Cancer and Toxic Chemicals

 

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States; it accounts for 1 in 4 deaths in the US and claims more than 1,500 lives a day. There are over 100 different types of cancer and there are many different factors that affect the susceptibility to cancer such as family history, occupation, living conditions, and socioeconomic status.

Cancer is a broad term that refers to a range of complex diseases affecting various organs in the human body. Some of the most frequently diagnosed cancers include lung, breast, prostate, and brain cancer.

• Lung cancer leads to the most number of deaths in both men and women, accounting for about 30% of all cancer deaths.
• Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, after lung cancer; it is also the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in women, after skin cancers. In the US, breast cancer results in the highest mortality rates of any cancer in women between the ages of 20 and 59.
• Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men, killing 40,000 each year.
• Brain cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in children under the age of 20 and the third leading cause of death in young adults ages 20-39.

In addition to the pain and suffering caused by the disease, cancer places an enormous economic burden on our society. In 2010, cancer was estimated by the National Institutes of Health to cost $102.8 billion in medical costs, $20.9 billion in loss of productivity due to illness, and $140.1 billion in loss of productivity due to premature death, for a grand total of $263.8 billion.

Yet much of these costs could be avoided, because many cancers are preventable. In May of 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel reported to President Obama that “the true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated.” Exposure to environmental carcinogens (chemicals or substances that can lead to the development of cancer) can occur in the workplace and in the home, as well as through consumer products, medical treatments, and lifestyle choices. It has long been known that exposure to high levels of certain chemicals, such as those in some occupational settings, can cause cancer.

There is now growing scientific evidence that exposure to lower levels of chemicals in the general environment is contributing to society’s cancer burden.

Environmental factors including tobacco smoke, nutrition, physical activity, and exposure to environmental carcinogens are estimated to be responsible for 75-80% of cancer diagnosis and death in the US. About 6%of cancer deaths per year -- 34,000 deaths annually -- are directly linked to occupational and environmental exposures to known, specific carcinogens. The potential of environmental carcinogens to interact with genetic and lifestyle factors, as well as each other, in the development of cancer, is not well-understood. Nor are chemicals in the environment exhaustively tested as to their carcinogenicity. Therefore the cancer burden caused by exposures to environmental carcinogens may be even larger.

Human biomonitoring studies show that many environmental contaminants, including known and potential carcinogens, are finding their way into people’s bodies. The sources of these contaminants are wide-ranging:

• Pesticides: conventional pesticides used in agriculture, industry, home, and garden, as well as chlorine and other disinfectants, and wood preservatives.
• Industrial chemicals, wastes, and waste byproducts from mining facilities, smelting operations, chemical manufacturing and processing plants, petrochemical plants, and medical and municipal waste facilities. Such facilities release billions of pounds of chemicals into the environment every year.
• Chemicals in consumer products, including building materials, furniture, and food packaging materials, and cosmetics.
• Pollution from coal-fired power plants, automobile exhaust, and other sources.

The following are examples of common environmental chemicals linked to cancer. Some are listed as known carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, or by the Environmental Protection Agency. Others are probable or possible carcinogens. Because something has been classified as a carcinogen does not mean that every instance of exposure to that substance will result in the development of cancer. By the same token, a listing of “probable” or “possible” carcinogenicity does not mean we have exhausted study on that substance. It means the substance is not yet sufficiently studied. Such substances may, with further study, turn out to be definitively carcinogenic.

http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/confronting-toxics/cancer-and-toxic-chemicals.html

10 Things You Can Do For Birds

 

1. Make your yard a bird oasis
Start by providing the five basics: clean water, plants with flowers for nectar and insects (songbirds feed insects to their young), fruit-bearing plants to provide fuel for migration and winter, layers of plants for cover and thermal protection, and nesting habitat and materials. Native plants are key—their architecture, flowers, fruits, and scents are ideal for restoring the communities and relationships birds depend on. Yards that mimic surrounding natural plant communities not only attract more kinds of birds, they could help reverse the loss of urban biodiversity, according to new research.

2. Become a scientist 

Everyday bird observations provide crucial data for scientists studying the big and small questions about bird lives, from migration to the effects of global climate change. You can help by becoming a citizen scientist, observing and noting the kinds of birds you see. Join the Great Backyard Bird Count—in 2012 it tallied 17.4 million observations and 623 species, including an influx of snowy owls from the Arctic—sign up for a local Christmas Bird Count, or enlist in a new effort to track hummingbirds. Visit audubon.org/citizenscience for more. Track your sightings on eBird, a website developed by Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

 

3. Create communities 

Share your passion for birds with family and friends. And expand your patch of bird habitat into a larger urban oasis by working with neighbors and managers of nearby parks, golf courses, and farms. You will help restore habitat in linked corridors, multiplying the effectiveness of each patch. Restoring bird habitat can also help mitigate a city’s “heat island effect,” absorb stormwater runoff, and combat the spread of invasive plants. Consider starting or joining a program like Bird CityWisconsin, which Milwaukee Audubon helped launch and that’s modeled, in part, on the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree City USA program. Sixty Wisconsin communities have been recognized as “Bird Cities” so far for habitat protection and forest management.

