Just in case you have been trying to inhale your caffeine lately, you should stop.  The FDA issued a letter of warning to the makers of Breathable Food Inc.’s Aeroshot “caffeine inhaler” today, stating that there is a question of safety, particularly relating to children, teens and combining the product with alcohol.

The FDA claims that the company has “false or misleading statements” on their labels.  The labels tell consumers to “swallow” the product, which introduces caffeine into the lungs.  The stimulant is not normally inhaled, therefore the safety in doing so has not been well studied.

Aeroshot combated this claim, pointing to “decades” of research that show the particles in their product are too big to enter the lungs, but fails to cite specific data.

The Agency also complained that the product label does not provide contact information for consumers to report any problems they experience as a result of the product, as federal law requires.  Law also mandates that manufacturers ensure that a product is safe and properly labeled prior to sale.

Breathable Foods has 15 business days to respond to the Agency with a plan to correct the problems cited.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) defines a "disease cluster" as an unusually large number of people sickened by a disease in a certain place and time. Toxic exposure by industrial activity is usually suspected or blamed. Along with the National Disease Clusters Alliance, NRDC reported in 2011 that it had identified 42 disease clusters in 13 U.S. states.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) defines a disease cluster as “an unusually large number of people sickened by a disease in a certain place and time.” The organization, along with the National Disease Clusters Alliance (NDCA), reported in March 2011 that it had identified 42 disease clusters throughout 13 U.S. states: Texas, California, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Delaware, Louisiana, Montana, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, all chosen for analysis, states the report, “based on the occurrence of known clusters in the state, geographic diversity, or community concerns about a disease cluster in their area.”

State and local health departments respond to some 1,000 inquiries per year about suspected disease clusters, though less than 15 percent turn out to be “statistically significant.” Epidemiologists explain that true cancer clusters typically involve one type of disease only, a rare type of cancer, or an illness not usually found in a specific age group.

A classic example of a disease cluster is in Anniston, Alabama, where residents experienced cancerous, non-cancerous, thyroid and neurodevelopment effects that they believe were caused by releases of various chemicals, including PCBs. The culprit: a nearby Monsanto-owned chemical maker, according to NDCA. And, indeed, a 2003 study in and around Anniston by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry did find that one in five locals had elevated PCB levels in their blood.

Clusters are controversial “in part because our scientific criteria for proving that exposure A caused disease B…are extremely difficult to meet,” says Donna Jackson Nakazawa, author of The Autoimmune Epidemic. “People move, or die, or their disease is never properly diagnosed. How can we prove, with all these variables, that a toxic exposure in an area caused a group of people to fall ill with a specific set of diseases?” Nakazawa is hardly skeptical about the existence of disease clusters. She is part of a growing chorus of voices calling on the government to not only remediate existing sites but to also prevent disease clusters in the first place by developing more stringent standards regarding chemical usage and disposal.

“European environmental policy uses the precautionary principle—an approach to public health that underscores preventing harm to human health before it happens,” Nakazawa reports. In 2007 the European Union implemented legislation that forces companies to develop safety data on 30,000 chemicals over a decade, and places responsibility on the chemical industry to demonstrate the safety of their products. “America lags far behind, without any precautionary guidelines regarding chemical use,” adds Nakazawa.

NRDC says “there is a need for better documentation and investigation of disease clusters to identify and address possible causes.” Armed with better data, advocates for more stringent controls on chemicals could have a better chance of convincing Congress to reform the antiquated Toxic Substances Control Act of 1975 and bring more recent knowledge about chemical exposures to bear in setting safer standards.

CONTACT: NRDC report.

Echinacea has gained popularity in recent years as a remedy for the common cold. But because it is not regulated as a medical drug by the FDA -- and given the variation between dosages and formulations available to consumers -- it is difficult to get definitive answers as to its effectiveness. (iStock)

Echinacea, also known as purple coneflower, has gained popularity in recent years as a nutritional supplement that proponents believe is helpful in staving off the common cold and shortening its duration. But given the variation between dosages and formulations—such herbs are not regulated as medical drugs by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and so makers have little incentive to standardize—it’s hard to get definitive answers as to Echinacea’s effectiveness.

Historically, Native Americans relied on the root of Echinacea to numb toothache pain and treat dyspepsia as well as snake, insect and spider bites. While some modern day folks rely on Echinacea just based on this anecdotal evidence, scientific studies have verified that the herb can be effective. To wit, a 2008 University of Connecticut review of 14 different clinical trials of Echinacea use found that taking the supplement reduced the chances of getting a cold by 31 percent, and helped people get over cold and flu symptoms a day and a half earlier than those who didn’t take it.

Researchers initially thought Echinacea’s effectiveness was due to its immune-boosting traits, but they now believe instead that the herb works more as an anti-inflammatory agent. A 2009 University of British Columbia study found that typical commercially available Echinacea preparations are effective in reducing the body’s production of inflammatory proteins in human bronchial cells. In layman’s terms, this means that Echinacea can help lessen the annoying symptoms of common colds, the flu and other respiratory ailments. Furthermore, the study found that Echinacea is just as effective in reducing bronchial inflammation whether it is consumed before or after a viral infection sets in, indicating that taking moderate doses on a regular basis during cold season can help prevent some bronchial irritation if and when cold symptoms begin.

Interestingly, though, a 2010 study of 719 participants in Wisconsin focusing on illness duration and severity found that the duration of the common cold could be shortened by taking a pill of some sort, whether Echinacea or a placebo with no active ingredients. But this study merely underscored the importance of psychological factors in fighting illness and did not say that Echinacea isn’t effective.

Given the lack of FDA oversight of herbs, different formulations may contain vastly different amounts of Echinacea. A 2004 evaluation of 19 different Echinacea brands by the non-profit Consumers Union and published in Consumer Reports found that the amount of Echinacea actually present in supplements varied considerably from brand to brand—and even in some cases from bottle to bottle of the same brand. The magazine recommended a few brands as “best picks,” including Spring Valley, Origin and Sundown, all which featured high concentrations of Echinacea and reliable dosage amounts from pill to pill.

Before taking the Echinacea plunge, beware that the herb can cause allergic reactions in some people and may interact negatively with some common medications. Researchers warn that anyone with autoimmune disease or a handful of other illnesses should not take Echinacea without first consulting with their doctor.

CONTACTS: FDA, www.fda.gov; Consumers Union, www.consumersunion.org.

Asthma rates have doubled since the 1980s, in spite of air quality in U.S. cities having increased over the same time period. This has led some experts to conclude that other factors -- including Vitamin D deficiency, obesity, overuse of acetaminophen (i.e. Tylenol) and spray mist from glass cleaners and air fresheners -- are now playing a role. (Thinkstock)

Asthma is on the rise across the U.S., doubling since the 1980s. According to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), most people who develop asthma likely have a genetic predisposition but also probably experienced “critical environmental exposures during the first years of life.” Asthma rates are highest in urban areas where auto and industrial emissions make for difficult breathing. But air quality in U.S. cities has improved in the last few decades, leaving researchers puzzled as to what’s behind the trend.

One theory is that better hygiene in developed countries means that Westerners have less exposure to bacteria, viruses and parasites, altering our immune response with the result being increased risk for allergic diseases like asthma. Indeed, Western asthma rates are 50 times higher than in rural Africa. While this “hygiene hypothesis” may be part of the story, researchers believe that there are also other factors.

Some studies have shown a correlation between asthma and obesity, though a direct link is hard to prove. Other research has shown that psychological stress can trigger asthma attacks in those already predisposed. Dr. Harold Nelson, professor of medicine at the National Jewish Health in Denver, explained in a 2009 New York Times blog post that increased acetaminophen (i.e. Tylenol) use in young children, exposure to household cleaning sprays, and lack of Vitamin D also likely contribute to rising asthma rates. But how?

Pediatricians recommend against giving young children aspirin today, given the increased risk of Reye’s syndrome, so many parents now use acetaminophen to relieve pain and reduce fever. But acetaminophen lowers levels of the antioxidant glutathione, resulting in an increased asthma risk. A 2008 study found that use of acetaminophen in the first year of life was associated with a 46 percent increase in the prevalence of asthma symptoms among a study group of 200,000 six- and seven-year-olds.

In regard to household cleaners, frequent inhaling of the spray mist from glass cleaners and air fresheners among other products irritates the lungs and increases the risk of developing asthma. A 2007 study found that European adults who used spray cleaners four days a week faced double the risk of developing asthma symptoms, while weekly use of cleaners increased the risk by 50 percent.

The link between Vitamin D deficiency and asthma comes from several studies on the topic over the last decade showing that low levels of Vitamin D in pregnant mothers result in more asthma in offspring. Those who spend lots of time indoors are particularly vulnerable to Vitamin D deficiency, as exposure to sunlight increases the body’s ability to produce the important nutrient.

Dr. Nelson says that people can take steps to lower their exposure to these “new” asthma risk factors. For one, forego spray cleaners and air fresheners for liquids and pump sprays that don’t produce a fine mist. Pregnant women might consider Vitamin D supplements. And parents should discuss pain relievers with their doctor and consider alternating different types so kids don’t get overexposed to any particular one.

CONTACTS: EDF, www.edf.org/health/air/asthma; “New Risks Linked to Asthma Rise” (New York Times, 2/12/09), well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/new-risk-factors-linked-to-asthma-rise.

By Kasey Miller at Emmanuel College

Photo Cred: www.laurenshope.com

The main reason people do not wear medical IDs is because they are ugly and bring attention to their medical conditions. Another reason is because people do not know what medical conditions are considered important enough to merit wearing a medical ID. The simple solution would be to ask your doctor. If your doctor thinks you should wear a medical ID odds are you should wear one.

Lauren’s Hope medical IDs are negating the stigma of people wearing medical IDs. They are fashionable and, unless the person wearing the ID wants or needs to bring attention to their medical condition, no one knows that they are wearing one.

The front of the pendant looks like a carnation with a lot of colorful layers. In the center of the flower is a red medical alert symbol but unless you are strictly looking for it, you do not see it. If you are trying to look for it, you will see it.

“It’s so important to wear a medical ID and when Laurens Hope makes them so cute I don’t mind wearing mine! People need options when they have diabetes. We have minimal options in treatment, but in fashion they are limitless.” Says Allison Crace, a type one Diabetic.

On Lauren’s Hope webpage, you can choose from a variety of styles of medical IDs. If you prefer to wear something subtle, like a watch, they have that option. If you want something flashy that shows up when you wear it, they also have jewelry that fits that description. Whatever style you are, and if you have any known chronic illnesses, Lauren’s Hope has the type of medical ID you are looking for.

People with known chronic illnesses crave control – and Lauren’s Hope gives some control back to these people.

A Lauren’s Hope medical ID necklace looks like a normal necklace. This brings up the question: How does medical staff know if a person is wearing a medical ID? The answer is that emergency medical staff is trained to check for the little red medical alert symbol on the arms, neck or feet of any person seen by emergency medical staff.

The price of a Lauren’s Hope medical ID would be somewhere in the sixty dollar range. The price of not wearing a medical ID, on the other hand, is far more costly.

Although there is no definitive proof, many studies seem to indicate that consumption of onions, garlic and other members of the allium family (leeks, shallots and chives) reduces the risk of certain cancers. (Thinkstock)

Natural healers have extolled the cancer-preventing virtues of garlic and onions for years, but only recently do we have enough scientific research to draw some conclusions. Several animal studies showing promising results using garlic and other members of the allium family (onions, leek, shallot, and chive) to prevent tumors have led to hundreds of studies involving human garlic eaters. While it is near impossible to pinpoint a direct link between garlic consumption and cancer prevention, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reports that “several population studies show an association between increased intake of garlic and reduced risk of certain cancers, including cancers of the stomach, colon, esophagus, pancreas, and breast.”

To wit, a multi-year study of 25,000 people from Switzerland and Italy found that those who ate the most garlic and onions were up to 88 percent less likely to develop various types of cancer (including cancers of the esophagus, mouth, throat, colon, breast, ovary, prostate and kidney) than those who said they ate little or none. “High onion intake, for example, was associated with a 56 percent lower risk of colon cancer and a 25 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to no onion intake,” reports Karen Collins of the non-profit American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR).

According to Collins, another study found a 32 percent lower colon cancer risk among Iowan women who ate at least one garlic clove a week compared to others who ate one once a month or less, while an analysis of several studies worldwide “linked a 31 percent lower risk of colon cancer with consumption of about four to five cloves of garlic weekly.” And the results of several studies conducted in China show that that those who eat five cloves of garlic a week are half as likely to develop stomach cancers than non-garlic-eaters. Meanwhile, AICR reports that isolated components of garlic have shown the ability to slow or stop the growth of tumors in prostate, bladder, colon, and stomach tissue.

Just how do allium plants prevent cancer? “Like many vegetables, onions and garlic contain antioxidants that can block highly reactive free radicals from damaging cell DNA and starting the cancer process,” reports Collins. “Laboratory studies have shown that onion and garlic compounds can increase enzymes that deactivate carcinogens in the body, enhancing our ability to eliminate carcinogens before they do any damage.”

Some researchers, however, say that study limitations—that is, the accuracy of reported amounts and frequency of garlic consumed and the inability to compare data from studies that used different garlic products and amounts—make a definitive declaration on the topic unlikely anytime soon. And without such definitive conclusive proof of a causal link, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will not allow food purveyors to state the health benefits of the garlic in their products on their labels.

NCI would like to see better-designed human dietary studies using predetermined amounts of garlic to discern potentially effective intakes as well as more studies directly comparing various garlic preparations. “Given this protective potential, the challenge now is to identify amounts that will provide optimal effects,” says Collins. In the meantime, don’t skimp on the garlic and onions.

CONTACTS: National Cancer Institute, www.cancer.gov; American Institute for Cancer Research, www.aicr.org.

