Date: December 19, 2008 11:09:08 AM PST
To: 60m@cbsnews.com
Subject: Full story please! Scientists to EPA: Risks of chemicals that alter male hormones
Begin forwarded message:
From: Mary Swan Bell
Date: December 19, 2008 11:06:54 AM PST
To: 60m@cbsnews.com
Subject: Fwd: Scientists to EPA: Risks of chemicals that alter male hormones should be analyzed together
Dear 60 Minutes,
Phthalates are one of the chemicals found in crumb rubber waste particulate , The major component part of synthetic turf.
Please, for the health of male reproduction and the health of humanity, investigate the use of synthetic turf on playgrounds and playing fields.
Thank you for your time and interest,
Mary Bell, MS
Marin County, California
Read on:
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/scientists-to-epa-risks-of-chemicals-that-alter-male-hormones-should-be-analyzed-together-to-protect-human-health-national-panel-says
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH NEWS December 18, 2008
Scientists to EPA: Risks of chemicals that alter male hormones should be analyzed together
By Marla Cone
Editor in Chief
Environmental Health News
A national panel of experts says EPA must change its focus and analyze chemicals that endanger male reproduction cumulatively or it will "seriously underestimate" the risks to human health.
Concluding that nearly everybody is exposed to a mix of chemicals that could be damaging male reproductive health, a national panel of scientists on Thursday advised the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to shift its focus and group them together when judging how much of a danger they pose.
The committee, assembled by the National Academy of Sciences, looked specifically at phthalates, controversial compounds widely found in consumer products. Phthalates soften plastic to make vinyl for toys, building materials, medical devices and other items, and they also are used in fragrances and other beauty products.
The recommendation to combine the compounds when analyzing their threats to human health would mark a critical change in EPA strategy. It would likely lower the total amount of phthalates the agency considers safe for people and ultimately could lead to strict regulations on their use.
By analyzing each chemical individually, the EPA underestimates the health risks of phthalates, the committee reported. In human bodies, phthalates combine, amplifying the effects on male reproduction.
"By only doing one, we underestimate the risk," said Deborah Cory-Slechta, a professor of environmental medicine at University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry who chaired the National Research Council's phthalates committee.
The recommendations could have far-reaching implications beyond phthalates, transforming how the EPA determines to what degree people will be exposed to a variety of chemicals and pollutants.
The committee said other compounds, such as bisphenol A and pesticides, that also are linked to effects on male hormones should be grouped with phthalates in the EPA's risk analysis.
"A focus solely on phthalates to the exclusion of other antiandrogens would be artificial and could seriously underestimate cumulative risk," the report says.
EPA scientists asked the National Academy of Sciences for advice on how to assess phthalates because they knew many have the same effects.
Peter Preuss, director of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment, said his "best guess" is that the agency will conduct the recommended cumulative assessment for phthalates. But he said his staff just received the 160-page report and it must first analyze the technical details of how the committee says to proceed. The EPA had been on a track to finish its assessments of at least two phthalates in 2010.
"The Academy said very clearly that they think there is sufficient information to do this, so that is our next step," Preuss said.
"There are many chemicals that act by many different mechanisms but the final result is a series of impacts on the developing male reproductive system," he said. "The Academy said these things are important-focus on the endpoint, the [health] effect, and work from that. They are trying to simplify this process."
Going even further, the scientists urged the EPA to consider broadening all its assessments to include cumulative effects of compounds with the same health effects.
That, for example, might lead to combined analysis compounds that affect the brain, female reproduction, lung cancer, or heart disease.
The report bolsters a relatively new scientific argument that cumulative exposure of chemicals and pollutants should be considered when setting safe doses for each.
Many environmental groups and public health experts have urged EPA to conduct risk assessments that combine chemicals, so they welcomed the committee's findings.
Shanna Swan, director of the University of Rochester's Center for Reproductive Epidemiology and one of the leading scientific experts on phthalates, called the cumulative approach "the crucial next step" in addressing environmental chemicals that disrupt hormones.
"It is extremely important to conduct cumulative risk assessments to protect public health," added Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, acting assistant professor of pediatrics at University of Washington. "Unlike in scientific experiments, humans are exposed to multiple chemicals everyday," she said, so combining the chemicals "can help identify how these multiple exposures could be leading to health outcomes in the general population."
Swan and Sathyanarayana were not on the panel, but both have studied phthalates. Sathyanarayana's research linked babies' phthalates to baby lotions, powders and shampoos. Swan and her colleagues reported in 2005 that the chemicals were associated with signs of feminized genitalia in newborn boys.
Tests conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that nearly all people carry traces of numerous phthalates in their bodies. Fetuses, infants and children are considered most at risk.
Europe and the United States have restricted phthalates in toys and other children's products, and the EU has banned some in cosmetics. But a variety of phthalates are still in a host of consumer products.