 

4. Forgo pesticides 

Since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published five decades ago, pesticide use in North America has grown to exceed 1.1 billion pounds annually. Roughly eight percent of that is applied to yards and gardens. One particular lawn-care pesticide, diazinon, has been implicated in more than 150 mass bird die-offs. At the same time, U.S. researchers estimate that agricultural use kills 67 million birds each year. Pesticides also cause longer-term, potentially lethal effects ranging from eggshell thinning to neurological damage, and may be linked to human food allergies.

 

5. Shop for the birds 

Buy grassland-bird-friendly hamburgers. Conventionally produced beef comes from animals fed corn and soybeans, crops grown on what used to be the great American prairie. Buying grass-fed meat supports grassland birds, which, because of habitat loss, are showing the most sustained declines of any bird group in the United States. Switch to shade-grown coffee. Each cup preserves roughly two square feet of rainforest. Even lumber can be bird-friendly; woodlands certified by the Forest Stewardship Council aim to conserve biological diversity by protecting old-growth stands, monitoring clear-cutting, and limiting pesticide use.

 

6. Join “Lights Out” 

Glass-fronted buildings with bright nighttime lighting may be architecturally pleasing, but they’re deadly. Up to a billion birds—mostly migrants—are killed in building collisions in North America each year. The U.S. Lights Out movement began in Chicago, where bird deaths at one building dropped by roughly 83 percent after the lights were turned off. Researchers estimate Chicago’s program saves 10,000 birds each year. Audubon began a Lights Out New York program in 2005, and now many of the city’s towers, including the Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center, turn off their lights from midnight to dawn during peak migration season, September 1 to November 1.

 

7. Save energy, cut carbon emissions

The coal that fuels many power plants in the eastern United States comes from Appalachia, where mountaintop removal mining has obliterated more than 750,000 acres of forests, destroying habitat in an area larger than Rhode Island. The United States is still one of the biggest contributors to global warming: The average American is responsible for 22 tons of carbon dioxide each year, more than six times that of the average person globally. Leaving your car at home twice a week—and walking or biking instead—can reduce your emissions by two tons a year (and it’s healthy for you, too). Make conservation a family challenge. Keep a journal and award points for conservation activities, including miles walked, biked, or covered on mass transit instead of driving; each time lights are turned off when leaving the room; and unplugging electronic devices overnight. 

 

http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/living/10-things-you-can-do-birds?page=show

Thirteen Fun Facts About Water

 

The water we have and how much we use--from making a pair of jeans to producing a pound of corn.

Published: November-December 2012

 

1) Percent of the earth's water that is fresh water: 2.5

2) Percent of fresh water locked in glaciers and ice caps: 68.6

3) Percent of the 127 trillion gallons of fresh water withdrawn in the U.S. each year that's used for irrigation: 37

4)  Gallons of water needed to make one pair of jeans: 2,900

5) Gallons of water needed to produce one pound of beef: 1,847

6) Gallons of water needed to produce one pound of corn: 146

7) Gallons of water needed to make one egg: 35.7

8) Gallons of water used daily by an average U.S. household: 400

9) Average gallons of water to flush a conventional toilet: 4.25

10) Gallons of water to flush a low-flow toilet: 1.6

11) Gallons of water consumed per MWh of nuclear electricity produced: 900

12) Gallons consumed per MWh of fossil fuel electricity produced: 585 

13) Gallons consumed per MWh of wind energy produced: 0

This story originally ran in the November-December 2012 issue as "Numbers Game: Water World."

http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/nature/thirteen-fun-facts-about-water

The 2011 Virginia Earthquake: What Are Scientists Learning?

 

Tuesday, August 14, 2012 16:01

 

Residents from Maine to Florida, from Cape Cod to Chicago, felt the magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck Virginia last year. And as the one-year anniversary of the 23 August quake approaches, scientists are continuing to discover more about the rare
event.
Key information on the quake came from the U.S. Geological Survey’s website, “Did you feel it?,” which lets people report when and where they felt an earthquake and describe its intensity. About 148,000 people, from more than 3,400 zip codes, logged on in response to the August 2011 quake – a record for the site since it went online in 2000. USGS scientists Wright Horton and Robert Williams report on this and other quake-related findings in this week’s issue of Eos, the American Geophysical Union’s member newspaper. 

