Why Warmer Water Leads to Male Offspring – if You’re a Fish
Lisa Abend
Time
Dec. 29, 2011
To a list that includes extreme weather patterns and disappearing polar bears, you can add another dispiriting effect of climate change: too many males. Three years ago, Francesc Piferrer and other scientists working at Barcelona’s Institute of Marine Sciences proved that rising water temperatures caused some species of fish to produce a disproportionate ratio of males to females. Now, Piferrer and his team have gone on to discover something of a mechanism behind that imbalance.
Most fish species don’t have the X and Y chromosomes that differentiate the sexes in humans. In fact, at least 40 species of fish — as well as many reptiles — are more dependent on temperature than genes when it comes to separating the boys from the girls. In these TSD (temperature-dependent sex determination) species, the sex of offspring is fixed by temperatures experienced during embryonic development. In the 2008 study, Piferrer’s team showed that in a species like the Atlantic silverside, a water-temperature increase of 4°C could result in a population that was 98% male.(See “The End of the Line.”)
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103333,00.html#ixzz1jBpdM22v
Worms feasting on popular pesticide-producing corn
Rick Callahan
Associated Press; MansfieldNewsJournal
Dec. 29, 2011
One of the nation’s most widely planted crops — genetically engineered corn that makes its own insecticide — may be losing its effectiveness because a major pest appears to be developing resistance more quickly than scientists expected.
The U.S. food supply is not in any immediate danger, because the problem remains isolated. But scientists fear potentially risky farming practices could be blunting the hybrid’s sophisticated weaponry.
Read more: http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/20111229/BUSINESS/112290314
Evidence mounts for endocrine effects of a compound used in many antibacterial bar soaps
Anna Lena Phillips
American Scientist
Read more: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/relative-risk-one-result-at-a-time
France recommends removal of suspect breast implants
David Jolly and Maia de la Baume
The New York Times
Dec. 23, 2011
PARIS — French health authorities issued an extraordinary guideline on Friday urging 30,000 French women to have defective breast implants removed, deepening concerns in half a dozen countries and adding more unwelcome light to failings in French medical oversight.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/health/breast-implants-removal-recommended-by-france.html
Groundwater dropping globally
Devin Powell
ScienceNews
Dec. 23, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO — Groundwater levels have dropped in many places across the globe over the past nine years, a pair of gravity-monitoring satellites finds. This trend raises concerns that farmers are pumping too much water out of the ground in dry regions.
Water has been disappearing beneath southern Argentina, western Australia and stretches of the United States. The decline is especially pronounced in parts of California, India, the Middle East and China, where expanding agriculture has increased water demand.
Read more: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337097/title/Groundwater_dropping_globally
Retailer blames China suppliers as more jewelry recalled
Sarah Schmidt
Postmedia News; The Montreal Gazette
Dec. 22, 2011
OTTAWA — A leading Canadian retailer forced to recall jewelry packed with lead and cadmium is blaming its Chinese suppliers.
Montreal-based Groupe Dynamite Inc., operating the popular chains Garage and Dynamite, also suggested Thursday that Health Canada’s testing for toxic metals in jewelry might be more rigorous than tests conducted for industry.
The comments from the company’s vice-president of legal affairs came just as Health Canada announced a fresh round of recalls of toxic jewelry on Thursday.
Another 12 jewelry pieces from seven other companies were pulled from the market Thursday after government tests showed they contained lead levels of up to 82 per cent.
Like a string of products recalled Wednesday for containing levels of lead ranging from 50 to 86 per cent or cadmium levels of up to 46 per cent, all these items slipped through quality-control systems put in place by Canadians companies.
In total, 14 companies have been caught up in Health Canada’s recall blitz this week.
Six of the companies, including Groupe Dynamite, also recalled items last year when Health Canada’s 2010 targeted testing program found dangerous levels of lead in some of their other items.
“Obviously, some of our vendors did not abide by their obligations,” Christian Roy, vice-president of legal affairs at Groupe Dynamite, said in an interview Thursday.
“Our suppliers have the obligation to provide us with lab reports. The lab reports were favourable, meaning there was not an outstanding amount of lead in the jewelry in question. Health Canada basically took the charm and they melted it, and apparently the lead was inside the charm itself. We had no knowledge of that,” said Roy, adding he doesn’t “have any reason to believe” the suppliers’ lab tests were forged.
