Personal Care Products and ADHD

  • Engel says the phthalates found in many cosmetic products can be toxic to the nervous system.(Photo courtesy of Steven Depolo CC-2.0)

There’s been a rise in reports of behavioral disorders in kids over the past decade or so. Some researchers say genetics, lack of sleep, and chaotic households all contribute to things like ADHD. Now researchers say another cause could be personal care products. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

There’s been a rise in reports of behavioral disorders in kids over the past decade or so. Some researchers say genetics, lack of sleep, and chaotic households all contribute to things like ADHD. Now researchers say another cause could be personal care products. Julie Grant reports.

Researcher Stephanie Engel at Mount Sinai College of Medicine says we’re all exposed to a group of chemicals called phthalates all the time. Heavier ones are used in plastics. Lower weight phthalates are used in fragrances, shampoos, cosmetics and nail polishes, to make them work better and last longer.

Some studies have looked at the relationships between phthalates and problems in reproduction. But Engel says phthalates are can be toxic to the nervous system. So she and her colleagues wanted to see if exposure to phthalates in the womb affected children’s brain development.

“WE ENROLLED A GROUP OF WOMEN WHO WERE PREGNANT AND RECEIVING PRENATAL CARE AT MT. SINAI. AND WHEN THEY WERE PREGNANT, WE COLLECTED A URINE SAMPLE FROM THEM. AND WE CONTINUED TO FOLLOW THE WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS.”

Engel says researchers tested the urine of the pregnant women in the study.

That’s because when we rub on lotion or use shampoo, phthalates are absorbed into our bodies, processed and eliminated.

She says the women who had higher levels of the pthalates during pregnancy reported more behavioral problems as their children got older:

“THEIR PARENTS, THEIR MOTHERS, REPORTED THEIR BEHAVIOR AS MORE DISRUPTIVE AND MORE PROBLEMATIC. SO THEY TENDED TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE, HAVE MORE ATTENTION PROBLEMS, HAVE MORE CONDUCT PROBLEMS AND ALSO EXHIBIT MORE SYMPTOMS OF DEPRESSION.”

Engel says the problems looked like the types of problems found in children with ADHD: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

She says no behavior effects were found for the phthalates used in vinyl toys and other soft plastics. But the higher the mother’s exposure to phthalates found in personal care products, the more the symptoms were manifested by their children. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal – Environmental Health Perspectives.

“I CANNOT SEE HOW THE CONCLUSIONS THAT ARE REACHED ARE SUPPORTED BY THE WAY THE STUDY IS DONE.”

John Bailey is chief scientist for the Personal Care Products Council. That’s the trade association for the companies that make things like cosmetics, shampoo and nail polish.

He says in any study that correlates a behavior to an outcome – there needs to be a control for outside influences.

“IN THIS CASE THOSE CONTROLS, AND AGAIN THESE ARE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, NO MATTER WHAT TYPE OF STUDY YOU’RE DOING, ARE NOT THERE. THEY’RE NOT CONTROLLING FOR THE GENETICS OF THE CHILDREN, THEIR HOME ENVIRONMENT, THEIR DIETS.”

Without those kinds of controls, Bailey says there’s no way to draw a conclusion from the study.

Other scientists who’ve looked at phthalates say the Mount Sinai study shows a new area of concern about these chemicals. But it needs to be replicated by other research.

Still, this isn’t the first time this type of correlation has been made. In a study published last year, Korean researchers linked childhood exposure to phthalates to ADHD.

Researcher Stephanie Engel says environmental toxicants, like phthalates, clearly play a role in child neurodevelopment.

“THERE’S NOTHING ELSE THAT COULD EXPLAIN THE RESULTS THAT WE’VE OBSERVED. WE SPENT OVER A YEAR PROCESSING THIS DATA AND LOOKING AT IT IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS. IT IS WHAT IT IS. THESE ARE THE RELATIONSHIPS.”

