environment and natural resources

Blueberries have joined green beans in this year’s Dirty Dozen list | CNN

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Blueberries, beloved by nutritionists for their anti-inflammatory properties, have joined fiber-rich green beans in this year’s Dirty Dozen of nonorganic produce with the most pesticides, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit environmental health organization.

In the 2023 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, researchers analyzed testing data on 46,569 samples of 46 fruits and vegetables conducted by the US Department of Agriculture. Each year, a rotating list of produce is tested by USDA staffers who wash, peel or scrub fruits and vegetables as consumers would before the food is examined for 251 different pesticides.

As in 2022, strawberries and spinach continued to hold the top two spots on the Dirty Dozen, followed by three greens — kale, collard and mustard. Listed next were peaches, pears, nectarines, apples, grapes, bell and hot peppers, and cherries. Blueberries and green beans were 11th and 12th on the list.

A total of 210 pesticides were found on the 12 foods, the report said. Kale, collard and mustard greens contained the largest number of different pesticides — 103 types — followed by hot and bell peppers at 101.

Dirty Dozen 2023

2023 Dirty Dozen (most to least contaminated)

Strawberries

Spinach

Kale, collard and mustard greens

Peaches

Pears

Nectarines

Apples

Grapes

Bell and hot peppers

Cherries

Blueberries

Green beans

“Some of the USDA’s tests show traces of pesticides long since banned by the Environmental Protection Agency. Much stricter federal regulation and oversight of these chemicals is needed,” the report said.

“Pesticides are toxic by design,” said Jane Houlihan, former senior vice president of research for EWG. She was not involved in the report.

“They are intended to harm living organisms, and this inherent toxicity has implications for children’s health, including potential risk for hormone dysfunction, cancer, and harm to the developing brain and nervous system,” said Houlihan, who is now research director for Healthy Babies, Bright Futures, an organization dedicated to reducing babies’ exposures to neurotoxic chemicals.

There is good news, though. Concerned consumers can consider choosing conventionally grown vegetables and fruits from the EWG’s Clean 15, a list of crops that tested lowest in pesticides, the report said. Nearly 65% of the foods on the list had no detectable levels of pesticide.

2023 Clean 15

2023 Clean 15 (least to most contaminated)

Avocados

Sweet corn

Pineapple

Onions

Papaya

Frozen sweet peas

Asparagus

Honeydew melon

Kiwi

Cabbage

Mushrooms

Mangoes

Sweet potatoes

Watermelon

Carrots

Avocados topped 2023’s list of least contaminated produce again this year, followed by sweet corn in second place. Pineapple, onions and papaya, frozen sweet peas, asparagus, honeydew melon, kiwi, cabbage, mushrooms, mangoes, sweet potatoes, watermelon, and carrots made up the rest of the list.

Being exposed to a variety of foods without pesticides is especially important during pregnancy and throughout childhood, experts say. Developing children need the combined nutrients but are also harder hit by contaminants such as pesticides.

“Pesticide exposure during pregnancy may lead to an increased risk of birth defects, low birth weight, and fetal death,” the American Academy of Pediatrics noted. “Exposure in childhood has been linked to attention and learning problems, as well as cancer.”

The AAP suggests parents and caregivers consult the shopper’s guide if they are concerned about their child’s exposure to pesticides.

Houlihan, director of Healthy Babies, Bright Futures, agreed: “Every choice to reduce pesticides in the diet is a good choice for a child.”

Nearly 90% of blueberry and green bean samples had concerning findings, the report said.

In 2016, the last time green beans were inspected, samples contained 51 different pesticides, according to the report. The latest round of testing found 84 different pest killers, and 6% of samples tested positive for acephate, an insecticide banned from use in the vegetable in 2011 by the EPA.

“One sample of non-organic green beans had acephate at a level 500 times greater than the limit set by the EPA,” said Alexis Temkin, a senior toxicologist at the EWG with expertise in toxic chemicals and pesticides.

When last tested in 2014, blueberries contained over 50 different pesticides. Testing in 2020 and 2021 found 54 different pesticides — about the same amount. Two insecticides, phosmet and malathion, were found on nearly 10% of blueberry samples, though the levels decreased over the past decade.

Acephate, phosmet and malathion are organophosphates, which interfere with the normal function of the nervous system, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A high dose of these chemicals can cause difficulty breathing, nausea, a lower heart rate, vomiting, weakness, paralysis and seizures, the CDC said. If exposed over an extended time to smaller amounts, people may “feel tired or weak, irritable, depressed, or forgetful.”

Why would levels of some pesticides be higher today than in the past?

“We do see drops in some pesticides since the early ’90s when the Food Quality Protection Act was put into place,” Temkin said. “But we’re also seeing increases of other pesticides that have been substituted in their place which may not be any safer. That’s why there’s a push towards overall reduction in pesticide use.”

Chris Novak, president and CEO of CropLife America, an industry association, told CNN the report “willfully misrepresented” the USDA data.

“Farmers use pesticides to control insects and fungal diseases that threaten the healthfulness and safety of fruits and vegetables,” Novak said via email. “Misinformation about pesticides and various growing methods breeds hesitancy and confusion, resulting in many consumers opting to skip fresh produce altogether.”

The Institute of Food Technologists, an industry association, told CNN that emphasis should be placed on meeting the legal limits of pesticides established by significant scientific consensus.

“We all agree that the best-case scenario of pesticide residues would be as close to zero as possible and there should be continued science-based efforts to further reduce residual pesticides,” said Bryan Hitchcock, IFT’s chief science and technology officer.

Many fruits and veggies with higher levels of pesticides are critical to a balanced diet, so don’t give them up, experts say. Instead, avoid most pesticides by choosing to eat organic versions of the most contaminated crops. While organic foods are not more nutritious, the majority have little to no pesticide residue, Temkin said.

“If a person switches to an organic diet, the levels of pesticides in their urine rapidly decrease,” Temkin told CNN. “We see it time and time again.”

If organic isn’t available or too pricey, “I would definitely recommend peeling and washing thoroughly with water,” Temkin said. “Steer away from detergents or other advertised items. Rinsing with water will reduce pesticide levels.”

Additional tips on washing produce, provided by the US Food and Drug Administration, include:

Handwashing with warm water and soap for 20 seconds before and after preparing fresh produce.
Rinsing produce before peeling, so dirt and bacteria aren’t transferred from the knife onto the fruit or vegetable.
Using a clean vegetable brush to scrub firm produce like apples and melons.
Drying the produce with a clean cloth or paper towel to further reduce bacteria that may be present.

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Find, gather and cook wild plants with urban forager Lisa M. Rose | CNN

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Come spring, avid gardeners dig into the new growing season ready with careful cultivation plans they dreamed up over long winters. But even city-dwelling non-planners can benefit from year-round botanical bounty. They just need to learn what, where and how to harvest the wild foods growing in lawns, parks and scrubby backlots.

Chickweed, dandelion and dock provide delicious, nutrient-rich greens, while daylilies, lilacs, honeysuckle and roses can add floral overtones to syrups, jellies and baked goods. Protein-packed wild plants and plant parts include purslane, acorns and brown dock seeds. Teas and tinctures made from ground ivy, gingko and golden rod, along with many other “weeds” and invasive species, can serve various medicinal purposes, once properly prepared.

In her book “Urban Foraging: Find, Gather, and Cook 50 Wild Plants,” herbalist and expert forager Lisa M. Rose offers guidance on safely identifying, gathering and preparing edible flora that grow wild in most major US cities.

“Gathering your own food to make dinner can help instill a sense of place,” she said. She maintains that highlighting the role of wild plants in our food system can teach us to heal our soil, our waterways and our own public health. In this way, urban foraging creates new potential for greener, healthier and more sustainable ecosystems.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

CNN: What makes you so passionate about urban foraging?

Lisa M. Rose: “Oh my gosh, you can EAT those?” pretty much sums up the thrill of urban foraging. Showing people all the edible plants that grow in cities helps connect them with the natural world.

It’s revolutionary to think differently of the unloved weeds and see opportunity in the neglected spaces that people pass by. The most fun, engaging thing is to get back outside and reconnect with the happiness that a dandelion flower can bring. Reinhabiting our 8-year-old, judgment-free selves allows us to recognize an elemental, earthly kind of beauty without the preconceived notions.

