RACHEL CARSON

RACHEL CARSON

SPACESHIP EARTH

"We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent upon its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man, half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all."

ADLAI STEVENSON, 1964

Sunday, May 8, 2011

WISE LABORATORY for ENVIRONMENTAL and GENETIC TOXICOLOGY





http://usm.maine.edu/toxicology/research/uranium.php

URANIUM TOXICOLOGY STUDIES

Background

DU is becoming a wider international concern as a possible health hazard and carcinogen (1-3). Little is currently known about DU mechanisms of effect, but reported data have shown lung cancer (1-3), embryotoxicity and teratogenicity (4), reproductive and developmental damage (5), genomic instability (6) and single strand DNA damage in vitro (7). Given the widespread use of uranium for military applications and the present world-wide deployment of the United States military, it is imperative that we should be able to better define both the risks of DU exposure and the possible mechanisms of carcinogenicity and genotoxicity.

The lack of scientific data concerning the possible health and cancer risks associated with DU are becoming a major issue worldwide (1-3). Fifty-four of the sites on the EPA National Priority List contain unacceptably high levels of uranium contamination (8). Uranium is ubiquitous: occurring naturally, in water and building materials and as a contaminant in phosphate fertilizers, but its military uses are leading to further questions about additional uranium exposure (9-10). Little is also known about threshold doses for frank renal, reproductive or genetic effects, although the existence of such effects is well-documented in the scientific literature. Thus, in keeping with the increased usage of DU, increased knowledge of its mechanisms of action, and the possible environmental and health risks of its use must be more thoroughly investigated.

DU-induced lung cancers occur in human bronchial cells (11). However, despite these observations, the effects of DU in human bronchial cells are unknown. Only two studies have considered the interaction of DU and human bronchial cells (12-13). One study found that soluble DU induced neoplastic transformation of human bronchial cells (12) and the other reported that DU induced lipid peroxidation and micronuclei formation (13). To fully understand how DU causes cancer, it is essential that we study its effects in human bronchial cells, its target cells.

In fact, there are few other data concerning the genotoxic and carcinogenic effects of DU on human cells. Only one other study has considered human cells and that study reported genomic instability, cytotoxicity and micronuclei formation in human osteosarcoma cells (6). Published data demonstrated that DU exposure in vitro can transform immortalized human osteoblast cells (HOS) to the tumorigenic phenotype (14). Recently, it has been reported that this toxic metal can induce leukemia in mice (15).

The Wise Laboratory is investigating the carcinogenicity and genotoxicity of particulate and soluble DU and develops karyotypic and gene expression fingerprints of DU exposure. Our current knowledge of DU carcinogenicity and genotoxicity is clearly inadequate due to an absence of appropriate models of its target cells and very little data about how particulate DU compounds cause their harmful effects. Our research program is significant because it will address these critical shortcomings. When completed it will provide:

1) a better understanding of how DU damages DNA and causes cancer;

2) essential information to better assess the relative risk of exposure to particulate or soluble DU;

3) fingerprints of exposure to better detect soldiers who may have been exposed to harmful levels; and

4) A model of human bronchial cells for further study of DU, other metals, and lung cancer in general.

Experimental Studies

We first focused our experimental studies on the cytotoxic and clastogenic effects of particulate and soluble depleted uranium in human bronchial fibroblast cells (WTHBF-6) (1). We used uranium trioxide (UO3) and uranyl acetate (UA) as prototypical particulate and soluble DU salts, respectively. After a 24 h exposure, both UO3 and UA induced concentration-dependent cytotoxicity in WTHBF-6 cells. When treated with chronic exposure of up to 72 h, there was an increased degree of cytotoxicity in both UO3 and UA. We assessed the clastogenicity of these compounds at 24 h and found that at concentrations of 0, 0.5, 1, and 5 µg/cm2 UO3, 5, 6, 10, and 15% of metaphase cells exhibit some form of chromosome damage. UA did not induce chromosome damage above background levels. With chronic exposure of 48 and 72 h there were slight increases in chromosome damage induced with UO3 treatment, but no meaningful increase in chromosome damage was observed with UA.

In addition to bronchial fibroblasts, we have examined the cytotoxic and clastogenic effects of UO3 on human bronchial epithelial (BEP2D) cells. BEP2D cells also demonstrate a concentration-dependent cytotoxicity, but a significant increase in chromosome damage is not seen until a 48 h exposure, suggesting a mechanism of toxicity which requires longer exposures to break DNA.

We used immortalized human bronchial epithelial cell lines (BEP2D) to study the transforming potential of particulate DU. We observed focus formation in cells exposed to UO3 for 24 h. (Figure 1)

Normal BEP2D cells

Normal BEP2D cells

DU-induced focus

DU-induced focus

(Figure 1)

Specifically, after 24 h UO3 treatment with 0, 0.25, 2.5, and 25 μg/cm2 UO3 we observed focus frequencies of 3, 23, 24, and 21 foci, respectively.

The DU transformants also acquired anchorage-independent growth. Figure 2 shows colonies in soft agar formed by DU-transformed cells.

DU-transformed cells formed colonies in soft agar medium DU-transformed cells formed colonies in soft agar medium

DU-transformed cells formed colonies in soft agar medium.

(Figure 2)

After 24 h treatment with concentrations of 0, 0.25, 2.5, and 25 μg/cm2 UO3, the percentage of resultant foci that grew colonies in soft agar was 0, 67, 100, and 75, respectively.

In addition, 53% of DU-transformed cell lines tested showed a hypodiploid phenotype (chromosome number less than 44) with a significant increase in metaphases exhibiting a chromosome number ranging from 7 to 43.

We are now focusing on the roles of DNA damage and repair as key factors in uranium's carcinogenicity. We are currently investigating how depleted uranium (DU) causes DNA strand breaks and chromosome aberrations. Efforts are underway to understand how these types of damaging events are sensed, responded to and repaired, considering the roles of gene expression at the RNA and protein levels, and phenotypic changes. We also seek to understand how uranium induces genetic instability. Efforts are also underway to understand how uranium transforms a normal cell into a tumor cell and the chromosomal and gene expression changes that underlie the transformation we observe.

