Worst pollution risks increasingly indoors - Toxins lurk in air, dust, cleaning supplies

[Guest guest]

11.30.2007Worst pollution risks increasingly indoorsNot so sweet home: Toxins lurk in air, dust, even cleaning suppliesBy Tony DavisARIZONA DAILY STARhttp://www.azstarnet.com/metro/214061We clean with them. We build them into our walls and cabinets. We spraythem on bugs, weeds and gardens.We drag them into the house on our shoes and we stir them up when we walkon our carpets.They're in our toys, our shower curtains, our clothes, the water bottleswe

use for hiking and the baby bottles we use for breast milk and formula.They're in the televisions we watch and some of the computers thatentertain us.More and more chemicals and unhealthful substances are embedded in ourdaily lives. And they swirl together inside our tightly built personalspaces to create new, and very personal, toxic hot spots: our homes.Before even stepping outside in the morning, we are exposed to more severepollution than we get from landfills, hazardous waste sites orsmokestacks, say many scientists, including retired EnvironmentalProtection Agency officials.The health risks from these indoor pollutants are also much greater thanthe risks outdoors — perhaps 100 to 1,000 times greater, scientistsconcluded. That's especially troubling because people tend to spend 90percent of their time indoors, 65 percent of it at home.An Arizona Daily Star investigation finds

that: & #9679; Household chemicals are linked to various diseases, includingcancer, in a growing number of studies of laboratory animals, but expertsdisagree on their safety. & #9679; Arid Arizona is considered one of the riskiest states in thecountry for toxic mold inside the home, even though mold is caused bywater. & #9679; The United States has regulated chemicals fairly lightly, far lessstrictly than Europe. In this country, for instance, companies don't haveto label the toxic ingredients they put in consumer products. & #9679; Consumers are left in the dark about the safety of conventionalchemical cleaners and other popular products, including a controversialchemical commonly used in hard plastic water bottles and baby bottles. & #9679; People can try to minimize their own exposure at home, butindustrial solutions are elusive. For example, it's been hard forauthorities to find

and put in place a safe, viable alternative to acancer-causing solvent used by 85 percent of dry cleaners.The health risks are a concern for many Tucsonans — ranging from a motherwho switched to a different type of bottle for her infant daughter, to awoman who wonders if chemical exposures have kept her from gettingpregnant, to a mom who slashed her use of chlorine bleach because shefeared it was making her kids sick."We have a number of chemicals in our indoor air that weren't there 50years ago," said Charles Weschler, an expert in environmental andoccupational medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey."We know why we are using them — to make our plastics perform better, toreduce the risk of fire, to kill cockroaches, to help our paint lastlonger, to make our cleaning products smell good."But we often don't know their long-term health consequences."Endocrine disruptors a

concernAs the number of studies about chemical risks reaches into the thousands,the toll of diseases they are suspected of causing is also mounting.Asthma, attention deficit disorder, autism, increasing infertility inwomen and declining testosterone levels and sperm counts in men all may becaused or aggravated by household toxic exposure.What bothers many scientists is that the federal government hasn't putnearly as much energy into combating indoor air pollution as it has putinto cleaning outdoor air."We've spent a tremendous amount of societal resources on studying andcleaning our water and working on outdoor air pollution," said GlennMorrison, an engineering professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla."Frankly, the real known hazard from exposure to air indoor pollution isso much higher that a lot of the time and effort has been misdirected.''For many years, scientists' biggest indoor air

quality concerns lay inconventional poisons such as tobacco smoke, asbestos, volatile organicchemicals, carbon monoxide, lead, pesticides, formaldehyde and radon.Indoor air levels of many of those have declined since the 1970s.But today, those toxins are joined by a class of common but not totallyunderstood chemicals called endocrine disruptors or environmentalestrogens.They're found in plastic bottles, metal food cans, detergents, flameretardants, food, toys, cosmetics and pesticides. They're in circuitboards in computers, game stations and home audio systems, environmentalprofessor Weschler said.Many have been used for decades. But unlike lead and tobacco, whose healtheffects are well-established, numerous problems associated with thesecompounds have come to light only in the past decade.As their name implies, endocrine disruptors can adversely affect hormonebalance or disrupt organ function and

