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Dr. Oz Talks Toxics in Our Drinking Water
EWG testifies on behalf of clean drinking water (...and bagels)
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Monthly Archive
Toxic trade mission: US pitched China on toxic medical products
By Alex Formuzis with Sonya Lunder
In 2007, two members of Congress traveling on a tax-funded junket scolded a Chinese government official over tainted Chinese-made products, including lead-tainted children's toys, being exported to the United States. (If this sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, it's not.)
Two years later, then-Representative Mark Kirk (R-Il.) and Representative Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) were back, but this time on a different mission. They lobbied Chinese officials to look the other way and allow the sale of medical devices made by a U.S. company that contain a toxic plastics-softening chemical (a type of pthalate) the use of which is restricted in China (but not in the U.S.).
The legislative pitchmen were representing the interests of Illinois-based Baxter International - a medical equipment manufacturer that racked up more than $12 billion in revenues in 2010. The company, coincidentally, is one of Kirk's largest benefactors, contributing more than $98,000 to his campaign coffers over the last 10 years, according to the Reuters story. Note: We were not able to establish if Baxter or any of its employees contributed money to Mr. Larsen's campaigns, and a review of its website found no connection to his District.
Not exactly Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In fact, the movie scene that comes to mind is from The Graduate.
Enter Wikileaks
Both incidents were reported in State Department cables obtained by Reuters from Wikileaks. The cables revealed that in 2009 Kirk, now a Republican senator from Illinois, and Rep. Larsen pressured Chinese officials to allow Baxter intravenous blood bags made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to be sold to Chinese hospitals.
Those products contain a toxic chemical called DEHP, a type of phthalate chemical commonly added to soften PVC plastic. European countries just announced a ban on DEHP, and China has apparently restricted these ingredients for 20 years. (Somewhat ironically, China recently also got out ahead of the U.S. on keeping BPA out of children's products.)
Meanwhile, back in American hospitals...
American medical patients, meanwhile, continue to be exposed to DEHP in medical tubing, despite evidence that it can result in harmful exposures. In 2003 the National Toxicology Program said it had "serious concerns" about the impact of DEHP on newborn boys receiving intensive medical treatments.
That's because DEHP blocks male sex hormones. Exposure during pregnancy and childhood can cause birth defects, undescended testes and other permanent changes to the male reproductive system. A series of studies performed at Massachusetts General Hospital find that adult men with higher phthalate exposures have more sperm damage and hormonal changes that would impair their fertility.
Who knew that wikileaks would be so awkward for the Congressmen who purport to be purveyors of public health? Apparently consumer products containing toxic chemicals sit just fine with these two men -- as long they're turning profits for a U.S. company and sold in China.
Chromium-6 in Gas Drilling Wastes?
By Nils Bruzelius, EWG Executive Editor
The boom in natural gas drilling across the United States has spawned well-warranted fears that the fluids and chemicals used to free the gas from surrounding rock could pose a risk to drinking water supplies that tens of millions depend on.
Until recently, most of the attention was focused on a cluster of carcinogenic and toxic petroleum derivatives, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, but government documents have now raised the unsettling possibility that another notorious substance may be turning up in the millions of gallons of wastewater generated by drilling operations.
Documents uncovered by the NY Times suggest Chromium-6 in fracking waste water
That substance is hexavalent chromium, also called chromium-6, the industrial contaminant that was at the heart of the devastating water pollution case in Hinkley, Calif., which was chronicled in the hit 2000 movie, Erin Brockovich.
The documents, uncovered by The New York Times in connection with a series of three stories on the environmental hazards linked to the gas drilling boom and the extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing, come from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
They are far from conclusive, but in one of them, dated July 23, 2009, an official of the agency listed chromium-6 as one of several "pollutants of concern associated with oil and gas-related wastewaters" that might contaminate wastes sent to sewage treatment plants in that state. Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," involves injecting a toxic mix of water, chemicals and sand into wells drilled vertically and horizontally thousands of feet into the ground in order to crack open rock formations and free the trapped gas.
The chromium-6 in the Hinkley case came from industrial pollution, and it's not clear how the carcinogenic substance might get into gas drilling wastes. It could be a contaminant in the chemical stew used in fracking fluids, but it also occurs naturally in the ground, so the possibility exists that it might picked up there by fracking fluids pumped into deep gas wells under enormous pressure and then discarded after the drilling is complete.
