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New research from the University of Cincinnati (UC) reveals that residents of the Mid-Ohio River Valley (from Evansville, Indiana, north to Huntington, West Virginia) had higher than normal levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) based on blood samples collected over a 22-year span. The exposure source was likely from drinking water contaminated by industrial discharges upriver.
The study, appearing in the latest publication of Environmental Pollution, looked at levels of PFOA and 10 other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in 931 Mid-Ohio River Valley residents, testing blood serum samples collected between 1991 and 2013, to determine whether the Ohio River and Ohio River Aquifer were sources of exposure. This is the first study of PFOA serum concentrations in U.S. residents in the 1990s.
"These Mid-Ohio River Valley residents appear to have had concentrations of PFOA in their bloodstream at higher than average U.S. levels," says Susan Pinney, PhD, professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the UC College of Medicine, a member of both the Cincinnati Cancer Consortium and UC Cancer Institute and senior author of the study.
Ohio River PFOA concentrations downstream were elevated, suggesting Mid-Ohio River Valley residents were exposed through drinking water, primarily contaminated by industrial discharges as far as 666 kilometers (413 miles) upstream. Industrial discharges of PFOA to the Ohio River, contaminating water systems near Parkersburg, West Virginia, were previously associated with nearby residents' serum PFOA concentrations above U.S. general population medians.
[...] Pinney points out that the primary concern with PFCs/PFOA is that they take a very long time to leave the human body, and studies indicate that exposure to PFOA and PFOS over certain levels may result in adverse health effects, including developmental effects, liver and tissue damage and immune and thyroid impacts.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by idiot_king on Saturday May 27 2017, @04:59AM
I grew up in Western Ohio. It is unsurprising to me that pollution in the Rust Belt extends so far and wide.
Even more northerly, up by Toledo and Sandusky, at the Mouths of Erie, all of the rivers and streams are brown in color at best: the simple fact of high-nitrogen fertilizers are enough to make a difference, not only in color but in potability. (There have been algae blooms near Toledo in the past due to runoff from farm activity which have rendered the water undrinkable for the entire city)
It is unsurprising to me that the remnants of industry would intrude in post-industrial settlements, poisoning the very people who benefited from the boom in industrialization just a generation or two ago.
My hometown recently began building a new water treatment plant meant to pull from the aquifer far below the surface, instead of purify the water from the plentiful above-ground sources. I somehow don't find this as coincidence either, as the above-ground sources were not taxed heavily to begin with.
But they are, indeed, tainted by not only fertilizer but other contaminants as well, and this has been known for awhile.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @05:30AM (1 child)
Industrial chemical waste is good. How else do you expect to accelerate the emergence of mutant ubermen and ensure American exceptionalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @11:21AM
That sounds suspiciously like evolution... you know that is a government lie, right? The way we become GREAT again is by following the path laid down by our forebears where American was truly GREAT: the 1880's, or the 1920's, I mean 1950's, I mean the 80's... uh I mean, the Golden Age.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday May 27 2017, @05:34AM (11 children)
And Republicans still claim we don't need regulations to protect the environment.
Let's face it, this administration is going to cause, directly and indirectly, a reduction in the average lifespan of Americans. If they people don't die early through lack of medical care, they will die early because of toxic chemicals in the environment or for lack of food and shelter.
You Trump voters: you have these deaths on your hands!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @06:00AM (3 children)
Don't forget the Ongoing Wars. Trump needs at least one war to call his own. Get a bunch of brainstormtroopers together and dream up a new name for ISIS so Trump can declare war on the successor of ISIS just like Obama declared war on the successor of Al-Qaeda. Each Imperial President needs a Perpetual Enemy to call his own in the Forever War.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @06:15AM (2 children)
If they wipe out ISIS. The Muslim brotherhood will spawn another one. They will themselves not act violently on that level but they sure organize people that are involved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @11:27AM (1 child)
No no no, we will root out all The Bad Guys then our problems will be solved. It just takes more indiscriminate bombing. The Good Guys appreciate they will lose a few of their kids and their homes and have their country dissolved. It's all about making sure we kill The Bad Guys.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @04:25PM
It takes profiling, internment and expulsion. Not that hard. In the UK there are circa 3000 persons known to be ready to commit more attacks on innocent people.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Sulla on Saturday May 27 2017, @06:32AM (2 children)
Or, you know, citizens could vote for local government that will actually monitor and track water pollutants. I found all these water issues confusing until I realized I live in one of the few places where city waste/stormwater does testing of the system and backtracks illegal chemical dumping.
Its like you think democrats cant be bought off by monsanto, dupont, and dow. Keep drinking that two party koolaid, meanwhile both the dems and reps are pouring slow death into your cup. Only difference is that one side kills you and your kids, and the other kills your kids and their kids.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @09:29AM
You are absolutely correct, but acting locally to improve sourcing and filtration doesn't help the large numbers of folks with no access to municipal water and have to rely on their own wells for household water. The small-scale purification technology available to households, both rural and urban, has far to go in terms of cost effectiveness. Filtering for specific impurities is expensive and complicated.
I know a bit about practical water chemistry, having worked in both nuclear power plants and pharmaceuticals. Sure, distillation, reverse-osmosis, and deionization systems can make clean water alright, so clean the water produced is poisonous to drink. How do we replicate near-natural potable water efficiently? That's the challenge I see.
Even with regulatory steps to control pollution at the source, we have far to go technologically to mitigate the damage already done. There's an opportunity here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday May 27 2017, @06:38PM
You must live in some utopia where local government actually has some powers to control pollution. In the USA, this isn't true.
Without regulations limiting pollution, the companies that are responsible will face zero consequences for their actions. Tracking pollutants is pointless unless those responsible can be forced to stop polluting.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Saturday May 27 2017, @09:49AM (3 children)
The problem is much older and deeper than simplistic partisan name-calling can address.
It began with medieval population growth, urbanization, and nascent industrialization. The Thames and the Seine were open sewers long before Dupont and BASF. We began carelessly destroying streams and aquifers long before the petrochemical industries came along.
The root cause is human hubris.
I don't have the answer to that.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @11:34AM
And yet...The water quality in the Thames has improved.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/8059970/The-clean-up-of-the-River-Thames.html [telegraph.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @04:20PM (1 child)
Medieval pollution were less and of less severity. Besides they had limited knowledge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @04:24AM
they had limited knowledge
...unlike us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @05:44AM (1 child)
Democrats should start showing political ads with mutant babies to hammer home the point. Sure, it's political napalm, but it's the kind of tactics Republicans have been using and why they have the majority in 3 branches. We have to wallow in the mud with the pigs to defeat the pigs.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Sulla on Saturday May 27 2017, @06:34AM
I imagine laws that keep aborted babies out of commercials would effect mutant babies too. But I guess killing babies only matters when the other party does it.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Saturday May 27 2017, @06:02AM (2 children)
Seems Du Point [soylentnews.org] Poison has been working hard. C8/PFOS is distributed worldwide by now. One known source is firefighters that use foam, especially fires from liquid hydrocarbons like in aircraft accidents etc. So if you live downstream of a firefighter training ground or airport. Watch out!
The effect seems to be cancer within less than 10 years. It depends on dose of course. But here's some examples: Testicular cancer, liver cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol and pregnancy-induced hypertension. Even teenagers get this.
With the new US administration. People will have to run their own tests it seems. Might be a good idea anyway because the cover up earlier was extensive anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @05:51AM (1 child)
"Better Things for Better Living...Through Chemistry"
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 30 2017, @02:35AM
It's been updated now ;-)
"Better Things for Better profits... Through your painful death"