US studymore than 200 diseases to pollution

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=582743

 

US study links more than 200 diseases to pollution

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

 

14 November 2004

 

Pollution has been linked to about 200 different diseases, ranging

from cerebral palsy to testicular atrophy, as well as more than 37

kinds of cancer, startling US research shows.

 

The study, which the authors say probably underestimates the full toll

of the contamination, will focus attention on the need for information

on the tens of thousands of chemicals routinely released into the

environment.

 

But Britain has weakened the proposed European Union regulations to

provide safety information on the substances at the behest of the US

government.

 

The research, by doctors at what was then the University of California

and at the Boston Medical Center, was restricted to listing only

effects that had been found by several different studies and which are

often well known.

 

More than 120 diseases have been definitively linked to pollution, and

in another 33 evidence of a link is judged to be " good " . For the rest

the evidence is " limited " .

 

Nine different pollutants have been " verified " to cause asthma -

including four from car exhausts, the subject of an Independent on

Sunday campaign - the study shows. Testicular atrophy is caused by

oestrogen, increasingly found in British rivers that supply drinking

water. Mercury poisoning can cause cerebral palsy, while more than 50

pollutants - ranging from dioxins to PCBs - have been shown to cause

cancer.

 

Other effects include: kidney disease, heart disease, hypertension,

diabetes, dermatitis bronchitis, hyperactivity, deafness, sperm damage

and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

 

One of the authors, Dr Ted Schletter of the Boston Medical Center,

said yesterday: " The human body is in constant conversation with this

chemical milieu and some substances have turned out to be important

contributors to disease. " He said pollution often acted in concert

with genetic predispositions to developing particular illnesses.

 

Dr J Peterson Myers, chief executive of the Virginia-based

Environmental Health Sciences, said because science continued to find

new effects of pollution, the number of diseases linked to it was

" very much higher " .

 

At the last count - more than 20 years ago - more than 100,000

chemicals were in use in Europe. Few have been properly tested.

 

Blood tests in the UK, the rest of Europe and the US indicate that

most people carry potentially hazardous chemicals in their bodies.

 

The European Commission has been trying to introduce a new directive

requiring industry to provide safety information on the 30,000 most

common chemicals, but this measure has been watered down because of

pressure from the Bush administration.

 

A leaked cable signed by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State,

complains that the measures " would be significantly more burdensome to

industry and government " and would " impact " on US exports to Europe.

Tony Blair, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard

Schröder of Germany wrote a joint letter to the Commission and

succeeded in weakeningthe measure.