From: starkid@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Lance Sanders)
Newsgroups: sci.med,misc.fitness,misc.consumers
Subject: Vitamins and the FDA (Pt. 3 of 3): Food Degredation
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:33:00 GMT
Organization: EnviraForm



                             APPENDIX B
                             ----------



[Excerpts from the information mosaic,
 ChemTao: Synergies In The Life Sciences, v1.3 (c) 1990 LKS]




LIMITING FACTORS
----------------



   Irradiated Foodstuffs
   ---------------------
                                                                             
   Both the Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization 
have declared irradiation, or the bombardment of food with gamma rays, as a 
safe preservation process. A food irradiation plant opened in Florida in 
1991.

   There are two major areas of concern, however: (1) the creation of new 
chemicals at trace levels and (2) loss of nutrients in the foodstuffs.

   Gamma ray bombardment breaks up some of the food molecules during the 
process, creating radiolytic by-products such as benzene, a known 
carcinogen. The FDA's stance is that the amounts of toxins formed are too 
small to be significant. However, since any dose of the chemicals can cause 
cellular changes that can develop into cancer, the level doesn't eliminate 
the risk.

   Dr. Donald B. Louria, chairman of the dept. of preventive medicine and 
community health at the U. of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark 
noted in a 08/92 interview that:

   "The F.D.A. based its approval of irradiation on five or six animal 
studies, although it had 400 to choose; it said the rest were all flawed. 
Taken together, the studies they chose could not possibly establish the 
safety of irradiation. Indeed, two of the studies (used as approval data) 
suggest the technology is not safe." 


   The Sept. 1990 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

   "...the proponents of irradiation have not produced any projections of 
the actual economic, or other, benefits of longer shelf life, especially in 
a developed country that has an abundant food supply."

   
   The May 1992 issue of the Berkeley Wellness letter (published by the U. 
of California at Berkeley) declared that:

   "Though it's also been claimed that irradiation will make insecticides 
and fungicides obsolete, there's some evidence that certain foods may be 
more vulnerable to the ravages of fungi and insects AFTER irradiation."


   Moreover, the dose of radiation used does not kill botulin bacteria, but 
the bacteria responsible for off-odors and flavors. Thus, irradiation 
virtually eliminates warning alarms for very dangerous types of food 
poisoning. 

   Because irradiation drastically reduces vitamin content in foods, the 
FDA's proposals to make vitamin supplements unavailable in potencies above 
the "recommended daily allowance", in tandem with their support of 
irradiation (and other vitamin-depletive technologies), is _extremely_ 
suspect. 

   The April 1992 issue of Nutrition Action (published by the Center for 
Science in the Public Interest) reported that in one study, the vitamin C 
content of potatoes was reduced by 50 percent after the potatoes received a 
standard dose of radiation. In another study, one-third the level of 
radiation permitted by the FDA reduced thiamin levels in pork by 17%, and  
a normal dose reduced thiamin levels in chicken breasts by 9%. Vitamin E 
content was also affected, and cooking reduces vitamin levels even further. 

   Irradiation introduces complex and dangerous vectors into an already 
compromised environment: waste disposal, transport engineering safety, 
production and handling by poorly trained personnel.


   Margaret A. Peckham, program associate, Public Interest Research Group, 
New York:

   "The industry and the Food and Drug Administration have not presented a 
strong enough case for the safety of eating irradiated foods. Moreover, 
there is no guarantee that irradiation will alleviate food spoilage. Food 
that has been irradiated can possibly be recontaminated."
   "The safety of eating irradiated foods is not the only concern. 
Irradiation plants have a bad record for both safety and honesty. 
Executives have been convicted on Federal charges of fraud and safety 
violations, and there have been incidents involving radiation leaks and 
spills. An incident in Georgia three years ago is costing taxpayers there 
tens of millions of dollars to clean up...a moratorium of the sale of 
irradiated food products is judicious." 


