New research on common food additives, including the controversial sweetener aspartame and food colourings, suggests they may interact to interfere with the development of the nervous system.Researchers at the University of Liverpool examined the toxic effects on nerve cells in the laboratory of using a combination of four common food additives - aspartame, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and the artificial colourings brilliant blue and quinoline yellow. The findings of their two-year study were published last week in the journal Toxicological Sciences.The Liverpool team reported that when mouse nerve cells were exposed to MSG and brilliant blue or aspartame and quinoline yellow in laboratory conditions, combined in concentrations that theoretically reflect the compound that enters the bloodstream after a typical children's snack and drink, the additives stopped the nerve cells growing and interfered with proper signalling systems.The mixtures of the additives had a much more potent effect on nerve cells than each additive on its own.The Guardian, December 21, 2005
Orange peel gives zest to Christmas - spicing up festive fare from mince pies to mulled wine, brandy butter to the pudding itself. But official monitoring, published last week, shows that our seasonal sustenance also contains a hidden peril. Checks by the Government Pesticides Residues Committee have found that every single orange examined was contaminated by pesticides.Many of the chemicals found are suspected of causing cancer and "gender-bender effects", about half are banned for use in Britain, and more than a third were found at levels above European or British danger limits.Two of the pesticides - Carbofuran and Methidathion, banned in Britain - are classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as "highly hazardous". The Independent, 18 December 2005
Findings indicate that exposure of the developing male sheep fetus to real-world mixtures of environmental chemicals can result in major attenuation of testicular development and hormonal function, which may have consequences in adulthood. Environmental Health PerspectivesVolume 113, Number 11, November 2005
Since 1993, when breast cancer awareness month came to the UK from the US, the information given to women by successive UK governments and the cancer establishment has not really changed. With depressing regularity women are exhorted to reduce their risk of breast cancer by changing their "lifestyle" - by exercising, dieting, giving up alcohol - by regularly checking their breasts, and/or getting screened. And yet all these "risks" cannot fully account for almost 70% of the breast cancer cases in this country.As Emma Taggart of Breakthrough Breast Cancer points out (Letters, October 3), breast cancer is a "complex interplay of lifestyle, environment, genetic, and hormonal factors" such that continuously placing the onus of avoidance on women alone is far too simplistic. According to Cancer Research UK's own statistics, the breast cancer incidence in this country has increased from one in 12 women in 1996 to one in nine in 2001. It is, therefore, the contention of the UK Working Group for the Primary Prevention of Breast Cancer that the cancer establishment and government's focus on lifestyle and genetic factors has done little to reduce the overall toll of this disease. It is time to open up the discussion about what constitutes a "risk" to encompass the well-documented problems caused by the use and release into our environment of carcinogenic substances and oestrogen-mimicking toxins which are invariably dismissed by the "cancer community" and government as being too "complicated" to address. The Guardian October 10, 2005
The University of Massachusetts Lowell today released a report that links dozens of environmental and occupational exposures to nearly 30 types of cancer.The new study by the University’s Lowell Center for Sustainable Production reviewed scientific evidence documenting associations between environmental and occupational exposures and certain cancers in the United States – marking the first time this massive body of material has been summarized in one, accessible document. “We need to pay attention to environmental and occupational risk factors,” said Molly Jacobs, project manager. “Known and preventable exposures are clearly responsible for tens of thousands of excess cancer cases each year. It is unconscionable not to implement policy changes that we know will prevent sickness and death.” “Environmental and Occupational Causes of Cancer: A Review of Recent Scientific Evidence” shows that many cancer cases and deaths are caused or contributed to by involuntary exposures. These include: bladder cancer from the primary solvent used in dry cleaning, breast cancer from endocrine disruptors like bisphenol-A and other plastics components, lung cancer from residential exposure to radon, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma from solvent and herbicide exposure, and childhood leukemia from pesticides. The report disputes the often-cited, 25 year-old analysis by Sir Richard Doll and Richard Peto that attributes only 2 to 4 percent of cancers to involuntary environmental and occupational exposures. “Our review makes it clear that new knowledge about multiple causes of cancer, including involuntary exposures, early-life exposures, synergistic effects, and genetic factors, renders making such estimates not just pointless, but counterproductive.”The nearly 50-page report was produced as part of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production’s Environmental Health Initiative and sponsored by the Collaborative on Health and the Environment. It is available at www.sustainableproduction.org and www.cheforhealth.org. September 19, 2005
Babies in the womb are being exposed to a shocking cocktail of chemicals that can cause cancer in later life and have gender-bending qualities, research has revealed. Tests on blood taken from the umbilical cords of nearly 30 new born babies and from more than 40 new mothers were analysed for chemicals ranging from artificial musks used in cosmetics and cleaning products to flame retardants and chemicals used to make plastics and coatings. Most of the chemicals are found in everyday products such as cleaning fluids and sprays, tin can linings, perfumes and cosmetics and even baby bottles. Others include banned pesticides such as DDT that have lingered in the environment for decades. Every single sample of mother or baby blood tested positive for an array of chemicals, many of which are suspected of being linked to health problems ranging from birth defects and genital abnormalities to certain types of cancer.
