Environmental Science

Environmental Health and Hazards, Toxicology, and Pollution

Historically, analyses of environmental threats to human health have assumed that all people are alike. However, it is
increasingly clear that many factors, including genetics, medical conditions, and diet, can lead to individuals having
different responses to the same exposures.

A Perspective on Risks

- Human health in highly developed countries is generally better today than at any previous time in our history,
although life expectancy in some of the poorest US countries has declined over the past decade.
- Exposure to lead, organic pesticides, automobile exhaust and other chemicals was much higher several decades
ago than it is now.
- Nonetheless, many environment threats, including chemical exposures and waterborne diseases, continue to
impact human and ecosystem health.

Risk & Risk Assessment

RISK

- Is inherent in all our actions and in everything in our environment.

- All of us take risks every day of our lives.
- Some of our routine activities, such as riding cars, present high risks, despite many measures developed over the
last century to make cars safer.
- Using household appliances, taking showers, and eating foods all present a range of risks, yet few of us hesitate
to do these things because they also provide great value to us.
- In order to successfully manage risks, we must have a sense of their causes, likelihoods, and positive and
negative effects.
- “Risk” The probability of harm (Such as injury, death, or environment damage) occurring under certain
circumstances.
- Lifetime probability of death by selected causes.

RISK ASSESSMENT

- The quantitative characteristics of risks so that they can be compared, contrasted, and managed.

RISK MANAGEMENT

- Is the process of identifying, assessing, and reducing risks.

These 2011 data are for US residents.

- Few of these risks apply to everyone.

- For example, only motorcyclists can die in motorcycle accidents.
- Each of us uses intuition, habit, and experience to make many decisions regarding risk every day. However,
environmental and health risks often affect many individuals, and the best choices cannot always be made on an
intuitive or routine level.

The four steps involved in risk assessment for adverse health effects

- Hazard Identification
- Dose-response assessment
- Exposure assessment
- Risk characterization
 Risk Assessment

- Estimates the probability that an event will occur and lets us set priorities and manage risks in an appropriate
way.
- As an example, consider a person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and drinks well water containing traces
of the cancer-causing chemical trichloroethylene (in amounts per Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] limits).
- Without knowledge of risk assessment, this person might buy a bottled water in an attempt to reduce his or her
chances of getting cancer. Based on risk assessment calculation, the lifetime cancer risk of death from smoking
that much is about one in ten (0.1), whereas the lifetime risk from drinking water with EPA-accepted levels
trichloroethylene is two in ten million (0.0000002).
- This means that this person is almost 2,000,000 times more likely to die of cancer from smoking than from
ingesting such low levels of trichloroethylene.
- Experts often surprised when people seem to be far more concerned about small risks, such as those from
exposure to small doses of a chemical, than about large risks, like those associated with obesity and smoking.
- We know, for example, that the average life expectancy of smokers is more than eight years less than that of
nonsmokers, and almost one-third of all smokers die from diseases created or exacerbated by tobacco smoke.
- There are several explanations for this type of thinking.
- One is that most of the decisions we make about risks are based on habit and culture, not analysis.
- Indeed, it would take far too much time an effort to apply analysis to all risk decisions. Fortunately, culture can
shift peoples’ habit over time.
- Several factors determine which risks we are concerned about. One is trust in institutions—when people believe
that business and government are managing risks, they are less concerned about them.

Some risks—such as dying from cancer—to be more dreadful than others—such as car accidents.

Percentage of US students (Grades 9-12)

Environmental Health Hazards

TERMS:

- Toxicology – the study of toxicants, chemicals with adverse effects on health.

- Epidemiology – the study of the effects of chemicals, biological, and physical agents on the health of human
populations.
 - Acute toxicity – adverse effects that occur within a short period after high-level exposure to a toxicant.
- Chronic toxicity – adverse effects that occur after a long period of low-level exposure to a toxicant.
- Pathogen – an agent (usually a microorganism) that causes disease.

- The human body is exposed to many kinds of chemicals in the environment.

