Chemicals
"The only real difference between medicine and poison is the dose." -Oscar G. Hernandez, MD
This category covers chemicals: their uses, misuses and environmental impact.
See also Consumption, Environmental Justice , Food and Fracking, Water, and Labor as well as Plastic and Air.
Contents
Overviews and Lists
EWG's Dirty Dozen Report Lists The Most Pesticide-Heavy Fruits And Veggies Of 2015 2/15. 'The Clean 15' 2012 Shopper's Guide To Pesticides Ranks Fruits And Vegetables. 6.12 See also The Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15 foods with most and least chemicals. 5/10
97% of Endangered Species Threatened by 3 Common Pesticides 4/16.
3 Toxins Found in the Cord Blood of Every One of the 10 Newborns TestedNational media outlets, public health officials and Congress have all focused recently on lead contamination in drinking water. The tainted water in Flint, Michigan, Newark, New Jersey and many other communities around the country poses a serious, potentially lifelong public health threat to millions.
Most of us encounter chemicals that can cause brain damage, cancer and other serious health problems in a place critical to human development—the mother’s womb. Most of us encounter chemicals that can cause brain damage, cancer and other serious health problems in a place critical to human development—the mother’s womb. But industrial pollution in people happens long before they take their first sip of water. Most of us encounter chemicals that can cause brain damage, cancer and other serious health problems in a place critical to human development—the mother’s womb.
In 2009, Environmental Working Group (EWG) conducted a pioneering study testing the umbilical cord blood of 10 babies for toxic chemicals. In all, the tests found more than 230 industrial pollutants across the 10 samples. Among those that were in the cord blood of every one of the 10 newborns were lead, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). 4/16
5 worst US cities for pollution 11/13.
5 Popular Home Products That Can Be Surprisingly Toxic 4/14.
Why Basic Protections from Harmful Chemicals Are So Hard to Get By Peter Montague 8/13.
The Environmental Working Group does great work on this issue, including their new guide on cleaning products, cosmetics, and good cheap food. water info on chemicals and effects, including ecosystems. EWG's sunscreen recommendations. ***
Top 10 Toxic Hazards US (Infographic, see also slideshow and article.
6 Things to Know About the EPA’s New Pesticide Rules For the first time since 1992, the EPA has updated rules governing the use of pesticides, which will protect the more than 2 million workers who produce America's food. 10/15 see Environmental Justice.
Time Magazine 2009 fine overview on toxins, including drugs in water system.
Top 10 polluted places Time Magazine version.
EPA site includingAgricultural Chemicals.
Are we all guinea pigs? EDF's biochemist Richard Denison takes on the problem of untested chemicals in consumer products. Inforgraphic chemicals in your home.
Articles/Reports
Farms Could Slash Pesticide Use Without Crop Losses, Research Reveals: Virtually all farms could significantly cut their pesticide use while producing just as much food. 4/17
Pesticides Cause 'Catastrophic' Harm to People and Planet, UN Report Says 3/17.
EWG’s latest analysis, “Rethinking Carcinogens,” takes a close look at new research on chemical exposures and cancer conducted by the Halifax Project, which involves hundreds of cancer researchers and scientists from around the globe. The findings of the Halifax Project add to long overlooked evidence that combinations of chemicals may cause cancer.One in three Americans will be diagnosed with cancer, yet nearly half of all cancers are preventable. Along with genetics, diet, lifestyle and viruses, exposures to toxic chemicals clearly contribute to this epidemic. 8/15
Lead poisoning in Flint Michigan because Koch backed governor takes over the city, undermining democracy. 1/16.
THE PATENT THAT COULD DESTROY MONSANTO AND CHANGE THE WORLD … 9/16.
Monsanto’s Roundup — Most Popular Weed Killer in U.S. — ‘Probably’ Causes Cancer, WHO Report Says see GMO's. Big fight over Seralini study (often attacked by industry paid hacks like Entine. Monsanto Roundup glysophate linked to cancer. *** 11/15 Update.
Study Concludes That Environment, Not Bad Luck, Is Mainly to Blame for Cancer.
Lax Regulatory Enforcement Leaves Thousands at Risk of Lead Poisoning in California 11/15.
Pesticide Exposure Linked to Abnormal Sperm 11/15.
DDT’s cousin: Endosulfan, like DDT, belongs to the organochlorine family, an early generation of farm chemicals that are notably persistent in the environment and animal tissue. It has been used in the United States since 1954 to kill mites and insects. "If humans are exposed to it,” he said, “it can cause serious health impacts.” 11/15.
