This paper presents views on the current status of (inorganic) arsenic risk assessment in the United States and recommends research needed to set standards for drinking water. The opinions are those of the Arsenic Task Force of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health, which has met periodically since 1991 to study issues related to arsenic risk assessment and has held workshops an...

Today, urban runoff is considered as an important source of environmental pollution. Roofing materials, in particular, the metallic ones, are considered as a major source of urban runoff metal contaminations. In the context of the European Water Directive (2000/60 CE), an accurate evaluation of contaminant flows from roofs is thus required on the city scale, and therefore the development of ass...

We conducted a detailed assessment of the maternal transfer of mercury and selenium to eggs in three bird species (n = 107 parents and n = 339 eggs), and developed predictive equations linking contaminant concentrations in eggs to those in six tissues of the mother (blood, muscle, liver, kidney, breast feathers, and head feathers). Mercury concentrations in eggs were positively correlated with ...

This article presents a seven-step procedure for developing environmentally safe total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for selenium. The need for this information stems from recent actions taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that may require TMDLs for selenium and other contaminants that are impairing water bodies. However, there is no technical guidance from EPA or elsewhere th...

In 1996 the U.S. Congress charged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop a screening program to test chemicals for their possible estrogenic and other endocrine effects. Shortly thereafter, the Chemical Guidelines Program of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Environmental Directorate organized a Task Force on Endocrine Disruption Testing and Assess...

Soil ingestion is an important pathway of exposure for many nonvolatile contaminants for man and in particular for children. A fraction of the ingested contaminant may not dissociate from the soil particles during digestion in the gastrointestinal tract, and is thus not available for transport across the intestinal epithelium. In order to estimate the contaminant fraction that is mobilized from...

Background: Acrylamide (AA) is an important food contaminant resulted from Maillard reaction during thermal processing of carbohydrate rich food commodities. The present paper reports the data for the AA content in some types of thermally processed starch rich food, and assessment of dietary exposure for the population in North Macedonia. Methods: The AA level was determined employing modified...

BACKGROUND We studied the effects of removing small airborne particles in an office building without unusual contaminant sources or occupant complaints. METHODS We conducted a double-blind crossover study of enhanced particle filtration in an office building in the Midwest United States in 1993. We replaced standard particle filters, in separate ventilation systems on two floors, with highly ...

Widespread and persistent organochlorine (OC) contaminants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides, are known to have broad-ranging toxicities in wildlife. In this study we investigated, for the first time, their possible health effects on loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta). Nonlethal fat biopsies and blood samples were collected from live turtles for OC contaminant analy...