George Washington's dentures (Photo courtesy of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research)
Some consumer advocate groups say there’s
another reason to fear a trip to the dentist. They
say dentists should stop using mercury to make some
types of metal fillings. Mark Brush reports the
groups recently settled a lawsuit with the Food and
Drug Administration:
Transcript
Some consumer advocate groups say there’s
another reason to fear a trip to the dentist. They
say dentists should stop using mercury to make some
types of metal fillings. Mark Brush reports the
groups recently settled a lawsuit with the Food and
Drug Administration:
Moms Against Mercury and several other groups sued the FDA. They said the agency
was failing to inform the public about the dangers of mercury in dental fillings.
Mercury can do damage to the nervous system. But people’s exposure from fillings has
long been debated.
Charlie Brown is a lawyer for the groups who sued the FDA. He says getting mercury
out of dental offices will protect those most at risk.
“It’s permanent damage to the developing brain. Not like a guy like me losing brain cells
everyday, but to the child whose potential is being destroyed by neuro-toxic damage.”
As a result of the lawsuit, the FDA changed its message about mercury exposure from
dental fillings. They now say the exposure might hurt the nervous systems in developing
children and fetuses.
The agency plans take a closer look at the science and issue a final rule next year.
A Dow Chemical sign on the Tittabawassee River stating 'Enter At Your Own Risk' (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
A sign on the Tittabawassee River, downriver from Dow Chemical Plant, stating to avoid contact with the soil and not eat the fish due to dioxin contamination (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
It’s been more than 50 years since Dow
Chemical Company stopped dumping dioxin into the
river flowing past its plant in Michigan. But the
company and government regulators are still arguing
over how to clean it up. Vincent Duffy reports:
Transcript
It’s been more than 50 years since Dow
Chemical Company stopped dumping dioxin into the
river flowing past its plant in Michigan. But the
company and government regulators are still arguing
over how to clean it up. Vincent Duffy reports:
(sound of backyard)
Kathy Henry’s backyard runs down to the bank of the Tittabawassee River.
It’s a beautiful view, but that’s not what Kathy Henry sees.
“When I look back there now, I see dioxin.”
You can’t really see the dioxin, but it is there. Dow Chemical started
dumping dioxin into the Tittabawasee river in the 1890s. Dioxin is believed
to cause cancer and damage reproductive systems. And, there are high
concentrations of dioxin not only in the Tittabawasee, but in all the water
and floodplains between the chemical plant and Lake Huron 50 miles
downstream.
Kathy Henry first found out about the dioxin seven years ago when a
whistleblower at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
warned local environmentalists about the contamination. She has wanted to
sell her house ever since.
“We’ve lived here for 24 years. We loved living in here. Now I’m afraid to
go out in my own yard. I just, psychologically, couldn’t stand living here
anymore. I had to get out.”
Dow says it will clean up any dioxin that’s proven to be dangerous to human
health, but the company has spent decades fighting with Michigan and the
US Environmental Protection Agency over how much of it is a threat.
Dow spokesman John Musser says there’s no proof anyone has gotten sick
because of the dioxin.
“We’re not seeing any impacts. We’re not seeing any cause for alarm. We’re
not seeing any imminent health threat. If it’s not a problem for humans or
the environment, then maybe the best thing to do is to leave it alone.”
But Michigan environmental officials are not so laissez-faire about the
contamination. They continue to warn residents about eating fish from the
rivers, about eating wild game killed in the region, and about swimming at
some beaches.
Robert McCann is with the state of Michigan. He says science is way past
the point of debating whether dioxin is dangerous.
“Study after study has shown that there are some very serious potential health
effects from being exposed to it, even at some lower levels over a long
period of time and those health effects do include things like cancer and
diabetes as well as some more minor health effects that can be caused from it.”
But Dow does debate whether dioxin is dangerous. John Musser says
Michigan and the EPA are using bad science based on dioxin exposure to lab
animals. He says Dow has human data from employees that show dioxin is
not as dangerous as people think.
“They were exposed at extremely high levels. And we’ve tracked their
health and their death records for 60 years and we’re not finding any ill
health effects.”