Stop Giving Cancer Patients Toxic Cosmetics to ‘Look Good, Feel Better’ 10/15 Background: Cosmetics update 10/13. Story of Cosmetics from Annie Lenonard. What those words on the label really mean. Hormone disrupting chemicals. More research. More on cosmetics 2/12 update 1/13.
The Dark Side of McDonald's World-Famous Fries 8/15.
EWG is creating a new database of household cleaning products. Preview: Hall of Shame. Environmental Working Group's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides was targeted with an expensive, misleading public relations attack campaign. The Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF), a California-based public relations group of pro-pesticide, big agricultural producers made the unfounded charge that the EWG Guide is influencing people to eat fewer vegetables. Those bogus claims won't fool most people. Still, EWG was shocked when California and federal officials started handing out taxpayer dollars to support the industry's tactics. EWG's sunscreen recommendations. See also above.
New York’s emergency crackdown on abuses at nail salons, explained 5/15.
Fracking Flowback From California Oil Wells Contains High Levels Of Carcinogenic Chemicals 2/15. See Fracking.
BPA Exposure Linked to Rising Rates of Male Infertility 1/15.
Groundbreaking Report Calculates Damage Done by Fracking includes 280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater generated by fracking in 2012—enough to flood all of Washington, DC, in a 22-foot deep toxic lagoon. See Fracking. 1/15.
EPA Approves Controversial ‘Superweed’ Pesticide for GMO Crops 10/14.
Styrene Officially Linked to Cancer. See also Plastic 8/14.
Autism Risk Higher Near Pesticide-Treated Fields, Study Says 6/14.
Research from Environment America shows that 2012 was a bigger year for toxic chemical dumping than most of us could have imagined. Industrial facilities across the U.S. dumped more than 206 million pounds of toxic chemicals into waterways in 2012, according to the “Wasting Our Waterways” report. The figures about the nation, as a whole, are stark, as are figures about individual regions and companies. For instance, Tyson Foods Inc. alone dumped more than 18.5 million pounds—about 9 percent of the nationwide total. Report pdf 6/14.
Pesticides and school report 5/14.
Little oversight of chemica plants 5/14.
Pesticides Can Lower Intelligence (includes Salinas Valley) 4/14.
Toxic Tech: Apple And Other Manufacturers Have to Stop Poisoning Their Workers 4/14.
Pesticide Action Network (PANNA), new study links chemicals to autism (see also here 5/13 (not, interestingly to childhood vaccines, hmmnnnn....). These numbers reflect a 78% increase in prevalence since 2002, with the largest rate of growth among Hispanic and black children. Public health experts now refer to this dramatic nationwide trend as an autism epidemic. See Environmental Justice .
Sandra Steingraber (see books below and eco-heroes) has just released a video version of Living Downstream. Video documentary. Sandra Steingraber Issues Statement Before Being Led to Jail: "Act of Civil Disobedience Is a Last Resort for Me" 4/13. Writing From Jail on Earth Day Extended interview with Bill Moyers (video) 4/13.
Criminologist Adrian Raine argues that violent behavior has biological roots just like depression or schizophrenia. This raises questions about treatment, accountability and punishment, including the death penalty. He argues lead can explain 90% of crime variation (audio interview and excerpt). 3/14.
Who Ya Gonna Call when you suspect you might be exposed to toxins? 3/14
Dow hires private security firm to spy on Bhopal activists. New documentary, Bhopali (trailer.)
Cleaning co's want more regulations 12/13.
DDT linked to obesity. 11/13.
Why Basic Protections from Harmful Chemicals Are So Hard to Get By Peter Montague 8/13.
Veterans Sick From Agent Orange-Poisoned Planes Still Seek Justice 7/13.
Chemicals applied to pot plants are intended only for lawns and other non-edibles. Medical cannabis samples collected in Los Angeles have been found to contain pesticide residues at levels 1600 times the legal digestible amount. 5/13.
China Acknowledges “Cancer Villages” 5/13.
Coal plants could be linked to thousands of North Carolina suicides 5/13
Arsenic in pork and chicken 5/13.
Roundup, An Herbicide, Could Be Linked To Parkinson's, Cancer And Other Health Issues, Study Shows 4/13.
