Global decline in male fertility linked to common pesticides

 

Not a surprise.

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/national-international/global-decline-in-male-fertility-linked-to-common-pesticides/3357293/

Nov. 16, 2023

A prolonged decline in male fertility in the form of sperm concentrations appears to be connected to the use of pesticides, according to a study published Wednesday.

Researchers compiled, rated and reviewed the results of 25 studies of certain pesticides and male fertility and found that men who had been exposed to certain classes of pesticides had significantly lower sperm concentrations. The study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives, included data from more than 1,700 men and spanned several decades.

“No matter how we looked at the analysis and results, we saw a persistent association between increasing levels of insecticide and decreases in sperm concentration,” said study author Melissa Perry, who is an environmental epidemiologist and the dean of the College of Public Health at George Mason University.

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Roundup, the World’s Favorite Weed Killer, Linked to Liver, Metabolic Diseases in Kids

 

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17032023/roundup-glyphosate-health-kids/

 

By Liza Gross
March 17, 2023

Eskenazi, who runs the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas study (known as CHAMACOS, Mexican Spanish slang for “little kids”), has tracked pairs of mothers and their children for more than 20 years. She’s collected hundreds of thousands of samples of blood, urine and saliva, along with exposure and health records. This treasure trove of data has produced unprecedented insights into the effects of environmental hazards on children living in California’s Salinas Valley, an agricultural region often called the “world’s salad bowl.” 

So when Charles Limbach, a doctor at a Salinas health clinic, saw an explosion of fatty liver disease in his young patients and found a study linking the condition in adults to the weed killer glyphosate, he contacted Eskenazi.

Eskenazi, who also heads the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health at the University of California, Berkeley, offered to pull samples from her freezer to test Limbach’s suspicions about glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup and the most popular herbicide on the planet. The pair enlisted the help of Paul Mills, chief of U.C. San Diego’s Behavioral Medicine Division, who led the glyphosate study in adults, along with several other scientists at Eskenazi’s center.

The results of the team’s study of Eskenazi’s children, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives earlier this month, echoed what Mills had found in older patients.

”We show an association between early life exposure to glyphosate and liver inflammation and metabolic disease in young adults,” said Eskenazi, who led the study.

These conditions can be precursors for more serious diseases, including liver cancer and cardiometabolic diseases like stroke and diabetes, she said. “And these are only 18-year-olds.”

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Teenagers who had metabolic syndrome and markers of liver disease at age 18 had higher urinary concentrations of AMPA and glyphosate between ages 5 and 18 years.  Metabolic syndrome in the 18-year-olds was also associated with agricultural use of glyphosate near their homes during early childhood.

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AMPA is also a byproduct of compounds found in other products, including fire retardants and detergents. “But other studies have shown that the lion’s share, a much, much larger proportion of AMPA is due to glyphosate,” Eskenazi said.

The liver and metabolic conditions the researchers saw could be related to other causes, such as poor diet or excess weight. But the associations between AMPA and glyphosate remained when they controlled for those factors.

The findings are not surprising, considering the other studies showing liver toxicity and microbiome effects in animal models, said Bruce Blumberg, an expert on obesity and related metabolic disorders at the University of California, Irvine who was not involved in the new study. 

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Eskenazi’s CHAMACOS study previously linked pesticides and other harmful exposures to neurodevelopmental disorders, lower IQ, preterm birth, respiratory problems and obesity, among other health problems.

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Exposing honeybees to glyphosate interferes with their gut microbes, making the pollinators critical to the food supply more likely to die from infections, researchers reported in 2018. Exposing mice to glyphosate appears to disrupt gut microbes that communicate with the brain, making the rodents anxious and listless.

Scientists have just started to study glyphosate’s ability to disrupt the trillions of microorganisms in the human gut that digest food and regulate metabolism, body weight and immune function.

