Related Links:

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

One doctor’s quest to sound the alarm on ‘wind turbine syndrome’

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

Global boiling declares war on Thanksgiving

Officials at the World Health Organization used the occasion of World Health Day today to stress climate change's negative impacts on human health, warning that warming temperatures are already affecting the spread of disease. Increased temperatures have slowly expanded the range of malaria-carrying mosquitoes into new areas, including South Korea and the highlands of Papua New Guinea and Rwanda, and increased flooding of communities with poor sanitation has increased cases of cholera by mixing drinking water with sewage, among other effects. "The core concern is succinctly stated: climate change endangers human health," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. "The warming of the planet will be gradual, but the effects of extreme weather events -- more storms, floods, droughts and heat waves -- will be abrupt and acutely felt. Both trends can affect some of the most fundamental determinants of health: air, water, food, shelter, and freedom from disease."

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science

World Health Organization ranks countries' environmental health

To those who think environmentalism is all about prioritizing starfish over humans, read on: Cleaning up the globe's air and water could save 13 million lives every year, according to the World Health Organization. Yesterday, WHO released a country-by-country analysis of health issues in 192 nations, factoring in agricultural methods, noise pollution, workplace hazards, climate change, and more. In 23 countries, more than 10 percent of deaths could be traced to just two fixable factors: unsafe water and indoor air pollution from cooking fires. Poverty-stricken Angola, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Afghanistan fared the worst in the rankings, but environmental health is of course an issue in developed countries too; the report indicated that 1.8 million lives could be saved annually in 53 countries around Europe if a healthy environment was prioritized. Iceland and Israel keep their people the healthiest, according to WHO, followed by Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Britain, and the U.S.

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

One doctor’s quest to sound the alarm on ‘wind turbine syndrome’

World Health Organization endorses controlled use of DDT to fight malaria

Reversing a 30-year-old policy, the World Health Organization on Friday announced that the pesticide DDT, used indoors in moderation, is critical to fighting malaria, and argued that such use won't harm people or the environment. Applied to the inside walls of dwellings once or twice a year, DDT will join with medications and pesticide-treated bed nets in what officials hope will be an effective malaria-fighting trifecta, particularly in Africa. Widely sprayed on farm fields in the mid-20th century, DDT was banned in much of the world starting in the 1970s after it was found to enter the food chain, killing birds and wildlife and posing a cancer threat to humans. Environmental groups are conflicted about the WHO's announcement -- the Sierra Club voiced "reluctant" support, the Pesticide Action Network expressed concern but said it wouldn't try to block the move, and Beyond Pesticides said it was opposed. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) had no such reservations: "Finally ... we can put to rest the junk science and myths that have provided aid and comfort to the real enemy -- mosquitoes."

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Will Africa’s farmland become a ‘resource curse’?

DDT poised for a comeback to fight malaria in Africa

Hoping to gain ground in the fight against malaria, the World Health Organization will soon endorse the spraying of DDT in small amounts inside homes in afflicted areas. In May, the U.S. Agency for International Development made a similar endorsement. Malaria, spread by mosquitoes, kills as many as a million people a year, 90 percent of them in Africa. DDT wiped out malaria in the U.S. in the 1940s, and was used to fight the disease around the globe in the '50s and '60s. But it was also heavily applied to farm fields during that era, and was found to wreak havoc on ecosystems and cause reproductive problems in wildlife and humans. Beginning in the 1970s, the U.S. and many European countries banned DDT, and pressured African nations to follow suit. But other malaria-fighting methods haven't managed to wipe out the disease, so health officials are again leaning toward limited use of DDT. Enviros are split on the issue; Greenpeace, for example, opposes use of DDT, while the Sierra Club acknowledges that closely monitored use of the pesticide can be important in fighting malaria.

Related Links:

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Will Africa’s farmland become a ‘resource curse’?

In a move likened to "a microbiological episode of CSI," a team of scientists has uncovered the culprit behind a disease that shook the world -- and that could very well strike again. Researchers announced today that they've traced the global SARS epidemic, which spread to 26 countries and infected thousands of people, to one small creature: the horseshoe bat.

Small bat, big problem.

Photo: Tigga Kingston.

"This is a huge question everyone wanted the answer to," says Mary Pearl, president of Wildlife Trust. The Trust cofounded and houses the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, whose researchers helped seal the deal. Jonathan Epstein, senior research scientist at CCM, led a team of 16 Chinese and Australian scientists that collected and analyzed samples from across mainland China last year. After testing cultures and blood from more than 400 bats in five separate labs, they confirmed the presence of a SARS-like virus in three species. They will publish their findings in an upcoming issue of Science.

"We can now conclusively say that we know the origin of SARS, and ... the virus was transmitted from animals to people," said Peter Daszak, executive director of CCM and a coauthor of the article. He says animal-to-human transmission is increasingly the case with emerging diseases -- including monkeypox, West Nile virus, and avian flu -- in a world greatly changed by ramped-up travel, trade, and development.

The highly contagious SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) appeared in southern China in late 2002. During the next year, the disease -- and fears of contracting it -- gripped the globe. Images of mask-clad citizens peppered the nightly news, and authorities closed schools, enacted quarantines, and issued travel advisories. As one victim after another succumbed to a sometimes-fatal combination of cough, high fever, and respiratory distress, the World Health Organization struggled to understand the origins and transmission of this "atypical pneumonia." The outbreak, now estimated to have cost $50 billion, was largely contained by the summer of 2003, although sporadic cases have been suspected since.