References

  1. Royal Society Working Group on the Health hazards of Depleted Uranium Munitions, Memorandum: The health effects of depleted uranium munitions: a summary, The Royal Society, London England, 2002.
  2. Bleise, A., Danesi, P.R., and Burkart, W. (2003), Properties, use and health effects of depleted uranium (DU): a general overview. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, 64:93-112.
  3. World Health Organization, 54th World Health Assembly (2001) Provisional agenda item 13.10: Health effects of depleted uranium, Report by the Secretariat.
  4. Bosque, M.A., Domingo, J.L., Llobet, J.M., and Corbella, J., (1992) Embroyotoxicity and Teratogenicity of Uranium in Mice Following Subcutaneous Administration of Uranyl Acetate. Biological Trace Element Research 36:109-118.
  5. Domingo, J.L. (2001) Reproductive and developmental toxicity of natural and depleted uranium: a review. Reproductive Toxicology 15:603-609.
  6. Miller, A.C., Brooks, K., Stewart, M., Anderson, B., Lin, S., McClain, D., Page, N. (2003), Genomic instability in human osteoblast cells after exposure to depleted uranium: delayed lethality and micronuclei formation. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 64:247-259.
  7. Yazzie, M. Gamble, S.L., Civitello, E.R., and Stearns, D.M. (2003) Uranyl Acetate Causes DNA Single Strand Breaks In Vitro in the Presence of Ascorbate (Vitamin C). Chem. Res. Toxicolo. 16:524-530.
  8. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Research (2003) Toxicological Profile for Uranium., U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
  9. McClain, D.E., Benson K.A., Dalton, T.K., Ejnik, J, Emond, C.A., Hodge, S.J., Kalinich, J.F., Landauer, M.A., Miller, A.C., Pellmar, T.C., Steward, M.D., Villa, V., Xu, J. (2001) Biological effects of embedded depleted uranium (DU): summary of the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute research. Science of the Total Environment, 274:115-118.
  10. Miller, A.C., Fuciarelli, A.F., Jackson, W.E., Ejnik, E.J., Emond, C., Strocko, S., Hogan, J., Pagew, N., and Pellmar, T. (1998) Urinary and serum mutagenicity studies with rats implanted with depleted uranium or tantalum pellets. Mutagenesis 13:643-648.
  11. Vahakangas, K.H., Smaet, J.M., Metcalf, R.A., Welsh, J.A., Bennett, W.P., Lane, D.P., and Harris, C.C. (1992) Mutations of p53 and ras genes in radon-associated lung cancer from uranium miners. Lancet 339: 576-580.
  12. Yang, Z.H., Fan, B.X., Lu, Y., Cao, Z.S., Yu, S., Fan F.Y., and Zhu, M.X. (2002) Malignant transformation of human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) induced by depleted uranium. AiZheng 21:944-948.
  13. Ohshima, S., Ying, Xu, and Takahama, M. (1998) Effects of uranium ore dust on cultured human lung cells. Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology 5:267-271.
  14. Miller, A.C., Blakely, W.F., Livengood, D., Whittaker, T., Xu, J., Ejnik, J.W., Hamilton, M.M., Parlette, E., John, T.S., Gerstenberg, H.M., and Hsu, H. (1998) Transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by depleted uranium-uranyl chloride. Environ. Health Perspect. 106, 465-471.
  15. Miller, A.C., Bonait-Pellie, C., Merlot, R.F., Michel, J., Stewart, M., and Lison, P.D. (2005) Leukemic transformation of hematopoetic cells in mice internally exposed to depleted uranium. Mol. Cell Biochem., 279, 97-104.

Relevant Wise Laboratory Publications

LaCerte C., H. Xie, A. Aboueissa, J.P. Wise, Sr. 2010. Particulate Depleted Uranium is Cytotoxic and Clastogenic to Human Lung Epithelial Cells. Mut. Res. 697: 33–37.

Xie, H., C. LaCerte, D. Thompson, and J. P. Wise, Sr. 2010. Depleted Uranium Induces Neoplastic Transformation in Human Lung Epithelial Cells. Chem. Res. Toxicol. 23: 373–378.

Wise, S.S., D. Thompson, A. Aboueissa, M. Mason, and J.P. Wise, Sr. 2007. Particulate Depleted Uranium is Cytotoxic and Clastogenic to Human Lung Cells. Chemical Research in Toxicology. 20: 815-820.

Collaborators and Cooperators

The Wise Laboratory is assisted in this work by an important number of collaborators and cooperators. In particular, the following prominent scientists and their teams provide significant support and input:

Dr. AbouEl-Makarim Aboueissa is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Southern Maine (USM). He provides statistical expertise particularly in the area of handling samples with measurements at or below detection limits.

Dr. Douglas Thompson is a Professor of Epidemiology and Associate Director of the Maine Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health at the University of Southern Maine. He provides expert advice and guidance on statistical analysis and study design and also assists with the marine mammal studies.

Dr. Hongyu Zhao is Ira V. Hiscock Associate Professor of Public Health and Genetics, Yale School of Medicine. He provides expert advice in the design, conduct and analysis in genetic epidemiology and statistical genetics, particularly with respect to microarrays.

Funding

This work is generously supported by grant #W911NF-04-1-0240 from the Army Research Office, Department of the Army and by the Maine Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health.

"POPULATIONS EXPOSED TO ENVIRONMENTAL URANIUM"















INCREASED RISK OF INFERTILITY AND

REPRODUCTIVE CANCER
S

By Leuren Moret

PART 1 OF 2

http://www.namastepublishing.co.uk/Populations%20Exposed%20to%20Enviromental%20Uranium.htm

GUARDIANS AND CARETAKERS:
“The Navajos help guard the land for the Hopi. We don’t want them to leave. This is their sacred land, too. The White Man is the one who needs to leave before Nature intervenes. The Great Spirit made us caretakers of this land. We take care of it with our prayers and our ceremony. Now you poison it and rape it and destroy it with your strip mines and uranium tailings and power plants – all on sacred land! And you try to chase the last few Indians off so you can do your dirty work.” Thomas Banyacya, Hopi[1]

MARIN COUNTY: HIGHEST BREAST CANCER RATE IN THE US.
RIVERBANKS AND COASTLINES HAVE HIGHEST CANCER RATES

It is clear that dilution is not the solution to pollution. Dumping radioactive contaminated materials into bodies of water has a boomerang effect. It is not long before the ionizing radiation is washing back up on riverbanks and shorelines. In fact, in the first cancer mapping survey[2] in history (1850-60) in Cumbria, the Lake District of Britain, Alfred Haviland reported that out of 6000 cancer cases in a ten-year period, the highest cancer rates were along riverbanks and shorelines. This provided a strong environmental link to cancer, before manmade ionizing radiation was introduced into the environment after 1900. Today it is well known by geoscientists that most natural background radiation originates in minerals from rocks and in sediments which are rocks reduced to particles by sedimentary processes, and transported in water until they wash up on riverbanks and shorelines… where Haviland reported the highest pre-1900 cancer rates.

Pre-1900 cancer rates globally represent the true baseline for cancer studies. Here a comparison is made between pre-1900 cancer rates in Cumbria to 1963 Hawaii cancer rates at the peak of atmospheric testing. Because crustal or continental rocks are much higher in natural background ionizing radiation than oceanic volcanic rocks, pre-1900 Hawaii cancer rates should have been lower than pre-1900 Cumbria cancer rates. Unfortunately, Hawaii has some of the highest rainfall in the world, which very efficiently deposited atmospheric manmade radioactive pollution into the Hawaiian environment. According to a 1973 letter from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to the science journal Nature,[3] Hawaii is the most radioactive contaminated place in the world from atmospheric testing and burned up spacecraft.

In Haviland’s pre-1900 survey, lung cancer was 0.17% of all cancers, but increased to 17.6% (103.7-fold increase) of all cancers reported[4] in Hawaii by 1963. The pre-1900 pancreatic cancer rate was 0.15%, which increased to 5.8% (38.6-fold) in Hawaii by 1963,[5] and increased 12-fold in Japanese males between 1945-1965 [Fig. 4].[6] Pre-1900 thyroid cancer in Cumbria was the rarest at 0.05%, and has increased rapidly on a global scale since 1945. The majority of cancers in the pre-1900 Cumbria survey were breast (23.73%), and uterine (20.42%), which made up 43.15% of all cancers. The greatest majority of cancers in 1963 in Hawaii were digestive system (41.1%)[7] and respiratory (20.4%)[8] which together made up 61.5% of total cancers. Breast cancer was only 5.2% of the total, although it too greatly increased after 1945, but formerly rare cancers had much greater increases. The enormous increase in respiratory and digestive system cancers indicates an environmental link – with the introduction of atmospheric testing fallout – inhaled and ingested globally by all living things.