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Monsanto assured U.S. regulators that weeds wouldn’t evolve resistance to glyphosate when it sought approval for its Roundup Ready soybeans in the early 1990s. Two years later, scientists documented glyphosate resistance in weeds.

Farmers now spray more frequently at higher rates to control the recalcitrant weeds, applying close to 300 million pounds of glyphosate on average every year. They also must increasingly resort to tilling practices to eradicate weeds, a method that releases climate-warming gases from soil.

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And scientists have found the world’s favorite weed killer most everywhere they’ve looked. In house dust, particulate matter carried by the wind, soil, ditches, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, wetlands, groundwater, dairy cows’ urine and dietary staples like the corn, soy, wheat, legumes and oats used in cereals, baked goods and other processed foods.

Glyphosate is also in the urine of more than 80 percent of the U.S. population age 6 and older. 

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“This chemical should be much more tightly regulated, probably not allowed for home use, and certainly under only restricted circumstances,” said Birnbaum, long the nation’s top toxicologist. If the human race is going to survive, she said, “we’ve got to stop using all these highly used chemicals, which poison us, wildlife and the whole ecosystem.”

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Health impact of chemicals in plastics is handed down two generations

 

This research is in mice, but is a warning of what is likely happening in humans.

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/977830

 

 News Release 26-Jan-2023
Health impact of chemicals in plastics is handed down two generations
UC Riverside mouse study finds paternal exposure to phthalates increases risk of metabolic diseases in progeny
Peer-Reviewed Publication
University of California - Riverside

 

 Fathers exposed to chemicals in plastics can affect the metabolic health of their offspring for two generations, a University of California, Riverside, mouse study reports.

Plastics, which are now ubiquitous, contain endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, that have been linked to increased risk of many chronic diseases; parental exposure to EDCs, for example, has been shown to cause metabolic disorders, including obesity and diabetes, in the offspring.

Most studies have focused on the impact of maternal EDC exposure on the offspring’s health. The current study, published in the journal Environment International, focused on the effects of paternal EDC exposure.

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 Led by Changcheng Zhou, a professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine, the researchers investigated the impact of paternal exposure to a phthalate called dicyclohexyl phthalate, or DCHP, on the metabolic health of first generation (F1) and second generation (F2) offspring in mice. Phthalates are chemicals used to make plastics more durable.

The researchers found that paternal DCHP exposure for four weeks led to high insulin resistance and impaired insulin signaling in F1 offspring. The same effect, but weaker, was seen in F2 offspring.

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Gas stoves and health

 

Jan. 29, 2023

Since I had gas disconnected at my home after my stove got a leak, my asthma and sinus problems have improved. I didn't think about the possible connection until reading about how much pollution gets into the air in our houses from gas stoves. I had already noticed that there was an improvement after I retired, and was no longer exposed to stuff at work like perfumes, air "fresheners", disinfectants. The banning of smoking in most places GREATLY helped.

This Woman Wants to Destroy Your Lawn And replace it with something better

 

https://downeast.com/land-wildlife/this-woman-wants-to-destroy-your-lawn/

 

By Peter Andrey Smith
Photographed by Michael D. Wilson
From our January 2023 issue

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The rapid growth of the Wild Seed Project coincided with a broader war on lawns gaining traction across the country. Lawns in the U.S. cover a land mass about the size of Iowa, accounting for as much as half of all residential water consumption and a quarter of the use of several popular herbicides. Gas-powered lawn and garden equipment puts an estimated 20 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, and the emissions footprint of nitrogen-heavy lawn fertilizers is as bad or worse. Across the country, particularly in the parched West, cities and towns have started mandating the removal of turf grass and incentivizing permaculture, and more-naturalistic lawn alternatives have even begun catching on in New England, as the region slogs through years of severe drought.

