ce399 | research archive

Pancake People: "Someone, or Something, has been Tinkering with my Brain"

Marsha White in her normal and natural state. A wooden lady with a painted face who, one month out of the year, takes on the characteristics of someone as normal and as flesh and blood as you and I.  - Twilight Zone: The After Hours (1960) (Video)

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Nicholas Carr — author of last July’s Atlantic cover story, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” — believes the distracted nature of Web surfing is reducing our capacity for deep contemplation and reflection. He began developing his theory when he realized that, after years of online information gathering, he had trouble reading a book or a magazine. As he puts it, “I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. . . . I’m not thinking the way I used to think.”
...

Cooper: You’ve quoted Richard Foreman, author of the play The Gods Are Pounding My Head, who says we are turning into “pancake people.”

Carr: We used to have an intellectual ideal that we could contain within ourselves the whole of civilization. It was very much an ideal — none of us actually fulfilled it — but there was this sense that, through wide reading and study, you could have a depth of knowledge and could make unique intellectual connections among the pieces of information stored within your memory. Foreman suggests that we might be replacing that model — for both intelligence and culture — with a much more superficial relationship to information in which the connections are made outside of our own minds through search engines and hyperlinks. We’ll become “pancake people,” with wide access to information but no intellectual depth, because there’s little need to contain information within our heads when it’s so easy to find with a mouse click or two.

...

Cooper: In your Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” you suggest that using the Internet has actually lessened your ability to concentrate while reading. What led you to this conclusion?

Carr: I was having trouble sitting down and immersing myself in a book, something that used to be totally natural to me. When I read, my mind wanted to behave the way it behaves when I’m online: jumping from one piece of information to another, clicking on links, checking e-mail, and generally being distracted. I had a growing feeling that the Internet was programming me to do these things and pushing on me a certain mode of thinking: on the one hand, distracted; on the other hand, efficient and able to move quickly from one piece of information to another. In the article, I focused on Google because it’s the dominant presence on the Net — at least, when it comes to gathering information. It provides a window into how the Internet is imposing its own intellectual ethic on its users at both a technological and an economic level.

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Cooper: Is there any real evidence that the Internet is “rewiring” our brains?

Carr: There’s certainly a lot of evidence that the brain readily adapts to experience — that our neural circuits are “plastic,” as scientists say. And we’re starting to see direct evidence that Internet use alters brain function. There was a fascinating study done in 2008 by Gary Small, who heads the UCLA Memory and Aging Research Center and recently published a book called iBrain. He and two of his colleagues scanned the brains of two dozen people as they searched the Internet: half the subjects lacked online experience, and the other half were experienced Web users. The researchers found very different patterns of brain activity between the two groups. The subjects with little experience on the Internet showed activity in the language, memory, and visual centers of the brain, which is typical of people who are reading. The experienced Web surfers, on the other hand, had more activity in the decision-making areas at the front of the brain. Interestingly, after five consecutive days of Web surfing, the brain activity of the “inexperienced” group began to match the activity of the experienced Web users. That indicates that the brain adapts very quickly to Net use, just as it does to other repeated stimuli.

Now, there’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that, if you’re older, using the Net may help keep you mentally sharp. It “exercises” the brain in the way that, as Dr. Small observed, solving crossword puzzles does. On the other hand, neurology experiments demonstrate that decision-making consumes a lot of your mental resources, leaving less available for other modes of thinking. That may be why it’s so hard to read deeply when we’re online — our brains literally become overloaded. Imagine trying to read a book while simultaneously working on a crossword puzzle. That’s the intellectual environment of the Web.

(excerpts)

Computing The Cost
Nicholas Carr On How The Internet Is Rewiring Our Brains

Full Article: 

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/399/computing_the_cost

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Americans Wipe Their Assholes with Non-Renewable Trees

Environmentalists are increasingly pushing for people in the United States to change their toilet paper buying habits, in recognition of the fact that the soft, fluffy toilet paper widely preferred in the United States for home use can only be made by logging wild forests throughout the Western Hemisphere.

"No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper," said Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resource Defense Council.

