Of the 268 chemicals, there were two the agency found in every sample — mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Considering the health concerns related to mercury and health issues linked to PCBs, these are pretty disturbing results. Even worse, almost half of the fish (48.8%) had concentrations of mercury ABOVE what the EPA considers safe for people to consume.

The results of the EPA’s study come nearly ten years after Environmental Working Group (EWG) released its own study titled “Mercury Falling,” which called attention to pollution from coal-burning power plants, the single largest source of mercury pollution and source of 22.5% of America’s electric power.

Renee Sharp, EWG Senior Scientist and Vice President for California, said the EPA’s study is further evidence of the need to become independent of coal and to face the realities of the extent of water contamination in the United States: “Many people who eat fish from these lakes or take their families to them on vacation do it under the presumption they’re pristine and healthy. This study shows that unfortunately, that’s not always the case; pollution from these plants seems to be everywhere.”

The EPA study was designed so that the samples, taken from 500 lakes and reservoirs across the lower 48 states, would be representative of all American lakes. Two types of fish were tested per site: predators such as bass and trout and bottom-dwellers such as catfish and bullhead.  The agency says its sample of 486 predator fish is representative of the situation in an estimated 76,559 lakes; the sample of 395 bottom-dwelling fish is representative of an estimated 46,190 lakes.

Contamination of the fish calls for concern over the safety of the water. The EPA estimates that inland lakes and reservoirs are the source of 70% of the country’s drinking water. These bodies support multi-billion-dollar fishing and tourist industries, not to mention habitats for a diversity of species – common and endangered alike.

Peter S. Silva, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Water, said the new findings reinforce EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s “strong call” for protecting these bodies of water and the people they affect.

The “snapshot” of data from the study provides a starting point for measuring the success of efforts to clean up the nation’s fresh water bodies. The data also allows the EPA to focus on areas of particular concern for chemical pollution, particularly mercury and PCBs.

Once mercury makes its way into a body of water, it is easily converted into methylmercury, a powerful toxin that can harm brain and nervous system functioning in both children and adults and seriously impair the neurological health of developing fetuses. In a 2005 biomonitoring study, EWG found mercury in all persons tested – 10 newborns and 3 adults.

The EPA’s lake fish tissue study is available online. Also, read EPA’s advisories on fish consumption to be sure you are feeding yourself and your family fish that are free of neurotoxins and other chemical pollutants.

Travis Mitchell contributed to this piece.

It’s titled “Toxic Environmental Threats to Children’s Development: What We Know and What We Can Do.” The Saturday program will include presentations by several nationally prominent experts in environmental medicine, not exactly standard fare for psychiatrists and psychologists.

But increasingly it should be, says Dean Abby, director of continuing education at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, who helped organize the course. In an interview with Environmental Working Group, he noted that science has advanced in ways that now make it possible to study the often-subtle effects of chemical and other exposures on our bodies and on children’s vulnerable bodies. It’s important to make connections between those exposures and the behavioral and emotional problems that get treated by mental health professionals, he says:

It’s the same thrust that has come in the last 25 years in developing a scientific understanding of the mind-body connection. It just made sense to try to push the envelope a little bit, since developmental issues concern us. We train school psychologists particularly, who work in an environment where they see all kinds of developmental threats and problems whose source is hard to pin down.

The course is co-sponsored by the Boston Institute for the Development of Infants and Parents (BIDIP) and the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society. It is open to the public for a fee about half of what professionals, who can earn credit toward continuing education requirements, must pay. Among those who have registered in advance are parents and day care professionals. Said Abby:

Anybody today who’s not looking at this stuff with a bigger and broader perspective is missing something critically important. It’s designed to force people who have concerns about these questions to codify their thinking.

The invited speakers are pediatrician Philip Landrigan, M.D. of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine; toxicologist Bernard Weiss, Ph.D. of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry; neurologist David Bellinger of Boston’s Children’s Hospital; Megan Sandel, M.D. National Medical Director of the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership in Boston; and Barbara Brenner, executive director of San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action.