cause developmental, reproductive,neurological and immune effects in humans and wildlife.Jill Martinez, a Northeast Side mother of four, has a house full ofplastic toys — Legos, Star Wars light sabers, a microscope and a piano, toname just a few.Plasticizers in toys and other products generally aren't labeled, soconsumers don't know which ones have the controversial chemicals.Martinez hadn't heard about health controversies involving plastics, butsaid if the chemicals turned out to be unsafe, "I would definitely beinclined to slow down on buying them. I would only buy them if I thoughtthey would be educational somehow."Similarly, Tucsonan Hector Esquer, 52, has amassed many perks of themodern good life: two big-screen TVs, an Apple TV, PlayStation 3, fourcomputers and more. "I got all the toys, I guess you could say," saidEsquer, who manages an automotive warehouse."There's been a lot of talk

that there are lead items made in China, but Iwasn't aware of fire retardants" in household electronics, he said. "I'mnot real concerned about it, but maybe we should be."If they were proven to be unsafe, "You bet I'd would want to replace theTVs," Esquer said. "I'd be willing to pay half again as much to make surethey were safe."Risk relationships chronicledIn the case of many chemicals and compounds, the risks for humans areinconclusive, and disagreements are heated.One reason: The vast majority of research comes from animal studies. It'sconsidered unethical to deliberately feed or inject people with chemicals,although many studies have compared people known to have been exposed tocertain chemicals with those who haven't been exposed. Not all scientistsand government officials accept the idea that chemicals have the sameeffect on humans as on animals.Beyond that, chemical industry officials

say the safety of their productshas been affirmed over and over by federal agencies and, in some cases,other countries. They say the studies raising questions about the productsaren't valid, had weak results at best, and didn't prove cause and effect.They also say advocates for regulation have distorted the significance oftheir results to push a political agenda.Federal officials, for their part, say they lack authority to regulateindoor air safety but are making some strides.But concerns about our household chemical stews keep mounting.In the past year, scientists from Massachusetts to Denmark to Australiahave released studies saying: & #9679; Laser printers release ultra-fine particles that can cause heartand lung disease. & #9679; Three organic hazardous chemicals released into indoor air presenta cancer risk to the general population about 100 times greater than theEPA considers

acceptable: formaldehyde, found in some building materials;chloroform, related to chlorinated water in many cities; and naphthalenein mothballs. & #9679; As household dust gets heavier, the risk that residents will getasthma doubles. & #9679; PFOSes and PFOAs — ubiquitous man-made chemicals used to coatnon-stick pans, textiles and carpets and to manufacture insecticides —have a statistical association with decreased birth weight and head sizein newborns. & #9679; Flame retardants called PBDEs commonly used in television setsincrease the risk of undescended testicles in newborn boys and of felinehyperthyroidism, a leading cause of death in cats.Together, various kinds of environmental exposures could be one reasonthat the percentage of children and adolescents in the United States withchronic illnesses lasting more than three months has risen from 1.8percent in 1960 to 7 percent in 2004, the

Journal of the American MedicalAssociation says.Other factors playing a role could be very low birth weights, diet,obesity, lack of exercise and increased television and other mediaviewing, the journal recently reported.Tucson alternatives growingThe costs of indoor pollution are skyrocketing, several studies show. Itcosts about $15.9 billion and perhaps up to $20 billion annuallynationwide to prevent and clean up indoor air pollution, says a 2005 EPAstudy.In California alone, crummy indoor air costs the state's economy $45billion annually due to premature deaths, medical costs, lost workerproductivity and other impacts, says the state's Air Resources Board.Nationwide, just taking care of childhood asthma caused by indoorpollution costs about $2.3 billion a year.If society could come up with ways to improve indoor air quality, thesavings would reach $125 billion annually, said the federally

financedLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory."We need to pay attention to pollution sources that are right under ournose," said William Nazaroff, a professor of civil and environmentalengineering at UC-Berkeley.Some states have banned some of the most controversial compounds inconsumer products. Various federal agencies, prodded by public concern,are looking at them more closely.For consumers in Tucson and elsewhere, choices are growing."Green" commercial home cleaners are becoming a big business, althoughsorting through their claims and hype isn't easy.Some Southern Arizonans are finding ways to build less-chemicalized homes.They're painting those homes with non-toxic paints, and cleaning them withnatural concoctions.But one public health professor says she has learned to live with theuncertainty of the risks even though she's studied the products in herwork and takes the health warnings

seriously."I use pesticides, eat non-organic food and buy all the cleaning productson the cleaning products aisle," said the University of Arizona's Mary KayO'Rourke. "I follow the directions, make sure the house is well-vented."Like many, she does what she can, a little here and there in her busylife, and hopes it's enough.- - - -Visit go.azstarnet.com/toxic for a video previewing the toxic home seriesas well as photos and links to all the stories in the series."We know why we are using them — to make our plastics perform better, toreduce the risk of fire, to kill cockroaches, to help our paint lastlonger, to make our cleaning products smell good. But we often don't knowtheir long-term health consequences."Charles Weschler, adjunct professor, Robert Wood Johnson Medical Schooland the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New JerseyExposure everywhere you turn

....Household chemical exposures are becoming more dangerous to people'shealth than many Superfund pollution sites and other outdoor exposures,many scientists say:• Three kinds of household chemical exposures — radon, consumer productsand indoor air quality in general — ranked among the top five nationalenvironmental risks for developing cancer in a 1987 EnvironmentalProtection Agency study. Superfund sites and other inactive hazardouswaste disposal sites ranked eighth.• An EPA researcher's 1991 study showed that residents of eight U.S.cities were exposed to 10 organic chemicals and eight pesticides at levelshigher than the EPA typically considers acceptable. Indoor air sourcesaccounted for 80 percent to 100 percent of the risks associated with mostof those chemicals.• Researchers have repeatedly found in the past 20 years that levels ofvarious toxic pollutants in household dust were higher, often

many timeshigher, than the levels that force cleanup of soil at federal Superfundsites, according "Exposure Analysis," a new textbook.• A retired EPA scientist ranked various activities on a graph by how muchchemical pollution exposure they involved. Stripping paint indoors rankedfirst, or most dangerous. Next in line were visiting dry cleaners,repairing autos, using anti-moth crystals, pumping gasoline, usingdeodorizers, showering in chlorinated water and wearing dry- cleanedclothes. Living near hazardous waste sites ranked last out of 16activities.Sources: EPA reports; the book "Exposure Analysis," edited by retired EPAofficials Wayne Ott and Lance Wallace, and Anne Steinemann, acivil-environmental engineering professor at the University of Washington."We know why we are using them — to make our plastics perform better, toreduce the risk of fire, to kill cockroaches, to help our paint lastlonger, to make

our cleaning products smell good. But we often don't knowtheir long-term health consequences."Charles Weschler, adjunct professor, Robert Wood Johnson Medical Schooland the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New JerseyExposure everywhere you turn ...Household chemical exposures are becoming more dangerous to people'shealth than many Superfund pollution sites and other outdoor exposures,many scientists say:• Three kinds of household chemical exposures — radon, consumer productsand indoor air quality in general — ranked among the top five nationalenvironmental risks for developing cancer in a 1987 EnvironmentalProtection Agency study. Superfund sites and other inactive hazardouswaste disposal sites ranked eighth.• An EPA researcher's 1991 study showed that residents of eight U.S.cities were exposed to 10 organic chemicals and eight pesticides at levelshigher than the EPA typically

considers acceptable. Indoor air sourcesaccounted for 80 percent to 100 percent of the risks associated with mostof those chemicals.• Researchers have repeatedly found in the past 20 years that levels ofvarious toxic pollutants in household dust were higher, often many timeshigher, than the levels that force cleanup of soil at federal Superfundsites, according "Exposure Analysis," a new textbook.• A retired EPA scientist ranked various activities on a graph by how muchchemical pollution exposure they involved. Stripping paint indoors rankedfirst, or most dangerous. Next in line were visiting dry cleaners,repairing autos, using anti-moth crystals, pumping gasoline, usingdeodorizers, showering in chlorinated water and wearing dry- cleanedclothes. Living near hazardous waste sites ranked last out of 16activities.Sources: EPA reports; the book "Exposure Analysis," edited by retired EPAofficials Wayne Ott

