Environmental Health

What are the health risks associated with this chemical? It was hard to find a sole chemical for ZSFG but I came across a compound used here called Metaltite which is used as a dental cement in one of the clinics in building 5 (there are many buildings located in ZSFG but building 5 is where some clinics can be found).  Is the chemical a carcinogen? Under OSHA, this compound is found to be hazardous and a highly flammable liquid and vapor. On the sheet it does not indicate whether it is a carcinogen but searching on the web it was hard to find much information on it. What personal protective equipment or special precautions should be taken when working with this chemical? Those who come in contact with Metaltite should wear protective clothing such as gloves and safety goggles and those who are handling it should not allow this compound to enter drains, sewers or watercourses. Handling of Metaltite should be taken place in a well-ventilated area and kept aw...

1) Consider your workplace or a workplace of one of your family members. Are there chemical, biological, radiological or ergonomic issues? Using the industrial hygiene hierarchy of controls, how might you address the issues? How are they being addressed in reality? I work at ZSFG (Zuckerberg San Francisco General). I would say all those exist here. Different buildings would fall under each category. Currently the new building has the state of the art equipment where radiological harm would be more common to workers. Working at a hospital you need equipment to detect what is wrong with patients at the cost of being exposed to chemical, biological and radiological harm. By using the hierarchy of controls the elimination phase would be removing equipment that is no longer in use or too old to be in operation to combat the harmful effects it has on workers. Substitution would be taking out old equipment that pose harm to workers and bring in new equipment that will emit less substances ...

I looked into AFL-CIO which is American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. I chose to look into gender equality. They have a petition called "We need data on equal pay" which consists of ending discrimination and closing the wage gaps between men and women and people of color. They go into detail explaining women are indeed breadwinners at 40% of the workforce women are breadwinners for their families and the pay gaps not only affect women but their families as well. As of August 2001 they have made statements to help stop domestic violence at work, charter for rights of working women, working on women's rights in the global economy, blogging over 50 years of women in the workforce and yet there is still no equal pay and now working towards an act that will close gender pay gaps. The timeline is made up of blogs, speeches, media hits and legislative alerts. With information such as this and people gaining exposure to the wage gap between men and...

I looked into Byssinosis also known as brown lung. It is an occupational lung disease that primarily affects workers in cotton processing, hemp or flax industries. It can cause symptoms such as asthma and more severely permanent lung damage similar to chronic obstructive lung disease. In the United States the number of cases has declined over the years, however globally cases have increased. This lung disease is contracted first hand working in the fields having come in contact with cotton which when inhaled by a worked can cause cough and feeling of tightness in the chest. Symptoms can improve once exposure has been stopped about after a week. If byssinosis is caught early no permanent damage is made, however' prolonged exposure can lead up to disability and rarely death. Workers in the United States are under protection which make regulations more consistent.  OSHA regulations on byssinosis standards are up to date and no regualtions need to be modified. Rates have reduced from 1...

It was sad to read the tragedy in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the tools to look into soil for high concentrations of heavy metals are scarce and hard to detect. Its not until tragedies such as this occur in order to discover something is wrong. In this case heavy concentrations of lead was found on the ground. On a positive note, many children were spared of the same fate those before them endured and lead levels decreased once the children were given chleation treatment. I learned new information on the effects of lead in the body. The article "lead poisoning" goes into depth speaking upon lead and how it affected the Greeks, children, adults and the elderly. It was interesting to to read how lead workers and wine drinkers fell ill to working and drinking lead. Most shocking was to read the sweetness of wine combined with 20 mg of lead per liter! No wonder these people would fall gravely ill and consequently could be speculated to be the cause of the roman empires demise. Findin...

Watching the great pacific garbage patch it was quite sad to see what could be a beautiful island with clear blue water trashed! All the oceans junk ends up and becomes part of the inhabitant of the island. It is definitely a wake up call that something needs to be done to clean our oceans and protect the animals. I like the concept of Green chemistry; I have not heard of green chemistry until I seen this assignment. When I think of Green what usually comes to mind is fuel efficiency, solar panels and going electric on house hold appliances. Green chemistry sounds to be very useful. I have seen green chemistry in use at my job. Just 2 years ago the new hospital opened and everything in their is green and up to date on technology. They have solar panels to help emit sun powered electricity and of course trying to minimize the potential for accidents as the hospital is a level 1 trauma center and avoid disasters such as fires and explosions along side with physical chemicals such as liqu...

