Tag: health officials

Detecting Lead in Toys

  • Bill Radosevich tests the sword on the lego creature Phyllis Gallzo's son plays with. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Fisher Price recently recalled 10 million toys containing lead paint and tiny magnets. The news is making health officials and many parents wonder about other
objects children play with. In the past, testing objects for lead has been time consuming,
but new technology could make lead detection in everyday objects easier and faster. Lisa
Ann Pinkerton has more:

Transcript

Fisher Price recently recalled 10 million toys containing lead paint and tiny magnets. The news is making health officials and many parents wonder about other
objects children play with. In the past, testing objects for lead has been time consuming,
but new technology could make lead detection in everyday objects easier and faster. Lisa
Ann Pinkerton has more:


In a canvas shopping bag, Phyllis Gallzo has 3 of her son’s favorite toys. In her hand is
one made of Legos that looks like an alien robot creature. She’s afraid it could contain
lead:


“Listening to the news and concern about toys coming from China, I was very
concerned my son getting exposure to the chemicals he really didn’t need. So I brought in
the toys that he plays with mostly.”


Eighty percent of America’s toys are made in China, so Gallzo’s come to a free lead
screening event held by the Ohio Network for the Chemically Injured to find out about her
son’s toys. The action figure she holds is sporting a long silver sword. It’s pockmarked,
from being chewed on by Gallzo’s 8 year old son. If the sword was manufactured with
lead-based plastic or paint the toy could be giving her son small doses of lead and slowly
poisoning him. Lead is a neuro-toxin and has been linked to learning disabilities and lower
IQ’s.


Usually, Gallzo would have to surrender her son’s toy to be destroyed in a lab to figure
out what its made of, but today a new type of technology is being used. Bill Radosevich,
of the company Thermo Scientific is going to zap the plastic sword with an X-ray gun
his company’s designed. In the first 5 seconds, the toy’s elements pop up on a computer
screen:


“About 6000 parts per million of zinc, we’re seeing a little bit of copper, that’s probably
part of the coloring….I’m definitely not seeing lead.”


Gallzo was lucky, her son’s favorite toy is free of lead. But beside Radosevich, is a
suitcase filled with toys that didn’t pass the test. On display are low brand or no brand
items, like plastic teething rings, a simple black snorkel, children’s jewelry and marti gras
beads. All objects kids have been known to suck and chew on. Radosevich says they all
contain lead in excess of 600 parts per million, the American limit for consumer
products:


“I’m less concerned about a hair piece than I am about something that’s supposed to be put into a
child’s mouth.”


Radosevich’s testing device looks like a Faser gun from an old Star Trek show. It uses x-
ray technology and it’s not cheap, they go for 30,000 dollars a piece. Radosevich
says metal industries and archaeologists already use the device for different purposes, but
he thinks product importers and toy retailers might be interested in them too. Michael
Zigenhagan, owns the toystore Play Matters and he says testing toys for lead is not his
responsibility:


“I don’t think that’s within the scope of a retailer’s capabilities. We wouldn’t be
asking national big box retailers to create their own testing arms for the products they
carry. That’s ultimately the manufacturer’s job to do that.”


But the way toys are manufactured in China is a tangled supply chain, with various
components of a toy coming from different factories. Rachel Weintrub is with the
Consumer Federation of America. She says importers are putting too much trust in the
manufacturers they contract with. Her group is lobbying Congress to require US
companies, such as Mattel, to make sure a toy’s components aren’t contaminated before they’re assembled in China:


“If it were required that paint be tested for safety before the paint were used on the
product, this huge harm would be prevented.”


Weintrub says waiting until a product is in the supply chain and issuing a recall isn’t
completely effective. She says recalls never get all the defective products back, and
ultimately that leaves toys in the marketplace and children in potential harm.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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Bed Bugs Biting Again

Health officials across the country say some nasty night critters are making a comeback. Bed bug cases are up. And in 2005, they were reported in 43 states. The GLRC’s Tana Weingartner reports:

Transcript

Health officials across the country say some nasty night critters are
making a comeback. Bed bug cases are up, and in 2005, they were reported
in 43 states. The GLRC’s Tana Weingartner reports:


It turns out your mother knew what she talking about, when she
reminded you to “sleep tight” and “don’t let the bed bugs bite.” The
blood-sucking insects are popping up in hotels and homes around the
country.