Attacking regulatory science is a common defense for industries. David
Michaels is an epidemiologist at George Washington University. He says
just like big tobacco questioned the link between smoking and lung cancer,
big business always questions the science.
“Companies know that by putting off the scientific debate for as many years
as they can they can keep doing the work that they’re doing and not be
disturbed. It works.”
For example, a recent meeting supposed to update residents about clean up
efforts turned into more of a debate between government scientists and scientists
hired by Dow. One member of the audience got sick of it.
“I’m not a geologist, I’m not a toxicologist, I’m just a resident that lives on
the river. And the last I knew dioxin was the most toxic substance known to
man. And what I’m seeing here is you guys trying to find excuses to justify
poisoning us.”
The EPA recently forced Dow to clean up four hot spots along the river,
including one spot with the highest concentration of dioxin ever found in the
United States.
But the last few months have had more set backs than
progress. In January, the EPA gave up trying to negotiate a clean up
agreement separate from Michigan’s. It said Dow’s proposals were going
backward.
Earlier this month the Region 5 director of the EPA was fired. Mary Gade
says it was because of her tough stance against Dow Chemical.
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.
Jean-Michel Cousteau and school children from Iquitos at the Pilpintuwasi Butterfly Farm and Amazon Animal Orphanage,
Pilpintuwasi. (Photo by Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society/KQED)
Céline Cousteau comes face to face with a freshwater stingray.
Xixuaú-Xiparina Ecological Reserve, Brazil. (Photo by Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society/KQED)
A butterfly lands on the nose of a turtle.
Los Amigos Research Center, Peru. (Photo by Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society/KQED)
Underwater reflections of the rainforest.
Xixuaú-Xiparina Ecological Reserve, Brazil. (Photo by Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society/KQED)
In a traditional Amazon River myth, at night a boto (pink river dolphin) becomes a handsome young man, a shapeshifter called an encantado.
Ariau Towers, Brazil, Rio Negro. (Photo by Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society/KQED)
A TV documentary will soon bring the Amazon River
basin to living rooms across the nation. Lester Graham
reports the two-part series looks at how the Amazon
affects climate change for all of us:
Transcript
A TV documentary will soon bring the Amazon River
basin to living rooms across the nation. Lester Graham
reports the two-part series looks at how the Amazon
affects climate change for all of us:
The Amazon and its tributaries make up the largest river system in the world.
(Documentary narrator: “In spite of the enormous scale of this tropical rainforest basin, scientific evidence increasingly has revealed how fragile this ecosystem is. And how what happens here will influence global climate dramatically, possible irreversibly, within the next 10 to 20 years.”)
This two-part program produced by Jean-Michel Cousteau, “Return to the Amazon”,
shows that trees are the key to creating rain in the region and keeping the river alive.
Fifty-percent of moisture for rain in the Amazon is released directly from the trees.
So fewer trees means less rain.
(chainsaw noise)
20% of the Amazon rainforest has already been cut down.
And scientists predict if 30 to 40% of the Amazon forest is cut, it will pass a tipping
point, becoming too dry to survive, and no longer absorbing climate changing carbon
dioxide.
Jose Alvarez Alonso is with the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute. In the
documentary he says illegal logging not only endangers the forest, and the climate, but exploits the
indigenous people: paying them a small bag of sugar to illegally cut down an entire
mahogany tree, and in the process destroying their way of life.
“I can tell you that the mahogany taken out of the Amazon now is stained with
blood.”
Most of the logging is, at least, controversial. Much of it’s corrupt. And, often, it’s illegal. But Brazil still
exports massive amounts of wood.
That’s because people in the U.S. and Europe keep buying the rainforest wood.
In the 25 years since Jean Michel Cousteau last visited the Amazon with his father
Jacques Cousteau, he says there have been some disturbing changes and he
wanted people to see what’s going on. We asked Jean Michel Cousteau what he
hopes people get from the programs.