A child may ingest phthalates through chewing on a rubber duck, an infant may be exposed from intravenous tubes in neonatal wards, and a fetus may absorb them through his mother's use of perfumes, lotions, nail polishes and other cosmetics.
Industry groups have argued that there is insufficient evidence to group phthalates together.
But the panel of 13 scientists disagreed.
"Our committee concludes that there are common adverse effects" for many phthalates and "we believe that EPA should go ahead and conduct a cumulative risk assessment," Cory-Slechta said. She said the scientists found sufficient data, primarily from laboratory animal tests, to justify the new approach for phthalates immediately.
"There is a growing body of literature, particularly in rats, showing effects of phthalates on development of the male reproductive system," she said.
Several types of phthalates mimic or block testosterone and other androgens, which are the sex hormones that guide formation of testicles, sperm and other parts of the male reproductive system. In animal tests, exposure leads to infertility, malformed penises and abnormal testicles, which scientists call the "phthalate syndrome."
In the past, EPA has done cumulative risk assessments when substances were structurally similar in their chemical makeup or acted in the same way. But the committee says the EPA should instead group compounds according to "what they ultimately do"-the effects on human health, Cory-Slechta said.
The American Chemistry Council, representing industries that produce phthalates, said Thursday that it has "some reservations about how to conduct the cumulative risk assessment on substances" that do not act in the same way.
"This is remarkably ambitious and could be problematic for EPA considering that this essentially could result in a study without limits, financially or otherwise," said Chris Bryant, managing director of the group's Chemical Products & Technology Division.
"Congress has asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission to conduct a cumulative risk assessment on phthalates and there is a question as to whether a simultaneous EPA study would be redundant," he added.
The chemical industry also wonders how this would be reconciled with another National Academy report earlier this month that advised EPA to more strongly focus its risk assessments for chemicals.
Cory-Slechta agreed that a cumulative assessment would mean a "real paradigm change for EPA" and "might prove somewhat challenging for them." One obstacle for EPA scientists is that not all phthalates have the exact same effects or the same potency.
"EPA certainly has been moving in the direction of cumulative risk assessment, largely for chemicals structurally similar and ones that act in a similar way. This is the next step-- focusing on adverse outcomes," she said.
"This committee believed very strongly that the conceptual approach should be broadly applicable" to other chemicals, too, she added.
For instance, EPA could evaluate the risk of combined exposures to lead, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls-all of which can damage developing brains and reduce children's IQs, the committee said.
"The question is do we have enough data on the individual chemicals to put into an assessment like this. For something like phthalates, the answer is definitively yes," Sathyanarayana said. But, she added, "for other chemicals that have not been researched as extensively, it may be difficult to find specific information for let's say, fetal effects, and this point is highlighted in the [committee's] summary."
One example where EPA does not have enough data to combine all the compounds is nanoparticles, which is used in sunscreens and a variety of consumer products, she said.
"Even though we may not have the data yet to do this for many classes of chemicals, the recognition that this is necessary should help regulators move towards acquiring the data needed to do this," Swan said.
The EPA's Preuss acknowledged that "there clearly will be challenges to applying this to chemicals beyond the phthalates," even when looking at just male reproduction. His staff will have to resolve questions about how much scientific evidence is needed before including a chemical.
"We sort of have a role in the agency of doing the difficult assessments," he said. "Fitting something in like this with the current staffing we have is one of the challenges, clearly."
Sathyanarayana agreed with the committee's recommendation to group chemicals together according to what they do to the body, not just how they do it.
"I think it is very important," she said. "This shift in focus could lead to a much better assessment of how mixtures affect the development of adverse health outcomes."
Beyond male reproductive health, the committee's report raises interesting questions about how Preuss' staff should determine a safe amount of many chemicals, including a long list of air pollutants that can cause the same respiratory and cardiovascular damage.
"I'm sure there will be a huge amount of discussion following up on this report about how broadly we can apply the principles they recommend," Preuss said. "I think it will be quite interesting and controversial."
bject: "FieldTurf" Carpets Country's Schools- Is it Safe for Our Kids?
Dear 60 Minutes,
Our local Tamalpais Union High School District is currently placing another FieldTurf synthetic turf field at Sir Francis Drake High, in San Anselmo, Marin County, Ca. http://www.tamdistrict.org/ It is doing so despite the knowledge of the chemical make-up of the infill soil, which is recycled crumb rubber tire waste. There are 40,000 tires per field, a number available on the manufacturer's site, http://www.fieldturf.com/ When completed, there will be approximately 120,000 tires worth of crumb rubber tire waste at that one school. That equals ten pounds of crumb rubber per square foot of field. The high school district has placed these expensive fields at all district high schools for costs well into seven figures.