Engel says more study needs to be done. In the meantime, she says pregnant women might want to avoid phthalates in personal care products. They’re not listed on the label – but she says anything that has “fragrance” on the ingredients list probably contains phthalates.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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The Great Depression and Green Jobs

  • The CCC worked on soil conservation projects, built 3,000 state parks, and replanted forests. The men in the CCC planted three-billion trees - that’s estimated to be half of the trees ever planted by humans in the U.S. (Photo courtesy of the National Resources Conservation Service)

Today we hear a lot of news calling
this “the worst recession since the
Great Depression.” Tonight, PBS
begins airing a series of documentaries
from American Experience called
“The 1930s.” Lester Graham reports
the series looks back at the Great
Depression:

Transcript

Today we hear a lot of news calling
this “the worst recession since the
Great Depression.” Tonight, PBS
begins airing a series of documentaries
from American Experience called
“The 1930s.” Lester Graham reports
the series looks back at the Great
Depression:

The documentaries in “The 1930s” series look at the stockmarket crash, the Dust Bowl, and the government’s response – such as President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Robert Stone directed one of the five documentaries. He looked at the Civilian Conservation Corps – the CCC. Stone says it was the first of Roosevelt’s work programs, but it also tackled the biggest environmental disasters.

“We’d spent hundreds of years just chopping down all of the forests in this country and over-using all of the farmland. The topsoil was all running into our rivers and off into the ocean. And it reached a sort of crisis point in the 1920s and early ‘30s.”

FDR had watched the forests disappear and soil erode near his home in Hyde Park, New York. Putting men to work correcting those problems made sense to him.

“FDR was very aware of that. He started a sort of mini-Civilian Conservation Corps in New York state when he was Governor and then when he went to the White House he came up with the Civilian Conservation Corps.”

FDR: “We are planning within a few days to ask the Congress for legislation to enable the government to take on public works, thus stimulating directly and indirectly the employment of many others in well-considered projects.”

But this was new for government. At that time, helping the poor was something for charity, not government.

Harley Jolley is one of four CCC veterans who tell their stories in the documentary.

He says hiring unemployed young men to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps was new to politicians. But they saw it for the practical politics it was.

“And because all those politicians were well aware that they had young men in their hometown, in their home state that could vote for them next time around, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll go with you.’ And very quickly it came to pass.”

FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps was the first, but several work programs followed.

The CCC worked on soil conservation projects, built three-thousand state parks and replanted forests. The men in the CCC planted three-billion trees – that’s estimated to be half of the trees ever planted by humans in the U.S.

This revolutionary idea got off the ground quickly. Camps were set up in every state. Men worked under military officers. The Civilian Conservation Corps members were required to send most of their pay back home.

Sometimes nearby towns welcomed the young men. CCC veteran Vincente Ximenes says, other times, people were wary of Roosevelt’s army of workers.

“And there were some farmers who didn’t like FDR and what he did. He was called a Communist, a Socialist, any name you could find. So, therefore, the CCC-ers also, of course, were no good as far as they were concerned.”

And it wasn’t just farmers.

The documentary’s director, Robert Stone says, in the beginning, President Roosevelt faced a lot of opposition to his government ‘green jobs’ program.

“Well, there were concerns very similar to what you have today with concerns about deficit spending.”

“The national debt today is 30-billion as compared to 19-billions under Hoover. And God knows Hoover was bad enough.”

“So that was on the right. And on the left there were concerns about paying these people a dollar-a-day. The unions were upset about it. But the success of it was such that it really quelled most any opposition.”

The Civilian Conservation Corps documentary, like the other documentaries in the 1930s American Experience series, looks at the connections between environmental damage and economic collapse in a way that still resonates today.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Hurricane Season Is Here

  • Monday, June 1 is the official start day of hurricane season (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Today is the first day of the Hurricane season,

but we’ve already seen a tropical depression off

the Atlantic coast. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Today is the first day of the Hurricane season, but we’ve already seen a tropical depression off the Atlantic coast. Lester Graham reports:

The Weather Channel noted that tropical depression was farther North earlier than any potential hurricane in the 159 years of storm records.

You can’t help but wonder whether climate change is having an effect here.

Jeff Masters is a former hurricane hunter, now with Weather Underground.

He says that’s not what’s happening. He says this storm was getting stronger by following the the gulf stream.

“There just happened to be a little blip of warm water associated with the gulf stream that this storm took advantage of. It was a very small storm so it was very lucky. It was able to stay over the warmest part of the gulf stream.”

Masters says it’ll be decades before we’ll be able to tell if climate change is actually affecting hurricanes.

Forecasts this year call for a pretty average hurricane season.

Masters says an El Niño event could occur later. That’s important, since the number and intensity of Atlantic storms are usually reduced during an El Niño year.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Money Over Mother Nature

  • A Gallup poll finds people feel the economy should be given priority over the environment (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

A new poll shows Americans put money over Mother Nature. Lester Graham reports it amounts to a real shift in attitudes:

Transcript

A new poll shows Americans put money over Mother Nature. Lester Graham reports it amounts to a real shift in attitudes:

A Gallup poll finds people feel the economy should be given priority over the environment.