Toilet paper can easily be made from recycled paper, but only at the cost of a coarser final product. Manufacturers admit that the primary factor that keeps them making toilet paper out of freshly cut trees is the fact that standing trees yield longer fibers than recycled material does. Longer fibers, in turn, make for softer, fluffier toilet paper.

Environmental groups estimate that depending on the brand, between 25 and 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper comes from U.S. or South American tree farms, with the remainder coming from wild forests. These forests are ecologically important not only as ways to remove greenhouse gases from the air, but as water purification systems and habitat providers for thousands of different life forms.

It's not just the previously logged, second-growth forests being cut to make pulp for toilet paper, either; a major source of pulp for the U.S. toilet paper market is Canada's endangered, old-growth boreal forest. According to an estimate from Greenpeace, Cottonelle and Scott parent company Kimberly Clark acquires up to 22 percent of its pulp from companies that log these forests. The company admits to sourcing 14 percent of its pulp from the Canadian boreal forests.

Other environmental costs to premium, plush toilet paper include higher water use, higher use of toxic chlorine bleaches and an overall larger waste footprint than recycled paper.

Greenpeace has issued a guide for consumers to the relative environmental friendliness of various different brands of toilet paper. Along with many other environmental groups, it is hoping to persuade U.S. consumers to purchase more recycled paper.

The popularity of plump, soft toilet paper is a distinctly U.S. phenomenon. Less than 2 percent of the toilet paper purchased in the United States for home use is composed of 100 percent recycled fibers. In contrast, 20 percent of the at-home toilet paper market in Europe and Latin America includes recycled content. Consumers in other countries are also more willing to accept a rough toilet tissue.

U.S. consumers, on the other hand, "demand soft and comfortable," said Georgia Pacific spokesperson James Malone. "Recycled fiber cannot do it."

Furthermore, the United States uses more toilet paper than any other country in the world -- an average of 23.6 rolls per person per year.

Toilet paper companies insist that consumer desire is driving their decision to keep sourcing pulp from wild forests. Kimberly Clark Vice President of Product and Technology Research Jerry Baker noted that the company uses recycled fibers in the paper it sells to its "away from home" customers, such as offices, restaurants and schools.

Recycled paper advocates are hoping to capitalize on the global recession to introduce more consumers to the advantages of coarser toilet paper. Already, the cost difference between premium and recycled toilet paper has caused U.S. sales of the former to drop 7 percent in the last few months.

Tim Spring, chief executive of recycled paper manufacturer Marcal, said that recycled toilet paper has other benefits too, beyond its lower price tag.

"People want to know what happens to the paper they recycle," he said. "This will give them closure."

Marcal recently launched a $30 million campaign to advertise the environmental benefits of recycled toilet paper.

Sources for this story include: www.nytimes.com.

Americans Wipe Their Butts with Non-Renewable Trees
David Gutierrez, staff writer
Natural News
15 July 2009

http://www.naturalnews.com/z026627_paper_toilet_paper_forests.html

Related Archive:

Canadian, American, and European Corporations are Fueling the Destruction of Canada’s Ancient Boreal Forest

"Typhon is the Power of Drought"

Let this, then, be stated incidentally, as a matter of record that is common knowledge. 33 But the wiser of the priests call not only the Nile Osiris and the sea Typhon, but they simply give the name of Osiris to the whole source and faculty creative of moisture,181 believing this to be the cause of generation and the substance of life-producing seed; and the name of Typhon they give to all that is dry, fiery, and arid,182 in general, and antagonistic to moisture. bTherefore, because they believe that he was personally of a reddish sallow colour,183 they are not eager to meet men of such complexion, nor do they like to associate with them.

Osiris, on the other hand, according to their legendary tradition, was dark,184 because water darkens everything, earth and clothes and clouds, when it comes into contact with them.185 In young people the presence of moisture renders their hair black, while greyness, like a paleness as it were, is induced by p83dryness in those who are passing their prime.186 Also the spring-time is vigorous, prolific, and agreeable; but the autumn, since it lacks moisture, is inimical to plants and cunhealthful for living creatures.c

The bull kept at Heliopolis which they call Mneuis,187 and which is sacred to Osiris (some hold it to be the sire of Apis), is black and has honours second only to Apis. Egypt, moreover, which has the blackest of soils,188 they call by the same name as the black portion of the eye, "Chemia," and compare it to a heart;189 for it is warm and moist and is enclosed by the southern portions of the inhabited world and adjoins them, like the heart in a man's left side.