Most researchers now agree that environmental factors -­ including exposure to chemicals and pollution -­ play a significant role today in determining who gets cancer and who doesn't. (Thinkstock)

With the World Health Organization hinting that cancer could unseat heart disease as the leading cause of death around the world, it’s no surprise that per capita cancer incidence is on the rise globally. In fact, cancer is the only major cause of death that has continued to rise since 1900. While it might depend on whom you ask, most researchers now agree that environmental factors—including exposure to chemicals and pollution—play a significant role today in determining who gets cancer and who doesn’t.

A blue ribbon panel of cancer experts initially convened by President George W. Bush researched hundreds of studies and concluded in 2010 (in its 240-page report, “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now”) that our exposure to chemicals, pollution and radiation is to blame for the uptick in cancer deaths. “The American people—even before they are born—are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures,” the panel reported. “With the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the unacceptable burden of cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures that could have been prevented through appropriate national action.”

The panel cited grim statistics about cancer’s march, noting that 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, with 21 percent likely to die from it. Cancer researchers fear that our reliance on chemicals is the main culprit, as borne out by hundreds of studies.

To wit, a 2000 study involving the examination of health records of more than 44,000 pairs of twins across Scandinavia found that “inherited genetic factors make a minor contribution” in causing most cancers but that “the environment has the principle role in causing sporadic cancer.” A 2010 UK study, whereby researchers investigated the level of chemical exposure of more than 1,100 women during their employment history, found that those study subjects who had been exposed to various industrial chemicals and airborne hydrocarbons were at least three times more likely to get breast cancer later on than women with little or no exposure in their backgrounds.

Not everyone agrees. Writing in Forbes magazine, Henry I. Miller and Elizabeth Whelan of the industry-friendly American Council on Science and Health argue that the findings of the presidential panel are based on politics not science: “If the authors had only bothered to consult a standard textbook on cancer epidemiology, they would have learned that lifestyle factors such as smoking, obesity, excessive alcohol consumption and overexposure to sunlight—not chemicals in air, water and food—are the underlying causes of most preventable human cancers.”

While few today would doubt the health risks of such personal lifestyle factors, the President’s cancer panel nevertheless concluded that “the burgeoning number and complexity of known or suspected environmental carcinogens compel us to act to protect public health,” and urged President Obama to use the power of his office to “remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”

CONTACTS: President’s Cancer Panel, deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/; American Council on Science and Health, www.acsh.org.

A sinusitis surgery has been shown to clear up chronic fatigue also, according to a study in the journal Laryngoscope.

“Finally we have good, scientifically consistent evidence that fatigue will very often improve significantly after surgery,” said Dr. Neil Bhattacharyya, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a senior author of the study, in a statement.

According to the study, people who suffer from sinusitis list chronic fatigue in addition to facial pain and nasal blockage as their worst symptoms.

The research showed that endoscopic sinus surgery to remove blockages dramatically improved their energy afterward.

The paper looked at 28 studies of 3,427 patients. Each study showed that patients who were fatigued before surgery had their energy back an average of one year later.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

If recent reports concerning the Red Sox historical collapse are any indication, the chicken may have been fleeing from the Boston clubhouse.

Among other accusations, Red Sox captain Jason Varitek and starters Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, and John Lackey have been ousted for eating fried chicken and drinking beer in the clubhouse during games. This revelation, paired with the news that the trio decided to cut back on their training regimen, provides Red Sox Nation with an all too familiar feeling.

While the Curse of the Bambino may have had a more weighted mystique than the aura surrounding a bucket of Popeye’s chicken, it seems as though the end result is the same: overweight athletes are once again causing Boston’s problems.

However, rather than perpetuate the storm of negativity that has been raging since the Red Sox fell short of the playoffs, it seemed about time to take a glass half full perspective.

The following is a list of foods that could be deemed unhealthier than Popeye’s fried kryptonite that seemed to plague Fenway Park.

1. PB & C Milkshake – Cold Stone Creamery

This fun-filled beverage received the title of America’s Unhealthiest Drink in 2010. Weighing in at respectable 2000 calories, one of these shakes equals a days worth of calorie intake. Whether you like it, love it, or gotta have it, this is one desert that makes a fried chicken breast look like a mixed greens salad.

2. Fettuccine Alfredo – Olive Garden

The Fettuccine Alfredo dinner at Olive Garden contains 1,220 calories and 1,350 mg of sodium. If John Lackey had spent the seventh inning stretch digging into this delicious bowl of carbohydrates he might have shattered the Red Sox record for worst earned run average by a starting pitcher. Oh wait, he did that anyway.

3. Cheesy Breadsticks – Papa Gino’s

I’m not going to lie it stung a little to throw this particular menu item on the list. However, with a stat line of 1,300 calories and 3,730 mg of sodium in a small breadstick (2 servings), it couldn’t be avoided. The fact that this could be considered a precursor to a few slices of pizza makes for a scary combination.

4. – Large Tuna Melt – Quiznos

This large sub approaches the 2,000 calories club thanks to a generous serving of mayonnaise. The sub itself is big enough that it might’ve taken John Lester four whole innings to eat — which is pretty close to the length of his average start in September.

5. Chicken Carbonara Bread Bowl – Dominos

1,300+ calories and almost 200 carbohydrates are used in the construction of this fairly new addition to the Dominos menu. With Dominos uber-efficient online ordering system, the Red Sox rotation would’ve known exactly when it was time to go “stretch out” in the clubhouse.

6. Jalapeno Smokehouse Burger – Chilis

5,250 mg of sodium almost manages to overshadow the fact that this particular burger packs a whalloping 1,750 calories. Let’s just be thankful that it isn’t offered in bucket form.

7. Sausage, Egg, and Cheddar on Asiago Bagel – Au Bon Pain

You thought you were safe breakfast, but I couldn’t overlook your potential to ruin a John Lackey day-game start. This particular breakfast sandwich features 810 calories and 1,500 mg of sodium. If you’re going enjoy this breakfast item in bed, you may want to get comfortable.

8. Chicken and Spinach Salad – IHOP

That’s right, salad. Don’t let the leafy greens fool you. This IHOP menu item is making a run at the more traditional taboo foods with its 1,600 calorie count. It lures you in with the nutritional reputation of spinach, and next thing you know you paid $15 million for a salad that never meets your expectations, and spends every post game interview passing the blame to other salads. That got a little weird.

9. Crispy Calamari – Red Lobster

I cast my rod out into the Atlantic to find this seafood dish that boasts an impressive 1,500 calories and 3,060 mg of sodium. One time Marlin Josh Beckett may have met his match in terms of former sea creatures being detrimental to health of New Englanders (Clearly I’m still a little bitter).

10. Fried Chicken Breast – Popeyes

We have come full circle. It is time to put the star of the Red Sox dietary drama under the microscope. One fried chicken breast from Popeyes contains 440 calories and 1,330 mg of sodium. Okay, so maybe the guilty pleasure of Lackey and company can stand toe to toe with the rest of this list. However, I have to assume that if these three pitchers shared a bucket of chicken like they shared their inability to protect a 9 game wild card lead in September, then maybe it’s not so bad.

Dogs really are man’s best friend.  Studies show that dog owners walk faster and more often and are more likely to have an active lifestyle all because of their four-legged friend.

Dr. Sandra McCune, an animal behaviorist from Leicestershire, England co-edited the book in which this study was published, called “The Health Benefits of Dog Walking for People and Pets.”

“I’m fascinated by what a great motivator dogs can be,” said McCune.

According to a recent survey of more than 1,011 dog owners done by Mars Petcare, dogs are the reason for 66 percent of walks the owner takes per week. 25 percent of people with children and pets visit parks and other outdoor spaces regularly because of their dog.

“Personally, I have a Labrador,” McCune said. “When it’s dark, when it’s raining, the dog needs a walk, every day.”

In addition to helping with diet plans, dog walking also boosts social and communal ties, McCune claims.

“If people go out with a dog, they’re more likely to have a conversation,” she said.

Because of all the health benefits dogs can provide to their owners, the YMCAs in several U.S. cities will host “The Power of Pets,” a program that includes dog runs and walks, as well as dog yoga and other activities.

“It’s a chance to get the community together,” Katy Leclair, executive director of the Lake View, Illinois YMCA said of the program. “Families with dogs tend to be more active.”

Experts believe that dogs promote exercise and health because they provide companionship, much like a workout partner.

“Dogs can provide that companionship,” said Shirley Archer, a spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise.” Frisbee tossing, ball throwing, agility competitions, dog and human boot camps, are great opportunities to be active,” she said. “But obedience training is a must.”

Laura Cartwright Hardy is a grandmother, full-time graduate student and active dog lover, according to Reuters.  The Little Rock, Arkansas resident owns two large German Shepherds and cites them as the reason for her health.

“I’ve had big dogs since I was 20 and that’s definitely been part of the reason I’ve always been fit,” she said. “They certainly keep you honest about walking. Those big brown eyes make it impossible to say no.”

Medical waste washing up on New Jersey beaches was a big problem in the late 1980s, closing beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the New Jersey shore. Although that problem was addressed for the most part, bacterial contamination from sewage treatment outflows, contaminated storm water and other sources caused more than 24,000 beach closures or advisories across the U.S. last year. Pictured: a washed-up syringe. (iStock)

Medical waste washing up on New Jersey beaches was a big problem in the late 1980s, closing beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the New Jersey shore. Officials scrambled for months to figure out where the waste was coming from, and eventually zeroed in on New York City’s Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. Sub-optimal systems there were not successfully containing medical waste and other garbage on site, and New Jersey beaches—and vacationers and business owners—were paying the price. Although no one was injured or exposed to disease by the washed up waste, the public was especially alarmed given the HIV/AIDS crisis gripping the nation at that time. New York City was required to pay $1 million for past pollution damages and had to shoulder the cost of clean-up at Jersey Shore beaches as well.

The resulting loss of tourism cost business owners throughout the affected region as much as 40 percent of their revenue, with total losses estimated at well over $1 billion. Some New Jersey business owners remain upset that New York wasn’t forced to pay them reparations for lost revenue as well.

In the wake of the scare, Congress enacted the Medical Waste Tracking Act in 1988, requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create a program to better track medical waste from cradle-to-grave so that it didn’t end up fouling beaches or any other environments. While the program was not renewed when it expired in 1991, it served as a model for how states and municipalities could better track potentially dangerous medical waste while also helping medical facilities institute systems and processes for making sure they knew where their waste was going and that it would be disposed of responsibly.

Meanwhile, New York and New Jersey have coordinated on setting up and maintaining their own systems to stem the so-called “syringe tides.” The cornerstone is a multi-agency program designed to intercept debris within New Jersey Harbor before it can get to tourist-crowded Jersey Shore beaches. Thanks to the plan—which relies on surveillance by environmental groups as well as routine and special clean-up sweeps by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the implementation of a communications network to facilitate the reporting of incidents and quick responses—beach closures declined from more than 70 miles in 1988 to less than four miles in 1989, with closures remaining at similarly low levels ever since.

Of course, medical waste is hardly the only problem facing America’s beaches and coastal waters. According to the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), bacterial contamination from sewage treatment outflows, contaminated storm water and other sources caused more than 24,000 beach closures or advisories across the country in 2010 alone. NRDC reports on water quality at U.S. beaches every year in its series of “Testing the Waters” reports. Pressure from the group has helped spur the EPA to agree to overhaul Clean Water Act regulations pertaining to urban and suburban storm water runoff and update decades-old beach water quality standards by 2012. These improvements should help to keep beaches from the Jersey Shore to the Great Lakes to California, and points in between, clear of debris and safe for swimmers and sunbathers of every stripe.

CONTACTS: NRDC Testing the Waters, www.nrdc.org/water/oceans/ttw; Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988, www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/medical/tracking.htm.

A brave new world known as “green chemistry” seeks to reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, use and disposal of products. (Thinkstock)

Researchers today are beginning to question the safety of many chemicals used in consumer products. Studies have linked Bisphenol A (BPA), flame retardants, phthalates and many other chemicals found in everyday products to a wide range of health problems, including cancer, learning and behavioral problems and reproductive illnesses.

Despite the federal government’s slowness in calling for it, nonprofit labs and for-profit companies alike have been busy developing safer alternatives to some of these harsher chemicals. The brave new world of “green chemistry,” in which reducing or eliminating the use or generation of hazardous substances is top priority in the design, use and disposal of products, is leading to a rash of new, safer ingredients.

Companies looking to put a “BPA-free” sticker on their bottles, for instance, can make them instead with Eastman Tritan copolyester, a plastic alternative that doesn’t disrupt hormones as Nalgene and CamelBak do. Phthalates—used to soften plastic toys—can be replaced with a product called Grindsted Soft-N-Safe, made from acetic acid and castor oil from the castor plant. Formaldehyde adhesives used to make plywood and other wood products can be replaced with soy-based resins, wood fibers and plastic-wood fibers.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports the effort through its sponsorship of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. The annual awards program recognizes and helps fund efforts to reduce the amount of hazardous substances released into the environment or entering the waste stream, and efforts that reduce the public health hazards associated with the release of such substances.

But while the EPA has the power to spur green chemistry, it is powerless to ban many dangerous chemicals in widespread use. The 1976 law that still governs use of many chemicals, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), presumes that chemicals are innocent until proven guilty. TSCA has failed to require basic testing for the toxicity of some 62,000 chemicals grandfathered in when the law was first passed.

“Once thought to pose little likelihood of exposure, we now know many chemicals migrate from the materials and products in which they’re used—including furniture, plastics and food cans—into our bodies,” reports the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families campaign. The campaign warns that just about every American carries hundreds of these chemicals in their bloodstreams.

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) recently introduced a bill, the Safe Chemicals Act, aimed at overhauling the outdated TSCA. It would require safety testing of all existing chemicals and would promote so-called green chemistry and the development of safe alternatives to unsafe chemicals. The Act would provide the EPA with the authority it needs to protect public health, while enabling the marketplace to innovate safe products, reports Richard Denison of the Environmental Defense Fund. The bill’s sponsors say it expects to have widespread support on both sides of the partisan divide.