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As the hummingbird flew off, McCargo made the case for sexual plant reproduction, which is something of a lost art in the commercial horticulture trade. The cardinal flower in her garden came from a seed — it’s the so-called “straight species,” meaning the plant evolved from hundreds of years of sexual reproduction. By contrast, most nurseries offer hybrids, crosses between two species; some sell Lobelia with names like Vulcan Red and Starship Deep Rose. Seeds from a hybrid don’t grow true to type, however — that is, they don’t look exactly like their parents — and so breeders rely on forms of asexual (or vegetative) propagation, such as cutting or grafting to ensure they’ll get the same genes and the same ornamental characteristics.

Asexual reproduction creates genetic clones, but McCargo champions sexual reproduction because it perpetuates genetic diversity, potentially giving a species like cardinal flowers a leg up adapting to changing environments. McCargo also points out that while hybrid Lobelia might look the part, they’re a poor imitation — an example of how some cultivars can shortchange pollinators. A researcher she knows from Vermont went out every morning for three years to collect nectar from two groups of Lobelia. She found that the hybrids produced only 20 percent as much nectar as the straight species, suggesting that birds would have to work harder to find food. “So you take a hummingbird, which is already stressed because we ruined their world,” McCargo told me. “Then they find a flower, but it’s like an empty treat.”

The mantra at the heart of McCargo’s mission is that it’s time to rethink what makes landscapes beautiful. If you’re planting based only on aesthetics, she and her WSP colleagues suggest, you’ve overlooked the value to pollinators, to microorganisms in the soil, and to ecological communities — both present and future. McCargo also promotes a new school of ecological thinking about what a “native” plant might be, making room for plants that have had no historical presence but are likely to thrive in landscapes altered by climate change. 

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Exposure to certain drugs and environmental risk factors during embryonic development can cause changes similar to autism

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/971899

 

 News Release 23-Nov-2022
Gene that guides earliest social behaviors could be key to understanding autism
Peer-Reviewed Publication
University of Utah Health

 

Little is known about how social behavior develops in the earliest stages of life. But most animals––including humans––are born with an innate ability to interact socially or form bonds with others. And that contributes to success throughout life.

Now, a new animal study points to a gene that is important for the earliest development of basic social behaviors.

The work also suggests that exposure to certain drugs and environmental risk factors during embryonic development can cause changes to this gene, leading to alterations in social behavior that are similar to those found in individuals who have autism. Much to their surprise, the researchers also found they could reverse some of the effects using an experimental drug.

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However, Peterson notes that this study was conducted in animals, and more research needs to be done before any of its results can be confirmed in humans. Therefore, he cautions against drawing conclusions about real-world applications.

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Male fertility crash accelerating worldwide: study

Actually it could end up being good news, because fewer people means less damage to the environment we depend on for life.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/male-fertility-crash-accelerating-worldwide-222355509.html

 The Hill

Saul Elbein
Tue, November 15, 2022 at 5:23 PM

The world is experiencing a quiet yet accelerating collapse in male fertility, according to a paper published Tuesday in the journal Human Reproduction Update.

The study found sperm counts fell by more than 51 percent between 1973 and 2018. And while sperm counts have been dropping for decades, the decline rate appears to be speeding up.

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The rate of decline since 2000 has been striking, the study found, with an observed 2.64 percent fall each year in the number of sperm per milliliter of semen — more than twice as large of a decline as that observed since 1978, according to The Guardian.

While reasons for the decline are unclear, one major factor could be endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in thousands of everyday items, co-author Shanna Swan of the Icahn School of Medicine told the Financial Times.

These compounds — found in everything from personal care products to food packaging — have particularly dire impacts on reproductive function, Swan noted. She specifically called out phthalates and bisphenols, compounds used as linings in products such as water bottles and takeout containers.

Levine and Swan’s joint study builds on existing findings that have linked environmental chemicals to persistent rates of decline in sperm counts.

A 2021 Danish study listed chemicals found in or derived from fossil fuels as possible culprits, as The Hill reported.

Potentially harmful chemicals from such sources “have been found in samples of blood, urine, semen, placenta and breast milk of all humans investigated,” the study found.