Plus, wild plants have a unique function in the ecosystem. Even so-called invasive species can remediate the soil and water. They help to repair areas that have been leveled and left open to erosion by creating a structure that keeps the soil from blowing away. Soil is the building block of human health, and it needs a rich, diverse base of organic material to be able to give us nutritious food.

CNN: What safety precautions do you recommend for people foraging in cities?

Rose: My family is from Flint, Michigan. I take soil and water contamination issues very seriously. The first steps to safe urban foraging are knowing where to harvest — including researching the history of the land, if possible — and learning which plants and plant parts may be more likely to contain contaminants like heavy metals or pollutants.

Nettles, for example, are apt to take up heavy metals like lead. So, I recommend harvesting these only from places free of soil contamination. The key is to take caution and be judicious. But remember, given the realities of our industrialized food system, the plants available at a commercial supermarket often have layers of pesticides. We don’t live in a perfect world.

Also, it sounds silly, but when it comes to plants or mushrooms, if you don’t know what it is, don’t pick it, and definitely don’t put it in your mouth!

CNN: What does it mean to forage responsibly? How can we take from while taking care of the land?

Rose: As you observe an environment and learn what plants could be edible, make the effort to learn further: Is this endangered? Threatened? An invasive species? We want to consider, ethically, the plant’s distribution and the habitat.

I rarely feel badly when I pick my garlic mustard. It’s going to come back. But when it comes to foraging by greengrocers and restaurants, it’s important to consider that there’s only so much the ecosystems can offer at that retail level. Where are these items coming from? How do I ensure no habitat destruction happens under the name of foraging trends? We have a long way to go in creating regionally based food systems that would help all of us, including our restaurants and grocers.

CNN: How do community health and food justice concerns fit into foraging?

Rose: It’s impossible to decouple social justice from human health. Food-system inequities have a massive impact on access to nutrients and effects on human health.

About 10% of the US population faces food insecurity — a wicked problem that foraging, gardening and local food systems cannot solve alone. But, restoring foodways — even simply refining how to cook basic things — can play a powerful part in increasing food access. Urban foraging is an effort to democratize the wild plants to make them more available to more people. You don’t have to be classically trained as a botanist at university. These are basic human skills.

CNN: How much could we rely on urban foraging to feed ourselves?

Rose: Not significantly, given the current populations and designs of our cities. It’s inconceivable and unethical for me to suggest that all of Manhattan go and use Central Park as their greengrocer. But intentionally designing more green space can create the possibility for more available food for city communities within a smaller footprint.

CNN: Can you forage year-round?

Rose: Yes! Harvesting must be done in context of your growing zone, of course, but part of the endeavor is to recognize what your landscape can provide. Even on frigid January and February days, foragers can find bark, buds and sap. Consider how, for millennia, indigenous communities supported a basic diet with fresh and stored wild foods. In many traditions, for example, acorns — high in carbohydrates and protein — played a significant role in helping to extend harvests to provide food for the winter.

Acorns are a quintessential forager’s food that can be used in soups, pulverized into a nut butter or ground into flour for baking. Every fall, I process enough acorns to make 10 to 15 pounds of flour, with the help of neighbors who drop off bags full or team up to shell them while we chat over cocktails and cheese. Later, we share the acorn bread I bake, which is kind of my signature.

Recipe: Acorn Bread

Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients

1 cup processed acorn flour (see how to make below)
1 cup all-purpose or gluten-free flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 medium eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas
1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder, if desired
Additional butter or nonstick spray to grease pan

Instructions

Prepare the flour

Shell enough fresh acorns to get about 2 cups of acorn nutmeats. Roughly 2 cups of dry acorn nutmeats will grind into 1 cup of nut flour.
Add about 2 cups of acorn nutmeats to a large pot of water. Bring to a boil, let cook for 10 minutes and then strain.
Allow nutmeats to cool. Then, using a dehydrator or oven, slowly dry the nutmeats over low heat.
Once completely dry, grind the nutmeats with a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle to reach the texture of a flour.
Store acorn flour in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Bake the bread

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Using butter, coconut oil or a non-stick spray, lightly grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, combine the flours, baking soda and salt.
In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture.
Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Remove from oven and let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.
Serve warm.

CNN: How does the climate crisis factor into urban foraging?

Rose: We’ve arrived at a big crossroads. At no other time has our human population had to face and address a rapidly changing climate across the globe. This affects our water systems, our food systems, even determining where we can live — as evidenced by migrations of people moving away from the shores of lakes and oceans.

Urban foraging for wild plants helps us rethink how we live alongside the natural world, looking at habitat loss. We can learn a lot simply by honing our ability to observe the little dandelion or the patch of cattails along the riverside. How might we add back our green spaces that can build soil, support the biodiversity that we need and bring forward our pollinators?

You can’t be what you don’t see. If you don’t have a connection to the water, a farmers market, a vegetable garden or to considering what that dandelion might be doing in the soil, how could you ever become a climate-conscious Earth protector, a steward of the ecosystem?

Foraging helps us pay closer attention, which helps us to reestablish a more caring and less extractive relationship with the natural world.

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Your pollen allergies are overwhelming? This might be why | CNN

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Pollen has exploded to eye-watering levels this spring in some parts of the country after warm weather pushed plants out of their winter slumber much earlier than normal.

In Atlanta, the pollen count sky rocketed to “extremely high” in early March and stayed high through much of April, according to the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma physicians practice. Farther north in Washington, DC, allergy sufferers have been dreading the lime-green film of pollen covering that covers windshields and porches and piles up on streets and sidewalks.

But these aren’t isolated trends. As the planet warms, researchers say allergy season is starting earlier and lasting longer. And a study from the journal Nature published last year found that pollen count is projected to increase by 200% by the end of the century if planet-warming pollution continues to rise.

Climate Central, a nonprofit focused on climate news and research, recently analyzed how warmer temperatures have affected allergy season in 203 US cities since 1970.

It found that on average, the growing season – the period between the last freeze in spring to the first freeze of fall – is lasting 16 days longer in the Southeast, 15 days longer in the Northeast and 14 days longer in the South.

In the West, growing season is 27 days longer on average, Climate Central reported. Reno, Nevada, for example, has seen a shocking increase of 99 days.

And a longer growing season means a longer allergy season.

“Because of climate change, we’re now seeing an earlier and longer growing season for plants, which of course make pollen, which is the enemy of many Americans that suffer from pollen allergies – and mold allergies as well,” Lauren Casey, a meteorologist with Climate Central, told CNN. “Pollen can also trigger an asthma attack, which of course is much more serious for people that suffer from asthma.”

When plants reproduce, typically during the spring, many release tiny pollen grains that are carried by wind. The pollen grains are small enough to be inhaled, and some people’s immune systems react very poorly to the miniscule particles.

More than 24 million people in the US have pollen-induced respiratory allergies like hay fever, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The center’s data shows that more than one in four adults suffered from seasonal allergies in 2021.

Growing season has lengthened by 34 days in Atlanta, according to a Climate Central analysis.

Growing season has lengthened by 20 days in Washington, DC, according to a Climate Central analysis.

A longer and earlier start to pollen season could trigger a public health emergency, researchers say. As temperatures get warmer in the South and drought plagues the Southwest, pollen from plants like ragweed or poaceae – a plant that typically grows in grasslands or salt-marshes – is projected to be higher across those regions than in the North.

Wind-driven pollen, which plays an important role in plant fertilization, is closely tied to temperature and precipitation changes. So, as spring seasons get warmer earlier due to climate change, plants could pollinate much earlier and for a longer period of time than they currently do.

Plant pollen isn’t the only trigger of seasonal allergies. Mold, a type of fungi that reproduces with tiny airborne spores, can also be allergenic for some people and can exacerbate seasonal allergies, according to the report.

While outdoor mold is not as well-studied as pollen, according to the report, one thing is clear: Warmer and wetter weather – conditions that many locations are seeing more of amid the climate crisis – is favorable for mold development.

“With climate change, we’re seeing increases in warming in all seasons, but particularly the fastest warming season for most locations across the US is the winter season,” Casey said. “So now we’re dealing with mold at a time of year that we typically wouldn’t.”