THE JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RADIOACTIVITY

The chance discovery of an abstract in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, “Radiocesium in North San Francisco Bay and Baja California coastal surface waters,”[9] provided me with an answer to a puzzling question about breast cancer. Hundreds of millions of dollars of US government money have been spent by the University of California to identify the cause of what may be the highest breast cancer rates[10] in the United States in Marin County [Fig. 1], California, just north of San Francisco.

Even more surprising, the radiocesium reported in the paper had been measured by the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab (managed by the University of California), from the north end of San Francisco Bay to the coastal waters at the tip of Baja California, Mexico. By mapping the pattern of breast cancer in Marin County, I identified the San Francisco Bay shoreline of the Marin County peninsula as the environment where the highest rates of breast cancer occur in the county. The deepest part of San Francisco Bay is offshore from Marin, and the highest volume of radioactive contaminated sediment-laden water passes through this area each day with the tides. The sediment and water flow pattern in the north part of the bay is visible in the aerial photo in Fig.1.

Not only is San Francisco Bay contaminated with ionizing radiation from the Sierras, but it also is heavily contaminated with chemicals, ionizing radiation, and military waste from decommissioned military bases. Signs around the Bay shoreline warn pregnant women to eat nothing caught in the Bay, and “residents should eat no more than one fish a month” caught in the Bay. Little wonder the warning signs are posted since ionizing radiation and chemicals have a synergistic interaction, multiplying the effects of each other by many times.

The lowest breast cancer rates are along the Pacific coastline of Marin. The spatial distribution of breast cancer made it clear that there had to be an environmental cause. Large areas of mudflats and estuaries along the bay side shoreline of Marin, like the Cumbria and Welsh seacoasts, provide a low energy environment of quiet still water for radioactive contaminated fine sediments to settle out.

Fig.1. (above): San Francisco Bay Area, with Marin County in upper left corner, north of San Francisco.
Source: http://www.sfbayquakes.org/mapview/map_without_view.jpg

CONTAMINATION OF REGIONAL
WATER SUPPLIES

Most of the fresh water coming into San Francisco Bay is from the Sierra Nevada Mountains east of the California coastline, a very high mountain range running north and south along the border with Nevada [Fig. 2]. The soils of the Sierras are now contaminated with radioactive materials from nuclear bomb testing, Chernobyl, and the emissions from the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant, which operated east of Sacramento until it was shut down in 1989 by a citizens lawsuit after a history of accidents, radioactive leaks, startups and shutdowns. The citizens lawsuit was successful because they owned the Sacramento municipal Power Company, including the nuclear power plant.[11] Most of the drinking water for the San Francisco Bay area comes from the Sierras. Approximately 95% of the radioactive emissions from Rancho Seco were rained and snowed out into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, contaminating vegetation, soils, streams, rivers and lakes.

Fig.2 (above): Map of California showing San Francisco Bay, Marin County north of San Francisco, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east where radioactive contaminated water supplies orginate for northern California.
Source: Hornbeck, D., California Patterns: A Geographical and Historical Atlas. Mayfield Publ. Co, Palo Alto, CA (1983).p.11

Mortality from all diseases for all ages in San Francisco declined by about 10% within two years of the Rancho Seco shutdown,[12] just what the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) predicted in the new radiation risk model they wrote in 2003 as an independent report for the European Parliament.[13]

During the lawsuit, which eventually shut down Rancho Seco nuclear power plant in 1989, the citizens contracted with Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab to measure fission product emissions in the Rancho Seco environment. I obtained the Livermore Lab radiation reports[14] and communications with lawyers, from Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass who had been an expert witness for the lawsuit. It was a surprise to discover that Livermore Nuclear weapons Lab has not only secretly conducted extensive global monitoring of ionizing radiation for decades, but local ionizing radiation monitoring as well. In fact, I saw fresh core samples from Hiroshima and Nagasaki lying on a table in a Livermore environmental laboratory in 1991. When I asked Dr. Kai Wong, a Livermore lab ionizing radiation expert, why they were still monitoring Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he said:

“Because Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still radioactive. And we are still studying the people because they are too.”

LIVERMORE NUKE LAB SECRETLY MEASURING
GLOBAL RADIATION LEVELS

In a recent study, Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab reported [15] measuring one Curie of radiocesium per year, passing through San Francisco Bay, attached to fine sediment. Cesium 137 and Strontium 90 are the two most abundant fission products, and are commonly measured as an indicator of more than 400 other fission products produced. Therefore far more than one Curie of ionizing radiation per year has been washing through the Bay. Clay particles are highly charged and act as scavenging agents for radioactive particles suspended in water. This has been a chronic and cumulative source of low-level ionizing radiation washing up daily on the San Francisco Bay side of the Marin shoreline for at least 60 years – since atmospheric testing started in 1945, and the likely cause of the high rates of breast cancer reported in Marin County.

Based on 550 epidemiological studies of exposed populations, an independent low-level ionizing radiation report for the European Parliament, the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) report, has stated that chronic exposure to low-level ionizing radiation is:
“…up to 1000 times more biologically damaging than the International Committee on Radiation Protection (ICRP) standards and risk model predict.”[16]

The ICRP standards and risk model are based on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb studies, which were deceptively conducted by the U.S. Government, in order to protect the future development of a nuclear weapons program.

Even worse than the fission products, the public health impact from global pollution by depleted uranium, was not officially measured or reported from bomb testing, but someone must have been monitoring it. All atomic and hydrogen bombs have large amounts (thousands of pounds) of depleted uranium packed as “tamping” around the small plutonium core weighing less than 20 lbs.[17] The major contribution made by depleted uranium to global radioactive pollution from atmospheric testing was very rarely mentioned or reported.

THE DIABETES LINK TO RADIATION

Prior to the introduction of manmade ionizing radiation into the environment, diabetes was very rare. Most children who developed diabetes died by the time they were 7 years old, since insulin was not discovered until the late 1920s. This greatly minimized inheritance of a genetic link to diabetes. By globally mapping diabetes,[18] it was very clear to me that the highest rates of diabetes in the world are in the same latitudes as the major atmospheric tests. Jet stream distribution carried the radiation from east to west in the northern latitudes where the US, Russia, and China conducted tests. And in the southern latitudes where British and French bomb tests were conducted, the jet stream carried the radiation around the world, contaminating the tips of S. America and Africa. By 1963 at the peak of atmospheric testing, Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass reported a 50% decline in the North Atlantic fishing catch, and a 65% decline in the northern Pacific fishing catch, due to global nuclear fallout pollution of the oceans.[19]

Fig. 3: Diabetes death rates in Japan 1950-2004. This represents the global cumulative radiation effects of atmospheric testing (1950-1963), nuclear power plants introduced in 1968, and depleted uranium introduced in 1991.
Source: Vital Statistics of Japan 2004 vol.1, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Health and Welfare Statistics Assoc., Table 5.15, p. 203.

A global diabetes epidemic [Fig. 3], beginning in 1945 with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has had a major contribution from the effects of uranium pollution from atmospheric testing, nuclear power plants, and depleted uranium weaponry introduced to the battlefield in 1991. Uranium is particularly damaging to the pancreas, insulin production, information flow, and cell function. And diabetes in pregnant women has a serious effect on the foetus.[38]

Fig. 4: Trend of mortality rate from pancreatic cancer in Japan (Males) for the period 1940-1965 prior to, and following the release of fission products into the environment.”
Source: M. Segi, M. Kurihara, and T. Matsuyama, “Cancer Mortality in Japan (1899-1962)”, Department of Public Health, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, 1965.