“It is well established that these chemicals have become part of our tissues and fluids,” the authors added. “We know that they can be a threat to wildlife. Unfortunately, too little has been done to uncover their role in humans.”

Plastic derivatives such as bisphenol A (BPA) — commonly added to food and beverage packaging — have also been linked to declining male fertility as well as birth defects.

Many potentially toxic chemicals “reach us via food,” Andreas Kortenkamp, a professor at Brunel University London, said in June.

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/15/humans-could-face-reproductive-crisis-as-sperm-count-declines-study-finds

Humans could face reproductive crisis as sperm count declines, study finds

 

Nicola Davis Science correspondent
@NicolaKSDavis
Tue 15 Nov 2022 05.00 EST

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Previous studies have suggested that fertility is compromised if sperm concentration falls below about 40m per ml. While the latest estimate is above this threshold, Levine noted that this is a mean figure, suggesting the percentage of men below this threshold will have increased.

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Tina Kold Jensen of the University of Southern Denmark said the new study recapitulated a concerning trend. “You keep on finding the same trend, no matter how many studies you include – that is a bit scary to me,” she said.

Prof Richard Sharpe, an expert in male reproductive health at the University of Edinburgh, said the new data showed that the trend appeared to be a worldwide phenomenon.

Sharpe said the decline could mean it takes longer for couples to conceive and, for many, time is not on their side as they are delaying trying to conceive until the woman is in her 30s or 40s, when her fertility is already reduced.

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Atmospheric levels of all three greenhouse gases hit record high

 

We have had more than 30 years to develop better energy sources, and chose not to.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/26/atmospheric-levels-greenhouse-gases-record-high

 

Helena Horton Environment reporter
Wed 26 Oct 2022 11.00 EDT 

Atmospheric levels of all three greenhouse gases have reached record highs, according to a study by the World Meteorological Organization, which scientists say means the world is “heading in the wrong direction”.

The WMO found there was the biggest year-on-year jump in methane concentrations in 2020 and 2021 since systematic measurements began almost 40 years ago.

Now the theory is that the methane rise could be caused by activities of microbes in wetlands, rice paddies and the guts of ruminants. Rising temperatures have caused the ideal conditions for microbial methane production, as they enjoy warm, damp areas.m

[Could one of the causes of the increase in methane be the melting of methane clathrates due to warming oceans.]

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However, even if they act rapidly to stop the damage, much of it is already baked in. As long as emissions continue, global temperature will continue to rise. Given the long life of CO2, the temperature level observed will persist for decades, even if emissions are reduced swiftly to net zero.

Study links in utero ‘forever chemical’ exposure to low sperm count and mobility

 

Note that sperm counts have been decreasing for years.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/05/pfas-sperm-count-mobility-testicle-development

 

PFAS, now found in nearly all umbilical cord blood around the world, interfere with hormones crucial to testicle development

 A new peer-reviewed Danish study finds that a mother’s exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” during early pregnancy can lead to lower sperm count and quality later in her child’s life.

PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are known to disrupt hormones and fetal development, and future “reproductive capacity” is largely defined as testicles develop in utero during the first trimester of a pregnancy, said study co-author Sandra Søgaard Tøttenborg of the Copenhagen University hospital.

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Five years after water crisis, 1 in 4 Flint residents has PTSD

 

 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/965045

 

 News Release 20-Sep-2022
Very high rates of depression and PTSD linked to water contamination
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Duke University

 

Data from the largest mental health survey of the Flint, Michigan community indicate that one in five adults, or roughly 13,600 people, were estimated to have clinical depression, and one in four, or 15,000 people, were estimated to have PTSD five years after the water crisis began.

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Exposure to air pollution worsens COVID-19 outcomes, even among the fully vaccinated

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/966350

 

 News Release 28-Sep-2022
Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and Kaiser Permanente Southern California conducted the first individual-level study of air pollution exposure and COVID-19 vaccination.
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Keck School of Medicine of USC

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 By comparing publicly available air quality monitoring data with deidentified patient medical records, they first established that regardless of air pollution exposure, vaccines go a long way in reducing COVID-19 hospitalizations.

