Toxicology
“Animals are the Sentinels”
In the late 1980's Sue Pope became concerned about her horses and cows. Her favorite Arabian was developing "heave" muscles on its torso that Pope's vet said was the result of the horse straining to breathe. Her cattle were acting strangely and not developing as they should. These problems seem to come out of the blue, for no obvious reason Pope could figure out. She also noticed that she and her family didn't feel the same either and wondered if what was affecting her animals was also affecting them. She spoke with her neighbors, some of whom were also noticing strange things among their stock and themselves. They didn't have any answers either. That's when Pope started to look for causes outside the gate of her small Midlothain ranch.
And that was the beginning of what eventually turned into Downwinders at Risk. Because of her own experience it has been Sue Pope's belief that more than expensive monitors or dubious risk assessment studies, "animals are the sentinels" for human health. They are literally the canary furtherest down the coal mine.
When the ATSDR decided to review the monitoring information from Midlothain for it's "health consultation" beginning almost ten years ago, they were in part drawn by the large file of documented cases of animals illness, disease and deformities. There's more than one animal stock breeder who has moved to Midlothian over the last 25 years expecting that elusive "fresh country air" to benefit their animals only to find them suffering weird symptons never experienced before in previous locations.
Animals are sentinels, especially livestock, because they don't go to school or work, but stay in the same place all day and night, they graze exclusivley on local plants grown in the local soil. They drink the local surface and/or well water. Livestock have the most exposure and the most "exposure pathways" to whatever potentially harmful chemicals might be in the environment. If it's harming the animals, it's probaly harming people as well.
That's the context for a new article out in The Nation about animals gettign sick in the gas patch.
"Earlier this year, Michelle Bamberger, an Ithaca veterinarian, and Robert Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine, published the first (and, so far, only) peer-reviewed report to suggest a link between fracking and illness in food animals. The authors compiled case studies of twenty-four farmers in six shale-gas states whose livestock experienced neurological, reproductive and acute gastrointestinal problems. Exposed either accidentally or incidentally to fracking chemicals in the water or air, scores of animals have died. The death toll is insignificant when measured against the nation’s livestock population (some 97 million beef cattle go to market each year), but environmental advocates believe these animals constitute an early warning.
Exposed animals “are making their way into the food system, and it’s very worrisome to us,” Bamberger says. “They live in areas that have tested positive for air, water and soil contamination. Some of these chemicals could appear in milk and meat products made from these animals.”
In Louisiana, seventeen cows died after an hour’s exposure to spilled fracking fluid. (Most likely cause of death: respiratory failure.) In north central Pennsylvania, 140 cattle were exposed to fracking wastewater when an impoundment was breached. Approximately seventy cows died; the remainder produced eleven calves, of which only three survived. In western Pennsylvania, an overflowing waste pit sent fracking chemicals into a pond and a pasture where pregnant cows grazed: half their calves were born dead. The following year’s animal births were sexually skewed, with ten females and two males, instead of the usual 50-50 or 60-40 split.
In addition to the cases documented by Bamberger, hair testing of sick cattle that grazed around well pads in New Mexico found petroleum residues in fifty-four of fifty-six animals. In North Dakota, wind-borne fly ash, which is used to solidify the waste from drilling holes and contains heavy metals, settled over a farm: one cow, which either inhaled or ingested the caustic dust, died, and a stock pond was contaminated with arsenic at double the accepted level for drinking water."
People used to ask Downwinders why we decided to take on air pollution from the gas industry. The reason is that all of the red flags we saw over the years in Midlothian are also being raised around gas facilities – individually and/or collectlively. Many of the same chemicals, many of the same health effects from those chemicals, and then the warning from the animals.
Better than TCEQ monitors. Better than out-of-date risk assessments. Animals are some of the best Guinea Pigs we have in the laboratory of chemicals we all swim in. If we would only listen.
Traffic Pollution Linked to Autism
Along with a higher risk of asthma, children who are born and live their first year closer to major freeways also suffer a significantly elevated risk of autism. That's the conclusion of a new study by the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
"Compared to 245 California children who were not autistic, the researchers found that 279 autistic children were almost twice as likely to have been exposed to the highest levels of pollution while in the womb, and about three times as likely to have been exposed to that level during their first year of life.