Drake High is only one of thousands of fields that have been sold to school districts across our country by FieldTurf Tarkett, a company based out of Europe and Canada. With each field costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, the profit on these fields is staggering. FieldTurf Tarkett also has a home and business company, http://www.fieldturfgreenscapes.com/, for using this product throughout communities. They report on their website that when building one school play field."FieldTurf. . . removes over 40,000 tires from landfill sites." This seems on first glance to be an altruistic venture, however, on closer study it becomes apparent that this is a matter of pure greed and a profound disregard for the health of our children and the environment we are trying so hard to protect. These fields have been sold as the answer to water shortages, pesticide usage and the maintenance cost of grass fields. Of course these are matters of concern for school districts and communities alike, but to come into schools and communities and present FieldTurf as the answer is a case of despicable marketing. Our children are playing on a surface of rubber tires, a product which normally is placed in toxic waste sites. Tires contain California Prop 65 chemicals, such as benzene, a chemical that requires labelling at gas stations. Tires contain PAHs ,(http://www.epa.gov/osw/hazard/wastemin/minimize/factshts/pahs.pdf) polycyclic aromatics that are listed as a U.S. E.P.A. TOP 31 PRIORITY CHEMICALS (PCs) to be eliminated from consumer products. http://www.epa.gov/osw/hazard/wastemin/priority.htm Phthalate, also present in tires, is to be banned from products used by children 12 and under beginning next year. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-19-phthalate-federalban_N.htm And yet, our school district and FieldTurf are putting down another field at our high school, at many schools at this very time!
As a retired Speech and Language Specialist, concerned parent, and community member, I began researching this product last May. Since that time, there has been a question of lead in old synthetic turf. FieldTurf, while it has little or no lead in the "grass blades, " clearly states on their website that they have been given a clean bill of health by the U.S C.P.S. after studies were completed for lead testing. However, testing for the chemical make-up of the crushed rubber particulate infill was never addressed. In an effort to appear safe for all, FieldTurf is now applying for LEED certification. The FieldTurf company, "Greenscapes" appears on the current U.S. EPA website as a new partner in the environmental program of the EPA titled, interestilngly, "GreenScapes".
Below are two letters I would like to share with you. The first letter (1) from Nancy Alderman, President of Environment and Human Health Inc., to the U.S Green Building Council in charge of LEED Certification, which clearly lists chemicals present in ground rubber waste particulate. The second (2)is from Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, Professor of Pediatrics , Director of the Children's Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City to the Journal News. He clearly cites the three major concerns regarding synthetic turf and the health of children. They are extreme heat, MRSA infections, chemical hazards.
Dear 60 Minutes, this is a story which requires true journalistic investigation. I believe 60 Minutes would aid the children of this country if you got to the core of this story, is this material safe? The effects of these chemicals may not be seen for years, and in that time how many children, athletes, families could be exposed to and affected by these toxicants?
Please read on. Please feel free to contact me for further information.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mary Swan Bell, MS
Marin County, California
415-459-5836
(1)
To the Executive Staff and Board of Directors at the U.S. Green Building Council in charge of LEED Certification,
It has come to the attention of Environment and Human Health, Inc. (EHHI) that synthetic turf athletic fields can be part of a "LEED" certification process. If true, this is a shocking revelation. Although recycling is good, certain materials should not be recycled. We should not recycle asbestos, we should not recycle lead or used rubber tires where children play. Recycled used rubber tires make-up then in-fill for most artificial fields.
Leed certification indicates that a building is a "green" building. That means, in part, that it is designed and constructed to promote profitability while reducing the negative environmental impacts of buildings and improving occupant health and well-being. http://www.nrdc.org/buildinggreen/leed.asp
It is hard to claim that artificial turf fields "improve occupant health and well being" when the fields have in-fill made up of ground-up used rubber tires that contain the following chemicals.
Chemicals found by the CT Agricultural Experiment Station in rubber tire "crumbs".
Benzothiazole: Skin and eye irritation, harmful if swallowed. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.
Butylated hydroxyanisole: Recognized carcinogen, suspected endocrine toxicant, gastrointestinal toxicant, immunotoxicant (adverse effects on the immune system), neurotoxicant (adverse effects on the nervous system), skin and sense-organ toxicant. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.
n-hexadecane: Severe irritant based on human and animal studies. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.
4-(t-octyl) phenol: Corrosive and destructive to mucous membranes. There is no available data on cancer, mutagenic toxicity, teratogenic toxicity, or developmental toxicity.
