Love Canal Revisited
Love Canal is the mother of all dump sites. Its reputation as a notorious cancer and birth-defects-producing area has circled the globe. Is its reputation deserved Was it necessary for the media and environmentalists to create a cancer epidemic and public panic Was it really necessary for then Congressman Al Gore to refer to Love Canal as a very large cancer cesspool, or for Michael Brown, reporter for the Niagara Gazette and author of the infamous book The Poisoning of America by Toxic...
Asthma Triggers Are They Causal
Many studies have attempted to elucidate relationships between environmental exposures in early infancy and risk of allergic sensitization in later life. These studies are based on the theory that an individual's genetic predisposition to allergic disease is activated or enhanced by early allergen exposure. An allergic response is one in which components of the immune system react strongly to a normally inoffensive foreign substance. Some of us inherently have a greater-than-normal tendency to...
Microbes And Bacterial Infections
The microbes of the unseen world can be segregated into three lists. The A list includes the spoilers the B list, the sickeners and the C list, the benefactors, those that make our lives livable and enjoyable. The A list contains such members as the genuses Pseudamonas, Serratia, Aeromonas, Leuconostoc, Fusarium, Flavobacterium, Shewanella, and Microccus. On the B list we have Campylobacter, Listeria, Escherichia coli O157 H7, Yersinia, hepatitis A and C, Clostridium, Salmonella, Staphylococci,...
REFERENCES Psp
1. Ownby, D. R., Johnson, C. C., and Peterson, E. L., Exposure to dogs and cats in the first year of life and risk of allergic sensitization at 6 to 7 years of age ' JAMA 288 8 963-972 2002 . 2. Braun-Fahrlander, C., Riedler, J., Herz, U. et al., Environmental exposure to endotoxin and its relation to asthma in school-age children, NEJM 347 12 869-877 2002 . 3. Bach, J. F., The effect of infections on susceptibility to autoimmune and allergic diseases, NEJM 347 12 911-918 2002 . 4. Thorne, P....
Listeriosis
Listeria and its illness, listeriosis, is another affiliate of the B group. Listeria monocytogenes is responsible for at least 2500 illnesses annually and 500 deaths. Pregnant women are not only at increased risk but are also 20 times more likely to become infected than women generally. In fact, 30 of all listeria infections occur during pregnancy. But it's the newborn infant that suffers the effects, not the mother. In addition, immunosuppressed individuals, especially those with AIDS, are 300...
St Johns Wort
St. John's Wort a wort is a bryophyte moss Hypericumperforatum is an herbal supplement widely used to treat depression. It is readily available without a prescription, and taken without medical supervision, a splendid example of self-medication. Yet a steady drumbeat of reports indicates that St. John's Wort is involved in dangerous drug interactions. A number of reports have suggested that it has an inductive metabolic effect on the cytochrome P450 CYP3A4 enzyme. St. John's Wort induces C4P34A...
REFERENCES Pbz
1. MeetingEnergy Demands in the21st Century Many Challenges andKey Questions, U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-05-414T, Washington, DC, March 2005. 2. Woelfle, G., The Wind at Work An Activity Guide to Windmills, Chicago Review Press, Chicago, 1997. 3. Thomann, G.,Wind power, inMcGraw-Hill Encyclopedia ofScience and Technology, Vol. 19, New York, 2003, p. 559. 4. How Wind Turbines Work, U.S. Dept. Energy EERE Information Center, Wind and Hydropower Technology Program available at http...
Diabetes
In the sixth slot with 3 of total deaths, is diabetes mellitus literally, honey sweet diabetes , a group of diseases in which levels of the sugar glucose, are abnormally high because the pancreas fails to release adequate amounts of insulin, an enzyme that normally metabolizes glucose, maintaining steady levels. Diabetes shows itself in two main forms. Type 1 was until recently called insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus IDDM or juvenile-onset diabetes. Type 1 occurs when the body's immune...
Radioactive Isotopes
The oldest form uses the radiation emitted by a radioactive substance, such as cobalt-60 made by neutron bombardment of the natural isotope59 Co- or cesium-137 a naturally occurring isotope , which emits high-energy photons, gamma rays that can readily penetrate food. These photons do not produce neutrons, which means that nothing in their path can become radioactive. That's an essential key. Recall, too, that people who have radiation treatments for a medical condition and receive doses of...
A Beneficent Greenhouse
Since the retreat of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago, we have enjoyed the benevolence of a virtual greenhouse. A greenhouse or hothouse is a glass-enclosed structure devoted to the cultivation of flowers and plants usually out of season that's the key, out of season, because greenhouses are warm places, all year long. The glass of a greenhouse permits passage of the visible, shortwave radiation coming from the sun, but absorbs the reradiated longer infrared radiation, which warms the...
BACKGROUND Isotopes and HalfLives
All atoms of an element, any element, have a fixed number of protons in their nuclei. This number is the element's atomic number examples hydrogen are 1 carbon, 6 oxygen, 8 sodium, 11 and uranium, 92. All elements also have neutrons in their nuclei, but some elements can have nuclei with more than one proton neutron grouping. These different groupings are called isotopes. For example, carbon has three isotopes one with 6 neutrons, one with 7, and one with 8. But their chemical characteristics...
REFERENCES Pfa
1. Bannerot, S., and Bannerot, W., Health underway An unexpected intruder, Cruising World 94-102 Sept. 2001 . 2. Becker, K., Southwick, K., Reardon, J. et al., Histamine poisoning associated with eating tuna burgers, JAMA 285 10 1327-1330 2001 . 3. Dyckman, L. J. D., Federal Food Safety and Security System, U.S. General Accountability Office, GAO-04-588T, Washington DC, March 30, 2004. 4. Cullen, J. C., The miracle of Bolsena, Am. Soc. Microbiol. News 60 4 187-191 1994 . 5. Merlino, C. P.,...
Echinacea
People swear by it. For many, echinacea is the only thing for the common cold, less severe and of shorter duration. Black-eyed susan is one of the most common homegrown flowers of summer on the United States east coast. Everyone seems to have the coneflower, or purple coneflower, as it is often called. Apparently native American Indians used it for centuries. Extracts of Echinacea purpura are contained in the most popular supplements. Although people swear by it, the question remains, whether...
Smallpox
Smallpox comes with a legendary paternity. It was one of the most prevalent of all diseases it was a massive killer, and created wretched disfigurement. Its very name could petrify an entire community. But smallpox, as opposed to the great pox, syphilis, is no more. With the arrival of vaccinia virus vaccination and subsequent widespread immunization, along with the vigorous efforts of the World Health Organization, smallpox was declared eradicated from the world in 1979, the only microbial...
Toxic Reactions
Unlike allergic reactions, all humans are susceptible to toxic, poisonous substances. If a GM food contains toxic components greater than the natural range of its traditional twin, the GM food is unacceptable. To date, GM foods have proved to be no different from their conventional counterparts with respect to toxicity. In fact, in some instances there is more confidence in the safety of GM foods because naturally occurring toxins that are overlooked or brushed aside in conventional foods are...
Allergic Reactions
Allergic reactions are abnormal responses of the body's immune system to an otherwise safe food. Allergic reactions run the gamut from mild skin rashes and gastrointestinal upset to life-threatening anaphylactic shock. Although all food allergens are proteins, natural proteins are rarely allergenic. To avoid introducing or enhancing an allergen in an otherwise safe food, such as soybeans, which commonly contain allergens, a GM soybean must be tested and compared to conventional soybeans. Tests...