EWG, a leader in documenting the effects of toxics such as bisphenol-A — and in the fight to reform the federal government’s regulation of chemicals — wishes it could be there.

Now a ground-breaking study released in the journal Human Reproduction offers what its authors call “the first evidence that exposure to BPA in the workplace could have an adverse effect on male sexual dysfunction.”

BPA factory workers suffer sexual problems

The scientific team, underwritten by Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research in Oakland, CA., spent five years studying 634 Chinese factory workers whose bodies had been severely contaminated with BPA.

Animal studies link BPA to extraordinary array of subtle but serious chronic health problems, including impairment of the ability to think and behave normally, reproductive and cardiovascular system damage, cancer, diabetes, asthma and obesity. Evidence of BPA’s impact on human health has been more elusive – which is why the Kaiser Permanente study is making headlines around the globe.

After a year of being bombarded with BPA, the Chinese workers reported disturbing sexual problems: four times as much erectile dysfunction and seven times as many ejaculation difficulties as a control group, the Kaiser team found.

Nearly all Americans are BPA-positive

Most people don’t experience BPA exposure nearly as intense as the factory workers. But nearly all Americans test positive for low-level BPA contamination, as evidenced by body burden testing by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Environmental Working Group and other academic and non-profit organizations.

As Kaiser research team leader De-Kun Li, MD, Ph.D., put it, the China workers study “raises the question: Is there a safe level for BPA exposure, and what is that level?”

AMA takes up BPA battle

Many scientists specializing in hormonal and reproductive systems say there’s no such thing as a “safe” dose of BPA, a powerful endocrine-disrupting chemical. Earlier this week, the American Medical Association Board of Delegates resolved to work with the federal government to minimize the public’s exposure to BPA and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The measure was proposed by the Endocrine Society, which, with 14,000 hormone researchers and medical specialists in more than 100 countries, recently warned that “even infinitesimally low levels of exposure [to endocrine-disrupting chemicals] –indeed, any level of exposure at all– may cause endocrine or reproductive abnormalities, particularly if exposure occurs during a critical developmental window. Surprisingly, low doses may even exert more potent effects than higher doses.”

“The AMA represents a very important constituency of physicians who have a lot of credibility and clout,” says Andrea Gore, Ph.D., a University of Texas-Austin researcher who co-authored the Endocrine Society statement. “If members of the AMA can now get behind the statement and actually affect regulations, then I think we can consider it a victory.”

It’s in the cans

Most of the BPA in Americans’ bodies is believed to come from leaching from BPA-based epoxy food can linings and polycarbonate baby and drink bottles, sippy cups and other food containers. Under pressure from EWG and other scientific and environmental health groups, the federal Food and Drug Administration is weighing proposals to ban the chemical in food packaging.

Because of FDA inaction, last October EWG president Ken Cook wrote major infant formula and canned food producers urging them to take voluntary measures to remove BPA from their can linings.

20 of 28 canned food brands contaminated

Laboratory tests commissioned by EWG in 2007 found BPA in 20 out of 28 brands of canned food and drink, including B&M, Bush’s Best, Campbell’s Condensed (soup), Campbell’s Chunky, Campbell’s SpaghettiOs, Chef Boyardee, Chicken of the Sea, Coca-Cola, Del Monte, Dole, Ensure, Green Giant, Kroger store brand, Libby’s, Nestle Carnation, Pepsi-Cola, Progresso, S&W, Slim-Fast, Swanson and Wolfgang Puck.

An EWG survey found that all four leading makers of liquid infant formula sold in North America used BPA to line their cans. These included Nestle (Good Start), Ross-Abbot (Similac and Isomil), Mead Johnson (Enfamil), and PBM (maker of store-brand formulas sold at Target, Kroger and dozens of other retailers).

Last week, Consumers Union, an advocacy organization, reported that its laboratory tests had found BPA in canned food packaged under the brand names Campbell’s Condensed, Progresso, Del Monte and Nestle.

Top environmental regulator, scientist act on BPA

The FDA’s plans are, as yet, unclear. But other top administration scientists and regulators are zeroing in on BPA. Lisa Jackson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has identified BPA as a priority for regulatory action. And Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, has recently committed $30 million in federal stimulus funds to research the many unanswered questions about BPA.