The results of the new study suggest that while avoiding plastics when storing, cooking and eating foods can help reduce exposures, it may not be enough. Experts suggest that government and industry need to better track the source of these chemicals in order to start eliminating them from the food chain. 3/13.
BPA newly-released study by WHO, the World Health Organization, titled "State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals," says pesticides, plasticizers and product additives contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). They act like synthetic hormones, throwing off the body's natural hormonal system. A hormone is a chemical messenger produced in the glands in our endocrine system and released in our blood and affects everything from mood to metabolism. One of the chemicals investigated in the study is BPA, or bisphenol A, which mimics estrogen if it's introduced into your body.Entire food system may be contaminated with BPA and other plastic nasties 2/13. CA may limit BPA, despite industry counterattack. 3/13.
Erin Brockovitch, see Chromium-6 Taints Water Supplies Around the CountryChromium VI: EPA Contaminated by Conflict of Interest. The 2000 movie "Erin Brockovich" chronicled the struggles of the small town of Hinkley, Calif., against the monumental Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), who was polluting their water with the toxic substance chromium-6. However, more than ten years later, Hinkley is still dealing with dangerous levels of the chemical in its groundwater. Brockovitch. 4/13 Update.
Pesticides hurt bees. 4/13.
Arsenic levels are required to be lowered by EPA, but poor communities are not benefitting.
Lead: "upcoming documentary, "MisLEAD."Tamara Rubin, the film's director, said she aims to dispel a long-standing misconception that lead poisoning is confined to low-income communities and to children who eat paint chips. The lead industry itself originated and perpetuated that myth, according to experts. In their book, Deceit and Denial, David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz share evidence of the industry's insistence in the 1950s and 1960s that childhood lead poisoning was "primarily a problem of the eastern slums," and a "result of the lack of education, racial inferiority, and inattentiveness of poor people. Lead explains crime rates 1/13.
Where Mercury comes from 12/12. Mercury in fish 1/13 (audio). human rights issue.
New Study Links Plastics Exposure to Breast Cancer 11/12.
PCB's linked to infertility. 1/13.
Rocket fuel, "perc" (perchlorate) found in breast milk in 18 states.
Fire retardants found in peanut butter (and are in large amounts in furniture and to a lesser degree even clothes). 6/12.
Toxic flame retardants now in food.
Pesticides blamed by report for illnesses 10/12.
Pesticide Use Proliferating With GMO Crops, Study Warns 10/12
Heinz Award winner 2012 finds connection between chemicals and obesity. 9/12 BPA linked to obesity 2/12. Also ADHD. Other studies show connections to autism (top 10 suspects}, though genetics also a factor. Chemicals linked to autism spike 4/12
Controversial Stanford says organic food not more nutritious 9/12.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring, Huffington decided to review five of Rachel Carson’s warnings made decades ago to see how they measure up today. (also for iPad )7.12
Moms protest: their mission is to convince Congress to retire the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act and replace it with the proposed Safe Chemicals Act, which currently awaits a Senate vote. The swap would essentially shift the burden of proof for chemical safety from the current assumption that a chemical is safe until proven toxic -- generally after it has already spent years on the market -- to a requirement for industry to prove that a chemical is safe prior to placing it on store shelves. 5/12
New study on prenatal exposure of organophosphate fertilizer. 4/12
Syngenta tries to cover up Atrazine contamination of water supply, including by collecting information to try to intimidate reporters. PBS Newshour video segment on use in forests 9/12. Audio and text)Atrazine affects hormones in frogs, what about us?
Pesticide use in Central Valley (photo-essay) 2/12.
South LA chemicals: In industry’s shadow: After years of illnesses, family looks for answers. Blood test results.
Using plants to clean up chemicals (phytoremediation). See also Mycoremediation: Fungal Bioremediation Harbhajan Singh.
New Report on mercury raises new and troubling questions. 2/12 (interestingly, greens and pro-life folk are uniting on the issue).
Story of Cosmetics from Annie Lenonard. What those words on the label really mean. Hormone disrupting chemicals. More research. More on cosmetics 2/12 update 1/13.
Analysis of new EPA TRI data 1/12
Gulf War Syndrome Today, more than 250,000 U.S. veterans report suffering from one or more unexplained symptoms that have, together, come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome. 11/11
Executive Summary of The National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals includes new findings on perfluoroalkyl, a hormone disruptor found in fast-food packaging and nonstick cookware.