   J.J. Steinberg, M.D., Associate Professor of Pathology; Radiation 
Biology and Oncology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine:

   "Food irradiation affects the cells that make up the food. Cells are 
composed of proteins, fats and nucleic acids --- the building blocks of DNA 
and genes. All radiation scientists would acknowledge that irradiating 
food's proteins, fats and nucleic acids alter their chemistry."
   "Most of these products are benign, some are worrisome. the new 
molecules formed after food irradiation are called 'biologically unknown 
radiolytic products'. Some of these new molecules formed from nucleic acids 
have similar activity to the therapies physicians use in tumor treatment, 
for example, chemotherapy. Many of these new molecules act as mutagens --- 
chemicals that can injure or change the DNA of the person exposed to them. 
Excess exposure to mutagens may cause cancer."
   "The risk of cancer from food irradiation is likely miniscule, but we 
should accept that this food treatment may cause additional real, but as 
yet unquantifiable risk. These food risks may be similar to the risks we 
take when we eat pickled or charcoal-broiled foods, which offer a large 
menu of mutagens to the gourmet. Clearly, these risks are far smaller than 
smoking cigarettes, but they should not be minimized."
   "Let's not kid the American people: irradiating food is a risk."





   Genetically-engineered Foodstuffs
   ---------------------------------

   More than a dozen companies in the United States have developed a total 
of more than 70 gene-altered crops (including cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes 
and cantaloupes) that contain new proteins, enzymes or other substances 
that supposedly enhance their quality.

   Gene splicing is used to move bits of DNA from the genes of one plant or 
animal to those of another. One of the first products poised to reach 
supermarkets by mid-1993 is a tomato from Calgene, Inc in Davis, 
California, that incorporates a gene which supposedly confers longer shelf 
life by delaying excessive ripening.
   [The gene responsible for the production of polygalacturonase, a fruit 
    enzyme that causes softening, was copied and inserted in reverse into 
    the tomato.]

   Other companies' experiments have run a wide gamut, including some which 
have spliced fish genes to plants in an effort to produce a plant more 
resistant to cold. 

   The FDA's policy, which would take effect when published in the Federal 
Register, is that foods developed through biotechnology are not inherently 
dangerous, and should not require extraordinary testing, regulation or 
labeling. The Agriculture Dept. will regulate genetically altered 
livestock, fish and poultry, while the EPA will oversee items like gene-
altered pesticides and plants. 
   The FDA's policy is expected to serve as a model for these and other 
agencies that regulate the biotechnology industry, and has been endorsed 
by President Bush. The Industrial Biotechnology Association contains 130 
member companies to-date.


   Dr. Rebecca Goldberg, of the Environmental Defense Fund:

   "The FDA policy is virtually ababndoning regulation of new and untested 
foods. Genetic engineers are taking genes from bacteria, viruses and 
insects and adding them to fruits, vegetables and grains. They are 
producing foods that have never before been eaten by human beings. Without 
clear and consistent labeling of genetically engineered foods, consumers 
will have no idea of what they are buying."


   Jean Halloran, Consumer Policy Institute arm of Consumers Union:

   "Consumers who are risk-averse should have the opportunity to buy the 
plain old (food) if they want."


   USA Today editorial:

   "The FDA ruled that many altered foods can be marketed without federal 
testing. Unfortunately, the FDA omitted any requirement for labels that 
would, for instance, tell consumers that the juicy tomato in their BLT ---
deep red even in Feburary--- really is part flounder."
   "Such a cavalier omission serves no one --- especially the biotech 
producers the FDA ruling is supposed to help by down-sizing regulatory 
costs. To succeed, their startling new products need confident customers --
- not shoppers scared of how many firefly genes are buzzing inside those 
ears of corn." 
   "The FDA should require labeling of genetically-altered foods. The 
alternative: consumer anger that would be anything but small potatoes."


   David Keppel, member of the advisory board of the Council for 
Responsible Genetics:

   "The conflict between commercial biotechnology and biodiversity is real 
indeed. Since the Supreme Court decision of 1980, we have granted patents 
for genetically altered organisms. This holds that they are inventions, not 
variable products of nature. Yet genetic engineers have not designed 
organism from scratch; they have altered one or a few genes in a creature 
with an evolutionary legacy of millions of years." 
   "Unlike natural organisms that have evolved in step-by-step interaction 
with the environment, genetically altered foodstuffs are a bolt from the 
blue. Most will be harmless. but as we rush to large-scale release of more 
and more novel organisms, the risk of havoc on an environment that has had 
no time to adapt, multiplies."