Casey also pointed out that the climate crisis is making extreme precipitation more likely, which provides that crucial dampness for mold to grow. The report highlights the link between allergens and thunderstorms, which researchers say spread pollen and mold spores through the air more efficiently.

“The problem with pollen grains is that when they get wet, they rupture, and they break into tinier bits called sub-pollen particles,” Casey said. “Those tinier bits are more easily dispersed by the wind when they dry out, and they have an easier time getting into your nasal passages.”

Oak trees are pumping out pollen in the Southeast, contributing to extremely high levels early in the season.

Dr. Mitchell Grayson, chair of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America’s Medical Scientific Council and chief of the division of allergy and immunology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said he has seen pollen allergies arrive earlier than usual.

“In general, we may be seeing people a little earlier in the spring with symptoms – so mid-February from what might have been early March in the past – but there is significant year-to-year variability in this,” he told CNN. “I haven’t seen worse symptoms, but I’m in a hospital that provides specialist care, and we do see people with all ranges of severity.”

The treatment of allergies won’t change even as the season gets longer, Grayson said. But it’s important to be aware of what you’re allergic to and know where these triggers are in the environment.

Experts recommend:

Staying indoors, especially early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when most plants release pollen.
Wear masks outdoors when possible to mitigate the effects, Amiji said.
Keeping windows closed in your home and car to minimize your exposure to pollen particles.
Changing air filters more frequently for your A/C and heating systems in your home and car, according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Preparing early by stocking up on anti-allergy medications. If you use a steroid nasal spray, Grayson said it’s important to start using it one to two weeks before your allergy season and to continue through the full season.

Casey, the meteorologist, also noted that allergy season could be a financial burden on low-income families, especially those whose members have asthma, due to the “billions of dollars spent a year on the medical costs of asthma and allergies.”

She said awareness is key, especially as the world pumps more carbon pollution into the atmosphere, which could worsen allergy seasons.

“You know your own body and are aware of what a typical year is going to look like for you, especially if you’re an allergy sufferer,” she said. “But that whole paradigm is changing with this increase in the growing season, so having awareness that you may be suffering now and going forward in times of the year when you typically wouldn’t, so be prepared for that in your daily life.”

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Covid-sniffing dogs can help detect infections in K-12 schools, new study suggests | CNN

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Elementary students lined up behind a white curtain in the middle of a grand gymnasium at their school in northern California. They stood still as a dog handler walked a yellow Labrador along the other side of the curtain.

Hidden from the children’s view, the 2-year-old female pup sniffed each child’s shoes from beneath that curtain barrier. After each sniff, the dog looked back up at the handler. Then the handler brought the dog to the next tiny pair of feet beneath the curtain, and the dog curiously brought her snout close to those toes, then a young girl’s lavender tennis shoes and then another child’s white high-tops.

The dog was smelling for what are called volatile organic compounds that are known to be associated with Covid-19 infections.

While watching the Covid-sniffing dog in action, Dr. Carol Glaser saw her vision come to life.

Months prior, Glaser and her team were implementing the school’s Covid-19 testing program, using antigen nasal swab tests. Around that same time, Glaser heard about reports of dogs being used to screen for Covid-19 infections in sports venues, airports and other public settings.

That’s when Glaser had her “aha” moment – incorporating canines into Covid-19 testing programs at schools, nursing homes or other public facilities could help save time, personnel, possibly even costs, and “would be a lot more fun,” she said.

“I thought if we had dogs in schools to screen the students it would be so much faster and less burdensome for schools,” said Glaser, assistant deputy director in Central Laboratory Services and medical officer for infectious disease laboratories at the California Department of Public Health.

“Remember when an antigen test is done at school, as opposed to home, there’s a whole bunch of rules and regulations that run under that. It’s not as simple as just handing those things out at school and having the kids do them,” said Glaser, who oversaw antigen testing programs at some California public schools.

For now, Glaser and her colleagues described in a new study the lessons they learned from the Covid-19 dog screening pilot program that they launched in some California K-12 public schools.

In their research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, they wrote that the goal was to use dogs for screening and only use antigen tests on people whom the dogs screened as positive – ultimately reducing the volume of antigen tests performed by about 85%.

They wrote that their study supports the “use of dogs for efficient and noninvasive” Covid-19 screening and “could be used for other pathogens.”

The dogs used in the pilot program – two yellow Labradors named Rizzo and Scarlett – trained for a couple of months in a laboratory, sniffing donated socks that were worn by people who either had Covid-19 or didn’t. The dogs alerted their handlers when they detected socks that had traces of the disease – and received a reward of either Cheerios or liver treats.

“The one thing we do know for sure is when you’re collecting a sample off of a human being, you want to go where the most scent is produced. That is the head, the pits, the groin and the feet. Given those options, I went with feet,” said Carol Edwards, an author of the study and executive director of the nonprofit Early Alert Canines, which trains medical alert service dogs, including Rizzo and Scarlett.

“We collected some socks from people willing to donate socks, and we taught the dogs, by smelling the socks, which ones were the Covid socks and they picked it up very quickly,” Edwards said. “Then we moved into the schools and started sniffing the kids at the ankles.”

Last year, from April to May, the dogs visited 27 schools across California to screen for Covid-19 in the real world. They completed more than 3,500 screenings.

Rizzo acted as an energized worker, performing tasks with eagerness, Edwards said, while Scarlett tended to have more of a mellow and easygoing personality.

The screening process involves people – who voluntarily opted in to participate – standing 6 feet apart while the dogs, led by handlers, sniff each person’s ankles and feet. The dogs are trained to sit as a way of alerting their handlers that they detect a potential Covid-19 infection.

To protect each person’s privacy, sometimes the people face away from the dogs and toward a wall or behind a curtain, so that they can’t see the dogs or when a dog sits. If the dog sits in between two people, the handler will verbally ask the dog, “Show me?” And the dog will move its snout to point toward the correct person.

“Our dogs can come in, they can screen 100 kids in a half hour, and then only the ones the dog alerts on have to actually do a test,” Edwards said. “There’s no invasive nasal swab unless the dog happens to indicate on you.”

The researchers found that the dogs accurately alerted their handlers to 85 infections and ruled out 3,411 infections, resulting in an overall accuracy of 90%.

However, the dogs inaccurately alerted their handlers to infections in 383 instances and missed 18 infections, which means the dogs demonstrated 83% sensitivity and 90% specificity when it came to detecting Covid-19 infections in the study.

“Once we stepped into the schools, we saw a drop in their specificity and sensitivity due to the change,” Edwards said, referring to the distractions that children in a school setting can bring. However, Edward said, accuracy improved as the dogs spent more times in schools.

In comparison, Covid-19 BinaxNOW antigen tests have been shown in one real-world study to demonstrate 93.3% sensitivity and 99.9% specificity. That study was conducted in San Francisco and published in 2021 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

“We never said the dogs will replace the antigen. This was a time for us to learn how they compared,” Glaser said. “We will always plan on doing some amount of backup testing, but the idea would be that the actual antigen testing would be a fraction of what it would currently be because of the dogs.”

“To run these antigen testing programs at school, it’s taking a lot of school personnel resources, test cards as well as biohazard waste. So, I have no doubt in the long-run once it can be perfected, dogs will be cheaper, but I don’t have a great cost comparison,” she said.

This isn’t the first time that dogs’ abilities to detect traces of Covid-19 infections in real-time have been studied in the scientific literature.

“What we have learned in this work is that the dogs in general are capable of discriminating samples from individuals testing,” said Dr. Cindy Otto, professor and director of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the new study.

Regarding the new research, Otto said, “On the surface their results are encouraging and with the appropriate selection of dogs, rigorous training and impeccable quality control, there is the potential for dogs to be incorporated in threat monitoring.”

Now that Glaser and her colleagues have published research about their Covid-19 dog screening pilot program, she is eager to implement the approach in nursing home settings.

“Honestly, schools aren’t that interested in testing anymore. The outbreaks just aren’t what they used to be, but what we have done is we’ve transitioned to nursing homes, because there is a tremendous need in nursing homes,” Glaser said, adding that many residents may prefer to undergo screening with a dog than with uncomfortable nasal swabs. “What would you rather have: A swab in your nose or something that just maybe tickles your ankle at most for testing?”