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The outmost parts of the land beside the mountains and bordering on the sea the Egyptians call Nephthys. This is why they give to Nephthys the name of "Finality,"228 and say that she is the wife of Typhon. Whenever, then, the Nile overflows and with abounding waters spreads far away to those who dwell in the outermost regions, they call this the union of Osiris with Nephthys,229 which is proved by the upspringing of the plants. Among these is the melilotus,230 by the wilting and failing of which, as the story goes, Typhon gained knowledge of the wrong done to his bed. cSo Isis gave birth to Horus in lawful wedlock, but Nephthys bore Anubis clandestinely. However, in the chronological lists of the kings they record that p95Nephthys, after her marriage to Typhon, was at first barren. If they say this, not about a woman, but about the goddess, they must mean by it the utter barrenness and unproductivity of the earth resulting from a hard-baked soil.

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39 The insidious scheming and usurpation of Typhon, then, is the power of drought, which gains control and dissipates the moisture which is the source of the Nile and of its rising; and his coadjutor, the Queen of the Ethiopians,231 signifies allegorically the south winds from Ethiopia; for whenever these gain the upper hand over the northerly or Etesian winds232 which drive the clouds towards Ethiopia, dand when they prevent the falling of the rains which cause the rising of the Nile, then Typhon, being in possession, blazes with scorching heat; and having gained complete mastery, he forces the Nile in retreat to draw back its waters for weakness, and, flowing at the bottom of its almost empty channel, to proceed to the sea. The story told of the shutting up of Osiris in the chest seems to mean nothing else than the vanishing and disappearance of water. Consequently they say that the disappearance of Osiris occurred in the month of Athyr,233 at the time when, owing to the complete cessation of the Etesian winds, the Nile recedes to its low level and the land becomes denuded. As the nights grow longer, the darkness increases, eand the potency of the light is abated and subdued. Then among the gloomy rites which the priests perform, they shroud the gilded image of a cow with a black linen vestment, and display her as a sign of mourning for the goddess, inasmuch as they regard both the cow and the earth234 p97as the image of Isis; and this is kept up for four days consecutively, beginning with the seventeenth of the month. The things mourned for are four in number: first, the departure and recession of the Nile; second, the complete extinction of the north winds, as the south winds gain the upper hand; third, the day's growing shorter than the night; and, to crown all, the denudation of the earth together with the defoliation of the trees and shrubs at this time. On the nineteenth day fthey go down to the sea at night-time; and the keepers of the robes and the priests bring forth the sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water which they have taken up, and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found. Then they knead some fertile soil with the water and mix in spices and incense of a very costly sort, and fashion therefrom a crescent-shaped figure, which they clothe and adorn, thus indicating that they regard these gods as the substance of Earth and Water.

40 When Isis recovered Osiris and was watching Horus grow up235 367as he was being made strong by the exhalations and mists and clouds, Typhon was vanquished but not annihilated;236 for the goddess who holds sway over the Earth would not permit the complete annihilation of the nature opposed to moisture, but relaxed and moderated it, being desirous that its tempering potency should persist, because it was not possible for a complete world to exist, if the fiery element left it and disappeared.

Isis and Osiris by Plutarch

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris*/B.html

Kenneth Grant, The Typhonian Current and the Merovingian Mythos

http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2005/12dec/merovingianmythos.html

Canadian, American, and European Corporations are Fueling the Destruction of Canada’s Ancient Boreal Forest

The report names high profile and recognizable customers of logging and pulp companies Kruger, Abitibi-Consolidated, SFK Pulp and Bowater.  Common products manufactured by the companies include books, magazines, copy paper, flyers, newspapers, and lumber all made from trees from critically endangered areas of the Boreal Forest. Rona, Coles/Indigo, Harlequin Books, Time Inc, Best Buy, Sears, Waz Essen and OfficeMax are among the more than thirty five customers named.