   "Once a corporation holds a patent, it has every incentive to promote 
its product. This means an increase in monoculture --- precisely at the 
expense of biological diversity and ecological resilience."
   "A May 1992 New York Times front-page article reports a consensus in 
favor of biotechnology. Too often such consensus is really conflict of 
interest. Under pressure to find private funding, more and more researchers 
at leading universities such as Harvard, MIT and Stanford also hold 
positions with biotechnology companies (69 dual-affiliated faculty members 
at Harvard, 35 at MIT, and 40 at Stanford according to a recent study by 
Prof. Sheldon Krimsky)."
   "Investors, too, tend to see only the best. According to a May 21 
Business Day article, Ross Perot has stock in biotechnology. The public has 
a right to full disclosure on this subject, not only from officials, but 
also from the news organizations on which it relies. Only then can we form 
independent judgments about an issue central to life itself."


   Sheldon Krimsky, professor of urban and environmental policy at Tufts 
University;  chairman of the Council for Responsible Genetics:

   "The FDA had the option of regulating genetically engineered food by 
treating it as if it were a food additive, but chose a far less 
conservative path, one that introduces unnecessary risks into the food 
supply. The policy requires premarket testing only for gene products 
considered novel. If a bovine gene is introduced into tomatoes and apples, 
for exmaple, the resulting food product may be deemed safe because the 
protein product of that gene is already present in beef people eat."
   "But the foreign gene may not behave the same in the new crop as it does 
in the original species; the new gene may alter the functioning of other 
genes, or may be affected by its new environment." 
   "The cases of genetically engineered bacteria used in a Japanese process 
of manufacturing L-Tryptophan, which resulted in a fatal blood disorder 
(EMS) and at least 27 deaths, and the genetically engineered growth hormone 
used in dairy cows in Wisconsin and Minnesota (bovine somatotropin) that 
has fueled heated debate over foreign by-products and effects on 
nutritional value, warn the nation that a fast track for evaluating 
biotechnology is not in the best interest of protecting the food supply." 
   "The FDA's ruling does not respect the consumer's right to be informed 
that a product has been genetically altered, for it provides no labeling 
provisions."
   "It is a mistake to initiate genetic engineering by exempting large 
classes of products from a case-by-case review under the same laws that 
protect consumers from synthetic food additives."



   Paul Lewis, Newton Center, Mass.:

   "Ever since Mary Shelley's baron rolled his improved human being out of 
the lab, scientists have been bringing such good things to life."
   "If they want to sell us Frankenfood, perhaps it's time to gather the 
villagers, light some torches and head to the castle."





   Food Pesticides
   ---------------

   On Feb. 16, 1988, the FDA banned the fungicide Captan from being used on 
42 fruits and vegetables. It said that the fungicide posed a significant 
risk of cancer to consumers. 
   However, it allowed its continued use on the following products: 
almonds, apples, apricots, bluberries, celery, cherries, dewberries, 
eggplants, grapes, green onions, lettuce, mangoes, nectarines, peaches, 
pears, peppers, pimentoes, plums and prunes, raspberries, spinach, 
strawberries, taro, tomatoes and all seed treatments. 

   The acutely toxic insecticide, aldicarb (Temik), as of 1991, is still 
being used on potatoes, bananas, peanuts, oranges, grapefruit, limes, 
soybeans, sorghum, pecans, and dried beans. 

[  Aldicarb, made from methyl isocyanate, the chemical that leaked from a 
  Union carbide plant in Bhopal, India in Dec. 1984 and killed 2000 people 
  (injuring tens of thousands), is so toxic that a drop absorbed through the 
  skin can kill an adult. Aldicarb is applied as a granule to reduce the risk 
  to farmers. ]


   In 1979, New York authorities investigating mysterious stoamch ailments 
in Suffolk County, L.I., found aldicarb in underground water 50 times 
higher than was considered safe by the EPA. It had been used on potato 
crops. 
   In 1985, aldicarb applied illegally to watermelons by three California 
growers sickened 1000 people in eight western states. 

   Trace amounts of the chemical in popular foods can cause stomach cramps, 
nervous disorders, headaches and other ailments in children. 