Steve Chordas is a public health entomologist with the Ohio Department
of Health. He blames increases in travel and the banning of some
pesticides for the bed bug resurgence, but, he says, the bugs are more of
a nuisance than a public health threat.


“There’ve been some diseases that have been isolated from the bed bugs,
but it’s not been shown, scientifically at least, that these are able to be
vectored by the bed bugs or transmitted from the bed bugs to a new
victim.”


Bed bugs are like tiny hitchhikers that can hide in your luggage and
clothing if you stay in an infested hotel room. Extensive cleaning and
insecticides are usually needed to get rid of a bed bug infestation.


For the GLRC, I’m Tana Weingartner.

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Beach Closings Continue

Beach closings due to high levels of bacteria are still causing problems in some parts of the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Beach closings due to high levels of bacteria are still causing problems in some
parts of the Great
Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Health officials are doing a better job of monitoring many of the beaches around the
Great
Lakes… but that leads to the beaches being closed more often. Each year the Natural
Resources
Defense Council compiles data it gathers from its own sources and from the
Environmental
Protection Agency. Nancy Stoner is with the NRDC. She says the data show not all
beaches are
monitored the same.


“There are comprehensive monitoring programs in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania and
more limited monitoring programs in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and New York.
Before
going to the beach, I would encourage people to find out and ensure that that beach
is monitored,
that it’s monitored frequently, and that it’s using criteria that are protective of
public health.”


Stoner says the federal government is not spending enough money to find ways to
reduce or
eliminate the polluted runoff and other sources of bacteria-contaminated water that
cause the
beaches to close.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Iron Ore Mining Tied to Cancer?

  • NorthShore Mining Company now operates the former Reserve Mine and Taconite Plant. Waste rock is deposited on land a few miles from Lake Superior. Questions remain about whether taconite fibers pose a human health risk. (Photo courtesy Cleveland Cliffs)

Researchers are trying to determine whether fibers found in taconite mined near Lake Superior might cause cancer. Taconite is a type of iron ore. The microscopic fibers found in some taconite rock are a lot like asbestos, and asbestos causes cancer and other serious lung diseases. Research is now underway that could determine whether the fibers in taconite can cause cancer too. The question is a classic example of the uneasy balance between protecting health and creating jobs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Researchers are trying to determine whether fibers found in taconite mined near Lake Superior
might cause cancer. Taconite is a type of iron ore. The microscopic fibers found in some
taconite rock are a lot like asbestos, and asbestos causes cancer and other serious lung diseases.
Research is now underway that could determine whether the fibers in taconite can cause cancer
too. The question is a classic example of the uneasy balance between protecting health and
creating jobs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


The fibers in taconite first made big news thirty years ago. Reserve Mining Company was
dumping its waste rock in Lake Superior, and the fibers turned up in Duluth’s drinking water.


People worried, and started drinking bottled water, until a special filtration plant was built.
Reserve was forced to dump its waste rock on land.


But the jury is still out on whether the fibers are dangerous.


Phil Cook is one of the people who discovered the fibers in the water supply. He’s a chemist at
the National Water Quality Lab in Duluth. He studied the fibers for years.


They’re so small, you can’t see them even with a regular microscope. Cook and his team had to
use an electron microscope to get a handle on the fibers.


“Hundreds of hours of looking at many fields of view and counting particles of all sizes and
shapes and identifying them specifically as to what their mineral nature was.”


Some of the taconite fibers turned out to be more cancer-causing than others. The most
commonly occurring fibers were less dangerous.


But Cook found that some of the fibers caused even more cancer than asbestos. After two years
of experiments on lab rats, Cook found the most dangerous taconite fibers had splintered off,
multiplying the number of fibers in the rats lungs.


“So there was some kind of slow leaching going on while the fibers were in tissue, and blocky
particles would become thinner fibers. So the number of fibers were increasing and the dose was
increasing.”


But the question is, does the same thing happen to people, and are people exposed to enough of
the fibers to worry about cancer?


NorthShore Mining Company currently operates the former Reserve mine and processing plant.
NorthShore monitors its fiber emissions. Millions of fibers pour from the smokestacks. But at
monitoring stations about a mile away, the numbers drop to a background level comparable to
cities out of the area.


But some people worry even that level could make people sick.


There are no national or state standards for fibers in the air.


There are some rules for workplaces. Miners and taconite workers are exposed to a lot more
fibers than people who live nearby.


Northeastern Minnesota has a much higher rate of mesothelioma than the rest of the state.
Mesothelioma is a rare form of lung cancer caused by asbestos. Some miners are concerned
taconite could cause mesothelioma too.