The legal limit for lead in children’s jewelry in Canada is 0.06 per cent of the total weight. The rule was put in place in 2005 so overseas jewelry manufacturers would stop using the toxic metal and importers would develop quality-control systems to stop dangerous jewelry pieces from reaching store shelves.
Health Canada tested a Dynamite-branded copper necklace with three charms. One of the charms, a small teddy bear, contained 70 per cent lead, while the metal heart was made of 50 per cent lead. The angel pendant was found to be composed of 30 per cent cadmium. The product was sold at Dynamite stores between June 2 and Dec. 16, 2011.
Last year, Health Canada showed two items sold at Groupe Dynamite’s Garage chain contained 87 and 90 per cent lead, respectively.
After last year’s recalls, Roy said the company required its Chinese suppliers to use independent labs “because we had issues in the past with some suppliers getting some testing from obscure labs.”
The company also began conducting limited spot tests for lead content, but problems still slipped through, said Roy.
“Obviously, with thousands of products every year, it’s a bit cumbersome to do every product, but we are doing some spot testing.”
The company does not currently test for cadmium or require its suppliers to do so, but that will soon change, said Roy.
“We will in the future because it’s a new problem that we were made aware of.”
There are no regulations in Canada limiting its use in children’s jewelry, but Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq announced industry guidelines earlier this year to limit the use of cadmium to no more than 0.013 per cent in a piece of children’s jewelry.
Cadmium, increasingly used as a cheap substitute for lead in inexpensive imported jewelry, is considered more harmful than lead if ingested.
Wearing a necklace or bracelet with lead or cadmium is not a health hazard, but sucking on it or swallowing a piece, even with low levels, can wreak havoc with a young brain or kidneys. Lead also can kill.
In 2006, a four-year old boy from Minnesota died after swallowing a heart-shaped bracelet pendant, given away by Reebok with a pair of running shoes. Tests showed the piece was 99 per cent lead.
Many companies involved in Wednesday’s long list of jewelry recalls also were forced to pull products from the market last year as a result of the government’s testing program. They include Groupe Dynamite, Deejay Jewellery Inc., Frabels Inc., and CTG Brands.
When the string of recalls began to roll out Wednesday, Aglukkaq said she was “very disappointed” these companies have continued to import or sell dangerous jewelry items.
Newborn’s death spurs race to find contamination in baby formula
Stephanie Armour and Michelle Fay Cortez
Bloomberg Businessweek
Jan. 4, 2012
Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) — Regulators are testing whether baby formula made by Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. caused the death of a newborn after Kroger Co., Walgreen Co. and other retailers removed the product from stores.
Officials screening samples of the formula and water used to prepare it said results may not come until next week. A second child infected with the same bacteria in Missouri, who survived, also was given formula, though officials today said the baby ingested other types of products as well.
Both babies tested positive for Cronobacter, an environmental bacteria that can be fatal. The possible link to formula is prompting concern from parents, who said they were throwing the product away, and health officials outside of Missouri, who were reviewing infant deaths. If bacteria are conclusively found in unopened formula, a formal recall could follow, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.
“Every mom and dad who sees symptoms are going to think they’ve got it,” said Dave Theno, chief executive officer of Gray Dog Partners Inc., a food safety consultant in Del Mar, California, in an interview. “If an infant is using this formula and your child is exhibiting any of the symptoms, get them seen right away and make sure they test for this.”
Mead Johnson, based in Glenview, Illinois, fell 5.1 percent to $65.29 at the close of New York trading, after plunging 10 percent yesterday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pulled its Enfamil Newborn formula from shelves. SuperValu Inc. and Safeway Inc. also withdrew the formula from stores.
‘Shoot First, Ask Later’
“This is a shoot-first, ask questions later moment for the stock,” Robert Moskow, an analyst at Credit Suisse in New York, wrote in a Dec. 22 note to investors. “The headline is scary enough to cause consumers to change their purchase patterns in the near-term, and no one knows how long that will last even if it is unjustified.”
The surviving baby, who fell sick in Missouri during a trip from its Illinois home, had been given a number of different products, and 17 samples were taken for tests, the FDA said today. Samples in the case of the newborn who died include an open formula container and a mixture of formula and water.
