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Gulf oil spill poses unique health challenges
Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley/uscg
UPFRONT
Truly sickening oil spill THE Deepwater Horizon oil spill may be making people sick in body and mind for a long time to come. So say experts who met last week in New Orleans, Louisiana, to tackle unanswered questions about the health effects of the spill. Hosted by the Institute of Medicine – a non-profit organisation within the US National Academies in Washington DC – the talk highlighted the short-term health effects of the spill, such as nausea, headache, and irritation to the eyes and throat, and the difficult work ahead to protect coastal communities. Workers closest to the spill site are at an increased risk, they say, especially volunteers who may have insufficient training. Beach-goers were advised not to swim in areas
affected by the spill and avoid touching the oil. Oil contains known carcinogens, but little is known about its long-term health effects. Blanca Laffon, a public health researcher at the University of Coruña in Spain, has observed DNA changes in people exposed to the 2002 Prestige oil spill off the Galician coast. Such DNA damage could increase the risk of cancer, she says, much like exposure to cigarette smoke. Her team is analysing data from last year to see if these changes persist. In addition to the immediate physical hazards, the group also voiced concerns about social and mental health risks, given the inextricable ties of Gulf communities to the ocean.
Fail the whale
The plan, proposed by IWC chair Cristián Maquieira and vicechair Anthony Liverpool, would have allowed commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean, currently deemed a “sanctuary” by the IWC – although whale-killing is permitted when masquerading as scientific research. A spokesman for the Australian government, which opposed the quota plan, said: “The commission must move forward to embrace a contemporary approach that recognises that you don’t need to kill whales to learn about them.”
–Oil today, ill tomorrow–
New climate spat THE echoes of “climategate” rumble on with the publication of a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research in which some of the researchers involved take issue with a suggestion that greenhouse gases are not primarily responsible for global warming. A previous paper published by the journal in July 2009 claims two-thirds of global warming in the past 30 years was caused by the growing influence of the warm phase of the El Niño climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean – and, by inference, not by greenhouse gases. The analysis was conducted by John McLean of Applied Science Consultants in Croydon, Victoria, Australia.
Foster of Tempo Analytics in Westbrook, Maine, UEA’s Phil Jones and Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University. Foster’s team concludes that McLean’s analysis maximises the apparent influence of the fouryear El Niño cycle by filtering out temperature variability on timescales greater than six years (DOI: 10.1029/2009JD012960). They say El Niño only explains 15 to 30 per cent of recent warming. “Foster uncovered a fatal flaw in the analysis of McLean,” says Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
INTERNATIONAL efforts to agree a new deal on whaling have collapsed, leaving in place the rules that allow whalers to kill some 1500 whales a year for so‑called scientific purposes. An attempt to replace these loopholes with a quota system failed at last week’s International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Agadir, Morocco, even though the whaling nations Japan, Norway and Iceland, as well as most of those opposed to whaling, were willing to consider quotas.
US obesity rises
“Contrary to work published last year, El Niño only accounts for 15 to 30 per cent of recent warming” The journal has now published a riposte from researchers whose emails were stolen from the University of East Anglia last November. They include Grant 4 | NewScientist | 3 July 2010
PERCENTAGE OF ADULT POPULATION WHO ARE OBESE (2007-2009 average) 20% 34% SOURCE: F AS IN FAT 2010, TRUST FOR AMERICA'S HEALTH AND ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION
RATES of adult obesity have risen in 28 US states in a single year, according to a report from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Over the period from 2007 to 2009, there were eight states in which more than 30 per cent of adults were obese – up from four in 2006 to 2008. “These are pretty staggering numbers,” says Jeffrey Levi of
UPFRONT
Truly sickening oil spill THE Deepwater Horizon oil spill may be making people sick in body and mind for a long time to come. So say experts who met last week in New Orleans, Louisiana, to tackle unanswered questions about the health effects of the spill. Hosted by the Institute of Medicine – a non-profit organisation within the US National Academies in Washington DC – the talk highlighted the short-term health effects of the spill, such as nausea, headache, and irritation to the eyes and throat, and the difficult work ahead to protect coastal communities. Workers closest to the spill site are at an increased risk, they say, especially volunteers who may have insufficient training. Beach-goers were advised not to swim in areas
affected by the spill and avoid touching the oil. Oil contains known carcinogens, but little is known about its long-term health effects. Blanca Laffon, a public health researcher at the University of Coruña in Spain, has observed DNA changes in people exposed to the 2002 Prestige oil spill off the Galician coast. Such DNA damage could increase the risk of cancer, she says, much like exposure to cigarette smoke. Her team is analysing data from last year to see if these changes persist. In addition to the immediate physical hazards, the group also voiced concerns about social and mental health risks, given the inextricable ties of Gulf communities to the ocean.
Fail the whale
The plan, proposed by IWC chair Cristián Maquieira and vicechair Anthony Liverpool, would have allowed commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean, currently deemed a “sanctuary” by the IWC – although whale-killing is permitted when masquerading as scientific research. A spokesman for the Australian government, which opposed the quota plan, said: “The commission must move forward to embrace a contemporary approach that recognises that you don’t need to kill whales to learn about them.”
–Oil today, ill tomorrow–
New climate spat THE echoes of “climategate” rumble on with the publication of a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research in which some of the researchers involved take issue with a suggestion that greenhouse gases are not primarily responsible for global warming. A previous paper published by the journal in July 2009 claims two-thirds of global warming in the past 30 years was caused by the growing influence of the warm phase of the El Niño climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean – and, by inference, not by greenhouse gases. The analysis was conducted by John McLean of Applied Science Consultants in Croydon, Victoria, Australia.
Foster of Tempo Analytics in Westbrook, Maine, UEA’s Phil Jones and Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University. Foster’s team concludes that McLean’s analysis maximises the apparent influence of the fouryear El Niño cycle by filtering out temperature variability on timescales greater than six years (DOI: 10.1029/2009JD012960). They say El Niño only explains 15 to 30 per cent of recent warming. “Foster uncovered a fatal flaw in the analysis of McLean,” says Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
INTERNATIONAL efforts to agree a new deal on whaling have collapsed, leaving in place the rules that allow whalers to kill some 1500 whales a year for so‑called scientific purposes. An attempt to replace these loopholes with a quota system failed at last week’s International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Agadir, Morocco, even though the whaling nations Japan, Norway and Iceland, as well as most of those opposed to whaling, were willing to consider quotas.
US obesity rises
“Contrary to work published last year, El Niño only accounts for 15 to 30 per cent of recent warming” The journal has now published a riposte from researchers whose emails were stolen from the University of East Anglia last November. They include Grant 4 | NewScientist | 3 July 2010
PERCENTAGE OF ADULT POPULATION WHO ARE OBESE (2007-2009 average) 20% 34% SOURCE: F AS IN FAT 2010, TRUST FOR AMERICA'S HEALTH AND ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION
RATES of adult obesity have risen in 28 US states in a single year, according to a report from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Over the period from 2007 to 2009, there were eight states in which more than 30 per cent of adults were obese – up from four in 2006 to 2008. “These are pretty staggering numbers,” says Jeffrey Levi of