frog
killing fungus, more,
more,
A Survey of
Bisphenol A in U.S. Canned Foods
dengue
mosquito
Ch 8:
Environmental
Health(IUN) & Toxicology(e.g.
IUPUFW) &
e.g. Environmental
Health News
Case Study: 5e: Defeating the
Firey Serpent (not an emergent disease!), smallpox,
anthrax
4e:The Next Pandemic? bird
flu? & fig 1
risks, maps,
BBC,
H1N1
3e Cough
Heard
Round the
World: 2003
SARS spread to 31 countries, bird
flu 2005?
8.1 Environmental
Health: =
the organisms
& chemicals (toxicology)
that harm you
(But
environmental health of all life
matters, thus ch. includes Ecotoxicology = course +
biologicals?
Indicator
Species show environmental
problems (not in ch!) mention
in ch 3 & 5, so HK option
Next two chapters,
air & water, also include environmental health issues
Epidemiology
& toxicology provide information about the harmful chemicals &
biologicals
NFL
players/Alzheimers, boxing/detached
retina etc, typing/wrist
injury, smoking/???example
But it
is
harder to show cause & effect when environments have multiple
pollutants & people move around
Unexplained cancer hotspots: source,
wiki has
info
Chemicals: how much risk is
acceptable? children are more
vulnerable (HK), speak
of the devil)
Blacksmith Institute -
solving pollution problems in the developing world
Many issues are political:
industrial/public &
e.g. cervical
cancer vaccine
Disability-adjusted life
years: the disease
burden due to premature deaths & loss of healthy life by illness
& disability.
Global disease burden is
changing: Table 1, CDC 2006, Wiki
- 2002!
Emergent & infectious
diseases still kill millions
The world is now undergoing a dramatic epidemiological
transition.
The traditional killers - infectious diseases, maternal & perinatal
complications, & nutritional deficiencies -
still take a terrible toll in the developing world, but health problems
such as heart attack, depression,
and traffic accidents, once thought to occur only in rich countries,
are now becoming the
leading killers
everywhere as people live longer and adopt Western lifestyles and diets.
Emergent
diseases: infections caused by "new" pathogens e.g. West Nile, AIDS
or H1N1 viruses >
more frequent.
What human
factors
contribute to this? more examples of invasive
species! tracking emergent diseases
AIDS
is currently the most deadly, infecting ~65
million, & kills ~3 million every year
anthrax
letters, Hanta
Virus 1993..Cryptosporidium
1993..
Conservation
medicine combines ecology
& health care
Resistance to antibiotics:
superbug: MRSA & pesticides
is increasing (news
today):
In USA half of the
100,000,000/year
antibiotic prescriptions are mistakes
Who should pay
for health care: universal
health care countries: USA is 3rd world, Canada's: national health
Universal health care: no insurance: just patients & health
workers: insurance layer is gone
ON
YOUR OWN: What can you
do?: Tips for
staying healthy like
Purdue
wellness program
Environmental
Health = CDC & EPA, click
health disorders & environment,
CDC & EPA are whitehouse
appointees: may be unhealthy, open secrets, HHS includes CDC..WHO...World
Data...Topics..
Ecological
diseases: animals
and other organisms suffer too - elk wasting disease, fig 6,
invasive
species outbreaks, coral die-off,
CWD (chronic wasting disease), a rapidly spreading
brain
disease in
deer, is an emergent ecological disease.
Some other examples are sudden oak death syndrome in California,
black-band disease in the Caribbean,
and domoic acid poisoning, which
is killing marine mammals in the Pacific.
Ecological & emergent diseases are partly due humans entering
&/or damaging new environments
8.2 Toxicology
Toxic materials
kill cells, are
serious health threats.
Hazardous
=
dangerous, but may
not be to health. Toxins are poisons.
They can be very specific because they interact with and disrupt the
metabolic machinery that keeps cells alive.
Some materials are so supertoxic that a single molecule can cause cell
death.
acute
(= brief/high) & chronic (=
prolonged/low) exposures &
responses
Table 2, Top 20 Toxics: As,
Pb, Hg, VC, PCB, C6H6, Cd, BP, PAH,
BFA,
more,
CHCl3, DDT, Aroclor,
TCE, DBA,
ClHC, Cr, CD, HEX
Several are chlorinated
hydrocarbons = persistent,
IDEM
wants more Hg your
environment, etc
Hg:
Indiana
coal power stations: see occurrence & fish
How do toxins affect us? fig
8 has sources of chemicals,
Allergens:
antigens >
immune response), sick
building: skin
rash: mold? animal waste? Asthma
Test.