The report, Consuming Canada’s Boreal Forest: The chain of destruction from logging companies to consumers, calls for action from the international marketplace to protect one of the largest ancient forests left on earth.  It focuses on the provinces of Ontario and Quebec where less than nine per cent and five per cent of the forest, respectively, are protected from industrial development. The report details the environmentally destructive and socially unjust practices of forest products giants Abitibi-Consolidated, Bowater, Kruger, and SFK Pulp, and also condemns the governments of Ontario and Quebec for failing to protect the forest and legislate adequately.

More than 68% of the Boreal Forest under the collective management of the three logging companies has already been degraded or fragmented – an area totaling nearly 200,000 km2 or 315 times the size of City of Toronto.

http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/recent/greenpeace-names-the-names-beh

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Black Bear, Big Horned Owl, Caribou Evict J. Crew from Boreal Forest at Corporate Office Environmental Protest

Culminating a national weekend of protests targeting the catalogs industry, on Monday, April 23, 2007 environmental activists from Wetlands Activism Collective staged a protest at the corporate office of J. Crew, , at 770 Broadway (at 9th St.) in Manhattan, demanding that the company stop destroying boreal forests for catalog paper. Activists dressed as boreal forest animals served a notice of eviction from Canada’s Boreal forest to a mock-chainsaw wielding activist dressed as J. Crew CEO Millard Drexler. The notice informed the company that they have 30 days to get out of Endangered Forests, increase recycled content, and reduce paper use.

 Adorned in owl, bear, and caribou costumes, protesters cried in despair, "J. Crew is evicting us from our forest homes!", melodramatically "dying" on the sidewalk. Later on in the demonstration, as one activist in a bear costume staggered and "died" in the middle of the sidewalk, a police officer said that such actions would be "blocking the sidewalk."  After that, the bear suit wearing protester removed the costume nd to and laid sprawled it out in front of the demonstration, with a sign about J. Crew in front, and shouted, "J. Crew killed this poor bear!" The caribou cried, "My friend the bear is dead, thanks to J. Crew!  They destroyed our forest home!" .

Interested onlookers sign petitions, and activists educated many J. Crew employees about the company's destruction of ancient boreal forests.

Catalog retailers send out 20 billion catalogs a year, and almost none of the paper contains any recycled content. Instead, over 8 million tons of trees a year go into catalogs alone--which means 8 million tons of trees are going from forests to the landfill, with a short appearance as junk mail in between. This is causing the destruction of forests such as North America’s Boreal Forest, one of our first lines of defense against global warming.

http://wetlands-preserve.org/?page=JCrewCorpOfficeDemo

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Ian Crane on BBCtv5 discusses Codex Alimentarius, Big Pharma Scam (Video)

http://www.ianrcrane.co.uk/index.php

Mobile Phones: "Russian Roulette with your Brain"

 
Cancer Researcher Warns on Cell Phone Use

In science news, the head of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has issued what has been described as an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff to limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer. Dr. Ronald Herberman said children should only use cell phones for emergencies and that adults should keep the phone away from their heads by using a wireless headset or the speaker phone. According to the Associated Press, no other major academic cancer research institutions have sounded such an alarm about cell phone use. Devra Lee Davis, the director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Environmental Oncology, said, “The question is do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain. I don’t know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don’t know that they are safe.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/24/headlines#10

"For The Record" Program on Seismic Weapons 1997 (mp3 file)

FTR-69

During World War II, Winston Churchill observed that, in wartime, truth is so precious that it should, at all times, be attended by "a bodyguard of lies." For decades, the United States and former U.S.S.R. researched the possibility of manipulating natural disasters, including earthquakes, as weapons of mass destruction. This type of weaponry was the focus of a treaty between the two superpowers negotiated in the late 1970’s. Yet, despite a growing body of evidence that seismic weaponry may very well be a fact of life in the late 1990’s, officialdom continues to downplay that ominous possibility. This program explores that evidence. In addition to examining evidence of the existence of seismic weapons and/or research into such weapons, the segments highlight the research of Nikola Tesla, who used mechanical resonance to cause a small earthquake in New York City in 1896! After discussion of a press conference given on April 28, 1997 by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, in which he says that "terrorist nations" are currently developing means of triggering earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and disastrous weather events, the program reviews some of the history of the Cold War research and development of seismic weapons. The broadcast also touches on the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo’s attempt to use Tesla’s discoveries to develop tectonic weapons and their professed belief that the Kobe earthquake was caused by the United States.