Pancreatic cancer mortality in Japanese males [Fig. 4] increased 12-fold between 1945 and 1965, during the peak of atmospheric testing.[20]

A global diabetes epidemic [Fig. 3], beginning in 1945 with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has had a major contribution from the effects of uranium pollution from atmospheric testing, nuclear power plants, and depleted uranium weaponry introduced to the battlefield in 1991. Uranium is particularly damaging to the pancreas, insulin production, information flow, and cell function. And diabetes in pregnant women has a serious effect on the foetus.

Pancreatic cancer mortality in Japanese males [Fig. 4] increased 12-fold between 1945 and 1965, during the peak of atmospheric testing.[20]

MARIN COUNTY: A NATURAL CONTROL STUDY

The Marin County study is the kind of natural experiment geoscientists find useful in their research, with the Pacific coastline as a natural control and San Francisco Bay mudflats in Marin County as the study area. It is also a good comparison of the public health effects of ionizing radionuclide concentrations in contaminated freshwater compared to seawater. It is already well known that because of the influence of saltwater on uptake of radionuclides saltwater fish have much lower radioactive contamination levels than freshwater fish living in contaminated environments where toxins may bio-concentrate by thousands of times.

When the results of mud samples from the Marin County bay side shoreline and the Pacific coastline are analyzed and reported, low-level ionizing radiation from the Sierras will be identified as the cause of what may be the highest breast cancer incidence in the United States. High rates of autism also occur in areas, between the Sierras and Marin County, in low energy slow water environments where swampy still water and mudflats occur, and are recharged with contaminated water washing down from the Sierras. The California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) found a 273 percent increase in autism cases between 1987 and 1998.[21] This is due not only to residual ionizing radiation washing out of the Sierras, but also to the nuclear power industry in California. Dr. Ernest Sternglass has provided powerful evidence[22] that in the state of California, autism has increased and is correlated with the increase of energy generated by nuclear power plants since the early 1970’s. An investigation of U.S. autism rates and nuclear power plant operating capacity confirmed the California findings. Ionizing radiation in the environment has a cumulative effect, where increased levels have been reported in dairy products and soils such as in New York City, causing an increase in biological problems in exposed populations.[23]

Fig. 5A (left): High-risk counties within 100 miles of nuclear reactors where 2/3 of breast cancer deaths occurred 1985-1989. Fig. 5B (right): Nuclear power plant locations in the U.S.
Source: 5(A) J. Gould, The Enemy Within: The High Cost of Living Near Nuclear Reactors, Four Walls Eight Windows, NY/London (1996), p.187.
5(B) Source: “The Madness of Nuclear Energy”, The Ecologist, Vol. 29 No. 7, November 1999, back cover.


I’M THE “MOUSE LADY”

The University of California, as the unchallenged manager for 61 years of the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos National Lab, Lawrence Livermore Lab, and Lawrence Berkeley Lab, has received billions of dollars to make a global radioactive environmental mess, hundreds of millions of dollars more to “study” the breast cancer clusters in Marin County, and has still failed to identify the cause. The “platinum plated” labs have so much sophisticated equipment and personnel to study ionizing radiation that they are, as one Livermore scientist said, a “solution looking for a problem.” Yet, during a breast cancer conference on January 21, 2006, by the Bay Area Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Center (BABCERC), University of California scientist Dr. Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff from the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, introduced herself as “the mouse lady”. She stated very clearly, during her presentation to 600 women, that “radiation is the only known cause of breast cancer in mice.”[24] She repeatedly mentioned in her talk that “Radiation is the only known cause of breast cancer in mice and that is why I use it to cause breast cancer in mice.” She concluded her talk, by saying that in their research they “never identified the cause of breast cancer in women”.

No, but hundreds of millions of dollars later, they sure did in mice… ionizing radiation.

THE MOUSE THAT ROARED

When it was time for questions, I held up an enlarged breast cancer map [Fig. 5A] using US Government data (1985-1989) from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The map identified that within a 100-mile radius of nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons labs, [Fig. 5B] two thirds of all breast cancer deaths occurred in the United States from 1985-89.

I asked the speaker, Dr. Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff, if BABCERC was investigating ionizing radiation as a cause of breast cancer around these sites. She quickly replied, “Oh, I’m a microbiologist!” distancing herself from the “R” word.

Fig. 6 (above): Kokopelli is a fertility deity, an ancient humpbacked flute player from an Anasazi glyph. He presides over childbirth, agriculture, and reproduction of game animals, and is venerated by Southwestern Indians.
Source: Walker, D., Cuckoo for Kokopelli, Northland Pub. Flagstaff AZ (1998), p.3-Pottery by Melissa Antonio, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, p.1-Navajo basket by Eleanor Rock, Twin Rocks Trading Post, New Mexico.



KOKOPELLI SPEAKS

Living on the Navajo Reservation heavily contaminated from uranium mining, a young Navajo girl when she was nine, lost her grandmother, her ama’sa’ni, to breast cancer.[25] Her mother later had breast cancer twice. When Stefanie Raymond-Whish decided to become a molecular biologist at the University of Northern Arizona, she dedicated her research to finding the root causes of breast cancer.

LOOD DOO NADZIIHII –
“THE SORE THAT DOES NOT HEAL”

Raymond-Whish discovered that there was New Mexico State Tumor Registry data on the New Mexico portion of the Navajo Reservation, which showed a 17-fold increase in childhood reproductive cancers compared to the U.S. average.[26] Ms. Williams, the journalist who wrote “On Cancer’s Trail” about Raymond-Whish reported “These are extremely rare cancers related to hormone systems."[27] Another set of registry data from 1970-1982 showed a 2.5-fold increase in these cancers among all New Mexico Native Americans.[28] A 1981 paper identified a possible link between proximity to uranium mine tailings and incidents of birth defects in families. Breast cancer [Fig. 7] is the number two killer of Navajo women after heart disease.[29] Uterine and ovarian cancers doubled or tripled since 1970 in New Mexico Indians, with no change in whites and Hispanics.[30] This has prompted the U.S. Health and Human Services to fund a study on kidney disease to be done jointly by a Navajo health agency and a New Mexico state agency. They will be looking at 1300 Navajos and 160 drinking wells, compiling illness data and analyses of drinking water contaminants (uranium, arsenic, etc.). With less than ¼ of the wells tested, the study has already established that living within 0.8 kilometer from an abandoned mine is a significant predictor of kidney disease and diabetes.[31] This suggests that local uranium pollution point sources are contaminating the groundwater on the Navajo reservation where many family dwellings have their own well. Municipal drinking water supplies, utilized by whites and Hispanics in more populated urban areas, may explain the reduced uterine cancer rates in non-Indian populations.

Fig. 7 (above): A dividing breast cancer cell as seen through a colored scanning electron micrograph.
Source: Steve Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library. http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17708

Dr. Ernest Sternglass has recommended that reverse osmosis filtration systems, for a cost to the U.S Government of about $500 per household, will remove heavy metals including uranium and other contaminants from water. He suggests that the U.S Government cost of providing these systems to contaminated Native American populations would be far cheaper than the public health studies and high health care costs of chronic exposure to uranium contamination.