Neurotoxins: SCROLL topics in right box
Mutagens
alter DNA,
Teratogens
or this = cause
birth
defects, fetal
alcohol syndrome
Endocrine
hormone disrupters
are of special concern, ~fig 10, <
persistent
Carcinogens: incl. some chronic
effects of persistent organic pollutants.
ACS sais 1/2 of males
and 1/3 females will get cancer: fig.
removed: Rise in Lung Cancer mostly women.
USA: Data by
State & County..NW IN is at risk of a higher incidences
of diseases caused by chemicals in the environment:
Hammond
Cancer
Cluster ?, USA clusters: be careful what you click,
Cancer
Prevention Org,
Cancer
Resource, If you get
cancer, why
did it happen?
Rey B, MTBE in
Groundwater, Newton co. MTBE
is
carcinogen, EPA:
MTBE
Portage man sues NIPSCO, USS. asbestos exposure
Some persistent organic pollutants, POPs: e.g. PBDE,
PFOS, PFOA,
BPA, & Atrazine are now found throughout the world. Every
human has
them. Health effects not yet known, but there are
concerns about chronic exposures.
Lab
Tests Find 60 Toxic Chemicals in Canadians' Blood
8.3 Movement,
Distribution, & Fate of Toxins
Solubility & mobility
determine when & where chemicals move: Table
3: Factors
in
Environmental Toxicity
It depends
on
their physical characteristics & the processes that transport,
alter,
destroy, or immobilize them.
Water soluble
chemicals move rapidly & widely, including into and out of the
body.
Lipid
soluble must be transported on carrier.
Exposure
& susceptibility determine how we respond:
Fig. 11: Movement, Fig. 12:
Exposure.
Bioaccumulation &
biomagnification increase chemical concentrations &
Persistence
makes some chemicals/materials a
greater threat
Bioaccumulation,
is what one organism does with some chemicals.
Filter feeders
may biaccumulate chemicals by absorption from water/food
passing through the filter.
Cattails
biaccumulate heavy metals and may clean wetlands. R.Scribailo
once
raised them to sell!
Biomagnification
= in food chain, fig 13, images, happens if
molecule is not metabolized but stored (usually lipid soluble).
Cause of Silent Spring. True of organic mercury
Persistence: “dirty dozen” POPs
are
banned, but
new ones like PBDE/here,
CCA, & PFOs are widely distributed.
8.4 Mechanisms
for Minimizing Toxic Effects
Metabolic degradation &
excretion eliminate toxins
primarily liver
& kidneys
chemical interactions can
increase toxicity: C2H5OH > this, in, this,
but organic
mercury formed by organisms is far more dangerous than Hg
Repair
mechanisms mend
damage
DNA repair, nerve
& muscle are not replaced but other tissues are,
Diet, also, is an important health factor.
Toxic chemical exposure: timing, dose, and route of
exposure.
Characteristics and condition of the target organism also are very
influential in determining effects of toxins.
Just because something can be detected doesn't mean that it's present
in a dangerous form or concentration.
8.5 Measuring
Toxicity
Paracelsus
said "The dose makes the poison" what did he mean? answer, another, another
We usually test toxins on
lab animals: understandable
that public revolt against this < & data
There is a wide range of
toxicity: LD50
Acute vs chronic doses &
effects:
must
define conditions appropriate to situation, e.g. workers exposed to a
chemical is more serious in acute
state, but
general public receives lower dose all the time
Detectable levels are not always dangerous
Low doses can have variable
effects
8.6 Risk
Assessment & Acceptance
Our perception of risks is
not always rational
How much risk is acceptible?
Pollutant
models..Exposure Assessment..More..Reality:
Produce
with pesticide residues..another.(but
.com)..
Politics: Salinas
images, Am
Cancer Soc
serves pesticide .com!
Our perception of risks is not always rational
How much risk is acceptable?
Our perception of risk is strongly influenced by emotion and
factors
such as whether the hazard is voluntary or familiar,
whether it has a lag before its effects are known, and whether those at
risk benefit from the source of exposure.
Health experts generally regard a 1 in 1 million risk of death to be
acceptable, but some people ask, "Acceptable to whom?"