51% think so. 42% still think the environment is more important.

Frank Newport, Gallup Poll Editor-in-Chief, says Gallup has been asking this same question every year for 25 years.

“This is the first time that we have had more Americans say growth should be given the priority not the environment. So, it’s a fairly dramatic and significant change this year.”

Newport says the results reflect people’s concerns about keeping their jobs and keeping their homes in this economy.

He concedes the issue is not just black and white – the environment versus the economy.

Jobs are being created in a shift to greener fuels and energy efficiency. But apparently that’s not clear to the American public. Newport suggests that might be the challenge facing people in the environmental movement.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Green Projects and Stimulus Bill

  • At least 62-billion of the 789-billion dollar package are for green investments (Source: Man-ucommons at Wikimedia Commons)

The stimulus package before Congress spends an unprecedented amount of money on issues important to environmentalists. Lester Graham reports it looks like the interests of the environment and the economy are aligning:

Transcript

The stimulus package before Congress spends an unprecedented amount of money on issues important to environmentalists. Lester Graham reports it looks like the interests of the environment and the economy are aligning:

The stimulus package is packed with things that make environmentalists smile.

There are billions for renewable energy and research for alternative energy sources. There are billions for making federal buildings and homes more energy efficient. There are billions for mass transit and Amtrak, and a half-a-billion to training workers for green collar jobs.

Melinda Pierce is with the Sierra Club.

“Well, I tell you, what has struck me is the ‘billion’ word instead of ‘million’. So many of these projects – in terms of weatherization, energy efficiency, high-speed rail – have suffered from a lack of funding for the last eight years. This package will funnel literally billions of dollars into the programs that we think are America’s clean energy future.”

So, how many billions total in green investments? At least 62-billion of the 789-billion dollar package.

And many environmentalists, some economists and business leaders, and, apparently, a good number of the Members of Congress think the growth sector of the economy is going to be the green sector.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Will Green Collar Jobs Pay Off?

  • Obama delivering the American Recovery and Reinvestment speech on Thursday, January 8, 2009 (Photo courtesy of the Obama Transition Team)

Some top business leaders
expect there will be only one growth
sector during this recession: energy
efficiency. Some call it the dawning
of the ‘green economy.’ Lester Graham
reports many are calling on the
government to invest heavily to get
the economy going again. But some are
worried that billions will go to ‘make
work’ projects with no long-term gains:

Transcript

Some top business leaders
expect there will be only one growth
sector during this recession: energy
efficiency. Some call it the dawning
of the ‘green economy.’ Lester Graham
reports many are calling on the
government to invest heavily to get
the economy going again. But some are
worried that billions will go to ‘make
work’ projects with no long-term gains:

Just as computers and the information age defined the economy many business leaders believe alternative fuels and energy conservation will define the green economy.

During a recent speech at George Mason University, President-elect Barack Obama indicated he wants to encourage that growth in green collar jobs.

“Jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.”

There’s no doubt that much of President-elect Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is green.

The AFL-CIO has its own Green Jobs for America Program. The union wants 100-billion dollars of government money to be invested in the kind of jobs Mr. Obama talked about.

Pat Devlin is with the AFL-CIO’s Michigan Building Trades Council. He says he hopes Congress moves on the Obama plan soon.

“We’re hoping ASAP. Were looking to get something kicked off in the next six months. And like I said, we’ve got the projects. We just need the infusion of the investment behind it and we’re ready to go. We got to be smart when we do get the dollars, too. That they’re spent in the right place to get people back to work, get our economy headed in the right direction.”

The AFL-CIO has been talking to the Obama administration… and the union likes what it’s hearing.

President-elect Obama says making buildings and homes more energy efficient will mean jobs now and save billions in natural gas and oil in the future making us less dependent on foreign fossil fuels… and reducing greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming.

But the government has a nasty habit of screwing these things up. Members of Congress want the money for their states even if they don’t have the kind of shovel-ready plans that will mean those kind of long-term benefits and that could sabotage the effort.

“You just can’t throw money at the problems and somehow magically it’s going to work.”

Eric Orts directs the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership, part of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He says the investments should go to projects that mean more energy and economic efficiencies in the future have long-term benefits that will benefit the economy. Otherwise it’s wasting an opportunity.