They found that children exposed to the highest amount of "particulate matter' – a mixture of acids, metals, soil and dust – had about a two-fold increase in autism risk. That type of regional pollution is tracked by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Volk and her colleagues also saw a similar link between autism and nitrogen dioxide, which is in car, truck and other vehicle emissions.
'This is a risk factor that we can modify and potentially reduce the risk for autism,' wrote Dawson in an email to Reuters Health."
It's been estimated by the Centers for Disease Control that autism affects one in every 88 children born in the United States.
A new federal Particulate Matter standard is under consideration by the EPA and could be announced this year. It's been linked to other neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimers.
UTSW Gulf War Research Yields More Evidence of Cumulative Chemical Harm
The story is behind the DMN's paywall, but there's a new piece of the Gulf War Illness puzzle that's been provided by UT-Southwestern researchers lead by Dr. Robert Haley, and it has some relevance to those who think their own health problems can be traced back to chemical exposure.
Originally dismissed by many to be only a psychological condition, scientists now suspect that the multiple and varied symptoms reported under the Gulf War Illness category are from exposure to one or more toxins at levels that were supposed to be safe. Dr. Haley and his colleagues at UTSW recently published the results of a study that proves that nerve damage is the common denominator that impacts breathing, heart rate, sexual function, perspiration and other body functions associated with the diagnosis.
For the Chemically-Sensitive among you, or those of you living downwind of a polluting facility, see if this doesn't sound familiar:
“Many of these veterans have been told that there is nothing wrong with them,' Haley said Monday in an interview. “
"There can't possibly be anything wrong with you because the levels of poison you were exposed to were so low, we don't estimate that you'd be harmed by them at all." That's the mantra of the State's environmental and health agencies every time someone from Midlothian calls and says cement plant pollution made them sick. Same thing if you live around a gas well or compressor. They start from the smokestack or flare and work their way back to the person.
It's not an epidemiological argument. It's a lazy calculation based on laboratory science that's either old or doesn't exist. As the recent federal ATSDR report on Midlothian air pollution admits, science is still at least a decade away from being able to recreate the effects of being exposed to a multitude of pollutants at the same time, as so many of us are subjected to these days. We don't know, and we still can't calculate what it's like to live in a toxic soup.
Haley's studies and others start with the person and work their way back to the chemicals. They find "physical disorders" in a much higher proportion than a random sampling and seek to explain the cause. In this case, there is a match between those who have Gulf War Illness and a certain kind of pervasive nerve damage that can affect a wide range of bodily functions.
Having established that the symptoms of the Illness are indeed physiological, and not just in the Vet's heads, Haley sounds as if he is on the verge of releasing a much larger, longer-term study on the actual trigger mechanisms that produce the nerve damage he's identified.
"Haley suggested that he may soon address the cause, or causes, of Gulf War illness. 'We’re going to show proof of what causes this,” he said. “It will be a huge study with convincing evidence.”
That will be the headline-maker, because as the DMN article points out, Dr. Haley and the UTSW team have been narrowing the suspects down over the years and have a theory:
"He and other medical experts have repeatedly said they believe Gulf War syndrome was caused by exposure to pesticides and other chemicals in the Persian Gulf."
It's very possible that in the next 12 months we'll see the best study ever done on Gulf War Illness reveal that exposure to a variety of different kinds of environmental contaminants at supposedly "safe" levels has left 200,000 service men and women medically damaged. If that's the case, then it could turn out to be one of the most profound challenges to the toxicology of the status quo in the last 50 years. Stay tuned.
Cutting-Edge Toxicologist Talks Toxic Soup
Dr. Linda Birnbaum is an unsung hero of the modern environmental movement. For 33 years, she's been a leading researcher and writer on environmental toxicology issues, advancing understanding of specific poisons as well as the cumulative impact of the thousands of chemicals we're exposed to in daily life. First at the EPA, and now at the National Institute of Environmental Health Services, she's been at the leading edge of US environmental health research. Scientific American recently did a sit down interview with Birnbaum to talk about her work. Go and get caught up on why we can't trust current "safe" levels of much of anything.