We know this much: with every day that passes, the cases against BPA hardens, like the plastics it makes.

We’re also blogging on Huffington Post. Visit us there.

Photo credit: abarndweller

The Campaign’s tests also found 6 of 10 face paints contaminated with nickel, cobalt or chromium, known skin allergens.

Of course, the timing of this report wasn’t an accident. Three days from now, on Halloween, millions of small trick-or-treaters will roam their neighborhoods with painted faces. Those who wear face paints will be exposed to toxic substances as a result of lax federal safety standards for the cosmetics industry.

Not the trick they and their parents should expect.

The personal care and cosmetics industries have been allowed to load up their products with almost any chemical ingredient they wish without first testing for safety. As a result, every day, people of all ages are slathering on all sorts of stuff laced with hazardous materials.

You can read the entire study here: Pretty Scary: Heavy Metals in Face Paints

Intersex fish are often found in waters contaminated by synthetic hormone-disrupting chemicals found in plastics, pesticides, personal care products, and more.

Turns out, these occasional reports are just the tip of the iceberg: In the most comprehensive study to date, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists probed 9 major American river basins, documenting widespread occurrence of intersex fish.

Intersex fish phenomenon is widespread

Intersex fish were spotted in nearly a third of sites examined. The USGS found afflicted fish in the Apalachicola, Colorado, Columbia, Mobile, Mississippi, Pee Dee, Rio Grande, and Savannah rivers and their tributaries.

Intersex largemouth bass were particularly prevalent in the Southeast, the USGS said.  USGS scientists found that  91 percent of the largemouth bass in the Pee Dee River in South Carolina showed intersex characteristics.  Some 60 percent of the largemouth bass population in the Apalachicola River in Florida  were intersex, as were half the largemouth bass in Georgia’s Savannah River and the Rio Grande River in Texas.

Researchers found intersex problems in 73 percent of the smallmouth bass in the Mississippi River,  70 percent of smallmouth in Colorado’s Yampa River and 67 percent of smallmouth in the Columbia River in Oregon.

“We were surprised to see such high incidences,” Jo Ellen Hinck, a USGS biologist and the study’s lead author, told Environmental Working Group.  “We’re concerned when we see the majority of fish at a site having this condition. It certainly makes us wonder what the bigger implications may be.”

Hormone-disrupting compounds in treated wastewater and agricultural runoff are suspected of playing a role in the broad prevalence of intersex fish.  Laboratory tests document the development of intersex characteristics in fish exposed to individual hormonally-active chemicals, as well as to common combinations of these chemicals. Perhaps more  disturbing, many of the same chemicals linked to intersex fish are also found in people’s bodies.

Something else to think about when you next pick up your fishing pole – or wait at the fish counter of your local grocery store.

PS – Want to read about intersex frogs?  We have them, too.

My reason for choosing food packaged sustainably has always been driven by concern for the environment, with recycling and less damaging manufacturing practices at the forefront of my mind.

Until last week, when it became a health issue, too.

The cover story in the August 31 edition of Chemical and Engineering News details how common it is for food packaging materials to end up in what we eat.

If I am what I eat (and we all are, right?), today I am part PB&J sandwich, Cheerios, milk, orange juice, granola bar and peach.   You?  And as it turns out, I could also be part of the plastic wrap around my sandwich, the plastic bottle and the label on the outside of the peanut butter jar, the jelly container cap (the jar is glass), and the inks on the labels of the granola bar, juice and cereal packaging.  What concerns me even more is that I could be part of the food packaging from yesterday, last week, or even years ago.

As Dimitrios Spyropoulos, a regulator at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), told C&EN,  “If you have a material in contact with food … something in the packaging will end up in the food.”  Now that’s food, er packaging, for thought.

If it’s hard for you to fathom how you could be eating the lettering on the outside of a cereal box, I’m right there with you.  After all, the chemicals would have to penetrate the cardboard and then the plastic bag to get to the cereal.