“You might create short-term jobs for some time, but that’s not going to lead to the long-term foundation growth that I’m talking about. That’s going to require some intelligent allocation of the funds so you get the payoffs.”

The Obama administration will have to be picky the jobs, very cautious about how the taxpayer money is invested if we’re going to see those payoffs.

For The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Obama on Environmental Economy

  • Obama delivering the American Recovery and Reinvestment speech on Thursday, January 8, 2009 (Photo courtesy of the Obama Transition Team)

President-elect Barack Obama
is calling on Congress to get busy on
his American Recovery and Reinvestment
Plan. Lester Graham reports energy
and environment are top items in the
plan:

Transcript

President-elect Barack Obama
is calling on Congress to get busy on
his American Recovery and Reinvestment
Plan. Lester Graham reports energy
and environment are top items in the
plan:


Speaking at George Mason University, President-elect Obama called for dramatic
action to overcome the recession. The plan starts off with investments in new forms
of energy and energy efficiency.

“We will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years. We will
modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of
two-million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy
bills.”

Obama says building solar panels and wind turbines and fuel-efficient cars will mean
more American jobs and improve the environment at the same time.

Obama warns those investments, and others he outlined, means spending a lot of
government money. But, he says doing too little or nothing at all will mean losing
even more jobs and watching the recession get worse.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Paying for Ponds to Stem Farm Runoff

  • Alan Roberson's pond traps sediment. Before the pond was built, silt washed into a creek and caused problems farther downstream. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Since the dust bowl days of the 1930s Depression, the government has been working with farmers to reduce erosion. Today, soil conservation is better. But fields still lose a lot of topsoil because not all farmers use the best conservation methods. Dirt is washed away by rain. That silt clogs up streams, rivers and lakes. But one region is trying to intercept the silt before it gets to the river system. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Since the dust bowl days of the 1930s Depression, the government has been working with
farmers to reduce erosion. Today, soil conservation is better. But fields still lose a lot of
topsoil because not all farmers use the best conservation methods. Dirt is washed away
by rain. That silt clogs up streams, rivers and lakes. But one region is trying to intercept
the silt before it gets to the river system. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:


Farm fields in all or part of 38 states drain into the Mississippi River. Some of the
tributaries of the Mississippi are so silted that dredges have to operate around the clock to keep river
shipping lanes open.


The Sangamon River in central Illinois is not big enough for shipping cargo, but it does
run into the man-made Decatur Lake. The city of Decatur gets its water from that lake
and often has to dredge it to keep the water inlets from clogging up.


Keith Alexander is the Director of Water Management for the city of Decatur, Illinois.
He says a little soil erosion on enough farms adds up:


“And the drainage area that runs into the lake is 925 square miles of some of the world’s
best topsoil. We have literally a half-a-million acres of corn and soybean fields that flow
into our lake that we use for drinking water purposes.”


Not only does the silt clog the lake, it also carries fertilizers and pesticides with it,
polluting the lake. The city has offered farmers financial incentives to reduce soil
erosion. But it hasn’t gotten enough participation from farmers to solve the problem. So,
the City of Decatur decided to try another approach. They would offer money to landowners to build ponds. Those ponds would be located in key drainage areas next
to farm fields.


Shannon Allen is a watershed specialist with the Macon County Soil and Water
Conservation District. He says it turned out to be a pretty popular program:


“The landowners wanted it for recreational purposes, obviously fish, maybe swimming
or whatever. We’re putting them in so we can collect sediment from the farm fields
above them so they don’t go into the river system.”


Shannon Allen says the ponds work a lot better at keeping silt out of creeks and rivers and lakes
than other methods to reduce erosion.


“Basically ponds collect 90% of the silt. And, so anytime you can put up a pond, you’re
doing better than a grassed waterway or a terrace that don’t reduce sediment loads by that
much.”


The city offers up to 5,000 dollars to landowners, but that’s well short of the actual cost. A typical pond
can cost 20 to 25,000 dollars to build. But landowners have been taking the city’s offer.


Alan Roberson owns a few acres at the bottom of a sloping corn field. About 42 acres
drains onto his property and then into a creek. He says when he moved there, there was
just a big ditch where stormwater from the neighboring farm fields washed a bigger and
bigger gully, carrying sediment to the creek:


“There was places eight, ten feet deep. We’ve lived here almost 20 years and it just kept
getting deeper as it went along. I hated to even come down here and look at it because it
was getting so bad. So, I’m glad that program came along to take care of it. As you can
see, it’s not doing that anymore.”