The state Health Department recently completed a study of taconite workers who died of
mesothelioma. The study found most of them were exposed to commercial asbestos used as
insulation as well as taconite dust. The study concluded the commercial asbestos was the most
likely cause of the miners’ disease.


But the study looked only for mesothelioma. Some miners say it should have looked for other
diseases too. David Trach is president of a Steelworker retiree group. He says 450 former mine
workers got x-rays, and 30% of them had some kind of lung abnormality. Only a very few of
them had mesothelioma.


“We’ve got to search out for those young miners that are working now so they don’t end up like
some of my friends did at LTV Steel that are in their 60s and 70s, and can hardly breathe.”


The Minnesota Health Department has file cabinets full of information about the health of miners
and taconite workers. But there’s no money to study the data looking for other lung diseases.
That’s because last year the Minnesota state legislature eliminated the money for the project.


There’s a lot riding on whether taconite fibers are safe. Officials in the area where NorthShore’s
plant is located, would like to use the plant’s waste rock to build roads, which would spread the
taconite fibers throughout the county. Until now the company has been prohibited from selling
its waste rock by the court ruling in the Reserve case.


Also, several companies have been prospecting in the region. New mines for copper, nickel, and
other minerals could provide much-needed jobs in a region hit by mine closures and cutbacks in
the taconite industry. But they could also be digging into the same rock where the taconite fibers
are found.


After the scientific studies are published, the Minnesota Health Department will conduct a
formal assessment of the risks – if any – of taconite fibers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill in Duluth.

Government to Be Sued Over West Nile Virus?

Dozens of Canadians afflicted with the West Nile virus will be meeting this month to decide whether or not to launch a class action lawsuit against the Ontario government. A Toronto lawyer says he has as many as 100 clients who want to sue the Ontario government for not presenting all the facts about the risk of the disease. They alleged that public health officials didn’t do enough to protect them from the disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports from Toronto:

Transcript

Dozens of Canadians afflicted with the West Nile virus will be meeting this month to decide
whether or not to launch a class action lawsuit against the Ontario government. A Toronto
lawyer says he has as many as one hundred clients who want to sue the Ontario government for
not presenting all the facts about the risk of the disease. They alleged that public health officials
didn’t do enough to protect them from the disease. Dan Karpenchuk reports from Toronto:


Official Ontario government statistics show there were 374 West Nile cases in the province last
year. But health experts say the number was closer to one thousand. And many of those experts
say the Ontario government played down the threat, keeping critical information out of the public
domain.


Dr. Colin D’Cunha is Ontario’s medical officer of health. D’Cunha has said that the growing
alarm has been driven by hype rather than by facts:


“And I have to remind people that the serious signs and symptoms are seen in less than one per
cent of people who come down with West Nile Virus infection. And to put it in context,
remember that the flu kills about nineteen hundred Canadians each year.”


The lawyer who may bring the suit, says most people were led to believe that the virus would
affect only the sick and the elderly, which has not been the case.


National health officials are now warning that the virus will hit earlier and harder than last year,
and spread across the entire country.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

Kids Using More Prescription Drugs

Environmentalists and health officials often worry about the widespread use of antibiotics in cattle. But a recent report points to another concern: the rising use of such drugs in children. Researchers found a jump in the number of children taking prescription drugs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Urycki reports:

Transcript

Environmentalists and health officials often worry about the widespread use of antibiotics in
cattle. But a recent report points to another concern: the rising use of such drugs in children.
Researchers found a jump in the number of children taking prescription drugs. The Great Lake
Radio Consortium’s Mark Urycki reports:


The survey was conducted by MEDCO, a pharmacy benefit management firm, and a division of
drug maker Merck. It found that prescription drug-use in children under 19 increased 85% over
the last five years. Although children still take fewer drugs than adults, MEDCO researchers say
it was the first time usage increased faster for kids than all other age groups.


The top drug use was antibiotics, with more than a third of the surveyed patients receiving such a
prescription each year. Health officials have expressed concern that the overuse of such drugs
could lead to drug-resistant bacteria.


A MEDCO researcher said the good news is that antibiotic use has at least flattened out. The
increased incidence of allergies, though, has not and the use of prescription allergy medicine
doubled from about 6% in 1997 to nearly 12% last year. Health officials suspect nearly twice as
many children today have allergies than 25 years ago.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Urycki.