Another Mouse Study and a Different Outcome

When Raymond-Whish received her PhD in May 2008, she had already co-published a groundbreaking paper[32] identifying uranium as an estrogen disruptor and a serious cause of infertility as well as breast, ovarian, and uterine cancer. She and researchers exposed mice to depleted uranium contaminated drinking water below the U.S. EPA water standard of [30] picoCuries/Liter [33] (or about 1 Bequerrel),[34] in other words at levels the U.S. government considered to be a minimal health risk. Their results: “Mice that drank uranium-containing water exhibited estrogenic responses including selective reduction of primary follicies, increased uterine weight, greater uterine luminal epithelial cell height, accelerated vaginal opening, and persistent presence of cornified vaginal cells. Coincident treatment with the antiestrogen ICI 182,780 blocked these responses to uranium or the synthetic estrogen diethylstilbestrol. In addition, mouse dams that drank uranium-containing water delivered grossly normal pups, but they had significantly fewer primordial follicies than pups whose dams drank control tap water.”[35]

Their Conclusions Were:

“Because of the decades of uranium mining/milling in the Colorado plateau in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest, the uranium concentration and the route of exposure used in these studies are environmentally relevant. Our data support the conclusion that uranium is an endocrine-disrupting chemical and populations exposed to environmental uranium should be followed for increased risk of fertility problems and reproductive cancers.”[36]

Andrea Gore, a neuroendocrinologist at the University of Texas, Austin, and former advisor to the National Science Foundation considers this to be a groundbreaking study:
“This is a science of subtlety, (Dyer’s and Raymond-Whish’s) work is consistent with other good labs. People criticize the field of endocrine disruption because we don’t always understand the mechanisms, but the effects are real. This is why animal studies are so important. The responses we see in lab animals can happen in humans, because we share the exact same hormones. The estrogen receptor is similar.”[37]

Fig. 8 (above): The start of every human life: Human ovulation where emergence of the oocyte from the ovary occurs before fertilization in the uterus.
Source: Geddes, L., “Human egg makes accidental debut on camera,” New Scientist, June 11, 2008.

A Global Depopulation
Doomsday Machine

Since 1945, the University of California and the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Labs together with other nuclear states have blanketed Planet Earth and the global atmosphere with accumulating uranium and fission products with an unknown biological outcome. This is very significant because low level uranium contamination, even below EPA drinking water standards, is an estrogen or hormone disruptor at a minimum, which means it will have a global affect, and not just on females of many species. Raymond-Whist has identified some of the effects in one biological system (reproductive), which is a part of a larger cooperating set of systems in a human or animal super-system. Her research predicts that infertility will increase in each future generation because of chronic low-level ionizing radiation exposure, cancers of reproductive organs in females will increase, and the viability of future generations will decline.

The link between diabetes and uranium exposure is also significant to the reproductive system, since pregnant women who have diabetes and little or no health care produce unhealthy babies.[38] The impact of uranium on the pancreas and production and function of insulin, another hormone, is very significant damage to another system. Environmental uranium is already causing a global epidemic of diabetes with large increases in rates. The World Health Organisation has predicted that global diabetes rates are expected to increase 10 times by 2030.

Animals too are being affected by the impact of environmental uranium pollution, since we share the same hormones and similar estrogen receptors. This is accelerating the collapse of the environment and our web of life. The entire planet is experiencing the greatest mass extinction of all species since the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago. Examples of indicators are everywhere, such as increases in uranium levels in drinking water reported in Los Angeles,[39] which doubled in 2007 alone, from depleted uranium bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006 depleted uranium was reported in the British atmosphere 7-9 days after bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan.[40] High increases of diabetes have been reported in Tasmania, and 50% of the Tasmanian Devil population has been exterminated by aggressive mouth cancers since 1993, when uranium mining and milling both doubled in Australia. The radioactive dust is carried in southern hemisphere atmospheric circulation patterns to Tasmania in a matter of days.

Ionizing radiation is different. There is no way to turn it off and no way to clean it up. It is the weapon that keeps giving and keeps killing. Fertile females, the unborn, and children are the primary targets of this global depopulation Doomsday Machine. The University of California, home of the Manhattan Project - the atomic bomb project that never ended, will forever be known as “the University that poisoned the world”.

References

1 Wall, S., H. Arden, WISDOMKEEPERS: Meetings With Native American Spiritual Elders, Beyond Words Publishing Inc. (1990), p.96.

2 Haviland, A., The geographical distribution of heart disease and dropsy, cancer in females and phthisis in females in England and Wales, London: Swan Schonnenschein, 1875.

3 Hardy, E.P., P.W. Krey, H.L. Volchok, “Global Inventory and Distribution of Fallout Plutonium”, NATURE, vol. 241, Feb. 16, 1973, p. 444-5.

4 Dept. of Health Annual Report, State of Hawaii (1963), p.127.

5 Ibid.

6 Segi, M., M. Kurihara, and T. Matsuyama, “Cancer Mortality in Japan (1899-1962)”, Department of Public Health, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, 1965.

7 Dept. of Health Annual Report, State of Hawaii (1963), p. 127: Digestive system cancers - Stomach (12.7%), Large Intestine (8.0%), Pancreas (5.8%), Rectum (4.9%), other Digestive (9.7%).

8 Dept. of Health Annual Report, State of Hawaii (1963), p. 127: Respiratory system - Lung (17.6%), other Respiratory (1.4%).

9 Volpe, A.M., B.B. Bandong, B.K. Esser, G.M. Bianchini, “Radiocesium in North San Francisco Bay and Baja California coastal surface waters”, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, 60 (2002) 365-380.
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2002/Radiocesium-San-Francisco-Bay16mar02.htm

10 Laurie, J., “Alarming breast cancer rates in northern California county”, World Socialist Web, Oct. 31, 2002. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/canc-o31.shtml

11 Smellof, E., P. Asmus, Reinventing Electric Utilities: competition, Citizen action, and Clean Power, Island Press, Wash. D.C., (1996), p.35-50.

12 “Improvements in Public Health in San Francisco after Rancho Seco Shutdown”, Hunter’s Point/San Francisco Press Conference Sept. 7, 2001, Radiation and Public Health Project.

13 Busby, C., Edit., with R.. Bertell, I. Schmitze-Feuerhake, M. Cato, A. Yablokov, ECRR: 2003 Recommendations of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, Regulator’s Edit.: Brussels, 2003, p.182.

14 Noshkin, V., K. Wong, R. Eagle, J. Dawson, J. Brunk, T. Jokela, “Environmental Radiological Studies Downstream from Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Generating Station”, LLNL Report UCID-20367 (one of a series).

15 Volpe, et al., 2002.

16 Busby, C. et al., 2003, p.182.

17 Glasstone, S., The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Dept. of the Army Pamphlet No. 50-3, Headquarters Dept. of the Army, March 1977, p. 15 sec. 1.50.

18 Bronzan, J., “A Local, National and Worldwide Scourge”, New York Times, January 8, 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/01/08/nyregion/20060109_DIABETES_GRAPHIC.html

19 Sternglass, E.J., “Fallout and Reproduction of Ocean Fish Populations”, unpublished 1971.
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Fallout-Fish-Sternglass8oct71.htm

20 M. Segi (1965).

21 “M.I.N.D. Institute Study Confirms Autism Increase”, Press Release Oct. 17, 2002, Sacramento, California.
http://www.dds.ca.gov/Autism/MINDEpidemiologyStudy.htm

22 Dr. Sternglass was able to correlate State of California autism rates from pre-1945 to 2005, with NRC data on nuclear power generated electricity, personal communication June 2003.

23 Fowler, J.M., Fallout: A Study of Superbombs, Strontium 90, and Survival, Basic Books NY, 1960, p. 59 Fig. 11.

24 Nichols, B., “Breast cancer meeting fails people of Hunters Point, San Francisco, Marin County”, Indybay.org, January 26, 2006. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/01/28/17987821.php

25 Williams, F., “On Cancer’s Trail”, High Country News, May 26, 2008. http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17708

26 Ibid., p.8.

27 Ibid., p.8.

28 Ibid.

29 Halliwell, B., Gutteridge, J., FREE RADICALS IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 4th Edit., Oxford University Press (2007).