Well, I might find it harder to believe if the EFSA hadn’t reported that  4-Methylbenzophenone, a chemical closely related to benzeophenone, toxic to both the liver and kidneys, had migrated from labels into muesli — Belgian chocolate crunch muesli, to be precise.  And the European panel warned that children could be harmed by long-term exposure to this chemical.

What other packaging goodies are we eating?

By now, most everyone knows about the toxicity of bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic bottles and food cans and phthalates in plastic toys and other products.  Fewer people are aware that polyfluorinated compounds in waxy wrappings and chemicals in inks leach through packaging and into our foods.  And frankly, there’s only so much toxicity info consumers can – and should – keep track of.

We need to know much more about what other packaging chemicals are winding up in our food and drink.  State-of-the-art technology can measure contaminants in food, down below the level of parts per billion.  But it only works if people use it.

As long as we put up with a food packing industry that wraps its products in whatever materials are convenient and cheap, without regard to the potential for toxic contamination via packaging, we’ll be eating traces of plastic, ink and who knows what else.

Chemical & Engineering News sums it up this way:

The common feature of all potential solutions to the leachables problem is that they cost money—sometimes several times the price of the components they replace. It remains to be seen whether consumers are willing to pay more for expensive packaging that reduces leaching into their food and drugs.

This cover story should be a wake up call to everyone involved in growing, selling and eating food.  We all need to be better informed about our chemical environment that affects our food – from soil, pesticides, farm equipment, workers, trucks, right down to the packaging and labeling.

For breakfast I just want to eat my cereal – NOT the box.

But a growing stack of laboratory research suggests that some of the chemicals used in everyday items predispose an individual to the battle of the bulge, despite normal diet and exercise.

Scientists describe these chemicals as “obesogens” because of way they effect how we develop and store fat.

Researchers are discovering that our bodies mistake certain man-made chemicals used in plastics, food wrappers and fragrances, for example, for naturally occurring hormones that regulate the production and storage of fat cells.

The scientific results from multiple laboratories are preliminary. Yet, the data say the same thing: Chemicals that affect our hormone system — often called endocrine-disrupting chemicals — are playing some role in the global epidemic of excessive weight.

“Despite what we’ve heard, diet and exercise alone are insufficient to explain the obesity epidemic,” according to Dr. Bruce Blumberg, professor of developmental and cell biology and pharmaceutical sciences at the University of California in Irvine.

As Blumberg, co-author of a review article in the August 2009 issue of Molecular Endocrinology called “The Case for Obesogens.” points out, the obesity epidemic roughly correlates with the rise in the use of industrial chemicals, including plastics and pesticides, following World War II.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other international laboratories are tracking levels of hundreds of chemicals in people, and dozens of these substances found are known to disrupt the hormone system.

Such measurements, called biomonitoring, demonstrate that toxic substances not only insult the environment but also toll human bodies. The health effects of our chemical body burden are just beginning to be understood, but there are reasons for concern.

Man-made substances that mimic a body’s natural hormones can cause serious problems at tiny doses – especially when they cross the placenta to expose a fetus during a critical developmental period.

With certain obesogens, it appears that early post-natal exposures also are critical.

Among the chemicals linked to weight gain are several I write about in The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-being (North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux). They include:

• Bisphenol A (BPA), which is used to make polycarbonate plastic and the linings of metal food and soft-drink cans. Studies show that mice and rats fed tiny amounts of bisphenol A during early development became more obese as adults than those that weren’t fed the chemical. BPA leaches from food and beverage containers into what we eat and drink.
• Phthalates, found in PVC plastic, fragrances and personal-care products. One recent study linked a type of phthalate that leaches into processed food with increased waist circumference and insulin resistance in men.
• Atrazine, the most heavily used agricultural weed killer in the United States. Researchers have found an apparent overlap between areas where the weed killer is used and the prevalence of obesity. The findings suggest that atrazine, which contaminates some corn products, might contribute to the development of insulin resistance and obesity, especially when the exposure is associated with a high-fat diet.
• Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which is used to make non-stick cookware and is an unintended byproduct of substances that repel grease on food wrappings and stains on clothing and carpeting. Several studies show that PFOA exposure results in reduced birth weight followed by weight gain after puberty.

