Anti-Coal Plant Meeting to be Held

Anti-coal plant meeting to be held
01.26.09

The Center for Energy Matters (CEM) will host an educational and public health meeting at 7 p.m. Friday at the Sallisaw Civic Center.

Harlan Hentges from CEM said the public meeting is designed to educate residents on the consequences of Shady Point II, a proposed coal-burning power plant in eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas. The plant is 25 miles south of Sallisaw and Sallisaw is close enough that particulate matter from the new plant may drift into the area, Hentges said.

AES is seeking permits to build a 630-megawatt, coal-burning power plant, which would be the second coal plant in Panama.

Hentges said coal is considered to be the dirtiest burning of all fossil fuels because of its chemical composition.

“The plant presents a threat to the health of senior citizens, children and unborn children, wildlife, air and water quality and future economic development projects,” he said. “The plant produces methylmercury, which slowly degrades the human body, crosses the placenta and the blood brain barrier, studies have shown. It is secreted in breast milk and disrupts biological processes critical for normal brain development.”

Dr. John P. Weddle, a lifelong Sallisaw resident, said, “My concern about the coal plant is the inhaled particulates directly relating to exacerbation of asthma and chronic lung disease.”

Weddle likens it to a grass fire in the local area, when he sees an increase in the number of asthma patients.

“If you have a lot of particulates in the air – a non-stop fine emission of fine particulates – that triggers these lung conditions.

“I have concerns about ground water contamination from mercury and arsenic by fly ash, and its deposition in the local landfills and dedicated landfills,” Weddle, an emergency room physician based in Fort Smith, Ark., said.

Weddle said there is a definite tie between mercury and other neurological development defects.

Robert Huston, a long-time Fort Smith outdoor television host, said he is concerned about the impact on wildlife if the Shady Point expansion is approved.

“Whatever winds up in fish, wildlife and livestock, usually winds up in people,” Huston said.

He noted many sportsmen’s groups, including the National Wildlife Federation, blame mercury contamination to reduced hatching success and impaired growth and development in fish. Increased mercury levels affect reproduction, growth and behavior in small mammals such as river otters and mink.

In fish-eating birds like starlings, mallard ducks, red-tailed hawks and loons, mercury contamination can result in weight loss, difficulty in flying, reduced hatching success, and reduced clutch size.

“Already mercury levels in fish are at such high levels that anglers are warned by their respective state’s wildlife agencies about consumption,” Huston said.

Mercury and autism are linked, according to a University of Texas Health Science Center study last year, which showed “a statistically significant link between pounds of industrial release of mercury and increased autism rates” within a 30-mile distance.

Jeff Edwards, an attorney who lived in Poteau before moving to Roland, said, “We have to wonder if living near AES Shady Point had something to do with our child’s autism.”

At the time, Edwards’ wife was pregnant with the couple’s first child, and their Poteau house was supplied with well water. His second child, who is autistic, was born while in Muldrow, which is within 30 miles of the Shady Point plant.

Edwards is active in Developmental Wings Inc., an organization that provides services for autistic children.

“For me the biggest problems are air quality and water quality. When I practiced law in Poteau, I used to get calls from residents concerned about water pollution in the rural areas where the ground water was polluted by the coal mines,” Edwards said. “I don’t see how you can dump fly ash in those mines without continuing to pollute. I don’t see anything positive out of another coal-burning power plant here.”

CEM, located in Edmond, is a newly formed nonprofit research and education center, created to promote sound energy decisions and to improve quality of life in Oklahoma, Hentges said.

He stated, “We want the city, county and state leaders to know the consequences of their decisions. The decision to burn more Wyoming coal in Oklahoma will impact Panama, Shady Point, Sallisaw, Poteau, Fort Smith, Fayetteville, and Tulsa.”

Hentges said the goal is for residents who will bear the consequences of the facility to know all the facts and the costs of this second coal-burning power plant in Panama. He said coal-fired plants emit arsenic, mercury, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds among other harmful chemicals.

CEM is part of a coalition made up of Audubon Arkansas, Clean Air Arkansas, Sequoyah County Clean Air Coalition, Sierra Club/Oklahoma chapter and Public Citizen of Texas. They are working on this project known as “Two is Too Many: Stop AES Shady Point II.”

For more information about the meeting contact Hentges at (405) 340-6554.
© sequoyahcountytimes.com 2009

Autism: triggered by infections & toxins, not genes

By Pamela Weintraub on January 18, 2009 in Emerging Diseases

This now in from the U.C. Davis M.I.N.D. Institute:

A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has found that the seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted - and the trend shows no sign of abating.

Published in the January 2009 issue of the journal Epidemiology, results from the study also suggest that research should shift from genetics to the host of chemicals and infectious microbes in the environment that are likely at the root of changes in the neurodevelopment of California's children.

"It's time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California," said UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of environmental and occupational health and epidemiology and an internationally respected autism researcher.

Hertz-Picciotto said that many researchers, state officials and advocacy organizations have viewed the rise in autism's incidence in California with skepticism.

The incidence of autism by age six in California has increased from fewer than nine in 10,000 for children born in 1990 to more than 44 in 10,000 for children born in 2000. Some have argued that this change could have been due to migration into California of families with autistic children, inclusion of children with milder forms of autism in the counting and earlier ages of diagnosis as consequences of improved surveillance or greater awareness.