   The FDA has approved waxes for food use which are made from shellacs, 
parafins, palm oil derivatives and synthetic resins---those same 
ingredients found in waxes for your car and kitchen floor. 

   The major problem is that the waxes may also contain fungicides. Any 
fungicide allowed on the produce as it is grown may be applied after 
harvesting, whether under the wax, in combination with it or alone. 
   Only one fungicide of the seven commonly used on crops has ever 
undergone a complete review by the EPA. Benomyl has been classified as a 
"possible human carcinogen". 

   There are 21 fruits and vegetables that may be waxed/fungicided:
 apples, avocados, bell peppers, cantaloupes, cucumbers, eggplants, 
grapefruits, lemons, limes, melons, oranges, parsnips, passion fruits, 
peaches, pineapples, pumpkins, rutabagas, squashes, sweet potatoes, 
tomatoes and turnips. 

   In February 1992, the EPA lifted restrictions on a group of farm 
chemicals, EBDCs, and reinstated their use on apples, barley, broccoli, 
cabbage, lettuse, cucumbers, rye, squash, watermelon, dry bean, eggplant 
and 22 other crops. EBDCs are known carcinogens. The restrictions were 
lifted based on data from the compound's four manufacturers: E.I. du POnt 
de Nemours and Co., BASF Corp., Rohm and Haas Co., and Elf Atochem Norht 
America Inc.


   On October 13, 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency decided that it 
would permit the use of cancer-causing pesticides whose residues on food 
are increased during processing, if the risk of cancer is negligible (!). 

   The agency permitted the licensing of new, "weakly" carcinogenic 
chemicals. 

   The decision was widely considered a gutting of the Delaney clause,  
named for its 1958 sponsor, then-Rep. James J. Delaney (D., N.Y.),  which 
"barred the use of any food additive shown to cause cancer in animal or 
man." 
   
   There are 316 pesticide active ingredients for which the Environmental 
Proctection Agency has "established maximum permissable concentration of 
residues in food (tolerances)". 

   Currently employed analyses can only detect about half of these. "Multi-
residue" analyses---methods that reveal a number of compounds---are used 
instead of specific analyses because of "cost-effectiveness". 

   A report presented by the congressional Office of Technology Assesment 
on 10/04/88, said the five multi-residue methods used by the Food and Drug 
Administration can detect only 163 out of 316 compounds. These methods can 
detect only 10 of 74 compounds with pending or temporary tolerances, 25 of 
56 with no established tolerance and 92 of 297 pesticide-associated 
chemicals. 

   Barely two weeks after the EPA reassured consumers that apples treated 
with the preservative daminozide (Alar) were safe, the Consumers Union 
(Consumers Report) reported that tests on samples of apple and apple 
products sold in the New York area contained unacceptable levels of Alar: 
"Though there is no strong evidence that Alar itself is carcinogenic, when 
apples are heat-processed to make commercial apple juice, part of the 
daminozide breaks down to form the carcinogen UDMH, which may pose a cancer 
risk to children who consume large amounts of apple juice." 

  
   The National Resources Defense Council notes that there are 300 
pesticides used on food. After analyzing consumption data and allowable 
residues of eight chemicals known to cause cancer in lab animals on 27 
fruits and vegeatbles, they concluded that as many as 5500 to 6200 children 
among the current preschool population "may eventually get cancer solely as 
a result of their exposure before 6 years of age." 




   Commercially-raised Meat and Dairy Products
   -------------------------------------------

   Not only is excessive meat eating strongly related to death from heart 
disease and diabetes, but the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animal 
feed is promoting the spread of highly resistant bacteria such as 
salmonella which can cause typhoid fever and symptoms of arthritis as well 
as food poisoning. 

   At the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, it is estimated that 20 to 
25 percent of food poisoning cases in this country are caused by bacteria 
insensitive to one or more antibiotics. These bacteria are also quite 
prevelant in food crops. A typical salad contains 100 million bacterial 
cells of the type Gram-negative, which include strains that can flourish in 
the intestine. 40 to 100 percent of these strains are insensitive to one 
antibiotic, and some are insensitive to as many as eight. 

   An internal audit by the Agriculture Department's Inspector General, 
found that Federal control of existing pesticides and other chemicals in 
the nation's meat and poultry are largely ineffective. 