30 F. Williams, 2008, p.8

31 F. Williams, 2008, p.10

32 Raymond-Whish, S., L.P. Mayer, T. O’Neal, A. Martinez, M.A.Sellers, P.J. Christian et al, “Drinking Water with Uranium below the U.S. EPA Water Standard Causes Estrogen Receptor-Dependent Responses in Female Mice”, Environ. Health Perspect., Vol. 115:12, Dec. 2007, pp.1711-16. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2137136

33 US EPA Drinking Water Standard, Federal Register/Vol. 65, No. 236/Dec. 7, 2000/ Rules and Regulations,
Table I-1: p. 76710.
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-WATER/2000/December/Day-07/w30421.pdf

34 Former Livermore nuclear weapons program scientist, Marion Fulk, has calculated that 27.027 pCi equals 1 Bequerrel (1 radioactive disintegration/second).

35 S. Raymond-Whish, 2007, p.1.

36 Ibid.

37 F. Williams, 2008.

38 Halliwell, B., J. Gutteridge, Free Radicals in Biology and Medicine, 3rd Edit., Oxford Univ. Press (1999), p.526

39 Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power, Annual Water Quality Report 2007, Table I.
http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp010711.pdf

40 Moret, L., “The Queen’s Death Star: Depleted Uranium Measured in British Atmosphere from Battlefields in the Middle East”, Mindfully.org, Feb. 26, 2006.

http://www.rense.com/general69/deathstar.htm

Leuren Moret is an Environmental and Scientist Geoscientist. She is an expert on atmospheric dust, and how it moves and is transported around the world. She was an expert witness at the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan in Tokyo. She is an independent scientist and international expert on radiation and public health issues. She has worked internationally on radiation issues, educating citizens, the media, members of Parliaments and Congress and other officials. Leuren became a whistleblower in 1991 at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab after experiencing major science fraud on the Yucca Mountain Project. She is a former Environmental Commissioner for the City of Berkeley and President of Scientists of Indigenous People.
Tel: +(1) 510 845 3139

Email: leurenmoret@yahoo.com

See http://www.beyondtreason.org

Friday, May 6, 2011

CHEMTRAILS aka "STRATOSPHERIC AEROSOL GEOENGINEERING"


http://geo-terrorism.blogspot.com/2011/05/chemtrails.html

The Consequences of Toxic Metals and Chemical Aerosols on Human Health

"Even with the increases in preventable illnesses, the issue that has not been linked or addressed –with what Clifford Carnicom rightly calls “aerosol crimes”– is the deterioration of cognitive function...
it is obvious –to anyone who is paying attention– that many people are behaving oddly. While it may be considered “anecdotal” reporting, there are millions of people whose behavior is strange. There have been numerous times in just the past year when I have asked someone a question and received an answer that is totally unrelated. There have been more and more uncontrolled outbursts in public areas: someone “snaps” for no apparent reason. Violence levels are up."

Part I

By Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19047

Global Research, May 12, 2010

For decades, we have known that heavy metals and chemicals can cause grave physical harm. Going back to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, we have known and been amply warned of the serious consequences of using or being exposed to these poisons in our daily activities. Thousands of these are well-documented carcinogens.

Building on Carson’s ground-breaking research, we also know that certain kinds of chemicals can and do disrupt human [and other animals’] entire immune system. Going back 30 years, researchers were investigating what became known as endocrine [hormone] disrupting chemicals and how they were affecting frogs [who sometimes had five legs or hermaphroditic characteristics], other aquatic animals, and mammals. These animals were the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. In another pioneering book, Our Stolen Future authors Dr. Theo Colburn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers clearly demonstrate that 1 + 1 hormone-disrupting chemicals did not equal 2. Rather, in a nightmare of mathematical proportions, these poisons acted synergistically; and 1+1 could equal up to 1,600 times the original dose. We are also exposed to more than 100,000 chemicals regularly. Most of them have never been tested for human safety. So, almost nothing has been done to reduce human exposure to a myriad of hazardous chemicals. In fact, over the past decade, the Bush administration dismantled many environmental laws in existence for 30 years, to let corporations off the proverbial hook. [Just look at what’s unfolding in the Gulf with the BP oil spill.]

[SEE URL FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE]

ALSO POSTED AT

http://geo-terrorism.blogspot.com/2011/05/chemtrails.html

Sunday, March 20, 2011

"MESSAGE FROM THE EARTH" MOUNT TITIROA NEW ZEALAND


"We as human beings are only one species of life on a planet who is home to billions of life-forms, known and unknown. All life forms are unique; in the most fundamental ways we are no different or important than any other living being, except that our beliefs about ourselves have set us apart in our own minds, in thought and in action, and in the ability of our technological-industrial civilization to poison and exploit the planetary biosphere. Dominant belief paradigms like Darwinism and Judaeo-Christianity have laid the foundation for the widespread separation from and destruction of the natural world which we now experience and exacerbate. Indigenous peoples who live simply and in touch with nature are systematically decimated; their lands stolen, resources extracted, and the remnants become assimilated into the modern “way of life” centered on materialism, over-consumption, and the religion of capitalism. In the words of Joseph Wood Krutch,

“Man is one of those animals which is in danger from its too successul participation in the struggle for existence…from the standpoint of nature as a whole, he is both a threat to every other living thing, and therefore, a threat to himself also…he has become the tyrant of the Earth, the waster of its resources, the creator of the most prodigious imbalance in the natural order which has ever existed…”

We as human beings require the Earth for our existence; the Earth loves us as one of her children but does not require our existence. As we poison and destroy the Earth, we literally do this to ourselves. Our “artificial realities” imposed on the Earth and each other have supplanted our relationship with the natural world to such an extent that nature is no longer a primary element of consciousness.

One in two people globally now live in cities. No city of any size can possibly be a healthful place to live. Cities are high-density concentrations of all the most destructive things that people do, and are permeated with high levels of toxins, electromagnetic radiation, noise and socio-cultural malaise. People living in cities are far more vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters than people living in more natural and de-centralized conditions in the country or forest.

The Earth is a constantly changing and dynamic being, a living planet undergoing transformations just as her life-forms do; the Earth simultaneously provides an encompassing context for life as we know it, but is also itself embedded in larger cosmic contexts, most notably, the heliocosm, or local solar system, which is itself dynamic, transformative, and influenced by energies and movements at the galactic level.

Current science tells us that life itself has survived several “mass extinction events”; 99.9% of all life-forms that ever existed are now extinct. Life is not so much a specific life-form, for example, an individual organism or species, but more of a process.

Human life has been around long enough to have witnessed cosmic catastrophes that have left imprints in our collective psyche. The Earth experiences cyclical variations that result in changes in climate and magnetic fields, with resultant effects on life-forms.

Ancient/indigenous cultures have knowledge of some of these cycles and have long predicted the accelerated “Earth changes” now upon us. The influence of the existence of our global technological-industrial civilization is a significant factor as well in how these Earth changes affect us and the planet. The choices that we make, individually and collectively, on how we live and what we do with respect to the Earth also comprise a significant factor in the overall equation.

In addition to the direct manipulative and destructive effects of our technological civilization, including man’s warfare against himself, we may also be precipitating a higher degree of negative influence from the cosmic levels due to the disruption of natural systems at a planetary level. These negative influences could be termed “karmic” as well as “energetic” and “morphogenetic.”

