Fed Probe Urged on Cancer Chemical in Marine Water

March 30th, 2011

Associated Press

By: Kevin Maurer

A North Carolina congressman said Thursday that he wants an investigation into reports that levels of a cancer-causing chemical in tap water at a Marine Corps base were downplayed and then omitted from official documents.

Democratic Rep. Brad Miller called for the probe by his House science subcommittee Thursday a day after The Associated Press reported on new documents that indicate massive fuel leaks at Camp Lejeune and high concentrations of benzene found in a water well there in 1984.

“I am just disbelieving of their failure to act. It may have been worse than a failure to act. They may have acted to minimize or prevent the risk from being disclosed,” Miller told the Associated Press on Thursday. “It is hard to imagine they would let this go on. There was too much information that they had to have consciously disregarded.”

Benzene, a carcinogen, is a natural part of crude oil and gasoline. Drinking water containing high levels of it can cause vomiting, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions and death. Long-term exposure damages bone marrow, lowers the number of red blood cells, and can cause anemia and leukemia, according to the EPA.

In 1984, an environmental contractor found benzene at 380 parts per billion at a well near a fuel farm. When a draft report was turned in, the level was changed to 38 parts per billion. The company’s final report on the well, issued in 1994, did not mention the benzene.

The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which was traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast. The benzene was discovered as part of a broader, ongoing probe into that contamination.

Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., the Chair Emeritus of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the Marines and their families “deserve to know exactly what was in the water.”

“I want to know whether there are still toxic chemicals contaminating the water at Camp Lejeune. If there are, what is the Navy’s plan for dealing with them?” Dingell said.

Health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to tainted water at the base before the wells closed two decades ago. Critics say little information on benzene contamination had been publicly known until recently.

“It is hard to believe that they let Marines and their families drink this water for 30 years and didn’t say a word about it when they knew they had a fuel tank farm right by the water supply that was hemorrhaging fuel,” Miller said.

North Carolina’s congressional delegation has been active on behalf of the health claims of former Camp Lejeune residents.

A bill introduced by Miller would require the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide health care to veterans and their family members who have fallen ill from the water. Miller’s bill is identical to the now-rejected Senate bill introduced by Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Kay Hagan, D-N.C.

Burr called the revelations disturbing.

“It’s very likely that this information will significantly change the direction and broaden the scope of the government’s scientific inquiry into the water contamination at Camp Lejeune,” Burr said.

The Senate passed legislation in September, backed Burr and Hagan, Richard Burr preventing the military from dismissing claims related to water contamination pending completion of several studies.

Among those is a mortality study that would determine if there are higher mortality rates for those who served at the base during the years water was contaminated.

A Hagan spokesman said that the senator would welcome a hearing, but that her top priority is completion of the studies.

“Right now there are Marines and their families who are sick and seeking answers. It is clear that benzene, a known carcinogen, was in the water supply in dangerous amounts,” Hagan said in a statement to AP. “We cannot leave these families with mounting medical problems and half answers.”

Click here for the full report from AllBusiness.com

Pictures of Nature Help Reduce Cancer Pain

October 20th, 2010

The Telegraph

By: Peter Hutchison

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, America, claimed that patients’ feelings can be lifted without them having to leave their beds.

Looking at pictures of tranquil scenery is enough to help alleviate the suffering of excruciating cancer treatment, they discovered.

Researchers analysed patients undergoing bone marrow aspiration and biopsy (BMAB), a painful form of cancer treatment in which marrow is extracted from the pelvic bone with a local anaesthetic.

Some were treated in a standard hospital environment while others were exposed to the sights and sounds of outdoors – either the tranquillity of birds and waterfalls or the stress of cities and traffic.

The nature scene often involved surrounding the patient in images of Victoria Falls in Zambia.

The researchers measured the levels of pain felt and found that those subjected to the peacefulness of nature experienceed less pain.

Levels of pain in a stressful urban setting were the same as they were under standard procedure, the Hopkins Pain Rating Instrument showed.

The findings prove that it is not necessary just to distract a patient to alleviate pain but that the distraction must have a calming effect.

It also gives hope to sufferers who have tried other techniques which have failed to reduce pain, such as hypnosis or sedation.

Noah Lechtzin, who led the research, said: “I think there are certain elements of nature that are beneficial and others that could be frightening.

“You wouldn’t want to have rocks that potentially dangerous animals could hide behind, whereas our scene was a very open picture that had running water, the sounds had birds chirping and wind rustling through trees.”