Cousteau: “Well, I really hope that it will be more than people just having had a good time, discovering a place maybe they didn’t know about, or have heard about but didn’t focus on some of the issues, and some of the solutions, and meet some of the local people. And that beyond all of that, they will take action. I really hope that people will be aware enough to understand the connections that they have, how much we depend upon places like the Amazon for the quality of our lives, every one of us.”
Graham: People who watch programs like yours, they look at these things, and they have one question: ‘Well, what can I do?’ What can an individual do when looking at a big problem like this?
Cousteau: Well, what you can do, there’s a lot you can do. As an individual, by being aware. How can you protect what you don’t understand? So, what we’re offering the public is answers to perhaps some of the questions or to highlight some of the problems. That allows you, as an individual decision maker, to make some better decisions when it comes to the wood you’re going to buy, the next time you look at a piece of furniture, you have the right to ask the question: ‘Is that coming from the rainforest?’
The two-part TV series does outline many of the problems. But, it also offers some
hope as researchers, environmentalists and governments in the Amazon basin work
to solve some of those problems.
When we go to the movies, we expect to escape from reality. Visiting aliens, time travel, extinct animals coming back to life… that’s the dazzling stuff blockbusters are made of. But not everybody is thrilled by the way scientists look in the movies. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the story of screenwriters who want to make movie scientists a little less weird:
Transcript
When we go to the movies, we expect to escape from reality. Visiting
aliens, time travel, extinct animals coming back to life, that’s the dazzling
stuff blockbusters are made of. But not everybody is thrilled by the way
scientists look in the movies. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the
story of screenwriters who want to make movie scientists a little less
weird:
(Theme music from “Back To The Future”)
So Dr. Frankenstein and Doc Brown from “Back to the Future” are a
little… freaky. But they’re smart… and enterprising. But those kinds of wacky
movie scientists make real life scientists hurl their popcorn.
Researcher Paula Grisafi says movie stereotypes about scientists are actually
worse than those about lawyers or politicians.
“My sense of movies about scientists is that there are maybe 10% good
guys and 90% bad guys. Or not even just bad guys but misguided, even
when they’re trying to be good, they’re usually sufficiently misguided
that what they start out to do turns out wrong.”
Paula Grisafi says there are a few oddballs in real science labs, but she says her peers are really much more normal.
Really — instead of hair frizzing out of control… they have nice haircuts. And they never, ever wear pocket protectors. Grisafi’s day job is at MIT in
Cambridge, but she’s also an aspiring screenwriter. She’s working on
scripts that she says shake up the Hollywood stereotypes.
“These sort of scientist archetypes are Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde.
They’re people who were loners obsessed with their work to the point of
being a danger to themselves or to others. It’s usually frowned upon in
science to experiment on yourself.”
Take Jeff Goldblum’s character Seth Brundle, in “The Fly.” When
Brundle tests his transport machine on himself, the experiment backfires.
Brundle becomes a genetic mutant, but he’s kinda proud of it.
“Am I becoming an 185 pound fly? No, I’m becoming something that
never existed before! I’m becoming Brundle-Fly! Don’t you think that’s
worth a Nobel Prize or two?”
Maybe Brundle should’ve stopped when he turned that baboon inside out.
Paula Grisafi admits there are a few movies that show scientists as
somewhat normal people. Jodie Foster’s character in “Contact” for
example. But Grisafi says there aren’t enough to balance out the weirdos.
She says at worst, distorted images of scientists might give audiences the
impression that science is more dangerous than good.
So Grisafi jumped at the chance to be part of a screenwriting workshop
for scientists in LA last summer. It was an intense crash course with
sessions called Plot and Character, and of course, Agents and Managers.
The workshop was dreamt up by Martin Gundersen. He’s an electrical
engineer who’s had a brush with fame. He added credibility to Val
Kilmer’s lasers in the film “Real Genius.”
“I’ve met people now who are young faculty members who have told me
they were influenced by that picture to think seriously about science.”
Martin Gundersen says if the scientists in movies were more appealing,
more people might want to go into the sciences. He says the Defense
Department and companies like Boeing are really concerned that fewer
people want careers in science and engineering. In fact, Gundersen
actually landed money from the Pentagon for the workshop.