At the human level, our overall desensitisation to the vibrations of nature puts us in a frequency domain out of harmony with the Earth and out of harmony with the incoming energetic shifts. Our decision-making is affected and in general we are not living in ways that are compatible with the long-term health or even existence of life as we know it, human or non-human. When we are out of touch with the subtle intelligence of nature, we are not able to respond to urgent warning signals, psychic “alarm bells” which may alert us to impending danger. When the local environment is saturated with electromagnetic radiation and chemical toxins, our personal auras are distorted, our resonance with the Earth’s magnetic field is blocked and we are out of synch with the real world in which life as we know it has always lived and evolved.

The Earth is not “punishing” us for doing what we are doing; we are punishing ourselves, and the Earth. The result is that we are making it vastly more difficult for ourselves to make it through this window of time successfully, for example, by continuing to live more and more extravagantly, consuming more and more resources, instead of pulling back on our damage to the Earth like indigenous elders and true “old school” environmental leaders have been telling us to for decades. In no way are we using our best or highest knowledge; the opposite is closer to the truth, as we plunge head-long into accelerating destructive habits and the refusal to renavigate our course to oblivion.

In the aftermath of the development of atomic weapons, Albert Einstein observed that “everything has changed except our ways of thinking.” This same insight can be applied to the effects of our entire military-industrial civilization: science-fiction level technologies are being deployed of on an undreamed-of scale, yet as individuals we cling to totally out-moded beliefs and values that make no sense in today’s world. We each are affected daily by the results of the scientific “revolution” yet most people could be classed as scientifically illiterate.

The unknowns with which we as humans are now confronted are enormous. The biggest unknowns lie within each of us, the mystery of why, for example, we steadfastly refuse to wake up out of the hypnotic trance called “normality” and to examine our “ways of life” that are literally paving the road to disaster.

It’s clear that political “leadership” and mass-media are only making matters worse by reinforcing the unquestioned status quo beliefs that increased materialism, capitalism and “technology” are the solutions to the problems we now face.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We each have the ability to take charge of our own lives if we allow ourselves to disengage from the “artificial realities” which have come to dominate our existence. We each have the ability to choose to simplify our lives, to live closer to nature, to live as if the Earth and our family of life, “mitakuye oyasin”, actually matter as fellow beings, not as “resources.”

If we each get a little closer to nature and lessen the damage we participate in through our daily routines and things we take for granted, a wellspring of healing and love is there just waiting for us to be aware of it, from the heart of the Earth herself, our true mother.

If we drink from the fountains of life we become more alive, and regain our sensitivity and responsiveness to the intelligence of nature and the Earth which is constantly guiding and informing us about what is happening in the local universe.
"

Sunday, February 13, 2011

"“Environmental Effects of Pesticides On Public Health, Birds, and Other Organisms” David Pimentel















































NOTE FROM JEFF: This excellent article is from a small publication sent to us by the Fish and Wildlife Service in the USA which was created in honour of Rachel Carson, who used to work for them. Pimentel is a major and impartial global authority on pesticides and their affects on life and the biosphere.

“The major problem with the recommended use of pesticides is that so little actually reaches the target pests. The estimate is that less than 0.01% of the pesticides that are applied reaches the target pests…This, of course, means that 99.9% of the pesticide that is applied pollutes the environment… In the United States, as mentioned, more than 1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied and worldwide about 5 billion pounds are applied each year… Worldwide… 26 million people [are] poisoned and about 220,000 die each year…In addition, pesticides cause cancer and the estimate is that there are more than 10,000 cases of cancer that are the result of pesticide exposure…Pesticides also disrupt the endocrine, immune, and neurological responses in humans and other animals… Most pesticides applied to crops eventually end up in ground and/or surface water.”

“Environmental Effects of Pesticides On Public Health, Birds, and Other Organisms”


David Pimentel

Professor, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University


This is a tribute to Rachel Carson and her book, Silent Spring (1962). She had the foresight and knowledge to warn us against the ecological hazards of pesticides to public health and other organisms. Carson’s book was also instrumental in giving recognition to the growing field of science of ecology. For all of Carson’s many contributions, all of us are indebted.

From the time that the United States started using synthetic pesticides in 1945 to the time that Carson’s book was published, pesticide use increased about six fold (Pimentel, 1975). It took 10 years from the time that her book was published before DDT was banned in 1972. By the time that DDT was banned, pesticide use has increased ten-fold to about one billion pounds. The total quantity of pesticide in terms of pounds has not increased, however, the actual toxicity of pesticides has increased 10 to 20 times (Pimentel et al., 1993). The prime benefit with the new highly toxic pesticides that replaced DDT and similar chemicals is that the new toxicants to not persist for long periods of time in the environment. DDT persists in the soil for 30 to 50 years, whereas the newer insecticides persist only up to 3 months.


The major problem with the recommended use of pesticides is that so little actually reaches the target pests. The estimate is that less than 0.01% of the pesticides that are applied reaches the target pests (Pimentel and Levitan, 1986). This, of course, means that 99.9% of the pesticide that is applied pollutes the environment. The result is numerous birds, fish, and other species are killed or affected by the applied pesticides.


In this article, I will briefly review the environmental impacts of pesticides on public health, birds, and other organisms.


Human Pesticide Poisonings


In the United States, as mentioned, more than 1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied and worldwide about 5 billion pounds are applied each year (Pimentel and Hart, 2000). Some humans are directly exposed to the pesticide sprays, especially those people who apply pesticides. In addition, pesticides contaminate human food and water resources. For example, about 35% of the food that isi purchased has measurable amounts of pesticide residues, with 1% to 3% having residues that are above accepted tolerance level.

In the U.S., about 110,000 humans are poisoned with pesticides, with about 25 accidental deaths each year ( Benbrook, et al., 1996). Worldwide, the situation is far more serious with 26 million people poisoned and about 220,000 deaths each year (WHO, 1992). In addition, pesticides cause cancer and the estimate is that there are more than 10,000 cases of cancer that are the result of pesticide exposure (Pimentel & Hart, 2001). Pesticides also disrupt the endocrine, immune, and neurological responses in humans and other animals (Colborn et al., 1996). It is interesting that these disruptors tend to make male animals become female in structure. In addition, the production of sperm is greatly reduced or is zero.


Bird Poisonings

Like humans, birds are also poisoned by pesticides. Birds, like the canary in the coal mine, make excellent “indicator species.” In fact, the suggestion in the title of Rachel Carson’s book was that if we continued to apply DDT and other pesticides we would have a Silent Spring – without birds singing. Birds are poisoned by the direct exposure to pesticides, poisoned by feeding on contaminated prey, and have reduced growth and reproduction because of the exposure to sub-lethal doses of pesticides. In the U.S., approximately 3 pounds of pesticide are applied per acre per year on about 400 million acres (Pimental et al., 1993). Incidentally, home-owners apply about 8 pounds per acre per year, or nearly 3 times the pesticide damage that farmers apply per acre. The full extent of bird kills by pesticides is difficult to determine, because birds are secretive, camouflaged, highly mobile, and live in dense grass, shrubs, and trees.


It is assumed that the pesticides inflicted on birds occur on the 400 million acres of cropland that receives most of the pesticide, and the bird population is estimated to be 1.8 birds per acre of cropland (Boutin et al., 1999), then about 720 million birds are directly exposed to pesticides. If it is conservatively estimated that only 10% of the bird population is killed, then the total number of birds killed is approximately 72 million.

