Latest story: More states blow the whistle on high school football heat illness.

football-sledSpring football practice started this month for high schools across the country, and teams are drawing up game plans for the heat as well as this fall’s opponents.

Football players are 11 times more likely to suffer heat related illnesses than all other high school sports combined, according to a recent University of North Carolina study. To block heat illnesses, several big-time high school football states have new policies for practicing in intense heat.

The study “really reinforces how vulnerable football players are to heat-related illnesses.”- Andrew Grundstein, University of Georgia

Georgia last year began a new heat policy for football practices that might help end the state’s distinction as the leader in heat-related football player deaths. Other states, including Pennsylvania and Iowa, will roll out new practice rules this season. But many others, including some of those with rates of heat illness among the nation’s highest, do not have a policy for preparing players for practicing in the brutal summer heat.

Read the full story on The Daily Climate | Scientific American | Jackson Free Press

Flying the flame-free skies: High levels of flame retardants found on airliners.

2013-0328flightattendantSpending about 100 hours each month in the air, flight attendants are bombarded with pesticides, radiation, ozone and any illnesses passengers carry on board.

Now new research shows that they also fly along with some of the highest levels ever measured for some flame retardants.

All 19 commercial airliners in a new study had several flame retardants in their dust. And one chemical was measured at concentrations more than 100 times higher in the airplane dust than in dust collected from homes and offices.

“Of course I’m concerned. I just don’t know what to do other than to quit.” -a veteran flight attendant

Heather Stapleton, an environmental chemist at Duke University and co-author of the new study, said these levels were “some of the highest measurements I’ve ever seen,” which “suggests that exposure levels could be higher than one normally experiences in a car or the home environment.”

Whether flight attendants, pilots and cleaning crews face any health risks from the chemicals is unknown. But researchers worry that long hours breathing recycled cabin air could have some effects, particularly in pregnant women.

Read the full story on Environmental Health News | Scientific American

Flip it and reverse it: Remix climate change with new music video

climate-vid-image_largeFace it, climate science can be pretty dull. Average Joes aren’t exactly eager to learn about the “hockey stick” graph or other fundamentals of climatology.

To break through the climate-ADD, a new interactive music video mixes catchy beats, creative lyrics and a hands-on experience to explain simple concepts in climate science. The video, by Explainer Music, isn’t meant to be an exhaustive look at climate change, but rather a fun way to answer questions such as, “How do we know to blame you and me?”

The singing of David Holmes and Andrew Bean gives the song a “Flight of Conchords” sound, combining funk, folk and hip-hop elements. The pair has been here before: Their song about fracking – My Water’s on Fire Tonight – done in collaboration with ProPublica, has scored nearly 350,000 views on YouTube.

Read the full story on Daily Climate. Watch the non-interactive video below.

EHN awarded in national journalism contest.

Environmental Health News has won Honorable Mention in a national journalism competition for its 10-part series investigating environmental justice problems in communities across the country.

EHN, which is foundation-funded, competed with major newspapers and other large media in the Oakes Awards.

The Oakes Awards, one of the most prestigious awards in environmental journalism, are bestowed by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

For its series entitled Pollution, Poverty, People of Color, EHN dispatched reporters to seven cities to profile the wide variety of environmental health threats facing low-income communities of color.

rev-long-anniston

Brett Israel’s profile of West Anniston, Alabama, was part of an award-winning environmental justice series.

The EHN series, overseen by Editor in Chief Marla Cone, was a collaboration by eight reporters, including EHN staff writers Brett Israel and Brian Bienkowski.

Israel profiled the poverty-stricken town of West Anniston, Alabama, which has an extraordinary rate of diabetes that scientists have linked to old industrial contamination from PCBs. “The Rev. Thomas Long doesn’t have any neighbors on Montrose Avenue in Anniston, Ala.. Everyone is gone, abandoning the neighborhood after widespread chemical contamination was discovered there in the 1990s. Long didn’t want to move; he had lived in the same house for all but one of his 64 years. Now he is stuck. Stuck on a street with no neighbors. Stuck with a property he’s convinced is unclean. And stuck with diabetes,” Israel wrote.

