Author Archive
Consumer’s Reports published a report on health risks associated with protein powders, including a discussion of the risks associated with heavy metal contaminants found in some brands of powders. I’ve commented previously on the shortcomings in their reporting of the risks from the heavy metal contaminants, which I predict will do more to alarm and confuse people than inform them.
However, far be it for me to simply criticize CR’s work without making the attempt to try and communicate health risk issues with heavy metals in protein powders more clearly. So, I’ll take a run at talking about cadmium, because I kind of ran arsenic into the ground with the last post (Note that an expanded version of this post, providing a more detailed discussion of cadmium risks from protein powders, can be found here).
Consumer’s Reports published a report on health risks associated with protein powders, including a discussion of the risks associated with heavy metal contaminants found in some brands of powders. I’ve commented previously on the shortcomings in their reporting of the risks from the heavy metal contaminants, which I predict will do more to alarm and confuse people than inform them (Note that a condensed version of this post without all of the geeky risk assessment talk can be found here).
However, far be it for me to simply criticize CR’s work without making the attempt to try and communicate health risk issues with heavy metals in protein powders more clearly. So, I’ll take a run at talking about cadmium, because I kind of ran arsenic into the ground with the last post.
Consumer Reports seems to have stirred up some controversy over protein powders and drinks. These are staples in the fitness world, and while they’re not intended to be a substitute for real food, they are a convenient way to get some protein into you before a workout.
CR’s article is a bit of a scattershot complaint about the nutritional benefits and health risks, much of which I’m not particularly disposed to address. However, CR drew my attention by informing its readers how. . .
“[s]ome protein drinks can even pose health risks, including exposure to potentially harmful heavy metals, if consumed frequently. All drinks in our tests had at least one sample containing one or more of the following contaminants: arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. These metals can have toxic effects on several organs in the body.”
“Harmful.” “Contaminants.” ” Heavy metals.” “Toxic effects.” These are terms that I do not sling around with abandon. And, from my perspective, people who read CR’s report about protein powders, at least the portion that discusses health risks from heavy metal contamination, will come away alarmed, confused, no better educated about this topic than when they picked up the article, and with no roadmap about what kinds of decisions they should make about using protein powders.
I really will get on to talking further about how much we should be afraid or not afraid that our dry cleaning (or more specifically, the perchloroethylene emissions from our dry cleaning) is going to affect our health, and whether or not we should stop taking fish oil capsules (see me in the comments) because the Manteel Justice Foundation has a bug up its ass about PCB contamination in marine fish oils. But for now, I’m sharing this neat post about data analysis – it’s oriented towards market analytics using the Star Trek red shirt-guy-who-dies-in-each-episode trope (may all Wall Street bankers, stock traders and market analysts have unsatisfactory sexual relationships forever for ruining our economy), but is a useful tale for how to analyze data in general.
Here’s hoping that blogging resembling real environmental health science resumes soon. My apologies for subjecting you to this. I’m recovering from a head cold, and I’m overly preoccupied with the day job, and both seem to impede me from thinking very clearly.
RadCon was in town last week (RadCon, in the Tri-Cities, Washington. . . near where the Hanford Site is located. . . get it, RadCon. . . oh, never mind). I hauled both of the youth over to the Red Lion in Pasco to participate. They’re not into cosplay, and didn’t show up in costume, though my daughter did buy some steampunk-themed welding goggles. She also expressed an interest in the folks in neo-apocalyptic garb including respiratory protection. We saw several folks wearing half-face air-purifying respirators (I started telling her that the cartridges with the magenta stripes on them meant they were for filtering radioactive substances except tritium and noble gases, but stopped when I noticed that her eyes started glazing over), and one young woman in a faux-U.S. Army helmet, World War II style and faux-World War I full-face canister respirator (what most people would call a “gas mask”). I said she could have one for her birthday if she’d like.
The mixture of lectures, vendors, game rooms and people wandering about in costume made for a pleasant venue. It was clear that my kids (kids, hah – they’re close to adults now) were in their element there – my son pondered attending a lecture presented by some science-fiction authors about writing about time travel; over the years we’ve had several discussions regarding the nature of time travel, after I had given him a copy of Michio Kaku’s Hyperspace. Later, both of them sat in on a lecture on character development. In that one, my daughter asked a question about how to make a whiny, angst-ridden, emo character interesting. The participants struggled with that for a moment, until my son chimed in “like Anakin”, which provoked groans and chuckles from participants and the panel alike, but got the point across.