In both cases, “we are trying to figure out whether it came from the food,” said Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman, by telephone. “We take these into local labs and test them. We expect first results back next week.”
Annual Cases
U.S. health officials probe about four to six such cases a year, DeLancey said.
Parents are concerned. Shreyash Maheshware, 30, a software engineer in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, is debating whether to continue using Enfamil Infant for his 3-month-old girl, he said in a telephone interview today.
“You can’t take any risk and you have to think twice,” Maheshware said. “I think I’m going to throw out everything.”
At Internet sites such as Cafemom, which carried news of the Missouri infant death, more than 60 parents have posted comments about Enfamil or formula. “Very scary,” read one post. “I just tossed the only can of formula I had out,” read another. “This terrifies me,” said another.
Roger Smith, chief deputy coroner with the Madison County coroner’s office in Edwardsville, Illinois, said his office was reviewing the case of a 25-day-old infant who died in that state on Dec. 21 is looking into the formula as a cause.
‘Getting in Front’
“It’s just being looked at because of the timing with her death” said Smith in an interview. “Her formula is different, but we wanted to get in front of it”
Neither Wal-Mart nor Mead Johnson provided the number of cans removed from shelves. The number is in the thousands, and about half of Wal-Mart’s stores carry the formula, said Chris Perille, a spokesman for Mead Johnson. Customers can return the withdrawn formula for a refund or exchange, said Dianna Gee, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer.
The Enfa brands, which include Enfamil, accounted for 79 percent of Mead Johnson’s $3.14 billion in 2010 revenue and were the world’s lead brand franchise in pediatric nutrition based on retail sales, the company said in a February filing. About 12 percent of Mead Johnson’s sales come from Wal-Mart, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
A widespread recall may strip as much as 15 percent from Mead Johnson’s sales next year, wrote Amit Sharma, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets Corp. in New York, in a Dec. 22 note to investors. The U.S. accounts for about 30 percent of the company’s total sales, he said. A recall probably would also reverse Mead Johnson’s market share gains for the past two years, he said.
Other Withdrawals
Kroger has pulled about 1,400 cans of the Mead Johnson formula that went to about 220 stores, said Keith Dailey, a spokesman for the Cincinnati-based retailer.
Walgreen withdrew the formula while “awaiting further clarity from the manufacturer and FDA,” said Robert Elfinger, a spokesman for the Deerfield, Illinois company, in an e-mail.
SuperValu, owner of 2,500 retail stores under names including Acme, Jewel-Osco and Shaw’s, pulled the formula yesterday “out of an abundance of caution,” said Mike Siemienas, a spokesman.
Several hundred markets across the company are affected, Siemienas said. The company will keep the Enfamil off shelves until the Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based grocer hears it is safe from health officials or Mead Johnson, he said.
The Missouri Department of Public Health and Senior Services on Dec. 19 issued a health alert on two babies infected with the bacteria within the last month, according to the agency’s website. The department didn’t say if the second infant used the Mead Johnson product.
‘Big, Fat Unknown’
That question is “a big, fat unknown,” the FDA’s DeLancey said.
Mead Johnson hasn’t received any complaint or requests for samples related to the child who survived the infection, Perille, the company spokesman, said.
“As far as we know, there is no connection between Enfamil Newborn and this second case,” Perille said. “Clearly if this other case was connected to Enfamil Newborn, we would have received case information and been contacted for samples.”
Cronobacter is part of a family of microorganisms called Enterobacter sakazakii that has a fatality rate of 40 percent to 80 percent in infants, according to Marler Clark, a Seattle- based law firm that focuses on foodborne illness litigation.
Finding a common source may be daunting, in part because memories of what was purchased can be faulty, said Bill Marler, a food-safety lawyer in Seattle. “They’re trying to ask people who are going through a trauma what they bought,” he said.
Pediatric Advice
While it’s premature for parents to change what they feed their infants, it’s important to remind them to prepare formula properly, said Lorry Rubin, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York.
Glassware and bottles should be cleaned and sterilized, and the water should be boiled and cooled before it is added to powered formula, Rubin said. Any extra prepared formula should be immediately refrigerated and used within 24 hours, he said.
