Called Sick of Dust: Chemicals in Common Products — A Needless Health Risk in Our Homes , the report is based on a study conducted by Clean production action (cpa), a us based non-governmental organisation (ngo) along with other ngos.

"Manufacturers and retailers need to stop using toxic chemicals which are building up in our bodies and switch to safer alternatives which are readily available," says Beverley Thorpe, International Director of cpa. Safer alternatives are available for most, if not all, chemicals. But the Consumer product safety commission that regulates products "has a dismal record of considering chronic long-term health effects resulting from exposure to chemicals from products. They are more focused on injuries and acute poisonings," says Ted Schettler, science director of the us -based ngo, Science and environmental health network.

cpa suggests an overhaul of regulations on chemicals using Europe as an example. Europe’s new draft chemicals management programme, entitled registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals (reach), is set for enactment in a year or two. reach would require industry to publicly provide basic health, safety and environmental impact data on all chemicals, both new and old. Industry also will partly pay for reach through registration fees.

According to the European Commission, reach would save an estimated 50 billion Euros in health benefits over the next 30 years and prevent as many as 4,300 cases of cancer.

However, instead of endorsing reach, the American chemistry council (acc) and the Bush Administration are lobbying against it, alleges the report. Because of reach, acc predicts billions of dollars will be lost in us sales of these chemicals to Europe. Obviously, for the us government, monetary profits seem to be a bigger concern than health.

DTE, April 30, 2005

The cost is important because of the 470,000 cervical cancer cases reported worldwide every year. Of the total cases reported about 80 per cent occur in the developing world, where people cannot afford expensive medication. In India, of the 126,000 new cases reported yearly, about 71,000 women die. A cheap diagnostic method would enable screening of entire populations and increase the chances of survival through early detection.

The scientists compared five methods of screening for cervical cancer. Besides hpv, via and vili, the two other methods studied were cytology and the visual inspection with acetic acid using low-level magnification, or viam. All the five tests were conducted on 4,039 women between 35-60 years of age, chosen from two slums in Mumbai. The researchers found that using a combination of via and vili proved to be highly sensitive and could be used for screening the population. The positive cases could then be verified using the standard pap smears. "As this removed the need to test the whole population using the more expensive method, the cost of screening comes down," says Surendra S Shastri of tmc.

On the basis of these results, tmc is currently carrying out a population-based cancer screening in two districts — Ratnagiri and Sindhu Durg — of Maharashtra.

DTE, April 30, 2005

The study suggests if current trends in fuel use in sub-Saharan Africa continue, the number of premature deaths among women and young children exposed to wood smoke from stoves will reach nearly 10 million by 2030, from about 400,000 in the year 2000. What’s more, "cooking fires will pump 6.7 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere as ghg in the next 45 years", they say.

Although charcoal is the leading urban fuel in Africa and releases less indoor particulate matter when burned than wood, its use does not find much support from policymakers or environmentalists.

This is because charcoal is made by covering a stack of wood with dirt and allowing it to smoulder for three to seven days - a process that is inefficient and polluting. On the other hand, charcoal production generates rural employment and so could be a blessing in poor regions.

The researchers’ model predicts that a shift to burning charcoal, combined with sustainable forest management and more efficient charcoal-production technologies, would avert some three million premature deaths and reduce ghg emissions by 65 per cent if implemented rapidly. Even if adopted gradually over 50 years, the move would delay one million deaths and cut ghg emissions by 45 per cent, relative to simply carrying on as usual.

The report graded top-selling automakers in the us according to their commitment to use environment-friendly plastics. The us automakers such as Ford and General Motors received "failing grades". Japanese companies such as Toyota were better off. "Though Toyota has implemented many practices that us automakers can learn from, it received a c grade which means there is still a lot of room for improvement," said Charles Griffith of the Ecology Center.

Plastics make up about 7.5 per cent of a car’s weight. This represents almost two million tonnes of plastic waste generated per year in the us alone. Petrochemical-based plastics such as polyvinyl chloride, or pvc , release toxic chemicals throughout their lifecycle: during production (dioxin, furans); during vehicle use (phthalates) and at the time of vehicle incineration (dioxin, hydrochloric acid). Perhaps today’s automakers should follow the example of Henry Ford who produced an entire car body from soybean-based plastics in 1930!