Covid-sniffing dogs Scarlett and Rizzo at a skilled nursing home in California.

In skilled nursing homes, the dogs visit each resident’s room to sniff their feet, calmly smelling for Covid-19 volatile organic compounds as the resident lies in bed or sits in a chair.

“Thinking about where dogs would be deployed, I do really think nursing homes and residential care facilities and even schools – if they were ever to have a big outbreak – would be the natural next fit for this,” Glaser said.

“We think we’ll probably end up primarily using them in nursing homes,” she said. “But we’re still doing a little bit of both – there was a school that asked us to come back last week.”

The pilot program within California public schools also has left Edwards with hope for future opportunities in which canines can help detect disease in humans.

“I really do think it’s the tip of the iceberg. This is the door swinging wide open, and now we need to collaborate with those in the science world and figure out where we can take this,” Edwards said.

“There’s been a lot of chatter, even in the very beginning of this project, talking about what other diseases they could do. We’ve talked about TB, we’ve talked about flu A and B, possibly for this next flu season, seeing if we can get the dogs to alert on that,” she said, as volatile organic compounds are also produced by people with influenza. “It’s just a matter of being able to figure out how to collect samples, how to train the dogs, and then to be safe and effective around those diseases too.”

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A quarter of Americans live with polluted air, with people of color and those in Western states disproportionately affected, report says | CNN

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CNN
—

About 1 in 4 people in the United States – more than 119 million residents – live with air pollution that can hurt their health and shorten their lives, according to a new report from the American Lung Association. People of color are disproportionately affected, as are residents of Western cities.

Since President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act in 1970, emissions of outdoor air pollutants have fallen 78%, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. But Wednesday’s 2023 State of the Air report, which focuses on ozone and particle pollution, shows that millions put their health on the line every time they step outside.

To capture pollution levels at the county level, researchers analyzed data collected by the EPA’s Air Quality System, a repository of ambient air quality data from more than 10,000 monitors. They characterized the hourly average ozone concentration and the 24-hour average particle pollution concentration for 2019-21 at each monitoring site and factored in year-round pollution information from the EPA.

There were significant improvements in some areas. Generally, 17.6 million fewer people were breathing unhealthy air than in last year’s report, due largely to falling levels of ozone in some regions.

Ozone pollution is the main ingredient in smog. It comes from cars, power plants and refineries. Exposure to ozone can immediately exacerbate asthma symptoms, and people with long-term exposure to higher levels face a significantly higher risk of death from respiratory diseases than those who live with cleaner air.

Around 25% more counties got an A grade in the report for lower levels of ozone pollution. Some of that improvement can be attributed to the Clean Air Act, according to Katherine Pruitt, author of the report and the American Lung Association’s national senior director for policy.

Emission controls have helped, she said, as has the country’s continuing move away from its reliance on coal for its energy needs. Even something simple as the increase in the number of people who work from home has played a role.

“The Biden administration has set themselves a good, strong to do list of things that will help with environmental justice and climate protection,” Pruitt said. “They’re moving kind of slow, though. So we’d like them to pick up the pace.”

Despite the progress, not everyone was lucky enough to live in a county with good ozone levels. More than 100 million people live in counties that get an F for ozone smog, the report says.

Western and Southwestern cities are the most ozone-polluted, with 10 of the 25 most-polluted cities in California. New York, Chicago and Hartford, Connecticut, were the only three on that list east of the Mississippi River.

The five metropolitan areas with the worst ozone pollution are Los Angeles-Long Beach, California; Visalia, California; Bakersfield, California; Fresno-Madera-Hanford, California; and Phoenix-Mesa, Arizona.

Particle pollution, the other form of pollution tracked in the report, still seems to be a significant issue for the US.

Often hard to see, particle pollution is a mix of solid and liquid droplets that may come in the form of dirt, dust, soot or smoke. Coal- and natural gas-fired power plants create it, as do cars, agriculture, unpaved roads, construction sites and wildfires.

Particle pollution is so tiny – 1/20th of a width of a human hair – that it can travel past your body’s usual defenses.

Instead of being carried out when you exhale, it can get stuck in your lungs or go into your bloodstream. The particles cause irritation and inflammation and may lead to respiratory problems. Exposure can cause cancer, stroke or heart attack; it could also aggravate asthma, and it has even been associated with a higher risk of depression and anxiety, studies show.

The new report says the number of people living in counties with failing grades for daily spikes of particle pollution was the highest it has been in a decade. Nearly 64 million live with these kind of unhealthy spikes in counties that get failing grades.

One driver of the high amounts of particle pollution are the wildfires that have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres. In 2021 alone, there were 14,407 fires, many in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. There used to be a wildfire season, experts say, but now they happen year-round.

Those fires are why the regions with the highest concentrations of air pollution are largely in the West.

When the American Lung Association started producing its report in 2004, 106 counties in 30 states got failing grades for daily spikes in particle pollution. Fewer than half were in eight states west of the Rocky Mountains. Today, 111 counties in 19 states got Fs for spikes in particle pollution, and all but eight counties are in the West, the report says.

Urban centers in the Rust Belt and the industrialized East had gotten the most failing grades in the early 2000s, but many have cleaned up and now get passing grades.

Bakersfield, California, displaced Fresno as the metropolitan area with the worst short-term particle pollution, but Fresno did not suddenly develop cleaner air. That city still had the most-polluted label for year-round particle pollution, tied with Visalia, in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley.

Los Angeles is still the city with the worst ozone pollution, according to the report, as it has been for all but one of the years included in the report.

California has some of the more progressive environmental legislation in the country, but the climate crisis has not been kind to the state, said Tarik Benmarhnia, an air pollution and wildfire researcher at the University of California, San Diego, who did not work on the new report.

“All these cities like Bakersfield and Visalia are in a valley near the forests that are seeing big fires. There’s also intense agricultural and industrial work there, so they unfortunately have all the worst conditions for air pollution,” Benmarhnia said.

There are some newcomers to the list of the 25 areas with the most particle pollution, including Denver and Fargo, North Dakota. Reno, Nevada; Yakima and Spokane, Washington; and Boise, Idaho; all made the worst list this year.

San Luis Obispo, California; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; all moved off the list of worst 25 cities.

Residents in the cities ranked worst for particle pollution are living with more of it, the report says. In the top 25 cities with the worst air, the average number of days residents were exposed to high levels of fine particle pollution increased to a weighted average of 18.3, up from 16.5 in last year’s report.

East of the Mississippi, Pittsburgh and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, were the two worst metropolitan areas in the country, posting more days high in fine particle pollution in this year’s report.

Not everyone experiences pollution the same way in the US. Regardless of the region, communities of color bear the brunt of the problem.

Specifically, although people of color make up 41% of the overall US population, they are 54% of the nearly 120 million people living in counties with at least one failing grade for unhealthy air. And in the counties with the worst air quality, 72% of the 18 million residents are people of color, the report said.

Other research has also shown this trend. On maps that lay out areas with high levels of air pollution and where communities were redlined – areas where Black people were forced to live – they line up perfectly, Pruitt said.

“Then, the other aspect is, when you have a community of color that is a voluntary community, people aren’t forced to live there, those are communities that tend to have less of a voice, so decision makers place polluting sources in those communities because there’s not as much howling by people with power when they do. So those communities get the highways; they get the landfills; they get the fence lines,” she said.

There’s a myth that only poor communities live with disproportionate pollution levels, says Chris Tessum, a professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of the University of Illinois. Tessum, who was not involved in the new report, says race really is the determining factor.

“The thinking is that people with more money will buy better property, which has lower air pollution and that’s just the way of the world or whatever, but that’s just kind of emphatically not, not true,” he said.

Communities need to play a key role in making decisions to help clean air, Tessum said.

“People that have the power will use that power to benefit themselves and not the people that have been historically overburdened,” he said.

The new report says government and residents can make a difference. One suggestion is to leverage Inflation Reduction Act funding to help reduce emissions at ports and to invest in zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles and in infrastructure that would improve air quality monitoring.

States can also use the Clean Air Act authority to adopt the California zero-emissions standards for cars and trucks, the report says.

At the federal level, agencies must finalize stronger limits on air pollution to truly protect public health and advance environmental justice, the report says, including standards to move the country toward zero-emissions vehicles. The EPA also has to set stronger national standards for particle pollution and ozone, the researchers say.

