One source of nitrogen dioxide is the tailpipe of your car (Source: Jensbn at Wikimedia Commons)
The Environmental Protection Agency wants to make
the limit on nitrogen dioxide tighter. It’s a
pollutant that’s emitted by power plants, and we
all spew it from our cars’ tailpipes. Rebecca Williams
has more:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency wants to make
the limit on nitrogen dioxide tighter. It’s a
pollutant that’s emitted by power plants, and we
all spew it from our cars’ tailpipes. Rebecca Williams
has more:
Nitrogen dioxide is bad stuff. It’s part of smog and it can trigger asthma attacks and other serious lung problems.
Bonnie Holmes-Gen is with the American Lung Association.
“People can have effects from exposure to nitrogen dioxide for even 30 minutes to an hour. This exposure is particularly harmful to anyone with asthma or other lung illnesses.”
There’s already a national standard for long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide.
EPA wants to set a national standard for short-term exposure. And the American Lung Association thinks that’s great, but they want the long-term standard to be even tighter.
A tighter standard will mean cutting back on smokestack emissions and tailpipe pollution… and that’s always a tough sell.
This commonly-prescribed albuterol asthma inhaler will
soon be a relic of America's medical past. The federal
government fears the device's chlorofluorocarbon-based
(CFC) propellent harms the ozone layer. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
We usually expect environmental
regulations to make us healthier in the
long run. Well, there’s one coming down
that some people aren’t so sure about.
Reporter Shawn Allee says it has to do
with propellants in asthma medicine:
Transcript
We usually expect environmental
regulations to make us healthier in the
long run. Well, there’s one coming down
that some people aren’t so sure about.
Reporter Shawn Allee says it has to do
with propellants in asthma medicine:
Maureen Damitz struggles with asthma.
She’s got it and two of her kids do, too.
But fighting it is also a career.
Damitz is with the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago – it’s the
nerve center for asthma issues in her area.
She says recently, pharmacies have been running out of a familiar asthma inhaler.
“Our phones started ringing off the walls months ago. All of a sudden patients
started getting these new inhalers, and no one was prepared for that.”
The old-standby has been the albuterol inhaler – it’s for quick relief.
Damitz says there is a cheap generic, but it’s got a propellant with Chloro-fluoro-carbons
or CFCs.
And, the government’s banning CFC albuterol inhalers.
Damitz says some patients will miss them.
“When you’re spraying it, it comes out with quite a blast.”
(puff, puff)
“People mistake that as, ‘it forces it into my lungs’; it doesn’t, it’s just the type of
propellant.”
Three new inhalers have the same medicine but a different propellant, known as HFA.
“The new HFA comes out much softer and its warmer when it comes out. They
mistake that as, ‘Oh, my medication doesn’t work.’”
Damitz says studies show the new inhalers work just as well or better than old ones, but
some patients report just the opposite.
Regardless, no one will have a choice soon. By January, no pharmacy can sell albuterol
inhalers with CFC propellents.
Why?
“Originally it arose from the concern that CFC’s were damaging the atmosphere.”
Dr. Nicholas Gross is an asthma specialist.
He says CFCs used to be in many things – refrigerators, air conditioners, and asthma
inhalers.
But CFCs deplete the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. That lets more solar radiation
through and causes skin cancer.
The government banned CFCs in most products.
But drug companies got exemptions and were slow to develop alternative propellants.
In 2005, the government asked a medical panel to speed things up.
“They were concerned nothing much was changing. It looked like companies were
going to keep claiming exemptions indefinitely, so they asked what we would
recommend they should do about that.”
Gross and other panelists found three competing albuterol inhalers with new propellents.
So, they recommended a ban start next year. Now, Dr. Gross regrets that ban.
“One thing I don’t think anybody paid enough attention to was the fact that it was
going to be much more expensive in the HFA version than the CFC version.”
CFC-based albuterol inhalers cost about thirteen bucks a pop.
New HFA ones cost three times that.
There won’t be a generic inhaler with the new propellant until 2010.
Dr. Gross worries some patients will go without.
“I think it’s very difficult for the FDA to turn around and rescind itself. It means
somebody made a mistake and in government that’s not something you’re allowed
to admit.”
But, the FDA is sticking with the ban.
One asthma expert is more at ease with the transition.