Fig. 1. (a) The M = 5.8 earthquake in the Central Virginia seismic zone has a moment tensor solution (http://earthquake.usgs.gov) indicating reverse motion on an east-southeast-dipping
plane consistent with aftershocks. (b) Damage to buildings such as the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D. C., 135 kilometers northeast of the central Virginia epicenter, is a reminder that engineered structures in eastern North American cities are vulnerable under moderate shaking (photo by J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press). (c) U.S. Geological Survey “Did You Feel It?” data from the M = 5.8 Virginia earthquake (green) and from one of similar magnitude and depth in California (red) illustrate how earthquakes are felt over much larger areas in the eastern United States than those west of the Rocky Mountains. (d) Virginia aftershocks define an east-southeast-dipping fault rupture plane.




From this data, scientists were able to determine that the earthquake was felt as far west as the Mississippi River, as far south as northern Florida and as far north as southeastern Canada. The scientists also suggest that this earthquake was probably felt by more residents than any other in U.S. history.

Because of the geologic properties east of the Rocky Mountains, seismic waves from earthquakes in the eastern U.S. propagate more strongly to greater distances from the epicenter than seismic waves in the western part of the country, the scientists write.

The Virginia earthquake shook the metropolitan areas of several cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington D.C. Tens of millions of city-dwellers likely felt the quake, the scientists estimate, and overall, the earthquake was felt by approximately 100 million people – nearly a third of the U.S. population.

Within days of the quake, USGS scientists and researchers from other institutions dispatched seismographs and other monitoring equipment near the Virginia source. About 35 seismographs ran until early 2012, collecting data on the aftershocks.


Read more:  http://beforeitsnews.com/science-and-technology/2012/08/the-2011-virginia-earthquake-what-are-scientists-learning-2453066.html

Uranium Opponents Assemble under One Banner

 

 

Status Update

By Roanoke River Basin

Uranium Opponents Assemble under One Banner

For 68 years the Roanoke River Basin Association (RRBA) has been the voice for the development, use, preservation, and enhancement of the Roanoke River Basin Resources in Virginia and North Carolina.

To that end, RRBA hosts several groups whose primary roles correspond with those of the RRBA. These include tourism and recreational activities offered through the Upper Reach program. And the Virginia Coalition and the North Carolina Coalition, respectively, are comprised of health and business professionals concerned with the negative impacts from uranium mining in the basin.

On April 27, 2013, the RRBA Board voted unanimously to accept CommonHealthVA as an integral part of the RRBA family. CommonHealthVA emerged in 2012 when several organizations and localities that advocated maintaining the moratorium on uranium mining began a more organized collaboration and coordination of activities.

The strong efforts by the organizations and localities turned into a highly successful advocacy campaign under the CommonHealthVA umbrella. Those efforts led to a decisive win during the 2013 General Assembly Session when legislation seeking to remove the moratorium was withdrawn by its patron in the Senate and the House companion bill was never heard.

Nevertheless, Virginia Uranium, Inc. (VUI) has vowed publicly that they are not going to cease their efforts to lift the moratorium.

 

And to meet and defeat that challenge once again, CommonHealthVA and RRBA have taken steps to expand and deepen their efforts.

According to Gene Addesso, RRBA President, “RRBA is the perfect home for CommonHealthVA .

 

 We look forward to the collaboration of our resources to protect the economic and environmental base of our multi-state region. Already a cohesive forcefulness is emerging from this synergy.”

Andrew Lester, RRBA Executive Director, added that the approach will be “multi-lateral, supporting research, education, and citizen-driven advocacy through strategic partnerships, grassroots activism, and the media.”

For further information on CommonHealthVA or the Roanoke River Basin Association, please contact:
Andrew Lester, Executive Director
434-766-6727
www.rrba.org www.commonhealthva.org

Seismicity of the United States: The 2011 M5.8 Virginia Earthquake - Research Results and Activities

The 2011 M5.8 Virginia Earthquake - Research Results and Activities
Scientists have been busy studying the 2011 earthquake including the ground motions, felt area, and scouring the landscape looking for surface deformation caused by this earthquake and past earthquakes. Read about science results and activities here.      One Year Anniversary: Magnitude 5.8 Virginia Earthquake

 The 2011 Virginia Earthquake: What Are Scientists Learning?

 For more information about Virginia earthquakes.

Click here to read the reports:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/ceus/

Members of LIFE cleaning up their county

Cleaning up roadside with adopt a highway.
Great bunch of volunteers!