I couldn’t participate as much as I would have liked, since the whole work-life balance thing isn’t going so well right now. However, I attended a talk on protecting ourselves from collision with near-Earth asteroids. . . talk about a major environmental problem that is being almost totally ignored . . , which included on the panel Larry Niven, looking like the stereotypical grandpa of the “you kids get off my lawn” variety. I quickly got bored and didn’t sit through the whole session, since it was focused on the cool technologies that in theory could be deployed to save the Earth from asteroid impaction. I’m into cool technology as much as the next geek, but there’s the practical side of me who’s interested in hearing about the societal and technological changes involved in putting us on the path to achieve such a deployment (. . . boring. . .), and when are we going to pull our heads out of our asses and get on with it. . . . Sorry, this isn’t intended to be a rant. But the list of Manhattan Project-sized projects on the to-do list (manage climate change, achieve energy independence, preserve biodiversity, keep big rocks from dropping from orbit onto our heads) is starting to add up.
Attending a science fiction and fantasy con prompted me to think about the stories I’ve read with an environmental health theme. There’s Norman Spinrad’s short story Carcinoma Angels, where the hero is a cancer victim who uses guided imagery to direct his own molecular and cellular defense mechanisms and save himself, but can’t wake from his drug-induced trance; John Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up, with it’s unsubtle message about unsustainable lifestyles including a scene in which hallucinogenic chemical warfare agents leaching into groundwater from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal make people in Denver crazy; Cordwainer Smith’s short story The Crime and Glory of Commander Suzdal, with a planet where being female is carcinogenic, a foretelling of life with endocrine disruptors including a frank description of homosexual lifestyles (you see, everyone has to become male in order to survive. . .). While it doesn’t harp on the subject, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy does mention the problem with space travel of astronauts accumulating potentially life-shortening radiation doses, though he pulls out the plot device of anti-aging drugs to offset that problem and keep his characters into the multi-generational story. I did enjoy the Mars Trilogy with it’s themes of ecological economics, and using the mission to Mars to give aerospace defense contractors something to do other than build implements of destruction. Maybe this whole topic could be a workshop at next year’s con.
More than a billion people worldwide smoke tobacco. With a 20-fold greater risk of developing lung cancer than nonsmokers, plus increased risks of other types of cancers, choosing to smoke represents the most significant carcinogenic exposure confronting public health professionals today. A recently completed study published in Nature (se below) reports on the sequencing of DNA from a small-cell lung cancer victim. Tobacco smoke deposits hundreds of chemicals in an individual’s airways and lungs including numerous mutagens. The investigators have used massively parallel sequencing to illuminate the distinctive mutations associated with exposure to cigarette smoke carcinogens, as well as the signature of DNA repair activities.
The investigators didn’t speculate about the policy implications of this work, but things that come to mind for me include better early detection of pre-cancerous conditions, genomic therapies that intervene on a macromolecular level and an airtight method for denying someone health insurance coverage for lung cancer treatment because of self-inflicted tobacco carcinogenesis.
One of the worrisome statements made in the discussion section was that, on average, lung cancer develops after 50 pack-years of smoking (where a pack-year is 7,300 cigarettes, representing the number smoked in a pack a day for a year), or an average of one mutation for every 15 cigarettes smoked, which could potentially transform a normal cell into a cancerous one that eventually clones into a tumor.
There are a couple of epidemiological modeling papers cited for that conclusion that should be looked in on later, but the 50 pack-years assessment provoked a bit of an oh-shit moment, because if I’m understanding the number properly, 50 pack-years is around a pack a day for one year; the dose-response relationship is cumulative, so the same risk would be associated with half a pack a day for two years, and so forth. Tobacco contains a lot of other carcinogens other than mutagens, which initiate a carcinogenic response; these other carcinogens are promoters, which accelerate the growth and development of a tumor. So, even if you’ve only currently a “light” smoker, you’re probably still screwing yourself health-wise; even if you quit years ago, you may have macromolecular or cellular injury now, that will eventually turn into lung cancer, but it just hasn’t progressed to the that you’re experiencing adverse effects. It’s just another reason for not smoking at all or stopping at the earliest instance possible, in order to preserve your health (and insurance).
Pleasance, E.D. et al. 2009. A small-cell lung cancer genome with complex signatures of tobacco exposure. Nature. 463, 184-190 (14 January 2009) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7278/full/nature08629.html
Huffpo is info-smack for me. I really should dry out from it, but. . . well, what can you say? Maybe the smack example is a little much, so perhaps it’s like Pop-Tarts, tasty and somewhat filling, if completely un-nutritious. . . .
But sometimes, I get something mildly usable from it, at least enough to keep up the blogging rate. Today’s example is a post in Huffpo about the city in the nation with the highest home foreclosure rate, along with 16% unemployment: Stockton, CA.