A strength of the series is that it combined analysis of scientific data with compelling storytelling that brought communities to life for readers. The stories documented high rates of asthma, diabetes and other health problems.

Just two months after EHN profiled the threats in Richmond, Calif., a fiery explosion erupted at its Chevron refinery, releasing plumes of toxic smoke and sending 15,000 people to hospitals.

The Chicago Tribune took first place with its Playing with Fire project, documenting deceptive practices by the chemical industry related to flame retardants.

Toxic turtles: Long-lasting chemicals could be harming sea turtles.

Credt: Sarah Webb, Texas Tech.

Credt: Sarah Webb, Texas Tech.

From the moment they are born, sea turtles fight to survive. Buried alive, they dig themselves out and evade hungry crabs and birds as they crawl to the ocean, where they begin a long and treacherous migration. One out of 1,000 will survive into adulthood. And those that do will bear a toxic burden.

Scientists are discovering that sea turtles, long ignored by toxicologists who study wildlife, are highly contaminated with industrial chemicals and pesticides.

Loggerhead turtles have altered immune systems and smaller eggs that some studies have linked to contaminants. These chemicals kill turtle cells in lab experiments, and based on research in other marine life, scientists suspect that sea turtles may be vulnerable to thyroid, liver and neurological damage.

No one, however, knows the extent to which sea turtles in the wild may be harmed.
While other ocean creatures, including whales, seals and some fish, are well-studied, the chemical threats to sea turtles remain mostly hidden under a shell.

Decimated by climate change, poaching, accidental snaring and ocean trash, all U.S. species of sea turtles are protected by the Endangered Species Act, which makes studying them difficult.

“We really have just barely touched the tip of the iceberg,” said Jennifer Keller, a marine biologist at the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, S.C. She is the top expert on pollution in sea turtles.

Read the full story on Environmental Health News.

This story also appeared in Scientific American.

Fungicide use surging, largely unmonitored.

fungicideGlenn Waller’s 100 acres of soybeans in Washington County, Georgia, are the highest yielding in the state. But the “Mr. Efficiency” award winner is worried about rust.

Soybean farmers in the Southeast survived a bout with the crop-destroying fungus in 2005 by using pesticides to halt its spread. But Waller remains worried about a rust resurgence.

“I’m afraid we’re going to kind of put it on the back burner and it’s going to jump back up and get us,” he said. Waller, who has farmed for 51 years, increasingly has turned to fungicides to ward off pests and increase his crop yields.

Farmers around the country are doing the same, causing an unprecedented surge in fungicide use. But as widespread contamination of waterways near these farms emerges, experts warn that there is inadequate environmental monitoring and information on the chemicals’ safety.

“It’s concerning,” said Jason Belden, an environmental toxicologist at Oklahoma State University. “We have limited toxicological data for a lot of these compounds.”

Read the full story on Environmental Health News.

This story also appeared in Scientific American.

California unveils new flammability standard that avoids chemicals in furniture

burningcouchCalifornia unveiled a proposal on Friday that would transform its controversial fire safety standards by dropping a requirement that has led to widespread use of flame retardants in U.S. couches and other furniture. The current standard, adopted in the 1970s, mandates that foam used in furniture cushions must withstand a 12-second exposure to a small, open flame. As a result, manufacturers throughout the nation have been adding brominated or chlorinated chemicals to the foam to slow the spread of flames. Under the direction of Gov. Jerry Brown, a state agency released a new draft rule Friday that will eliminate the open-flame test. Instead, state officials say they will require a smolder-only test, which manufacturers could meet without flame retardants while still preventing fires. Over the past several years, concern about the chemicals has mounted as evidence points to an array of potential health effects, including reduced IQs, attention problems and other neurological effects in children exposed in the womb or during infancy. The chemicals have been building up in human bodies, including breast milk, around the world.

Read the full story on Environmental Health News

This story also appeared in:

Scientific American

East Bay Express