Polycythemia vera Cancer report ready
The region will receive its cancer diagnosis Oct. 24, and some concerned citizens believe the prognosis is poor.
The state Department of Health announced Tuesday a public meeting to release findings on incidence of a rare blood cancer called polycythemia vera from 7 to 9 p.m. at Best Western Genetti Inn & Suites, Hazleton.
The Carbon County Groundwater Guardians uncovered the three initial diagnosed cases of polycythemia vera on Ben Titus Road, Rush Township in 2003 and made their findings public at a press conference in June, 2004.
Representatives from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the state Department of Health, along with a national polycythemia vera expert and local doctors, will attend the meeting.
Read more at republicanherald.com
Elevated blood mercury levels found in those who eat more fish.
September 19, 2007
Because of copyright issues, I cannot reproduce the article.
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/safety/
ENVIRO-TIP OF THE MONTH
Reduce your carbon footprint. Use public transportation, carpool, walk, or bike whenever possible to avoid using your car. Learn about greenhouse gas emissions on the road. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/road.html
CCGG Meeting on September 10, 2007
The Carbon County Groundwater Guardians hold their regular monthly meetings on the first Monday of each month. Due to the Labor Day holiday, the meeting date has been changed. I
Electronics Recycling On Sept. 24 & 25
The Times News
http://www.tnonline.com/taxonomy/term/1837
Carbon to hold annual electronics recycling event in September
The Carbon County Department of Solid Waste announced that they will be holding their fall electronics recycling collection event two days in September.
In cooperation with Towamensing Township and A-Plus Industries, the could will host the event at the Towamensing Township Municipal Building, located at 120 Stable Road in Lehighton, on Monday, Sept. 24, from noon to 6 p.m. and Tuesday, Sept. 25, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Electronic devices will be accepted at no charge to the county or its residents. Acceptable materials include: VCRs, DVD players, radios, stereo equipment, computers (monitors, towers, printers, scanners, keyboards), main frame and telecom equipment, application (OEM) equipment, circuit boards of any kind, fax machines, typewriters and telephones. TVs and white goods or items that contain freon will not be accepted.
If you have any questions, contact the Solid Waste office at (610) 852-5111.
Training Date Set For Rain/Snow Monitors
If you have an interest in weather and would like to know how much rain or snow falls in your backyard, this program is for you. Teachers and students, including homeschoolers, can receive suggested exercises to make the students think critically about the data they are collecting.
If you would like to join this network, there will be a training session beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 16, at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center, 151 East White Bear Drive, Summit Hill, which is located at the west end of Mauch Chunk Lake Park, just outside Jim Thorpe.
Penn State University’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences has set up a network of volunteers across Pennsylvania. The program is called FROST and the Pennsylvania State Climatologist administers it.
Paul Knight, who has been the Pennsylvania State Climatologist since 1994, will conduct the training. He is also a senior lecturer of synoptic meteorology at Penn State University.
Paul has been a senior forecaster for The New York Times since 1986. He, along with four other colleagues, produces the weather page for the Times each day. Paul has also been the producer, co-host and on-camera meteorologist for WPSU-TV’s Weather World, a fifteen minute, weeknight weather magazine show seen on Pennsylvania PBS stations since 1983 and since 2004 on PCN.
FROST is part of a larger, national network called CoCoRaHS, which is an acronym for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network and is based at the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University.
The data collected is submitted to CoCoRaHS over the Internet, and it is displayed on their website. The National Weather Service is notified immediately of any extraordinary weather events.
Some examples of those who use the data are the National Weather Service, other meteorologists, hydrologists, emergency managers, city utilities (water supply, water conservation, storm water), insurance adjusters, USDA, engineers, mosquito control, ranchers and farmers, outdoor & recreation interests, teachers, students, and neighbors in the community.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a major sponsor of CoCoRaHS.
Everyone is welcome and you do not need to live in Carbon County to join. Youngsters can join too, but need to come with a parent or guardian.
There is no fee for this training session, but registration is necessary due to space limitations. To register, contact the Carbon County Environmental Education Center at (570) 645-8597 or e-mail Frank Waksmunski, Carbon County Coordinator for FROST, at frank@carbonwaters.org.
Links of interest: FROST, CoCoRaHS, Carbonwaters.org
Childhood Growth Stages Determine What Harm Pollution Does
GENEVA, Switzerland, July 27, 2007 (ENS) – An increased risk of cancer, heart and lung disease in adults can result from exposures to certain environmental chemicals during childhood, the World Health Organization said today. This finding is part of the first report ever issued by the agency focusing on children’s special susceptibility to harmful chemical exposures at different stages of their growth.