CONTACTS: Green Chemistry Challenge Awards, www.epa.gov/gcc/pubs/pgcc/presgcc.html; Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, www.saferchemicals.org; Environmental Defense Fund, www.edf.org.

It might feel nice to kick up your feet and unwind by watching TV after work or to relax by the pool all day, but a sedentary lifestyle can be just as bad for your health as smoking, according to recent research.

Dr. David Coven, a cardiologist at New York’s St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, told CBS.com San Francisco earlier this month that “Smoking certainly is a major cardiovascular risk factor and sitting can be equivalent in many cases.” Coven added that according to several new studies, a sedentary lifestyle is linked to the increased risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and premature death.

According to exercise science expert Steven Blair, as quoted in Science Daily, as many as 50 million Americans live a sedentary lifestyle. Not surprisingly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight and a third are obese.

Callie Durbrow, a personal trainer at Durbrow Performance Training in Cambridge, Mass., says, “It’s all an unfortunate chain of events: sedentary lifestyle leads to obesity, which, in turn, is a well known factor in heart disease, diabetes, and some types of cancer.” She adds that not getting enough exercise is a “recipe for disaster.”

So what can you do to get active if your day revolves around sitting at a desk at work and sitting in the car during your commute? Sneak “mini-workouts” in, says Durbrow. Durbrow recommends getting at least 30 minutes of “moderately intensive” physical activity five days a week.

“Finding time to exercise–maybe before or after work or during the lunch hour–can literally be a real life saver,” she says.

Here’s what you can do:

Take the stairs, and make this mini-workout session even more effective by running up and down instead of walking. “If you do it several times a day, every day, it’ll add up,” says Durbrow.

Get out and walk briskly, enough to get your heart rate up, instead of driving short distances.

Try to use your free time for exercise instead of watching TV or surfing the Web. “If you finally have a bit of free time, use it for some form of physical activity, not to sit around some more,” she says.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only limited say in what cosmetics manufacturers can and cannot put into their products. And the cosmetics industry has essentially been regulating itself for some three decades. But critics argue that self-regulation isn't appropriate for an industry trading in potentially carcinogenic products. (Media credit/Jupter Images via Thinkstock)

The Safe Cosmetics Act was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2010 by Democrats Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. But it never got past committee reviews and thus never came up for a vote.

The proposed bill aimed to ensure that all personal care products for sale in the U.S. would be free of harmful ingredients and that all ingredients would be fully disclosed. The bill would’ve given the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to prohibit the use of certain ingredients, including carcinogens and reproductive and developmental toxins, to recall products that fail to meet safety standards, and to require product labels to name each ingredient.

The FDA has only limited say in what cosmetics manufacturers can and cannot put into their products. And the cosmetics industry has essentially been regulating itself for some three decades, and would like to keep it that way. In response to failed efforts in the 1970s to force the FDA to regulate cosmetics more like drugs—with required pre-market safety assessments—the industry decided to take matters into its own hands, creating the Cosmetics Industry Review Panel to judge the safety of various ingredients.

Critics argue that self-regulation isn’t appropriate for an industry trading in potentially carcinogenic products. “It’s a panel funded by the trade association,” Stacy Malkan of the non-profit Campaign for Safe Cosmetics told the Washington, DC-based Corporate Crime Reporter. “For 30 years that they have been in operation, they have only looked at about 13 percent of the chemicals in cosmetics. They do cursory reviews. They look mostly for short term health effects. It’s a panel of mostly dermatologists, not toxicologists. So, they don’t have the expertise to be looking at long-term health effects like cancer.”

Another non-profit, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), has identified upwards of 100 different products that passed Cosmetics Industry Review Panel safety assessments despite obvious violations of that body’s own guidelines. According to EWG’s research, 22 percent of all personal care products on store shelves today—including children’s products—may contain a cancer-causing ingredient (1,4-Dioxane), while some 60 percent of sunscreens contain oxybenzone, a potential hormone disruptor.

In response to the government not requiring cosmetics manufacturers to be more responsible, EWG launched the Skin Deep website, an easy-to-use, keyword-searchable database of cosmetics and their health risks and environmental footprints. The idea behind the website is to let users decide for themselves which cosmetics to purchase; EWG hopes that making this information freely available and easy-to-access will help drive demand for safer products.

Supporters of the Safe Cosmetics Act were hopeful that passage of their bill would usher in a new era of more rigorous mandatory screening of cosmetics here at home, and leadership in a global marketplace hungry for safer, greener products. Advocates for safe cosmetics hope that lawmakers will muster the resolve to reintroduce the bill, or another like it, in the current or some future session of Congress.

CONTACTS: FDA, www.fda.gov; Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, www.safecosmetics.org; Corporate Crime Reporter, www.corporatecrimereporter.com; Skin Deep, www.ewg.org/skindeep/.

The nonprofit group Beyond Pesticides warns that some 60 percent of pesticides used today have been shown to affect the thyroid gland’s production of T3 and T4 hormones. Commercially available insecticides and fungicides have also been implicated. Women are most at risk. (Getty Images)

The American Cancer Society reports that thyroid cancer is one of the few cancers that have been on the rise in recent decades, with cases increasing six percent annually since 1997. Many researchers, however, attribute these increases to our having simply gotten better at detection. Regardless, exposures to stress, radiation and pollutants have been known to increase a person’s risk of developing thyroid problems.

Thyroid disease takes two primary forms. Hyperthyroidism occurs when the thyroid produces too much of the T3 and T4 hormones that regulate metabolism. This can cause a racing heart, weight loss, insomnia and other problems. In cases of hypothyroidism, the body produces too few hormones, so we feel fatigued and may gain weight, among other symptoms. According to the American Thyroid Association (ATA), many people with thyroid problems don’t realize it, as symptoms can be mistaken for other problems or attributed to lack of sleep. Thyroid problems in children can delay or impair neurological development.

Doctors are not sure why some people are prone to thyroid disease while others aren’t, but genetics has much to do with it. One recent UCLA study found that genetic background accounts for about 70 percent of the risk. However, researchers have begun to find links between increased risk of thyroid disease and exposure to certain chemicals, especially among women. “Pesticide Use and Thyroid Disease among Women in the Agricultural Health Study,” published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2002, found that Iowa and North Carolina women married to men using such pesticides as aldrin, DDT and lindane were at much higher risk of developing thyroid disease than women in non-agricultural areas. According to Dr. Whitney S. Goldner, lead researcher on the study, 12.5 percent of the 16,500 wives evaluated developed thyroid disease compared to between one and eight percent in the general population.

It’s not just farm women who should worry. Trace amounts of chemical pesticides and fertilizers most certainly end up in some of the food we eat. The nonprofit group Beyond Pesticides warns that some 60 percent of pesticides used today have been shown to affect the thyroid gland’s production of T3 and T4 hormones. Commercially available insecticides and fungicides have also been implicated.

Likewise, some chemicals used in plastics and flame retardants contain toxins shown to trigger thyroid problems in those genetically predisposed. And a 2007 study at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio found that triclosan, an anti-bacterial agent found in everything from hand soaps to facial tissues to toys—it’s present in the bloodstreams of three out of every four Americans—could be causing some mothers’ thyroid glands to send signals to fetuses that may in turn contribute to autism.

An increasing number of doctors now believe that hypothyroidism could be precipitated by a dietary deficiency in iodine, a trace element found in the thyroid’s T3 and T4 hormones and essential in small amounts for good health. Besides eating more seafood, switching to iodized salt and/or taking iodine supplements can boost iodine intake without the need for medications. But too much iodine is not healthy, so always consult with your doctor before embarking on any new health or diet regimen.

CONTACTS: ATA, www.thyroid.org; Beyond Pesticides, www.beyondpesticides.org.

It’s going around.

Your neighbors. Your co-workers. You.

We’re sick lately. It’s not all in our head. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reports that rates of flu and flu-like illnesses have been rising over the past week and are expected to keep jumping.

“Rates of flu-like illness continues to rise in Massachusetts this past week, and are expected to continue to climb in the weeks ahead,” the DPH said in a statement Friday. “We can’t know for sure when rates will peak, but one thing we are certain about is that there’s still plenty of flu vaccine available, and it’s absolutely not too late to take advantage.”

Doctor’s office visits for flu or flue symptoms have also climbed 81 percent since last week.

This list is especially difficult because it requires 20/20 hindsight vision to see what gadgets will look like in the year 2020. Most of the time people try predicting future gadgets, they never end up coming close.

I mean, did anyone think that there would be something like the smartphone 10 years ago? Weren’t we supposed to have robots in our home and flying cars by now?

This is my attempt at trying to guess what gadgets will look like over the next decade, taking into account consumer trends, marketability, and current research and development on certain types of technology.

1. “Can Touch This” Screens

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=newgadgetsde&annotation_id=annotation_661696&feature=iv

One of the more promising technologies in this decade is the use of touch technology. We can expect to see touch compatible interfaces everywhere; our cars, TV’s, watches, cameras, (insert any device with a screen here). I am particularly looking out for touch watches. Tissot made their Touch Watch a while ago and the new iPod shuffle can be turned into a touch watch with the corresponding watch band. Soon, we should expect to see touch watches on the market capable of supporting apps, WiFi, the weather, you name it. This technology will also travel to tables and other types of surfaces. Microsoft has recently developed a touch table called “Surface” which gives the user a touch interface on a table top that they provide (think the desk in Tron meets the Minority Report computers in the look and interface, respectively). The use of this technology should allow us to drop our smartphones and storage devices directly on the table and then load pictures, video, music, various types of files effortlessly while simultaneously browsing YouTube and checking our email. Check out this video from ASUS who takes this technology to a whole other level.

2. 3D Gaming

Think Xbox’s Kinect meets the 3D viewing experience we are used to seeing in films like Avatar. Or better yet, imagine virtual reality helmets that give the viewer a 3D mapping experience, combined with the technology of Kinect’s motion sensors. Either way, there is promise for the future of gaming with both motion detection and 3D viewing. Just using the Kinect technology alone, we could start to see something like the interface in the film “Minority Report” and would allow a gamer to precisely motion control their entire gaming experience. Hopefully, the price of 3D HDTV’s will drop so much so that the gaming industry starts to integrate more of that technology into their games. Regardless of price for now, the future of gaming looks bright, but my only reservation is if these gaming companies allow for advertisements during online multiplayer play because that would really ruin it on some level for me.

3. Heads Up Display (HUD) Technology

This one has to be my overall favorite pieces of tech that will be market bound in the not too distant future and in a decade from now, will hopefully be found everywhere. With this technology, lasers can project images up on a special glass surface to create what only fighter pilots have been able to see; colored graphics displayed on a windshield with a display of information. GM has had this technology in development for their cars for some time and they propose to display images on the windshield in front of the driver that display speedometer, RPM’s, temperature, along with outlines of the road or even 3D mapping of the surrounding environment. More applications of this technology are around the corner and might be found on our glasses or sunglasses, motorcycle helmets, or even mirrors. I like the idea of a bathroom mirror that can display the outside temperature, display your emails, a to-do list, and present the daily news headlines because we all need something better to look at than ourselves in the mirror while brushing our teeth. Check the video for a demonstration.

4. E-Paper and Flexible OLED Screens

Imagine a decade from now, waking up in the morning and getting ready for work. You go to your door to pick up the newspaper and low and behold it displays images and texts moving like a marquee across the surface of the paper. Perhaps something that looks like one of those newspapers from Harry Potter, e-paper and flexible OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology can present a digital media source on what looks like a piece of film. The bendable, lightweight paper should be recyclable or at least capable of updating itself with new information. This is just an example with newspapers. Now imagine a world where all of the paper we use, all of the screens we watch, were made out of OLED technology. The applications are practically limitless. And why not save a tree or two along the way…

5. Interconnectivity and “The Cloud”

OK, so this is not necessarily a gadget, but this technology proposes interconnectivity between all of your gadgets, computers, and the like, to create a seamless experience with your own sharing network. This technology also isn’t particularly new, Microsoft has created “Windows Azure” for small businesses, but requires more work in the areas speed, security, and stability. Cloud computing can take it to the next level in this decade and allow everyone everywhere to have their own “Cloud”. In 2020, we should be able to experience instant downloads and uploads in media sharing, file sharing, and preferences between all of our computers, gadgets, cars, smartphones, and maybe even our homes. We would never again have to worry about backing up our precious data, programs, and setup because our cloud will always have everything ready to go in a flash of lightning without the rain.

6. Health-Monitoring Gadgets

This piece of tech is interesting. I predict that by the year 2020 there will be an influx of portable or even disposable health monitoring gadgets that track a person’s blood pressure, heart rate, calories burned, stress levels, glucose levels, etc. It seems that this tech will come in the form of a patch or a bracelet, but it could come in other forms as well when applied on or implanted in your skin to give the user real time information about their body’s activities. This will be especially useful for people with health-related issues, but also for people who like to exercise (ok, maybe not like, but at least participate) and want to monitor their results. Perhaps using “The Cloud” will allow the future device to upload the results to your smartphone and email you suggestions to improve your health.

7. Voice Recognition

As of now, voice recognition is close to hitting it big time. It can be utilized on smartphones, computers, and even IBM’s “Watson,” which has the sophisticated capabilities to recognize speech patterns, natural language, and then analyze the data. Ten years from now, we could walk into a room and give a command for whatever we want from music, temperature control, light control, to perhaps even appliance and device control. In 2020, we should experience instantaneous responses to human voice commands in all of our devices at home. This tech may not only improve the quality of life for the blind and handicapped, but would also be really cool in general. We should just be sure not to name the system HAL (where each letter after them in the alphabet spells out I.B.M).

8. Night Vision Technology

Currently, you can buy infrared vision technology on some types of BMW models (5 & 7 Series) and is certainly promising for the future. Using my 2020 crystal ball, I can see most cars having the ability to switch from day vision to night vision either through the windshield or through a camera that gives a visible feed to a screen on the dash. Windshield night vision (similar to HUD tech and also similar to using OLED tech) can turn the night’s windy road ahead into the visible spectrum for drivers so that everything seems “lit up”. With the camera, a driver would be able to check the screen for anyone up ahead on dark, dirt road. Drivers would clearly see all other vehicles, obstacles, and most importantly, the road when traveling at night. If this technology becomes widespread in the car industry over the next decade, I would bet that nighttime accidents would decrease significantly.