Researchers discovered that SARS was caused by a type of virus called a coronavirus. Because the outbreak was traced to markets where live animals were sold, authorities eventually pinned the disease on the civet, a small, ferret-like mammal considered a delicacy. But traces of the virus were also found in several other animal species, including bats, leaving many questions unanswered. So Epstein -- a veterinarian with a degree in public health who's also something of a bat specialist -- headed to China's caves and marketplaces in search of the truth.

The bat that carried the virus is often sold as food, Epstein explains, and its feces are sometimes used medicinally -- even, coincidentally, as a treatment for respiratory problems. The unlucky civets, he adds, were probably infected by the bats as well; civets in the wild did not carry the virus. In short, he says, "this would have remained a bat coronavirus if not for human intervention."

Understanding the true source of the disease, researchers say, provides a way to predict and prevent future outbreaks. While SARS may seem like old news to some, that's not the case. "Lethal viruses tend to flare up and disappear," Pearl says. "The fact that the outbreak is over does not mean we can pretend it's not a problem, or that it's not coming back. But by identifying the link between SARS and the human population, we can take steps to break that link." These steps might include educating people about the risks of eating the bats, or encouraging markets not to sell them.

For Daszak and his colleagues, the finding emphasizes the vital relationship between humans, the environment, and public health -- a nexus that is the focus of CCM's work. The growing field of conservation medicine, which entails collaboration between experts from different fields, is increasingly relevant on a planet with a booming human population. The makeup of the research team, which included veterinarians, zoologists, virologists, and epidemiologists, shows that such collaborations are effective, Epstein says: "This was a real team effort, and the sum of people's knowledge is what made [the discovery] possible." Staff members from CCM are currently working with scientists and public-health officials in several countries, including China, to create conservation-medicine programs similar to their own.

Pearl hopes today's news will help raise awareness of the fact that diseases like SARS don't come from nowhere. "Emerging diseases are often reported as scary acts of God, much as hurricanes are, and links to human activities are not fully covered," she says. "People are beginning to understand [the connections]. The question is, what do we do now?"

Adds Epstein, "These diseases emerge because of human activities. If we just protected ecosystems, we'd protect both animal and human health. It's a preventable thing -- that's the bottom line."

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks

Water, conflict, and security on the banks of the Hudson

Climate Change Tied to 150,000 Deaths a Year, WHO Says

How's this for classic gloom and doom: Climate change led to 150,000 premature deaths in 2000, and the annual number of such deaths could double in 30 years if current warming trends are not reversed, according to a new report by the World Health Organization. Global warming hits hardest in developing countries and tropical areas, where rising temperatures often lead to drought, malnutrition, and an ever-widening range for disease-bearing mosquitoes. Nor are wealthy nations immune: Some 20,000 Europeans died this past summer as a result of a sweltering heat wave that swept the continent. We're struggling to infuse humor into this one. So a U.S. climate negotiator walks into a bar ...

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

One doctor’s quest to sound the alarm on ‘wind turbine syndrome’

City Dwellers in Asia Face Rising Tide of Pollution-Related Illnesses

Residents of urban areas throughout Asia will suffer from a broad range of serious health problems unless environmental conditions improve in a hurry, according to the World Health Organization. About 1.5 million Asians die every year from diseases related to air pollution, and many more succumb to sickness caused by water pollution. The brunt of the problem is borne by the poor, who are more vulnerable to environmental health hazards because they lack adequate housing, sanitation, and medical care. Shigeru Omi, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, called for a grassroots effort to protect human and environmental health throughout the region: "There is no longer a need to wait for the central government to take action. People and their leaders can take on tasks on their own."

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

One doctor’s quest to sound the alarm on ‘wind turbine syndrome’

If you were looking for good news about endocrine disputers, you're out of luck. A global report by the World Health Organization has found extensive damage to wildlife from endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and could not rule out possible risks for humans as well. EDCs -- which lurk in pesticide residues on food, plastics, household products, and industrial chemicals, among other places -- can mimic the natural hormones that control a variety of functions, including reproduction. Many scientists fear that exposure to EDCs can cause reproductive difficulties, cancer, endometriosis, early puberty, altered neural function, and immune system problems in humans, but the evidence remains inconclusive. In wildlife, however, EDCs have had clear health effects, such as eggshell thinning and altered gonad development in birds.

Related Links:

Toward a medically defensible energy policy

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change

Arsenic has a long and glorious history in the annals of crime fiction, but for the people of Bangladesh, poisoning by arsenic is all too real. With 35 million people drinking arsenic-tainted water, the country is in the midst of what the World Health Organization is calling the "largest mass poisoning of a population in history." Ironically, the problem has its source in an ostensible solution: For two decades, the government and various international aid groups worked to wean the nation's poor off of pond water, often the breeding ground for lethal diseases, urging them instead to install wells. But it turns out that many of the underground aquifers from which the wells draw water are contaminated with arsenic, which is causing "the highest environmental cancer risk ever found," according to Allan Smith, an arsenic expert at the University of California at Berkeley.

Related Links:

Toward a medically defensible energy policy

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change