It would be ridiculous to suggest that chemicals are the main culprits behind the world’s expanding waistline. Eating too much and exercising too little go a long way on the path to pudginess.

But with legions of people at risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers because of excessive weight, we simply cannot afford to ignore any contributing factors.

Certainly, we can take individual steps to reduce our exposures to hormone-disrupting obesogens. To name a few:

• Limit the amount of canned foods and beverages in your diet because they leach BPA.
• Avoid fast-food packaging and microwave popcorn bags because many are coated with a chemical that can break down to form PFOA.
• Don’t use plastic containers to microwave because phthalates can leach into the reheated food.
• Filter your water for pesticides and buy organic fruits and vegetables, whenever possible.

But the long-term solution to our toxic problem requires a fundamental shift in the way we use industrial chemicals so that public health and environmental protections are the top priorities.

The European Union recently instituted sweeping changes that mean chemical companies will lose access to the EU’s 500 million consumers and $11 trillion (US) market unless they can prove their substances do no harm.

In the United States, it’s time to do the same by supporting measures such as the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, which would require that all chemicals be proven safe for children before they can be sold.

It makes no sense to continue to let loose untested chemicals, chasing down the ones that create messes in places and people after the harm has been done.

Your children and grandchildren — and their waistlines — will thank you for it.

This post first appeared on The Huffington Post.

We’ll be reacting to the ACC proposal in the days ahead.

Ken Cook, Environmental Working Group

*Updated*

USA Today has written a story on the ACC proposal that you can read here.

The study, published July 20 in the online edition of the journal Pediatrics, reported that five-year-olds scored more than four points lower than peers on IQ tests if their mothers had been exposed to as little as 2.26 nanograms per cubic meter — two and a quarter billionths of a gram of pollutants in a space roughly the size of restaurant refrigerator — of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Unlike smog and soot, PAH pollution — vapors and fine particles generated by vehicle emissions, coal burning and second-hand smoke — is too fine and sparse to be seen, smelled or felt.

Yet, as the Columbia researchers showed, PAHs can affect neurodevelopment, even in miniscule doses.

“The study underscores the importance of protecting that window of vulnerability in the in utero period,” said lead author Frederica Perera, Dr.P.H, director of the center and professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. “It provides evidence that air pollutants at the levels commonly found in urban settings are harmful in terms of children’s intellectual development.”

The IQ loss, Perera told Environmental Working Group, is similar to that observed in children exposed to low levels of lead, a potent neurotoxin sometimes found in old water pipes and chipping paint.

The scientists conducted the study by monitoring 249 children born to non-smoking black and Dominican-American women living in New York City’s Washington Heights, Harlem and the South Bronx, urban neighborhoods near the Columbia campus. The women wore personal air monitors during the last trimester of their pregnancies to determine their PAH exposures.

As well, the researchers collected and analyzed umbilical cord blood for pollutants that had crossed the placenta.

Researchers followed the children to age five, at which point they administered standardized intelligence tests. Mathematical calculations adjusted for extraneous factors such as maternal intelligence, quality of home environment and smoking in the home and came up with associations between general air pollution and test performance. The scientists intend to continue studying the children to age 11 and perhaps longer.

The study does not predict the eventual success or failure of specific children. In many cases, a strong educational environment may help them compensate for any learning deficits caused by exposure to PAH pollution.

Nor does the study determine the physical mechanisms by which PAH exposure undermines normal neurodevelopment. One possibility, the study suggests, is that the chemicals may disrupt the endocrine system and reduce fetal access to oxygen and nutrients. Another possibility is that they may damage DNA, altering development in other ways. Much more research is needed to establish the answers.

There’s a bright note: Perera says that policymakers in New York have already used Columbia’s extensive research on children and air quality to reduce air pollution, for instance, by attempting to limit traffic generally, reduce idling time for diesel trucks and buses and make sure the city’s buses have effective emission controls.