Pruitt said she knows firsthand how better policies can work. She said growing up before the Clean Air Act, pollution was so high that she could see it every time she stepped outside. Today, the pollution is not nearly as visible.

“I’m in my mid-60s, and of course, air pollution was very tangible when I was young, but these days, thank goodness it isn’t. Most people don’t see it,” she said. Unless a person has a lung condition, they may not even feel it.

But just because you can’t see it or feel it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Pruitt encourages people to remember that no level of pollution is safe. The World Health Organization estimates that the combined effects of ambient air pollution and household air pollution are associated with 6.7 million premature deaths annually.

“People don’t really recognize that what they’re breathing is impacting their health,” Pruitt said.

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EPA proposes new regulations on toxic gas used to sterilize spices and medical equipment | CNN

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CNN
—

The US Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed a set of new restrictions on facilities that use the cancer-causing chemical ethylene oxide, a colorless, odorless gas that is used to sterilize medical devices and spices.

The agency said the new rules, which have not been finalized, would help to reduce ethylene oxide gas that these facilities release by 80%, bringing emissions below a Clean Air Act standard for elevated cancer risk.

Communities exposed to ethylene oxide gas have been pushing the EPA to put tighter controls on plants that use ethylene oxide gas.

In 2018, an EPA report found that dozens of communities across the nation faced elevated cancer risks because of trace of amounts of ethylene oxide released into air as part of the sterilization process.

The EPA issued the report on the new risks without issuing a news release, as it had done for the same report in years past. Some affected communities learned of the risk through a health assessment conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and media reports. A report from the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General found that some communities weren’t alerted to their risk by EPA at all.

The elevated risk became apparent after a two-decade long review of the toxicity of ethylene oxide by scientists in EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program.

While the EPA acknowledged that ethylene oxide was more dangerous that had been previously understood, it continued to use an older set of rules to regulate facilities that released ethylene oxide as well as companies that manufacture it.

The proposed rules aim to better align regulations on the producers and users of ethylene oxide with the cancer risk posed by the chemical. They follow a set of proposed rules issued by EPA last week that would put new controls on facilities that manufacture ethylene oxide.

Taken together, the two sets of rules would remove 77 tons of ethylene oxide emissions a year, an 84% reduction compared with 2020 levels, EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said in a call with reporters on Tuesday.

Environmental watchdog groups applauded the proposed restrictions, but noted that they don’t go far enough to protect vulnerable communities, where residents are often low-income and disproportionately people of color.

“These regulations are long overdue, by almost a decade. I’m relieved and pleased that the EPA has finally issued proposed standards that are based on their own scientists’ recommendations on an updated, higher cancer risk value. If enacted, these updated regulations would reduce emissions in fenceline communities,” said Darya Minovi, a senior researcher scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“When the EPA issues the final rule, they should throw the net wider. The standard should cover a larger range of facilities to include off-site warehouses that often store recently sterilized equipment that continue to release ethylene oxide, but aren’t regulated for their air emissions.”

Minovi also said the EPA should require fenceline monitors – devices that constantly read the air outside of facilities to make sure that toxic gas isn’t drifting into neighborhoods.

Jaime Rukstales, a member of the Illinois grassroots advocacy group Stop EtO in Lake County – one of the communities impacted by ethylene oxide pollution – says the EPA needs to impose tougher restrictions on “all types of facilities that impact the health of our communities … including sterilizers, manufacturers and warehouses near our homes, schools and businesses.”

Some off-site warehouses used to store newly sterilized products have registered high levels of ethylene oxide due to off-gassing of the products.

Meanwhile, chemical manufacturers sued the EPA in February over its updated hazard assessment for ethylene oxide. The industry wants the agency to use a less protective standard developed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

AdvaMed, a group that lobbies for the interests of medical device manufacturers, warned that more regulations could pose problems for patients.

“If new EPA regulations force sterilization facilities to close, patients could face treatment delays as sterile technology supplies, such as pacemakers and surgical equipment, fall short,” Scott Whitaker, president and CEO of AdvaMed, said in a comment posted on the group’s website.

The EPA said some commercial sterilizers have already made the planned changes.

“Many sterilization and health care facilities are already taking the steps outlined in the proposal and have seen emissions drop significantly,” McCabe said.

Most facilities have taken action to control ethylene oxide blown out of sterilization chambers through exhaust vents known as “back vents” but only 25% to 33% of sterilizers are controlling so-called fugitive emissions, ethylene oxide that escapes or leaks into room air, said Jonathan Witt, an environmental engineer and technical lead on EPA’s review of the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants.

“So we think it’s a good sizable chunk of the industry, but still a little ways to go,” Witt said on a call with reporters.

If the rules go into effect, sterilizers would have 18 months to make the changes, which the EPA said is an accelerated time frame under the Clean Air Act.

AdvaMed’s Whitaker says that’s not enough time.

“It could take many months for abatement equipment to arrive. Supply chains and manufacturing are still recovering from the pandemic,” he noted in the statement.

In issuing the proposed rules, the EPA said it aimed to strike a balance between lowing cancer risks for impacted communities and workers who use ethylene oxide while preserving “critical sterilization capabilities.”

The proposed rules would apply to 86 commercial sterilization facilities in the United States that use ethylene oxide gas to fumigate spices and medical devices.

The EPA says 20 billion medical devices – mostly single-use, disposable items used in health care such as catheters, gloves and surgical gowns – are sterilized using ethylene oxide.

The US Food and Drug Administration is actively exploring alternatives to the use of the gas, the EPA said on Tuesday, but some devices still can’t be sterilized any other way.

In proposing the new rules, EPA said its new analysis found that exposure to ethylene oxide, or EtO, on the job significantly increased cancer risks for workers in sterilization facilities and those who apply ethylene oxide in health care facilities.

“Now, a new EPA analysis shows that there may also be significant risks to workers who handle [ethylene oxide] and people who live, work or go to school near places where EtO is used in sterilization. And failing to take action to address these risks is simply unacceptable,” EPA Administrator Janet McCabe said on a call with reporters.

The additional lifetime cancer risk for a worker exposed to ethylene oxide for eight hours a day, 240 days a year for 35 years was between 1 in 10 and 1 in 36 for workers in sterilization facilities; and between 1 in 12 and 1 in 25 for workers exposed to ethylene oxide in health care facilities.

To help lower those risks, the proposed rules require greater use of personal protective equipment for workers and new controls to decrease the amount of ethylene oxide in indoor air.

Whitaker from AdvaMed, the medical device industry group, said the cancer risk for employees exposed to ethylene oxide on the job is overstated and disregards “the strong employee protections already in practice.”

Companies will also be required to use new real-time monitoring methods to confirm that these pollution controls are working inside facilities. These controls can measure ethylene oxide in indoor air down to 10 parts per billion. If ethylene oxide levels climb above this threshold, everyone in the workplace would be required to wear protective equipment.

They will also lower the amount of ethylene oxide that can be used for each sterilization cycle. The EPA is proposing to limit the application rate for ethylene oxide to no more than 500 milligrams per liter of air.

The rules would eliminate some niche uses of ethylene oxide where alternatives exist, including its use in museums, archival settings, beekeeping, some cosmetics, and in musical instruments.

The EPA will take public comment on the new rules for 60 days. The agency will also host a virtual public webinar on May 1 to discuss its proposed rules and new risk assessment.

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Maternity units are closing across America, forcing expectant mothers to hit the road | CNN

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CNN
—

In picturesque Bonner County, Idaho, Leandra Wright, 40, is pregnant with her seventh child.

Wright is due in August, but three weeks ago, the hospital where she had planned to deliver, Bonner General Health, announced that it would be suspending its labor and delivery services in May.

Now, she’s facing a potentially precarious drive to another hospital 45 minutes from her home.

“It’s frustrating and worrisome,” Wright said.

Wright has a history of fast labors. Her 15-year-old son, Noah, was born on the way to the hospital.

“My fifth child was born on the side of the highway,” Wright said. “It was wintertime, and my hospital at the time in California was about 40 minutes away, and the roads were icy, so we didn’t make it in time.”

By the time she and Noah got to the hospital, about 15 minutes after he was born, his body temperature was lower than normal.