9. Personal Motorized Vehicles

I’ve never had a problem with Vespa’s, scooters, Go/Mo-Peds and the like, but they really have left me unsatisfied as far as wanting one for personal use. I see that having one of these types of personal, compact “vehicles” is extremely useful in a city setting and if you are like me and are too lazy to ride a bike everywhere, your only options seem to be the Vespa route. However, the future looks promising for personal motorized vehicles and will likely see a big push in the upcoming decade. Everything from improvements to the Segway-type vehicle, the introduction of the YikeBike, or even the emergence of electric bicycles, will all likely be more common by the decade’s end along with other types of future looking personalized motorized vehicles.

Personally, I like the idea of the electric bike because of the fact that you can power the electric motor of the bike through a charge and by pedaling your way through traffic and are environmentally friendly.

10. Bye-Bye Camera?

For this last one, I am going to go against the grain a little and talk about a gadget that we will all might be waving “bye-bye” to in the near future. Ever since the introduction of a camera on the iPhone and other smartphones, digital photography has become even more portable and available in our daily lives. The technology has even gone further to include special applications to enhance user experience with special effects and editing. These smartphone companies are continuously figuring out ways to fit more megapixels on their phone’s cameras and third party peripherals are creating attachments like this one. Once they create a DSLR attachment, the personal digital camera may go the way of the Dodo bird, never to be seen again. This scenario might appear over the next decade simply because lugging around a redundant gadget will be inconvenient since your smartphone can capture HD pictures/HD video and then upload the media directly to your photo-sharing/video-sharing source.

So that’s the list. If you notice, I haven’t let my imagination run rampant because a lot of these technologies are close enough to making an impact on our daily lives sometime soon. With any luck, Nostradamus, Captain Hindsight, and the Mayans would all be proud of my future speculations and this is the best I can hope for when trying to guess the future of gadgets.

Dear EarthTalk: A number of federal energy efficiency related tax incentives expired at the end of 2010. Will any such programs remain in force and if not, are there other ways to save money on green upgrades?        -- Jen Franklin, Chicago, IL

During 2011, purchases of any of the new all-electric cars, such as the Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf (pictured here), qualify for up to a $7,500 federal tax credit. The federal government now also offers a tax credit for 10 percent (up to $4,000) of the cost of a kit to convert an existing hybrid vehicle into a plug-in hybrid. (Nissan)

It is true that some federal tax credits for energy efficiency upgrades expired at the end of 2010, but there is legislative effort afoot to extend some of those credits—and there are plenty of other ways to defray the costs of turning over a new green leaf or two this year and beyond.

One of the best known green federal tax incentives, the Residential Energy Efficiency Tax Credit—which kicked in 30 percent of the cost of household efficiency upgrades up to $1,500 on items including water heaters, furnaces, heat pumps, central air conditioning systems, insulation, windows, doors and roofs—is no longer available as of January 1, 2011. However, some lawmakers are looking to extend the credit. U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) have drafted legislation calling for keeping the program going, in a slightly revised form, for another two years.

“Residential energy efficiency has been identified as the most effective strategy to enhance our energy security and save money on energy bills,” says Snowe. “The residential energy efficiency tax credits…have been key catalysts in improving the energy efficiency of homes throughout the country [and] have driven companies to produce the most advanced products current technology allows…”

And if you were thinking you would save thousands of dollars on the price of a Toyota Prius thanks to federal incentives, think again. Federal tax credits also expired at the end of 2010 on the purchase of hybrid gas-electric cars and trucks. However, if you want to roll away in one of the sporty new all-electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt, you can now qualify for up to a $7,500 (depending on battery capacity) federal tax credit. The federal government now also offers a tax credit for 10 percent (up to $4,000) of the cost of a kit to convert an existing hybrid vehicle into a plug-in hybrid.

All of these programs expire themselves at the end of 2011. Whether or not new federal alternative fuel vehicle incentives crop up for 2012—when many new ultra-efficient plug-in hybrids from the likes of Toyota, Honda, Volvo and others are slated for release—remains to be seen.

Regardless, many states have their own programs to encourage energy efficiency. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) regularly updates its free online State Energy Efficiency Policy Database, which makes accessing information on your state’s energy efficiency programs, standards and “reward structures” as easy as clicking on a map. Likewise, the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) is another free online resource that lists state and federal incentives for buying an alternative fuel car, greening up your home or otherwise embracing energy efficiency. And the Energy Star website details special offers and rebates from cities, towns, counties and utilities on the purchase of appliances and equipment that meet federal standards for energy efficiency.

CONTACTS: Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), www.dsireusa.org; ACEEE’s State Energy Efficiency Policy Database, www.aceee.org/sector/state-policy; Energy Star Special Offers and Rebates, www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=rebate.rebate_locator.

Losing weight is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions after the gluttony of the holiday season. If you’re pledging to lose some pounds this year by joining a gym, our friends at the Better Business Bureau recommend asking ten questions before signing on the dotted line.

In 2009 alone, BBB received 7,787 complaints about gyms and health clubs, putting the industry in the top 20 for most complained about businesses.  Not only does BBB receive a lot of complaints about gyms, but complaints increased by 21 percent in 2009 over the previous year.

“Regardless of how eager you are to start losing weight in the New Year, take the time to do your research before joining a gym and don’t give in to high-pressure sales pitches,” said Paula Fleming, BBB spokesperson. “Always check the health club out with your Better Business Bureau, inspect the facilities closely and read the contract carefully, making sure that all of the promises are in print.”

BBB recommends asking the gym and yourself the following 10 questions before signing up for a membership:

Questions to ask the gym:

1. What are the terms of any introductory offers?
   Gyms often use special introductory offers to lure in new members. Just make sure you understand the terms and what the price will be once the introductory period is over.
2. Will my membership renew automatically?
   Every year, BBB receives a large number of complaints from people who joined a gym and didn’t realize that their contract would renew automatically and that they would have to take specific steps to cancel their contract.
3. How can I get out of my contract? Getting out of a gym contract isn’t always as easy as getting into one so make
   sure you understand what steps you would need to take to cancel your membership
4. What happens if I move?
   Gyms have any number of different policies when it comes to how moving will affect your membership. It might depend on how far away you’re moving and if they have other locations nearby.
5. What happens if you go out of business?
   BBB often receives complaints from people after their gym suddenly closed up shop and took their money with them. Ask the gym to explain what will happen to your money if they suddenly go out of business.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. What are my fitness goals?
   Determining your fitness goals in advance will help you select a facility that is most appropriate for you. If you have a serious health condition, consult with a medical professional when setting your fitness goals.
2. Is this location convenient? If the gym is across town, you’ll be less likely to workout. Choose a fitness club that is convenient to work or home so the location is not a deterrent to getting exercise.
3. Can I really afford this every month? Monthly gym fees add up and, after any introductory periods are over, the price could jump higher than your budget can handle. Do the math before you join and make sure you can afford a gym membership.
4. Am I feeling pressured to join? Do not give in to high-pressure sales tactics to join right away. A reputable gym will give you enough time to read the contract thoroughly, tour the facilities and make an informed decision.
5. Did I get everything in writing? Read the contract carefully and make sure that all verbal promises made by the salesperson are in writing.  What matters is the document you sign, so don’t just take a salesperson’s word for it.

For more advice from BBB on how to be a savvy consumer all year long, visit bbb.org/us/Consumer-Tips/

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that environmental factors could be playing a role in the increasing number of prostate cancer cases in the U.S. and elsewhere? – Joshua Gordon, New York, NY

Prostate cancer is a growing problem for men in the U.S. as well as in other developed nations around the world. Some 40,000 American men lose their battle with prostate cancer every year—the only cancer more deadly for U.S. men is skin cancer. Age is the primary “risk factor” for developing prostate cancer. One out of every six American men over the age of 40 will develop prostate cancer, while four out of five over 80 years old will get it. Of course, genes also play a big role. The American Cancer Society reports that a man’s prostate cancer risk doubles if his father or brother has suffered from the disease. Researchers believe a genetic predisposition accounts for as many as 10 percent of all cases of the disease in the U.S.

Beyond age and genetics, though, environmental factors do likely play a role. WebMD reports, for instance, that prostate cancer occurs about 60 percent more often in African American men than in white American men, and when diagnosed is more likely to be advanced. But interestingly enough, prostate cancer rates for African men living in their native countries are much lower. When native Africans immigrate to the U.S., however, prostate cancer rates increase sharply.

According to WebMD, the reason for these differences are not fully understood, but an environmental connection—possibly related to high-fat diets, less exposure to the sun, exposure to heavy metals, infectious agents, or smoking—might be to blame. Some new research suggests that a switch to a diet high in fat could be a significant contributing factor in these cases. “The disease is much more common in countries where meat and dairy products are dietary staples,” adds WebMD.

The take-away for men concerned about prostate health is to eat healthier. Several studies suggest that a diet high in lycopene (an antioxidant found in high levels in tomatoes, pink grapefruit, watermelon and some other fruits and veggies) could lower an individual’s risk of developing prostate cancer significantly.

Researchers have also found links between other environmental factors and prostate cancer. Dr. Matthew Schmitz, a prostate cancer specialist at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital and the prostate cancer “guide” at About.com, reports that exposure to high levels of cadmium (a naturally occurring element used in industrial processes and present in cigarette smoke) as well as dioxins (chemicals widely used in herbicides and other applications) have been linked to increased prostate cancer risk. Other researchers have noticed that men who take calcium supplements and multi-vitamins regularly may be at higher risk. Schmitz says that more research is needed to learn how risky such exposures really are.

For those who do get prostate cancer, some promising new treatments will be undergoing clinical trials soon. Dr. Marianne Sadar of the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada, has used an experimental drug adapted from sea sponges to shrink cancer tumors in mice. It will be a year before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits trials of the new drug on humans, but prostate patients and their doctors are holding out hope that this and other new treatments can obviate the need for many surgeries.

CONTACTS: American Cancer Society, www.cancer.org; WebMD, www.webmd.com; About.com, www.about.com; U.S. Food and Drug Administration, www.fda.gov.

Dear EarthTalk: Given the environmental and economic benefits, why doesn’t the U.S. have a federal law mandating recycling nationwide? – N. Koslowsky, Pompano Beach, FL

Just a few decades ago, Americans recycled less than 10 percent of their solid waste. Today, Americans recycle some 32 percent of the 350 million tons of refuse they generate annually (Media credit/Tom Magliery via Flickr)

The U.S. government has historically relied on state and local governments to handle waste management in all of its forms, including recycling. Although there have been a few attempts to push legislation through Congress to mandate minimum national recycling rates, none have made it out of committee hearings. Federal lawmakers are loathe to take waste management regulatory powers away from individual states which have vastly different needs from one another. For instance, less populous western states with lots of extra land for siting landfills might not be as inclined to push for higher recycling rates as those crowded eastern states with less room to store their trash.

According to Chaz Miller, Director of State Programs at the National Solid Wastes Management Association, America’s very first federal solid waste law, 1965’s Solid Waste Disposal Act—itself an amendment to the original Clean Air Act—didn’t even mention recycling. “Eleven years later, Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which remains the cornerstone of federal solid waste and recycling legislation,” reports Miller. RCRA abolished open dumps and required the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create guidelines for solid waste disposal and regulations for hazardous waste management, but had little to say about recycling except to call for an increase in federal purchases of products made with recycled content. The EPA also published manuals and workshops on implementing curbside recycling programs, although funding for such programs dried up by 1981.

Nevertheless, the seed had taken root. Pioneering programs in Massachusetts and elsewhere led to the development of curbside recycling programs in more than 600 municipalities throughout the U.S.—mostly in the Northeast and on the West Coast—by the mid-1980s. In addition, 10 states introduced “bottle bill” laws to encourage recycling of beer and soft drink containers. Two states, Rhode Island and New Jersey, both being small, densely populated and short on landfill space, implemented comprehensive approaches to recycling. They began requiring local jurisdictions to pick-up residents’ and businesses’ paper, metal and glass, and helped towns and cities set-up systems for pick-up, sorting and materials recovery. Most of the 8,600-plus municipal recycling programs in existence today are modeled on these early efforts.

Just a few decades ago, Americans recycled less than 10 percent of their solid waste. Multi-material and curbside collection programs were non-existent, paper was only collected sporadically when a local scout troop or similar group organized a paper drive, and family-owned scrap dealers would occasionally buy paper and metal scrap based on limited market demand for additional raw materials.

Today, the EPA estimates that Americans recycle some 32 percent of the 350 million tons of refuse they generate annually. While it still has no federal platform for doing so, the EPA, through its Resource Conservation Challenge program, is pushing for Americans to up that rate. Forty-two states now have their own recycling or waste diversion goals, and 18 are trying to divert upwards of half their waste via recycling or composting.
CONTACTS: National Solid Wastes Management Association, www.environmentalistseveryday.org; EPA Resource Conservation Challenge, www.epa.gov/osw/rcc.

(ARA) – When fingers get pointed in debates over the obesity epidemic in the United States, technology sometimes shoulders some of the blame. Time in front of computer screens or television is often listed as part of the reason why Americans aren’t as healthy as they have been in the past. But the truth is there are also technological advances that have the potential to guide you in your quest for a healthier lifestyle, whether that is eating right, exercising or keeping tabs on vital numbers that are important to your health.

Take smart phone applications for example. Nowadays, you can find applications for just about anything in life that might capture your interest, and healthy living is no exception. So if you’re looking to stay fit and healthy, here are six mobile apps that give you and your family a little extra help:

1. Lose It!

Counting calories is perhaps the simplest and most effective way to keep track of your health goals, especially if it involves weight loss. But it’s difficult to do all the adding and subtracting in your head, which is where the free app Lose It! comes in. The app allows you to enter what you eat each day and calculates not only calories, but fat, protein, cholesterol and carbohydrates based on portion size. It also allows you to enter different types of workouts, from walking to yoga, to see how many calories you will burn while you are exercising.

