here is some good news, for a change

In a first, environmental health scientists and chemists are joining forces to find safe chemicals, as reported by Environmental Health News.

The goal of the collaboration is to merge the knowledge and ideas of toxicologists and others who specialize in the dangers posed by chemicals with experts in green chemistry, who design nontoxic, environmentally benign materials.

After reading the article, and the proposals put forth at this conference, I believe they are heading in the right direction. There is an understanding of the current limitations, and a concise plan to move forward. For example:

“The current regulatory strategy of testing chemicals one by one cannot possibly identify all of the substances that threaten health,” said Joe Thornton, an associate professor in the Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Oregon.

Thornton recommended three changes:

* Reform the nation’s chemical-by-chemical regulatory process.
* Put precautionary policies in place when the science about a compound is uncertain.
* End the use of chemicals with properties that are likely to disrupt hormones.

Goldman said one major barrier is that chemicals are regulated one at a time, while in human bodies, they always occur in mixtures.

I was sad to read that because of lack of regulation, lack of funding, and lack of training, there are only 300 of the 83,000 chemists that embrace “green” chemistry. I think the hope of this conference is to move the entire community into the right direction.

oops, it did it again

I have written a LOT about Bisphenol-A (BPA) and the negative effects it has on our bodies. However, I never saw this coming. I just read something and I am unclear about the ramifications, but at first glance it doesn’t seem good.

Scientists are discovering that BPA has had a negative impact in lab experiements. The BPA is being released in their test tubes and altering biologic reactions, therefore giving bogus data.

But they JUST found this out.

Furthermore, plastic pipette tips – a one-use product that delivers small amounts of liquid for experiments – also leached chemicals that block biological reactions. And chemicals from plastic plates used in protein experiments actually made the MAO-B enzyme more active.

(For those who don’t know, pipette tips can be thought of as your measuring spoons in the kitchen. They are used in almost every application of science because they are the measuring device for small amounts of material… we’re talking microliters.)

These effects could distort experiments enough to make a big difference in research. “I think it’s inevitable that a lot of data that’s in the public domain will be skewed in some way,” Holt says, though he hasn’t yet identified papers with erroneous data or conclusions.

Obviously, right now, we have no idea how far this extends; how much data is inaccurate.

Really…. this is NOT good. From working in a lab, I can tell you that in order to address this issue would require a massive overhaul of the science industry. One that they are not in a position to do, currently.

This is something that will need to be watched for a while to see how deep this goes.

HERE is the article