But Gundersen admits he’s still testing the theory that scientists can be
screenwriters.
“Oh it’s impossible (laughs). That’s the thing – you can’t promise that
somebody’s going to get their picture made. To me the truest cliché in
Hollywood is that everyone has a script.”
And so, can chemists and engineers possibly compete?
One box office expert says — sure. Paul Dergarabedian is president of
Exhibitor Relations Company in LA. He says scientists have as good a
chance as anyone at selling a script… as long as their stories are
compelling.
“And it’s the more interesting characters who bring that scientific
element, or you have a scientist who’s not the typical nerdy scientist. He
might be more of a sophisticated kind of character in terms of lets say a ladies’
man or something like that you wouldn’t necessarily expect.”
And actually, there is a ladies’ man in one of Paula Grisafi’s scripts. Her
story features two rivals thrown together to figure out why sea life is
dying. The stars of the story are a lovely young marine ecologist and a
hotshot microbiologist from Norway. Grisafi’s been advised that playing
up the romance might help sell the story.
“I guess I was sort of writing for a PG audience. I spent eight years in
Catholic girls’ school so I’m not sure how competent I’m going to be to
write really steamy sex scenes, but I’ll make an effort.”
Grisafi says even if she never sells a script, she’ll still get up at 5 a.m. to
write, and then she’ll put in a full day at the lab.
These new screenwriters hope to prove you don’t have to be a mad
scientist or a loner in the lab to invent movies that sell tickets.
A deer wasting away from Chronic Wasting Disease. (Photo courtesy of Michigan's Department of Natural Resources.)
An elk infected with Chronic Wasting Disease. (Photo courtesy of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.)
A disease that infects deer and elk has been alarming wildlife officials and hunters for years. But now it seems the disease could be more dangerous than previously thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:
Transcript
A disease that infects deer and elk has been alarming wildlife officials
and hunters for years, but now it seems the disease could be more
dangerous than previously thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Christina Shockley reports:
Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, affects the brain tissue of deer and
elk. Sponge-like holes form in the brains of sick animals. The deer
begin to waste away, become weak, and then die.
Since CWD was discovered in Colorado nearly forty years ago, wild deer
in nine other states have tested positive for the disease. Little is known
about CWD – including how to stop it.
What scientists do know is that the infectious proteins-called prions –
thought to cause CWD are found in the brain and spinal cord areas of
infected animals, but officials still don’t have the answer to the big
question.
Judd Aiken is a professor of Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences at
the University of Wisconsin.
“The ultimate question is whether venison from infected animals, CWD infected
deer, poses a risk to humans. Clearly the first question that needed to be
asked and addressed was whether there was infectivity in muscle.”
Recent findings say there is.
Researchers at the University of Kentucky injected muscle from an
infected deer into the brains of genetically altered mice. The mice
displayed signs of CWD. This is the first time the infectious proteins
blamed for CWD have been found in deer meat.
The finding raises questions about whether eating venison is safe.
Researchers including Aiken say the study is important, but has limits.
For example, he says it doesn’t replicate what would happen in real life.
Plus, he says it’s probably unlikely humans can even get CWD. He says
studies suggest it’s difficult for the disease to jump to other species. Still,
he urges caution. Hunters should get the meat tested before they eat deer
from an area where CWD has been found.
“I, in no way, can advocate the consumption of infected deer, and indeed,
I would suggest due to the limitations of the CW tests, I don’t advocate
the consumption of deer obtained from a CWD endemic area.”
Even if the test comes back negative, Aiken says a negative result isn’t
always accurate, and infected animals in the beginning stages of the
disease can look and act normal.
(Sound of sporting goods store)
John White is a deer hunter from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He’s in the
hunting section of a nearby sporting goods store. White isn’t too
concerned about Chronic Wasting Disease.
“Not a whole lot of people are worried about it. I mean, when it first
came out, some people were a little leery about it and didn’t want to hunt
that year, but they kinda got over it. I’m not really worried about it being
in the meat at all, because by the time the test comes back I’ll probably
have the deer eaten already and then it’s already too late.”