“Fully vaccinated people had almost 90% reduced risk of COVID hospitalization, and even partially vaccinated people had about 50% less risk,” said Zhanghua Chen, PhD, assistant professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and co-first author of the study.

But air pollutants—in particular fine particles (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)—are still harmful. Even among people who were vaccinated, exposure to those two pollutants over the short or long term increased the risk of hospitalization up to 30%.

“Among vaccinated people, the detrimental effect of air pollution exposure is a little smaller, compared to people who were not vaccinated,” Chen said. “But that difference is not statistically significant.”

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Lead safety guidance lacking for urban farmers in many major US cities

 

 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/966138

 

 News Release 27-Sep-2022
Guidelines for safe lead levels and support for testing varied widely across 42 large U.S. cities, in part due to lack of federal guidance on lead levels in soils in which food is grown
Peer-Reviewed Publication
American Geophysical Union

AGU Release No. 22-57

 

Urban gardens and farms are on the rise in the U.S., but urban soils are sometimes contaminated from legacy pollution and industrial use. Despite this risk, there is little guidance for people growing food in urban soils on what levels of lead are safe, and existing policies vary widely between cities and states, as a new study highlights.

Lead, and other potentially toxic elements, are of concern in soils that are used to grow food because plants can incorporate those harmful elements into their roots, stems, leaves and fruits, which are then eaten. Exposure to even low levels of lead, primarily through ingestion, can cause health problems such as heart disease and neurological dysfunction, and lead is especially harmful to children, who are still developing.

‘Forever chemicals’ detected in all umbilical cord blood in 40 studies

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/23/forever-chemicals-found-umbilical-cord-blood-samples-studies

 

Tom Perkins
Fri 23 Sep 2022 07.00 EDT

Toxic PFAS chemicals were detected in every umbilical cord blood sample across 40 studies conducted over the last five years, a new review of scientific literature from around the world has found.

The studies collectively examined nearly 30,000 samples, and many linked fetal PFAS exposure to health complications in unborn babies, young children and later in life. The studies’ findings are “disturbing”, said Uloma Uche, an environmental health science fellow with the Environmental Working Group, which analyzed the peer-reviewed studies’ data.

“Even before you’ve come into the world, you’re already exposed to PFAS,” she said.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 12,000 chemicals commonly used to make products resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and accumulate in human bodies and the environment.

The federal government estimates that they are found in 98% of Americans’ blood. The chemicals are linked to birth defects, cancer, kidney disease, liver problems and other health issues, and the EPA recently found effectively no level of exposure to some kinds of PFAS in water is safe.

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PFAS can remain in the body for years or even decades, and some studies link fetal exposure to effects throughout childhood and adulthood, including on cognitive function, reproductive function, changes in weight, eczema and altered glucose balance.

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Exposure to air pollution may worsen autism-related hospital admissions in children

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/965007

 

 News Release 20-Sep-2022
Boys more at risk than girls; cutting air pollutant levels could lower risks, say researchers
Peer-Reviewed Publication
BMJ

 

Autistic children seem to be at heightened risk of being admitted to hospital if they are exposed to air pollution for relatively brief periods, with boys more at risk than girls, suggests research published in the open access journal BMJ Open.

 Admissions for issues such as hyperactivity, aggression, or self-injury might be prevented by minimising these children’s exposure to air pollution, suggest the Korean researchers.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a range of symptoms and severity. It is often accompanied by neuroinflammation and systemic inflammation meaning drugs, supplements, and diet can improve the core symptoms.

It is believed that short-term exposure to air pollution (days to weeks) can induce systemic inflammation and neuroinflammation, potentially increasing the risk of hospital admission in autistic people. 