2. Carb Counting with Lenny

This app is designed to help children with diabetes count carbohydrates to help manage their diabetes, but can be of use to anyone. Using their mascot Lenny the Lion, who also uses insulin pump therapy, Medtronic Diabetes introduced this app, which allows children with type 1 diabetes to learn about carbohydrate levels in basic foods. The application also allows users to create a customizable food guide using their own photos or ones they find on the Internet, as well as play games to test their carb-counting knowledge. Periodic contests and giveaways (www.medtronicdiabetes.com/carb-counting-contest) are announced to reward registered users who get highest game scores. Medtronic Diabetes, which makes such products as continuous glucose monitoring devices, designed the app to be useful and educational for both children with diabetes and others who are interested in monitoring carb intake.

3. Size Me Up

Another application for kids. This one allows children to enter their current height and receive estimates for how tall they might be in the future, at any given age. This can be used to help keep your child motivated to eat right, so they can grow up to be tall and healthy.

4. BP Buddy

This application allows people who are monitoring their blood pressure to input their blood pressure numbers and heart rate numbers and log them for up to 60 days. An e-mail feature allows users to send their numbers to their doctor for analysis.

5. The Carrot

As an interactive journal, this application allows you to track multiple items related to health. In addition to entering information on meals, workouts, and even medication, you can also enter your assessment of your moods or the level of job satisfaction you are feeling at the moment to see if you can pinpoint what healthy habits work best for you.

6. FitReach

This training and diet application allows you to enter information on your meals, as well as workouts. It also encourages you to do regular weigh-ins so you can compare your weight loss with your goals on graphs that are a part of the app.

Applications are available on iTunes and can also be downloaded through your iPhone, smart phone or other compatible mobile device.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Dear EarthTalk: Should I fear radiation exposure associated with medical scans such as CT scans, mammograms and the like? – Shelly Johansen, Fairbanks, AK

The short answer is…maybe. Critics of the health care industry postulate that our society’s quickness to test for disease may in fact be causing more of it, especially in the case of medical scans. To wit, the radiation dose from a typical CT scan (short for computed tomography and commonly known as a "cat scan") is 600 times more powerful than the average chest x-ray.

A 2007 study by Dr. Amy Berrington de Gonz¡lez of the National Cancer Institute projected that the 72 million CT scans conducted yearly in the U.S. (not including scans conducted after a cancer diagnosis or performed at the end of life) will likely cause some 29,000 cancers resulting in 15,000 deaths two to three decades later. Scans of the abdomen, pelvis, chest and head were deemed most likely to cause cancer, and patients aged 35 to 54 were more likely to develop cancer as a result of CT scans than other age group.

Another study found that, among Americans who received CT scans, upwards of 20 percent had a false positive after one scan and 33 percent after two, meaning that such patients were getting huge doses of radiation without cause. And about seven percent of those patients underwent unnecessary invasive medical procedures following their misleading scans. CT scans are much more common today than in earlier decades, exacerbating the potential damage from false positives and excessive radiation exposure.

"Physicians and their patients cannot be complacent about the hazards of radiation or we risk creating a public-health time bomb," says Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at University of California-San Francisco. "To avoid unnecessarily increasing cancer incidence in future years, every clinician must carefully assess the expected benefits of each CT scan and fully inform his or her patients of the known risks of radiation."

CT scans are not the only concern. Mammograms are now routine for women over 40 years old. But some studies suggest that these types of screenings may cause more cancers than they prevent. Because of this, the federally funded U.S. Preventive Services Task Force now recommends that women not otherwise considered high risk for breast cancer wait until age 50 to begin getting mammograms—and then to get them every two years instead of annually. However, the American Cancer Society argues that such restraint would result in women dying unnecessarily from delaying screenings.

Women with a family history of breast cancer may be at greatest risk. Researchers from the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands found that five or more x-rays—or any exposure to radiation—before the age of 20 for "high risk" women increased the likelihood of developing breast cancer later by a factor of two and a half.

Individuals should ask tough questions of their physicians to determine if and how much screening is absolutely necessary to look for suspected abnormalities. Our knowledge of the risks of radiation-based screenings will only help us to make more informed decisions about our health.

CONTACTS: National Cancer Institute, www.cancer.gov; American Cancer Society, www.cancer.org; University Medical Center Groningen, www.umcg.nl.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E — The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Request a Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Dear EarthTalk: What is happening with various programs initiated over the years in the U.S. to return to the wild certain animal species that had been endangered or threatened? And do environmentalists tend to be for or against such efforts? — Susan Adams, Owl’s Head, ME

From the standpoint of species and ecosystem health, limited attempts at predator reintroduction in the United States have for the most part proven very successful. The gray wolf, extirpated by hunters in the Yellowstone region some 90 years ago, is now thriving there in the wake of a controversial reintroduction program initiated in 1995, when the National Park Service released 31 gray wolves into the park’s expansive backcountry. Today as many as 170 gray wolves roam the park and environs, while the elk population—which was denuding many iconic park landscapes in the absence of its chief predator—has fallen by half, in what many environmentalists see as a win-win scenario.

Other reintroduction efforts across the U.S. have also been successful. From the lynx in Colorado to the condor in California to the Black-footed ferret on the Plains, scientists are pleased with how well reintroduced species have taken to their new surroundings. As a result, many conservationists now view the reintroduction of iconic wildlife species as key to restoring otherwise degraded natural landscapes.

"When we kill off big cats, wolves and other wild hunters, we lose not only prominent species, but also the key ecological and evolutionary process of top-down regulation," says the non-profit Rewilding Institute, adding that the recovery of large native carnivores should be the heart of any conservation strategy in areas where such predators have disappeared. "Wolves, cougars, lynx, wolverines, grizzly and black bears, jaguars, sea otters and other top carnivores need to be restored throughout North America in ecologically effective densities in their natural ranges where suitable habitat remains or can be restored."

Not everyone is so bullish on wildlife reintroduction programs, despite their success. As for the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction, ranchers operating on private land outside park boundaries still complain about the threat of free-roaming wolves poaching their livestock. In response, the non-profit Defenders of Wildlife has implemented its Wolf Conservation Trust whereby donated funds are channeled toward paying ranchers fair market value for any stock lost to wolf predation. The group hopes the fund will "eliminate a major factor in political opposition to wolf recovery" by shifting the economic burden of wolf recovery from livestock producers to those who support wolf reintroduction.

Some environmental advocates also oppose wildlife reintroductions. One argument is that people have "played God" enough and should stop tinkering even more with wildlife and ecosystems, especially given that the overall long-term impact is always uncertain. And some animal advocates dislike such strategies from a humanitarian perspective: "Reintroduction programs subject wild animals to capturing and handling, which is always stressful for them, and may eventually put them in the line of fire of farmers who are already angry about predator-reintroduction programs," claims People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), adding that, when predators are reintroduced to an area where they have long been absent, prey species tend to scatter and "their lives and behavior patterns are turned upside-down."

CONTACTS: The Rewilding Institute, www.rewilding.org; Defenders of Wildlife, www.defenders.org; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), www.peta.org.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E — The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Request a Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Mario Lopez, host of “Extra,” was at this year’s Health and Fitness Expo at the Hynes Convention Center promoting healthy living through his new book “Extra Lean.”

Along with Lopez, the expo featured Shawn Thornton from the Boston Bruins, Krista White — winner of America’s Next Top Model — Teddy Bruschi from the New England Patriots and other well-known celebrities. People crowded the entire first floor of the expo, which was divided into sections: health screenings, cooking demonstrations, a dancing stage, food samples, and fitness activities.

Upon entering the Expo, Mario was on stage cooking a recipe from his book. I waited for him in the Celsius section which featured the Fitness Age Challenge, a computerized fitness assessment program to learn one’s real "fitness age". Mario is the spokesperson for Celsius and is promoting their new summer campaign the "Ultimate Workout Challenge". I spoke with him about his new book Extra Lean, how he stays fit, and he told me what it was like to be on Dancing With the Stars.

BLAST: What inspired you to write fitness and health books?

MARIO LOPEZ: I love the health and wellness industry, and as I’ve gotten older, the things that I’ve learned and applied in my own life I want to share with others. I hope that what I’ve written helps change lives.

BLAST: In your book Extra Lean, you say you live extra lean. What does this philosophy mean to you?

ML: Extra lean is a philosophy and approach toward food in general. It means living healthy in all aspects of life, beginning with how we embrace and enjoy food. It is not a diet book, but a food book with principles that I believe in and live daily. I want to help people because it is a scary thing to manage weight when you do not know what to do. The three things I want people to remember are to eat carbs, protein, and fat at every meal. I want them to eat frequently throughout the day and practice portion control. The dedication to one’s health through food will allow so many other areas of life to come alive; from relationships to the economy, disease prevention and longevity. It all starts at the table.

BLAST: Through your book, how can one live their life according to this philosophy?

ML: The way to live the philosophy is to renew your mind when it comes to food. A true paradigm shift needs to occur. Because it’s not about what you can’t eat, but it’s about putting food to work in your favor, helping you feel and perform at your best.

BLAST: My favorite aspect of your book is your seven day meal plan (Seven Windows of Opportunity), which includes muffins, a tropical smoothie, fresh tomato pita pizza, and chicken enchiladas. I love how your meal plan does not deprive people of what they want to eat. What is the most important aspect you want readers to remember?

ML: The book breaks it down and explains the principles, but it keeps you motivated because the results will come quick. It’s amazing when you cut calories how much weight you lose. I encourage people to have a cheat meal every week like pizza because you are still living extra lean. When it comes to the seven windows of opportunity, the most important aspect is to treat your body like a small blaze. You don’t throw a huge log on a fire and hope it burns efficiently. No, you steadily and methodically put small quick-burning kindling on the flame. Our metabolism works the same way. Don’t worry if you don’t eat seven times, per se. Just make sure you’re constantly eating and allowing your inner fire to burn.

BLAST: What is the best way to practice making healthy choices in unlikely places?

ML: Once you incorporate the philosophy of living extra lean you can make those choices really easy. Eating out you should avoid anything fried and stick with grilled chicken, salmon, or pork. Almonds, bananas, and peanut butter are good for snacks and can be found in any convenient and grocery store. You learn to become aware of what you’re eating.

BLAST: What are your favorite meals to eat that help you stay fit?

ML: Some of my favorites are sweet potatoes, salmon, and chicken, but I still love Mom’s enchiladas (her recipe inspired my healthy chicken enchiladas in Extra Lean). That’s the important thing though, I’m too big a fan of food to exclude things I love. The key is to learn how to incorporate those foods into your lifestyle. I’ll never give up Mexican food and I’ll always stay in shape— so the two can go hand-in-hand. Also, drinking Celsius during the day helps me burn calories when I’m not working out and keeps me energetic throughout the day.

BLAST: When did you start using Celsius and how is it different from other energy drinks on the market?

ML: I started drinking Celsius a couple of years ago just because I had tried every energy drink out there. I like how it tastes; that’s the first thing that attracted me. Celsius has no sugar, no carbs, and low sodium. I like that it helps you burn calories it gives you a nice kick before you work out. Plus, it comes in other good flavors.

BLAST: Why is fitness so important to you?

ML: Well, fitness is a top priority in my life and has been for a while. I’m the Boys and Girls Club of America national ambassador of fitness and the governor and presidents counselor of physical fitness. It’s become a passion of mine.

BLAST: Do you have any workouts that you like?

ML: I like to mix it up, keep the muscles guessing. I like boxing a lot and dancing.

BLAST: Growing up did you have weight issues?

ML: "When I was a little kid I did. Obesity is prominently featured in my family. I wanted to help my family first and be an inspiration. Next I went through to my community and with the platform of my own show I can now help and inspire people on a national level."

BLAST: You wrestled in high school. Did this help overcome your weight issues?

ML: Oh, absolutely. I grew up wrestling and also did dance. Being active in wrestling not only helped me lose weight and build muscle, but I think those days helped me form my foundation for my passion for fitness and competition. Just being active is always important. As I’m getting older, I learn to eat and drink right. I don’t drink sodas either.

BLAST: How did it feel to be competing with Emmit Smith on Dancing With the Stars?

ML: Emmit was great. From the football field to the dance floor, Emmit is a true champion. I was honored to compete with him. Everyone on the cast was great. I will never forget the experience.

BLAST: As host of Extra and America’s Best Dance Crew while acting, where do you find time to work out?

ML: It might sound cliche, but I get it in when I can fit it in. If I know my afternoon and evening are jam-packed, I’ll make sure to train before work. Basically, not training is not an option. Living a healthy lifestyle sometimes takes strategic planning. If you are serious about training and changing your body, you will find the time.

BLAST: Will you continue writing health and fitness books?

ML: Absolutely. Health and fitness will always be a big part of my life and career. I hope to continue doing my part to help America become a healthier, fitter nation.

Six months of rent money will be sucked out of your bank account if your dog develops a very common knee injury. If you’re looking to use new stem-cell therapy to aid your ailing kitten, that will cost you a couple of years of car payments. The surprising part? Pet owners are more than willing.

While people are still facing financial losses, being laid off and limiting expenses, the pet population is faring rather well.

As a country, we spend $45 billion a year on our animals and that number is expected to rise by 5 percent this year, according to Fast Company magazine.