The report, A Present for Life: hazardous chemicals in cord blood, from WWF-UK and Greenpeace, says babies are being exposed to these chemicals at the most vulnerable point in their development. It also calls for urgent action to be taken to control the production and sale of those chemicals that may damage the health of babies and adults alike. Daily Mail, 8 September 2005
Contact: Patti McCafferty, 978-934-3238, patricia_mccafferty@uml.edu
Gender-bending chemicals are to be exempted from tough new Europe-wide safety controls despite concern that they are causing bizarre sex changes in children and wildlife, leaked documents reveal. Confidential proposals, seen by The Independent on Sunday, show that the chemicals will be treated less strictly than other dangerous substances in a new European Commission directive to be finalised. The proposals, drawn up by the British Government, will create a storm of protest, not least because they fly in the face of a formal warning given by more than 125 of the leading scientists in the field just three months ago. The scientists, who had carried out research on the chemicals, said they were “concerned about the level of male reproductive disorders” in Europe. Sperm levels have been dropping across the industrialised world, and the chemicals are widely thought to be responsible. Research published in May showed that mothers exposed to phthalates had boys with smaller penises. The Independent on Sunday, 28 th August 2005
Like the glint of a knife in the dark, a laboratory accident in 1998 helped scientists realize that some chemicals commonly used to make life more convenient can be health hazards. Since what they still call "the disaster" in geneticist Pat Hunt's lab, more scientists have come to suspect that, even in tiny amounts, some of the chemicals that keep our food fresh, our hair stylish, our floors shiny and our fabrics stain-free might be confusing our hormone systems and derailing fetal development. Hunt says she's not the only researcher who has come to study these chemicals — called endocrine disruptors — because she got "smacked in the face" by an unexpected result. "Almost everybody in this field was drafted into this, but we feel we can't leave this area, because if this stuff is dangerous, then we need to know a whole lot more about it." USA TODAY August 8 th 2005
A SHARP rise in the number of men requesting breast- reduction operations is being blamed by surgeons on the effects of excess female hormones in tap water and food.Clinics are reporting a doubling in the number of operations being carried out over just one year. According to surgeons, the male breasts examined are similar in structure to those of women and are not simply fat deposits caused by overeating. They believe the condition, called gynecomastia, is caused by traces of the female contraceptive pill in tap water and hormones used to promote the growth of farm animals. The Sunday Times July 31, 2005
Doctors once thought that the placenta would shield a fetus from harmful chemicals and pollutants. But new research shows that may not be the case. A study published this month by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an advocacy group based in Washington DC, found traces of 287 chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of 10 infants. They included mercury, pesticides and the chemicals used in stain-resistant coating and fire-retardant foam. The findings prompted concerns since children’s smaller brains, developing organs and more porous brains put them more at risk from such toxins than adults. "A child's brain is very vulnerable and developing very rapidly in utero and during the first two years of life," says Jane Houlihan, co-author of the study. Newsweek July 26, 2005
In the largest study of chemical exposure ever conducted on human beings, the U.S. Centre for Disease Control reported that most American children and adults were carrying in their bodies dozens of pesticides and toxic compounds used in consumer products, many of them linked to potential health threats. Bigger doses were found in children for many chemicals. Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2005
The European Food Safety Authority is reviewing "as a matter of high priority" the results of a large new study into aspartame, the artificial sweetener consumed by millions of people worldwide and used in more than 6,000 food and drink products. Researchers at the Ramazzini Institute for cancer research in Italy say their study shows that aspartame causes lymphomas and leukaemia in female laboratory animals "at doses very close to the acceptable daily intake for humans". The authors of the study also say that while rats fed aspartame ate less food, there was no difference in body weight between treated and untreated animals. Friday July 15, 2005 The Guardian