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Ubiquitous ‘Forever Chemicals’ Increase Risk of Liver Cancer, Researchers Report

 

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30082022/pfas-forever-chemicals-health-liver-cancer

 

By Victoria St. Martin
August 30, 2022

The ubiquity of the toxic class of substances commonly known as “forever chemicals” is well established. Now, medical researchers have zeroed in on their effects on a crucial component of the human body’s internal filtration system: the liver.

In a peer-reviewed study published this month in JHEP Reports, a sister publication of the Journal of Hepatology, researchers at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California found that people who had the highest levels of exposure to the chemical perfluorooctane sulfonic acid were 4.5 times more likely to develop liver cancer than those with the lowest exposure.

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PFAS are known as forever chemicals because of the slow rate at which they break down in the environment and their persistence in accumulating in the human body and other organisms. Commonly used in such household items as nonstick pans, cleaning products and stain-resistant coatings on fabrics and carpet, they have been shown to increase the risk of certain cancers, suppress immune system response, decrease fertility and lead to developmental delays in children.

Although earlier research had linked occurrences of liver cancer in animals to PFAS, the study is one of the first that connects the most common form of liver cancer in humans, hepatocellular carcinoma, to the chemicals.

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“A really important part of the studies is actually being able to say that before these people got cancer, they had higher levels” of the chemicals, Goodrich said. “And that helps us to determine that it’s more likely in this situation that it’s actually PFAS that are associated with the cancer as opposed to just some sort of random chance.”

 Goodrich said that one of the more critical implications of the findings was the high mortality rate associated with liver cancer, which in 2020 was the world’s third-deadliest form of cancer. The five-year survival rate for those diagnosed with liver cancer is about 20%.

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The findings on PFAS and liver cancer were made public roughly a week after the release of a report by the National Academies calling for increased testing among people with a history of elevated exposure to the chemicals.

That includes those with “occupational exposure, those who have lived in communities with documented contamination and those who have lived where contamination may have occurred,” the academies’ study said, like people living near airports, military bases, wastewater treatment plants, farms, landfills and incinerators.

For those with 2 nanograms per milliliter of PFAS in their blood, the academies recommend routine screening for high cholesterol and breast cancer. For those with higher levels, annual thyroid testing is recommended, as is regular screening for kidney and testicular cancer.

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Air pollution, including during wildfires, shows ill effects in children

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/961019

 

 News Release 4-Aug-2022
UC Davis researchers see markers for inflammation, cardiac regulation
Peer-Reviewed Publication
University of California - Davis

 

New research linking air pollution data from federal monitors in the Sacramento area of California, including during significant fires, is showing ill effects of pollution exposure among children, a new University of California, Davis, study suggests.

Blood samples show that children have elevated markers of inflammation, such as interleukin 6, if they were exposed to higher air pollution. Further, higher air pollution was linked to lower cardiac autonomic regulation in children, which impacts how fast the heart beats and how hard it pumps, according to the study.

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 These findings are important because exposure to pollutants released during wildfires has been related to numerous negative health outcomes in children, who have smaller bodies and organ systems than adults, including asthma and decreased lung function, as well as neurodevelopmental outcomes like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and deficits in school performance and memory, researchers said.

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‘Disturbing’: weedkiller ingredient tied to cancer found in 80% of US urine samples

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/09/weedkiller-glyphosate-cdc-study-urine-samples

 

Carey Gillam
Sat 9 Jul 2022 05.30 EDT

This story is co-published with The New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group

More than 80% of urine samples drawn from children and adults in a US health study contained a weedkilling chemical linked to cancer, a finding scientists have called “disturbing” and “concerning”.

The report by a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that out of 2,310 urine samples, taken from a group of Americans intended to be representative of the US population, 1,885 were laced with detectable traces of glyphosate. This is the active ingredient in herbicides sold around the world, including the widely used Roundup brand. Almost a third of the participants were children ranging from six to 18.