I remember Stockton. Thirty years ago, I lived in Sacramento just about an hour north of Stockton, first working for the State of California regulating pesticides, then working for a couple of environmental consulting firms. I passed through Stockton more times than I can remember, on the way to the Bay Area – taking I-5 to I-205 and through the Altamont Pass was longer than I-80, but I would gladly drive the extra 70 miles, if I could go 80 mph all the way and avoid being stuck in traffic. Stockton was also a waypoint when driving south to the San Joaquin Valley, to work sites where I could observe and monitor workers using pesticides, measuring their exposure and collecting data to figure out methods for reducing those exposures.
I was just starting to see the growth in the Valley towns when we left California – tens of thousands of people who bought homes in places such as Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Patterson, and commuted two-plus hours per day one way to jobs in the Bay Area. I don’t think I have to read further to figure out what’s happened – the jobs in the Bay Area are starting to dry up, and there’s nothing locally to replace them. . . .
I’ve managed to miss all of this. We left California in 1995 for opportunities elsewhere, and it feels as if we dodged a bullet. It’s difficult for me to imagine what would be so desirable in a job that would make it worth driving 60 miles, one way in heavy traffic, while living in a garden spot such as Stockton. Don’t get me wrong, I could live there, if I had a job in town. Driving to Hayward to work every day? No way. But that’s me. In the end, I’m relieved that we got out when we did. California – forty million people can be wrong.
Considered to be a probable human carcinogen through inhalation, formaldehyde for several years has been the subject of a risk assessment being conducted by EPA, as well as a candidate for development of emissions standards under the Clean Air Act. Formaldehyde is used in manufacturing of building materials, and the offgassing from new building materials is a source of formaldehyde exposure in indoor air for potentially millions of people.
There have been several signal events related to formaldehyde which have occurred within the past few years. Temporary housing units used by FEMA to house people rendered homeless from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were found to have concentrations of formaldehyde in air at levels that were sufficiently high that public health officials were concerned about potential health risks to the occupants. Recently published epidemiological studies of workers indicate that exposed to formaldehyde is associated with an increased incidence of leukemia (formaldehyde is already thought to be associated with an increased risk of nasal cancers in workers). Senator David Vitter has held up nomination of a key EPA deputy administrator over the formaldehyde risk assessment, insisting that the risk assessment undergo review by the National Academy of Sciences, a step that would delay any regulation of formaldehyde emissions by a few years. Finally, the California Air Resources Board finalized air toxics control measures for the manufacturing of some building materials containing formaldehyde.
Beyond the fact that formaldehyde has been recognized as a human cancer risk and a widespread indoor air contaminant for over two decades, an argument can be made that the existing regulatory frameworks will not produce real reductions in formaldehyde exposure for many years. It is not simply a matter that more information is needed to make a decision. Collecting and analyzing more information can in certain cases create more opportunities to create doubt and distraction. The problem then is defining the kinds of information, messaging and framework that would mobilize enough power to effect changes; in this case, reengineering the manufacturing of building materials to “green” the formaldehyde out of them.
This involves either molding the views of decision makers or creating an enormous groundswell of public opinion. . . . [To be continued]
I ran across this story in Science Progress, a “progressive science blog” which comes across as earnest, involved and. . . dull. Dull and earnest meant that I couldn’t get too worked up about this screed by Chris Mooney about climate change denialism, which mentions the Pew Center statistic that a declining fraction of the American public is concerned about climate change.
However this does raise a good question about why, with the majority of the scientific community that is knowledgeable about the topic of climate change issuing alarms, is climate change risk communication so ineffective. I look at climate change, and see nothing but ways to make capital flow so that lots of people can make money. There’s some kind of a lesson about how being smart and committed about a topic isn’t necessarily enough to galvanize interest and concern about it.
As always, Peter Sandman has some sensible things to say about the problem of climate change apathy and precaution advocacy. However, I recall a few months back something on his blog about him planning to retire soon. I wonder who’s going to be picking up the slack here.
Wired Magazine online just published its top scientific breakthroughs in 2009, and there are two environmental health ones in the list: the sensor that can “smell cancer”, or in other words, can detect exhaled volatile organic compounds that are early biomarkers of potential lung tumors (blogged about earlier) and bisphenol-a. Wired cites a report from the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, which reports on a recently published paper in Human Reproduction about evidence of adverse male reproductive effects in workers exposed to high levels of bisphenol-a (BPA). Male factory workers at a facility in China with BPA exposure have “strikingly high rates of erectile dysfunction and impairment of ejaculation”. The study is on my reading list, but if this proves to be a real adverse effect, maybe it will be the thing that finally stirs some action to address BPA exposure. That or boost stocks in PDE-5 inhibitors.