(See also: FTR #’s 1, 30, 79, 101.)

(Recorded on 6/1/97)

Download F-069a.mp3 (6.7mb)

Download F-069b.mp3 (6.6mb)

http://spitfirelist.com/f069.html

Another State (mp3 file)

Download anotherstateofmind.mp3 (3mb)

The "Creation of Food or Water Shortages or Floods”

 

2 of 3 Former CIA Directors Oppose Too Many Restrictions of Covert Acts (Washington Post 1978)

FUCK YOO UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley seems to be moving further and further from its ideals of a public institution accessible to all and home of the Free Speech Movement. Its reckless and dangerous actions to attempt to remove tree-sitters last week is just one of many steps in this direction.

UC Berkeley has refused to negotiate with the community or work to develop an intelligent alternative to building dressing rooms in an oak grove that is beloved by the community and considered sacred to many. Instead it has used its massive propaganda machine and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fence tree-sitters in and police them.

UC Berkeley, which touts itself as the home of the Free Speech Movement could have responded differently. It could have used the tree-sit as an opportunity to demonstrate what free speech and genuine public dialogue means. It could have supported the tree-sitters as a way for its student body to actively engage in struggle and dialog around issues that are passionate to them, to learn that education is about actively participating in creating a new world, not just receiving a society in crisis. It could have used the hundreds of thousands of dollars it spent policing the tree-sit to host community forums to develop a better solution than cutting the oak grove. More fundamentally, it could have used these forums to discuss what the role of a public university should be and why, in a state that spends far more on prisons than it does on higher education, that Berkeley is more and more unable to fill this role.

Berkeley did not seize the opportunity but responded just as the university did to the People's Park demonstrations in the 1960s. It responded with force. Perhaps this does not surprise us as community members. Berkeley more and more does not represent the ideals of a public institution. It has an atrociously low percentage of Black, Latino and Native American students and faculty in a state where people of color are a majority. Its tuition has made it far from the publicly accessible university it was created to be. It has been working to negotiate one of the largest corporate-university buyouts in history with British Petroleum-I mean Beyond Petroleum; it provides a safe haven for Professor John Yoo, who provided legal cover for the Bush Administration's torture regime; it continues to research and help in the development of nuclear weapons; it refused to offer timely tenure to Professor Ruthie Gilmore, a renowned African American scholar, forcing her decision to leave Berkeley, and the list goes on.

It is time that we as a state speak out for a new type of education system. An education system with adequate funding, that does not need to pimp itself to corporate takeovers and an education system that encourages dialog and thought, not fed ideas and forced deforestation. The university's actions against the tree-sit should be an awakening to us; a call to action for a new way of learning in a country that is falling behind.

Jonah Zern
The Daily Californian
June23.2008
Critique of University's Tree-Sit Response

http://www.dailycal.org/printable.php?id=101945

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/yooj/

Pharmaceuticals Found in U.S. Water Supply

A vast array of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an investigation has found.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs - and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen - in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking-water supplies of 24 metropolitan areas - from Southern California to northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the investigation found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed.

How do the drugs get into the water?    

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at water-treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies - which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public - have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

"We recognize it is a growing concern, and we're taking it very seriously," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Findings widespread    

The AP reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking-water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. It also surveyed the nation's 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

Here are some of the key test results:    

Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.    

Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking-water-treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.    

The federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water. Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that haven't: Houston, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Phoenix, Boston and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people.

Some providers screen only for one or two pharmaceuticals, leaving open the possibility that others are present.    

Watersheds affected    

The investigation also indicates that watersheds, the natural sources of most of the nation's water supply, also are contaminated. Tests were conducted in the watersheds of 35 of the 62 major providers surveyed, and pharmaceuticals were detected in 28.

Yet officials in six of those 28 metropolitan areas said they did not go on to test their drinking water - Fairfax, Va.; Montgomery County in Maryland; Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City; Santa Clara, and New York City.

The New York state health department and the USGS tested the source of the city's water, upstate. They found trace concentrations of heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and a tranquilizer.