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Sheppard co-authored a 2019 analysis that found glyphosate exposure increases the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma [a kind of cancer], and also co-authored a 2019 scientific paper that reviewed 19 studies documenting glyphosate in human urine.

Both the amount and prevalence of glyphosate found in human urine has been rising steadily since the 1990s when Monsanto Co. introduced genetically engineered crops designed to be sprayed directly with Roundup, according to research published in 2017 by University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers.

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More than 200 million pounds of glyphosate are used annually by US farmers on their fields. The weedkiller is sprayed directly over genetically engineered crops such as corn and soybeans, and also over non-genetically engineered crops such as wheat and oats as a desiccant to dry crops out prior to harvest. Many farmers also use it on fields before the growing season, including spinach growers and almond producers. It is considered the most widely used herbicide in history.

Residues of glyphosate have been documented in an array of popular foods made with crops sprayed with glyphosate, including baby food. The primary route of exposure for children is through the diet.

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“Children are more heavily exposed to pesticides than adults because pound-for-pound they drink more water, eat more food and breathe more air,” Landrigan said. “Also, children have many years of future life when they can develop diseases with long incubation periods such as cancer. This is particularly a concern with the herbicide, glyphosate.”

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Natural gas used in homes contains hazardous air pollutants

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957010

 

  News Release 28-Jun-2022
Natural gas used in homes contains hazardous air pollutants shows Boston-area study by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Policymakers and individuals can act to mitigate potential health risks from natural gas
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Every day, millions of Americans rely on natural gas to power appliances such as kitchen stoves, furnaces, and water heaters, but until now very little data existed on the chemical makeup of the gas once it reaches consumers.

A new study finds that natural gas used in homes throughout the Greater Boston area contains varying levels of volatile organic chemicals that when leaked are known to be toxic, linked to cancer, and can form secondary health-damaging pollutants such as particulate matter and ozone.

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    Based on odorant concentrations, small leaks can be undetectable by smell - leaks up to 10 times naturally occurring levels may be undetectable, equating to a methane concentration of about 20 parts per million.

When gas leaks occur, even small amounts of hazardous air pollutants could impact indoor air quality because natural gas is used by appliances in close proximity to people. Persistent outdoor gas leaks located throughout the distribution system may also degrade outdoor air quality as precursors to particulate matter and ozone.

“This study shows that gas appliances like stoves and ovens can be a source of hazardous chemicals in our homes even when we’re not using them. These same chemicals are also likely to be present in leaking gas distribution systems in cities and up the supply chain,” 

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Risk of death surges when extreme heat and air pollution coincide

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957459

 

 News Release 29-Jun-2022
Keck School of Medicine of USC researchers used a new analytic approach to study more than 1.5 million deaths across the state of California
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Keck School of Medicine of USC

 

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 The study found that compared to days without extreme conditions, extreme heat days carried a 6.1% increase in risk of death. On extreme air pollution days, deaths were 5% more likely. But on days with both extreme heat and air pollution, deaths were 21% more likely — a synergistic effect almost double the impact of the individual exposures combined. 

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Pollution exposure associated with multimorbidity risk

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/956744

https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0000520

 News Release 29-Jun-2022
New study analyzed multimorbidity—coexistence of two or more chronic diseases—along with chronic exposure to air pollutants
Peer-Reviewed Publication
PLOS

Exposure to the air pollution known as fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is associated with an increased risk of having a cluster of multiple chronic diseases, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Kai Hu of University of St. Andrews, UK, and colleagues.

Previous studies have provided abundant evidence on the association between air pollution and individual chronic diseases. 

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The authors add: “Both lower and higher historical PM2.5 exposure is associated with faster multimorbidity accumulation. However, higher exposure to PM2.5 is associated with a higher risk of developing cardio-metabolic and respiratory multimorbidity (dominated by lung disease), whereas lower PM2.5 exposure is associated with a higher likelihood of musculoskeletal multimorbidity.”

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