He’s Paul Greenberger – head of the Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
He says if patients puff through new, expensive albuterol inhalers quickly – there might
be something wrong with how they’re using them.
“We don’t want people using them everyday if they can help it. We have to take a
look at their overall asthma control – do they need better therapy, frankly than
these albuterol inhalers?”
Of course, that might mean a doctor’s visit and new meds.
Dr. Greenberger says all of this is expensive, but he still supports a ban on CFC albuterol
inhalers.
He says if patients get treatment that’s also better for the atmosphere, well, that’s
priceless.
Many bats are being killed by wind turbines (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
The wind turbine industry has made
changes to reduce the number of birds killed
by the spinning blades. But scientists are
finding that more bats are being killed.
Rebecca Williams reports one research team
thinks it now knows why:
Transcript
The wind turbine industry has made
changes to reduce the number of birds killed
by the spinning blades. But scientists are
finding that more bats are being killed.
Rebecca Williams reports one research team
thinks it now knows why:
It’s been a mystery why bats are getting killed by wind turbines. They’re
usually great at avoiding collisions because they sense moving objects
even better than still ones.
A team from the University of Calgary looked at dead bats near
turbines. They found that 90% of the bats had internal bleeding.
Erin Baerwald is the lead author of the study. She says there’s a sudden
drop in pressure near the tips of the turbine blades. And when bats fly
close enough, the pressure drop makes their lungs over-expand and
burst. She thinks the bats are attracted to the turbines.
“Maybe they see these tall turbines as trees.”
That’s because most of the bats that are getting killed are tree roosting
bats.
Baerwald says researchers are looking at ways to change turbines to
avoid killing bats.
A layer of smog over upstate New York at sunset on October 21, 2000 (Photo courtesy of the Earth Science and Image Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center)
A new report says smog can contribute to
premature death. Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
A new report says smog can contribute to
premature death. Rebecca Williams reports:
Ozone is a main ingredient in smog – it comes from cars and smokestacks and
other sources.
The National Academies of Science report says ozone can send people to the
hospital, and even lead to earlier death. That’s because ozone can damage
your lungs and make it harder to breathe. It can be especially bad for
kids, older people, and people with lung diseases.
Dan Greenbaum is the president of the Health Effects Institute. He worked
on the report.
“It just reinforces the risks of exposure to ozone are there, they’re
significant and people really should be paying attention to alerts when
there are high ozone days.”
Ozone alerts mean even healthy people should avoid working or exercising
outdoors during the day.
The EPA recently tightened the ozone standards. But the agency’s scientific
advisory committee said the standards should be tightened even more.
Researchers are studying whether nano-sized material could purge bacteria from the digestive tracts of poultry. The bacteria doesn't harm chickens and turkeys, but it can make people sick. The hope is that using nanoparticles could reduce the use of antibiotics in poultry. (Photo courtesy of USDA)
Nanotechnology is the science of the very, very small. Scientists are
finding ways to shrink materials down to the scale of atoms. These
tiny particles show a lot of promise for better medicines, faster
computers and safer food. But Rebecca Williams reports some people are
worried about harmful effects nano-size particles might have on
people’s health and the environment:
Transcript
Nanotechnology is the science of the very, very small. Scientists are
finding ways to shrink materials down to the scale of atoms. These
tiny particles show a lot of promise for better medicines, faster
computers and safer food. But Rebecca Williams reports some people are
worried about harmful effects nano-size particles might have on
people’s health and the environment:
Life on the nano scale is so tiny it’s hard to imagine. It’s as small
as 1/100,000 of a human hair. It’s as tiny as the width of a strand of
DNA. A nanoparticle can be so small it can actually enter cells.
Nanoparticles are loved by scientists and entrepreneurs for the novel
things they can do at those tiny sizes. They act differently. They
can go where larger particles can’t.
Many companies already sell new products with nano properties. The
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies says there are almost 500 products
on the market that use nanotechnology.
Some of those products are starting to show up in the grocery store.
Jennifer Kuzma is with the Center for Science, Technology and Public
Policy at the University of Minnesota. She tracks nanotech
developments in food and agriculture. She says there are some edible
nano products on store shelves right now:
“One is a chocolate shake that is a nano emulsion of cocoa molecules so
you can deliver more flavor for less of the cocoa product.”