“Statistically Significant Increase” in Risk of Dying from Cancer in Towns Near Incinerators
You know that argument you sometimes hear about how those ecologically-minded Europeans are burning everything in incinerators and cement plants, so it must be OK to do it here? Maybe not so much.
In one of the most ambitious and far-ranging efforts of its kind ever attempted, the newly-published results of a 10-year study from Spain's national Center for Epidemiology looked for 33 different kinds of cancer in dozens of Spanish communities that hosted "waste incinerators and installations for the recovery or disposal of hazardous waste." They found "a significant higher risk from all cancers in towns near these industries."
Cancer impacts were greater around waste incinerators and scrap metal operations – you know like the three giant Midlothian cement plants upwind of DFW that are burning larger and larger amounts of industrial wastes and the steel mill across the street from them melting scrap cars.
Researchers used standard computer modeling to estimate what cancer rates should be in the host communities and then compared them to what they actually were.
"Excess cancer mortality was detected in the total population residing in the vicinity of these installations as a whole and, principally, in the vicinity of incinerators and scrap metal/end-of-life vehicle handling facilities, in particular. Special mention should be made of the results for tumors of the pleura, stomach, liver, kidney, ovary, lung, leukemia, colon–rectum, and bladder in the vicinity of all such installations. Our results support the hypothesis of a statistically significant increase in the risk of dying from cancer in towns near incinerators and installations for the recovery or disposal of hazardous waste."
There has never been any kind of systematic study of cancer rates around and downwind of the Midlothian cement plants. From the Texas birth defect registry we know that certain reproductive organ birth defects that are associated with pollutants known to have been released from the plants are higher than the state average in Ellis County.
This study, as well as the recent warnings of the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry about the public health dangers of the pollution coming from the Midlothian cement plants arrives at a time when the plants are gearing up to add plastics, car interiors, and other kinds of garbage to their lists of "fuels" that will be burned. After losing the fight to be able to burn hazardous wastes willy-nilly in cement plants, the industry is turning to industrial and municipal garbage that can produce many of the same worrisome kinds of pollution. This is what makes the EPA rules governing the emissions of the nation's cement plants – rules that are still in play – so very important.
Hell Freezes Over: Why the New Federal Report on Midlothian Matters
Everything in italics and "quotation marks" below is a direct quote from the latest chapter of the ATSDR's (Agency for Disease Registry and Toxic Substances) "health consultation" on the impact of certain kinds of industrial air pollution on the local population.
You should take five minutes to glance over the sentences. They've taken a better part of a decade and a great deal of citizen persistence to make it to print. You can read them now only because of a petition to ATSDR by local Midlothian residents, spearheaded by Sal and Grace Mier in 2005, prompted the Agency to get involved.
They're also rarer than hen's teeth. Because the words actually come together in sentences to conclude human health was likely harmed by the pollution from Midlothian's three cement plants and steel mill, as well as recommend decreasing that pollution.
Among grassroots activists, ATSDR has a notorious reputation for issuing reports that are "inconclusive by design." The joke is that the agency never met a facility it couldn't learn to live with. And sure enough, previous chapters in this saga have disappointed. Just two years ago, ASTDR's shoddy work in investigating health impacts in Midlothian and elsewhere across the country was the subject of a Congressional hearing.
These ATSDR reports generate no new data. Instead, they are retrospective looks back at the available sampling/monitoring information and a piecing together of possible exposure paths and levels. As such, they're only as good as the data they can digest. In Midlothian's case, that means they're completely dependent on state monitoring – criticized by citizens for years as being inadequate. Nevertheless, with this latest report, citizens have been somewhat vindicated because of what even that inferior sampling revealed.
The health impacts described in this latest report are also limited to what are called "Criteria Pollutants" – old school substances like lead, soot, sulfur dioxide, and ozone that have been regulated by the Clean Air Act for decades. They do not apply to more exotic kinds of air pollution like endocrine disruptors, which there's little or no monitoring for at all.