As a result, Perera says, between 1998 and 2003, the researchers observed “a modest but steady and significant decline in PAH levels.”

Other reforms, such as new strictures on coal-burning power plants and cleaner energy alternatives, could further reduce urban air pollution.

The Columbia study bolsters the case for making environmental health a major national priority. It shows that:

• The placenta is not a protective barrier that shields the fetus from the outside world. The tiniest and most insidious pollutants, like PAHs. easily transgress it and pollute the unborn child.

• Prenatal exposure to pollution is extraoridinarily, perhaps uniquely, perilous. “Humans pass more biological milestones before birth than at any other time in their lives, “ the Columbia scientists wrote, “and the prenatal period is highly sensitive to neurotoxic effects of environmental chemicals.”

“This research clearly shows that environmental PAHs at levels encountered in an urban setting can adversely affect a child’s IQ,” said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, which funded the Columbia study.

“This is the first study to report an association between PAH exposure and IQ, and it should serve as a warning bell to us all,” Birnbaum said, referring to her announced intent to pour more grant money into research into pre-and peri-natal exposures to toxic environmental chemicals. “We need to do more to prevent environmental exposures from harming our children.”

Tough call, and now you don’t have to make it.

Not, at least, when you’re picking up a bottle of water for the drink-holder of your Prius/Mini/Trek Madone.

Environmental Working Group’s research staff has just released a bottled water scorecard that grades close to 200 brands for labels or websites that disclose their sources, treatment methods and results of contaminant testing. (No matter what words the ads use – “pure,” “sparkling,” “essential,” no water is completely free of trace pollutants.)

Well, guess what. A bunch of humble, big-box-store, mass-market brands like Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Choice (B), Nestlé’s Pure Life (B) and Ozarka (B), and Walgreens (C) scored best for disclosure AND advanced treatment.

Pricey Perrier and S.Pellegrino scored Fs. These high-end brands’ labels and websites, our researchers found, were especially opaque. Elite Evian rated a C – good info on testing and source, partial data on purification method and no clue on advance treatment.

I keep thinking about the ad campaign, featuring leggy Euro supermodels.

“Hi, I’m Gisele. Where was I last week? I’ll never tell. Neither will my Perrier.”

“Kate here. Can you keep a secret? My Pellegrino can.”

Mystery can be alluring, but here at EWG, we’re old school when it comes to consumer products that make dazzling profits for big corporations like Nestlé, which produces Perrier and Pellegrino, and Coca-Cola, which owns Evian. We’re all about people’s right to know, so we investigate, the way newspapers used to. Newspapers. They were big bundles of paper with a lot of black printing…

Silliest bottled water: Aquamantra. It scored an F for zero testing info, zero purification info and an ad claim that the affirmative mantras on the label “actually change the molecular structure of the water, and most definitely change the flavor of the water.”

“Hi, I’m Claudia. When I want lychee-flavored water, I just chant for it.”

We find it particularly interesting that Sam’s Choice turns out to be one of the more consumer-friendly labels. That squares with Wal-Mart’s new eco-labeling program that aims to rate products for “sustainability.”

Sustainability — that’s a term environmentalists, lawyers, philosophers and students of modern culture struggle to define. We sure hope Wal-Mart’s initiative is true green, not a greenwash, and amounts to a net plus for the planet. We’ll be doing the numbers later.

But it’s a good idea if it works. We’re all for eco-labeling, as long as it’s solid, checkable and makes sense in the bigger scheme of things.

That’s why no bottled water brand aced the EWG report. Grade A goes only to filtered tap water, because municipal water utilities make extensive disclosures and because their product arrives in pipes, not little plastic bottles that clog the ocean and landfills. Like Mama said, green is as green does.

According to the Container Recycling Institute, Americans throw away 60 million bottles a day.

DIY chic is hot. So invest in a decent filtration system and do your own tap water bottling with a reusable BPA-free bottle. Many of them have fashion-forward designs and cool colors.

What are your favorite haute luxe, yet cleverly thrifty ideas for greening, really, our water and the rest of our stuff? We’d love to hear from you and also on Huffington Post.