and Lance Wallace, and Anne Steinemann, acivil-environmental engineering professor at the University of Washington.- - - -more INSIDE TODAYMold is rampantDry climate is no deterrent. Page A6Asthma strategiesManaging dust helps. Page A7Rating the dangersScientists rank the most dangerous pollutants. Page A7*The material in this post is distributed withoutprofit to those who have expressed a prior interestin receiving the included information for researchand educational purposes.For more information go to:http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.htmlhttp://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htmIf you wish to use copyrighted material from thisemail for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', youmust obtain permission from the

copyright owner.All content copyright © 1999-2007 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily Star Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. Make your homepage.

Be a better pen pal. Text or chat with friends inside Mail. See how.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for sharing this story! I have fibromyalgia, and last year I

started doing a lot of research about chemicals, particularly about

household toxins. The more I researched, the more amazed I was, and

what seems to me a cover up by the FDA to protect the manufacturing

industry over human health.

 

I started making several changes in my home, and the more changes I

made the better I felt, so I continued making more changes. I still

have a few issues with fibromyalgia, but I am so much better than I

was last year at this time. I had fought fibromyalgia for around 12

years, so I guess I should not expect it to go completely away in a

year. I am off all medications for fibromyalgia however, and doing

great.

 

My daughter has had asthma and allergies since birth, and after I

started making changes and seeing such great results, she decided to

make some changes in her home. Her asthma and allergies, as well as

her two children's health has improved a great deal. Asthma under

control without steroids, and hardly any use of inhalers. My grandson

had eczema since birth, it is gone.

 

All of these wonderful health changes have made me a believer, not

only that these household toxins are dangerous, but that we have to

take control of our own lives. It is obvious to me that our

government does not have our best interest are heart, only the bucks

made by manufactures of these dangerous toxins.

 

I have also realized how much prevention is so important, it is

better to prevent disease, than try to cure it.

 

Thanks again for the great article.

 

Annie

 

 

 

 

 

, Tim Campbell <jtcmpbl

wrote:

>

>

> 11.30.2007

>

> Worst pollution risks increasingly indoors

>

> Not so sweet home: Toxins lurk in air, dust, even cleaning supplies

>

> By Tony Davis

> ARIZONA DAILY STAR

> http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/214061

>

> We clean with them. We build them into our walls and cabinets. We

spray

> them on bugs, weeds and gardens.

>

> We drag them into the house on our shoes and we stir them up when

we walk

> on our carpets.

>

> They're in our toys, our shower curtains, our clothes, the water

bottles

> we use for hiking and the baby bottles we use for breast milk and

formula.

> They're in the televisions we watch and some of the computers that

> entertain us.

>

> More and more chemicals and unhealthful substances are embedded in

our

> daily lives. And they swirl together inside our tightly built

personal

> spaces to create new, and very personal, toxic hot spots: our homes.

>

> Before even stepping outside in the morning, we are exposed to more

severe

> pollution than we get from landfills, hazardous waste sites or

> smokestacks, say many scientists, including retired Environmental

> Protection Agency officials.

>

> The health risks from these indoor pollutants are also much greater

than

> the risks outdoors — perhaps 100 to 1,000 times greater, scientists

> concluded. That's especially troubling because people tend to spend

90

> percent of their time indoors, 65 percent of it at home.

>

> An Arizona Daily Star investigation finds that:

>

> & #9679; Household chemicals are linked to various diseases,

including

> cancer, in a growing number of studies of laboratory animals, but

experts

> disagree on their safety.

>

> & #9679; Arid Arizona is considered one of the riskiest states in the

> country for toxic mold inside the home, even though mold is caused

by

> water.

>

> & #9679; The United States has regulated chemicals fairly lightly,

far less

> strictly than Europe. In this country, for instance, companies

don't have

> to label the toxic ingredients they put in consumer products.

>

> & #9679; Consumers are left in the dark about the safety of

conventional

> chemical cleaners and other popular products, including a

controversial

> chemical commonly used in hard plastic water bottles and baby

bottles.