State wildlife officials say… that’s not a good idea. They recommend that
if you hunt deer in areas where the disease has been found, get the deer
tested before eating it. That message hasn’t changed… since learning the
prions could be in the meat. Some argue… it should change.
John Stauber is with a government watchdog group in Wisconsin, and
is co-author of “Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?”
He says officials are keeping quiet about the risk of CWD so they don’t
lose revenue from hunting licenses.
A large portion of state conservation agency budgets are dependent on
fees from hunting licenses. He says all deer that die should be tested for
the disease. Stauber also says CWD is a major human health concern.
“The biggest risk might not be the people who would die from
eating venison, but rather, the people who would die from the
contamination of the blood supply. This is a problem that would unfold
not in days or months or years, but even over decades.”
Stauber says it’s just a matter of time before Chronic Wasting Disease
spreads to people… he says some might even have the disease already,
and not know it.
But researchers like Judd Aiken from the University of Wisconsin say
people shouldn’t over-react.
“People should be concerned, but I don’t want people to panic, either. If
you think you may have consumed venison from infected animals, I don’t
think it’s likely that you’ll ever develop a human prion disease.”
But, Aiken says there’s too much we don’t know about the disease, and
since studies can take years to complete, we might be in the dark for a
while longer.
Burning trash smells bad and it can create the conditions
necessary to produce dioxin. If livestock are exposed to that dioxin, it
can get into the meat and milk we consume, creating health risks. (Photo
courtesy of the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance)
For most of us, getting rid of the garbage is as simple as setting it at the curb. But not everyone can get garbage pick-up. So, instead, they burn their trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… that choice could be affecting your health:
Transcript
For most of us, getting rid of the garbage is as simple as setting it at the
curb, but not everyone can get garbage pick-up. So, instead, they burn
their trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports… that choice could be affecting your health:
(Sound of garbage trucks)
It’s not been that long ago that people everywhere but in the largest cities
burned their trash in a barrel or pit in the backyard. That’s not as often
the case these days. Garbage trucks make their appointed rounds in
cities, small towns, and in some rural areas, but they don’t pick up
Everywhere, or if they do offer service, it’s much more expensive
because the pick-up is so far out in the country.
Roger Booth lives in a rural area in southwestern Illinois. He says
garbage pick-up is not an option for him.
“Well, we burn it and then bury the ashes and things. We don’t have a
good way to dispose of it any other method. The cost of having pick up
arranged is prohibitive.”
He burns his garbage in the backyard. Booth separates bottles and tin
cans from the rest of the garbage so that he doesn’t end up with broken
glass and rusty cans scattered around.
A lot of people don’t do that much. They burn everything in a barrel and
then dump the ashes and scrap in a gully… or just burn everything in a
gully or ditch. Booth says that’s the way most folks take care of the
garbage in the area. No one talks about the smoke or fumes put off by
the burning.
“I haven’t ever thought much about that. So, I don’t suppose that I have
any real concerns at this moment. I don’t think I’m doing anything
different than most people.”
And that’s what many people who burn their garbage say.
A survey conducted by the Zenith Research Group found that people in
areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota who didn’t have regular garbage
collection believe burning is a viable option to get rid of their household
and yard waste. Nearly 45-percent of them indicated it was
“convenient,” which the researchers interpreted to mean that even if
garbage pick-up were available, the residents might find more convenient
to keep burning their garbage.
While some cities and more densely populated areas have restricted
backyard burning… state governments in all but a handful of states in
New England and the state of California have been reluctant to put a lot
of restrictions on burning barrels.
But backyard burning can be more than just a stinky nuisance. Burning
garbage can bring together all the conditions necessary to produce
dioxin. Dioxin is a catch-all term that includes several toxic compounds.
The extent of their impact on human health is not completely know, but
they’re considered to be very dangerous to human health in the tiniest
amounts.
Since most of the backyard burning is done in rural areas, livestock are
exposed to dioxin and it gets into the meat and milk that we consume.