Hertz-Picciotto and her co-author, Lora Delwiche of the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, initiated the study to address these beliefs, analyzing data collected by the state of California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) from 1990 to 2006, as well as the United States Census Bureau and state of California Department of Public Health Office of Vital Records, which compiles and maintains birth statistics.

...
Hertz-Picciotto said that the study is a clarion call to researchers and policy makers who have focused attention and money on understanding the genetic components of autism. She said that the rise in cases of autism in California cannot be attributed to the state's increasingly diverse population because the disorder affects ethnic groups at fairly similar rates.

...
"We're looking at the possible effects of metals, pesticides and infectious agents on neurodevelopment," Hertz-Picciotto said.

The study gives credence to the suggestion, voiced more loudly in recent years, that the burgeoning epidemic of Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections may be driving part of the autism increase.

Study shows California's autism increase not due to better counting, diagnosis

Public release date: 8-Jan-2009
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Contact: Phyllis Brown
phyllis.brown@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
916-734-9023
University of California - Davis - Health System

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has found that the seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted — and the trend shows no sign of abating.

Published in the January 2009 issue of the journal Epidemiology, results from the study also suggest that research should shift from genetics to the host of chemicals and infectious microbes in the environment that are likely at the root of changes in the neurodevelopment of California's children.

"It's time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California," said UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of environmental and occupational health and epidemiology and an internationally respected autism researcher.

Hertz-Picciotto said that many researchers, state officials and advocacy organizations have viewed the rise in autism's incidence in California with skepticism.

The incidence of autism by age six in California has increased from fewer than nine in 10,000 for children born in 1990 to more than 44 in 10,000 for children born in 2000. Some have argued that this change could have been due to migration into California of families with autistic children, inclusion of children with milder forms of autism in the counting and earlier ages of diagnosis as consequences of improved surveillance or greater awareness.

Hertz-Picciotto and her co-author, Lora Delwiche of the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, initiated the study to address these beliefs, analyzing data collected by the state of California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) from 1990 to 2006, as well as the United States Census Bureau and state of California Department of Public Health Office of Vital Records, which compiles and maintains birth statistics.

Hertz-Picciotto and Delwiche correlated the number of cases of autism reported between 1990 and 2006 with birth records and excluded children not born in California. They used Census Bureau data to calculate the rate of incidence in the population over time and examined the age at diagnosis of all children ages two to 10 years old.

The methodology eliminated migration as a potential cause of the increase in the number of autism cases. It also revealed that no more than 56 percent of the estimated 600-to-700 percent increase, that is, less than one-tenth of the increased number of reported autism cases, could be attributed to the inclusion of milder cases of autism. Only 24 percent of the increase could be attributed to earlier age at diagnosis.

"These are fairly small percentages compared to the size of the increase that we've seen in the state," Hertz-Picciotto said.

Hertz-Picciotto said that the study is a clarion call to researchers and policy makers who have focused attention and money on understanding the genetic components of autism. She said that the rise in cases of autism in California cannot be attributed to the state's increasingly diverse population because the disorder affects ethnic groups at fairly similar rates.

"Right now, about 10 to 20 times more research dollars are spent on studies of the genetic causes of autism than on environmental ones. We need to even out the funding," Hertz-Picciotto said.

The study results are also a harbinger of things to come for public-health officials, who should prepare to offer services to the increasing number of children diagnosed with autism in the last decade who are now entering their late teen years, Hertz-Picciotto said.

"These children are now moving toward adulthood, and a sizeable percentage of them have not developed the life skills that would allow them to live independently," she said.

The question for the state of California, Hertz-Picciotto said, will become: 'What happens to them when their parents cannot take care of them?'

"These questions are not going to go away and they are only going to loom larger in the future. Until we know the causes and can eliminate them, we as a society need to provide those treatments and interventions that do seem to help these children adapt. We as scientists need to improve available therapies and create new ones," Hertz-Picciotto said.

Hertz-Picciotto and her colleagues at the M.I.N.D Institute are currently conducting two large studies aimed at discovering the causes of autism. Hertz-Picciotto is the principal investigator on the CHARGE (Childhood Autism Risk from Genetics and the Environment) and MARBLES (Markers of Autism Risk in Babies-Learning Early Signs) studies.

CHARGE is the largest epidemiologic study of reliably confirmed cases of autism to date, and the first major investigation of environmental factors and gene-environment interactions in the disorder. MARBLES is a prospective investigation that follows women who already have had one child with autism, beginning early in or even before a subsequent pregnancy, to search for early markers that predict autism in the younger sibling.

"We're looking at the possible effects of metals, pesticides and infectious agents on neurodevelopment," Hertz-Picciotto said. "If we're going to stop the rise in autism in California, we need to keep these studies going and expand them to the extent possible."

###

The study was funded by grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and by the M.I.N.D. Institute.

In 1998, dedicated families concerned about autism helped found the UC Davis M.I.N.D. (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) Institute. Their vision? Experts from every discipline related to the brain working together toward a common goal: curing neurodevelopmental disorders. Since that time, collaborative research teams at the M.I.N.D. Institute have turned that initial inspiration into significant contributions to the science of autism, fragile X syndrome, Tourette's syndrome, learning disabilities and other neurodevelopmental disorders that can limit a child's lifelong potential.