2009 Report. Industrial facilities dumped 232 million pounds of toxic chemicals into American waterways in 2007, according to the federal government’s Toxic Release Inventory into more than 1,900 waterways in all 50 states. The Ohio River ranked first for toxic discharges in 2007, followed by the New River and the Mississippi River. Nitrate compounds— which can cause serious health problems in infants if found in drinking water and which contribute to oxygen-depleted “dead zones” in waterways – are by far the largest toxic releases in terms of overall volume.
Environmental Working Group's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides was targeted with an expensive, misleading public relations attack campaign. The Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF), a California-based public relations group of pro-pesticide, big agricultural producers made the unfounded charge that the EWG Guide is influencing people to eat fewer vegetables. Those bogus claims won't fool most people. Still, EWG was shocked when California and federal officials started handing out taxpayer dollars to support the industry's tactics.
Rosie Spinks, ENVS major, worked at UCSC's City on a Hill Press and co-founder of UCSC's first environmental magazine, Gaia. This work helped win her a coveted editorial internship at Sierra magazine, the national publication of the Sierra Club. A story she wrote for Sierra (about the teenage daughter of a Watsonville farm worker family fighting the use of the pesticide methyl iodide) was published on the magazine's website.
Drop in crime rate correlates to lead reduction. 6/11
Endocrine disruptors are dangerous chemicals that alter the natural function of the body's hormones. They are frequently used in plastics, in pesticides, and in personal care products and act in the human body as a "false" version of estrogen. They appear to be linked to a variety of diseases, including sexual dysfunction, heart disease, metabolic disorders, and cancer. Grist. The classic work is Our Stolen Future
Babies are polluted at birth, new report says By Laura LeBlanc (May 13th, 2010)
There are more than 80,000 chemicals on the market today, but only about 200 of them have been tested for safety. That’s because the Environmental Protection Agency can only require safety testing after there is proof that a substance poses a health risk under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 — the only major environmental regulation that has not been updated. Only five chemicals have been regulated since the law was enacted. As for getting rid of a dangerous substance — well, under the 1976 law, the EPA wasn’t even able to successfully ban asbestos, a known carcinogen.
A new report by the President’s Cancer Panel is calling for a major shift in how we regulate thousands of new chemicals that are introduced each year. The report says that children are far more susceptible than adults to being harmed by exposure to environmental toxins, even before they are born.
The Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15 foods with most and least chemicals.
Time Magazine 2009 fine overview on toxins, including drugs in water system.
Top 10 polluted places Time Magazine version.
NYT 09 story about an almost ghost town in Kansas contaminated by lead mining.
UCSC alum Susanne Rust (’03) Winner of several major awards for "Chemical Fallout," an investigative series on BPA: as well as 2008 John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism from Columbia University.
Course Readings
Harrison, J. “Abandoned Bodies and Spaces of Sacrifice: Pesticide Drift Activism and the Contestation of Neoliberal Environmental Politics in California.” Geoforum 39, no. 3 (2008): 1197-214. 133 (pdf download).
Schlosser, Eric Fast Food Nation provides information on the meat industry and chemicals in the food.
Steingraber, Sandra Living Downstream explores the role of chemicals in cancer Time Pt 1 Time Pt 2 WWII origins of petrochemical industry. A new film is based on the book. Here's an interview with her about that (audio 5/10). She appears in Contaminated Without Consent video.
Interactive/Infographics
Violation Tracker, the first online data set to track corporate misconduct across federal agencies. 12/15
Water pollution simulation: Think through the consequences associated with the development of a widget plant upstream from the Alma Mater School. While the plant will be good for the region’s economy, will it release widgoxyn—a deadly chemical known to interfere with aquatic food webs—in such quantities that it will irreparably damage the stunningly beautiful Alma Mater Pond?
Inforgraphic: chemicals in your home. from EDF.another version.
10 Ways Ocean Pollution Makes Us Sick (infographic) 11/15. See also Ocean.
Check out CA pollution by zip code 5/13.
Books
Andy Dyer, professor of biology at the University of South Carolina, author of Chasing the Red Queen: The Evolutionary Race Between Agricultural Pests and Poisons [abstract) published by Slug led Island Press. Audio interview 2/15.
Unnatural Selection: HOW WE ARE CHANGING LIFE, GENE BY GENE by Emily Monosson (Island Press). Modern society relies on discovering and manufacturing ever more chemicals, most of which are never thoroughly tested for toxicity, let alone their ability to influence evolution. Monosson argues that as we embrace chemicals, we change the circumstances under which natural selection operates and create instead “unnatural selection.” By studying examples from cancer cells to bed bugs, she shows how evolution is happening faster than we realize and explores why that matters.