In several cases, officials at municipal or regional water providers said pharmaceuticals had not been detected, but test results from independent researchers showed otherwise.

Of the 28 major metropolitan areas where tests were performed on drinking water supplies, only Albuquerque; Austin, Texas; and Virginia Beach, Va.; said tests were negative. The drinking water in Dallas has been tested, but officials are awaiting results. Arlington, Texas, acknowledged that traces of a pharmaceutical were detected in its drinking water but cited post-9/11 security concerns in refusing to identify the drug.

A spreading problem    

Contamination is not confined to the United States. More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and streams throughout the world. Studies have detected pharmaceuticals in waters throughout Asia, Australia, Canada and Europe - even in Swiss lakes and the North Sea.

In the United States, the problem isn't confined to surface waters. Pharmaceuticals also permeate aquifers deep underground, source of 40 percent of the nation's water supply. Federal scientists who drew water in 24 states from aquifers near contaminant sources such as landfills and animal feed lots found minuscule levels of hormones, antibiotics and other drugs.

Perhaps it's because Americans have been taking drugs - and flushing them unmetabolized or unused - in growing amounts. Over the past five years, the number of U.S. prescriptions rose 12 percent to a record 3.7 billion, while nonprescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.

"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," said EPA scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to draw attention to the issue of pharmaceuticals in water in the United States.

The cellular level    

Some drugs, including widely used cholesterol fighters, tranquilizers and anti-epileptic medications, resist modern drinking water and wastewater treatment processes. Plus, the EPA says there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals.

Veterinary drugs also play a role. Pets are now treated for a wide range of ailments- sometimes with the same drugs as humans. The inflation-adjusted value of veterinary drugs rose by 8 percent, to $5.2 billion, over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute.

Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza and Justin Pritchard
The Associated Press
Mar10.2008
http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_8514600?source=rss

"Neighborhood's going to Hell"

Southern California Wildfires (2007)

Hell Los Angeles: Constantine (2005)

Download d_storm05.jpg (1991)

Container Ship Crashes into Bay Bridge

Heavy-duty bunker fuel oil has washed up on beaches throughout the San Francisco and Marin coastlines all day, leaving purplish sheens on the water, ugly black blobs in the sand, and hundreds of injured or dead birds.

Some 9,500 gallons of oil have been contained since a container ship rammed the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of its fuel...

Spill closes bay beaches as oil spreads, kills wildlife (video, photos)

The Hanjin container ship, Cosco Busan, struck the Bay Bridge tower, at left, on Wednesday.

Preschool Puberty

Parents often think their children grow up too quickly, but few are prepared for the problem that Dr. Michael Dedekian and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School reported recently.

At the annual Pediatric Academic Society meeting in May in San Francisco, they presented a report that described how a preschool-age girl, and then her kindergarten-age brother, mysteriously began growing pubic hair. These cases were not isolated; in 2004, pediatric endocrinologists from San Diego reported a similar cluster of five children.

It turns out that there have been clusters of cases in which children have prematurely developed signs of puberty, outbreaks similar to epidemics of influenza or environmental poisonings. In 1979, the medical journal The Lancet described an outbreak of breast enlargement among hundreds of Italian schoolchildren, probably caused by estrogen contamination of beef and poultry. Similar epidemics in Puerto Rico and Haiti were tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 1980’s.

Increasingly — though the science is still far from definitive and the precise number of such cases is highly speculative — some physicians worry that children are at higher risk of early puberty as a result of the increasing prevalence of certain drugs, cosmetics and environmental contaminants, called “endocrine disruptors,” that can cause breast growth, pubic hair development and other symptoms of puberty.

Most commonly, outbreaks of puberty in children are traced to accidental drug exposures from products that are used incorrectly.

Dr. Dedekian’s first patient was evaluated for possible genetic endocrine problems and a rare brain tumor before the  cause of her puberty was discovered. It turned out that her testosterone level was almost 100 times normal, in the range of an adult man. The same problem affected her brother.

The doctors realized that the girl’s father was using a concentrated testosterone skin cream bought from an Internet compounding pharmacy for cosmetic and sexual performance purposes. From normal skin contact with their father, the children absorbed the testosterone, which caused pubic hair growth and genital enlargement. The boy, in particular, also developed some aggressive behavior problems.