I decided to look more into highly fluorinated chemicals. They are also known as PFC's or PFAS's.  I thought this might be connected to the mineral fluoride that is found in products to help strengthen teeth; however, this goes further and explains how highly fluorinated chemicals are man made and come from many outlets and into our everyday products. Highly fluorinated chemicals are found in carpets, paints, papers, clothing cosmetics, etc. Basically anything you can think of that people come in contact with in a daily basis. Health concerns that come along with the exposure to PFC's are kidney and testicular cancer, elevated cholesterol, decreased fertility and thyroid complications that can reduce the effectiveness of vaccines within children. We are exposed by food consumption, drinking water, air and dust. We are most prone to exposure in our homes and work place. The biggest shock would be PFC's are found in 98% of American human bodies! Turns out many of these ch...

After reviewing the readings and watching the videos, an ideal chemical policy is quite difficult to make into a reality. Industries and companies are about one goal and that is money. They would refuse to let anyone stand in the way of the millions of dollars earned and not inform the public of what is really going on behind the scenes. What would be an ideal chemical policy is having restrictions on companies on how and where chemicals are dumped. For example, with enforced regulations industries would have a harder time on illegal dumping and human health and the environment could be spared of what can be generations of contaminants in the soil and water. Also stricter policies on reinforcing laws that exist would be ideal.

In reading the Louisville charter reform, I decided to look into background paper #3, "Give the public and workers the full right-to-know and participate". I found this paper to be quite informational and informative. As a consumer of fruits and vegetables and of course as a Public Health professional I feel like the public is entitled to know what chemicals are being used and what we are consuming. his paper goes into why the public deserves to know about chemicals, pesticides and toxins that are found around us everyday. The paper starts off with why honoring the right to know, it states it helps engage the public to take action on how to improve health and safety, provides relevant data, informs the public on the 100,000 chemicals that are out there and how they affect short and long term health effects. The paper goes into detail on how to make the right to know laws useful such as providing error correction on data that provided false information, electronic reporting su...

Last night I had left overs from a birthday party earlier in the day. My meal consisted of iceberg lettuce salad with olive oil, beef stew with carrots and potatoes. The first food item I looked at was carrots. I am not surprised that carrots returned with 26 pesticide residues found. It's human health effects are known and probable carcinogens, suspected hormone disruptors, neurotoxins, developmental and reproductive toxins and environmental disruptors such as honeybee toxins. The pesticide commonly found was Linuron at 70.7% and the least common pesticide found in carrots is Dieldrin at 0.1%. When searching potatoes I found there are 35 pesticide residues which again is not surprising. Commonly has the same human and environmental effects as carrots. The pesticide with the highest percentage found was Chlorpropham at 80.2% and least pesticide found was Carbaryl at 0.1%. The next food I looked at was lettuce. Iceberg lettuce was not an option but lettuce is lettuce  and not surpri...

One agency that is heavily involved into looking at heavy metals not just in lipsticks but in cosmetics overall is the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. They provide a list of heavy metals they have encountered in cosmetic products and list in detail the health concerns, in which products they are found, vulnerable populations, where and how they are regulated and how to avoid coming in contact. Another federal agency that is involved with looking into heavy metals not only in lipstick but cosmetics is the US Food and Drug administration (FDA). They list the testings they have done with heavy metals in cosmetics and list their findings in a report. They also provide what they have learned and what are the next steps to ensure the public that they are taking precautionary steps into making sure heavy metals are not contaminating products. Canada health is also a promoter at eliminating heavy metals from cosmetics. They list what is found in the product, how compliance is regulated and who to...

The agency I chose to look at is the National Weather Service (NWS). They are located in Maryland and are under the US Dept of Commerce. When looking at the home page they have a map of the United States broken up by counties and have color coded indications indicating there is some form of weather even happening. Links are provided to search up topics such as flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes and so forth. The NWS mission is to provide weather, water, climate data, forecasts and warnings for the protection of life, to enhance the national economy. Their vision is to prepare society for weather events and how to respond when they happen. They have been around for over a century protecting the lives and properties of the people of the USA. NWS is affiliated with local, state and tribal agencies to plan and respond to natural disasters that can occur and providing water, weather and climate forecasts among the US, territories and waters and oceans that surround the United States. Science a...

In looking at the SFDPH website, I seen they have a separate tab for environmental health. I clicked on the tab and it led me to a page that lists a number of services and programs that serve the environmental health aspect of public health. You find such programs that cater to air quality, water quality, noise, food and agriculture neighborhoods and housing, environmental hazardous and business regulations. Aside from the main topics of environmental health, SFDPH environmental health section also provides a list of programs they have such as body art (regulating facilities that provide tattoos), childhood lead prevention providing education and resources on how to avoid lead, regulations on air and smoking, cannabis is also being overseen now that it has become legal in San Francisco. One program that stood out to me is the health, equity and sustainability branch of SFDPH environmental health. This program aims on planning, policy making and using health data to ensure neighborhoods...