   The report, which was completed in November 1988, but not widely 
distributed in the department concluded that:

 "Even when animals were presented to inspectors, administrative controls 
and current policies did not insure timely and effective response when 
pesticide residue and other contaminants were suspected or found in meant 
and poultry products. As a result, many adulterated products were allowed 
to enter commerce...the inspection agency, the Food Safety and Inspection 
Service, has little authority to prevent pesticide residues from showing up 
in meat and poultry...it was unable to successfully investigate pesticide 
violations in 79 percent of the cases." 

   A violation was defined as an illegal level of chemical residue found in 
a sample of meat or poultry. 

   Some of the illegal animal drugs that are being smuggled into the 
country and making their way into the food chain: 

   * Dimetridazole and Ipronidazole: Powerful antibiotics that are also 
potent carcinogens. The drugs are mixed into feed or added to water. The 
FDA banned dimetridazole in 1987 and ipronidazole was to be removed from 
the market in 1989. 

   * Chloramphenicol: highly toxic antibiotic used to treat bacterial 
diseases in cattle and swine. Chloramphenicol is toxic even at trace 
levels, and has been linked to aplastic anemia, "grey syndrome" in 
premature and newborn infants, and neurotoxic disorders. The drug's only 
approved use is in treating dogs. 

   * Carbadox: an antimicrobial applied to feed to promote growth in pigs. 
carbadox causes genetic mutations and tumors in lab animals. 

   * Rifampin: an antibiotic that has never been approved for use of any 
kind in a food-producing animal. 

   * Nitrofurazone: an antimicrobial applied to feed in hogs and poultry 
(never approved for cattle).



   A general Accounting Office report released on November 20, 1990, 
charged that the FDA consistently failed to determine to what extent drugs 
given to cows contaminate the nation's milk supply.
   In 1988, sulfamethazine, a drug that is illegal to use in dairy cows, 
was found to be present in 73 percent of milk samples tested by the FDA in 
response to concerns raised in 1987 by independent test results.
   Sulfamethazine, widely-used to speed growth and prevent respiratory 
diseases in animals, clearly causes cancerous tumors of the thyroid glands 
in rats and mice. After an "education program" run by the FDA, the level 
dropped to 14 percent.

   However, the G.A.O. criticized the FDA for not testing for more drugs. 
Their report said the FDA had approved 53 drugs for use on dairy cows, but 
"about 25 drugs, including 12 antibiotics, not apporved for use in dairy 
cows, are believed to be used in the dairy industry." The G.A.O. report 
also said that 32 antibiotic drugs may have been in use by the dairy 
industry at the time of the 1990 survey.



   From February to March, 1989, Townsend Poultry Products in Batesville, 
Ark., one of the natio's largest poultry producers, was forced to destroy 
over 400,000 chickens because they were contaminated with heptachlor, a 
cancer-causing pesticide that was banned 12 years ago. 
   Heptachlor accumulates in animal and milk fats, and is especially 
dangerous for nursing mothers, infants and children. 

   Additionally, the increasing public demand for chicken coupled with a 
decimated federal poultry inspection program, is dramatically increasing 
the risk of salmonella poisoning nationwide. 

   The National Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimated that 
between 400,000 and 4 million people contracted salmonella in 1989. The 
Institute for Southern Studies, a non-profit research group for economic 
and social conditions in the South, put the number at 2.5 million, 
including hospitilizations and 9,000 deaths. Reported cases of salmonella 
have increased from approx. 3 cases per 100,000 people in 1955 to about 22 
cases per 100,000 people in 1988. 

   According to the USDA, about 37 percent of the 40 million chickens 
inspected by the dept. every week are infected with salmonella or other 
bacteria. 

   A study by former USDA microbiologist Gerald Kuester showed that 76 
percent of all chickens leaving a Puerto Rican processing facility---one of 
the industry's newest and most modern---were contaminated with salmonella. 
   Kuester left the USDA in 1988 when it refused to acknowledge the study. 

   [A recent, noncontroversial method of killing salmonella has been proven
    successful. The chicken carcasses are dipped in a bath of water and 
    trisodium phosphate (a chemical used in food processing).]