Federal investigators and Harvard University officials are probing whether a Harvard professor buried research suggesting a link between fluoridated tap water and bone cancer in adolescent boys.The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), which funded Chester Douglass's $1.3 million study, and the university are investigating why the Harvard School of Dental Medicine epidemiologist told federal officials he found no significant correlation between fluoridated water and osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. Douglass, who serves as editor in chief for the industry-funded Colgate Oral Care Report, supervised research for a 2001 doctoral thesis that concluded boys exposed to fluoridated water at a young age were more likely to get the cancer. Washington Post July 13, 2005
Scientists will call on European leaders today to take urgent action to speed up regulation of the thousands of gender-bending chemicals in use across the continent. The harmful effects of these chemicals - called endocrine disrupters - have been a growing concern in recent years but today's move will be the first time the scientific community has raised its concerns with politicians and the public at large. The Prague Declaration, named after a meeting of more than 100 toxicologists and chemists in Czech Republic last month, and due to be launched today in Brussels, will state that legislation on the safe use of chemicals does not go far enough and lack of scientific evidence of the harmful effects of these chemicals must not delay political action. Last month, scientists in America confirmed this fear with evidence that a class of chemicals known as phthalates - used to make plastics more pliable - may harm the development of unborn baby boys. Researchers had known for some time that high levels of these chemicals were harmful, but the latest study suggests that even normal levels - those commonly found in toys, plastic bags and clingfilm - could disrupt the development of male reproductive organs. June 20, 2005, The Guardian
A disease you are suffering today could be a result of your great-grandmother being exposed to an environmental toxin during pregnancy. Researchers at Washington State University reached that remarkable conclusion after finding that environmental toxins can alter the activity of an animal's genes in a way that is transmitted through at least four generations after the exposure. Their discovery suggests that toxins may play a role in heritable diseases that were previously thought to be caused solely by genetic mutations. It also hints at a role for environmental impacts during evolution. "It's a new way to think about disease," said Michael K. Skinner, director of the Center for Reproductive Biology. "We believe this phenomenon will be widespread and be a major factor in understanding how disease develops." The work is reported in the June 3 issue of Science Magazine. Skinner and a team of WSU researchers exposed pregnant rats to environmental toxins during the period that the sex of their offspring was being determined. The compounds – vinclozolin, a fungicide commonly used in vineyards, and methoxychlor, a pesticide that replaced DDT – are known as endocrine disruptors, synthetic chemicals that interfere with the normal functioning of reproductive hormones. Skinner's group used higher levels of the toxins than are normally present in the environment, but their study raises concerns about the long-term impacts of such toxins on human and animal health. June 2005
Potentially dangerous industrial chemicals were found in celebrities' blood tested for a health campaign. Comedian David Baddiel and chef Anthony Worrall Thompson were among seven celebrities tested for 104 chemicals. The tests were for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Co-Operative Bank which are calling for stronger regulation of the chemicals industry. Sarah Beeny of Channel 4's Property Ladder, was found to have the highest level, with 30 chemicals in her blood. Justin Woolford, of WWF's Chemicals and Health Campaign, said the tests showed all the celebrities were "contaminated with toxic chemicals". "It highlights the shocking fact that it is impossible for any of us to avoid these nasty substances," he said. BBC News May 16, 2005
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