 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
| If you are interested in receiving the
copy of the newsletter, do write to us. Join our nework. Click here>> |
|
|
PRODUCT
WATCH |
Wrong signals
A recent television advertisement for bpl India, the mobile phone service
provider, caused some concern among the Indian health fraternity. It shows a pregnant
woman, sitting on a chair, with a cellphone pressed to her stomach.
The impact of cellphones on health is a hotly debated topic in the West. There are
allegations that cellphones could cause cancer, tumours, cardiac arrests, migraines,
adversely affect pregnancy, interfere with implants like pacemakers, and expedite the
onset of neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s. Although industry-sponsored research
shows little evidence of a causal relationship between cancer and radio frequency
radiations from cellphones, independent studies suggest that the link is profound. A
research published by Madeleine Bastide at the University of Montpellier in the Journal of
Bio-Electro Magnetics suggests that pregnant women who use cellphones could cause serious
harm to their unborn babies, and that the risks from cellphone radiation could be far
greater than previously imagined. Her research on 6,000 chicken embryos showed that those
moderately to heavily exposed to emissions during their 21-day incubation period were five
times less likely to survive than those not exposed.
The Advertising Standards Council of India (asci), a Mumbai-based non-profit
organisation, is the advertising media’s self-regulatory body. It deals however only
with complaints on advertisements that are false, misleading, indecent, illegal, lead to
unsafe practices or unfair competition. Regulatory organisations, like the Bureau of
Indian Standards, which ought to be at the forefront of such debates, have neither the
required scientific capacity nor political will. Clearly, in the prevailing situation, the
initiative has to come voluntarily from companies rather than civil action. |
Impaired fertility
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
|
Falling sperm counts across Britain and in the rest of the
industralised world is making scientists put the blame on pollution. Over the past 50
years, the average sperm counts in men have dropped from about 160 million per millilitre
of semen to 66 million. Sperm count of Scottish men born after 1970 has been found to be
falling by two per cent each year. The presence of hormone-disrupting chemicals like
phenylchlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and DDT is known to cause cancer and damage the immune
system, as well as impair fertility. These chemicals are being now used in countless
products, right from plastics and paint to electrical equipments. Recent research shows
that artificial oestrogens, used in contraceptive pills and emitted through sewage works
may get into drinking water and affect human fertility. The main culprit here has been
identified as ethanol oestradiol, the removal of which is ineffective by conventional
sweage treament. Effects of exposure to these cocktail of chemicals may take as long as 20
years before they are manifested.
Parental trap
Indoor allergens and irritants are known to contribute to childhood asthma. To assess the
prevalence of potential environmental triggers, to identify risk factors for such
exposures, and to determine whether prior parental education about trigger avoidance is
associated with fewer such exposures, J A Finkelstein and colleagues from the Department
of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care,
Boston, USA, interviewed parents of 638 children who were between the ages of 3 to 15
years. Parents were told to report recent asthma symptoms and exposures to potential
environmental triggers.
Though exposures to environmental triggers was common (30 per cent of households had a
smoker, 18 per cent had household pests, and 59 per cent had furry pets), very few parents
adopted the recommended trigger avoidance measures suggested by the clinicians. This
despite the fact, that 45 per cent of the parents had received written instructions
regarding trigger avoidance. However only 11 per cent reported having given them in the
past year. Discussion with doctors on home triggers for asthma was done by 42 per cent of
the parents in the past 6 months. The study highlights the important role that parents may
play in helping reduce asthma attacks in children, which are specially triggered by indoor
allergens and irritants.
Poisoned metal
Contamination of soil or water by high levels of depleted
uranium (DU) may cause kidney damage in soldiers exposed to it. Favoured by the power
nations as the best and cheapest ammunition available to smash enemy armour, some 40,000
rounds of depleted uranium shells were fired in the Balkans by the US ground attack
aircraft during the Kosovo conflict and in 1995 in Bosnia.
The soldiers most prone to these exposures may be the one who have survived within
struck tank or those who have worked for long durations, cleaning up contaminated vehicles
after a battle. A few hundred US servicemen and an unknown number of Iraqi soldiers would
have been exposed to the most dangerous levels of DU. Particles of DU in the ground near
attack sites could contaminate the soil. This could pose a danger to civilians who can get
affected through water in the pipeline, and is a risk for children accidentally swallowing
the topsoil, given their unique nature of playing on the ground. However, since
contamination could take decades, it is too early to say what effect the contaminated soil
or water would have on human population. Fear of developing cancer on exposure to the
armour-piercing depleted uranium shells used in the Gulf War and the Balkans arose after
some soldiers developed leukaemia.
A similar link has been found in Iraq, raising further doubts about the role that this
heavy metal may have to play in causing cancer. The non-availability of any accurate test
to measure very small levels of the element in the human body calls for more research to
be done into the effects of DU and long-term studies of soldiers exposed to high levels to
determine any link to kidney disease and lung cancer need to be done.
Bad air, bad heart
A path breaking study finally proof that breathing ozone and
fine particulate matter constricts arteries, leading to heart attacks and other
cardiovascular problems. Vascular biologist Robert Brook of the University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, USA, along with his brother–Jeffrey Brook, an atmospheric scientist from
the University of Toronto, Canada, exposed 25 healthy volunteers with an average age of
35, to levels of ozone and fine particulate matter compared to peak levels in some smoggy
cities. Alternatively, clean air was also pumped in. On measuring changes in the diameter
of the arteries of the upper arm after each exposure ended, the scientists found that
after two hours of breathing polluted air, the blood vessels of the volunteers constricted
between 2-4 per cent on average. Though so small a change can do no damage to a healthy
individual, it can trigger heart trouble in someone with cardiovascular disease. When the
same group breathed filtered air, no change was observed in the arteries.
According to Brook, the body’s immune system may mistake these particles for
bacterial or viral invaders, and attack. With the moving in of the white blood cells,
inflammatory chemicals called cytokines are released, that cause the blood vessels to
constrict. The study is a preliminary study, pointing to the mechanism that occurs which
puts heart patients more at risk during smoggy days.
 After effects
Six months after the World Trade Center attacks, thousands
have been found to be ailing from respiratory disorders, headaches and other serious
illnesses. When the buildings collapsed after being hit by the two jetliners, it released
in the environment a spew of toxic gases and chemicals which included 300 to 400 tonnes of
asbestos, dioxins and heavy metals, like lead from computers and electrical equipment,
mercury from thousand of fluorescent lights and nearly 130,000 gallons of transformer oil
contaminated with polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs). The worst affected have been the
firefighters and people living near the area. More than two thousand firefighters
complained of respiratory ailments due to toxic exposures; and nearly 6,000 people living
near Ground Zero suffered short-term health problems associated with attack-related air
pollution. The unusual mix of chemicals and their synergistic effects makes it difficult
for even environmental medicine specialists to predict how long some illnesses may last.
According to Clifford Bassett, an allergist affiliated with Long Island College Hospital,
New York, people already suffering from pre-existing allergies, asthma and respiratory
problems are the most affected. Suhail Rahoof, chief of pulmonary and critical care
medicine at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, NewYork, reports that the
worst afflicted have been those working directly at Ground Zero — firefighters,
police officers, rescue workers and volunteers. |
|
