All environmental epidemiology stories

Noninfectious pathway for HIV found by HSPH team

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:39:28 -0400

HIV is a crafty virus. It attacks the body by invading and taking over the very cells meant to protect humans from infection. Hiding within cells such as macrophages and lymphocytes, the virus uses the body's natural machinery to replicate itself, destroying the immune system and leaving patients open to a range of debilitating and deadly opportunistic infections.

Now, a team led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers has described a previously unappreciated pathway used by HIV to enter macrophages and has shown that the virus, once in the cells through this entryway, doesn't appear to replicate. Rather than causing infection, the virus is destroyed, and an immune response may be triggered.

Ban on coal burning in Dublin cleans the air, reduces death rates

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:24:09 -0400

In the 1980s, Dublin's air quality suffered as people switched from oil to cheaper and more available coal for home and water heating. On Sept. 1, 1990, the Irish government banned the sale and distribution of bituminous coals within the city of Dublin. This offered researchers a unique opportunity to assess the effects of particulate pollution on mortality and the general population.

Battling toxic molds

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:23:26 -0400

Molds are found in all kinds of environments. Estimates of the number of kinds of molds range from tens of thousands to more than 300,000, with more than 1,000 species known to typically grow indoors, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While many molds appear to be benign to humans -- and some, such as the kind that produces penicillin, are beneficial -- several species are considered to be potent toxins. Questions raised by molds interest Mike Muilenberg, research associate and instructor in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard's School of Public Health. As part of a series of studies on indoor allergens, Muilenberg is looking at the relationship between mold and health.

Physicians warn of nuclear terrorist threat

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:19:30 -0400

In a new study, Lachlan Forrow, director of ethics support services at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. and his co-authors used software developed by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency to calculate the impact of a 12.5 kiloton nuclear explosion –- the same size as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima –- in the port area of New York City. They found that such an attack would result in the immediate deaths of 52,000 people, while another 44,000 individuals could be expected to develop cases of radiation sickness, of which 10,000 would likely be fatal. According to their calculations, radiation from fallout would cause another 200,000 deaths and several hundred thousand cases of radiation sickness. Furthermore, they say, in the wake of such an attack, little could be done to help survivors: More than 1,000 hospital beds would likely be destroyed. The researchers did the study to make the point that in the aftermath of September 11, the threat of nuclear terrorism is among the most real –- and most dire –- of the United States' current public health concerns. The report was published in the Feb. 8, 2002 issue of the British Medical Journal.

Report focuses on impact of power plant pollution

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:08:05 -0400

Air pollution from two Massachusetts coal-fired power plants is spread over a large region and adversely affects the health of hundreds of thousands of people. Harvard School of Public Health scientists Jonathan Levy and John D. Spengler used a sophisticated model to calculate exposures to 32 million residents living in New England, eastern New York, and New Jersey from these older plants. They estimated that current emissions from the Salem Harbor and Brayton Point power plants can be linked to more than 43,000 asthma attacks and nearly 300,000 incidents of upper respiratory symptoms per year in the region. The study also estimated that 159 premature deaths per year could be attributed to this pollution. The health risks are greatest for people living closer to the plants. Twenty percent of the total health impact occurs on 8 percent of the population that lives within 30 miles of the facilities.

Air pollution deadlier than previously thought

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:04:54 -0400

The idea that air pollution is harmful is hardly new. However, critics of the previous research of Joel Schwartz, associate professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and other air pollution researchers have claimed that those who die from air pollution are the very ill who would have died within a few days in any case. This notion is sometimes referred to as "harvesting." Using a statistical analysis that can factor out expected deaths, Schwartz debunked this argument in a study, "Harvesting and Long Term Exposure Effects in the Relations Between Air Pollution and Mortality" in the March 1, 2000, issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology. If it were true that people who died from air pollution would have died soon anyway, reasoned Schwartz, then there should be a correspondence between an increase in death rates during or immediately following a period of air pollution and a decrease in death rates a few days later. But it doesn't work that way. "Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that," said Schwartz.

Industrial disasters sparked field of environmental health

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:10:22 -0400

Two large, unnatural disasters helped to create the impetus for the field of environmental health to grow in scope. But before there was a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and before the National Institutes of Health (NIH) included environmental health, there was the Kresge Center for Environmental Health at Harvard's School of Public Health. Beginning in 1958, the center brought together medical and physical scientists and engineers to investigate the manmade health problems of the 20th century. From a classic focus on industrial workplaces, the Kresge Center has seen environmental health grow to incorporate every part of our natural and constructed habitats.