So there are a lot of missing pieces, but the ATSDR's conclusions and recommendations have an impact on your lungs and maybe your own local fight, even if you don't have a Midlothian zip code. For the first time a federal agency known to avoid coming to any conclusion about anything was forced to say that human health was adversely affected by the operations of industry in Midlothian.
There's a public meeting on this report on December 6th from 7 to 8:30 pm at the Midlothian Conference Center.
Health Consultation/Assessing the Public Health Implications of the Criteria (NAAQS) Air Pollutants and Hydrogen Sulfide MIDLOTHIAN AREA AIR QUALITY MIDLOTHIAN, ELLIS COUNTY, TEXAS
NOVEMBER 16, 2012 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Division of Community Health Investigations
Recommendations:
"Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) should take actions to reduce future SO2 emissions from TXI to prevent harmful exposures."
"TCEQ should take actions to reduce future PM2.5 emissions from TXI and Gerdau to prevent harmful exposures."
"TCEQ should continue efforts to reduce regional ozone exposures."
"TCEQ should insure that levels of these air pollutants do not increase to levels of concern in the future."
"TCEQ should conduct ambient air monitoring to characterize exposures to persons located downwind of the Ash Grove and Holcim facilities and take actions to reduce SO2 emissions from these facilities if harmful exposures are indicated."
"TCEQ should conduct appropriate ambient air monitoring to characterize exposures to persons located downwind of the Ash Grove and Holcim facilities and take actions to reduce PM2.5 emissions from these facilities if harmful exposures are indicated. In addition, particulate matter monitoring is needed in residential areas that are in immediate proximity to the facilities’ limestone quarries."
"In ATSDR’s judgment, one notable gap in monitor placement is the lack of monitoring data for residential neighborhoods in immediate proximity to the four industrial facilities, where fugitive emissions (those not accounted for in stack emissions) likely have the greatest air quality impacts."
Human health was likely harmed, and is still threatened by industrial pollution from Midlothian
From Sulfur Dioxide:
"Breathing air contaminated with sulfur dioxide (downwind of TXI's cement plant and the Ameristeel steel mill) for short periods could have harmed the health of sensitive individuals.…ATSDR cannot determine if harmful exposures to SO2 have been occurring downwind of the Holcim and Ash Grove facilities."
"All 24-hour values in Midlothian were lower than EPA’s former standard. However, the World Health Organization’s health comparable guideline is 8 ppb (WHO, 2006). This value was exceeded at both the Midlothian Tower and Old Fort Worth Road stations in most years of monitoring through 2008…"
"Overall, in the years 1999 to 2001, Old Fort Worth Road (monitoring site north of TXI) ranked among the stations with the highest 24-hour average sulfur dioxide concentrations in the state. As sulfur dioxide emissions from TXI Operations decreased in following years, so did the measured concentrations at this station."
From Particulate Matter, or Soot:
"Public health concern is warranted for adverse health effects from long-term exposure to PM 2.5 in Cement Valley"
"In the past (1996–2008), annual average PM 2.5 levels measured were just below the range of concentration proposed by EPA for lowering the annual average standard…Moreover, many of the annual average PM 2.5 concentrations were above the more conservative WHO health guideline (10 μg/m3)."
"No PM 2.5 monitoring data are available to evaluate exposures downwind of the Ash Grove facility. Furthermore, although annual average PM2.5 levels detected at the Holcim monitor indicate possible harmful levels…."
"We estimated that annual average PM2.5 levels in the vicinity of the Gerdau Ameristeel monitor, from 1996 to 1998, could have ranged from about 22.6 to 26.4 μg/m3, which is above both the current and proposed EPA standard. Using EPA’s approach, the 3-year average level might have been above the NAAQS standard of 15 μg/m3 for these years in the vicinity of the Gerdau Ameristeel monitor. Applying this same approach to annual average PM10 data from other monitors suggests that PM 2.5 levels could have been close to the current and proposed PM2.5 standard, especially for the Wyatt Road, Old Fort Worth Road, Gorman Road, and Midlothian Tower monitors."
"Consistent with the other pollutants discussed earlier, the estimated annual PM 2.5 emissions listed for these facilities are among the highest for Ellis County and also rank high among industrial sources statewide."