John Giesy is with the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center at
Michigan State University. He says as people burn garbage, the dioxins
are emitted in the fumes and smoke…
“So, when they fall out onto the ground or onto the grass, then animals
eat those plants and it becomes part of their diet, and ultimately it’s
accumulated into the animal and it’s stored as fat. Now, particularly with
dairy cattle, one of the concerns about being exposed to dioxins is that
then when they’re producing milk, milk has fat it in, it has butter fat in it,
and the dioxins go along with that.”
So, every time we drink milk, snack on cheese, or eat a hamburger, we
risk getting a small dose of dioxin. Beyond that, vegetables from a
farmer’s garden, if not properly washed, could be coated with dioxins,
and even a miniscule amount of dioxin is risky.
John Giesy says chemical manufacturing plants and other sources of
man-made dioxin have been cleaned up. Now, backyard burning is the
biggest source of dioxins produced by humans.
“So, now as we continue to strive to reduce the amount of dioxins in the
environment and in our food, this is one place where we can make an
impact.”
“That’s the concern. That’s the concern, is that it’s the largest remaining
source of produced dioxin.”
Dan Hopkins is with the Environmental Protection Agency. He says,
collectively, backyard burning produces 50 times the amount of dioxin as
all the large and medium sized incinerators across the nation combined.
That’s because the incinerators burn hot enough to destroy dioxins and
have pollution control devices to limit emissions. Backyard burning
doesn’t get nearly that hot and the smoke and fumes spread unchecked.
The EPA wants communities to take the problem of backyard burning
seriously. It wants state and local governments to do more to make
people aware that backyard burning is contaminating our food and
encourage them to find other ways to get rid of their garbage.
“(It) probably won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution, but by exchanging
successful efforts that other communities have had, we should be able to
help communities fashion approaches that have a high probability of
success.”
But public education efforts are expensive, and often they don’t reach the
people who most need to hear them. The EPA is not optimistic that it
will see everyone stop burning their garbage. It’s not even a goal. The
agency is just hoping enough people will find other ways to get rid of
their trash that the overall dioxin level in food is reduced.
Lake Michigan dunes with a power plant in the background. (Photo courtesy of EPA)
In some places, creeks wash bacteria into the lakes on or very near swimming beaches, making contracting E. coli a greater threat. (Photo by Lester Graham)
A sewage treatment plant in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo courtesy of
EPA)
If you swim or play on the beaches around the Great Lakes, you’ve
probably heard about ‘beach closings.’ At best, the situation is an inconvenience.
At worst, it’s a serious health risk for some people. That’s because the
beaches are closed due to dangerous levels of bacteria in the water.
Beach closures are not all that new, but Shawn Allee reports… the
science behind them could change dramatically in the next few years:
Transcript
We’re continuing our series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Our field guide through the series is Lester Graham. He says anyone who visits Great Lakes beach is familiar with one of the Ten Threats.
If you swim or play on the beaches around the Great Lakes, you’ve
probably heard about ‘beach closings.’ At best, the situation is an inconvenience.
At worst, it’s a serious health risk for some people. That’s because the
beaches are closed due to dangerous levels of bacteria in the water.
Beach closures are not all that new, but Shawn Allee reports… the
science behind them could change dramatically in the next few years:
(Sound of dog and beach)
During the summer, dogs and their owners usually play together in the
water along this Lake Michigan beach, but today, several dog owners
scowl from the sand while their dogs splash around.
“It’s e coli day … it’s a hardship.”
This beachgoer’s upset, and like she said, e coli’s to blame.
Park officials tested the water the previous day and found high levels of
the bacterium. Missing a little fun on the beach doesn’t sound like a big
deal, but there’s more at stake than recreation.
Cameron Davis is with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, a regional
advocacy group.
“Beaches are most peoples biggest, tightest connection to the Great
Lakes, so when beaches close, they really impact our quality of life in the
region.”
And ultimately, health is at stake too. For a long time, scientists tested
beach water for e coli because it’s associated with human feces. That is,
if e coli’s in the water, there’s a good chance sewage is there too, and
sewage can carry dangerous organisms – stuff that can cause hepatitis,
gastric diseases, and rashes.
