Environmental & Public Health

Add liver cancer—a childhood cancer on the rise in the US—to the growing list of potential health effects associated with bisphenol A (BPA) exposure that are under scrutiny by researchers. A recent study by scientists at the University of Michigan, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, is the first ever to report a dose-dependent, statistically significant relationship between perinatal (before and just after birth) exposures to environmentally relevant levels of BPA and development of cancerous liver tumors later in life.

Even as the researchers have been trying to unravel the tangled effects of pesticides and other chemicals on children’s development, they’ve been devising practical ways to help the study’s participants reduce their risk of exposure—a rare example of community engagement by academic scientists. In a place that’s often sharply polarized between those who own the fields and those who work in them, CHAMACOS researchers have insisted on involving all sides.

A revolutionary University of Colorado Boulder toilet fueled by the sun that is being developed to help some of the 2.5 billion people around the world lacking safe and sustainable sanitation will be unveiled in India this month.

"The changes in hydraulics and internal pressures associated with reversing flow in a pipeline, particularly one that crosses multiple hills and valleys, can increase the risk of a spill," said Director of Conservation Carol Foss of the Audubon Society of New Hampshire explained in a recent press conference. "While any discharge of crude oil into the North Country environment would be a disaster, impacts of a dilbit spill would be particularly severe and lasting.

Director and Lead Author Angel Hsu (2012) launched the 2014 Environmental Performance Index at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. The press briefing addresses the best and worst performers on Yale and Columbia Universities’ 2014 Environmental Performance Index, a global ranking of national-level environmental performance, introduce a new Global Scorecard that gives insight into global environmental performance over the past decade.

Switzer Fellows Evan Hansen and Mike Wilson testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works about how we might prevent chemical threats and improve safety at facilities across the country.

The 2014 World Ocean Summit was held last week at the chic Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, California. Together, global leaders discussed the current international dimensions of the global blue economy. The Switzer Environmental Network, namely Jessica Switzer and the folks at Blue Practice, provided the basically-unparalleled opportunity to attend the Ocean Summit.

Asa Bradman, 52, of Berkeley, has been reappointed to the California Scientific Guidance Panel, where he has served since 2007. Bradman has been co-founder and director of the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health at the University of California, Berkeley since 1998.

A recent study conducted by the Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles has found that people who commute by road inhale more pollution while driving than during the entire day. The research was conducted in Los Angeles, where an average driver spends 1.5 hours behind the wheel. This 90 minute period is responsible for the person’s intake of 33 to 45 percent of his total exposure to diesel fumes and ultrafine particles (UFP), said the study report.