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- From: Lon Rombough <lonrom@hevanet.com>
- To: Gardenwriters on Gardening <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: [gwl-g] Fwd: couple interesting articles
- Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 18:08:58 -0700
Not exactly gardening, but interesting and somewhat related since we all use water.
FYI - from this week's HerpDigest:
4) Studying The Chemistry Of Drugs In Wastewater And if Affects on Wildlife
Provided by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) October 4, 2004
What happens to painkillers, antibiotics and other medicines after their work is done, and they end up in the wastewater stream? The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is using laboratory experiments to help answer this question by studying what happens to pharmaceuticals when they react with chlorine--a disinfectant commonly used in wastewater treatment. Scientists around the world often find drugs in water samples taken from streams and other waterways, but little is known about byproducts of those drugs created during chlorine treatment or time spent in the environment. The topic drew a large audience at the American Chemical Society annual meeting last month, where NIST chemist Mary Bedner was one of several presenters. Among the concerns is possible damage to the environment, animals or people from bioactive compounds. NIST chemists selected four pharmaceuticals sometimes found in the environment, studied their reactions with chlorine over an hour (a !
timescale during which significant wastewater treatment occurs) and identified the resulting products using multiple techniques. Scientists found that the reactions are complicated and often produce several products, some unexpected. For instance, acetaminophen forms multiple products, two of which are highly toxic. All the drugs were transformed significantly, and their products were generally more "hydrophobic" than the parent pharmaceuticals. Hydrophobic compounds are more likely to build up in the body. It is not known whether these reaction products pose any health or environmental hazards. "We have unique measurement capabilities here at NIST, which help to confirm the presence of products that are difficult to identify," says chemist William MacCrehan. Measurement techniques and data collected throughout the project should help other laboratories further investigate possible health or environmental effects. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
7) Minnesota Cancels Speech About Frogs (Speech Was To Be About Possible Atrazine Links To Frog Abonormalities.)
Tom Meersman, Star Tribune, 10/24/04
A scientist from the University of California, Berkeley, was to be keynote speaker at an upcoming conference sponsored by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Then state officials learned the topic of his speech: his latest research linking the herbicide atrazine to frog abnormalities.
Now, Prof. Tyrone Hayes has been uninvited -- by order of the agency's commissioner.
Hayes, an endocrinologist who studies how chemicals affect amphibians, won't address the annual environmental conference in February even though his research is of particular interest in the state where schoolchildren discovered frogs with extra legs and other deformities nine years ago.
Hayes said his removal from the program is an act of censorship by a state agency bowing to agricultural interests and pesticide companies that don't like his findings. "Initially, before the MPCA uninvited me, they asked if I would remove the words 'atrazine' and 'pesticide' from the title of my talk, and of course I refused to do that because that's what I work on," said Hayes.
"My response was either you want me to talk or you don't," he said.
MPCA Commissioner Sheryl Corrigan said nobody is trying to keep Hayes' message "out of the press or out of the mainstream." She said she wanted a different speaker because Hayes presented some of his findings earlier this year in Minnesota, and his research has received wide attention.
"When I looked at the stuff that he's talked about in the past, and his research to date, I just didn't think it was keynote material," Corrigan said.
E-mails between Hayes and an MPCA staffer, obtained by the Star Tribune, tell a different story.
Hayes' contact was Jennifer Anthony-Powell, the agency's meeting planner and coordinator for the three-day Minnesota air, water and waste conference. The event, to be held in Bloomington, typically draws 1,100 people from industry and government.
After being asked to give the keynote address, Hayes corresponded with Anthony-Powell during August about the details of the conference. However, on Sept. 27 Anthony-Powell sent Hayes an e-mail expressing the need to "reassure management" about the keynote speech. "Politically speaking -- it sounds like it is the atrazine that is causing some concern from other agencies," she wrote.
She asked whether Hayes could make his title more general, because "I'm thinking that might alleviate some of the political power plays going on." She concluded, "I'm trying to stay ahead of the game so it doesn't get out of hand."
Hayes asked by e-mail for more information about the concerns of MPCA managers.
Anthony-Powell responded on Sept. 28: "Atrazine, atrazine, atrazine. This isn't a Dept. of Ag. conference and they are thinking there is a possibility that they are going to be attacked and not present to defend themselves." Anthony-Powell said there was concern that Hayes' talk might become "anti-government."
In an interview Tuesday, Anthony-Powell said that Wayne Anderson, an official in the MPCA commissioner's office, had approached her and raised these concerns. Anderson, who is the agency's liaison with the Minnesota Agriculture Department, could not be reached for comment.
Hayes immediately responded to the Sept. 28 e-mail. He said that his data had been published by top scientific journals. He acknowledged that he has been critical of government approaches to pesticide regulations, and he offered to share the keynote speech with government and industry representatives.
Hayes, a professor in Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology, said that some of his latest research suggests new ways that pesticides, including atrazine, may cause development problems in amphibians. "I will of course talk about this because it is important ... and it seems the government does not want people to know," he said in the e-mail.
On Sept. 29 MPCA officials called Hayes and withdrew the invitation to speak.
Corrigan said that she did not consult with state agriculture officials about Hayes' planned speech.
"My decision was not about agriculture," she said in a statement. "It was not about Professor Hayes personally. It was all about having the right keynote set the stage for this important conference."
Scientific understanding about atrazine's potential effects on frogs is a work in progress. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials reviewed 17 studies on the topic in 2003, including two by Hayes and 12 funded by the pesticide industry. They found insufficient data "to indicate that atrazine will or will not cause adverse developmental effects in amphibians."
Corrigan added that Hayes is welcome to attend future conferences if he has new data, but "from what I have been able to discern, his research today is the same as it was in February 2004" when he gave a presentation on a panel at the last MPCA conference. However, Corrigan said that she had not talked with Hayes to ask him directly about his latest research.
Hayes said he intended to speak at the conference about some of the research in four new papers that will be published soon in scientific journals. This summer he did field work along areas of the Upper Mississippi River, including in Wisconsin. He has also been studying the North Platte and Missouri rivers, with a focus on examining the health of amphibians and correlating it with pesticide levels in the water.
Hayes will discuss some of that work at a special legislative hearing before the state Senate's Environment and Natural Resources committee on Monday. His trip is being sponsored by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, a group that has been critical of pesticide use and regulation in the state.
Meanwhile, the new keynote speaker for the MPCA conference hasn't been named.
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- [gwl-g] Fwd: couple interesting articles, Lon Rombough, 10/25/2004
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