Sewage can get into the Great Lakes after heavy rains. That’s because
some sewers and drains can’t keep up with the flow, and waste heads to
the lakes.
For a long time, scientists thought human feces was the only source of e
coli in Great Lakes water, but a puzzling phenomenon has them looking
for other causes, too. Experts say cities have been dumping less sewage
into the Great Lakes in recent years, but we’re seeing more e coli and
more beach closings.
Paul Bertram is a scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. He says, we’re closing more beaches because we’re testing
them more often.
“But I don’t think it’s because the Great Lakes are getting more polluted,
and more filled with pathogens, I think we’re just looking for it more.”
If we’re finding more e coli because we’re testing more often, we still
have a problem. We still need to know where the e coli’s coming from.
Bertram says there might be another culprit besides sewage.
“There is some evidence that it may in fact be coming from birds, flocks
of seagulls, things like that.”
But some researchers doubt sewage and bird droppings can account for
high e coli levels.
(Sound of research team)
A few researchers are sorting vials of water in a lab at the Lake Michigan
Ecological Research Station in Indiana.
Richard Whitman leads this research team. He says, in the past,
scientists could predict beach closings by looking out for certain events.
For example, they would take note of sewer overflows after heavy rains.
Whitman says researchers can’t rely on those triggers anymore.
“A large number, maybe even a majority of closures remain unexplained.
Today, we have closures and there’s no rainfall, may not even be
gulls, and we don’t know why the bacteria levels are high.”
Whitman has a hunch that e coli can grow in the wild, and doesn’t
always need human feces to thrive.
“This is my theory. E coli was here before we were. It has an ecology of
its own that we need understand and recognize.”
The idea’s pretty controversial. It runs against the prevailing theory that
e coli only grows in waste from warm-blooded animals, such as human
beings and gulls, but the idea’s also a kind of political bombshell.
If he’s right, it would mean our tests for e coli aren’t very accurate – they
don’t tell us whether there’s sewage around. After all, if e coli is nearly
everywhere, how can we assume it’s a sign of sewage?
“As a pollution indicator, you don’t want it to multiply. If it’s got an
ecology of its own, multiplying on its own, doing its own thing, then it’s
not a very good indicator.”
Whitman wants us to try other kinds of tests to find sewage. One idea is
to look for caffeine in the water. Caffeine’s definitely in sewage but it’s
not found naturally in the Great Lakes, but until we change our water
tests, Whitman will continue his work. He says we still need to know
how much e coli’s in nature and how much is there because of us.
Environmentalists want the government to keep a close watch on the new
science. They say we can’t let questions about the relationship between
e coli and sewage stop our effort to keep sewage and other waste out of
the Great Lakes.
Fish advisories warn about possible mercury contamination, but many people aren't aware of the risks. (Photo by Lester Graham)
There’s no disputing that fish is healthful food, but too much of certain
kinds of fish can be dangerous, especially if you’re a woman planning to
have children. That’s because some fish contain elevated levels of
mercury. Mercury is a toxic contaminant that can cause neurological
damage. Julie Halpert filed this report about the harms mercury can
cause:
Transcript
We’re continuing our series ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’ One of the
threats identified by experts was air pollution that in turn pollutes the
lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide
in this series. He says the next report looks at one pollutant that
eventually affects people.
There’s no disputing that fish is healthful food, but too much of certain
kinds of fish can be dangerous, especially if you’re a woman planning to
have children. That’s because some fish contain elevated levels of
mercury. Mercury is a toxic contaminant that can cause neurological
damage. Julie Halpert filed this report about the harms mercury can
cause:
Three years ago, when she was 18, Ayla Brown was healthy, but
suddenly, she started getting sick all the time. She was always tired, she
became anemic and had sore throats. Her tonsils had deteriorated so
much that they had to be removed. Her doctor couldn’t figure out why,
so he decided to test her for heavy metals poisoning.
The result? Ayla’s mercury levels were off the charts. They were five
times higher than the normal level. Her entire family was tested and
their levels also were above normal.