“It worries me not to have a doctor there and worries me to have to go through that,” Wright said.

Residents of Bonner County aren’t the only ones dealing with unexpected maternity unit closures.

Since 2011, 217 hospitals in the United States have closed their labor and delivery departments, according to a report by the health care consulting firm Chartis.

A CNN tally shows that at least 13 such closures have been announced in the past year alone.

Services provided at maternity units vary from hospital to hospital. Most offer obstetrics care in which an obstetrician will deliver a baby, either vaginally or via cesarean section. These units also provide perinatal care, which is medical and supportive care before and after delivery.

Other services provided may include lactation specialists and private delivery rooms.

After May 19, Bonner General Health will no longer offer obstetrical services, meaning there will be zero obstetricians practicing there. Consequently, the hospital will no longer deliver babies. Additionally, the unit will no longer provide 24-hour anesthesia support or post-resuscitation or pre-transportation stabilization care for critically ill newborns.

Some hospitals that have recently closed their maternity units still offer perinatal care, along with routine gynecological care.

Bonner General is planning to establish a clinic where perinatal care will be offered. Gynecological services – such as surgical services, preventative care, wellness exams and family planning – will still be provided at a nearby women’s health clinic.

The Chartis report says that the states with the highest loss of access to obstetrical care are Minnesota, Texas, Iowa, Kansas and Wisconsin, with each losing more than 10 facilities.

Data released last fall by the infant and maternal health nonprofit March of Dimes also shows that more than 2.2 million women of childbearing age across 1,119 US counties are living in “maternity care deserts,” meaning their counties have no hospitals offering obstetric care, no birth centers and no obstetric providers.

Maternity care deserts have been linked to a lack of adequate prenatal care or treatment for pregnancy complications and even an increased risk of maternal death for a year after giving birth.

Money is one reason why maternity units are being shuttered.

According to the American Hospital Association, 42% of births in the US are paid for by Medicaid, which has low reimbursement rates. Employer-sponsored insurance pays about $15,000 for a delivery, and Medicaid pays about $6,500, according to the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit that analyzes health care cost and utilization data.

“Medicaid funds about half of all births nationally and more than half of births in rural areas,” said Dr. Katy Kozhimannil, a public health researcher at the University of Minnesota who has conducted research on the growing number of maternity care deserts.

Kozhimannil says communities that are most likely to be affected by maternity unit closures tend to be remote towns in rural counties in states with “less generous Medicaid programs.”

Hospitals in larger cities are often able to offset low reimbursement rates from Medicaid births with births covered by employer-sponsored insurance, according to Dr. Sina Haeri, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and CEO of Ouma Health, a company that provides virtual prenatal and perinatal care to mothers living in maternity care deserts.

Many large hospitals also have neonatal intensive care units.

“If you have a NICU, that’s a substantial revenue generator for a hospital,” Haeri said.

Most rural hospitals do not have a NICU, only a nursery where they care for full-term, healthy babies, he said. Due to that financial burden, it does not make financial sense for many rural hospitals to keep labor and delivery units open.

A low volume of births is another reason for the closures.

In announcing the closure, Bonner General noted that in 2022, it delivered just 265 babies, which the hospital characterized as a significant decrease.

Rural hospital administrators providing obstetric care say it takes at least 200 births annually for a unit to remain safe and financially viable, according to a study led by Kozhimannil for the University of Minnesota’s Rural Health Research Center.

Many administrators surveyed said they are working to keep units open despite low birth rates.

“Of all the folks that we surveyed, about a third of them were still operating, even though they had fewer than 200 births a year,” Kozhimannil said. “We asked why, and they said, ‘because our community needs it.’ ”

Another issue for hospital administrators is staffing and recruitment.

The decision to close Bonner General’s labor and delivery unit was also directly affected by a lack of experienced, qualified doctors and nurses in the state, said Erin Binnall, a Bonner General Health spokesperson.

“After May 19th, Bonner General Health will no longer have reliable, consistent pediatric coverage to manage neonatal resuscitations and perinatal care. Bonner General’s number one priority is patient safety. Not having board-certified providers certified in neonatal resuscitation willing to provide call and be present during deliveries makes it unsafe and unethical for BGH to provide these services,” Binnall told CNN by email.

The American Hospital Association acknowledges the staffing challenges some hospitals face.

“Simply put, if a hospital cannot recruit and retain the providers, nurses, and other appropriately trained caregivers to sustainably support a service then it cannot provide that care,” the association said in a statement. “Such challenges are only magnified in rural America, where workforce strain is compounded by aging demographics that in some communities has dramatically decreased demand for services like Labor and Delivery.”

Wright is considering moving because of the lack of maternity and pediatric care available in Bonner County.

More stringent abortion laws may be playing a role in the closures, too.

Bonner General said in a news release last month that due to Idaho’s “legal and political climate, highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.”

According to the Guttmacher Institute, Idaho has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country: a complete ban that has only a few exceptions.

Idaho requires an “affirmative defense,” Guttmacher says, meaning a provider “has to prove in court that an abortion met the criteria for a legal exception.”

No matter the reason, Kozhimannil said, closures in rural communities aren’t just a nuisance. They also put families at risk.

“That long drive isn’t just an inconvenience. It actually is associated with health risks,” she said. “The consequence that we saw is an increase in preterm births. Preterm birth is the largest risk factor for infant mortality. It is a huge risk factor for developmental and cognitive delays for kids.”

Haeri says the decline in maternal care also has a clear effect on maternal mortality rates.

The maternal death rate for 2021 – the year for which the most recent data is available – was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in the US, compared with rates of 20.1 in 2019 and 23.8 in 2020, according to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics. In raw numbers, 1,205 women died of maternal causes in the US in 2021.

Conditions such as high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes may raise a person’s risk of complications, as can being pregnant with multiples, according to the National Institutes of Health. Pregnant women over the age of 35 are at a higher risk of pre-eclampsia.

As labor and delivery units continue to shut their doors, possible solutions to the growing problem are complex, Haeri says.

“I think anyone that comes to you and says the current system is working is lying to you,” he said. “We all know that the current maternity system is not good.”

Kozhimannil’s research has found that many women who live in maternity care deserts are members of minority communities.

“When we conducted that research, we found the communities that were raising the alarm about this … tended to be Black and indigenous, or tribal communities in rural places,” she said. “Black communities in the South and East and tribal communities throughout the country, but especially in the West, Mountain West and Midwest.”

Haeri says one possible solution is at a woman’s fingertips.

“I always say if a woman’s got a cell phone, she should have access,” he said.

A 2021 study found that women who live in remote areas of the US could benefit from telehealth visits, which would decrease the number of “in-person prenatal care visits and increase access to care.”

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends 12 to 14 prenatal care appointments for women with low-risk pregnancies, and the study suggests that expansion of prenatal telehealth appointments could help women living in remote areas better adhere to those guidelines.

Ouma works with mothers who are typically remote and high-risk, Haeri says.

He also believes that promoting midwifery and doula services would help bolster maternity care in the US.

Certified nurse midwives often assist remote mothers who are high-risk or who decide to give birth at home, he says.

Midwives not only deliver babies, they often work with medical equipment and can administer at-home physical exams, prescribe medications, order lab and diagnostic tests, and assess risk management, according to the American College of Nurse Midwives. Doulas – who guide mothers through the birthing process – are often present at home births and even hospital births.

“That midwifery model shines when it comes to maternal care. [And] doula advocacy involvement leads to better outcomes and maternity care, and I think as a system, we haven’t made it easier for those two components to be really an integral part of our maternity care in the US,” Haeri said.

After living in Idaho for 10 years, Wright says, she and her fiancé have considered leaving the state. The lack of maternity and pediatric care at Bonner General Health is a big reason why.

“I feel safe being with [my] doctors. Now, I have to get to know a doctor within a couple of months before my next baby is born,” Wright said.

As she awaits the arrival of her new son, she feels doubtful that there is a solution for mothers like her.

“Everywhere – no matter what – everybody has babies,” she said. “It’s posing a problem for people who have babies who don’t have the income to drive or have high risk pregnancies or first-time mothers who don’t even know what to expect.”

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Fossilized eggs crack open the mysteries of the past | CNN

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CNN
—

Eggs have been laid on land by birds, reptiles, dinosaurs and a few oddball mammals for more than 200 million years.