Sex hormones are potent because they are easily absorbed through the skin and resist degradation better than many other hormones. Unlike protein-based hormones like insulin, sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen are technically steroids, meaning they are derived from cholesterol.

Primarily made by the liver, cholesterol begins with tiny pieces of sugar that are joined, twisted and oxidized in a dizzying series to make an end product that resembles the interlinked rings of the Olympic emblem. Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, Nobel Laureate and a biochemist in Texas, once called it “the most highly decorated small molecule in biology,” because 13 Nobel Prizes have been awarded for its study.

Through further processing, primarily in the gonads and adrenal glands, cholesterol is converted into sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone. Kenneth Lee Jones, the former chief of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego, noted pediatric cases similar to those described by Dr. Dedekian in a 2004 report in the journal Pediatrics.

At that time, unregulated “prohormones” like Andro, famously used by Mark McGwire, the former St. Louis Cardinals power hitter, and banned by federal law in 2005, were available as topical sprays used to enhance libido. Dr. Jones said the sprays used by adults in some households permeated the children’s bedsheets, and the early puberty stopped only when the adults stopped using the sprays and also discarded old sheets.

Testosterone-containing products are not the only trigger of disordered puberty in children.

In a 1998 paper in the journal Clinical Pediatrics, Dr. Chandra Tiwary, the former chief of pediatric endocrinology at Brook Army Medical Center in Texas, reported an outbreak of early breast development in four young African-American girls who used shampoos that contained estrogen and placental extract. The early puberty reversed once the shampoo was stopped.

In the tradition of previous physicians who deliberately exposed themselves to possible pathogens, Dr. Tiwary tried the shampoos on himself. He carefully measured his own levels of various male and female sex hormones to establish his baseline, used the shampoos for a few days, then repeated the tests.

While Dr. Tiwary is quick to admit that his unpublished findings must be interpreted with great caution, some of his sex hormone levels changed by almost 40 percent after he used the shampoos. In some cases, substances other than sex steroids may also disrupt normal sexual development. In Boston at the annual Endocrine Society meeting in June, Clifford Bloch of the University of Colorado School of Medicine presented several cases of young men who had developed marked breast enlargement from using shampoos containing lavender and tea tree oils, which are widely used essential oil additives that present no problem for adults. (Unlike Dr. Dedekian’s cases, these cases were not a result of passive transfer from parents. The boys themselves used the shampoos.)

Dr. Bloch collaborated with scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina to test the oils on human breast cells grown in test tubes. Lavender and tea tree oil had the same effect on the cells as estrogen.

Dr. Bloch speculates that the findings, which he is submitting for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, may explain the boys’ breast growth. He noted, however, that cells in a test tube are a far cry from humans, so the relationship of the essential oil to breast growth remains hypothetical.

While pediatric endocrinologists have implicated pharmaceutical or personal care products for causing pubertal problems in children, some environmental scientists also claim that some widespread industrial and pharmaceutical pollutants harm the normal sexual development of fish and animals. By extension, they may also contribute to earlier or disrupted puberty in children, these scientists contend. Robert Kavlock, a senior reproductive toxicologist at the Environmental Protection Agency, said  these concerns  “caused a shift in worry from cancer to noncancer” effects of environmental pollution over the past decade.

In 1994, scientists found that estrogen-like chemicals from plastics manufacturing plants that had contaminated sewers in England caused genetically male fish to develop into females. In the early 1980’s, major spills of the DDT-like pesticide dicofol in Florida led to the “feminization” of the reproductive tracts of male alligators.

Ralph Cooper, the chief of endocrinology at the reproductive toxicology division of the Environmental Protection Agency, says various sources of endocrine disruptors, like manufacturing chemicals, may be leaching into the environment. While their relation to pubertal problems in children remains highly speculative, he believes further study is needed.

Past epidemiological evidence, however, does worry Dr. Cooper, because some chemical exposures have been associated with early puberty. In 1973, thousands of Michigan residents ate food contaminated by a flame retardant, PBB, which was later correlated with earlier menstruation in girls. In Puerto Rico, which has some of the world’s highest rates of early puberty, the condition was linked to higher levels of a plasticizer called phthalate in affected children.