>

> & #9679; People can try to minimize their own exposure at home, but

> industrial solutions are elusive. For example, it's been hard for

> authorities to find and put in place a safe, viable alternative to a

> cancer-causing solvent used by 85 percent of dry cleaners.

>

> The health risks are a concern for many Tucsonans — ranging from a

mother

> who switched to a different type of bottle for her infant daughter,

to a

> woman who wonders if chemical exposures have kept her from getting

> pregnant, to a mom who slashed her use of chlorine bleach because

she

> feared it was making her kids sick.

>

> " We have a number of chemicals in our indoor air that weren't there

50

> years ago, " said Charles Weschler, an expert in environmental and

> occupational medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New

Jersey.

>

> " We know why we are using them — to make our plastics perform

better, to

> reduce the risk of fire, to kill cockroaches, to help our paint last

> longer, to make our cleaning products smell good.

>

> " But we often don't know their long-term health consequences. "

>

> Endocrine disruptors a concern

>

> As the number of studies about chemical risks reaches into the

thousands,

> the toll of diseases they are suspected of causing is also mounting.

>

> Asthma, attention deficit disorder, autism, increasing infertility

in

> women and declining testosterone levels and sperm counts in men all

may be

> caused or aggravated by household toxic exposure.

>

> What bothers many scientists is that the federal government hasn't

put

> nearly as much energy into combating indoor air pollution as it has

put

> into cleaning outdoor air.

>

> " We've spent a tremendous amount of societal resources on studying

and

> cleaning our water and working on outdoor air pollution, " said Glenn

> Morrison, an engineering professor at the University of Missouri-

Rolla.

> " Frankly, the real known hazard from exposure to air indoor

pollution is

> so much higher that a lot of the time and effort has been

misdirected.''

>

> For many years, scientists' biggest indoor air quality concerns lay

in

> conventional poisons such as tobacco smoke, asbestos, volatile

organic

> chemicals, carbon monoxide, lead, pesticides, formaldehyde and

radon.

> Indoor air levels of many of those have declined since the 1970s.

>

> But today, those toxins are joined by a class of common but not

totally

> understood chemicals called endocrine disruptors or environmental

> estrogens.

> They're found in plastic bottles, metal food cans, detergents, flame

> retardants, food, toys, cosmetics and pesticides. They're in circuit

> boards in computers, game stations and home audio systems,

environmental

> professor Weschler said.

>

> Many have been used for decades. But unlike lead and tobacco, whose

health

> effects are well-established, numerous problems associated with

these

> compounds have come to light only in the past decade.

>

> As their name implies, endocrine disruptors can adversely affect

hormone

> balance or disrupt organ function and cause developmental,

reproductive,

> neurological and immune effects in humans and wildlife.

>

> Jill Martinez, a Northeast Side mother of four, has a house full of

> plastic toys — Legos, Star Wars light sabers, a microscope and a

piano, to

> name just a few.

>

> Plasticizers in toys and other products generally aren't labeled, so

> consumers don't know which ones have the controversial chemicals.

>

> Martinez hadn't heard about health controversies involving

plastics, but

> said if the chemicals turned out to be unsafe, " I would definitely

be

> inclined to slow down on buying them. I would only buy them if I

thought

> they would be educational somehow. "

>

> Similarly, Tucsonan Hector Esquer, 52, has amassed many perks of the

> modern good life: two big-screen TVs, an Apple TV, PlayStation 3,

four

> computers and more. " I got all the toys, I guess you could say, "

said

> Esquer, who manages an automotive warehouse.

>

> " There's been a lot of talk that there are lead items made in

China, but I

> wasn't aware of fire retardants " in household electronics, he

said. " I'm

> not real concerned about it, but maybe we should be. "

>

> If they were proven to be unsafe, " You bet I'd would want to

replace the

> TVs, " Esquer said. " I'd be willing to pay half again as much to

make sure

> they were safe. "

>

> Risk relationships chronicled

>

> In the case of many chemicals and compounds, the risks for humans

are

> inconclusive, and disagreements are heated.