Ellen Griffith Spears'Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town see Environmental Justice 9/14.
When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales Of Environmental by Devra Davis (discussion notes) Davis confronts the public triumphs and private failures of her lifelong battle against environmental pollution. By turns impassioned and analytic, she documents the shocking toll of a public-health disaster—300,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and Europe from the effects of pollution—and asks why we remain silent. She shows how environmental toxins contribute to a broad spectrum of human diseases, including breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and emphysema—all major killers—and in addition how these toxins affect the health and development of the heart and lungs, and even alter human reproductive capacity. But the battle against pollution is not just scientific. For Davis, it’s personal: pollution is what killed many in her family and forced the others, survivors of the 1948 smog emergency in Donora, Pennsylvania, to live out their lives with damaged health. She vividly describes that episode and also makes startling revelations about how the deaths from the London smog of 1952 were falsely attributed to influenza; how the oil companies and auto manufacturers fought for decades to keep lead in gasoline, while knowing it caused brain damage; behind-the-scenes accounts of the battle to recognize breast cancer as a major killer; and many other battles. When Smoke Ran Like Water makes a devastating case that our approaches to public health need to change.
In Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children, Markowitz and Rosner chronicle the battles that have taken place over lead poisoning for the last half-century, with special emphasis on a study in which researchers from Johns Hopkins University conducted what the Maryland Court of Appeals deemed unethical research on African-American children. Knowing that some of the children in their study could be exposed to lead from old paint in the apartments they were moved into and so at greater risk for learning disorders and behavioral problems, they went ahead anyway. If it sounds to you like some dark corollary to the notorious Tuskegee experiment, in which hundreds of black men with syphilis were denied treatment with penicillin so that U.S. government researchers could study the course of the disease, you’re not alone in thinking it. The Maryland Appeals Court thought so, too. But while the Tuskegee study began in the 1930s, when protocols for protecting people from medical experimentation were lax, the Johns Hopkins research started in the 1990s, when regulations supposedly provided ample protection from harm at the hands of public health professionals.More.
How Toms River cracked a cancer cluster. Chemical companies treated this N.J. town as a private dumping ground for decades. Here's how they were made to pay. By Dan Fagin.
Steingraber, Sandra (see eco-heroes) Living Downstream(Core course pick) *** explores the role of chemicals in cancer Time Pt 1 (C8 login required)Time Pt 2. She also traces their military origins of petrochemical industry in "War". A film is being made based on the book. Here's an interview with her about that (audio 5/10). Video documentary.
Poisoned Profits. Philip Shabecoff, former chief environmental correspondent for the New York Times, and Alice Shabecoff, former executive director of the National Consumers League, contend that there is a link between the high percentage of the children of baby boomers that are born with or develop health problems and corporate pollution. video.
Lead: "upcoming documentary, "MisLEAD."Tamara Rubin, the film's director, said she aims to dispel a long-standing misconception that lead poisoning is confined to low-income communities and to children who eat paint chips. The lead industry itself originated and perpetuated that myth, according to experts. In their book, Deceit and Denial, David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz share evidence of the industry's insistence in the 1950s and 1960s that childhood lead poisoning was "primarily a problem of the eastern slums," and a "result of the lack of education, racial inferiority, and inattentiveness of poor people. Lead explains crime rates 1/13.
In The Body Toxic, the investigative journalist Nena Baker explores the many factors that have given rise to this condition-from manufacturing breakthroughs to policy decisions to political pressure to the demands of popular culture.
Florence Williams is author of the new book Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, important because they concentrate and pass on toxins. text interview 6/12 audio interview.
Stacy Malkan's Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.
Mark Shapiro's new book Exposed (review) Multiple audio interviews Text interview Here's a local audio interview 2007
In Sacrifice Zones, Steve Lerner tells the stories of twelve communities, from Brooklyn to Pensacola, that rose up to fight the industries and military bases causing disproportionately high levels of chemical pollution. Lerner is the author of Eco-Pioneers: Practical Visionaries Solving Today's Environmental Problems 1998) and Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor (2005), both published by the MIT Press. video.
Elizabeth Grossman's Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry.
The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin. Also a video documentary.
Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health 2008 Oxford David Michaels
Angus Wright Death of Ramon Gonzales on pesticide use
Experimental Man: What One Man's Body Reveals… by David Ewing Duncan
Important book on endocrine disruption Our Stolen Future
Maps
How Close Do You Live to a Toxic Waste Site? 10/15 map
Check out CA pollution by zip code 5/13.
Scorecard.org allows you to see environmental hazards by maps or Zip code (data ends 2002?) **** Similarly Planet Hazard slices and dices EPA data by place, chemical and industry etc.
Poisoned Places four part NPR report and interactive map. 11/11
ToxMap shows toxic waste sites in US ***
Mapcruzin by Slug Mike Meuser *** South Bay map, SF Bay cumulative exposures, contaminated Bay Area groundwater.
Rocket fuel, "perc" (perchlorate) found in breast milk in 18 states.
Other Sources
UCSC Library Toxicology Research Guide
Bhopal is one of the worst chemical accidents in history. Article by Mark Hertsgaard. It Happened in Bhopal (video). Another documentary. The Yes Men (who spoke at UCSC's ESLP course) are activists who announced the Dow was going to do the right thing on Bhopal. A new 2011 documentary.Natural Heroes on 20th anniversary.
EPA Head Lisa Jackson 10/09 speech includes important reforms about chemicals. text. Also in audio (Realplayer required).
Online Course
Environmental Health from Johns Hopkins University gives a good overview of different kinds of exposures to different toxins and their effects.
Images
Twenty-Five Stories from the Central Valley, an online exhibit, uses photos, theater, stories and sound to paint a vivid picture of the environmental toxins that “the other California” lives with every day. Women leaders give us a window into the little-known lives of people who are making this region safer for everyone. Their stories are shocking, sad, and inspiring.
Audio
New Studies There are tens of thousands of chemicals in everyday products. Only a fraction of these have been tested for toxicity and health effects in the U.S. Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, talks about new studies that raise troubling health questions. (9:30) text and audio 7.12
Pesticides Coming Your Way panel discussion: Nan Wishner from California Environmental Health Initiative and Paul Towers from Pesticide Action Network, bring us up to date on sneaky new attempts to apply yet more pesticides to our water, air and food. 7/11.
Reform long overdue LOE 8/10
Chemicals linked to autism 7/11.
Toxic sites in California and how we are dealing with them (includes brownfields and Hunter's Point).
How cancer-causing methyl iodide snuck past the EPA and onto strawberry farm fields ] See also California Report from NPR. Worker safety video from Quest at KQED.
Brownfields are abandoned industrial hazardous waste sites, the most infamous is Love Canal, another site, which helped spark the third wave of the American eco-movement. CA railroads are offering land for development. Now, these are an important aspect of environmental justice. CA brownfields.
Addressing the Legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam, Bob Edgar, President and CEO, Common Cause, Charles R. Bailey, Director, Ford Foundation Special Initiative on Agent Orange/Dioxin 3/11.
Nitrates in CA drinking water 5/10 can lead to Blue Baby Syndrome. panel discussion 5/10
The Secret Life of Lead series from LOE.org
Living on Earth segment on regulation reform 5/10
Endocrine disrupting chemicals like bisphenol A have been making news lately, with several states passing regulations limiting or banning their use. The trajectory of BPA is similar to another chemical, commonly known as DES, once prescribed for pregnant and menopausal women. Host Jeff Young talks with Professor Nancy Langston about the history of endocrine disrupting chemicals and how this history can inform future chemical regulation. Her book is called, “Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES.” 3/10 NPR loe.org
Atrazine is widely used as weedkiller on American farms. And a new study shows this common chemical may have gender-bending effects on frogs. Host Guy Raz talks to biology professor Tyrone Hayes about his work with atrazine and frogs. Hayes found that 9 of every 10 male frogs he exposed to atrazine became chemically castrated. And that other 1 out of every 10? Well, he became a she.NPR audio and text 3/10 UCB's Hayes' earlier work featured in important book Our Stolen Future
Health and the Environment. Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences addresses the risks of plastic additives, lead and mercury -- and the connections between the environment and cancer, asthma and reproductive health. 2/10
BPA Update. Bisphenol-A or BPA may soon hit the list of known toxins under California's Proposition 65, the law that lets state regulators restrict the use of toxic chemicals and require warnings on product labels. 3/10
Kettleman City birth defects 2/10 EJ?
