Dan's Environmental Health Blog

Asb estosis is the disease due to the inhalation of asbestos. Asbestos is the exposure and is regulated by OHSA and the EPA. I chose this one because it is a silent killer especially to lower income classes as they typically live in areas and apartments that most likely have not been improved and updated to today's standard code per OHSA. Asbestos still lives in the walls and on the ceilings with children and families inhaling it all day every day. It is also in pipes and vinyl floor tiles. You can find the information here https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/asbestos/ OHSA has three standards for addressing asbestos exposure. 1. General industry work: 29 CFR 1910.1001.  2. Shipyard work code  29 CFR 1915.1001 . 3. Construction work code  29 CFR 1926.1101 . These are coeds and guidelines that assist in asbestos work for organizations.  Interesting material if you wish to view it is the information for asbestos on toxnet https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/...

I chose to look into the ILO or the international labour organization. Within the ILO they support the Hotels, Catering, and Tourism sector. I thought this was a good one to look in to as it directly affects me and any person who travels, eats food, and stays in hotels. This sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world but lacks the structure it needs. Reasons include being a fragmented industry, seasonalized employees, low skills needed, and low wages. I specifically looked in to social protection of the employees. Typically, the hours are of non social working hours, meal prep etc. Difficulty working conditions lead to high turnover and low career stability. Additionally, seasonal tourism effect employment and wages. This is important to us as the low wage, typically migrant employees, are the ones cooking our food, changing and cleaning our rooms typically go unnoticed per the ILO. Should this sector of the industry fail or show signs of weakness, people will stay les...

I work for a company called Medtronic. We make all sorts of medical device equipment. The one I thought was the most dangerous does warn heavily against radiation exposure. I could not locate the specific document (MSDS) but this link will show you what type of radiation exposure if given out during different settings. It is called the Oarm. https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/healthcare-professionals/products/neurological/surgical-imaging-systems/o-arm/dose-considerations.html This is a Radiological safety hazard. It requires those that operate it, Rad Techs, to wear lead lined aprons and thyroid collars. All those that don't operate it leave the room when the device is doing a 3D spin (Xray). PPE is very important for this device. Sine I was not able to locate the specific MSDS I could not compare it to the ToxNet database. Here is the link for occupational hazards for xrays. PPE is very important! https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search2/f?./temp/~hSs0Wm:3

What I find most interesting about the Needlemen lead article is that is caused the following: ADHD, aggression, and delinquency among children. For adults, lead poisoning over time lead to an increase in Alzheimer's risk. What also stands out to me is that lead poisoning or at least the concern that it could cause issues occurred in Australia back in 1892. It took almost 100 years to ban lead in paint as it was as a known metal exposure to humans. The Nigeria article shocked me that this still occurs. Well, maybe not. Social injustice occurs all over the world and until something like this happens it does not get fixed unfortunately. Quite staggering numbers to have that many children die so young. I am very happy that MSF was able to treat the remaining sick children and bring the serum levels back to a healthier level. Hopefully, the gold artisanal ore processing company was heavily find or covered the cost for the healthcare.

First, watching the video, I assumed everyone had heard of the great pacific garbage patch. They either fixed the interviews or I am wrong in assuming people know where their garbage can end up. I have not heard of green chemistry before. I have heard of reducing pollution at the molecular level was something we wanted to do but did not know there was a term for it. I participate in remediation and think this is important but the real winner is green chemistry. For me, I don't know if there is anything around me that has used green chemistry. The EPA has a great website dedicated to it; find it here https://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry Biofuels seem to be the biggest hope of the EPA. As well as removing solvents from the chemical process for chemicals. They even list what they consider the benefits to the 12 steps. https://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/benefits-green-chemistry

After watching the introduction video it saddens me that one government body is capable of regulating industry. You would think someone was watching and regulating what amount of chemicals and what type go in to our products. I am so glad companies like this, the green science policy institute care enough and are here to help spread the word. I chose to focus on antimicrobials as I tend to use these products often. When I am at work, I use antimicrobial alcohol to was my hands in the operating room probably 10 times a day. I wonder if triclosan is in it. I will check at work tomorrow. If so, I am shocked it's in a hospital. At home, we have all the fragrant soap you can think of. Bath, sink, and dishwasher all contain some form. I will have to change that up.

I chose the Department of Energy (DOE) to look in to and how this branch of service might affect our environment. This division is almost solely responsible for getting us away from fossil fuels. I think this division has incredible responsibility with rising temperature and the number of hurricanes increasing in count and strength. The DOE can shape our new world through energy efficiency, renewable energy, and innovation around these topics. An interesting topic and solution from the DOE is STEM. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. It is here that the future of climate change exists. The belief that these strong subjects, taught to young kids, can hopefully foster innovation and engineering feats of tomorrow.

My hometown of Danville, CA in the EastBay has one small little page dedicated to health. It wasn't hard to find but it wasn't easy to locate on the website either. Here is the link: https://www.danville.ca.gov/303/Health-Services Danville lists a bunch of health issues and services but only a few that I would consider environmental. Restaurant inspections, communicable diseases, hazardous material monitoring and homelessness. Other than these bullet points on the website there is no real mention of environmental health, links, or information to assist the community. 

