistent pollutant that accumulates in fish and becomes more concentrated as it moves up the food chain. The three major sources for mercury emissions have been power plants and municipal waste and medical waste incinerators.

EPA has been regulating since the late 1990s mercury dumped in water and air from municipal waste and medical waste incinerators and considers it another success to have reduced levels emitted from each of those sources by 90 percent, EPA spokesman Joe Martyak said.

The agency is writing regulations for mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants that are due to be completed in the next two years and are scheduled to take effect by 2007.

The number of children with elevated levels of lead in their blood was 4.7 million in 1978 but had plunged to about 300,000 in 2000, the report says. EPA attributes most of that success to the phaseout of lead in gasoline between 1973 and 1995 and the reduction in the number of homes with lead-based paint from 64 million in 1990 to 38 million in 2000.

The number of children whose blood levels showed effects from secondhand smoke declined by about one-fifth to one-half between 1988 and 2000, depending on levels of exposure. Those figures are obtained by tracking the amount of cotinine, a breakdown product of nicotine in blood.

New Reports Find Pesticides in People - February 14, 2003

Dozens of pesticides and other chemicals are in the blood and urine of people in the United States, according to two reports released in late January. Together, the two studies offer startling new evidence of the chemical body burden carried by the U.S. population.

The first study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tested thousands of people for 116 chemicals, 34 of them pesticides. The CDC's Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals is a significant expansion from the first study released in 2001, which focused on nine pesticides and 27 chemicals in total. This year's report includes evidence of the U.S. population's chemical body burden of three types of pesticides: organochlorines, organophosphorus compounds and carbamates. CDC scientists also tested for a few widely used weed killers and other pesticides that don't fall into any of these categories. Nineteen of 34 pesticides were detected in the blood or urine of test subjects.

CDC highlights two specific pesticide-related findings in their report. First, metabolites of the pesticide chlorpyrifos are nearly twice as high in children (age 6-11) than adults. Most home uses of chlorpyrifos (widely known by the Dow product name Dursban) were recently banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but an estimated 10 million pounds of the pesticide continue to be used each year in agricultural production.

The second CDC highlight relates to the organochlorine pesticide DDT, which was banned in the U.S. in 1972. DDT breakdown products (DDE) were found in Mexican Americans at levels more than three times that of non-Hispanic whites. DDT use for malaria control continued in Mexico until its phase out in 2000. In addition, DDE was present in the bodies of youth aged 12-19 born after the U.S. ban, indicating continued exposure from residues in the environment. This is consistent with PANNA's findings of ongoing contamination of the U.S. food supply with DDT residues (see PANUPS, December 4, 2000, http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20001204.dv.html

The second study, Body Burden: The Pollution in People, was led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and conducted in collaboration with Environmental Working Group and Commonweal. Researchers found 167 industrial chemicals, pesticides and pollutants in the blood and urine of nine adult subjects. Each subject carried an average of 91 compounds. Seventeen of the chemicals found were breakdown products from organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides.

Though the sample size for the Body Burden study was too small to be scientifically significant, the study was unique in that the nine subjects were not anonymous. Individual profiles and personal reactions to the study are included in the report, giving a human face to the chemical body burden data.

Other chemicals found in the two studies include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins and furans (industrial by-products) and phthalates (softening agents widely used in cosmetics, toys and other consumer products).

Individuals vary widely in their sensitivity to individual chemicals, and it is difficult to predict the specific health effects of long term, low-level exposures like those found in the two studies. The pesticides found in the U.S. population have a wide range of known health effects, including cancer, birth defects, neurological damage, infertility and weakened immune systems. There are insufficient studies on the possible health effects of exposure to multiple chemicals.

Recent research shows that surprisingly low levels of exposure to young children or fetuses in the uterus can cause irreversible damage if the exposure occurs when a certain organ or system is in a critical stage of development. The effects of this damage may not become apparent until later in life--a specific example is infertility or other damage to the reproductive system. (See PANUPS, August 2, 2002, http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20020802.dv.html

The pesticide body burdens found in the new studies result from a variety of exposures. Pesticide residues in food are a major source of exposure, as are pesticides in drinking water. Farmworkers and people in communities and schools located near farms where pesticides are sprayed may inhale fumes from the applications or come in contact with residues of spray drift that have settled in their yards or homes. And pesticides used in the home can be absorbed through skin contact, inhalation or accidental ingestion.

Reducing or eliminating pesticide use in the home and supporting organic agriculture are two concrete ways consumers can respond to the body burden news. Not surprisingly, new evidence shows that children who eat more organic food have fewer chemicals in their bodies. (See PANUPS, January 31, 2003, http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20030131.dv.html. Supporting organic production will send a powerful message to farmers and will lead to falling demand for agricultural pesticides.

CDC will be checking levels of these and additional chemicals every two years, and will make the full data set for both the first and second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals available in mid-March. PANNA plans to do further analysis on the pesticide body burden findings at that time.