This report is part of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s series Air & Environment within the national environmental monitoring programme. The report’s authors include stakeholders active within the national air quality monitoring and researchers and experts at universities, research institutes and public agencies. A great deal of knowledge exists about …
Two chemicals widely used in cleaning agents for homes, offices and hospitals cause birth defects and fertility problems in mice whose cages have been in contact with them, according to Patricia Hunt at Washington State University in Pullman. The quaternary ammonium compounds ADBAC (n-alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride) and DDAC …
The European Union's (EU) Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) directive, which took effect a year ago, on 1 June 2007, is widely regarded as the strictest chemical safety law in the world. Unlike the 1981 EU legislation it replaces, or the US Toxic Substances Control Act, REACH …
Trouble is brewing in the waters off the Chukotka Peninsula in the far east of Siberia. In the past few years, the aboriginal whalers of the eastern coastline who hunt grey whales for meat have reported that an increasing number of the creatures they catch smell so foul that even …
THE State Government has decided to set up poison treatment centres in all districts in Tamil Nadu. The Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine will set up these centres with support from the National Rural Health Mission, said Director of Public Health Dr P Padmanabhan. "Poisoning is becoming a …
Two years ago, I lay paralysed in a hospital bed, unable to use my arms or legs, to hug my young son or daughter, or to type a word to meet an impending book deadline. Autoimmune diseases, a group of about 100 conditions in which the body's immune system turns …
In Doubt Is Their Product, author David Michaels explains how many of the scientists who spun science for tobacco have become practitioners in the lucrative world of product defense. Whatever the story- global warming, toxic chemicals, sugar and obesity, secondhand smoke- these scientists generate studies designed to make dangerous exposures …
An international consortium of scientists recently emphasised on the irreversible harm that toxic chemicals can cause to foetuses and infants. The consensus was reached at the International Conference on Foetal Programming and Developmental Toxicity held in May at the north Atlantic Faroe Islands. Over 200 experts came out with the
endosulfan, the deadly pesticide, now has a destroyer. Scientists at iit Madras have found a bacterial mixture that can break it down to environment friendly inorganic chemicals. Ligy Philip and Mathava Kumar studied the action of a bacterial culture consisting of Staphylococcus Sp, Bacillus circulans-i and ii on endosulfan-contaminated soil. …
a homoeopathic medicine prepared from arsenic oxide could ease the suffering of millions of people at risk from arsenic poisoning. Researchers from West Bengal-based University of Kalyani have developed the antidote called arsenicum album. Its microdoses not only remove arsenic from the body, but they also have the ability to …
I met an eminent economist last week. He quoted another eminent economist-cum-columnist, and asked me if it was true that apples had higher pesticide residues than Coke or Pepsi. Before I could respond, he rather menacingly concluded: "And is it not true that mother's milk has pesticide?" Evidently, "common-sensical truths" …
The us Environmental Protection Agency (epa) suffered a double whammy on September 15, when two separate lawsuits raising the same issue were filed against it in the federal district court for the Southern District of New York. The contention in both cases: epa 's inability to implement stipulated children-specific standards …
The term genetically modified (GM) is highly controversial. While the science of transferring desirable genetic traits from one organism to another has applications in several fields
India's plan to open its fourth poison information centre has run into problems over non-fulfilment of basic criteria. A World Health Organisation (who) team recently inspected the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (itrc) in Lucknow, where the unit will be based, and raised a few objections. Ideally, a poison information centre …
It is a story about underground water: when the nectar turns into poison. When a daily task of drinking water from the handpump becomes the source of crippling disease and death. This is not a "natural' disaster
function openmap(){ var popurl="html/20030415_map.htm" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=650,height=500,scrollbars=yes") } Welcome to Wah india, a hazy land born of perfidy and malicious grace. Spread over territory co-extensive with 19 states in India, it is both traceable and unknown. Its physical geography, for instance, is quite virtual: Wah india keeps getting discovered; its expanding contours …
The 1970s and 1980s were a time of massive state investment in rural water development. Not only had more land to be brought under irrigation, but also drinking water supplied. These decades saw an exponential rise in the number of privately-owned pumpsets and wells, even as investment in public wells …
The official attitude towards fluoride-laced groundwater is best seen in the manner the state has gone about solutions. In a 1999 nationwide study New Delhi-based Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation (frrdf) found that "only a few laboratories in the country have specified the methodology for fluoride analysis.' Experts claim …
Human negotiation with its own capacities and actions often tends to be triumphalist. A man admires his muscled torso; an elite believes itself to be the omphalos
A controversy seems to be brewing up in Lucknow, with the reporting of high levels of arsenic contamination in many parts of the city and government officials denying the same. Tests carried out by Environmental Research Laboratory (erl), a Lucknow-based non-governmental organisation, has shown that groundwater in many areas of …
At the height of the dropsy scare, Lucknow-based Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (itrc) came up with a unique device to check for adulteration in mustard oil. Called the colour-detection strip (cd strip), it was promptly placed in the market at a nominal 50 paise with expectations of a deluge of …
