The last generation has witnessed bludgeoning of the world's population, a spike in disease burden, and unprecedented levels of pharmaceutical consumption and production. Unfortunately, pharmaceuticals have left their industrial and household confines and leaked into the environment. Pharmaceuticals are now major environmental pollutants, and are ubiquitous in waters and soils. Unlike other env...

Development of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchments in the last 150 years has increased the loads of suspended sediment, nutrients and pesticides ('pollutants') delivered to the GBR. The scale and type of development, the pollutants generated and the ecosystems offshore vary regionally. We analysed the relative risk of pollutants from agricultural land uses and identified the sources of thes...

Phytoremediation uses living higher plants for the removal and biochemical decomposition of environmental pollutants. In this paper Phase I metabolic pathways in the biotransformation reactions of organic pollutants in plants are reviewed. These reactions result in the introduction of functional groups in the xenobiotic molecule or the exposure of preexisting functional groups and lead to the f...

Pigs reared commercially indoors are exposed to air heavily contaminated with particulate and gaseous pollutants. Epidemiological surveys have shown an association between the levels of these pollutants and the severity of lesions associated with the upper respiratory tract disease of swine atrophic rhinitis. This study investigated the role of aerial pollutants in the etiology of atrophic rhin...

BACKGROUND Both influenza viruses and air pollutants have been well documented as major hazards to human health, but few epidemiologic studies have assessed effect modification of influenza on health effects of ambient air pollutants. OBJECTIVES We aimed to assess modifying effects of influenza on health effects of ambient air pollutants. METHODS We applied Poisson regression to daily numbe...

Air pollution has been becoming a necessary evil with rapid industrialization and urbanization around the world, after it results in kinds of human health problems, such as ophthalmic, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases (Brunekreef & Holgate, 2002; Giles et al., 2011; Gudmundsson, 2011; Jamrozik & Musk, 2011; Miller et al., 2007; Nandasena, 2010). The direst threat posted by air pollution ...

Bioretention, also known as rain garden, allows stormwater to soak into the ground through a soil-based medium, leading to removal of particulate and dissolved pollutants and reduced peak flows. Although soil organic matter (SOM) is efficient at sorbing many pollutants, amending the bioretention medium with highly effective adsorbents has been proposed to optimize pollutant removal and extend b...

BACKGROUND Hazardous air pollutants are plausible candidate exposures for autism spectrum disorders. They have been explored in recent studies for their role in the development of these disorders. METHODS We used a prevalent case-control design to screen perinatal exposure to 35 hazardous air pollutants for further investigation in autism etiology. We included 383 children with autism spectru...

OBJECTIVES Persistent environmental pollutants, including heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), have a ubiquitous presence. Many of these pollutants affect neurobiological processes, either accidentally or by design. The aim of this study was to explore the associations between assayed measures of POPs and heavy metals and depressive symptoms. We hypothesised that higher levels...

BACKGROUND Because ambient air pollution exposure occurs as mixtures, consideration of joint effects of multiple pollutants may advance our understanding of the health effects of air pollution. METHODS We assessed the joint effect of air pollutants on pediatric asthma emergency department visits in Atlanta during 1998-2004. We selected combinations of pollutants that were representative of ox...