From Lead:
"Past lead air exposures during the period 1993 to 1998, in a localized area just north of the Gerdau Ameristeel fence line, could have harmed the health of children who resided or frequently played in this area….In the mid-1990s, the lead levels measured in this area ranked among the highest lead concentrations measured statewide."
From Smog:
"Scientific studies indicate that breathing air containing ozone at concentrations similar to those detected in Midlothian can reduce lung function and increase respiratory symptoms, thereby aggravating asthma or other respiratory conditions. Ozone exposure also has been associated with increased susceptibility to respiratory infections, medication use by persons with asthma, doctor’s visits, and emergency department and hospital admissions for individuals with respiratory disease. Ozone exposure also might contribute to premature death, especially in people with heart and lung disease. School absenteeism and cardiac-related effects may occur, and persons with asthma might experience greater and more serious responses to ozone that last longer than responses among people without asthma."
"The Midlothian Tower site recorded ozone concentrations above the level of the NAAQS for several years (TCEQ, 2011b), and the Old Fort Worth Road site has been measuring ozone concentrations close to the level of the NAAQS. Based on the data from both monitors, from August 1997 to September 2011, the 8-hour EPA ozone standard has been exceeded 236 times."
From Breathing Multiple Pollutants:
"ATSDR believes that sufficient information exists to warrant concern for multiple air pollutant exposures to sensitive individuals, especially in the past….The ability of the scientific community to fully and quantitatively evaluate the health effects from the mixture of air pollutants people are exposed to is at least ten years away (Mauderly et al., 2010)……The current state of the science limits our ability to make definitive conclusions on the significance of simultaneous exposures to multiple criteria air pollutants. ATSDR’s conclusions are based on our best professional judgment related to our understanding of the possible harmful effects of air pollutant exposures in Midlothian and our interpretation of the current scientific literature; therefore, these conclusions are presented with some uncertainty."
From New Production:
"Reductions in SO2 levels in Cement Valley have occurred since late 2008 resulting in exposures to both sensitive individuals and the general public that are not expected to be harmful. These reductions may be caused, in part, by declining production levels at local industrial facilities. Future harmful exposures in Cement Valley could occur if production rises to at least previous levels and actions are not taken to reduce SO2 emissions."
Regulatory "Safe Levels" Very Often Aren't
"Past SO2 exposures were not above the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard in place at that time but were above the current standard."
"Past lead air exposures were not above the EPA standard at that time but were above the current standard.…The scientific community now believes that the current standard (15 μg/m3) for fine PM (measured by PM2.5) is a better indicator of possible long-term health effects from PM exposures than was the former EPA annual average standard for PM10 (EPA, 2006b)."
PM Pollution Decreases Brain Function in Over 50 Population
In a study involving approximately 15,000 people, the U.S. National Institute on Aging found that higher levels of exposure to fine particulate matter pollution, or soot, is prematurely aging the brain of those 50 and older by up to three years.
PM pollution had already been linked to other neurological conditions by previous studies, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease. Scientists have discovered that the microscopic particles can actually pass through the lung wall and into the circulatory system.
"As a result of age-related declines in health and functioning, older adults are particularly vulnerable to the hazards of exposure to unhealthy air,’ said Dr Jennifer Ailshire, from the Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California.
Air pollution has been linked to increased cardiovascular and respiratory problems, and even premature death, in older populations, and there is emerging evidence that exposure to particulate air pollution may have adverse effects on brain health and functioning as well."
PM pollution is found in the exhaust of all internal combustion engines, as well as the pollution from steel mills, smelters, cement kilns, power plants or any facility with a boiler or furnace. The amount of exposure to PM pollution was one of the reasons the federal Agency for Disease Registry and Toxic Substances (ATSDR) found that the health of residents living downwind of TXI's cement plant and the Ameristeel steel mill in Midlothian could have been compromised. Many leading researchers believe there's no safe level of exposure to PM pollution – that is, that any amount of exposure to it has the potential to cause harm.