Governmental efforts to create a systematic method to assess possible endocrine disruptors from environmental sources have stalled.

In 1996, Congress directed the E.P.A. to develop a comprehensive screening program for possible endocrine disruptors within three years. Dr. Cooper says no such program has begun operation, a failure he attributed largely to stonewalling by chemical industry representatives who serve on an advisory committee for the program. Now the proposed rollout is December 2007, but Dr. Cooper said, “They may be dreaming.” Critics cite the program’s high potential costs and lack of reliable laboratory tests.

Protecting children from endocrine disrupters in cosmetics and prescription drugs  may also be difficult in the near future.

In 1989, the Food and Drug Administration proposed allowing up to 10,000 units of estrogen per ounce of cosmetic, the approximate oral daily dose of hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women. Dr. Tiwary said that in the early 1990’s he filed an adverse drug report with the agency about hormone-containing shampoos but that to his knowledge, it never came to anything.

Reached by e-mail, a spokeswoman for the F.D.A. said that the agency was “aware of some reports describing premature sexual devolepment” with shampoos but that it had concluded that “there is no reason for consumers to be concerned.”

At this time, “placental materials are neither prohibited by cosmetic regulations nor restricted” by the F.D.A., she wrote.

Dr. Dedekian said that while prohormones like Andro are no longer commercially available, lax regulation of so-called compounding pharmacies allows the manufacture and sale of concentrated testosterone creams, like the one affecting his patient, without government oversight.

Topical lotions and creams containing testosterone may become more common. In 2000, Solvay Pharmaceuticals secured F.D.A. approval for Androgel, a lotion to treat a syndrome the company calls low T, referring to low testosterone. According to the company’s Web site, the condition affects 13 million men over 45. From 2000 to 2004, the number of testosterone prescriptions doubled to over 2.4 million a year.

Solvay Pharmaceuticals referred questions on Androgel’s possible risks to Natan Bar-Chama, an associate professor of urology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Dr. Bar-Chama acknowledged the theoretical risks of transfer of the hormone through skin contact with children, but he said he had never seen a case among the hundreds of men he has treated. He added, however, that it was prudent to take precautions when using the product, including hand-washing after handling the gel and wearing clothing to avoid skin-to-skin contact with others.

In 2003, an Institute of Medicine report stated, “There has been increasing concern about the increase in the number of men using testosterone and the lack of scientific data on the benefits and risks of this therapy.”

Dr. Dan Blazer, a psychiatrist at Duke who was chairman of the committee, said, “In no way did we find a condition that we defined as low T.”

The major clinical trial of Androgel’s effectiveness for low T, published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2000, included neither a placebo group (patients who received an inactive dummy lotion) nor a control group (patients who did not have low T) for comparison.

Dr. Ronald Swerdloff, the chief of endocrinology at Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., and a consultant for Solvay, who ran the study, said the trial was limited in scope since it examined “a new route of administration for an already established drug.”

Darshak M. Sanghavi is a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Correction: Oct. 27, 2006

An article in Science Times on Oct. 17 about cases of puberty in very young children omitted the author’s affiliation. The author, Dr. Darshak M. Sanghavi, is a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, as is an expert he quoted, Dr. Michael Dedekian.

Correction: Nov. 6, 2006

An article in Science Times on Oct. 17 about cases of puberty in very young children misstated the given name of an Environmental Protection Agency official who commented on efforts to determine whether manufacturing chemicals may play a role. He is Ralph L. Cooper, not Robert. The article also misstated the surname of an E.P.A. official who spoke about possible noncancerous effects of industrial and pharmaceutical pollution. He is Robert J. Kavlock, not Havelock.

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/science/17puberty.html?ei=5088&amp;en=ed072921988bcaee&amp;ex=1318737600&amp;adxnnl=1&amp;partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss&amp;adxnnlx=1162938223-jfHzOHYzZ5SNGKg3Q4CW0g">Preschool Puberty and a Search for the Causes</a>

Darshak&nbsp; M. Sangavi
The New York Times
October 17, 2006

<a href="http://www.holology.com/hormone.html">Sex Hormone Pollution </a></p>

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