Bacteria from the Cronobacter family are known in the past to have contaminated infant formula, he said in a telephone interview. The strains are similar to the bacteria humans carry in their gut and typically don’t cause significant concern, Rubin said.
Last year, Abbott Laboratories recalled Similac-brand powder infant formulas distributed in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam and some Caribbean nations because of possible insect contamination.
Abbott hasn’t been contacted by public health authorities and there are no cases related to Similac or any of its infant formula products that the company knows about, said Jennifer Smoter, a company spokeswoman.
Regulators
Typically the company would have been contacted by investigators from the hospital, the FDA or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention if there was any chance the illness was tied to the formula given to the newborn, Smoter said.
Nestle SA, maker of Gerber infant formula, hasn’t been contacted by regulators and has had no reports of any infants falling sick after receiving Gerber Good Start, said David Mortazavi, a company spokesman, in a statement.
Jennifer Kokell, a spokeswoman for Pfizer Inc.’s infant formula brands including SMA and Promil, had no immediate comment.
–With assistance from Matthew Boyle, Elizabeth Lopatto and Meg Tirrell in New York and Anna Edney in Washington. Editors: Adriel Bettelheim, Chris Staiti
To contact the reporters on this story: Stephanie Armour in Washington at sarmour@bloomberg.net; Michelle Fay Cortez in Minneapolis at mcortez@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net
High lead exposure linked to hearing loss in youth
Genevra Pittman
Reuters
Dec. 22, 2011
(Reuters Health) – Teens exposed to higher-than-normal levels of lead are more likely to have trouble hearing, suggests a new study that links the hearing problems to lead levels well below those considered “safe” by current standards.
But other heavy metals weren’t clearly tied to hearing problems, researchers said. And with lead, the report found only a small proportion of adolescents had blood concentrations that might be linked to hearing loss.
“It looks like the levels in the blood of most kids are very low and people are avoiding (heavy metals),” said study author Dr. Josef Shargorodsky, from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/22/us-high-lead-hearing-loss-idUSTRE7BL1T720111222
Texas Tops 10 States Ravaged by Extreme Weather in 2011
Andrew Freedman, Alyson Kenward and Mike Lemonick
Climate Central
Dec. 20, 2011
Texas, Alabama and Missouri topped the list of states hardest hit by the unrelenting assault of extreme weather in 2011.
Severe weather across much of the nation has raised the question of whether global warming has already begun to influence shorter-term weather patterns, and the specter of even more extreme years to come as global temperatures continue to rise.
Read more: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/top-ten-states-hit-hardest-by-2011s-extreme-weather/
NOAA: Gulf oil spill spewed as much air pollution as a large city
Ben Macaluso
dailycamera
Dec. 19, 2011
http://www.dailycamera.com/science-environment/ci_19580967
Last year’s massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill didn’t just poison the Gulf of Mexico — it generated as much air pollution as a large city, according to a new study by the Boulder-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory and the Cooperative Institute of Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder conducted the study of the atmospheric plume thrown off by the oil rig after it exploded and burned in April 2010, leaking nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.
According to the study released Monday, researchers focused on ozone and micrometer-sized particles suspended in the air, called particulate matter. Both are pollutants with human health effects.
“The levels of ozone were similar to what occurs in large urban areas,” Daniel M. Murphy, a NOAA scientist in the Earth System Research Laboratory’s Chemical Sciences Division and a co-author of the study, said in a news release.
According to the study, about 8 percent, or one of every 13 barrels of the Deepwater Horizon oil that reached the ocean surface, made it into airborne organic particles small enough to be inhaled by human lungs.
Some of those particles reached the Gulf Coast when the winds were blowing toward the shore.
Joost de Gouw, a research physicist in the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, said that 20 percent of the oil evaporated in the air.
“The concentrations of criteria pollutants, or pollution regulated by law, were all such that we don’t expect a huge impact on air quality. Particularly for people on land,” de Gouw said Monday.
He said the spill was about 1,500 meters below sea level, which allowed much of the oil to dissolve and never make it to the surface, limiting effects on air quality.
“It was fortunate that the effects on air quality of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill were limited in scope,” Ann Middlebrook, a scientist at the Earth System Research Laboratory’s Chemical Sciences Division and lead author of the study, said in a news release. “Our findings show that an oil spill closer to populated areas, or in shallower waters, could have a larger effect.”