Chromium-6 in drinking water is "likely carcinogenic"
Three months ago, chromium-6 was the focus of a nationwide survey released by the Environmental Working Group that found the substance in tests of drinking water samples from 31 of 35 U.S. cities. Within days of the EWG report, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would conduct its own study of the issue and offered assistance to water utilities seeking to test for it. Based on recent research, the agency has concluded that chromium-6 in drinking water "is likely to be carcinogenic to humans."
One of the cities whose water was tested by EWG was Pittsburgh, which had a chromium-6 concentration of 0.88 parts per billion (ppb), ninth highest of the 35 cities EWG tested. California health officials have proposed a "public health goal" of no more than 0.02 ppb in drinking water in order to protect against excess cancer risk, the first step toward setting a legally permissible limit. Because chromium-6 is difficult and expensive to remove from water, however, the legal limit is likely to be considerably higher than the public health goal.
For Now: More questions than answers
By coincidence, the West Virginia official who raised the issue in 2009 was specifically concerned about drilling wastes being sent to a plant in West Virginia that discharges its treated water into the Monongahela River, upstream of Pittsburgh. The river is a major source of drinking water for the area.
For now, the West Virginia documents raise more questions than answers, and they are questions that need to be addressed urgently as gas drilling expands dramatically across the country, including in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states located above the gas-rich Marcellus shale formation. Among them:
- To what extent does chromium-6 turn up in gas drilling wastewater?
- Did the West Virginia treatment plant accept and treat drilling wastewater?
- Do other treatment plants along the Monongahela and elsewhere accept drilling wastewater that may be laced with chromium-6?
- What other possible sources might there be for the chromium-6 found in drinking water in Pittsburgh and other cities?
[Thanks to Flickr CC & Wyoming: Upper Green River Valley for the image]
Labor camps? Fine. But BPA crosses the line.
By Alex Formuzis, EWG Vice President for Media Relations
China:
- Where anyone who speaks out against the government will likely languish for years in a prison cell;
- Where crackdowns on the press and Internet access happen again and again;
- Where consumer products contaminated with very dangerous pollutants, such as antifreeze in toothpaste, are frequently sold and exported;
- And now, where the intensely pro-business government is moving to do what U.S. officials have long refused to do - ban the plastics chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) from baby bottles and other products that hold food and drinks for children.
Home Sweet Home, by contrast:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has never taken steps to get BPA out of children's products, and just last fall the U.S. Senate dropped legislation to restrict BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups at the request of the chemical industry.
When China gets out front of the U.S. on protecting children's health, it's clear that our leaders' priorities are out of whack.
All the same, Beijing's announcement is very good news for American consumers. China probably makes some of the BPA-containing products that end up on U.S. store shelves, including items we give to our children.
In Congress, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) have both re-introduced legislation to get BPA out of baby bottles and sippy cups, but its prospects for passage in the new Congress are slim, at best. The Republican-controlled House just passed a bill that would cut EPA's budget by a third, all but ending the Obama administration's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and slash funding for 57 poison control centers by 93 percent. The new leadership of the "people's house" has tossed protections for children's health over the side so industry can get what it wants.
I was going to pass along some tips on how to avoid BPA, but my colleague at the Natural Resources Defense Council has already done that.
[Thanks to Flickr CC & theogeo for the pretty map of China]
Hold the Applause
By Jane Houlihan, EWG Senior Vice President for Research
Two weeks ago (Feb. 17), fellow activists proclaimed the upbeat news that the European Union had banned xylene and five other toxic chemicals that pose risks to human health and the environment. These would be the first compounds to be targeted for oblivion under Europe's much-touted chemical safety law known as REACH (for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals).
That would be big news indeed, given that xylene is a component of gasoline. We were thrilled to see five toxic and largely replaceable chemicals on the list, but puzzled over how car owners would manage.
Our colleagues clarified the issue for us. It turned out that it was "musk xylene," a synthetic fragrance, not the kind in gasoline, that was on the hit list. That's a big difference, but still reason to celebrate. Musk xylene is a hormone disrupter that contaminates breast milk. The other five on the list are three phthalate plasticizers that the EU had previously banned in toys, a toxic fire retardant called hexabromocyclododecane and the cancer-causing epoxy resin and adhesive chemical 4,4'-diaminodiphenylmethane.
Well done, we say to those an ocean away who worked hard to get this done! Safer consumer products for all of us will surely follow.
But reporter Cheryl Hogue of Chemical and Engineering News soon enough reminded us of the limits of a REACH "ban." For one thing, a company can continue selling or using a banned chemical if it can demonstrate that the risks can be controlled or that economic or societal benefits outweigh those risks.
