Arsenic in water for 140 million people

140 million people in 70 countries are at risk from high levels of arsenic in their drinking water. Reuters reported from a Royal Geographical Society (RGS)meeting in London.

According to a BBC website small does of Arsenic may be beneficial - thinning the blood and sending some cancers into remission. However, larger doses will cause death fairly quickly. Repeated exposure is more likely to result in cancer of the skin, lungs, bladder and kidney. A more detailed analysis may be found here and here from the WHO.

In Europe

I am traveling in Europe for the next 17 days, so posts will be a litle sporadic. Landed yesterday in Amsterdam, hence the bike!

Sunscreen

Summer is nearly over and so the FDA announces new proposals on sunscreens. I am sure they must have read my recent posting . . .

The new regulations (if agreed to) will require labeling for both UVA & UVB. The Wall Street Journal has a really nice blog that mentions the new proposals and describes UVA, UVB & UVC.

A quick search of the literature brings up many hits including this from the Aug 11th issue of the Lancet - Photoprotection, Aug 11;370(9586):528-37.

We are advised to wear protective clothing (hats, shirts etc) in addition to sunscreen, and not to view sunscreen as a means to enabling us to stay longer in the sun. In addition sunscreen should be applied liberally and often!
A note of caution though, sunscreen may well aid the body in protection against UVB but it has not been "clearly proven to further protect against skin cancer".

On a personal note, be very careful to apply the sunscreen everywhere. Last weekend we went to the beach in Long Island - and I have a sunburn in two places where (somehow) I managed to miss with the regular doses of sunscreen.

Toxic Employees

I came across this post on a blog and thought it fitted in perfectly with the toxicology world!!

Apologies

My typing has been slow, and I haven't posted in a week. Worse I failed to acknowledge a comment to the Mad Hatter post.

To make amends here are a couple of links: the FDA has a great page on Thimersal (a mercury containing preservative). But this is not the end to the story as you can read in this wikipedia article.

A PubMed search for Thimersal resulted in 972 hits, the latest being in ToxSci - the official journal of the Society of Toxicology (SOT) - discussing the effect of Thimersal on gastric cancer cells.

Mad as a hatter

The phrase "Mad as a hatter" is thought to come from the use of mercury (and subsequent poisonings) in the felt hat trade.

I'm in LA today, I should have been here a lot earlier, however Delta in their wisdom over sold my flight and so I was bounced from the early morning flight to one six hours later - I was not happy. Anyway, watching CNN in the waiting area I see they are doing a piece on Mercury poisoning, levels in fish etc.

I remember as an undergrad chemist spending part of an inorganic course discussing heavy metal build up, with the examples of the horrors in Minamata in Japan. In Neurotoxicology and Teratology we have published many papers over the years regarding different exposure levels to mercury including a couple of great papers in the September / October 2006 issue.

The US FDA and EPA have both issued advisories on fish, shellfish and mercury levels (FDA, EPA).

May be best to hold back on the sushi when pregnant . . .

More Bisphenol A

The results are in! The National Toxicology Program (NTP) announced their findings yesterday on reproductive risks associated with BPA.

A nice summary in the LA Times said: "some concern" about neurological and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and children, but "minimal" or "negligible" concern about reproductive effects.

I am sure the discussions are far from over!!

Bisphenol A

is (again) a new hot contentious topic. A common building block of many plastic items in our daily lives, there is still open debate as to the 'correct' safe exposure levels. We will shortly publish a themed or special issue in Reproductive Toxicology on this chemical. Advance press coverage last week of the results has lead to a number of public awareness / news paper articles - including the LA Times, Environmental Health News, and USA Today and in other science blogs.

We may see later this week, what impact these reports have upon the NIH when they meet to discuss the safe levels of BPA.

Long weekend away

Follow a relaxing weekend of doing nothing - and achieving that goal successfully - I am in Philadelphia at UPenn. Following on from last week's lead posting I see that a report from Neurology has generated interested in Scientific American and other places: that if you have high cognitive function then thinking impairment was less pronounced than those with low cognitive function, though the effects on movement speeds were similar.

Wear Sunscreen

Over the weekend my wife and I went to Coney Island - which classes as doing nothing. I think I was wise to use plenty of sunscreen while sitting on the beach, but just before you get too complacent I did find an online database of over 700 sunscreens, their ingredients and some toxicity information.

There is on-going debate in the community with regard to the safety or not of nano-particles and certainly on of their uses is in sunscreens, though this has to be weighed with the individuals exposure. so essentially the jury is still out! There is an interesting paper in Environmental Health Perspectives from 2005 on nanotox.

Burton's Line

Is a blue line along the gums, found in some victims of lead poisoning. Today Fisher-Price the toy manufacturer recalled almost 1 million toys in the US as they may contain high levels of lead paint. According to the WSJ Chinese firms using lead paint in order to meet demands and maintain costs is an increasingly common problem.

Did you know Beethoven died from lead poisoning?

In Dec 2005 Argonne National Laboratory announced in Dec 2005 that they had found large quantities of lead in his bones, leading to his untimely death in 1827.