   Dairy products are particularly susceptible to listeria contamination.  
Catherine Donnelly, a University of Vermont scientist, said listeria 
monocytogenes was blamed for 105 stillbirths and deaths in California 
during the summer of '85 after people consumed a Mexican-style cheese 
containing listeria. There are an estimated 500 to 1,000 cases of 
listeriosis per year. In 1983, the microbe was linked to 14 deaths from 
contaminated milk in Massachusettes. In early June, 1986, Kraft Inc.  
recalled 25,000 cases of Polar Bars ice cream after hundreds of people 
complained of illness. In 15 people the flu-like symptoms of fever and 
vomiting were definitely linked to the ice cream. 

   The most severe complication is damage to fetuses. Pregnant women who 
contract listeriosis may have stillborn, severely ill or retarded babies. 

   Immune-compromised people are particularly at risk. 100 Listeria cells,  
which can easily fit in the period at the end of this sentence, can be 
fatal for such people. 





   Fish Hazards
   ------------

   Women of childbearing years have been warned by the Government to limit 
consumption of fatty fish---bluefish, salmon, striped bass, swordfish and 
fish from fresh waters, especially the Great Lakes. 

   In a study of 313 infants born to mothers who ate Lake Michigan fish 
contaminated with PCB's two to three times a month during their pregnancy, 
it was discovered that the infants weighed 7 to 9 ounces less at birth, 
showed developmental delays compared to mothers who didn't eat contaminated 
fish, and at 7 months scored more poorly on memory recognition tests. 
   The larger the fish, the more contaminants are present.

   PCB's are also stored in breast tissue and can pass through breast milk 
to the baby. 

   Shellfish are the most dangerous due to their ability to metabolize the 
compounds---sometimes 10 times higher than the levels found in fish. They 
do this in the liver, which also concentrates high amounts of the toxins. 
   Therefore, the hepatopancreas, i.e., the tomalley in lobster or the 
"mustard" in blue crab should never be eaten. 
   The same applies to fish livers and fish liver products such as cod 
liver oil. 

[ It should be noted that eating shellfish and popping huge doses of 
  Vitamin C can prove fatal. Researchers in the Animal Sciences Dept. at 
  the University of Illinois report that several foods, especially shrimp 
  and prawns, contain high concentrations of pentavalent arsenic compounds.  
  These are normally harmless, but high doses of vitamin C convert the 
  pentavalent compounds into trivalent arsenic, a highly toxic poison. ] 


   In June 1992, three former FDA consumer safety inspectors pleaded guilty 
in U.S. District Court to accepting over $30,000 for allowing 2 million 
pounds of seafood contaminated with fecal coliform, salmonella bacteria and 
various chemicals into Port Newark, NJ. Most of the food made it to 
supermarkets and restaurants. The indictments traced routine bribery of 
FDA inspectors and illegal importation of food back to late 1984.

   U.S. Attorney Michael Chertoff:

   "Corruption is always intolerable, but it is especially so when the end 
result could be endangerment of the public health."


   The effects of eating contaminated fish can last a long time. W.R. 
Swain, a Dutch researcher, determined that starting with a 20-year-old 
woman who eats fish contaminated with PCB's and gives birth to a daughter, 
it will take five generations for the woman's initial PCB's levels to pass 
out of the family---provided that no more contaminated fish is eaten by her 
descendants. 

   Cooking methods matter a great deal. 

   A 9/88 Michigan State U. study found that dioxin levels decreased 46 
percent in medium-rare carp fillets that were char-broiled and 37 percent 
in those roasted under covers, but only 24 percent in those roasted in 
uncovered pans. In fillets that were cooked to well-done, levels dropped 
between 50 and 60 percent, depending on the cooking method. It is suspected 
that the dioxin was lost in the drippings. 

   Farm-raised fish are a safe bet, though not without drawbacks. 

   Though the antibiotics routinely fed to the fish (namely oxytetracycline)
are purged from their system by the time the fish are sent to market, the 
concern is that 90 percent of the antibiotics are excreted in the feces. 
   Oxytetracycline persists in the sediment below fish farms for months. 

   Resistance to antibiotics could be transfered from bacteria that cause 
fish disease, to bacteria that cause illnesses in people. 