- Both natural and synthetic chemicals are in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.
- All chemicals, even “safe” chemicals such as sodium chloride (Table salt), are toxic if exposure is high enough.
- For example, a 1-year old child will die from ingesting about 2 table spoons of table salt’ a table salt is also
harmful to people with heart or kidney disease.
- Chemicals with adverse effects are known as toxicants.
- Toxicology is one of the two main approaches we use to understand threats to human health.
- Toxicologists study the effects of toxicants on living organisms (or parts of organism, such as cells in a test tube),
evaluate the mechanism that cause toxicity, and develop ways to prevent or minimize adverse effects.
o Can make informed predictions about future exposures and human health outcomes.
- Epidemiology involves studying how chemicals (toxicants), biological agents (Disease), and physical hazards
(Accidents, radiation) affect the health of human populations.
- Epidemiologists study large groups of people and investigate a range of possible causes and types of diseases
and injuries.
- The effects of toxicants to following exposure can be immediate (acute toxicity) or prolonged (chronic toxicity).

SYMPTOMS:

Acute toxicity

- Range from dizziness and nausea to death.

- Occurs immediately to several days following a single exposure.

Chromic Toxicity

- Generally produces damage following long-term, low-level exposure to a toxicant.

 Toxicologists
- Known far less about chronic toxicity than they do about acute toxicity, partly because the symptoms of chronic
toxicity often mimic those of other chronic diseases associated with risky lifestyle patterns, poor nutrition, and
aging.
- Also, it is difficult to isolate a causative agent from among the multiple toxicants we are routinely exposed to.
- Disease-causing Agents in the Environment Disease-causing agents are infectious organisms, such as bacteria,
viruses, protozoa, and parasitic worms that cause diseases.
- Typhoid, cholera, bacterial dysentery, polio, and infectious hepatitis are some of the most common bacterial or
viral diseases that are transmissible through contaminated food and water.
 Human Diseases Transmitted by Polluted Water

- We do not discuss other human diseases, such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), that are not
transmissible to the environment.
- The vulnerability of water supplies to waterborne disease-causing agents was dramatically demonstrated in
2000, when the first waterborne outbreak in North America of a deadly strain of Escherichia coli occurred in
Ontario, Canada.
- Several people were killed, and several thousand became sick. Prior to this outbreak, this deadly E. coli strain
had been transmitted almost exclusively through contaminated food.
- The largest outbreak of waterborne diseases ever recorded in the United Stated occurred in 1993, when a
microorganism (Cryptosporidium) contaminated the water supply in the great Milwaukee area. About 370,000
people developed diarrhea.
- These and similar outbreaks raise concerns about safety of our drinking water. Because sewage-contaminated
water is an environmental threat to public health, periodic tests are made for the presence of sewage in our
drinking water supplies.
- The indicator of sewage-contaminated water is the presence of the common intestinal bacterium E. coli because
it doesn’t appear in the environment except from human and animal feces.
- Tests such as those for E. coli are used to indicate the possible presence of various disease-causing agents.
Although most strains coliform bacteria found in sewage do not cause disease, testing for these bacteria is a
reliable way to indicate the likely presence of pathogens in water.
The fecal coliform test assesses whether E. coli is present in water.

- A small sample of water is passed through a filter to trap the bacteria, which are then transferred to a petri dish
that contains nutrients. After an incubation period, the number of greenish colonies present indicated the
number of E. coli.
- Safe drinking water should contain no more than one coliform bacterium per 100 ml of water (About ½ cup);
safe swimming water should have no more than 200 per 100 ml of water; and general recreational water (for
boating) should have no more than 2000 per 100 ml.

Note: raw sewage may contain several million coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water. Water pollution and purification

Environmental Changes DN Emerging Diseases Human

- Health improved significantly in developed countries throughout the 20 th century.

- Ove the past two decades, however, diseases associated with poor diet and sedentary lifestyles have increased.
- Environmental factors remain a significant cause of human disease in many areas of the world. Epidemiologist
have established have established links between human health and human activities that alter the environment.

- The World Health Organization reports that over 25 percent of disease and injury worldwide is related to
human-caused environmental changes.

- The environmental component of human health is sometimes direct and obvious, as when people drink
unsanitary water and contract dysentery, a waterborne disease that causes diarrhea.

- Diarrhea which can be easily treated if resources are available, causes 750,000 deaths worldwide each year,
mostly in children.

- Cholera

o Recent study suggests that cholera, which causes as many as 142,000 deaths each year worldwide, is
becoming a greater problem as temperatures increase due to climate change.
o The disruption of natural environments may give disease causing agents an opportunity to thrive.
 Road Clearing in the Amazon Rain Forest

Cutting down forests, building dams, and expanding agriculture may bring humans into contact with new or previously
rare diseases-causing agents by increasing the population and distribution of disease-carrying organism such as
mosquitoes.

