[SusDet Announce] ACTION ALERT: Stop Cancer Chems from Composite Wood

[ecadvocate at aol.com]

     ACTION ALERT: Stop Cancer Chems from Composite Wood - Formaldehyde

An article in today's LA Times attached below on teens exposure to
carcinogenic formaldehyde from particle board and other composite wood
products reinforces the need for the regulations we are trying to put in
place in California to regulate emissions from those products.

Please take a moment to check out the action alert at HBN on this and
sign-on to the letter of support.
http://www.healthybuilding.net/formaldehyde/   

And please pass it on to others. We could particularly use sign-ons from
firms or individuals in the design and construction and 
furniture/cabinetry
industries.
We also need medical professionals and healthcare organizations 
(private,
non profit and NGOs). But all are welcome to sign on. This action alert 
will
probably remain active all summer of 2006 during the CARB regulation
development phase.

Thanks

Tom
____________________________
Tom Lent
Healthy Building Network
2464 West St, Berkeley CA 94702
510-845-5600  tlent at healthybuilding.net
www.healthybuilding.net

Cancer Study Cites Hazards of Indoor Air for N.Y., L.A. Teens
Survey of students finds health risks for formaldehyde and 
dichlorobenzene
in homes and schools.
By Marla Cone
Times Staff Writer
June 22, 2006

LA Times article at:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-me-teenair22jun22,1,3235630.sto
ry   

Teenagers in Los Angeles and New York City face a substantial - and
strikingly similar - cancer risk from breathing the air, largely 
because of
toxic chemicals inside their homes and schools, a new scientific study
shows.

For the research, 87 high school students, including 41 from Jefferson 
High
School in South Los Angeles, wore backpacks equipped with air monitors 
that
measured what each was exposed to throughout the day.

Although outdoor air in both cities is heavily polluted, indoor air was
responsible for 40% to 50% of the teenagers' cancer risk from the 
compounds
measured.

The New York and Los Angeles teenagers were the only groups looked at 
in the
study. They were exposed to virtually the same average concentrations of
nearly all of the 19 carcinogens examined, according to the research by 
a
Massachusetts consulting firm, Columbia University, UC Davis and the 
Harvard
School of Public Health.

"Given that we spend most of our time indoors, we're really affected by
indoor sources. We use a lot of cleaners and we're exposed to 
off-gassing
from furnishings," said Sonja Sax, the study's lead researcher and an
associate at Gradient Corp., which specializes in risk science.

"There were two contaminants driving the risk," she said, "and they were
mostly coming from indoors."

Formaldehyde - a colorless gas that wafts mostly from particleboard 
cabinets
and shelving, plywood paneling and other pressed-wood furnishings - was 
the
biggest culprit by far, responsible for half of the Los Angeles 
teenagers'
cancer risk.

A chemical called 1,4-dichlorobenzene, used in solid deodorizers and
mothballs, also posed a substantial cancer risk. "Some households had 
very,
very high concentrations and others didn't have much at all," Sax said. 
The
researchers suspect that toilet deodorizers were to blame.

Only one outdoor pollutant, benzene, found in car exhaust, contributed
significantly to the risk, and much less so than formaldehyde and
dichlorobenzene. Although 42% to 48% came from indoor sources, 24% came 
from
outdoor sources. The source of an additional 32% to 36% could not be
determined.

The teenagers faced a risk from breathing the chemicals "in the same 
order
of magnitude" as secondhand smoke, according to the study, published 
online
last week in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. In Los 
Angeles,
513 teenagers per million exposed (equivalent to 1 of every 1,949) could
contract cancer from the pollutants, and in New York, 687 per million.

For the Los Angeles teenagers, the researchers reported that the cancer
threat was seven times higher than an estimate for the city used by the
Environmental Protection Agency, which does not include the effects of
indoor air. Most of the chemicals exceeded the 1-in-a-million cancer 
threat
considered acceptable for air pollutants.

Thirteen of the 19 carcinogenic chemicals measured in the study were
volatile organic compounds, which are highly evaporative, 
petroleum-based
solvents. Six were metals, which are predominantly found outdoors and 
posed
a much lower cancer risk than the volatile organic compounds.

The study probably underestimated the threat because it did not monitor
several dozen other air pollutants linked to cancer, including two major
ones, diesel exhaust and gases called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons 
from
vehicles.

Forty-one students at Jefferson High School and 46 New York teenagers,
largely from upper Manhattan and the Bronx and attending a west Harlem
magnet school, participated in the study, conducted in 1999 and 2000. 
All
were between the ages of 13 and 17 and most lived in apartments. In Los
Angeles, all but two were Latino.



The teenagers wore the backpack monitors for 48-hour periods on 
weekdays,
during two seasons. Air samplers were also put in their homes and 
schools.

All the teenagers spent similar time indoors, on average 22 hours on
weekdays. But while the New York teenagers commuted to school from 
around
the city, mostly on subways, the Los Angeles teenagers lived within a 
few
miles of Jefferson High and had little exposure to exhaust during 
commutes.

The major difference in the New York and Los Angeles exposures was
chloroform, a gas that comes mostly from hot showers and other 
vaporization
of chlorinated water. Its risk was nearly eight times higher for the New
York City teenagers than the Los Angeles ones. The reasons are unknown; 
Sax
said it could be differences in doses of chlorine added to water or in
quantities of water used in the households.

The New York teenagers also were exposed to slightly more butadiene, 
from
auto exhaust, and perchloroethylene, used in dry cleaning. California 
has
the nation's strictest standards for auto exhaust and the Los Angeles 
region
has regulations limiting drycleaners' perchloroethylene emissions.

Indoor air pollution has long been considered a serious problem. 
Previous
research by the California Air Resources Board and EPA has shown that 
indoor
levels of several pollutants, such as formaldehyde, chloroform and 
styrene,
are two to 50 times higher than outdoor levels.

But state air quality and health officials have little or no power to
regulate what is inside homes or schools. For instance, no agency has 
clear
authority to ban formaldehyde in the glues and resins of wood 
furnishings.
Instead, the Air Resources Board has established guidelines for schools 
to
reduce formaldehyde exposure.

"We've been nibbling around the edges of indoor air for some time but 
as of
yet we don't have a lot of authority indoors, nor does anybody else," 
said
air board spokesman Jerry Martin. "We think somebody needs to" have this
legal authority "because the average Californian spends 80% of his time
indoors."

A bill by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D-Mountain View) that would have
required the air board to establish air quality guidelines and emission
standards for indoor air pollutants was defeated last month amid 
opposition
from business groups.

In the last year, the Legislature has also rejected several bills that 
would
ban certain toxic chemicals in plastics and other household products.

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EHF article of the full study at:
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/8507/8507.pdf    

  
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