And humans have been using some of these eggs as a nutritious source of food, and their shells as bowls, bottles and jewelry for most of our history on the planet.

Though they’ve often been overshadowed by skeletons and bones, fossilized eggshells are a fascinating source of information, illuminating the behavior and diet of ancient creatures, detailing changes in climate and revealing how our prehistoric relatives lived and communicated.

This Easter, here are six surprising things eggs have revealed about the past.

Did dinosaur blood run cold, like a lizard, or warm, like a bird? It’s a topic that’s long divided paleontologists.

An analysis of fossilized dinosaur egg shells suggests it’s the latter. By looking at the order of oxygen and carbon atoms in the fossilized egg shells, researchers were able to calculate a dinosaur mom’s internal body temperature. It’s a process called “clumped isotope paleothermometry.”

“Eggs, because they are formed inside dinosaurs, act like ancient thermometers,” said Pincelli Hull, an assistant professor at Yale University’s department of geology and geophysics, and a coauthor of the study, which published in 2020.

Hull and her colleagues found that the samples they tested suggested dinosaurs’ body temperatures were warmer than their surroundings would have been.

The research indicates that unlike reptiles, which rely on heat from the environment, dinosaurs were capable of internally generating heat – more like birds.

A study of fossilized eggshells revealed humans may have been hatching and raising cassowaries for more than 18,000 years.

You might think that chickens—or even ducks or turkeys—were the earliest birds to be domesticated by humans.

However, eggshell fragments found at two prehistoric sites in Papua New Guinea suggest that humans may have been raising cassowaries—often described as the world’s most dangerous birds because of a daggerlike claw they have on each foot—as early as 18,000 years ago.

Territorial, aggressive and often compared to a dinosaur in looks, the bird is a surprising candidate for domestication. But a study of more than 1,000 fossilized Papua New Guinea eggshell fragments has suggested the birds were deliberately hatched.

To reach their conclusions, the researchers first studied the eggshells of living birds, including turkeys, emus and ostriches. The insides of the eggshells change as the developing chicks get calcium from the eggshell. Using high-resolution 3D images and inspecting the inside of the eggs, the researchers were able to build a model of what the eggs looked like during different stages of incubation.

The scientists tested their model on modern emu and ostrich eggs before applying it to the fossilized eggshell fragments found in New Guinea. The team found that most of the eggshells found at the sites were all near maturity—suggesting they were hatched, not eaten.

The first oviraptor fossil—from a family of dinosaurs with parrotlike beaks—was discovered in Mongolia in the 1920s, lying near a nest of eggs thought to belong to a rival. Paleontologists at the time assumed that the animal had died while attempting to plunder the nest and named the creature “egg thief.”

It wasn’t until the 1990s that its reputation was restored when another discovery revealed that the eggs were its own. Subsequent finds, including an oviraptosaur hunched over 24 eggs made public last year, have revealed that this particular type of dinosaur was a doting parent.

At least seven of the 24 eggs preserved the bones of partial embryos found inside; it was the first time a fossil had preserved this level of detail. These embryos were at a late stage of development, and the close proximity of the parent confirmed that this dinosaur really did incubate its nest like its modern bird cousins.

The neat layout of oviraptor nests also suggested that they were brooders that sat upon eggs to hatch them—even giant oviraptors that weighed 1,500 kilograms (3,307 pounds) and laid half-meter long eggs, said Darla Zelenitsky, a dinosaur egg expert and associate professor in the department of geoscience at the University of Calgary in Canada.

“These fossils also show very precisely arranged eggs, stacked in rings, probably optimized for sitting on the eggs,” she explained.

The 2-meter-wide (6.6-foot-wide) nests of giant oviraptors were a slightly modified shape to stop them from being crushed, she added.

Dinosaurs eggs—including one with a perfectly preserved baby dinosaur curled up inside—increasingly show that birds inherited many characteristics from dinosaurs. Not all dinosaurs, however, were caring parents.

Pores on the surface of eggs allow the diffusion of water, oxygen and carbon dioxide, and the orientation, density and number of pores on the eggs of living animals can reveal whether they are laid in open nests or underground. Applying this knowledge to fossilized dinosaur eggs has shed light on their nesting behavior.

Analysis suggests that many dinosaurs, including hulking plant-eating sauropods, laid their eggs underground in burrows, more like reptiles.

A string of modern ostrich eggshell beads from eastern Africa is shown.

Ostrich eggshells are found in archaeological dig sites throughout Africa. Early humans used the large eggs as water bottles and, for tens of thousands of years, ancient humans took the remains and fashioned them into decorative beads that are still made today.

These beads have been found all over Africa—including in areas where ostriches never lived – sparking the question of how they got there.

The answer is hidden in the eggs’ geochemistry. Researchers looked at the signatures of different isotopes or variants of the element strontium in the beads—these vary depending on where the ostriches would have fed before laying the eggs.

Older rock formations including granite are found to have more strontium than younger rocks like basalt, and this is reflected in the vegetation that grows around them.

The geochemistry of the beads showed they traveled long distances. They were traded or exchanged in what was described as an early social network.

Eggs are a big part of our diet today – something that was also true in the Stone Age.

In fact, ancient Australians’ appetite for the eggs laid by the 2-meter-tall (6-foot-tall) Genyornis could have been one significant reason why the large, flightless birds went extinct 47,000 years ago.

Burn patterns on eggshell fragments of the giant bird found at around 200 sites across Australia, were created by humans discarding eggshell in and around makeshift fires, presumably made to cook the eggs.

Chemical signatures of nitrogen and carbon isotopes in fossilized egg shells can also track vegetation changes, gleaning information about past changes in climate, which can reveal ecological shifts that could impact the survival of these species over time.

A study of emu eggshells found across Australia over a 100,000-year time period do not show a massive shift in climate that researchers believe could have led to the extinction of Genyornis.

This suggested that the extinction of these giant birds was caused by humans, not ecological changes, the study said.

Fossilized penguin, ostrich and emu eggshells have revealed what the climate was like in the ancient Antarctic, South Africa and Australia. More recent egg collections are revealing how the current climate crisis is changing the natural world today.

By comparing birds’ eggs collected during the Victorian era and modern eggs held by the Field Museum and other institutions, researchers found that several bird species in the Chicago area nest and lay eggs almost a full month earlier now than they did a century ago.

Of the 72 species documented in the data, a third have been nesting earlier and earlier, the team found. Birds that changed their nesting habits laid eggs around 25 days sooner, on average.

Similar patterns are seen in insects, which many birds eat, and plants, suggesting that climate change is already changing ecosystems, the authors of the study said.

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Many firefighters who responded to Ohio train derailment didn’t have the needed training, equipment | CNN

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CNN
—

Many of the first responders who helped fight the fire that erupted after the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, last month were ill-equipped and untrained to fight the massive chemical blaze that some now call “the hell fire.”

In testimony Wednesday before the US Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, lawmakers heard about myriad issues that snarled the response and that put firefighters who rushed to the scene at greater immediate risk – and may raise risks to their health throughout their lives.

About 300 firefighters from 50 departments dashed to the scene of the derailment in East Palestine on the night of February 3. Many of them were volunteers without hazmat training or specialized equipment.

Officials investigating the derailment testified that these first responders weren’t able to access information about the chemicals that were in 11 overturned cars carrying hazardous materials.

Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency investigating the crash, urged senators to consider meaningful changes to help inform exposed communities and first responders.

“People deserve to know what chemicals are moving through their communities and how to stay safe in an emergency, That includes responders who risk their lives for each of us every single day. They deserve to be prepared,” Homendy said.

Studies have shown that firefighters have a higher rates of cancer compared with members of the general population because of toxic chemicals they’re exposed to on the job. These cancers include digestive, oral, lung and bladder cancers. A rare type of cancer called malignant mesothelioma is about twice as common in firefighters than in the general population, probably due to exposure to asbestos in burning buildings, for example.

Cancer is now the leading cause of death for working firefighters, according to the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday that he is very concerned about the long-term health of the firefighters who responded to the derailment.

“They all need to be assessed,” he said. “There needs to be established a baseline, and they need to be assured that in five years or 10 years, there’s still a place where they could go.”