Crowds at an Open-air Market in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Social factors to disease epidemics.

Highly concentrated urban populations promote the rapid spread of infectious organism among large numbers of
people.
 Consider malaria, a disease that mosquitoes transmit to humans.

Each year, about half of the world’s population is at risk of contracting malaria, which causes around 1 million deaths.

About 60 different species of the Anopheles mosquito transmit the parasites that cause malaria. Each mosquito species
thrives in its own unique combination of environmental conditions, (such as elevation, amount of precipitation,
temperature, relative humidity, and availability of surface water).

Many other diseases are carried by animals, including West Nile and Zika viruses (mosquitoes), Lyme disease (deer ticks),
and Hanta virus (mic and other rodents).

Efforts to control these diseases can have additional environmental impact. For example, since mosquitoes reproduce in
stagnant water, they can be controlled by pesticides like DDT or by filling in or altering swamps and ponds.

These activities in turn can have effects on other organism. Also, the animals that carry disease have proved to be highly
adaptive—both mosquitoes and malaria, for example, are now resistant to many pesticides and medicines.

Another recent concern is pandemic influenza (flu).

Pandemic disease reaches nearly every part of the world and has the potential to infect almost every person.

Avian influenza

- Is a strain influenza virus that is common in birds. It tends to be difficult for humans to contract because it is
usually transferred from bird to human but not human to human.
- It is extremely potent once contracted and has a high fatality rate.
- In late spring 2009 a strain of the swine flu appeared in Mexico and by early summer was pandemic, killing
thousands of people worldwide.

Flu and other diseases generally spread more easily between related species:

Humans are more closely related to pigs than to birds. (AIDS is thought ot have originated from human contact with
diseased monkeys.)

 Government responses to emerging diseases

- The response to Zika virus that is unfolding as this book goes to press—can be complex and controversial.
- If officials assume the worst case, the reaction might be to quarantine people and kill livestock, with high
economic costs.
- Reacting too slowly or weakly, however, could lead to many deaths worldwide.

The development of cities, and the concentration of people living in them,

permit the rapid spread of infectious disease-causing agents People and livestock in close proximity.

Understanding and controlling an influenza pandemic.

 - Requires study of the environment that allows the virus to survive and travel, as well as cooperation among
many governments and individuals.
- The virus often originates in areas that have dense populations of domestic animals, especially chicken and pigs,
raised in small cages or close to human households.
- In the past decade, large numbers of domestic pigs, cows, and poultry have been killed and burned to prevent or
stop disease outbreaks.
- Researchers believe that many diseases could become more prevalent as the climate changes, both because
temperature increases will extend the range of cold intolerant diseases and because increased humidity and
rainfall will benefit other diseases.

Example: Mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika virus, malaria and West Nile virus are expected to expand north and
south because winter temperatures will remain above those that kill mosquitoes and because there may be more
standing water to harbor mosquito larvae.

Movement and Fate of Toxicants

- Some chemically stable toxicants are particularly dangerous because they resist degradation and readily move
around the environment. These include certain pesticides, radioactive isotopes, heavy metals such as mercury,
flame retardants such as
- PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), and
- Industrial chemicals such as PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls).

Impact of (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) DDT on Birds

The pesticide (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) DDT becomes increasingly concentrated high in the food chain because
it is stored in fatty tissue and not easily broken down or excreted.

- Persistence
o Stability of a substance that allows it to remain in the environment for an extended time.
o May take many years to break down into less toxic form.
- Bioaccumulation
o The increase of chemical in an organism over time as more is taken in but little or none is removed.
o The buildup of a persistent toxicant in an organism is bioaccumulation.

- Biological Magnification
o The increase in toxicant concentrations as a toxicant passes through successive levels of the food chain.
 Mobility in the Environment

- Persistent toxicants tend to move through the soil, water, and air, sometimes long distances. For example,
pesticides applied to agricultural lands may be washed into rivers and streams by rain, harming aquatic life.
- Mobility of pesticides in the environment

Mobility of Persistent Toxicants

- Also a risk for humans

- In 1994 the Environmental Working group, a private organization, analyzed five common herbicides (weed-
killing chemicals) found in drinking water. It concluded that 3.5 million people in the Midwest face slightly
elevated cancer risk because of exposure to the herbicides. The EPA has since mandated a reduction in use of
the five herbicides.