The reason? One explanation may be the new and expensive medical treatments available at animal hospitals:

• Interventional Radiology circumvents the need for surgery by using catheters and stents in a minimally invasive procedure. “You’re closing something that ought to be open or you’re opening something that ought to be closed,” said Dr. John Berg, a small animal surgeon at the Foster Hospital for Small Animals, a Tufts veterinary school teaching hospital in North Grafton. But it’s not necessarily cheaper than surgery. You can pay up to $2,500 for the implant, anesthesia, the procedure itself and lab work.
• Dialysis, which can cost up to $20,000, is another popular new treatment. When an animal’s kidneys aren’t working, a machine does the job for them. Armelle De Laforcade, part of the Emergency and Critical Care Team at Fosters said the hospital dialyzes about 25 pets a year, often because the animal has ingested a toxin.
• Mood-altering drugs are now available for dogs with conditions such as separation anxiety. Berg said they are certainly helpful in certain situations, but that “the danger is that the drugs could get overused.”
• Stem-cell therapy, not yet approved for human use, is now available for small animals. Vet-stem, the company that pioneered the procedure, has had over 1,000 vets take their online certification course since January, according an article in Time, which places the total cost between $2,000 and $4,000. Cells taken from the pet’s fat are injected into the site of an injury, repairing it much faster than surgery would.

But these new procedures aren’t the only expensive treatments on the market. Knee injuries in dogs are very common and cost $3,000 to fix with surgery.

Orthopedic surgery for horses can run over $100,000 while cancer in dogs and cats can cost up to $10,000 to treat.

Paying for pets is undoubtedly a burden, but it’s one many are happy to carry for the animals they love. So, how can PEOPLE deal with these often unforeseen expenses?

“They’re not just going to die of old age. Your pet will get sick,” said Berg. He recommends saving about $5,000 for when that time comes. He said that pet insurance will only pay off in the event of catastrophic illness and that saving is the better choice.

De Laforcade disagrees. “In general pet insurance seems like a good idea,” she said, “as it will offset some of the cost for something like a broken leg.”

According to Berg, only about three to five percent of his patients have pet insurance.

But they also see owners who can afford to treat a pet, but don’t. Said De Laforcade, “Occasionally we see people who can afford the care but choose not to pursue it, and if the pet has a bad disease that is very much understandable. If the pet is very fixable it is harder for us to deal with. In these cases sometimes we have no choice, and sometimes someone will adopt the pet and give it the care it needs.”

Said Berg, “Sometimes people shouldn’t get animals. They should have expectation that at some point they’re going to pay veterinary bills.” He added that for most people, veterinary care is very affordable.

Despite the fact that the exact same machines and treatments are used on humans, medical care for animals is much cheaper. “If you want to know how much medical care costs,” said Berg, “look at veterinary medicine.”

According to Berg, medicine for humans is jacked up because of forces not present in animal medicine. These include malpractice lawsuits, bureaucracy and insurance.

But expensive or not, most owners are willing to pay to keep their pets healthy. “I think if there’s an ‘oh wow’ factor to that, it’s how much people care for their animals,” Berg said. “If people didn’t care so much, this hospital simply wouldn’t exist.”

A study appears in the Annals of Internal Medicine conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical school purports to show that people’s alcohol consumption habits are the direct result of the people they associated with.

The study, which analyzed the drinking patterns of 12,000 people, concluded that people are 50 percent more likely to drink heavily if they have friends or relatives who are heavy drinkers also.

The study also shows that even if you’re just surrounded by heavy alcohol consumption, your drinking will go up by about 70 percent, while your drinking will drop in half if you’re around people who aren’t drinking.

Dear EarthTalk: A friend with many minor health problems recently switched to a diet of only raw plant foods and reports feeling much better. She also insists her new eating habits are better for the environment. Does this make sense or is the strange diet making her crazy? – Phil C., Reno, NV

A raw foods diet typically consists of unprocessed foods that are not heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit so as to preserve nutrients otherwise lost during cooking. Proponents claim that besides losing weight and feeling more energetic, they are also avoiding the carcinogens introduced into foods by cooking and protecting the environment from drug- and chemical-dependent, water-wasting big-business agriculture.

Some people do short spurts on the raw diet to cleanse their system of toxins, while others maintain a majority raw diet but do eat some cooked or processed foods. Diabetics can especially benefit from a raw foods diet, as shown in the film Simply Raw, which documents the trials and tribulations of six diabetes sufferers who go on a raw foods diet for one month and effectively cure themselves of their disease.

While humans have been eating raw foods since they first began foraging for their sustenance, the diet really began to catch on in recent years when some high-profile celebrities began touting its health and weight maintenance benefits. Carol Alt, Woody Harrelson, Uma Thurman, Sting and Demi Moore are just a few of the big names who swear by the raw foods diet—and now upwards of 100 raw foods restaurants are in operation across the U.S. For a list of raw food eateries by state, check out the SoyStache website.

Most raw food devotees are vegans, that is, no animal products whatsoever but all the vegetables, sprouts and grains they can muster. Some do eat raw dairy, eggs and even meat—being careful to choose only the freshest stuff so as to avoid getting sick from bacterial contamination.

One shouldn’t embark on a raw foods diet without researching how to make a smooth transition and maintain a proper nutrient balance. Some people hire raw food coaches or consult with nutritionists to walk them through the transition or help them through a cleansing, while others do it themselves with help from friends, natural food store employees, and websites. The Best of Raw Food website, for example, has a plethora of information on how to make the transition. It lists replacement foods for first transitioning to and then maintaining a raw food diet, and provides a tutorial on how to gauge the safety of raw foods.

Those serious about going raw will need a good quality juicer, a blender or food processor, large glass containers to soak and sprout seeds, grains and beans, and mason jars for storing sprouts and other food. Dehydrators that blow air through food at less than 115 degrees Fahrenheit are also popular accessories.

There are some cautions to keep in mind. Cathy Wong of About.com warns that some people experience a detox reaction when transitioning, especially if their old diet was rich in meat, sugar and caffeine—but the negative effects (headaches, nausea, cravings) usually only last a few days. Also, she says, going raw is not advised for children, pregnant or nursing women, or those with anemia or at risk for osteoporosis.

CONTACTS: Simply Raw, www.rawfor30days.com; SoyStache, www.SoyStache.com; The Best of Raw Food, www.thebestofrawfood.com; About.com, www.altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm.

Dear EarthTalk: I know that purchasing organic crib sheets, mattresses and baby clothes is better for the environment—but do they make any difference in terms of the baby’s health?
– B.B., Fairfield, CT

It’s true that conventional baby clothing and bedding—conventional referring to that made with cotton grown using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and bleached and dyed with yet more harsh chemicals—hasn’t seemed to present a problem thus far for generations and generations of babies. But more awareness of chemical sensitivities has many environmentalists and public health advocates wondering if the clothes and bedding children are exposed to could be impacting their health negatively.

Some 25 percent of the world’s pesticides and 10 percent of insecticides go to cotton crops every year. In addition, petroleum scouring agents, softeners, brighteners, heavy metals, flame and soil retardants, ammonia and formaldehyde are used in the processing of cotton once it is harvested. Beyond the environmental impacts of this onslaught in the vicinity of production facilities, there is increasing concern that residues of some of these chemicals might rub off on baby. According to Rachel Birchler of Mooi, a Pittsburgh-based organic children’s clothing boutique, a baby’s skin is more porous and thinner than that of an adult, and as such absorbs stuff more easily. "This means that children are at greater risk for pesticide-related health problems than adults," she says.

Johnson & Johnson, one of the world’s leading purveyors of baby products, states on its website that "a baby’s skin is thinner, more fragile and less oily than an adult’s" and is "less resistant to bacteria and harmful substances in the environment." Lotus Organics, which makes organic clothing for both babies and adults, reports that "millions of children in the U.S. receive up to 35 percent of their estimated lifetime dose of some carcinogenic pesticides by age five through food, contaminated drinking water, household use, and pesticide drift."

So if organic cotton is so much better all around, why aren’t we all swaddling our babies in it and wearing it ourselves? It’s all about cost. Clothing and bedding made from organic cotton is typically more expensive than similar products made with conventional cotton. Consumers watching their spending are often unwilling to pay more for a t-shirt or pants that are just going to get spilled on and beaten up.

But boosters for organic cotton say that paying less for conventional cotton items is penny wise and pound foolish. "Conventionally produced cotton material lasts 10-20 washes before it starts to break down," reports Mooi’s Birchler. "An organic cotton material lasts for 100 washes or more before it begins to wear down." How could that be? "Conventionally produced cotton take so much abuse in production because it goes through scouring, bleaching, dying, softeners, formaldehyde spray, and flame and soil retardants before it is even shipped to be cut for patterns," she explains.

Also, with more and more organic cotton products becoming available every day, from specialty shops to major retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, the price premium for going organic is starting to shrink.

CONTACTS: Mooi, www.mooishop.com; Johnson & Johnson, www.jnj.com; Lotus Organics, www.lotusorganics.com.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E — The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Request a Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Dear EarthTalk: Isn’t the interest in electric cars and plug-in hybrids going to spur increased reliance on coal as a power source? And is that really any better than gasoline/oil in terms of environmental impact? — Graham Rankin, via e-mail

It’s true that the advent of electric cars is not necessarily a boon for the environment if it means simply trading our reliance on one fossil fuel—oil, from which gasoline is distilled—for an even dirtier one: coal, which is burned to create electricity.

The mining of coal is an ugly and environmentally destructive process. And, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) burning the substance in power plants sends some 48 tons of mercury—a known neurotoxin—into Americans’ air and water every year (1999 figures, the latest year for which data are available). Furthermore, coal burning contributes some 40 percent of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) estimates that coal mining and burning cause a whopping $62 billion worth of environmental damage every year in the U.S. alone, not to mention its profound impact on our health.

Upwards of half of all the electricity in the U.S. is derived from coal, while the figure is estimated to be around 70 percent in China. As for Europe, the United Kingdom gets more than a third of its electricity from coal, while Italy plans to double its consumption of coal for electricity production within five years to account for some 33 percent of its own electricity needs. Several other countries in Europe, where green sentiment runs deep but economics still rule the roost, are also stockpiling coal and building more power plants to burn it in the face of an ever-increasing thirst for cheap and abundant electricity.

On top of this trend, dozens of electric and plug-in hybrid cars are in the works from the world’s carmakers. It stands to reason that, unless we start to source significant amounts of electricity from renewables (solar, wind, etc.), coal-fired plants will not only continue but may actually increase their discharges of mercury, carbon dioxide and other toxins due to greater numbers of electric cars on the road.

Some analysts expect that existing electricity capacity in the U.S. may be enough to power America’s electric cars in the near future, but don’t rule out the possibility of new coal plants (or new nuclear power plants) coming on line to fill the gap if we don’t make haste in developing alternate sources for generating electrical energy. And while proponents of energy efficiency believe we can go a long way by making our electric grids "smarter" through the use of monitoring technologies that can dole out power when it is most plentiful and cheap (usually the middle of the night), others doubt that existing capacity will be able to handle the load placed on even an intelligent "smart grid" distribution network.

Environmentalists—as well as many politicians and policymakers—maintain that the only viable, long-term solution is to spur on the development of renewable energy sources. Not long ago, the concept of an all-electric car charged up by solar power or some other form of clean renewable energy was nothing but a pipe dream. Today, though, such a scenario is within the realm of the possible, but only if everyone does their part to demand that our utilities bring more green power on line.

CONTACTS: EPA/mercury emissions; www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/utility/hgwhitepaperfinal.pdf.

Dear EarthTalk: Are there any health hazards associated with the use of the new silicone bakeware and cooking utensils? I have found information associated with the hazards/benefits of Teflon and other cookware but nothing on the use of silicone. — Jean McCarthy, Sebastian, FL

With all the negative press about Teflon and about metals leaching out of pots and pans, consumers are on the lookout for cookware that’s easy-to-clean and doesn’t pose health concerns. Silicone, a synthetic rubber made of bonded silicon (a natural element abundant in sand and rock) and oxygen, is increasingly filling this niche. The flexible yet strong material, which has proven popular in muffin pans, cupcake liners, spatulas and other utensils, can go from freezer to oven (up to 428 degrees Fahrenheit), is non-stick and stain-resistant, and unlike conventional cookware, comes in a range of bright and cheery colors.

But some wonder if there is dark side to silicone cookware. Anecdotal reports of dyes or silicone oil oozing out of overheated silicone cookware pop up on Internet posts, as do reports of odors lingering after repeated washings. Also, silicone’s image may be forever tainted by problems associated with silicone gel breast implants—some women with earlier generations of these implants experienced capsular contracture, an abnormal immune system response to foreign materials. And while theories about silicone implants’ link to breast cancer have since been debunked, the damage to silicone’s reputation lives on.

It’s sad to say, but since the use of silicone in cookware is fairly new, there has not been much research into its safety for use with food. Back in 1979 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined that silicon dioxides—the basic elements in silicone cookware—were generally recognized as safe to use even in food-grade contexts. But the first silicone cookware (silicone spatulas) didn’t start to show up on store shelves until a decade later, and the FDA hasn’t conducted any follow-up studies to determine whether silicone can leach out of cookware and potentially contaminate food. For its part, Canada’s health agency, Health Canada, maintains that food-grade silicone does not react with food or beverages or produce any hazardous fumes, and as such is safe to use up to recommended temperatures.

Consumer advocate Debra Lynn Dadd, who steers clear of Teflon due to health concerns, is bullish on silicone cookware after investigating potential toxicity. "I tried to find some information on the health effects of silicone rubber, but it was not listed in any of the toxic chemical databases I use," she reports, adding that she also sampled material safety data on several silicone rubbers manufactured by Dow Corning (which makes some 700 variations). "All descriptions I read of silicone rubber describe it as chemically inert and stable, so it is unlikely to react with or leach into food, nor outgas vapors." She adds that silicone "is not toxic to aquatic or soil organisms, it is not hazardous waste, and while it is not biodegradable, it can be recycled after a lifetime of use."

So while most of us will probably not have a problem with silicone cookware, those with chemical sensitivities might want to stay away until more definitive research has been conducted. In the meantime, cast iron and anodized aluminum cookware remain top choices for those concerned about harmful elements leaching into their cooked foods.

CONTACTS: FDA, www.fda.gov; Health Canada, www.hc-sc.gc.ca; Debra Lynn Dadd, www.dld123.com; Dow Corning, www.dowcorning.com.