   Non-Purified Drinking Water
   ---------------------------

   In May 1988, the California Dept. of Health Services reported that 
pregnant women who said they drank purified bottled water had fewer 
miscarriages than one would expect from birth statistics. Combined with a 
study in 1985 of women in a San Jose neighborhood who drank groundwater 
polluted by solvents from a nearby Silicon Valley electronics factory, 
three new studies involving Silicon Valley and other communities in the San 
Francisco area confirmed the results of the 1988 study. 

   In the four studies involving 5,000 women, the rate of miscarriages in 
women who reported drinking no tap water during pregnancy ranged from zero 
to 7.7 percent. The rates for women who drank some tap water ranged from 
8.4 to 13.1 percent. The rate of birth defects in the children of tap water 
drinkers was 2.6 to 6.2 percent, while the rate for those who drank no tap 
water was zero to 1.6 percent. The expected rate was 2 to 3 percent. 

   Researchers corrected for factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption 
and the amount of exercise a woman did. [Dr. Shanna Swan, study co-director]


   Contamination of supposedly safe drinking water is not rare. In 
Pittsfield, Mass., several years ago, an estimated 8000 people fell ill 
with diarrhea when the parasite giardia got into the town's water supply. 

   Twenty percent of all municipal systems have detectable levels of 
contaminants; 63 percent of rural household water supplies are considered 
unsafe because of bacteria, affecting about 39 MILLION people. Thirty-four 
states have reccommended wells be closed because of contamination by 
organic chemicals. 

   A 1988 National Wildlife Federation report of an 18-month examination of 
15,000 pages of EPA computer printouts for fiscal 1987 showed 36,763 water 
systems committing 101,588 violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act. 
   Seventy percent of the contaminant violations were for exceeding 
bacteriological standards, 20 percent involved inorganic chemicals or 
substances like metals or arsenic, 0.6 percent were organic chemicals such 
as pesticides, 0.9% were radioactivity violations and 7.7% were turbidity, 
or sediment, violations. 

   Environmental Defense Fund science associate David Fanning:

   "There are more than 60,000 toxic chemicals now being used in American 
industry and agriculture. The fact that we don't find all sixty thousand 
means we aren't looking for them. Seventeen different pesticides and 
herbicides have been found in drinking water in 23 states, including 
Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri and Minnesota." 


   Air pollutants entering the water account for 58 percent of toxic PCB's, 
86 percent of a cancer-causing substance contained in coal and wood smoke, 
and nearly all of the lead that enters Lake Michigan. 

   A November, 1988 progress report issued by the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (which monitors both sediment off the U.S. coast 
and the levels of contaminants in various aquatic creatures) reported that 
the highest concentrations for any particular contaminant have been at 20 
sites near Boston, New York, San Diego, Los Angeles and Seattle. Among the 
contaminants found were polychloronated biphenyls (PCB's), polyaromatic 
hydrocarbons (PAHs) and 12 trace elements. 



   From "Toxic fallout: a new worry" by Dennis Byrne
   [Chicago Sun-Times, Wed. June 11, 1986]:

 "...Toxic fallout refers to the hundred of dangerous chemicals and heavy 
metals that fall on us from the sky. Among them are dioxins, PCB's and 
other volatile organic compounds... the greater threat to Lake Michigan and 
the other great lakes comes from the sky and not, as most people imagine, 
from 'point sources' like sewer pipes. An estimated 80% of lake pollution 
falls from the skies... toxic fallout doesn't just land on water. It falls 
on buildings, lawns, animals and people... The danger in the lakes comes 
from the toxins' concentration in the food chain... Toxic concentrations 
may someday endanger the lake as a drinking water source... 28 million of 
the 45 million people living within the Great Lakes basin drink lake 
water." 


   In Corydon, Iowa, state researchers issued a report in Nov., 1988,  
which concluded that drinking water in public systems there and in 30 other 
communities in Iowa contain trace levels of dissolved pesticides, even 
after the water has been cycled through local treatment facilities. 


   Darrell Mc Allister, Chief of the Surface and Groundwater Protection 
Office of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources: 

 "At certain times of the year, particularly after heavy spring rains,  
there are communities getting pretty high doses, and I think there should 
be some alarm about those levels. We don't know how often these kinds of 
results are going to be seen or how sustained they are. That's what's so 
scary about this." 


