ApocaDocuments (8) for the "Biology Breach" scenario from this week
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Sun, Dec 12, 2010
from TreeHugger, thru DesdemonaDespair:
Beekeepers, Activists Demand EPA Remove Pesticide Linked to Bee Deaths
Now US beekeepers are honing in on pesticides too, asking the EPA to remove one particular pesticide after a leaked study showed that field trials were severely flawed.
According to PR newswire, a group of beekeepers and anti-pesticide activists are stepping up calls for the EPA to remove approval for clothianidin (product name "Poncho") after a leaked EPA memo dated November 2nd identifies a core study underpinning the registration of the insecticide as being unsound. The pesticide has been widely used on major crops across the country under a "conditional registration" while the manufacturer, Bayer Crop Science, was supposed to conduct a field study assessing the insecticide's threat to bee colony health.... "Among the neonicotinoids, clothianidin is among those most toxic for honey bees, and this combined with its systemic movement in plants has produced a troubling mix of scientific results pointing to its potential risk for honey bees through current agricultural practices. Our own research indicates that systemic pesticides occur in pollen and nectar in much greater quantities than has been previously thought, and that interactions among pesticides occurs often and should be of wide concern." ...
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Heck, it's Bayer! It comes with a conditionally registered nature-back guarantee!
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Sat, Dec 11, 2010
from Associated Press:
Feds dismiss need to recall lead drinking glasses
A federal agency reversed itself Friday and said lead-laced Wizard of Oz and superhero drinking glasses are, in fact, for adults -- not children's products subject to a previously announced recall.
The stunning about-face came after the Consumer Product Safety Commission said last month the glasses were children's products and thus subject to strict federal lead limits.
Lab testing by The Associated Press found lead in the colored decorations up to 1,000 times the federal maximum for children's products. The CPSC has no limits on lead content on the outside of adult drinking glasses. "A premature statement was made regarding two sets of glasses identified in (AP's) story that has now been determined to be inaccurate," said agency spokesman Scott Wolfson. It was Wolfson who said the day after the AP published its investigation Nov. 21 that the two sets of four glasses each -- one featuring characters including Superman and Wonder Woman, the other Dorothy and other characters from the classic Oz movie -- were children's products and that the agency would investigate them. ...
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I can't get through a day without a stiff drink in my Wonder Woman glass.
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Wed, Dec 8, 2010
from Bloomberg:
BP, Contractors at Gulf Well 'Breathtakingly Inept' -- but should self-regulate
BP Plc, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co. were "breathtakingly inept" and made mistakes that were "largely preventable" at the doomed Macondo well, a leader of a panel investigating the disaster said.
The U.S. shares blame for the April blowout and spill because it lacks the ability to maintain adequate oversight of the oil industry, William K. Reilly said today in remarks prepared for an industry conference in New Orleans. Oil companies should set up a self-regulating body to work with the U.S. on increasing deep-water drilling safety, he said.... "There is virtual consensus among all the sophisticated observers of this debacle that three of the leading players in the industry made a series of missteps, miscalculations and miscommunications that were breathtakingly inept and largely preventable," Reilly said in his remarks. ...
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Please, BP, Halliburton, Exxon, Chevron -- self-regulate yourself. Gosh, we'd appreciate it ever so much.
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Wed, Dec 8, 2010
from Consumers Union, through Mother Jones:
Mercury Tuna: Are the FDA's Recommendations Too High?
From the department of #butilovetunamelts comes this depressing news: The Consumers Union recently analyzed 42 samples of packaged tuna, and found that about half a can of white (albacore) tuna (which tends to have more mercury than light tuna) contains more mercury than the EPA's recommended daily limit for women of childbearing age. A few other nuggets from the study:
* Every sample contained measurable levels of mercury, ranging from 0.018 to 0.774 parts per million. The FDA can take legal action to pull products containing 1 ppm or more from the market. (It never has, according to an FDA spokesman.)
* Samples of light tuna had 0.018 to 0.176 ppm and averaged 0.071 ppm. At that average, a woman of childbearing age eating 2.5 ounces would get less than the EPA's limit, but for about half the tested samples, eating 5 ounces (about one can) would exceed the limit.
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I think I'm sticking with the dolphin steak.
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Wed, Dec 8, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Till receipts coated in chemical linked to cancer: study
Cash register receipts and paper money have been found to contain high levels of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical linked to cancer, obesity and early puberty, a study published Wednesday says.... Holding the receipts for just 10 seconds caused up to 2.5 micrograms of BPA to transfer from the paper onto a person's fingers, and rubbing the receipts increased around 15-fold the amount of BPA transferred from the receipts onto fingers, the study said.... Last month, the World Health Organization said BPA does not accumulate in the body, but admitted that "recent experimental and epidemiological studies found associations between low BPA exposure levels and some adverse health outcomes."... "BPA on receipts, dollar bills and in many other products is a direct result of the absurdly lax controls on chemicals in the United States," he said, calling on the incoming Congress to reform "the failed 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act."
From the fingers, the BPA transferred easily onto dollar bills: the researchers found the chemical on 21 of 22 bills tested, although in much lower levels than on the till receipts. ...
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Congress has been wise in other matters -- surely they're remain so!
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Tue, Dec 7, 2010
from Columbia Missourian:
Columbia researchers study intersex sturgeon in Missouri River
COLUMBIA -- Donald Tillitt was in his office at the Columbia Environmental Research Center when he received a call.
"You need to come back here and look at these," Tillitt recalls biologist and colleague Diana Papoulias saying. The year was 2000 and the U.S. Geological Survey research center on New Haven Road was dissecting shovelnose sturgeon from a site south of Columbia in the Missouri River. By studying the reproduction of the species, scientists hoped they could shed light on decreasing populations of a similar but endangered species -- the pallid sturgeon.
When Tillitt looked inside the fish before him he saw ovarian tissue -- black eggs -- growing around white testicular tissue. It had the fully developed sex organs of both a male and a female sturgeon. ...
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This must be soooo embarrassing for the fish!
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Tue, Dec 7, 2010
from Environmental Health News:
Study: Flame retardant found in small butter sample
A stick of butter purchased at a Dallas grocery story contained high levels of a flame retardant used in electronics, according to environmental scientists at the University of Texas School of Public Health.
The butter was contaminated with a chemical called polybrominated diphenyl ether, or PBDE.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of U.S. butter contaminated with PBDEs," said lead research Arnold Schecter, whose study was published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
The butter was purchased last year as part of a small research project to test for contaminates. The butter stick's wrapper contained even higher amounts of PBDEs. The source of the contamination remains a mystery. ...
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Maybe it's the first time anyone's looked.
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Tue, Dec 7, 2010
from McClatchy Newspapers:
American urban lake pollution traced to parking lot seal coat
A black sealant sprayed on parking lots, driveways and playgrounds turns out to be the largest contributor to the rise of a toxic pollutant in urban lakes and reservoirs across America, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study.
Scientists saw concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) going up rapidly in the 1990s in areas of urban sprawl. PAHs have been known as a probable human carcinogen since the 19th century, when cancer struck chimney sweeps, said Peter Van Metre, a USGS scientist and a principal author of the report. PAHs also are toxic to fish and other aquatic plant and animal life. ...
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PAH, humbug!
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