Click here for the full report from the The Telegraph

Adult Stem Cells Treat A Host Of Diseases

August 4, 2010

Natural News

By: Jonathan Benson

Doctors and researchers are hailing the successes of adult stem cell treatments, which are treating everything from heart disease and diabetes, to leukemia and blindness. Adult stem cells — the kind harvested from adult bone marrow and other tissues — can be injected into the body to help regrow and repair organs, tissues and skin.

Unlike controversial embryonic stem cells which are harvested from aborted, human embryos, adult stem cells are extracted from living, adult humans. And based on years of experience using innovative therapy treatments, adult stem cells are proving to be highly successful in treating otherwise “incurable” diseases.

Dr. Thomas Einhorn, chairman of orthopedic surgery at Boston University Medical Center, for example, successfully used a man’s pelvic bone stem cells to heal the same man’s broken ankle. By drawing bone marrow from the pelvis and condensing it into an injectable liquid, Einhorn was able to spur a complete ankle healing in four months.

Then, there is the case of a patient whose damaged vision was restored after receiving adult stem cell treatment.

A recent Denver Post article explains that adult stem cells are being used to treat people with leukemia, lymphoma, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and diabetes. The possibilities are endless with adult stem cells, say numerous doctors and medical experts.

Adult stem cells can literally turn into bones, blood vessels and tissues that are diseased or damaged, and they seem to adapt to whatever is needed by the body to heal a specific area.

“That gives adult stem cells really a very interesting and potent quality that embryonic stem cells don’t have,” explains Rocky Tuan from the University of Pittsburgh.

click here to read full article

Research Says HIV Can Hide in Bone Marrow

March 8, 2010

Google News

By Associated Press

The virus that causes AIDS can hide in the bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness, according to new research that could point the way toward better treatments for the disease.

Finding that hide-out is a first step, but years of research lie ahead.

Dr. Kathleen Collins of the University of Michigan and her colleagues report in this week’s edition of the journal Nature Medicine that the HIV virus can infect long-lived bone marrow cells that eventually convert into blood cells.

The virus is dormant in the bone marrow cells, she said, but when those progenitor cells develop into blood cells, it can be reactivated and cause renewed infection. The virus kills the new blood cells and then moves on to infect other cells, said.

“If we’re ever going to be able to find a way to get rid of the cells, the first step is to understand” where a latent infection can continue, Collins said.

In recent years, drugs have reduced AIDS deaths sharply, but patients need to keep taking the medicines for life or the infection comes back, she said. That’s an indication that while the drugs battle the active virus, some of the disease remains hidden away to flare up once the therapy is stopped.

One hide-out was found earlier in blood cells called macrophages. Another pool was discovered in memory T-cells, and research began on attacking those.

But those couldn’t account for all the HIV virus still circulating, Collins said, showing there were more locations to check out and leading her to study the blood cell progenitors.

Finding these sources of infection is important because eliminating them would allow AIDS patients to stop taking drugs after their infection was over. That’s critical in countries where the treatment is hard to afford and deliver.

“I don’t know how many people realize that although the drugs have reduced mortality we still have a long way to go,” Collins said in a telephone interview. “That is mainly because we can’t stop the drugs, people have to take it for a lifetime.”

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, Burroughs Wellcome Foundation, University of Michigan, Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, National Science Foundation and a Bernard Maas Fellowship.

Click here for the full report.

Cancer-Causing Chemical Found in Tap Water at a Marine Corps Base

February 22, 2010

My Way

By Kevin Maurer

A North Carolina congressman said Thursday that he wants an investigation into reports that levels of a cancer-causing chemical in tap water at a Marine Corps base were downplayed and then omitted from official documents.

Democratic Rep. Brad Miller called for the probe by his House science subcommittee Thursday – a day after The Associated Press reported on new documents that indicate massive fuel leaks at Camp Lejeune and high concentrations of benzene found in a water well there in 1984.

“I am just disbelieving of their failure to act. It may have been worse than a failure to act. They may have acted to minimize or prevent the risk from being disclosed,” Miller told the Associated Press on Thursday. “It is hard to imagine they would let this go on. There was too much information that they had to have consciously disregarded.”

Benzene, a carcinogen, is a natural part of crude oil and gasoline. Drinking water containing high levels of it can cause vomiting, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions and death. Long-term exposure damages bone marrow, lowers the number of red blood cells, and can cause anemia and leukemia, according to the EPA.

In 1984, an environmental contractor found benzene at 380 parts per billion at a well near a fuel farm. When a draft report was turned in, the level was changed to 38 parts per billion. The company’s final report on the well, issued in 1994, did not mention the benzene.

