Science Pick: Is Fracking the New Tobacco? January 24, 2012
Posted by Our Health and Environment Administrator in science pick.Tags: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, fracking, gas drilling, natural gas, precautionary principle, toxic chemicals
add a comment
Nancy Myers
Science & Environmental Health Network and
the CHE and SEHN Cumulative Impacts Project
The public health consequences of large-scale natural gas extraction by hydrofracturing are all but unstudied. Regulation and permitting has been left to the states because Congress has exempted the process from regulation under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. States have all but ignored public health consequences in permitting decisions. And given the protection of formulae for fracking fluids as confidential business information, gauging present and potential health effects is extremely challenging.
Nevertheless, two scientists, Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald, have issued a preliminary study of what scientists might learn if they could conduct thorough analyses of the health impact of fracking. Their study, Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health, was published in New Solutions, Vol. 22(1) 51-77, 2012 and may be accessed on the Cumulative Impacts Project website.
Here are some excerpts:
“The large-scale use of chemicals with significant toxicity has given rise to a great deal of public concern, and an important aspect of the debate concerns the level of proof required to associate an environmental change with activities associated with gas drilling. Environmental groups typically invoke the precautionary principle. That is, if an action is suspected of causing harm to the environment, then in the absence of a scientific consensus, the burden of proof falls on the individual or organization taking the action.. . .
“Clear health risks are present in gas drilling operations. These cannot be eliminated but can be decreased by commonsense reforms. . . . Our study illustrates not only several possible links between gas drilling and negative health effects, but also the difficulties associated with conducting careful studies of such a link. Simple commonsense policy reforms could facilitate the collection of data that would lead to a careful assessment of the health consequences of gas drilling on both humans and animals.”
“The oil and gas industry has typically . . . approached the issue in a manner similar to the tobacco industry that for many years rejected the link between smoking and cancer. That is, if one cannot prove beyond a shadow of doubt that an environmental impact is due to drilling, then a link is rejected. This approach by the tobacco companies had a devastating and long-lasting effect on public health from which we have still not recovered, and we believe that a similar approach to the impacts of gas drilling may have equally negative consequences.”
“Animals, especially livestock, are sensitive to the contaminants released into the environment by drilling and by its cumulative impacts. Documentation of cases in six states strongly implicates exposure to gas drilling operations in serious health effects on humans, companion animals, livestock, horses, and wildlife. Although the lack of complete testing of water, air, soil and animal tissues hampers thorough analysis of the connection between gas drilling and health, policy changes could assist in the collection of more complete data sets and also partially mitigate the risk to humans and animals. Without complete studies, given the many apparent adverse impacts on human and animal health, a ban on shale gas drilling is essential for the protection of public health. In states that nevertheless allow this process, the use of commonsense measures to reduce the impact on human and animals must be required in addition to full disclosure and testing of air, water, soil, animals, and humans.”
Science Pick: Can Poison Be Good For You? Understanding Hormesis January 23, 2012
Posted by Our Health and Environment Administrator in science pick.Tags: endocrine disruptor, hormesis
add a comment
Michael Lerner
President, Commonweal
In this extremely interesting article, Andrew Weil—America’s foremost integrative medicine physician—takes on the complex issue of hormesis. For those who follow CHE science dialogue closely, hormesis is controversial within the CHE community. Leading experts on EDCs are frequently suspicious of hormesis and point to industry funding for hormesis research. Weil takes a different tack, acknowledging that hormesis science may be valid but warning vigorously against its abuse. His last three paragraphs tell the story (emphasis added). Read the full article.
“In a larger sense, hormesis may help explain why people who lead strenuous lives with plenty of moderate physical challenges may be healthier and live longer than those in more comfortable circumstances. A 2008 paper titled “Hormesis in Aging” by researchers from the Laboratory of Cellular Aging, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Aarhus in Denmark concluded that “single or multiple exposure to low doses of otherwise harmful agents, such as irradiation, food limitation, heat stress, hypergravity, reactive oxygen species and other free radicals have a variety of anti-aging and longevity-extending hormetic effects.”
“All of which suggests that one of the best routes to health is to make yourself a little uncomfortable now and then. The most profitable discomforts are likely those with which human beings have a long evolutionary history such as physical exertion, getting hungry, regularly tipping back a modest measure of alcohol, short-term exposure to cold or heat, and so on. Conversely, novel stressors—such as the stew of noxious synthetic chemicals in the modern environment with which we have no evolutionary history—are best regarded as guilty until proven innocent.
Which brings up a word of caution: Throughout history, irresponsible politicians and commentators have cited the hormetic effect to justify reducing restrictions on pollution—claiming that a little poison or radiation in the water, air or food supply is good for us. This is dangerous nonsense. Hormesis appears to be of value only when dosages are very carefully controlled, which does not describe releasing random mixtures of toxins, especially synthetic ones, into general circulation. There’s still a great deal we don’t understand about hormesis. Until we do, the smartest policy for governments and industry is to keep the public’s exposure to environmental toxins as low as possible.
Science Pick: Gut Microbiota and Environmental Chemicals in Diabetes and Obesity January 20, 2012
Posted by Our Health and Environment Administrator in science pick.Tags: chemicals, diabetes, gut microbiota, leaky gut, obesity
add a comment
Sarah Howard,
CHE Diabetes-Obesity Spectrum Working Group Coordinator
CHE’s January 19th call was on the interactions between gut microbiota and environmental chemicals in diabetes and obesity, a new area of research. Separately, gut microbiota and environmental chemicals may both contribute to the development of diabetes and obesity; what about the effects in combination?
The presenters reviewed research that shows that gut microorganisms can affect the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination of environmental chemicals. For example, gut microbiota can cause a leaky gut, increasing absorption of chemicals. Gut microbes can modify polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) to turn them into estrogenic compounds. Microbiota can also affect detoxification processes in the liver.
An individual’s gut microbes may affect the rate at which they clear chemicals from their body. Seventy five percent of diabetogenic and obesogenic chemicals can be metabolized by gut microbes.
The interactions between gut microbiota and environmental chemicals may be significant not only for diabetes and obesity, but also for other diseases as well. It is a topic sure to see more research in the future.
To access slides and papers, visit the call page.
