Environmental research
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Environmental research · Jul 2017
ReviewReview of take-home pesticide exposure pathway in children living in agricultural areas.
Children of farmworkers may be chronically exposed to pesticides via the take-home exposure pathway. ⋯ The evidence presented here raises concerns regarding health effects associated with exposure to pesticides in children living in agricultural communities, and indicates that strategies should be developed to reduce exposures in these populations.
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Environmental research · Apr 2017
Review Historical ArticleThe threshold vs LNT showdown: Dose rate findings exposed flaws in the LNT model part 2. How a mistake led BEIR I to adopt LNT.
This paper reveals that nearly 25 years after the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) I Committee (1972) used Russell's dose-rate data to support the adoption of the linear-no-threshold (LNT) dose response model for genetic and cancer risk assessment, Russell acknowledged a significant under-reporting of the mutation rate of the historical control group. This error, which was unknown to BEIR I, had profound implications, leading it to incorrectly adopt the LNT model, which was a decision that profoundly changed the course of risk assessment for radiation and chemicals to the present.
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Environmental research · Apr 2017
Review Historical ArticleThe threshold vs LNT showdown: Dose rate findings exposed flaws in the LNT model part 1. The Russell-Muller debate.
This paper assesses the discovery of the dose-rate effect in radiation genetics and how it challenged fundamental tenets of the linear non-threshold (LNT) dose response model, including the assumptions that all mutational damage is cumulative and irreversible and that the dose-response is linear at low doses. Newly uncovered historical information also describes how a key 1964 report by the International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP) addressed the effects of dose rate in the assessment of genetic risk. This unique story involves assessments by two leading radiation geneticists, Hermann J. ⋯ Russell, who independently argued that the report's Genetic Summary Section on dose rate was incorrect while simultaneously offering vastly different views as to what the report's summary should have contained. This paper reveals occurrences of scientific disagreements, how conflicts were resolved, which view(s) prevailed and why. During this process the Nobel Laureate, Muller, provided incorrect information to the ICRP in what appears to have been an attempt to manipulate the decision-making process and to prevent the dose-rate concept from being adopted into risk assessment practices.
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Environmental research · Jul 2016
Review Meta AnalysisShort-term exposure to air pollution and morbidity of COPD and asthma in East Asian area: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
The association between short-term exposure to air pollution and morbidity of COPD and asthma has been observed in many studies. However, there is a lack of systematic review of the overall risk ratios in East Asian area to provide scientific evidence for health risk assessment. ⋯ Evidence was found that short-term exposure to air pollution was associated with increasing risk of hospital utilization for COPD and asthma in the whole population, the elderly and children, but not in people aged 15-64. Children tended to be more susceptible to the effect of air pollution on asthma morbidity.
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Environmental research · Jul 2016
Review Meta AnalysisShort-term exposure to air pollution and morbidity of COPD and asthma in East Asian area: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
The association between short-term exposure to air pollution and morbidity of COPD and asthma has been observed in many studies. However, there is a lack of systematic review of the overall risk ratios in East Asian area to provide scientific evidence for health risk assessment. ⋯ Evidence was found that short-term exposure to air pollution was associated with increasing risk of hospital utilization for COPD and asthma in the whole population, the elderly and children, but not in people aged 15-64. Children tended to be more susceptible to the effect of air pollution on asthma morbidity.