The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which was traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast. The benzene was discovered as part of a broader, ongoing probe into that contamination.

Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., the Chair Emeritus of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the Marines and their families “deserve to know exactly what was in the water.”

“I want to know whether there are still toxic chemicals contaminating the water at Camp Lejeune. If there are, what is the Navy’s plan for dealing with them?” Dingell said.

Health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to tainted water at the base before the wells closed two decades ago. Critics say little information on benzene contamination had been publicly known until recently.

“It is hard to believe that they let Marines and their families drink this water for 30 years and didn’t say a word about it when they knew they had a fuel tank farm right by the water supply that was hemorrhaging fuel,” Miller said.

North Carolina’s congressional delegation has been active on behalf of the health claims of former Camp Lejeune residents.

A bill introduced by Miller would require the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide health care to veterans and their family members who have fallen ill from the water. Miller’s bill is identical to the now-rejected Senate bill introduced by Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Kay Hagan, D-N.C.

Burr called the revelations disturbing.

“It’s very likely that this information will significantly change the direction and broaden the scope of the government’s scientific inquiry into the water contamination at Camp Lejeune,” Burr said.

The Senate passed legislation in September, written by Hagan and co-sponsored by Burr, preventing the military from dismissing claims related to water contamination pending completion of several studies.

Among those is a mortality study that would determine if there are higher mortality rates for those who served at the base during the years water was contaminated.

A Hagan spokesman said that the senator would welcome a hearing, but that her top priority is completion of the studies.

“Right now there are Marines and their families who are sick and seeking answers. It is clear that benzene, a known carcinogen, was in the water supply in dangerous amounts,” Hagan said in a statement to AP. “We cannot leave these families with mounting medical problems and half answers.”

Click here for the full report

Home Pesticides Linked to Childhood Cancers

August 18, 2009

Natural News

By S.L. Baker

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a malignant disease of the bone marrow, is the most common cancer diagnosed in children. In fact, nearly one third of all pediatric cancers are cases of ALL. Although this form of cancer can be cured in many cases, in the worst case scenarios the cancer crowds out normal cells in the bone marrow, metastisizes to other organs and takes the lives of about 15 percent of the youngsters it attacks. What triggers so many kids, usually between the ages of three and seven, to develop this cancer in the first place? A new study just published in the August issue of the journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring raises the suspicion that commonly used household pesticides are the cause.

Previous studies in agricultural areas of the US have shown strong associations between pesticides and childhood cancers but this is the first research conducted in a large, urban area to look at the connection. The study, conducted between January of 2005 and January of 2008, involved 41 pairs of children with ALL and their mothers and a control group of 41 matched pairs of healthy children and their mothers. The volunteer research subjects were all from Lombardi and Children’s National Medical Center and lived in the Washington metropolitan area.

Urine samples collected from the children and their mothers were analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to look for metabolites that provide evidence of household pesticide exposure. Specifically, the scientists were looking for metabolites associated with the pesticides known by their chemical name as organophosphates (OP). The researchers found evidence of the pesticides in the urine of more than half of all the participants, but levels of two common OP metabolites, diethylthiophosphate (DETP) and diethyldithiophosphate (DEDTP), were significantly higher in the children who suffered from cancer. What’s more, the mothers who participated in the study filled out questionnaires that revealed more moms whose kids had cancer used pesticides (33 percent) than did the mothers in the control group (14 percent) whose youngsters were cancer-free.

“We know pesticides — sprays, strips, or ‘bombs,’ are found in at least 85 percent of households, but obviously not all the children in these homes develop cancer. What this study suggests is an association between pesticide exposure and the development of childhood ALL, but this isn’t a cause-and-effect finding,” the study’s lead investigator, Offie Soldin, PhD, an epidemiologist at Lombardi, said in a statement to the media. “Future research would help us understand the exact role of pesticides in the development of cancer. We hypothesize that pre-natal exposure coupled with genetic susceptibility or an additional environmental insult after birth could be to blame.”

While the scientists aren’t ready to flat out say pesticides cause cancer, when you look at the big picture and see what is already known about the havoc pesticides appear to cause in the human body, it makes sense for parents and parents-to-be to ditch pesticides — for their own health and for the health of their children. For example, NaturalNews has previously reported on the link between residential pesticides and childhood brain cancer, and the strong association between a serious pre-cancerous blood condition and exposure to pesticides.

Click here for the full report from Natural News