Three Massachusetts high school students recently made it into the eastern region semifinals of the Siemens Competition, which will head into National Finals in New York in early December. One of them, Minhye Kim, a Brookline High School senior, took a moment with Blast Magazine to discuss her findings as a young researcher.

Blast: Congratulations on your research studies! Could you explain briefly what your research focused on?

Minhye Kim: Thank you! The title of my project is "Hepatitis B Virus Infection Increases the Risk for Developing Diabetes." I studied and found the mechanism that links the two diseases together.

Blast: What was your inspiration for this research?

MK: I was actually having a conversation with my mentor and he… mentioned something very interesting. He said that over 350 million people worldwide are infected with HBV. I had no idea HBV was such a serious health problem. So, I did a little research on my own and found out HBV leads to different liver diseases. I knew from past knowledge that glucose production happens in the liver and glucose production is very important in type 2 diabetes. So, I was curious whether HBV had anything to do with type 2 diabetes.

Blast: What is the goal of your research?

MK: The goal of my research was to find whether HBV and type 2 diabetes were linked at all. Actually, no previous research had been done about my topic of research. So there really wasn’t anything known about the link between the two diseases.

Blast: How long did it take you to come up with all the background information and analysis for your study?

MK: There were definitely lots of readings to do! There were a few days when I would just read manuscripts and not do anything else, like running experiments. I would say the entire project took about a year. It spanned throughout my junior year.

Blast: And being so young and talented in this field, do you feel or hope that more young people will get involved in research like this?

MK: Yeah! I think it would great for young people to go out there and have research internships because it’s an awesome experience. You find out what is like to be a scientist in a real-life setting and it’s worth it!

Blast: What is your ambition for the future? Do you plan on studying science or medicine?

MK: I definitely want to go to medical school. I want to become a pediatrician and have my own diabetic clinic for children… if there is no cure for diabetes by then.

Winners of the regional event are invited to compete at the National Finals at New York University December 3 — 7. For more info visit http://www.siemens-foundation.org.

The Siemens Foundation contributes over $7 million annually to support the field of science, math, engineering and technology in the United States. The Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology encourages and recognizes high school students who challenge themselves through their studies and research, and may obtain national recognition for their high school research projects in science and technology.

This year marks the 22nd year of one of Boston’s most exciting musical festivities, Steppin’ Out, a fundraising and gala event.

Based on Boston’s rich musical history (Boston boasts one of the oldest choral companies in the United States, and one of the most acoustically exact concert halls in the world), Steppin’ Out focuses on the city’s tradition of jazz. Past headliners of the event include famed percussionist Tito Puente (2007), jazz and R&B singer Roberta Flack (2003), and contemporary R&B singer Lalah Hathaway (2008).

This year will bring as many as 20 musicians to feature the talent of local and national artists. Included with the amazing evening of music is dinner, community and corporate awards, and an evening of socializing. Last year nearly 3,000 music lovers and community supporters came out to the event for the Dimock Center.

The Dimock Center, which the Steppin’ Out event benefits, was originally founded in 1862 as the New England Hospital for Women and Children and is considered a National Historic Landmark. It holds nine acres in Roxbury in order to deliver sincere care for over 46,000 patients and clients in its Health Center alone each year. The Center offers services ranging from health screenings, immunizations, women’s health, HIV/AIDS services and more.

Steppin’ Out provides the Dimock Center with funding that is vital to maintaining the center’s outstanding service.

Ruth Ellen Fitch, President and CEO of the Dimock Center, began work at the center in August of 2004, and was previously practicing law with Palmer & Dodge LLP. There she became the first Black female partner at a large Boston law firm.

Before practicing law, Fitch was Director of the METCO program for the Brookline Public Schools and taught at University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has contributed to the community as serving as a member of the Board of the Boston Public Health Commission, Director of Health Law Advocates and as a Director of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau. Now she continues to provide in the health field at the Dimock Center, whose vision is a healthy community, and whose mission is to "commit to enhance the quality of life of each individual (they) serve".

The Dimock Center has announced this year’s Honorary Chairs for Steppin’ Out as Governor Deval L. Patrick and First Lady Diane B. Patrick, with the Gala Chair being Clayton H. W. Turnbull (The Waldwin Group, Founder and CEO).

The event will take place November 7 at The Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel.

To purchase tickets online, click here.

If you ask the average American for the best advice you can give your friends and family when it comes to cancer, you will almost certainly hear that screening and early detection are the best tools we have. And for the longest time, that’s what we’ve heard from our doctors and the media. But the times, they are a-changin’, and The American Cancer Society is reversing its long-supported position that frequent screenings will lead to fewer cancer deaths, especially in breast and prostate cancer.

Tumor growth is actually relatively common; however, most tumors are benign, and do not invasively grow further outward or take up residence in other locations. That process, known as metastasis, is the true killer in cancer, as the body becomes unable to fight off the multiple new tumors that begin to disrupt normal body function.

The ACS is now telling patients that we may be over-treating the less-threatening tumors, and in the process missing more-threatening cases.‚  Since advocating screening, the ACS acknowledges that cancer diagnoses have increased. However, for frequent screenings to actually prove beneficial to the public health, there should have been a corresponding decrease in cancer deaths. Instead, widespread screening has only led to an increase in the discovery and treatment of tumors that would have remained harmless and wouldn’t have required any intervention.

While screening has resulted in fewer late-stage cancer cases for colon and cervical cancers, unfortunately there’s no data to show that we’ve seen fewer deaths in breast and prostate cancers, and doctors are now worried that the public has been over-promised on the benefits of some cancer screens.

However, Colin Begg, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York told The Times that he’s worried that the message will confuse the public who will assume that all cancer screenings are unnecessary. “I am concerned that the complex view of a changing landscape will be distilled by the public into yet another “Ëœscreening does not work’ headline. The fact that population screening is no panacea does not mean that it is useless” he said.

For now, it will just take time for doctors and researchers to determine which tumors should be treated, and which, counter intuitively should be left alone. In the mean time, follow the advice of your doctor, whatever that might be.

(photo via)

There are the obvious things that will give you swine flu”"like getting sneezed on, for instance”"and then there are the painfully obvious things that will give you swine flu”"like playing beer pong.

We could probably file this under “Obvious Science” but officals at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate Troy, NY have warned students that the sharing of cups during games of beer pong lead to the spread of disease, and especially of the spread of H1N1 this flu season. The same officials sent out a campus-wide email detailed a group of students who had all come down the virus after a weekend game.

Area schools are reporting many cases of the swine flu; RPI, a school of about 7,000 total students has reported 21 cases this semester so far.

(photo via)

Cancer is a monolithic enemy of modern medicine. Because cancer is such a large, nebulous collection of loosely related diseases, scientists have found it difficult to pinpoint the specific causes of cancer, which is why you hear about something new causing cancer basically every day on the news.

While many of these discoveries are based on shoddy science, a recent study, which was actually rather elegant in design, has found that a lack of social interaction can lead to increased breast cancer tumor growth, indicating that social environment could play a role, along with environmental and genetic factors, in the determination of the severity of a cancer.

The study used genetically similar mice that are altered so that they develop mammary tumors. Mice were either housed alone or with other mice. The mice kept alone showed greater tumor growth than the mice housed together.

Scientifically, the researchers found higher stress hormone levels in the mice housed alone before there were even measurable changes in the tumor sizes. Even though the two groups of mice were genetically very similar, the stress hormones caused measurable changes in gene expression before there was even any indication that the tumors in the two groups were growing differently.

The researches point out hat they intend to focus further research on researching the specific cell types in which these genetic changes are occurring, and then targeting the pathways that connect the stress hormones to their detrimental effects rather than to suggest that cancer patients should maintain strong social contacts.

Either way, every new thing we learn about cancer is another tool in our arsenal to conquer the disease, and this is an interesting find that gives scientists a new avenue of research.

Image courtesy Flickr/Rick in Rio.

Micrograph showing HIV fusing with a cell membrane on entry. ‚© 2002 by Bruce Alberts et al.

Scientists in Thailand have announced the first success, though limited, of its kind in the development of an HIV vaccine last night.

AIDS is a serious disease, as we’re sure you know. In 2007, AIDS killed approximately 2.1 million people “" not exactly a small population. With million of new diagnoses each year, every major worldwide health organization has declared AIDS to be a pandemic.

Currently, the only medications available are highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens. Developed with a patient’s doctor, three or four drugs are prescribed in combination to be taken together, in which the drugs and dosing are optimized for each patient. Those without access to industrialized medicine are without the benefits of these drugs. So, the best bet we have to defeating HIV is to prevent infection from occurring in the first place.

A vaccine that prevents HIV from infecting health immune cells or from spreading beyond them is the ultimate goal of research programs, but to date, every one has failed. The most recent program even showed an increase in HIV infection in those who received the vaccine, leading to an early termination of the program. Many scientists have actually called for HIV vaccine programs to be called off entirely, assuming that none of them would ever show any promise.

The vaccine under development is a combination of two previous vaccines that did show any benefit when used singularly. However, used together, the vaccines were able to prevent about thirty percent of HIV infections over the placebo treatment, a result that surprised

The vaccine works by shuttling three genes that code for proteins on the HIV virus in side a different, benign virus in an attempt to get the body to start producing antibodies against the HIV proteins, priming the immune system to attack HIV upon entry.

Scientists were disappointed however to see that those who received the virus yet became infected did not show lower viral loads than those who did not receive the virus. Also, vaccines licensed by the FDA in the US usually show about an eighty percent efficacy rate, so it’s very doubtful that the vaccine will ever come to market.This is why scientists stress that the study is an important starting point for the further development and optimization of a better HIV vaccine.

Chalk one up for the scientists: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced that preliminary tests have shows that the H1N1 flu vaccine produces a “robust immune response” with only a single dose, and will likely be available earlier than expected.

This signifies a shift from last month when government officials were warning Americans that the swine flu vaccine could be delayed or require multiple dosing. Because the vaccine will likely only require a single dose, it is expeted that even more people will be able to receive the vaccine.

High-risk patients will be allowed to receive the H1N1 vaccine at the beginning of October, while it will be available to the general public by mid-October.

The vaccine for the general flu season is widely available now, and health officials are urging people not to wait to get it. The flu season has started earlier than usual this year, and has proven to be rather virulent, aso early and wide vaccination is the government’s first line of defense against the coming flu season.

Pfizer, one of the largest American drug companies has found itself on the wrong side of the law, and as part of a settlement, will pay a $2.3 billion settlement to the government for fraud.

When applying to sell a new drug in the US, companies must specify the intended use of the drug and at which dosages they will be sold. Pfizer ran afoul of drug law here by marketing the anti-inflammatory drug Bextra for off-label uses and at dosages the FDA refused to approve out of safety concerns.

Pfizer pulled Bextra from the market in 2005.

For this offense alone, Pfizer will pay a $1.195 billion fine, the single largest criminal fine ever served in the US for any matter, and forfeit another $105 million in revenue gathered from sales. “The size and seriousness of this resolution, including the huge criminal fine of $1.3 billion, reflect the seriousness and scope of Pfizer’s crimes” said Mike Loucks, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

Pfizer will also pay a $1 billion civil penalty under the False Claims Act to the government for alleged kickbacks to health care providers in exchange for increased prescriptions for several drugs including Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox, and Lyrica. This civil penalty is the largest fraud settlement against a pharmaceutical company ever.

A large portion of the settlement will pay directly back into health care systems, important at a time when Medicare is underfunded and health care reform are in the news every day.‚  “This historic settlement will return nearly $1 billion to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government insurance programs” said Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, “securing their future for the Americans who depend on these programs.”Pfizer

Recently, Legitscript.com and KnujOn.com released a report analyzing the Yahoo Search engine’s advertisements for online pharmacies. The results are quite disturbing and it’s a wonder law enforcement agencies have not yet cracked down.

Legitscript.com is the only Internet pharmacy verification organization in the United States identified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as adhering to its standards for certifying Internet pharmacies. KnujOn.com tracks Internet criminality and has succeeded in removing over 100,000 spam websites from the Internet.

The report, released by these companies on August 18, showed that around 80 percent of the search engine’s advertisements concerning online pharmacies reviewed by the researchers were not operating in compliance with United States federal laws. The report states the researchers were able to order and receive medication normally requiring a prescription without one “" a clear violation of Drug Enforcement Administration regulation of potentially habit-forming medications. One site even imported the medications ordered from India, which is also in violation of United States Law.

The report also touches on Pharmacychecker.com, the pharmacy verification service used by Yahoo, Google and Microsoft to determine the legitimacy of pharmacies in ads they display. The researchers were able to obtain drugs without a prescription from an online pharmacy listed on and approved by Pharmacychecker.com. These drugs were also imported from India.

Yahoo’s current policy mandates that an online pharmacy advertised through the search engine be “based in” the United States or Canada; however, three sites in the study which were approved based on having Canadian pharmaceutical licenses actually shipped their medications from places like India, Singapore And Barbados. A fourth site, also approved in Canada, stated it could only fill prescriptions in Canada and to do so in other countries would be illegal.

It is important to note that these issues are far from isolated, as a previous report focused on Microsoft’s search engine Bing.com and the findings were similar. Also, the American Pharmacists Association, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and the National Association on Addiction and Substance Abuse have written Google, Microsoft and Yahoo informing them that they were profiting from online pharmacies acting unlawfully.

“We’re making this a public issue because it’s time for this to stop,” KnujOn President Garth Bruen said. “If the search engines continue to knowingly facilitate illegal prescription drug sales, then we’ll continue to issue these reports. Our reports stop when the problem is fixed.”

“Yahoo needs to require that its Internet pharmacy ads adhere to US laws and National Association of Boards of Pharmacy standards,” LegitScript President John Horton said. “These are the same safeguards that govern brick-and-mortar pharmacies used throughout the US everyday. Shouldn’t American Internet users be assured of the same safeguards online?”

If you are someone who gets his or her medications from an online pharmacy, you may be putting yourself and your family in danger. If this is the case, we suggest you look further into the companies from which you choose to procure your medications.

