Chemical Environment – notes to my daughter

President Obama’s Cancer Panel suggested May 5, 2010, to give preference to organic food, checking radon levels in the home and to microwave food in glass containers rather than plastic.

The President’s Cancer Panel was established in 1971 and represents a group of three distinguished experts who review America’s cancer program and report directly to the president.

• Dr. LaSalle Leffall Jr., an oncologist and professor of surgery at Howard University
• Dr. Margaret Kripke, an immunologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston

Chemicals during pregnancy are the biggest risk.  Over 300 contaminants have been detected in umbilical cord blood of newborn babies and states “to a disturbing extent, babies are born ‘pre-polluted.’ ”

The report blames weak laws, lax enforcement and fragmented authority, as well as the existing regulatory presumption that chemicals are safe unless strong evidence emerges to the contrary.

“Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety … Many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated.”

The food industry has already been fighting legislation in the Senate backed by Dianne Feinstein of California that would ban bisphenol-A, commonly found in plastics and better known as BPA, from food and beverage containers.

Studies of BPA have raised alarm bells for decades, and the evidence is still complex and open to debate. That’s life: In the real world, regulatory decisions usually must be made with ambiguous and conflicting data.

The Safe Chemicals Act, backed by Senator Frank Lautenberg and several colleagues, seeks to improve the safety of chemicals on the market.

41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.

Cancers are becoming more common, particularly in children and the proliferation of chemicals in water, foods, air and household products is widely suspected as a factor.

Suggested Actions

• Choose foods, toys and garden products with fewer endocrine disruptors or other toxins. (Information about products is at www.cosmeticsdatabase.com or www.healthystuff.org.)
• Filter drinking water.
• Store water in glass or stainless steel containers, or in plastics that don’t contain BPA or phthalates (chemicals used to soften plastics).
• Microwave food in ceramic or glass containers.
• Give preference to food grown without pesticides, chemical fertilizers and growth hormones.
• Avoid meats that are cooked well-done.
• Check radon levels in your home. Radon is a natural source of radiation linked to cancer.

One peer-reviewed study published this year in Environmental Health Perspectives gave a hint of the chemical environmental risks of our time. Researchers measured the levels of suspect chemicals called phthalates in the urine of pregnant women. Among women with higher levels of certain phthalates (those commonly found in fragrances, shampoos, cosmetics and nail polishes), their children years later were more likely to display disruptive behavior.

Under existing law, of 80,000 chemicals registered in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing of only 200.   We moved too late on mercury, lead, tobacco, asbestos. The precautionary principle suggests that we should be wary of personal products like fragrances unless they are marked phthalate-free.  Avoid most plastics marked at the bottom as 3, 6 and 7 because they are the ones associated with potentially harmful toxins.  So, please, do not microwave in plastic, in fact avoid it all together in cooking.  There is no need for it.

Current Opinion in Pediatrics, just posted online,  indicates that the “likelihood is high” that many chemicals “have potential to cause injury to the developing brain and to produce neurodevelopmental disorders.”

There is a strong indication that autism and other ailments are, in part, the result of the impact of environmental chemicals on the brain as it is being formed.  If babies are exposed in the womb or shortly after birth to chemicals that interfere with brain development, the consequences last a lifetime.

Toxins in the Environment

The genetic components to autism explain only about one-quarter of autism cases.

Studies have indicated that disproportionate shares of children develop autism after they are exposed in the womb to medications such as thalidomide (a sedative), misoprostol (ulcer medicine) and valproic acid (anticonvulsant). Of children born to women who took valproic acid early in pregnancy, 11 percent were autistic. In each case, fetuses seem most vulnerable to these drugs in the first trimester of pregnancy, sometimes just a few weeks after conception.

Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is drafting legislation to strengthen the Toxic Substances Control Act. It is moving ahead despite his own recent cancer diagnosis, and it can be considered as an element of health reform.

Breast cancer, prostate cancer, autism are rising significantly. The potential is for these diseases to be on the rise because of chemicals in the environment.

Remember Ivory Soap?

Ivory soap floats because it is filled with air and water!  But that is better than chemicals — including the anti-bacterial chemicals.  I am still a big believer in the soap that floats andn is 99.99% pure.

COMMON PESTICIDES LINKED TO ADHD —

A new study in the journal Pediatrics shows an association between exposure to pesticides and attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). The study of urine samples and parental reports involved 1,139 children ages 8 to 15 who participated in a federal health survey between 2000 and 2004. The urine samples from the children were analyzed for levels of a common type of pesticide called organophosphates. ADHD diagnoses were determined by parental report. While 94 percent of the children in the study had urine samples with detectable levels of pesticides, the children with higher levels were twice as likely to have ADHD as children with no detectable levels. The study authors said that most of the children were likely exposed to the pesticides by eating fruits and vegetables treated with the pesticides and recommend eating organic produce as a way to reduce exposure. Sources: Associated Press (5/17/10), Pediatrics (5/17/10)

Lithium Cell Batteries  WATCH OUT

Children can a “button” battery, a flat silver discs used to power remote controls, toys, musical greeting cards, bathroom scales and other home electronics.

The battery’s current can set off a chemical reaction in a child’s esophagus, burning through both the esophageal wall and attacking the aorta.  A child that had a battery removed began coughing blood and soon died from his injuries.

Ingestion of lithium cell batteries, which children may mistake for candy and elderly adults for medication, is a surprisingly common problem, and recently documented in two reports in the medical journal Pediatrics.

About 3,500 cases of button cell battery ingestion are reported annually to poison control centers. But while swallowing batteries has occurred for years, the development of larger, stronger lithium cell batteries has increased the risk of severe complications.

Data from the National Capital Poison Center in Washington found a sevenfold increase in severe complications from button cell ingestions in recent years. Moderate to severe cases have risen from less than a half percent (about a dozen cases per year) to about 3 percent (nearly 100 cases per year), based on a review of 56,000 cases since 1985.

Among the serious complications, the chemical reaction triggered by the batteries can damage vocal cords, leaving children with a lifelong whisper. Damage to the gastrointestinal tract means some children require feeding tubes and multiple surgeries. “The injuries are so much more serious,” said Dr. Toby Litovitz, director and lead author of both articles in Pediatrics. “It’s like drain opener or lye. It’s not something you want in the esophagus of your child.”

The batteries that pose the greatest risk are those that begin with the number 20, which stands for 20 millimeters. They are newer and stronger than older models. Batteries numbered 2032, 2025 and 2016 are responsible for more than 90 percent of serious injuries.

“Industry has shifted to this battery, and it has very popular appeal,” Dr. Litovitz said. “There are a lot of reasons why we want to use this battery, but the problem is we’ve got to use it in a safer way.” Federal safety rules require toys that use the batteries to have battery compartments that are locked with screws. But devices intended for adults — like bathroom scales and remote controls — often hold the batteries in with a simple plastic cover that can fall off or be removed easily.

Battery ingestion is also a problem among the elderly, who often mistake hearing aid batteries for medication. But in those cases, the battery typically doesn’t get stuck because the digestive tract is larger and the battery used in hearing aids is smaller.

Lee Ann Torrans

ltorrans@gmail.com