We often disregard familiar but serious risks while demanding
protection from other, highly improbable risks.
Estimates of health risks for large, diverse
populations exposed to
very low doses of extremely toxic materials are inexact because of
biological variation, experimental error, and the necessity of
extrapolating from results with small numbers of laboratory animals.
In
the end, we are left with unanswered questions.
Which are the most
dangerous environmental factors that we face?
How can we evaluate the
hazards of all the natural and synthetic chemicals that now exist?
What
risks are acceptable?
We have not yet solved these problems or answered
all the questions raised in this chapter, but these issues need to be
discussed and considered seriously.
Estimating the potential health risk
from
exposure
to specific
environmental factors is difficult because information on the precise
dose, length and method of exposure, and possible interactions between
the chemical in question and other potential toxins to which the
population may have been exposed is often lacking.
In addition,
individuals have different levels of sensitivity and response to a
particular toxin and are further affected by general health condition,
age, and sex.
Solution is to use epidemiology
data, Like Hammond cancer cluster, but what
exactly is/are causing the diseases? See next section.
Google: epidemiology of
(insert any disease or toxin)..
Environmental
Technology - better waste disposal, Municipal
Sludge, wiki
8.7 Establishing Public Policy
for 8 years Bush et al. undermined work of EPA etc
Toxics Release Inventory, EPA
wants to roll back
reporting of toxic pollution: ISG in Ohio,
Homework
1) p 188: What do you
think?: Protecting children's
health more vulnerable than adults
Pound for pound children grow more, drink more water, eat more food,
and breathe
more air than adults.
How best to protect children from environmental hazards?
Childhood diseases linked to environment are
increasing fast.
Indiana: Improving Kids'
Environment. Pesticides
in California town
epa finds toxin in air outside 15 schools
10/1/09 (toxin is in poison
gas) (this
is similar)
2) p 191:
Active Learning: Assessing Toxins
Assessing
Toxins: role of prisoners, now prospective & retrospective studies
(epidemiology?)
We usually test toxins on lab animals: Fig
13:
Sensitivity, 14: LD 50, & 15: Dose Response Curves
There is a wide range of toxicity
Acute versus chronic doses & effects
Detectable levels are not always dangerous
We depend on animal testing for much of our assessment of toxins,
but
great differences in sensitivity between species makes
risk evaluation
difficult.
3) p 195:
Active Learning: Calculating Probabilities & p 197 Data
analysis: Graphing multiple variables
4) Indicator
species & use
this
5) Case
studies:
6) Do a few: As,Pb,Hg,VC,PCB,C6H6,Cd,BP,PAH,BFA,more,CHCl3,DDT,Aroclor,TCE,DBA,ClHC,Cr,CD,HEX
Politician
Scorecard..McCAIN gets
0 (page 14 of .pdf)..Lugar negative, Bayh only just positive, p 15.
2/22/08:
EPA: Toxins on Rise Locally - will be removed
EPA TRI info.
by ZIP
code, Toxics
Release
Data 2002 or: SCORECARD
for pollution or IDEM's weaker effort
New:
10/5/2007: State slow to curb mercury emissions has info on power
plants & mercury etc
Gone: 3/29/06: Sheriff forms toxic
dump task force LAKE Co:, ??
An
Advocate's
Field Guide to
Protecting Lake Michigan > is here somewhere
JOIN:
Hoosier
Group
Protecting Public Health, does
more than any other .org to protect Indiana residents
NW Indiana
group...Indiana
Toxics Action Project...
Health
Care Concerns of Northwest
Indiana: Username:
NWIndiana Password: health
IUN < in case, was data link < now pay
for service, but reports are all by EPA & IDEM.
DDT
& Fragile Eggshells..Colombian
Coca..Guinea
Worm Eradication..Ebola
Hemorrhagic Fever
Pick a chemical: describe
public health data: like
toxicity & accumulation &
include local data about the chemical
Hg:
in environment, fig,
body
entry/fishy,
if we don't
stop it,
bioacc/mag,
USGS,
stop
it: Daniels/EPA
evil, &
Pb & Hg most toxic in
organic forms, do they go
away? Hg in women,
Pb a
carcinogen?, Pb in
homes..
Removed web exercises from textbook WHO: Topics = Everything? & Data
Atrazine: EPA
changes course, NY
Times, agent
orange
Dairy farmers
going broke, sue
milk marketing .coms