Roberson took advantage of the city’s pond program. Where the gully used to be, a carpet
of green lawn now borders a picturesque little pond.


Alan Roberson says the pond has a pipe in the bottom of it, kind of like a bathtub plug. It
was part of the design required to get the matching funds from the city. When the pond
fills up with silt, Roberson will be able to drain it and dig out the soil:


(Sound of water trickling)


“See this valve down here? You can actually pull that up. It could very well be 20 years
from now they’ll get enough silt in here where a person will have to bring it down. But
like I said, it’s designed to do that.”


That silt is some of the richest dirt in the corn belt and could be sold back to farmers or
used for gardens or flower beds. The landowner will have to pay the cost of digging it
out, but it’s that much more silt that won’t have to be dredged from the lakes or the rivers
that feed them, where people get their public water supply.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Study Finds Rural Living Unhealthy

A new study from Canada finds people living in rural and northern areas are in worse health than their urban counterparts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A new study from Canada finds people living in rural and northern areas are in worse health than
their urban counterparts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


The study found rural Canadians have higher rates of obesity, depression, high blood pressure,
and even asthma.


Statistics Canada based its findings on interviews with 130,000 Canadians.


It blames lifestyle differences, such as the greater number of rural smokers.


But Jill Konkin, president of the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada, says a lack of health care
is also responsible.


“Rural areas tend to have people who are poor, they have less access to not just medical care, but
the prevention-promotion part of medicine. There’s less access to all sorts of just community
resources.”


Konkin’s group is one of many calling on the Canadian government to recruit more health care
workers into rural areas.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Winter: An Old Friend Returned

As the heart of winter approaches, it’s tempting to withdraw from the outdoor world and wait till spring. But Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Springer thinks the forgotten benefits of winter far outweigh the hardships:

Transcript

As the heart of winter approaches, it’s tempting to withdraw from the outdoor world and wait till
spring. But as Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Springer thinks, the forgotten
benefits of winter far outweigh the hardships.


Outside my window there’s an old sugar maple, grey and bare against the late autumn sky. I’ve
raked up most of its leaves and spread them as mulch on my vegetable garden. It seems like the
tree and me have nothing better to do than wait for spring.


But for a tree, the real work of winter has just begun. To prepare for frigid weather, trees undergo
a process known as hardening off. Their sap withdraws from the twigs and branches and returns
to the roots. And the tree’s roots will continue to grow until the ground freezes solid.


When it comes to surviving winter, I think trees have the right idea. It’s in their nature to slow
down and focus on interior growth. Unfortunately, most of us don’t do that. Instead of adapting to
winter, we try to escape it. We dash from our heated house into a semi-heated garage. We drive in
heated cars – which often have heated seats and even heated steering wheels – and we work in a
heated … Well, you get the idea.


But what would happen if we tried harder to accept winter on its own terms? Might we be happier
and healthier?


Researchers say that people can get surprisingly acclimatized to winter weather. As our bodies
get accustomed to cold, we shiver less and our skin retains more heat. In Australia, scientists have
studied aborigines who sleep outside naked in cold weather. They don’t get hypothermia. In
Japan, shellfish divers have been known to spend hours in the ice-cold ocean, wearing nothing
more than a cotton swimsuit.


Spending more time outside in winter can even make you happier. That’s good news for the 10
million Americans who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD is a form of depression
that’s triggered by the short winter days. Some people take anti-depressants to fight SAD. Yet
researchers find that many people can overcome it without using pills. They just need to get
outdoors and absorb some authentic daylight.


Do you suppose Mother Nature is trying to tell us something? For 50,000 years of human
history, winter was a time of rest and rejuvenation woven between the cycle of seasons. And I
doubt that 75 years of electric indoor heat has changed that. For instance, our bodies still crave
good food in winter – not just fudge and party mix, but homemade soup or a juicy pot roast. And
there’s still something about the solemn purity of winter that calls us to focus inward. To boost
the spirits, there’s nothing like a quiet walk on a snowy Sunday afternoon. It’s also the best time
to read the uplifting books that have languished on the nightstand since summer.


This is, without question, the most trying of seasons. It gets depressingly dark by 6 o’clock, and
the wind howls at the door like a hungry wolf. But the frozen solitude of winter is not a thing to
be feared. Winter is simply an old friend returned, who waits in unspoken silence to wish us well.


Tom Springer is a free lance writer from Three Rivers, Michigan.