“The only conclusion we could come to is that in the past year or so since
we had moved to Ann Arbor, we had started eating a lot of fish and a lot
of fish that we now know is very known to be high in mercury, such as
swordfish and tuna and stuff like that.”
The Browns ate several meals of fish every week. Some of it was
ocean fish. Some of it was Great Lakes fish. After the diagnosis, they
cut fish out of their diet altogether. Within a year, the mercury levels
returned to normal.
“You are trying so hard to eat healthy and my family always was very
health conscious and so it’s so frustrating when you’ve done something
that you thought was good for you and realize that it was completely the
wrong thing.”
Fish are generally considered part of a healthy diet, but not all fish are
entirely safe. That’s because of mercury. Mercury exists naturally in the
environment at low levels, but higher amounts are getting into the food
chain.
Coal-burning power plants emit mercury, which eventually settles into
the Great Lakes. Then, aquatic microorganisms convert the substance
into methyl mercury, which is more toxic.
Those microorganisms form the base of the food chain. Small fish eat
microorganisms. Then, larger fish eat the smaller ones. As that happens,
the mercury concentrations escalate, making big large mouth fish like
trout, salmon and some walleye especially contaminated.
When people eat the fish, the mercury is passed on to them. Women of
childbearing age and their fetuses are most at risk.
Michael Carvan is with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Great
Lakes Water Institute. He says the exposure isn’t just from the fish that
women eat while they’re pregnant. A woman can pass her entire lifetime
load of mercury to her baby. He says that 15% of all women of
childbearing age have high enough levels so that their fetuses will
contain mercury of one part per million or higher.
“Even at really low levels, around one part per million, you’re talking
about some subtle coordination difficulties, you’re talking about
problems with memory and problems with neuro-processing and IQ
deficits.”
Because of these concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency and
the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory for women of
childbearing age and children, suggesting they eat fish and shellfish only
twice a week.
But one expert is concerned by all this talk about how mercury harms
people. John Dellinger was on a task force, which provided guidance on
fish consumption advisories. Dellinger studied people who lived on
Lake Superior who he thought would eat a lot of fish, but he found
something else.
“We basically discovered that from an epidemiologic point of view, these
populations have other things that are adversely affecting their health,
that in fact will probably overshadow anything we’re going to see from
the contaminants in their fish.”
Dellinger said the people were so concerned about contaminants in
fish, that they started relying on store-bought, processed food instead.
Those foods were higher in fat and sugar and contained other, less
healthful, ingredients. So, obesity and diabetes caused health problems,
not mercury poisoning, and Dellinger says that ended up being a worse
situation.
He says the key is to choose wisely, avoiding fish such as swordfish,
tuna steaks and the larger predator Great Lakes fish that are high in
mercury. That’s the only measure you can take right now, but that doesn’t
solve the problem. The real challenge will be to get rid of the mercury
that ends up contaminating the fish.
Hogweed sap can make you more susceptible to sunburn.
(Photo courtesy of the DNR)
A fast-growing invasive plant is spreading in the Great Lakes region. Officials are especially worried about this plant because it can cause your skin to burn. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen explains:
Transcript
A fast-growing invasive plant is spreading throughout Michigan and other parts of the region. Officials are especially worried about this plant because it can cause your skin to burn.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen explains:
Hogweed is so unusual looking, it stands out. It can grow twelve feet high with big white umbrella shaped flowers, leaves as large as five feet across, and white hairs on the stems.
Its unique look has prompted members of garden clubs to swap samples and spread the plant around, but that’s a problem because if you get hogweed sap on you, it can neutralize yours skin’s protection against the sun.
The result: blisters, just like a second-degree burn. Lee Ann Mizer speaks for the Ohio Agriculture
Department.
“I guess the closest thing for people to understand in comparison is that of poison ivy, and this is something that’s a lot more dangerous than poison ivy.”
Federal and state agriculture officials advise people who spot hogweed in forests or on their own property to stay away and call authorities. To kill the plants, they use a special pesticide.
George Washington's dentures (Photo courtesy of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research)