My topic is BPA and miscarriage. I wanted to find out if there is a direct link between BPA exposure and miscarriage. There is a collection of information readily available on my initial searches within peer reviewed article databases such as PubMed and Toxnet.  There is no real regulatory body that governs miscarriage. Mainly information is housed on some database or reasons why miscarriage may happen. Some main bodies that monitor maternal and infant health are Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) , the National ART Surveillance System (NASS), and the  Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System (PMSS). The links are attached to the text and are within the CDC. 

I would like to see chemical and pesticide policy parallel that of radiation policy in hospitals. I routinely have to monitor my radiation exposure by wearing a badge wherever I go. I visit many hospitals throughout the week for work. This badge, with my control badge at home, I send in every three months to measure the amount of radiation it picked up; hence what I picked up and absorb while working over the past three months. This level is measured at a facility in MN and sent back to me indicating what level of exposure I have had over the three months. This in turn shapes how I work. If we could develop something similar, where we could monitor all the farm workers remotely, and then provide feedback on exposure I think this would go a long way to helping those who are exposed to chemicals. If a farm worker was high for one chemical we would remove that worker from that field to allow the exposure to dissipate. We would also know what farm it was and penalize that farm in some mone...

I chose to read the sixth option, protection of workers and communities who are exposed to chemicals/pesticides. I thought this was an important one for our own bay area has we have a ton of people who work the Salinas/Monterey valley and are exposed to a number of chemicals. This valley produces all varieties of berries, lettuce, and artichokes. The surrounding communities, castro valley, seaside, and Watsonville are therefore exposed to a bunch of chemical run off to stream, dirt, and workers from their shoes and clothes. As mentioned in this article, the main issue is environmental justice. The best berries in the world come from this land but we treat the surrounding area terribly. There is not one really decent hospital. The closet one is Dominican in Santa Cruz. What are the companies doing for their workers. As an outsider, I cannot really tell. But the companies are Dole and Driscoll's to name the big companies. I wonder if they are implementing the hierarchy of health ...

The India pesticide movie was pretty difficult to watch. The workers have zero protection and work with the worst chemicals in the world for a couple bucks. Well, the last meal I had was spaghetti and marinara sauce. My wife and I make our own sauce from produce purchased from Safeway. I thought for sure this would be a pretty safe bet for pesticide cleanliness. Although somewhat right, I still didn't like the fact that a neurotoxin was found to be in tomatoes. The specific pesticide was methamidophos at found 2% of the time. It is also a high bee toxin. I wanted to look up a another meal I commonly have and that is sweet potatoes and peas. Sweet potatoes are loaded with carcinogen pesticides! It is (dicloran) found 42% of the time in samples. So disappointing. Would organic help? Since I could not locate regular peas, I used baby food peas. Not much going on with peas. There was a 0.3% finding for Myclobutanil which is a reproduction and hormone disruptor.

The first article is great. It paints a nice picture of what type of foods are sourced, how they are sourced, and what public health and hospitals are aiming for. The articles main points are; Local foods provide a decrease in climate change (reduction in travel miles for the food), able to increase food safety as local farmers aren't in the main stream and will not harm the main food supply, competitive prices, taste, and you support you local community. All great examples of what is possible. Farming around the bay area is well known. Looking at the websites provided on the pdf, a ton of berries, artichokes, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, garlic, and flowers are all grown in the central coast. Monterey, Salinas, Watsonville, and Santa Cruz to name a few. All the local growers, even though they may be large companies like Dole, ship to local stores. I don't consider these 'local' farmers but it does count for us. They don't have to ship inventory very far. Its the s...

Well, the first pdf was disheartening. I am disappointed to learn that ground turkey had the most AR bacteria in the meat. I thought I was doing good by eating less red meat (which still may be true) but overall turkey is the worst for AR bacterial ingestion and absorption for humans. The red meat was the best! So, I just don't know anymore. The only thing that seems save is organic naturally grown veggies and fruits from the dirt. I'm sure we'll learn something bad about organic soon though. Ha. MRSA is a serious issue that has been around for many, many years. I started hearing about it in hospitals about a decade ago when we saw patients becoming resistant to antibiotics. This is an alarming issue that we need to figure out. The fact that animals are now having MRSA and resistance is not good. The antimicrobial soaps, lotions, and hospital furniture can be summed up in one sentence, I think. Why are we using chemicals to kill off normal flora on our hands and bodies?...

What an informative movie. I enjoyed learning about wine, dirt, ecological systems for agriculture, and enjoyed a bit of culture too. I like the humming bird story. Not just the story, but it is a story that is taught to children of their communities. The idea and culture behind it was nice. There are a few farming areas near me but none in my county. Solano county has a cattle farm, the entire central valley seems to be all dairy farming. Pig farming is concentrated in san joaquin and Stanislas counties in the central valley. And finally chickens, again, tied to the central valley. The dirt and resources needed in the central valley must be absurd. Bees have been a major story, I think for the past year. I have heard about it in the news and on television. I have heard of bees being stolen, rented, leased, and dying due to climate change. Who would have thought such a small piece to the puzzle of dirt and food could cause such an issue. I rarely compost. I usually just happen to...