ApocaDocuments (13) for the "Biology Breach" scenario from this week
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Sat, May 30, 2009
from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
BPA industry seeks to polish image
Frustrated at media portrayals of bisphenol A as a dangerous chemical, food-packaging executives and lobbyists for the chemical makers met this week at an exclusive Washington, D.C., club where they hammered out a strategy, including showcasing a pregnant woman to talk about the chemical's benefits....A pregnant woman would be "the holy grail" to serve as a spokeswoman, the memo says. Attendees said they doubted they could find a scientist to serve as a spokesman for BPA....Richard Wiles, executive director of the activist Environmental Working Group, said he was surprised by the content of the memo.
"I mean, it seems over the top, even by industry," Wiles said. "I'm amazed in this day and age they'd write this stuff down."
He said the document suggests that the chemical industry can't rely on science to sell its product. ...
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If only they could have found a pregnant scientist!
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Fri, May 29, 2009
from New York Times:
Cigarette Butts: Tiny Trash That Piles Up
...Nationally, cigarette butts account for one-quarter or more of the items tossed onto streets and other roadways, San Francisco and other cities report.... smokers see butts as a more natural kind of trash than, say, a plastic bottle. But they are not biodegradable: they contain plastic filters that enter sewers and storm drains, and get swept into rivers and then out to sea, where they can release toxic chemicals including nicotine, benzene and cadmium. For years, campaigns for heavy per-pack taxes and smoking bans in office buildings, restaurants and bars were driven mainly by health concerns about secondhand smoke, which can lead to lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases. In moving on to butt litter, municipalities are reckoning with the broader environmental consequences of the country's most vilified personal habit. ...
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People who don't take care of their butts are asses.
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Fri, May 29, 2009
from The Brisbane Courier-Mail:
Noosa two-headed fish scare widens
CHEMICAL contamination that caused gross deformities to millions of fish larvae may be more widespread in Noosa waterways than first thought.
Data from the Department of Primary Industries showing chemical contamination in Cooloothin Creek was released two weeks ago but the State Government has been playing down the find, saying the levels are so low as to be insignificant.
However, the scientist who alerted authorities to problems said yesterday that it was likely Kin Kin Creek also was contaminated.
The agricultural chemicals carbendazim, atrazine and metolachlor were found near the Sunland Fish Hatchery by the DPI's Noosa Fish Health Taskforce scientists.
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Two-headed fish are scary in so very many ways!
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Fri, May 29, 2009
from The Spokesman-Review:
Lead bullets targeted for risk to wildlife, game consumers
The trend toward restrictions on lead bullets for hunting gained velocity recently:
•The Department of Interior in March announcement a plan to ban lead ammunition and fishing gear throughout the National Park System by 2011. (Hunting is allowed in some national parks, preserves and monuments to manage wildlife populations.)
•A study published in April provided new evidence that humans and wildlife can be exposed to lead ingestion when eating the meat of game killed with lead bullets.
Some shooting and hunting groups are taking stand against the trend. ...
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Now who woulda thought lead bullets would be risky for wildlife!
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Fri, May 29, 2009
from London Financial Times:
Argentina pressed to ban crop chemical after health concerns
Argentina's government is coming under pressure to ban the chemical used in the world's best-selling herbicide, which has helped turn the country into an important world food exporter in the past decade, after new research found that it might be harmful to human health.
A group of environmental lawyers has petitioned the Supreme Court to impose a six-month ban on the sale and use of glyphosate, which is the basis for many herbicides, including the US agribusiness giant Monsanto's Roundup product.... Research by other Argentine scientists and evidence from local campaigners has indicated a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people living near crop-spraying areas. One study conducted by a doctor, Rodolfo Páramo, in the northern farming province of Santa Fé reported 12 malformations per 250 births, well above the normal rate. ...
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Don't die for me, Argentina.
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Thu, May 28, 2009
from The Telegram (Canada):
David Suzuki hunts for the real bottom line
Want to know how to make David Suzuki upset? Talk to him about Stephen Harper's approach to environmental conservation.
"We're told over and over that the bottom line is the economy, and our own prime minister says we can't afford to do anything about climate change if it jeopardizes the economy. That's absolutely wrong -- it's a lie. What kind of government puts the economy before a global environmental crisis?" Suzuki asked The Telegram in an interview from his Toronto office Tuesday.... Suzuki is also calling on provincial governments to put the planet before politics, including the government of B.C., his home province. Earlier this month, he, along with a half a dozen local mayors and others, wrote an open letter in the Globe and Mail calling for an organized approach to addressing climate change in that province.
Among their suggestions was that the provincial government increase the low-income carbon tax-credit at the same rate as price increases on greenhouse gas emissions, and that a portion of carbon-tax revenues be invested in public transit and renewable energy projects.
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What kind of government? One that is bought and paid for.
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Thu, May 28, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
Genetically modified monkeys give birth to designer babies
Genetically modified monkeys that glow in ultraviolet light and pass the trait on to their young have been created by scientists in Japan in controversial research that "raises the stakes" over animals rights.
The work paves the way for scientists to breed large populations of primates with genetic faults responsible for incurable human conditions, but could also spark an ethical backlash for introducing harmful genes into the primate population.
Researchers hailed the feat as a major step towards understanding the development of inherited diseases, such as Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, from the cradle to the grave. But the work is likely to dismay animal rights groups as it could lead to a rise in the number of primates used in research labs.
The work also raises the possibility of genetically modifying humans, although such work is outlawed in most countries, including Britain. ...