Newborn
Air and water contaminants, pesticides in food, lead in soil, as well many other environmental threats which alter the delicate organism of a growing child may cause or worsen disease and induce developmental problems, said the World Health Organization, WHO, releasing the report at its Geneva headquarters.
The peer-reviewed report highlights the fact that in children, the stage in their development when exposure to a threat occurs may be just as important as the magnitude of the exposure.
“Children are not just small adults,” said Dr. Terri Damstra, team leader for WHO’s Interregional Research Unit. “Children are especially vulnerable and respond differently from adults when exposed to environmental factors – and this response may differ according to the different periods of development they are going through.”
“For example, their lungs are not fully developed at birth, or even at the age of eight, and lung maturation may be altered by air pollutants that induce acute respiratory effects in childhood and may be the origin of chronic respiratory disease later in life,” Dr. Damstra said.
Over 30 percent of the global burden of disease in children can be attributed to environmental factors, the WHO study found.
Young children
The global health body said this report is the most comprehensive work yet undertaken on the scientific principles to be considered in assessing health risks in children.
The work was undertaken by an advisory group of 24 scientific experts, representing 18 countries. They were convened by WHO to provide insight, expertise, and guidance, and to ensure scientific accuracy and objectivity. Once the text was finalized, it was sent to more than 100 contact points throughout the world for review and comment, and also made available on WHO’s International Programme of Chemical Safety website for external review and comment.
The central focus of the study is on the child from embryo through adolescence and on the need to have a good understanding of the interactions between exposure, biological susceptibility, and socioeconomic and nutritional factors at each stage of a child’s development.
The scientific principles proposed in the document for evaluating environmental health risks in children will help the health sector, researchers and policy makers to protect children of all ages through improved risk assessments, appropriate interventions and focused research to become healthy adults.
Children have different susceptibilities during different life stages, due to their dynamic growth and developmental processes, the authors said.
Teens
Health effects resulting from developmental exposures prenatally and at birth may include miscarriage, still birth, low birth weight and birth defects.
Young children may die or develop asthma, neurobehavioral and immune impairment. Adolescents may experience precocious or delayed puberty.
The vulnerability of children is increased in degraded and poor environments, the report confirms. Neglected and malnourished children suffer the most. These children often live in unhealthy housing, lack clean water and sanitation services, and have limited access to health care and education.
For example, lead is known to be more toxic to children whose diets are deficient in calories, iron and calcium.
WHO warns, “One in five children in the poorest parts of the world will not live longer than their fifth birthday – mainly because of environment-related diseases.”
This new volume of the Environmental Health Criteria series, Principles for Evaluating Health Risks in Children Associated with Exposure to Chemicals, is online here.
Water, water everywhere but which drop to drink?
Don’t like the taste of your drinking water? Well, you could buy bottled water at an outrageous price. What, spend all that money for water? Well, grab some plastic gallon milk bottles and head for the nearest roadside spring. They’re all over the place. The water is free and some say it’s the best water you can get.
Mark Carmon, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, had this to say. “A lot of these springs you see by the side of the road are little more than a pipe that somebody stuck into a rock. The trouble is that no one is monitoring these springs, to see if the water is safe to drink or not.” Carmon continues, “You really don’t know where the water comes from. The source could be miles away, and the water could be running through a cemetery, or somebody’s septic system, or a mine pool. I wouldn’t wash my car with it, let alone drink it.”
Dan Miller, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said people could suffer from serious health problems from springs that contain bacteria or other harmful microorganisms.
Well, that kind of puts a damper on springs so I guess it’s back to bottled water. Or is it?
Marylynn Yates, microbiologist and chair of the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California, Irvine, said, “In some cases, bottled water is more contaminated than tap water.” Yates, who previously worked as a researcher with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) went on to say “An appealing name and fancy label don’t guarantee purity.”
While municipal tap water is subjected to enforceable standards established by the EPA, bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has much less stringent guidelines regarding water purity and monitoring.
In fact, the FDA exempts bottled water packaged and sold within the same state, which accounts for about 60 to 70 percent of bottled industry sales. It also subjects carbonated and seltzer water to more lax “sanitation” guidelines as opposed to contamination regulations.
Well, I see where this is headed. It’s back to tap water. If your tap water is bad, what can you do? Did you ever hear of the Carbon County Groundwater Guardians?
Groundwater Festival Scheduled
The Carbon County Groundwater Guardians, in association with Carbon County Environmental Education Center (CCEEC), will host a Children’s Groundwater Festival on Saturday, July 7th.
Interested children and their families are invited to visit anytime from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. A variety of games and other activities are planned to help youngsters understand and appreciate groundwater resources. The event will take place rain or shine at CCEEC, located just outside Jim Thorpe, along the Lentz Trail highway.