>

> One reason: The vast majority of research comes from animal

studies. It's

> considered unethical to deliberately feed or inject people with

chemicals,

> although many studies have compared people known to have been

exposed to

> certain chemicals with those who haven't been exposed. Not all

scientists

> and government officials accept the idea that chemicals have the

same

> effect on humans as on animals.

>

> Beyond that, chemical industry officials say the safety of their

products

> has been affirmed over and over by federal agencies and, in some

cases,

> other countries. They say the studies raising questions about the

products

> aren't valid, had weak results at best, and didn't prove cause and

effect.

>

> They also say advocates for regulation have distorted the

significance of

> their results to push a political agenda.

>

> Federal officials, for their part, say they lack authority to

regulate

> indoor air safety but are making some strides.

>

> But concerns about our household chemical stews keep mounting.

>

> In the past year, scientists from Massachusetts to Denmark to

Australia

> have released studies saying:

>

> & #9679; Laser printers release ultra-fine particles that can cause

heart

> and lung disease.

>

> & #9679; Three organic hazardous chemicals released into indoor air

present

> a cancer risk to the general population about 100 times greater

than the

> EPA considers acceptable: formaldehyde, found in some building

materials;

> chloroform, related to chlorinated water in many cities; and

naphthalene

> in mothballs.

>

> & #9679; As household dust gets heavier, the risk that residents

will get

> asthma doubles.

>

> & #9679; PFOSes and PFOAs — ubiquitous man-made chemicals used to

coat

> non-stick pans, textiles and carpets and to manufacture

insecticides —

> have a statistical association with decreased birth weight and head

size

> in newborns.

>

> & #9679; Flame retardants called PBDEs commonly used in television

sets

> increase the risk of undescended testicles in newborn boys and of

feline

> hyperthyroidism, a leading cause of death in cats.

>

> Together, various kinds of environmental exposures could be one

reason

> that the percentage of children and adolescents in the United

States with

> chronic illnesses lasting more than three months has risen from 1.8

> percent in 1960 to 7 percent in 2004, the Journal of the American

Medical

> Association says.

> Other factors playing a role could be very low birth weights, diet,

> obesity, lack of exercise and increased television and other media

> viewing, the journal recently reported.

>

> Tucson alternatives growing

>

> The costs of indoor pollution are skyrocketing, several studies

show. It

> costs about $15.9 billion and perhaps up to $20 billion annually

> nationwide to prevent and clean up indoor air pollution, says a

2005 EPA

> study.

>

> In California alone, crummy indoor air costs the state's economy $45

> billion annually due to premature deaths, medical costs, lost worker

> productivity and other impacts, says the state's Air Resources

Board.

>

> Nationwide, just taking care of childhood asthma caused by indoor

> pollution costs about $2.3 billion a year.

>

> If society could come up with ways to improve indoor air quality,

the

> savings would reach $125 billion annually, said the federally

financed

> Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

>

> " We need to pay attention to pollution sources that are right under

our

> nose, " said William Nazaroff, a professor of civil and environmental

> engineering at UC-Berkeley.

>

> Some states have banned some of the most controversial compounds in

> consumer products. Various federal agencies, prodded by public

concern,

> are looking at them more closely.

>

> For consumers in Tucson and elsewhere, choices are growing.

> " Green " commercial home cleaners are becoming a big business,

although

> sorting through their claims and hype isn't easy.

>

> Some Southern Arizonans are finding ways to build less-chemicalized

homes.

> They're painting those homes with non-toxic paints, and cleaning

them with

> natural concoctions.

>

> But one public health professor says she has learned to live with

the

> uncertainty of the risks even though she's studied the products in

her

> work and takes the health warnings seriously.

>

> " I use pesticides, eat non-organic food and buy all the cleaning

products

> on the cleaning products aisle, " said the University of Arizona's

Mary Kay

> O'Rourke. " I follow the directions, make sure the house is well-

vented. "

>

> Like many, she does what she can, a little here and there in her

busy

> life, and hopes it's enough.

>

> - - - -

>

> Visit go.azstarnet.com/toxic for a video previewing the toxic home

series

> as well as photos and links to all the stories in the series.