The Global ban of Persistent Organic Pollutants

- The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

 - Adopted in 2001
- It is an important UN treaty that seeks to protect human health and the environment from the 12 most toxic
persistent organic pollutants (POPs) on Earth.

Mosquito Net

- Sleeping under nets minimizes exposures to diseases carried by mosquitoes.

Determining Health Effects of Pollutants

We are surrounded by different pollutants:

How do we assess the toxicity of pollutants?

1. Dose – the amount that enters the body of an exposed

organim
a. Quantity
b. Time component
c. Weight of the organism exposed
2. Response – type and amount of damage that exposure to a particular
dose causes
a. Effects could be death (lethal dose) or harm’s death (sub
lethal dose)

Lethal dose-50 percent (LD50)

- The dose that is lethal to 50 percent of a population of test animals

- Reported in mg of chemical toxicant per kilogram of body weight.

Note:

The smaller the LD50, the more toxic the chemical, and conversely,
the greater the LD50, the less toxic the chemical

Effective dose-50 percent (ED50)

- Measures a wide range of biological responses

- It causes 50 percent of a population to exhibit whatever response is under study

Cancer-causing Substance

- Carcinogen
o Any substance (for example, chemical, radiation, virus) that causes cancer.
o Example: Epidemiologists in Germany, 1989

Risk Assessment of Chemical Mixtures

- Single Chemicals > Chemical Mixtures

- Chemical Mixtures interact in a variety of ways
o Additive: the effect is exactly what you expect
 use additivity to assign risk to mixtures. It is also the
best method available.
o Synergistic: has a greater combined effect than expected
o Antagonistic: has a smaller combined effect than expected

Children and Chemical Exposure

Chemicals can have a wide range of effects on our health. And children
are more exposed to the effects of chemicals than adults.

Reasons why:

Children weigh less than adults, tend to interact more with their
environments, and are undergoing rapid internal changes as they
grow. They are also less aware of potential risks from exposures.
Example situation:

Consider a toxicant with an LD50 of 100 mg/kg.

A potentially lethal dose for a child who weighs 11.3 kg (25 lb) is 100 x 11.3 – 1130mg. which is equal to a scant ¼
teaspoon if the chemical is liquid.

In comparison, the potentially lethal dose for an adult who weighs 68 kg (150 lb) is 6800 mg, or about 2 teaspoons.
Therefore, policies designed to protect children from chemical exposures must account for these differences.

Children and Pollution

Consider the toxicants in air pollution.

Air pollution is a greater health threat to children than it is to adults.

Air pollution and respiratory disease in children

Air Pollution and Respiratory disease in children

A Honduran mother gives oxygen to her baby, who suffers from environmentally linked respiratory disease. Farmers
nearby burn land to prepare for the planting season; resulting smoke triggers breathing problems, mostly in children and
elderly.

Reasons why:

Lungs continue to develop throughout childhood, and air pollution restricts lung development.

A child has higher metabolic rate than an adult and therefore needs more oxygen. To obtain this oxygen, a child
breathes more air—about two times as much air per round of body weight as an adult. This means that a child also
breathed more air pollutants into the lungs.

Smoking: A Significant Risk

Tobacco use us the single largest cause of preventable death

- Smoking causes serious diseases such as lung cancer

- Emphysema
- Heart disease and
- Is responsible for the premature deaths.

Smoking also contributes to heart attacks and strokes and to cancers of the bladder, mouth, throat, pancreas, kidney,
stomach, voice box, and esophagus.

- Passive smoking also increases the risk of cancer.

- Passive smoking is when you breathe in the smoke from other people’s cigarettes. It is a serious health threat
—being exposed to tobacco smoke for just a moment can cause harm.
- Passive smokers suffer more respiratory infection, allergies, and other chronic respiratory diseases than other
nonsmokers.
- Passive smoking is particularly harmful to infants and young children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people
with chronic lung disease.
- Government agencies really create or find ways to lessen chemical usage and pollution intake, but they could
not control people’s ways or mindset about this matter.
- We, also as citizens, should also be responsible to protect our health especially for the welfare of the children.