Therefore the conservative estimate is that about 72 million birds are killed each year because of direct exposure to pesticides. This 72 million birds does not include the nestlings lost because one or more parents is killed and/or that pesticide-contaminated insects and earthworms are brought to the nest and fed to the nestlings. The actual number of birds killed might be twice the 72 million figure.


The American bald eagle and other predatory birds suffered high mortalities because of DDT and other chlorinated insecticides. The bald eagle population declined primarily because of pesticides and was placed on the Federal endangered species list. After DDT and the other chlorinated insecticides were banned in 1972, it took nearly 30 years for the bird populations to recover. The American bald eagle was recently removed from the endangered species list (Millar, 1995).


Beneficial Natural Enemies

In both natural and agricultural eco-systems, a large number of species of predators and parasites control and limit the feeding pressure of plant-feeding arthropod populations (Pimentel, 1988). The biological control organisms help the eco-system remain “green” with foliage on trees, shrubs, and other plants. The beneficial parasites and predators help control pest arthropods in agricultural crops (Pimental et al., 1993).


In the U.S., I estimate that while pesticides provide approximately 10% of pest control, natural control provides about twice this amount of control (Pimentel & Hart, 2001). Many cultural controls such as crop rotation, soil and water management, fertilizer management, planting time, crop-plant density, trap crops, mechanical cultivation, and poly-culture provide additional benefits for pest control. Together, these non-chemical controls could be used effectively to reduce U.S. pesticide use by more than 50% without any reduction in crop yields and/or cosmetic standards (Pimentel et al, 1993). Confirmation that pesticide use in the U.S. could be reduced by 50% comes from the fact that Sweden reduced pesticide use by 50% from 1992 to 1997 and is now on a program to reduce pesticide use another 50% (Pimentel, 1997). In Indonesia, most of the pesticide was applied to rice. Dr. I.N. Oka was able to reduce pesticide use by 65% and increase rice yields by 12%. This illustrates what can be done, if pesticides are used judiciously.


Pesticides frequently have adverse impacts on beneficial natural enemies. For example, the following pests have reached outbreak levels following the destruction of natural enemies by pesticides: bollworm, tobacco budworm, cotton aphid, spider mites, and cotton loopers (Pimentel et al., 1993). Significant pest outbreaks also have occurred in other crops.


When outbreaks of pests occur because their natural enemies have been destroyed by pesticides, additional and usually more expensive and toxic pesticide treatments are required to sustain crop yields. It is estimated that the destruction of natural enemies by pesticides, the subsequent crop losses, and additional pesticide application cost the U.S. more than $500 million per year (Pimentel et al., 1993).


Pesticide Resistance


The widespread use of pesticides has resulted in the development of pesticide resistance in insect pests, plant pathogens, and weeds. The estimate is that more than 1,000 species of pests are now resistant to pesticides. As pesticide use increases, the number of pesticide-resistant pests explodes.


Increased pesticide resistance in pest populations frequently requires several additional applications of pesticides. The additional pesticide applications tend to compound the problem by increasing selection in the target pests. Despite numerous attempts to deal with this problem, pesticide resistance continues to develop at a rapid rate (Pimentel et al., 1993). Assuming a 10% loss in major crops that also receive heavy pesticide treatments in the U.S. because of resistance, total losses due to pesticide resistance are estimated to be about $1.4 billion per year (Pimentel et al., 1993).

Honey Bee and Wild Bee Poisonings

Honey bees and wild bees are vital to the pollination of about one-third of the crops in the U.S., especially fruits and vegetables. The benefits of bees for pollination are estimated to be about $40 billion per year if forages and pastures are included in the assessment (Pimentel et al., 1997). Because most insecticides and some fungicides and herbicides are toxic to bees, these pesticides have a major impact on both honey bee and wild bee populations (MacKenzie & Winston, 1989; Pimental et al., 1993).


For most agricultural crops, both yield and quality are enhanced by effective pollination. For example, adequate pollination of fruits and vegetables provide major benefits. With effective pollination, melon yields were increased 10% and quality was raised 25%, as measured by the dollar value of the crops (Pimentel et al., 1993).


Approximately 20% of all honey bee colonies are adversely affected by insecticides, and the yearly estimated loss from partial bee kills, reduced honey production, and the cost of moving colonies total about $25 million per year. Also, as a result of heavy pesticide use on certain crops, bee-keepers are excluded from 10 to 15 million acres of otherwise suitable apiary locations, and the yearly loss in potential honey production in these regions is about $27 million each year (Pimentel et al., 1993).


Based on the analysis of honey bee and pollination losses caused by insecticides, pollination losses attributed to pesticides are about 10% of the pollinated crops, at a yearly cost of about $200 million per year. The combined annual costs of reduced pollination and direct loss of honey bees due to insecticides can be estimated to be at about $320 million each year (Pimentel et al., 1993).


Ground and Surface Water Contamination


Most pesticides applied to crops eventually end up in ground and/or surface water. Aircraft application of pesticides is the most effective means of contaminating the environment. For instance, under ideal weather conditions only 50% of the spray from an aircraft or helicopter reaches the target acre, the remaining 50% drifts off to contaminate the environment. The current growing technology is the use of ULV (ultra low volume) spray technology. Because concentrated pesticide spray is applied, little or no water is added to the spray. Of course, this means breaking the pesticide spray into very small particles to obtain good coverage of the crop plants. The very small and lightweight droplets are more prone to drift. Thus, under ideal weather conditions, only 25% of the pesticide lands in the target areas and 75% drifts off into the environment (Pimentel et al., 1993).


Pesticide contamination of ground and surface waters is a serious concern in the U.S. One study showed that pesticide residues were found in 92% of Midwestern reservoirs (Solomon et al., 1996). Also in the Midwest, in Iowa herbicide residues were found in 75% of the wells sampled (Koplin, et al., 1998a). Also in the Midwest, 54% of the shallow ground water sites were found to be contaminated with pesticides (Koplin, et al., 1998b). In the Northeast, in the Hudson River Basin of New York State, pesticides were found in 69% of the well networks (Phillips, et al., 2000).


Approximately 60% of all drinking water comes from groundwater. Detectable levels of pesticides are found in about 15% of U.S. wells. If an adequate job were done in monitoring pesticide levels in groundwater, the cost would be about $1.3 billion per year (Nielson & Lee, 1987). Remember this is only monitoring but does nothing to correct the water contamination problem.


Conclusion


We currently spend about $8 billion each year in the recommended use of pesticides and this use of pesticides returns about $32 billion each year. However, these benefits do not include the environmental and public health costs of using pesticides. These costs are estimated to total about $9 billion per year.


If as has been done in Sweden and several other countries, including Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and Indonesia, and in the province of Ontario, pesticide use in the U.S. could be reduced by more than 50% without any reduction in crop yields or cosmetic standards. Reducing the recommended use of pesticides would significantly reduce the environmental and public health impacts of pesticides. It is long overdue that we reduce the use of pesticides and use them in a judicious manner that will benefit farmers, the environment, and the public.


References

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Solomon, K.R., Baker, D.B., Richards, R.P., Dixon, K.R., Klain, S.J., La Point, T.W., Kendall, R.J., Weisskopf, C.P., Giddings, J.M., Giesy, J.F., Hall, L.W., & Williams, W.M. (1996) “Ecological risk assessment of atrazine in North American surface waters”, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 15(1), 31-76.

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"Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world… We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective…Here and there awareness is growing that man, far from being the overlord of all creation, is himself part of nature, subject to the same cosmic forces that control all other life. Man's future welfare and probably even his survival depend upon his learning to live in harmony, rather than in combat, with these forces….the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race.” Rachel Carson