   The major message from the 1986 World Conference on Large Lakes, which 
drew 450 participants from 17 countries, was that the Great Lakes are so 
contaminated with toxic chemicals that current pollution-control efforts 
are not enough to protect the environment. Large lakes around the world
are showing almost identical industrial-chemical contamination symptoms. 
 [Just five grams of dioxin a year is enough to keep dioxin chemical 
  pollution in the Great Lakes from dropping (!)] 

   Richard Cooper, Director of the Underwater Research Program at the 
University of Connecticut, says that deep, cloudy layers of organisms at 
the bottom of the Great Lakes may harm the lakes' ability to cope with 
pollution. After taking a four-man mini-submarine, the Johnson Sea-Link II, 
through 500 feet of clear water at Lake Huron's Mackinac Basin, the 
scientists encountered 'what looked like a very dense snowstorm of 
particulate matter, 20 to 30 feet deep.' In other spots, the layer was 
several feet thick. About 70 to 80 percent of the cloud is living 
organisms, and believed to contain clay-like materials that may harbor 
pollutants. 


   William Cooper, Chairman of the Michigan State University Zoology 
Department and Richard's brother, said it is likely that organic 
pollutants, such as DDT, stick to the nepheloid particles and remain in the 
food chain instead of settling to the lake's bottom:
 
  "There seem to be whole fields of them that stretch on for miles and 
miles. We really don't know what caused them. It's very perplexing." 


   Alfred M. Beeton, Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann 
Arbor, Mich.:

  "There are new compounds coming into the Great Lakes from the atmosphere, 
and we DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY ARE. There are so many new chemicals being 
released into the environment, we're way behind doing analyses on their 
toxicity. What we're doing now is looking at families of compounds. We 
really don't know what's happenning. They may be enhancing their toxicity." 


   Paul Rodgers, an environmental specialist from Ann Arbor, Mich.:

   "We should start approaching these issues on a global, ecosystem 
approach. Researchers routinely find 400 different types of contaminants in 
some fish, and those are only the chemicals they can detect and recognize." 


   Phillipe Ross, of the Illinois Natural History Survey:

  "In a series of tests beginning in November, 1986, we exposed microscopic 
organisms to an extract from a Waukegan harbor bottom. Ninety-seven percent 
(97%) of the organisms exposed to a 10 percent concentration of the 
Waukegan harbor extract died. I've never seen anything quite that bad, 
where we had a 97 percent mortality at such a low exposure concentration." 

   In 1984, The National Status and Trends Program for Marine Environmental 
Quality, a project of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 
sampled harbor sediments and fish around the nation. They looked for 
potentially toxic trace metals, aromatic hydrocarbons, DDT, the cancer-
causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB's), coprostanol (a chemical found in 
feces), and Clostridium perfringens (a spore-forming bacterium found in 
feces). The highest concentrations were found in the harbors of Boston and 
Salem, Mass., and in Raritan Bay between New York and New Jersey. 
Significant levels turned up in the San Pedro canyon, an underwater area 
near Los Angeles; West Long Island Sound; Casco Bay, ME.; Seal Beach, CA; 
San Diego harbor; Elliot Bay and Commencement Bay, Wash.; and Buzzards Bay,  
Mass. 



   Fifteen percent of all Americans now depend on purified bottled water 
for drinking and cooking; in Southern California the figure is 33 percent.  
Of the 2,110 contaminants found in some concentration in water systems,  
2,090 were organic, and 190 were known or suspected to be health-damaging. 

[ All purification methods have both drawbacks and advantages:

   Distillation: volatile chemicals such as PCB's, solvents and chloroform 
   can slip through the process. 

   Reverse osmosis: some membranes don't work well with microbe 
   contamination. 

   Activated charcoal: some large microbes can pass through the filters. 


   A combination of reverse osmosis/carbon filtering appears to be 
   effective in eliminating 95-100% of all water contaminants. ]

---------
Lance Sanders
starkid@ddsw1.MCS.COM                      STAND.
GE Mail: L.Sanders6
Vox: (312) 667-5958