Zinc: There is a very large amount of zinc that is added in the manufacturing of tires and therefore there is a great deal of zinc. See North Carolina's Department of Agricultural's study on ground up rubber tire mulch - http://www.ncagr.com/agronomi/pdffiles/rubber.pdf
Other chemicals often found in rubber tires:
Benzene Carcinogen, Developmental Toxicant, Reproductive Toxicant
Phtalates Suspected Developmental Toxicant, Endocrine Toxicant, Reproductive Toxicant
PAHs Suspected Cardiovascular or Blood Toxicant, Gastrointestinal or Liver Toxicant, Reproductive Toxicant ,Respiratory Toxicant,
Maganese Gastrointestinal or liver toxicants
Carbon Black Carcinogen
Latex Causes allergic reactions in some people
In some states rubber tires are a "Hazardous Waste" and in other states they are a "Special Waste". Whichever the case - one has to get a permit to dispose of rubber tires and there is a cost associated with that disposal. There is the potential for ground water contamination from the chemicals in the ground up rubber tires.
Field Turf, based in Canada, is one of the major manufacturers of synthetic turf with ground-up rubber tire in-fill. Field Turf is now saying it will help these plastic fields get "LEED" certification. These fields consist of a plastic - like material that is dyed green to look like grass - and then the blades of plastic are filled in with used ground-up rubber tire pellets the size of bread crumbs. The end result is that there are yards and yards of dyed green plastic with literally tons of used rubber tires ground up and sprinkled loose over the green plastic synthetic field.
If all that plastic and all those old used tires sprinkled over acres of land lead to a better environment -- and improve occupant health and well-being - then something is definitely wrong. This looks like one more example of industry - with its clever marketing strategies - taking over well meaning and hard fought for environmental progress and turning it inside out for its own uses.
Can you imagine all that plastic and all those old used rubber tires now being considered "Green"? Below is the paragraph from the Field Turf press release found on the Athletic Turf website. Click the blue type if you want their whole article.
"FieldTurf helps organizations earn the necessary points needed for U.S. Green Building Council LEED certification. FieldTurf's reused rubber content and water use reduction, among other factors, can contribute numerous points towards LEED certification. FieldTurf is also a proud member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Greenscapes program that aims towards providing cost-efficient and environmentally friendly solutions for landscaping."
http://www.athleticturf.net/athleticturf/Artificial+Turf/FieldTurf-trumpets-its-environmental-benefits/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/568972?contextCategoryId=3209
Environment and Human Health, Inc. hopes that you will not allow these fields to be part of "LEED" certification.
Environment and Human Health, Inc. is a nine member, non-profit organization composed of doctors, public health professionals and policy experts. It is dedicated to protecting human health from environmental harms through research, education and improving public policy.Its website can be found at http://www.ehhi.org
Thank you for your attention to this issue.
Best,
Nancy Alderman, President
Environment and Human Health, Inc.
--
Nancy Alderman, President
Environment and Human Health, Inc.
1191 Ridge Road
North Haven, CT 06473
(phone) 203-248-6582
(fax) 203-288-7571
http://www.ehhi.org
(2)
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008812110386
The Journal News
The Journal News, is a Gannett Company newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties in New York.
Letter to the Editor * December 11, 2008
Artificial turf fields pose safety issues
Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, Professor of Pediatrics
I urge the Irvington school district not to adopt the use of artificial turf until further examination.
There are several hundred artificial turf fields on the East Coast. Towns and school districts installed them to improve the quality of playing fields and accommodate sports programs. However, they were pursued without analysis of potential negative consequences. A number of these very expensive fields have been installed and we are suddenly, and belatedly, beginning to realize they may lead to health problems, such as:
1. Extreme heat. On hot summer days, temperatures of over 130 degrees Fahrenheit have been recorded a few feet above the surface of synthetic turf fields - the altitude where children play. Vigorous play in these conditions conveys a very real risk of heat stress or heat stroke.
2. MRSA skin infections. Outbreaks of skin infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus have been documented in children who play on synthetic turf fields (New England Journal of Medicine, February 2005).
3. Chemical hazards to human health and the environment. Crumb rubber, a major component of current generation synthetic turf fields, is typically made from ground-up recycled tires containing styrene and 1, 3-butadiene, the major constituents of synthetic rubber. Styrene is toxic to the nervous system, and butadiene is a proven human carcinogen.
Lead was recently found in synthetic turf fields in New Jersey at levels so high that several fields were closed by the state Health Department. Citizens and school boards should question the wisdom of installing synthetic turf until a credible independent study has been conducted and published.
Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc
Professor and Chairman, Department of Community & Preventive Medicine
Professor of Pediatrics
Director, Children's Environmental Health Center
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
17 East 102nd Street, Room D3-145
New York, NY 10029-6574
Tel: 212-824-7018
The writer is professor of pediatrics and director of the Children's Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
Nancy Alderman, President
Environment and Human Health, Inc.
1191 Ridge Road
North Haven, CT 06473
(phone) 203-248-6582
(fax) 203-288-7571
http://www.ehhi.org
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