Time and time again, surveys are conducted, and time and time again, the same results come up: when you ask someone what the most germ filled place is they come into contact with is, they always say it’s the toilet seat or the bathroom. Turns out, that’s usually one of the cleanest. The actually worst place is the keyboard you’re touching right now. Luckily, you can clean your keyboard with Cyber Clean, an antibacterial play-doh-like gel-like membrane. Actually, it’s really hard to describe, but the pictures do it much more justice.

It makes sense how keyboards are so disgusting if you think about it. Our hands touch everything we come into contact with, and we handle our keyboards more on a daily basis than anything else. People often eat at their desks, and those crumbs are like little bacteria factories. All those crevices that are impossible to clean lead to uncontrolled bacterial growth, and often times, the spread of disease.

With back to school and the flu season approaching, not to mention the constant reminders how swine flu is going to kill us all, it’s important to arm yourself with the tools that can help you stay well. Cyber Clean is an anti-bacterial, gel-like membrane that molds and conforms itself to the shapes you press it into. In doing so it can clean and disinfect hard to reach places, like those spaces between your keys, behind air vents where dirt and dust particles can harbor germs, and all those ridges on your cell phones and electronics.

Cyber Clean is safe, non-toxic, biodegradable, and supposedly reusable up to 75 times, plus you can get the kids in on the fun too. Cyber Clean is available at most stores and drug stores, and retails for less than $10. We hope to get our hands on some soon and put it to the test in our lab and let you know how it holds up.

So much for the “me” generation. A study by the American Heart Association reveals that Generation Y patients, specifically those 18-22, who have diagnosed heart defects, are not seeking medical care or checking in with a cardiologist.

The AHA found that more than a fifth of us with “severe congenital heart disease don’t see a cardiologist,” citing a Canadian study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

A congenital heart defect can exist for your entire life and kill you without warning.

The risk of having a heart defect is 3-times more likely in families with a genetic history — parents pass it on to children.

The AHA specifically points out that while most Americans know about acquired heart disease — the kind you get from lifestyle, diet, etc. — most don’t know about congenital heart disease. That’s the kind you’re born with and can kill you even if you have the healthiest diet and exercise plan there is.

For more on this topic, check out the website of the American Heart Association.

Given the failure of similar programs in states, single-payer should not be thrown aside for this battle.

For advocates of guaranteed truly universal healthcare the debate over Obama’s reform efforts have been rather disappointing.

Despite the fact that a clear majority of Americans prefer joining the rest of the developed world and having a comprehensive government plan that cover everybody, President Obama and most of Congress, all of whom have received large sums of campaign donations from the drug and insurance industries, have made a government run plan that would not sell healthcare as a commodity to make profit, a non-starter. As a result, single-payer healthcare advocates, despite having overwhelming grassroots support, have been dismissed in Washington.

Now, with few other options, liberal members of congress and advocacy groups have largely focused their advocacy and money behind what appears to be the most heated battle over possible healthcare reform this summer: the fight to include a “public option” to compete with private plans in the healthcare package.

Predictably, ideologues opposed to any kind of government involvement in healthcare are fighting tooth-and-nail to oppose this option, ridiculously, calling it a step towards socialism. But as much of the left rallies to counter these shameful distortions, they may want to consider a very important question. What exactly are they fighting for?

By taking single-payer off the table at the start, Obama and his supporters may have put all of their fuel into a sputtering vehicle. To date, two state governments Massachusetts and Vermont have attempted to implement “hybrid” pseudo-public solutions to major healthcare problem. Both of these plans have been floated as possible templates for national reform; the Mass plan is often cited as a possible angle, and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, has introduced legislation for a public option that is somewhat similar to Vermont’s state-wide plan. Sadly, in both cases the results of these efforts have not been promising.
Those of us living with the new and once-highly touted Massachusetts plan, which aims to cover everyone by requiring that everyone buy insurance (and providing subsidies for those who cannot afford it), have become all-too familiar with the problems of this arrangement, which was worked out in 2006 between Mitt Romney and the Legislature.

The Boston Globe’s recent front-page article highlighting how Boston Medical Center, which provides more healthcare to the poor than any other hospital in Massachusetts, is facing major deficits largely because the 2006 healthcare legislation has bled money from the “free care pool,” is only one example of how this legislation, well-intended it may be, is not sustainable.

By June 2011 enrollment in the plan is projected to be 342,000 people at an annual expense of $1.35 billion up considerably from the original projections of covering 215,000 people at a cost of $725 million.

Moreover, because so much of the funding for the plan has come from the state’s free care pool, many low-income residents who were once able to get care, now face unaffordable co-pays, premiums and deductibles (which have already risen 9.4 percent since passage of the reform.) According to a study done by the Physicians for a National Health Program, if a middle-income person on the cheapest available state plan got sick, he or she could end up paying $9,872 in premiums, deductibles and co-insurance for the year.

“The Massachusetts reform law is not providing universal access to care even in a state with highyl favorable circumstances including previously high levels of spending on health care for the poor, high personal incomes, and low rates of uninsurance,” the report said. “It is not a model for the nation.”

A recent New York Times article, aptly titled “Massachusetts Takes a Step Back from Health Care for All,” reported problems as well. The July 14 article states, “The new state budget in Massachusetts eliminates health care coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to help close a growing deficit, reversing progress toward universal coverage just as Congress looks to the state as a model for overhauling the nation’s health care system.”

Vermont’s Catamount Health, public-private hybrid effort to cover the state’s uninsured population now at 11 percent is also failing. Passed in 2006 as a compromise after Gov. Jim Douglas vetoed single-payer legislation, the bill, unlike the Massachusetts plan, does not mandate residents buy insurance. Instead it offers residents a chance to purchase healthcare from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont with help of government subsidies based on income. But the plan, even according to its own advocates, does little to solve the problem.

One reason: the plan is unaffordable for many working Vermonters. Even those with no income must pay a monthly premium, and someone earning $30,000 a year still must pay $160 a month for coverage, plus monthly deductibles and co-pays for prescription drugs and doctor visits. Accordingly, less than a quarter of those eligible have signed up for the plan. Catamount can also deny coverage for pre-existing condition and the recently unemployed must wait a year before they are eligible for the program.

Since Vermont, like Massachusetts and so many other states, is facing dreadful revenue forecasts, the co-pays and premiums may well be raised in the near future, or services cut. A Democratically-controled Legisalture was able to avoid cuts in the most recent state budget, but more cuts may well be needed during the year, according to Tom Kavet, Vermont’s Legislative economist.

As Peter Sterling, Catamount Health’s outreach director told Seven Days, Vermont’s largest weekly paper, “It doesn’t solve the big problem, and we know that.”

Sterling’s words, and the failure of both of these reform efforts, could serve as a warning for healthcare activists as the national debate over a public plan reaches critical mass. Putting all of our muscle and money into a potentially doomed public option something that “doesn’t solve the big problem” may yield little benefit in the fight for universal healthcare. Worse, if Congress pushes through a failed public option, neutered by congressional Republicans, it could give the concept of public healthcare an undeserved black eye in the eyes of many Americans.

In fact, a more intriguing consolation prize in Obama’s health reform bill could come from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) who has a plan to fund pilot programs for universal healthcare in five states — one of which would be a single-payer plan. This could prove to be a sterling example of the cost-effectiveness of such a program. If Sanders’ home state, Vermont, were to implement state-wide single-payer, it would save the tiny state a sizable $51 million a year, according to a study commissioned by the Vermont Legislature in 2006. Predictably, however, the Senate has not been very open to this idea, moderate as it may be, and voted it down in committee. One can only hope this idea will resurface as the debate rages on.

Despite such unceasing opposition from Washington, giving up on single-payer healthcare is not a wise move. As healthcare costs continue to skyrocket, the likelihood of a single-payer plan becoming reality in the US will only increase. The United States currently spends about 16 percent of its GDP (and rising fast) on healthcare more than any other country in the world and still has embarrassing rankings on infant mortality, life expectancy and overall healthcare rankings, according to the World Health Organization and BMJ, a peer-reviewed international medical journal. 46 million are left uninsured with many more underinsured, and an estimated 18,000 people die each year from lack of insurance.

Since nearly half of healthcare costs go towards corporate profits and administrative waste, two expenses that are virtually eliminated by implementing a single-payer system, in time some kind of not-for-profit government-run system is the only option that will make any fiscal sense. This reality should not be lost in the battle for a doomed-to-fail half measure that may or may not be attached to healthcare reform in the coming months.

Further Reading:

• PNHP Report on Massachusetts Reform Plan
• Vermont Workers’ Center: Health Care is a Human Right Report (Features information on Catamount)
• Study commissioned by VT Legislature on economic impacts of a single-payer system
• *Hasta la vista single-payer movement? (Article I wrote in 2007 on a hybrid plans vs. single-payer)

Dear EarthTalk: What is “nanotechnology?” I’ve heard that nanoparticles are already in consumer products, yet we haven’t really studied their potential health impacts. – Dan Zeff, San Francisco, CA

Nanotechnology makes use of minuscule objects-whose width can be 10,000 times narrower than a human hair-known as nanoparticles. Upwards of 600 products on store shelves today contain them, including transparent sunscreen, lipsticks, anti-aging creams and even food products.

Global nanotechnology sales have grown substantially in recent years, to $50 billion in 2007, according to Lux Research, author of the annual Nanotech Report. And the final tally isn’t in yet, but analysts had predicted 2008 sales to be $150 billion. The National Science Foundation says the industry could be worth $1 trillion by 2015, when it would employ two million workers directly.

What makes nanoparticles so useful is their tiny size, which allows for manipulation of color, solubility, strength, magnetic behavior and electrical conductivity. Nanoparticles do exist in nature, and they’re also created inadvertently through some industrial processes. What’s new-and potentially hazardous-is the widespread engineering of these particles for commercial purposes.

While there is no conclusive evidence that nanomaterials are either unsafe or not, health advocates worry that we’re already putting them on our bodies and ingesting them as if they’d been thoroughly tested and proven safe. Animal studies, including one with rats at the University of Rochester, have shown that some nanoparticles can cross the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from toxins in the bloodstream. And inhaled nanoparticles have also harmed the lungs of animal test subjects.

Despite these and other studies, nanomaterials are virtually unregulated in the U.S. And of $1.3 billion budgeted for research in 2006, only $38 million went to examining risks to health and to the environment.

“While the benefits of nanotechnology are widely publicized, the discussion of the potential effects of their widespread use in consumer and industrial products is just beginning to emerge,” reports the Journal of Nanobiotechnology. “Both pioneers of nanotechnology and its opponents are finding it extremely hard to argue their case as there is limited information available to support one side or the other.”

Europe’s regulators are far more wary about nanotechnology than their American counterparts. Britain’s Royal Society recommended in 2004 that nanoparticles be viewed as brand new substances, and the European Commission is examining them on a case-by-case basis. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is loosely charged with regulating nanotechnology here, but has barely dipped its toe in the water.

Taken together, the evidence suggests considerable uncertainty about the use of nano-ingredients in consumer products. It’s just not known if they’re safe, which begs the question: Why have we gone ahead and approved them for commercial use? Indeed, we may look back at our current decade and see it, for better or worse, as a time when tiny things caused big and momentous changes in our lives.

CONTACTS: EU’s REACH Law, www.ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_intro.htm; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Nanotechnology Page, www.epa.gov/ncer/nano.

Dear EarthTalk: How is the fur industry doing these days? Has it been impacted by activism from PETA and similar groups?‚ ‚  — Clara Andrews, Edmonds, WA

An accurate source of up-to-date numbers is hard to come by, but it’s safe to say that the fur industry has been hurt by the ongoing and very visible anti-fur campaign-sometimes featuring top supermodels-by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other animal rights groups.

Whether or not activist efforts are the cause, the governments of the United Kingdom and Austria have banned fur farming in their countries altogether, while The Netherlands has phased out fox and chinchilla farming. The U.S. has not taken any action against the industry, but the number of mink farms in the U.S. has plummeted from 1,027 in 1988 to less than 300 today, according to Weekly International Fur News.

But while the fur industry’s sales numbers may have trailed off through the 1990s, resurgence in the popularity of fur-especially among newly affluent high-fliers in Russia and China-has meant that business is booming for those furriers serving such far-flung markets.

By 2004 the industry was reporting banner sales-some $11.7 billion worldwide-despite the slumping post-9/11 economy. “Fur remains big with international designers and is set to continue as an integral part of fashion,” International Fur Trade Federation (IFTF) chairman, Andreas Lenhart, told reporters.

According to IFTF data, the vast majority of the fur industry’s pelts-upwards of 85 percent-now come from farm-raised animals. (This does mean, though, that 15 percent are still caught in the wild, often by trapping methods that are painful as well as indiscriminate, catching unintended quarry, including endangered species and domestic pets.) The most farmed such animal is the mink, followed by the fox. Chinchilla, lynx, muskrats and coyotes are also farmed for their fur. PETA reports that 73 percent of the world’s remaining fur farms are in Europe, while about 12 percent are in North America.

IFTF argues that fur farming has environmental benefits, such as providing good use for 647,000 tons of animal by-products each year from Europe’s fish and meat industries alone (they are fed to the captive animals), and generating a lot of manure, sold as organic fertilizer. Mink farming also provides fat for soaps and hair products, says IFTF.

Of course, anti-fur activists don’t see it this way. “The amount of energy needed to produce a real fur coat from ranch-raised animal skins is approximately‚ 15 times that needed to produce a fake fur garment,” says PETA. “Nor is fur biodegradable, thanks to the chemical treatment applied to stop the fur from rotting.” PETA adds that these same chemicals contaminate groundwater near fur farms if not handled responsibly.

Activists are also concerned, of course, about the conditions animals endure on fur farms. “The animals-who are housed in unbearably small cages-live with fear, stress, disease, parasites and other physical and psychological hardships…” reports PETA. The group adds that the animals are killed in very inhumane ways-such as by electrocution, gassing or poisoning-to preserve the quality of the pelts above all else.

CONTACTS: PETA, peta.org; IFTF, iftf.org.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.