An international group of environmentalth health experts is warning against the growing practice of spraying the pesticide DDT in homes in malaria-plagued African and Asian countries.

Marla Cone, writing for Environmental Health News, reports that the group of 15 scientists, led by a University of California epidemiologist, urges that DDT be used only as a last resort, even to fight a deadly disease like malaria.   People are at risk of serious health effects from the pesticide when it is sprayed in their homes to kill malaria-bearing mosquitoes, the group said.

The scientists' stance is likely to reignite a debate about the safety of DDT, which has been banned for decades in the United States and much of the rest of the world.  The US banned it in 1972 after scientists found it building up in the food chain and that it was behind steep declines in populations of bald eagles, pelicans and other wildlife.

Public health experts, however, have argued that the pesticide is the only one effective at fighting malaria in Africa and Asia.  Spraying it in homes was officially endorsed by the World Health Organization and by a U.S. aid program to fight world malaria that was launched by former President George W. Bush.  Here's a link to WHO's guidelines for indoor residential spraying.

Malaria remains one of the world's deadliest diseases, claiming about 880,000 lives a year. But Cone reports that the scientists, who reviewed some 500 studies, concluded that because of the health problems that could be caused by DDT, it “should be used with caution, only when needed, and when no other effective, safe and affordable alternatives are locally available.”

Among the health risks the scientists cited: reduced fertility, genital birth defects, breast cancer, diabetes and damage to developing brains.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 12:49 PM in Toxics | Permalink | Comments (2)
                       

Speaking of lists, Fort Detrick just made the Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List. 

Better known as the Superfund list, it targets the Army base in Frederick for federal attention in dealing with stubborn ground-water contamination there that has tainted the wells of nearby homes.  Five residences are still being supplied with bottled water, though, the EPA notes in a press release.

Area B, an undeveloped portion of Fort Detrick, was used long ago as a germ-warfare testing ground, though officials say no harmful biological agents were ever tested in the open there.  The Army also dumped chemical, biological, and radiological material in pits there from the 1940s until 1970, according to EPA.  Among the chemicals that made it into the ground water were potentially carcinogenic solvents like trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE).

With the installation now home to biodefense labs and civilian research facilities, the Army has made efforts to find and remove the buried wastes over the years.  The service says it's spent $43 million and capped all but one of the known disposal sites.

But the work has been complicated by the fractured rock layers beneath the base, according to Ben Mykijewycz, who oversees hazardous waste cleanups on federal lands for EPA in the mid-Atlantic region.  The Army argued EPA oversight wasn't necessary, but Mykijewycz said Maryland environmental officials asked for a federal takeover of the cleanup because they were having difficulty getting the military to follow state orders.

(Photo Getty Images 2002)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM in Toxics | Permalink
                       

Bucking a national trend downward, Maryland businesses, factories and power plants released more toxic pollutants into the environment in 2007 than they did the year before, new data show.

According to the Toxics Release Inventory maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency, all disposals and releases of hazardous pollutants in 2007 were about five percent lower than they were in 2006, the agency announced Thursday.  Releases to air declined 7 percent, while water discharges went down 5 percent.

Maryland, however, saw a 27 percent increase in its total releases of toxic substances, from 39.9 million pounds in 2006 to 50.5 million pounds in 2007.   Total air emissions grew by 28 percent, while discharges to water grew by 5 percent in that time.

Dawn Stoltzfus, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of the Environment, said the state's increase in toxic releases in 2007 came almost completely from Constellation Energy's Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner power plants in Pasadena.  The plants, pictured above, reported releasing an additional 9.5 million pounds of hydrochloric acid in 2007, she said, which the company attributed to burning coal that year with a higher chloride content.

That acidic release should be reduced by next year, Stoltzfus said, when Constellation finishes building new air pollution "scrubbers" for its Brandon Shores burners.

For whatever reason, the rise in toxic chemical releases this year breaks a downward trend of at least three years for the state.  Nationally, there also are some upticks in toxic pollution amid the overall downward trend - increase reported in "persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic" chemicals like lead, dioxin, mercury and PCBs.

You can read EPA's release on the nationwide toxic release trends here.  If you want to dig into Maryland's situation, the 2007 fact sheet is here, and the 2006 summary here.

(2006 photo by Kim Hairston of the Baltimore Sun)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:43 AM | Permalink
                       

Fido and Felix owners, listen up.  A new report by the Center for Public Integrity raises questions about the safety of some popular flea and tick repellants for dogs and cats.

Some 1,600 pet deaths connected to "spot on" flea and tick pesticides have been reported to the Environmental Protection Agency in the past five years, the center reports.  The "spot on" products contain pyrethroids, a type of synthetic pesticides, and are sold in pet, grocery and hardware stores.

The companies that make the pet treatments say they're generally safe if used as directed, the center says, but some regulatory agencies are taking a closer look.  In an analysis of EPA's database of pesticide incidents, the center found reports of pets that had been treated suffering seizures, burns, vomiting and death.

To read the report, see video and consult the database, go here .

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:10 PM in Toxics | Permalink | Comments (1)