Pesticide Drift KQED Quest two part series with links (including pesticide map)
David Ewing Duncan, director of the Center for Life Science Policy at Berkeley and author of "Experimental Man." The book chronicles Duncan's discovery of how his body interacts with environmental toxins. After having his DNA scrutinized, his brain scanned, and undergoing a number of other advanced medical tests to give him a personal snapshot of his body, Duncan unveils what he's learned about the future of human health and the environment. 5/09
Genes, Environment and Health Research KQED Forum Episode 2007
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hendrick Smith details widespread pollution of America's waterways in the PBS Frontline documentary Poisoned Waters. Audio interview April 20, 2009.
Audio of panel discussion of California's new Green Chemistry initiative. 12/08 See also here and 12/18
Mark Shapiro's new book Exposed (review) Multiple audio interviews Text interview Here's a local audio interview 2007
Websites
Environmental Working Group chemical index, also asbestos and Health/Toxins
Pesticides overview from Encyclopedia of Earth
CA Department of Toxic Substances
Toxicological profiles (Look up chemicals and what they do.
New CA law helps us protect ourselves
Sierra Club Useful Sierra Club site
Children's Environmental Health Network
Eco-USA Superfund sites, organizations
Natural Resources Defense Council
Pesticide Action Network has specific info on California
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has info on electronics industry.
Greenaction: To learn more about Bradley Angel's Environmental Justice work with Greenaction and what you can do to help the people of Kettleman City link
Environment Justice for All Recently did a national tour, and has posted videos (including Oakland, Silicon Valley, Hunter's Point, Delano)
(S)heroes of EJ, by EJ Resource Center.
Directory of EJ organizations, including Pesticide Action Network.
Airhugger features important grass roots monitoring by Global Community Monitor, their citizen science Bucket Brigades have gathered data on the East Bay(their community partners), including diesel exhaust as well as Chevron Richmond refinery fire. Also metal recyclers and Fracking. You can help.
Communities for a Better Environment had Bucket Brigade to do citizen science. See above
Video
The Human Experiment, a new documentary narrated by Sean Penn and directed by journalists Dana Nachman and Don Hardy, takes a wide-angle view on the health risks perpetuated by the chemical industry, and demonstrates how in their eyes we’re all just guinea pigs available for testing. 4/15
Our Daily PoisonAccording to the World Health Organization, the incidence of cancer has doubled over the last thirty years (after allowing for the population aging factor). Over this period, the increase in leukemia and brain tumors in children has been around 2% per year. The WHO has observed a similar trend for neurological diseases (Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s) and autoimmune disorders, and for reproduction dysfunctions. What explanations can be found for this worrying epidemic, which is hitting the “developed” countries particularly hard? Haunted by that question, director Marie-Monique Robin launches an in-depth investigation into everyday products and the system charged with regulating them.
BILL MOYERS EXPOSÉ: CHEMICALS IN OUR FOOD (PBS ) even though studies show that the chemical Bisphenol A can cause cancer and other health problems in lab animals, the manufacturers, their lobbyists, and U.S. regulators say it's safe. 2008
In Libby Montana Gayla Benefield was just doing her job -- until she uncovered an awful secret about her hometown that meant its mortality rate was 80 times higher than anywhere else in the U.S. But when she tried to tell people about it, she learned an even more shocking truth: People didn’t want to know. In a talk that’s part history lesson, part call-to-action, Margaret Heffernan demonstrates the danger of "willful blindness" and praises ordinary people like Benefield who are willing to speak up. TEDtalk.
"Our Toxic Waterways: Flushing Away Our Future," reviews a new documentary called "Big River," by Ian Cheney and Kurt Ellis (makers of King Korn; in this sequel they follow the chemicals to the Gulf of Mexico) about Atrazine.
Steingraber, Sandra Living Downstream explores the role of chemicals in cancer Time Pt 1 (C8 login required)Time Pt 2. She also traces their military origins of petrochemical industry in "War". A film is being made based on the book. Here's an interview with her about that (audio 5/10). Video documentary.
Poisoned Waters PBS Frontline. summary 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hendrick Smith details widespread pollution of America's waterways in the PBS Frontline documentary Poisoned Waters. [Audio interview April 20, 2009.
Contaminated Without Consent 16 minutes. Includes Steingraber, and emphasis on kids, who have the highest levels of some chemicals.
TEDtalkThe toxic baby includes Endocrine disruptors .
Semper Fi: Always Faithful follows a master sgt's mission to expose the Marine Corps and force them to live up to their motto to the thousands of soldiers and their families exposed to toxic chemical at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune and a looming environmental crisis at military sites across the country. 10/11
UCSC Chemical Screening Center robotics, which looks at chemicals in the ocean, for example.