Kuzma says that’s just the beginning. She says hundreds more nano
products, including a lot of food products, are on their way to market.
In many cases, scientists are looking for solutions to food safety
problems.
For example, bacteria in the intestines of chickens and turkeys can
make people sick when poultry is undercooked. Right now farmers treat
their birds with antibiotics. But as bacteria are becoming resistant
to antibiotics, scientists are looking for other methods to fight the
bacteria.
Jeremy Tzeng is a research scientist at Clemson University. He’s part
of a team developing what he calls intelligent chicken feed.
Basically, chickens would be fed a nanomaterial that attaches to
molecules on the surface of the harmful bacteria. Then the bacteria
could be purged from the chicken along with fecal matter:
“If we use this physical purging, physical removal, we are not using
antibiotics so the chance of the microorganism becoming resistant to it
is really small.”
Tzeng says his research is still in its early stages. He says there
are a lot of safety tests he needs to run. They need to find out if
the nanomaterial is safe for chickens, and people who eat the chickens.
And they need to find out what happens if the nanomaterial is released
into wastewater.
“As a scientist I love to see my technology being used broadly and very
quickly being adopted. But I’m also concerned we must be cautious. I
don’t want to create a miracle drug and then later it becomes a problem
for the long term.”
There are big, open questions about just how safe nanoparticles are.
Researcher Jennifer Kuzma says there have been only a handful of known
toxicology studies done so far. She says nanoparticles might be more
reactive in the human body than larger particles:
“There’s several groups looking at the ability of nanoparticles to
damage, let’s say your lung tissue. Some of the manufactured or manmade nanoparticles are thought to have greater abilities to get into the
lungs, penetrate deeper and perhaps damage the cells in the lungs, in
the lung tissue.”
In some cases, it’s hard for the government to get information about new
nano products. Kuzma says companies tend to keep their own safety data
under lock and key:
“Some companies might send you the safety studies if you ask for them. Others may not
because they of course have interests in patenting the technology and
confidential business information.”
So the government doesn’t always know all that much about what’s
heading to market. Agencies are trying to figure out how – and even
whether – to regulate products of nanotechnology. Right now, there are
no special labeling requirements for nano products.
In the meantime, nanotechnology is turning into big business. Several
analysts predict that just three years from now, the nanotech food
market will be a 20 billion dollar industry.
Composite wood products are everywhere in the American home – in
cabinets and shelves and doors. And almost all of it is made with
formaldehyde, a carcinogen also known to aggravate the lungs of people
with asthma. But as Tamara Keith reports, the widespread use of the
chemical could be changing:
Transcript
Composite wood products are everywhere in the American home – in
cabinets and shelves and doors. And almost all of it is made with
formaldehyde, a carcinogen also known to aggravate the lungs of people
with asthma. But as Tamara Keith reports, the widespread use of the
chemical could be changing:
Particle board, plywood and fiberboard are all made with a glue that uses
formaldehyde to give it extra binding power. From the moment the wood
is manufactured until it comes to your home as a cabinet and well
beyond, it releases toxic fumes. Dmitri Stanich is a spokesman for the
California Air Resources Board:
“Even small amounts of formaldehyde are known to have adverse health
effects so whenever you get that smell and you go, hmmg. Most
people won’t even think twice about it, but it is a known carcinogen
and that’s what we’re trying to reduce.”
Over some industry objections, California recently adopted new
standards limiting the use of formaldehyde in manufactured wood. Come
2012, California will have the toughest formaldehyde restrictions in
the world. And it’s expected other states will follow its lead.
A new study is producing more evidence that there is a direct link between air pollution in big cities and lung damage. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
A new study is producing more evidence that there is a direct link between air pollution in big cities and lung damage. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Researchers at the University of Southern California followed more than 100 children through their teen years. They compared those who stayed in Los Angeles with those who left to live in cities with less air pollution. The results show the children that moved away from cities with polluted skies had significantly faster growth in their lungs. Scientists say children with decreased lung capacity are more susceptible to respiratory disease and more likely to have chronic lung problems as adults.
Lead researcher Edward Avol says the study is the latest piece of evidence that proves there is a direct and measurable positive effect in reducing air pollution. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
One source of nitrogen dioxide is the tailpipe of your car (Source: Jensbn at Wikimedia Commons)