The program is free of charge, and no pre-registration is necessary. For more information or for directions, call CCEEC at (570) 645-8597.
West Nile Virus is Back — Deal With It
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Penn State Ag Sciences News 6.21.2007
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(EDITORS: A printable info graphic to illustrate this story is available
for downloading at http://aginfo.psu.edu/news/may03/mosquito.pdf.)
WEST NILE VIRUS IS BACK; ALTHOUGH IT HASN’T
BEEN SO BAD, MOSQUITO CONTROL STILL NEEDED
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Although West Nile virus made headlines in
mid-June by showing up in mosquito samples taken in Blair County — the
earliest it has shown up Pennsylvania in any of the last five summers –
the disease has not been nearly as bad here as health officials feared,
according to an entomologist in Penn State’s College of Agricultural
Sciences.
West Nile virus, which can cause a potentially fatal form of
encephalitis — is an invasive species that found its way to North
America from Africa. The disease, which first showed up in the United
States in 1999 in New York, is carried by birds and spread by
mosquitoes. It now has been found in nearly every county in
Pennsylvania.
The 2002 West Nile virus outbreak in North America was the largest
encephalitic disease epidemic ever documented in the Western Hemisphere,
and it was the largest West Nile virus outbreak ever documented,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. But outbreaks since
have not been so severe.
“Although scientists have been surprised at how rapidly it has
disbursed here, the outbreaks have not been nearly as disastrous as some
predicted,” says extension entomologist Steve Jacobs. “In Pennsylvania,
the first cases of West Nile encephalitis were detected in 2001 (there
were three cases). In 2003 the number of new human cases had risen to
237, but by 2006 the numbers had dropped to just nine human cases.”
It’s a good thing that the disease has not been worse in the United
States because there isn’t much that can be done to isolate it, Jacobs
laments. “There is very little we can do to stop something like this,”
he says. “All we can do — once the virus is spread throughout the state
or the country — is to educate the public to wear insect repellents and
recognize the disease so they can seek treatment. But in terms of
general health risks to the public, West Nile is well down the list. I
think many people believe the risks of dying from West Nile are much
higher than they are.”
Ordinarily, mosquitoes are little more than a mild irritant, Jacobs
notes. But because they can transmit diseases to humans and pets — such
as West Nile encephalitis, eastern equine encephalitis and canine
heartworm — people should take steps to avoid being bitten and to
eliminate mosquito-breeding areas.
Mosquitoes breed in standing water. Only female mosquitoes bite,
according to Jacobs. “In most cases, the female must have a blood meal
before laying eggs,” he says. “The females’ persistent search for blood
brings them into houses and yards, where they may become annoying
pests.”
Many mosquito problems can be traced to containers of water around
the yard, such as children’s toys, pots and cans, tire swings, animal
tracks and clogged rain gutters. Neighborhood breeding areas can include
construction sites, trash dumps and cemetery urns or planters. Most
mosquitoes remain within a half-mile of where they hatch, but some can
fly miles.
During warm weather, mosquitoes can breed in any puddle that stands
for more than four days. “The most effective way to control mosquitoes
is to eliminate standing water,” says Jacobs. He advises homeowners to:
–Remove old tires, tin cans, buckets, glass jars, toys and other
water-catching objects.
–Tightly cover rain barrels to prevent egg-laying.
–Change water in bird baths by flushing with a hose at least once
a week.
–Fill tree holes with sand or cement or drill holes to allow
drainage.
–Keep rain gutters clean and free of obstructions.
–Drain excess water from flower pots.
–Keep swimming pools covered when not in use.
–Turn over wading pools and wheelbarrows when not in use.
–Empty accumulated water from boats and cargo trailers.
–Clear aquatic vegetation from around the edges of ponds to allow
fish to feed on mosquito larvae and pupae.
When going outdoors for an extended period of time, insect
repellents can provide protection from mosquito bites. “Repellents can
protect for up to five hours,” says Jacobs. “But because people vary in
their attractiveness to mosquitoes, the effectiveness of the repellent
may depend on the individual.”
Before using a repellent or insecticide, be sure you thoroughly
read and understand all directions and cautions on the product label,
Jacobs warns.
For a free fact sheet on mosquitoes, contact the nearest county
office of Penn State Cooperative Extension, or visit the Web at
http://www.ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/mosquitoes.htm.
###
EDITORS: Contact Steve Jacobs at (814) 863-3963 or by e-mail at
sbj2@psu.edu.
Jeff Mulhollem
Writer/Editor
(814) 863-2719
jjm29@psu.edu