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I won't be impressed until they make GM humans who are immune to RoundUp™
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Wed, May 27, 2009
from Cape Cod Times:
Study links strandings to pollution
Cape Cod is one of the top areas in the world for marine mammal strandings. The animals are sometimes loaded with parasites or are sick. But, despite a long history of pollution in our coastal waters, the toll pollution takes on sea creatures has been harder to establish.
In a study, recently published in the journal Environmental Pollution, Eric Montie, a University of South Florida scientist who did most of his research while a doctoral student at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, found high levels of man-made chemicals in the brains and fluid surrounding the brains of marine mammals. Scientists have known for a while that dangerous compounds like the pesticide DDT, the insulating material PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) and the flame retardant PBDE (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) accumulate in the fatty tissue of mammals, particularly top-of-the-food-chain predators that eat chemical-laden prey....Montie tested for the presence of 170 chemicals in brain and cerebrospinal fluid he'd collected from the stranded animals. He found exceptionally high levels of both the widely used flame retardant PBDE and a form of PCB.
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And here we thought they were just looking for hamburgers & fries!
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Wed, May 27, 2009
from London Times:
Mobile phones to be banned in French primary schools to limit health risks
Mobile telephones are to be banned from French primary schools, and operators must offer handsets that allow only text messages, under government measures to reduce the health risk to children.
Companies will also be required to supply phones that work only with headsets, to limit the danger to the brain from electromagnetic radiation, Rosalyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, said.
The measures, which emerged from a six-week review of mobile phone and wi-fi radiation, have been attacked as inadequate by campaigners who accuse the State of playing down dangers from phones and transmitter masts. The campaign groups, which walked out on the government consultation on Monday, wanted a ban on mobile use by children under 14 and drastic measures to limit the power and location of masts. ...
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And I suppose they don't want the carrier pigeons to poop on the little buggers' heads, either.
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Wed, May 27, 2009
from SciDev.net:
Change to Ecuador's GM laws 'could allow suicide seeds'
Moves by Ecuador's president to veto legislation covering genetically modified organisms could let controversial 'terminator' seeds into the country, campaigning groups claim.
Ecuador bans the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops but for more than a decade it has allowed imports of transgenic materials -- particularly soybean and corn. There are no clear regulations about planting GM crops for research.... Terminator or 'suicide' seeds are modified so they can't reproduce in the second generation. The Convention on Biological Diversity has had a moratorium on them since 2000. Supporters say they stop farmers using seeds they haven't paid for and that their genes cannot spread to conventional crops, unlike other GM seeds. But critics say that terminator seeds will make poor farmers dependent on big companies for seeds.
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Ecuador's "rights of nature" seems in conflict with suicidal tendencies.
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Tue, May 26, 2009
from London Daily Mail:
...Could you be gargling your way to cancer?
...are mouthwashes as effective, or as healthy, as they seem? Earlier this month, one well-known manufacturer was forced to recall thousands of bottles after they were found to have 'microbiological problems' that could cause chest infections.
While investigations revealed this was related to a production rather than ingredient problem, it came hot on the heels of another, more worrying, revelation - that some mouthwashes may increase the risk of oral cancer.
According to a report published in January in the Dental Journal of Australia, there was 'sufficient evidence' linking breath-freshening products containing alcohol with a higher risk of the disease. Not only does alcohol seem to make the mouth's cells more vulnerable to cancer-causing agents, explained Professor Michael McCullough from Melbourne University, but 'its first breakdown product is acetaldehyde, a known human carcinogen'. ...
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As long as my breath is minty fresh I don't think I care!
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Tue, May 26, 2009
from Denver KUSA-TV:
Contamination concerns rise out of gas wells
..."We're starting to see complaints by people that live in the area," said Geoffrey Thyne, a professor at Colorado School of Mines.
For years, Thyne has been studying the technique often used to remove gas from the ground.
It's called hydraulic fracturing, or fracing (pronounced "fracking"), and it involves injecting chemical-filled fluid thousands of feet below the surface, which expands existing fractures in the rock and allows gas to rise.
Allegations are now popping up across the country that fracing is contaminating groundwater and causing illnesses and environmental problems.
But Thyne says no one can prove a link because no one outside the oil and gas companies knows what chemicals are going into the ground.
"Without that knowledge, then there's always going to be some ambiguity or lack of positive assignment of responsibility," Thyne said.
The oil and gas industry won the right to keep their chemical mixture secret in 2005, when the government exempted fracing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. ...
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What's really freaky about fracing is the freakin' fibbing going on!
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Tue, May 26, 2009
from Associated Press:
Consumer group pushes J&J on chemicals in shampoo
A coalition of health, environmental and consumer groups is demanding that health products giant Johnson & Johnson remove tiny amounts of two chemicals suspected of causing cancer from its Johnson's Baby Shampoo and other products.
In a letter sent late Friday by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics to J&J's chief executive, William Weldon, the seven-year-old group asks the company by the end of August to reformulate its personal care products so that they are free of 1,4-dioxane and any preservatives that release formaldehyde.
The letter was signed by nearly 50 groups representing about 1.7 million members, from the Environmental Working Group and Friends of the Earth to the American Nurses Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Johnson & Johnson spokesman Bill Price said, "The trace levels of certain compounds that were noted by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics can result from processes that make our products gentle for babies and safe from bacteria growth. Many regulatory agencies around the world consider these trace levels safe." ...
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Plus, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?
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