“We look to the railroad to establish that fund,” DeWine said in testimony before the committee.

The derailment occurred about 9 p.m. February 3, and the night air quickly filled with smoke. Visibility was poor, and some of the placards on overturned railcars had burned away, leaving responders clueless about what chemicals were spilling and catching fire around them.

There’s an app, AskRail, meant to give users more information about the what’s on trains involved in accidents, but none of the first responders to the derailment in East Palestine had access to it, Homendy said.

Even if they had been able to use it, the app lists what is in cars by their order on the train, and its information may have been of limited help to firefighters on the scene who were looking at cars that were “bunched up” and not in their normal order, said David Comstock, chief of the Ohio Western Reserve Fire District.

There are better ways of getting urgent information to first responders, he told the senators.

After auto accidents, for example, some telematic systems in cars transmit information about the crash to emergency dispatchers who can then send it to crews responding to the scene.

“So en route to a motor vehicle accident, I know the car has flipped three times, airbags gone out, and it has information about that car – whether it’s an electric car, things I have to worry about,” Comstock said.

No information like that was available to crews responding to the derailed train.

“They didn’t have the information for quite a long time on what was on the train,” Homendy said.

Facing criticism over its role in the response, the company that owns and operates the train, Norfolk Southern, has announced that it will create a new regional training center for first responders. CEO Alan Shaw repeated that pledge in his testimony Wednesday before the committee.

The company also intends to expand its Operation Awareness & Response program, which travels its 22-state network to teach first responders how to stay safe after train accidents.

Comstock testified that more training is important, but so is more gear. He said most fire stations in the area are lucky if they can supply each member of their crew with a single set of turnout gear: the protective coat, pants, boots, gloves and helmets firefighters wear.

“When I have to wash that, I’m out of service,” he said. “In response to the derailment, I had three firefighters who were exposed. Their gear is contaminated. I can’t use it.”

It takes six months to order replacement gear, he said.

“That means I have three firefighters who are out of service for six months who can’t respond to auto accidents or structure fires,” he said.

Even then, that basic gear isn’t designed to stand up to hazardous materials like the chemicals on the Norfolk Southern train.

For that kind of incident, firefighters need hazmat suits, which can cost $15,000 each, Comstock testified, along with specialized monitoring equipment.

“It’s unrealistic for the federal government to provide that to every department, but we do need to look at a regional approach so we can call in those teams that can supplement what we’re trying to do,” he said.

Comstock said he hopes the committee will consider the needs of firefighters as it drafts legislation to right the wrongs of the East Palestine incident.

“This incident has emphasized the need to better train and equip firefighters to respond to hazardous material incidents, specifically to derailments in rural areas, which are mostly served by volunteer fire departments that often lack sufficient resources, tax base and manpower,” he said.

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How to reduce PFAS in your drinking water, according to experts | CNN

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CNN
—

In the next three years, drinking water in the United States may be a bit safer from potentially toxic chemicals that have been detected in the blood of 98% of Americans.

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS are a family of thousands of man-made chemicals that do not break down easily in the environment. A number of PFAS have been linked to serious health problems, including cancer, fertility issues, high cholesterol, hormone disruption, liver damage, obesity and thyroid disease.

The US Environmental Protection Agency proposed on Tuesday stringent new limits on levels of six PFAS chemicals in public water systems. Under the proposed rule, public systems that provide water to at least 15 service connections or 25 people will have three years to implement testing procedures, begin notifying the public about PFAS levels, and reduce levels if above the new standard, the EPA said.

Two of the most well-studied and potentially toxic chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, cannot exceed 4 parts per trillion in drinking water, compared with a previous health advisory of 70 parts per trillion, the EPA said.

Another four chemicals — PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS and GenX — will be subject to a hazard index calculation to determine whether the levels of these PFAS pose a potential risk. The calculation is “a tool the EPA uses to address the cumulative risks from all four of those chemicals,” said Melanie Benesh, vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, a consumer organization that monitors exposure to PFAS and other chemicals.

“The EPA action is a really important and historic step forward,” Benesh said. “While the proposed regulations only address a few PFAS, they are important marker chemicals. I think requiring water systems to test and treat for these six will actually do a lot to address other PFAS that are in the water as well.”

For people who are concerned about PFAS exposure, three years or so is a long time. What can consumers do now to limit the levels of PFAS in their drinking water?

First, look up levels of PFAS in your local public water system, suggested David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group. The advocacy nonprofit has created a national tap water database searchable by zip code that lists PFAS and other concerning chemicals, as well as a national map that illustrates where PFAS has been detected in the US.

However, not all water utilities currently test for pollutants, and many rural residents rely on wells for water. Anyone who wants to personally test their water can purchase a test online or from a certified lab, Andrews said.

“The most important thing is to ensure the testing method can detect down to at least four parts per trillion or lower of PFAS,” he said. “There are a large number of labs across the country certified to test to that level, so there are a lot of options available.”

If levels are concerning, consumers can purchase a water filter for their tap. NSF, formerly the National Sanitation Foundation, has a list of recommended filters.

“The water filters that are most effective for PFAS are reverse osmosis filters, which are more expensive, about in the $200 range,” Andrews said. Reverse osmosis filters can remove a wide range of contaminants, including dissolved solids, by forcing water through various filters.

“Granular activated carbon filters are more common and less expensive but not quite as effective or consistent for PFAS,” he said, “although they too can remove a large number of other contaminants.”

Reverse osmosis systems use both carbon-based filters and reverse osmosis membranes, Andrews explained. Water passes through the carbon filter before entering the membrane.

“The important part is that you have to keep changing those filters,” he said. “If you don’t change that filter, and it becomes saturated, the levels of PFAS in the filtered water can actually be above the levels in the tap water.”

Carbon filters are typically replaced every six months, “while the reverse osmosis filter is replaced on a five-year time frame,” he added. “The cost is relatively comparable over their lifetime.”

Another positive: Many of the filters that work for PFAS also filter other contaminants in water, Andrews said.

Drinking water is not the only way PFAS enters the bloodstream. Thousands of varieties of PFAS are used in many of the products we purchase, including nonstick cookware, infection-resistant surgical gowns and drapes, mobile phones, semiconductors, commercial aircraft, and low-emissions vehicles.

The chemicals are also used to make carpeting, clothing, furniture, and food packaging resistant to stains, water and grease damage. Once treated, the report said, textiles emit PFAS over the course of their lifetimes, escaping into the air and groundwater in homes and communities.

Made from a chain of linked carbon and fluorine atoms that do not readily degrade in the environment, PFAS are known as “forever chemicals.” Due to their long half life in the human body, it can take some PFAS years to completely leave the body, according to a 2022 report by the prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

“Some of these chemicals have half-lives in the range of five years,” National Academies committee member Jane Hoppin, an environmental epidemiologist and director of the Center for Human Health and the Environment at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, told CNN previously.

“Let’s say you have 10 nanograms of PFAS in your body right now. Even with no additional exposure, five years from now you would still have 5 nanograms.

“Five years later, you would have 2.5 and then five years after that, you’d have one 1.25 nanograms,” she continued. “It would be about 25 years before all the PFAS leave your body.”

The 2022 National Academies report set “nanogram” levels of concern and encouraged clinicians to conduct blood tests on patients who are worried about exposure or who are at high risk. (A nanogram is equivalent to one-billionth of a gram.)

People in “vulnerable life stages” — such as during fetal development in pregnancy, early childhood and old age — are at high risk, the report said. So are firefighters, workers in fluorochemical manufacturing plants, and those who live near commercial airports, military bases, landfills, incinerators, wastewater treatment plants and farms where contaminated sewage sludge is used.

The PFAS-REACH (Research, Education, and Action for Community Health) project, funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, gives the following advice on how to avoid PFAS at home and in products:

Stay away from stain-resistant carpets and upholstery, and don’t use waterproofing sprays.
Look for the ingredient polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE, or other “fluoro” ingredients on product labels.
Avoid nonstick cookware. Instead use cast-iron, stainless steel, glass or enamel products.
Boycott takeout containers and other food packaging. Instead cook at home and eat more fresh foods.
Don’t eat microwave popcorn or greasy foods wrapped in paper.
Choose uncoated nylon or silk dental floss or one that is coated in natural wax.

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Tag: environment and natural resources

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