Environmental health perspectives
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Environ. Health Perspect. · Feb 2005
Will investments in large-scale prospective cohorts and biobanks limit our ability to discover weaker, less common genetic and environmental contributors to complex diseases?
Increasing the size of prospective cohorts and biobanks is one approach to discovering previously unknown contributors to complex diseases, but it may come at the price of concealing contributors that are less common across all the participants in those larger studies and of limiting hypothesis generation. Prospective cohorts and biobanks constitute significant, long-term investments in research infrastructure that will have ongoing consequences for opportunities in biomedical research for the foreseeable future. ⋯ Incorporating open-ended inquiries and qualitative information about local communal and ecologic contexts and the political, economic, and other social structures that affect health status and outcome will enable qualitative hypothesis generation in those localized contexts, as well as the collection of more detailed genealogic and family health history information that may be useful in designing future studies. Using communities as building blocks for larger cohorts and biobanks presents some practical and ethical challenges but also enhances opportunities for interdisciplinary, multilevel investigations of the multifactorial contributors to complex diseases.
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Environ. Health Perspect. · Oct 2004
The fat of the land: do agricultural subsidies foster poor health?
Since the 1920s, American farmers have received various forms of federal support in an effort to keep farmers farming and provide Americans with an affordable, stable food supply. Wheat, soybeans, and especially corn are currently the most highly subsidized crops; products made from these crops, including high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats, have flooded the market as cheap means for making foods tastier, though not healthier. Now critics are asking whether subsidies for these crops are actually driving the U. S. epidemic of obesity.
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Environ. Health Perspect. · Aug 2004
Pesticide spraying for West Nile virus control and emergency department asthma visits in New York City, 2000.
Pyrethroid pesticides were applied via ground spraying to residential neighborhoods in New York City during July-September 2000 to control mosquito vectors of West Nile virus (WNV). Case reports link pyrethroid exposure to asthma exacerbations, but population-level effects on asthma from large-scale mosquito control programs have not been assessed. We conducted this analysis to determine whether widespread urban pyrethroid pesticide use was associated with increased rates of emergency department (ED) visits for asthma. ⋯ In multivariate analyses, daily rates of asthma visits were not associated with pesticide spraying (rate ratio = 0.92; 95% confidence interval, 0.80-1.07). Secondary analyses among children and for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease yielded similar null results. This analysis shows that spraying pyrethroids for WNV control in New York City was not followed by population-level increases in public hospital ED visit rates for asthma.
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Environ. Health Perspect. · Apr 2004
Reproductive effects of occupational DDT exposure among male malaria control workers.
To assess potential effects of human DDT [1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane] exposure, we evaluated the reproductive history of 2,033 workers in the antimalaria campaign of Mexico. Data on occupational exposure to DDT and reproductive outcomes were gathered through a questionnaire, and workers provided information about 9,187 pregnancies. We estimated paternal exposure to DDT before each pregnancy using three approaches: a) a dichotomous indicator for pregnancies before and after exposure began, b) a qualitative index of four exposure categories, and c) an estimation of the DDT metabolite DDE [1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethylene] accumulated in fat. ⋯ No significant association was found for spontaneous abortion or sex ratio. We found an increased risk of birth defects associated with high occupational exposure to DDT in this group of workers. The significance of this association at lower exposure levels found in the general population remains uncertain.