>

> " We know why we are using them — to make our plastics perform

better, to

> reduce the risk of fire, to kill cockroaches, to help our paint last

> longer, to make our cleaning products smell good. But we often

don't know

> their long-term health consequences. "

>

> Charles Weschler, adjunct professor, Robert Wood Johnson Medical

School

> and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

> Exposure everywhere you turn ...

>

> Household chemical exposures are becoming more dangerous to people's

> health than many Superfund pollution sites and other outdoor

exposures,

> many scientists say:

>

> • Three kinds of household chemical exposures — radon, consumer

products

> and indoor air quality in general — ranked among the top five

national

> environmental risks for developing cancer in a 1987 Environmental

> Protection Agency study. Superfund sites and other inactive

hazardous

> waste disposal sites ranked eighth.

>

> • An EPA researcher's 1991 study showed that residents of eight U.S.

> cities were exposed to 10 organic chemicals and eight pesticides at

levels

> higher than the EPA typically considers acceptable. Indoor air

sources

> accounted for 80 percent to 100 percent of the risks associated

with most

> of those chemicals.

>

> • Researchers have repeatedly found in the past 20 years that

levels of

> various toxic pollutants in household dust were higher, often many

times

> higher, than the levels that force cleanup of soil at federal

Superfund

> sites, according " Exposure Analysis, " a new textbook.

>

> • A retired EPA scientist ranked various activities on a graph by

how much

> chemical pollution exposure they involved. Stripping paint indoors

ranked

> first, or most dangerous. Next in line were visiting dry cleaners,

> repairing autos, using anti-moth crystals, pumping gasoline, using

> deodorizers, showering in chlorinated water and wearing dry- cleaned

> clothes. Living near hazardous waste sites ranked last out of 16

> activities.

> Sources: EPA reports; the book " Exposure Analysis, " edited by

retired EPA

> officials Wayne Ott and Lance Wallace, and Anne Steinemann, a

> civil-environmental engineering professor at the University of

Washington.

>

> " We know why we are using them — to make our plastics perform

better, to

> reduce the risk of fire, to kill cockroaches, to help our paint last

> longer, to make our cleaning products smell good. But we often

don't know

> their long-term health consequences. "

>

> Charles Weschler, adjunct professor, Robert Wood Johnson Medical

School

> and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

>

> Exposure everywhere you turn ...

>

> Household chemical exposures are becoming more dangerous to people's

> health than many Superfund pollution sites and other outdoor

exposures,

> many scientists say:

>

> • Three kinds of household chemical exposures — radon, consumer

products

> and indoor air quality in general — ranked among the top five

national

> environmental risks for developing cancer in a 1987 Environmental

> Protection Agency study. Superfund sites and other inactive

hazardous

> waste disposal sites ranked eighth.

>

> • An EPA researcher's 1991 study showed that residents of eight U.S.

> cities were exposed to 10 organic chemicals and eight pesticides at

levels

> higher than the EPA typically considers acceptable. Indoor air

sources

> accounted for 80 percent to 100 percent of the risks associated

with most

> of those chemicals.

>

> • Researchers have repeatedly found in the past 20 years that

levels of

> various toxic pollutants in household dust were higher, often many

times

> higher, than the levels that force cleanup of soil at federal

Superfund

> sites, according " Exposure Analysis, " a new textbook.

>

> • A retired EPA scientist ranked various activities on a graph by

how much

> chemical pollution exposure they involved. Stripping paint indoors

ranked

> first, or most dangerous. Next in line were visiting dry cleaners,

> repairing autos, using anti-moth crystals, pumping gasoline, using

> deodorizers, showering in chlorinated water and wearing dry- cleaned

> clothes. Living near hazardous waste sites ranked last out of 16

> activities.

>

> Sources: EPA reports; the book " Exposure Analysis, " edited by

retired EPA

> officials Wayne Ott and Lance Wallace, and Anne Steinemann, a

> civil-environmental engineering professor at the University of

Washington.

>

> - - - -

>

> more INSIDE TODAY

>

> Mold is rampant

> Dry climate is no deterrent. Page A6

> Asthma strategies

> Managing dust helps. Page A7

> Rating the dangers

> Scientists rank the most dangerous pollutants. Page A7

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