Off the road
If the US government thinks that banning diesel combustion on the road will stop the environmentalists’ clamour, then it’s wrong. The State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials in a report claimed that off-road diesel vehicles such as bulldozers and farm tractors account for 8,500 premature deaths and 1,80,000 asthma attacks each year. The report, they said, was to encourage the Bush administration to adopt tougher federal pollution emission standards and to curtail off-road emissions by more than 90 per cent. http://www.salon.com/premium/intro/index.html Find out more or https://premium.salon.com/sub/register.jsp svironmental activists are worried that diesel manufacturers are bound to benefit at the cost of public health due to government laxity in enforcing strong anti-pollution regulations. Frank O’Donnell, executive director of the Clean air Trust claims that the loopholes in policy regulation regarding diesel use allows off-road diesel engines to contribute much more to pollution than diesel trucks and buses.

Fluoridated water
Recently, the United States EPA has shown interest in a new species of compounds that may arise from the fluoride added to drinking water. In addition, it is concerned about the consequences to public health from fluorosilicates used to fluoridate drinking water.

Tea cure
After painstaking research, scientists have confirmed the longstanding claim that drinking green tea is good to health. A US-Chinese research collaboration conducted by Mimi Yu at the University of Southern California, USA, presented data on the protective effects of drinking green tea on gastric and oesophageal cancer. The scientists believe that certain tea extracts and polyphenols are the protecting agents in animals. In case of humans, frequent green tea drinkers are less prone to contract these cancers. The researchers carried out a continuous case-control study of 18,244 men aged 45-64 years, since 1986 in Shanghai, China. They compared 190 men with gastric cancer and 42 men having oesophagal cancer with 772 men without cancer. The subjects’ urinary concentration for polyphenols and their metabolites were measured. The researchers found that the urinary epigallocatechin (EGC) was related to lower risk of both cancers. In addition, the protective effect of tea consumption was found to be efficient among individuals deficient in other dietary antioxidants such as carotenes, including antioxidants found in carrots, spinach, and other vegetables and fruits, which are also thought to reduce cancer risks. According to Fung-Lung Chung of the American Health Foundation, the protective effect of tea catechins in the stomach and oesophagus suggest that tea may be effective against cancers of the digestive tract because of the way tea is ingested. Green tea, according to Yu, contains 10 times more ECG than black tea. Tea comes from the plant Camellia sinensis, believed to contain powerful antioxidants. Antioxidants such as EGC combat free radicals (charged particles) produced by the body, which may lead to cell mutation and cancer.

Cancer-causing air
According to the EPA, at least two out of three Americans are exposed to cancer-causing chemicals, drastically elevating the risk of cancer. An in-depth analysis of 32 toxic chemicals collected from the emissions in 1996, has helped EPA reach this conclusion. The study predicts that exposure to various toxic chemicals can result in a 10 in 1 million cancer risk throughout the US population. Moreover, the EPA study highlights a disturbing fact that 20 million people live in worse areas where the risks are even higher: 100 in 1 million are at risk. Although the EPA takes a cancer risk of 1 in a million or greater as consequential, Jeffery Holmstead, head of the EPA’s air office, says that the risks of cancer from toxic chemical exposure is very small when compared to the risk due to other cancer-causing factors. Holmstead suggests using the data to serve as a baseline for further studies on cancer risks due to air pollution. Since 1996 when the data was first collected, the risks now have been significantly reduced.

Appetite for destruction
If the US is the fastest place under the sun then it is also the fattest. The faster they get the fatter they get -- it is not just a bad pun but also a fact -- the amount of fast-food consumption in the US is frightening and its consequences, disturbing. According to a report by the office of the US Surgeon General, the obese per cent population rose from 46 per cent in the late 1970s to 55 per cent in the early 1990s, which in turn increased to 61 per cent in a report published a few months back. Obesity is the cause of 3,00,000 premature deaths in the US every year and results in $117 billion worth of annual medical bills.

As the primary source of obesity in the US, the only way to curb obesity is to discourage fast food production and consumption. Health regulations ought to be framed wherein it is mandatory for fast food chains to disclose fat and calorie content of their products to keep consumers better informed. In addition, fast food vending machines in schools ought to be replaced with health food vending machines. Above all, the government should regulate policies to end the unscrupulous practices of the companies of using misleading health claims to promote their products. For example, the National Pork Board advertises pork meat as "the white meat," even though fat and cholesterol levels in pork are closer to red meat than to any other white meat.