30 Years After They’re Banned, PCB’s Still Making It Hard to Have Kids – In Texas
Another argument for the implementation of the Precautionary Principle. Exposure to these pollutants is known to have a number of effects on human health, but their effects on human fertility — and the likelihood of couples achieving pregnancy– have not been extensively studied."Our findings suggest that persistent organochlorine pollutants may play a role in pregnancy delay," said the study's first author, Germaine Buck Louis, Ph.D., director of the Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at NIH.Dr. Buck Louis added that individuals may limit their exposure by removing and avoiding the fat of meat and fish, and by limiting the consumption of animal products.
Even Low-Level Cadmium Exposure in Womb Can Lead to Lower IQ
By way of the Environmental Health News comes word of a new study looking at the effects on low-level, "ambient" levels of the toxic metal Cadmium on 5 year-olds in Bangladesh.
Although the exposure pathway in the study assumes the Cadmium is coming primarily from a diet of food grown in contaminated soil, the results speak to the possible effects of any kind of risk – inhalation or ingestion.
"Prenatal exposures to the metal cadmium — even at low levels common in most countries — can have long-lasting effects on children's IQ. A study from Bangladesh found that 5-year-olds who were exposed through their mothers to higher levels had IQs that were 2 to 3 points lower than less-exposed children. The new evidence suggests that even low-level exposures before birth may have continued effects on children's brain function.On average, scores dropped by 2 to 3 points in children with the highest exposures when compared to those with the lowest exposures. Even small drops in IQ may affect a child’s ability to succeed at school and work later in life. Lower IQ's across the population also have large impacts on society."
Cadmium is a naturally-occurring metal contaminant found at low levels in the environment. Industry uses it to make batteries, coat and plate plastics and other metals, and make paint (remember Cadmium Red?). It's also emitted by car exhaust, the burning of industrial wastes, coal, and oil. When spread on fields, fertilizers and sewage sludge contaminated with cadmium can increase levels in cropland soils.
What are some possible local sources of cadmium in the air? The Midlothian cement plants that are now increasingly burning industrial wastes. Steel mills – like the Ameristeel one in Midlothian. Lead smelters like the one Exide is closing up at the end of the month in Frisco, along with the slag and battery chips the smelter "landfarmed" in Frisco for decades. These are all in addition to the Cadmium you may be ingesting through your diet or by sucking on that cute charm bracelet you bought that was made in China.
2011 Toxic Release Inventory Numbers Out from EPA, Still Plenty of Poison for Everyone
After the devastating 1984 Bhopal Union Carbide chemical plant disaster in India that killed thousands, US policymakers decided it might be a good idea to keep track of where toxic and hazardous chemicals were stored and released. Thus was born the EPA's annual Toxic Release Inventory data base, wherein every company that keeps a certain amount of dangerous material on-site or releases it into the environment is required to submit an estimate to the agency.
Now the numbers for 2011 are out and available for your perusal via the EPA's own TRI Explorer tool, where with a little effort, you can find out what kind of threat you face in your state, county, city or zip code. We haven't had time yet to look at Texas or DFW facilities as a whole to see what's up or down but according to the this Bloomberg article from Monday, the national total is up from 2010, which is what you'd expect given the pace of economic recovery. In 2010, there were 3.8 billion pounds of chemicals listed, this year, 4. 1 billion pounds, or almost 13 pounds for every man, woman and child in these United Sates. Maybe some of you are feeling like you're getting more than your share. Now you can confirm or put to rest those suspicions.
This year's TRI included numbers for 16 previously unreported chemicals that have been classified as carcinogenic by the National Institute of Health's National Toxicology Program: 1-amino-2,4-dibromoanthraquinone; 2,2-bis(bromomethyl)-1,3-propanediol; furan; glycidol; isoprene; methyleugenol; 1,6-dinitropyrene; 1,8-dinitropyrene; 6-nitrochrysene; 4-nitropyrene; o-nitroanisole; nitromethane; phenolphthalein; tetrafluoroethylene, tetranitromethane; and vinyl fluoride.
EPA says total releases of reported carcinogens have doubled since 2008, while those of persistent, bio-accumulative, and toxic compounds have risen by about one-third. The agency will have its own national analysis in a month
Not included in any TRI yet are all the toxic and hazardous chemicals used in gas and oil drilling. Sixteen groups from around the country are petitioning EPA to officially include them in future inventories.