And then a policy expert in the E.U. confirmed -- the announcement marks the beginning of an authorization process that will determine whether the chemicals will be banned -- or not.
Suddenly our instinct to celebrate felt a bit like (oops) clapping after the first movement of a symphony. Hold the applause until the end, please.
REACH became law in 2006. In a universe of around 100,000 chemicals, the six just listed are the first to reach this point, the first step toward a ban that may not be a ban five years from now. Three years ago, European activists briefed us on their disappointment when the EU regulators original priority list of 1,500 toxic, high-priority chemicals was slashed to 15. And now it's down to six.
My EWG colleague David Andrews has found that there is rapid turnover in the chemical market. EPA spent more than a decade gathering toxicity information for thousands of high production volume chemicals, only to find that roughly 40 percent of those it studied are no longer being widely produced. About two newly invented chemicals are registered for use every single day - a fact that sets the pace for any agency that hopes to assess chemical toxicity in a timely way. How else will those reviewing the safety of chemicals here or in Europe keep up with this quickly shifting market?
We look forward to having the massive database of basic chemical safety data that REACH requires the industry to generate. But how - and how quickly - will the U.S. EPA evaluate these data for their own chemical safety determinations? We look forward to finding out.
In the U.S. this will all be just prelude to what EWG and many others have been pushing hard to achieve - a legislative overhaul of the tepid and toothless Toxic Substances Control Act we've been stuck with since 1976 (under which, as has been widely reported, EPA could not even ban asbestos).
Bravo to the European Union for coming up with its first list of six. Now it's time for everyone to pick up the tempo. We need to move markets, change minds, and - in Washington - pass a reform bill.
And please, hold the applause until the baton is down.
[Thanks to flickr CC and blatantnews.com for the EU flag]
Dr. Oz Talks Toxics in Our Drinking Water
In February, our friend Dr. Oz dedicated an entire show to the safety of the nation's drinking water. On the air, he revealed the results of the 'Dr. Oz National Tap Water Test' - a hands-on water testing experiment undertaken to answer this important question:
Dr. Oz's staff consulted with EWG to identify which chemicals to test for and where to collect samples. Ultimately, they recruited volunteers in 19 cities to collect tap water from their kitchen faucets in a process similar to the one EWG used in its recent testing for chromium-6. The cities Dr. Oz sampled included Norman, Okla., Omaha, Neb. and Riverside, Calif. The water samples were sent to a lab in California to be tested for chromium-6, perchlorate and heavy metals such as lead and arsenic.
EWG has been educating the public about these tap water contaminants - and a host of others - for years. In our own report, we tested tap water from 35 U.S. cities for chromium 6, a substance that government scientists have said shows clear evidence of being carcinogenic, and found it in almost 90 percent of our samples. The highest concentration was in the sample from Norman, Okla. Not surprisingly, Dr. Oz's tests also detected chromium-6 in its Norman sample - in amounts even higher than EWG found.
Dr. Oz and EWG have the same message for U.S. water drinkers:
If you're wondering what's in your water and how best to filter it, check out EWG's water filter buying guide. And if you have a few minutes, see what Dr. Oz and his guests have to say about toxic contaminants in our drinking water (click the image below):
Catch the rest of the show in Part 2 and
Part 3.
Get EWG's complete drinking water tips.
[Thanks to Flickr CC & Darwin Bell for the bubbler pic]
EWG testifies on behalf of clean drinking water (...and bagels)
- Allowing drilling without proper safeguards will reward industry's violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act and "put the health of millions of people at risk." A recent Congressional investigation and EWG's own research has documented that gas companies have been using diesel in drilling operations since at least 2005 without the permits legally required under the Act.
- The Basin's Commission's proposed regulations would allow drilling too close to water sources. The pending rules require that gas wells be placed at least 500 feet from water sources and other water bodies, but documented cases of water contamination have occurred at distances up to seven times greater.
- A growing number of investigations, including a New York Times story published this week and previous work by EWG and other organizations, show that the industry has been guilty of negligent practices and that the federal Environmental Protection Agency has done little to intervene, leaving people with contaminated drinking water in a number of states.
EWG's Horwitt told the City Council panel:
"The DRBC and New York State have the power - and the responsibility - to protect clean water for millions of citizens. Given what we know of gas drilling's recent track record, the risks are still too great to allow drilling near water supplies."
[Thanks to Roland for the beautiful bagels]