Human Rights in the Age of Environmental Devastation and Climate Chaos looks at chemicals and their effects. First Aired: 3/16/2009 55 minutes. Chief of the Cardiology Division of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Richmond, California Jeffrey Ritterman explores the consequences of climate change and environmental destruction on our health. (#15577)
Toxicologist Susan Shaw shows evidence chemical dispersant in Gulf oil spill sparing some beaches only at devastating cost to the health of the deep sea. She does a bit of history of chemicals.
Addressing the Legacy of Agent Orange in Vietnam (2/25/11) Commonwealth Club.
Green Chemistry is a bit like bio-mimicry, that is working with nature vs dominating it with brute force:
World-renowned green chemist John Warner illustrates how we can create a new generation of biomimetic and green molecular building blocks to help us reach the “world we want.” A founder of Green Chemistry, he has published over 200 patents, papers and books. He’s founder, President and Chief Technology Officer of Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, and co-founder of Beyond Benign, a nonprofit for sustainability and green chemistry education. This speech was given at the 2014 Bioneers National Conference
Chasing Molecules: The Promise of Green Chemistry Elizabeth Grossman speak (3/3/10) Commonwealth Club.
The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin. Also a video documentary.
Erin Brockovitch DVD211
Blue Vinyl Link
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring VT2457 Excellent introduction to Carson.
Texas Gold: Carolyn M. Scott 2005 21 min.
Fourth-generation fisherwoman Diane Wilson leads a one-woman crusade against Dow and other petrochemical plants, which create 17% of America’s pollution from her Texas town of 1,352. These factories have turned Seadrift from a traditional fishing port into a massive chemical cocktail that poisons the surrounding air, earth and waters—, sardonically dubbed Texas Gold.
Trade Secrets: This documentary exposes the 40 year history of the American chemical industry's supression of information regarding the threats to public health by synthetic chemicals being introduced into the environment at all levels. Addresses the danger to public health by the continued use of approximately 9000 of the 15,000 mass produced chemical substances that have never undergone toxicological study in the United States. Followed by a panel discussion moderated by Moyers including industry spokesmen, environmental, and medical experts. VT7877 120 min.
Toxic Bust 2005 40 mins. Blending fiction and documentary, Toxic Bust weaves the story of a fictitious woman who finds a lump in her breast, together with real-life stories of breast cancer survivors who trace the cause to the chemicals in their environment. The film focuses on three hot spots in America: San Francisco’s Hunter’s Point where the poor live in a toxic stew, and surprisingly Cape Cod and Silicon Valley. Though a warning to all, Toxic Bust reveals that middle-class Boomers who have grown up on lawn pesticides, household cleansers and dry cleaning are vulnerable to toxins and breast cancer. Megan Siler, the producer/director of Toxic Bust, lives in Berkeley, California. link link 2 min trailer
Toxic Legacies VT9128 2001 46 min. Elizabeth Guillette has studied the differences in the children of the Yaqui Valley of Mexico since 1993. The children of the valley towns are far behind those in the foothills in physical coordination, energy, and learning capabilities. The difference she observed was that pesticides have been used in the valley since the 1950s whereas in the foothills, where there is little agricultural industry, there is practically no pesticide use. The program follows Guillette as she meets with scientists for corroboration and possible solutions.
Pam Marrone, founder and former Chairman/CEO of AgraQuest Inc., talks about how she turned her childhood passion and love for bugs into a lifelong commitment that led her to found AgraQuest.
Selected UCSC Resources
Michael Wilson, a UCSC alum, is a pioneer in the emerging field of sustainable or "green" chemistry. With 74 billion pounds of industrial chemicals produced and imported each day in the U.S. (much of it toxic or ecotoxic) Wilson's work focuses on transforming the nature of chemical design and production.
Peter Weiss-Penzias Mercury-Laden Fog Swirls Over California Coastal Cities (music) 1/16. new study 1/16.
Chemical Screening Center robotics, which looks at chemicals in the ocean, for example. video
College Eight and College Eight Sustainability Office
Community Agroecology Network (CAN)
Environmental Studies Department *
Environmental Toxicology Department
UC Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program (TSR&TP) is a University of California Multicampus Research Unit supporting research on toxic substances in the environment and teaching of graduate students through funding of grants, fellowships, and lead campus programs.
