Environmental quality and safety最新文献

The extensive use of pesticides in Japanese agriculture was studied as a problem-oriented case of technology assessment with an aim to contribute to the establishment of appropriate procedures of assessing real and potential impacts which modern technologies have or may have on health, industries, economy, society and on the environment and to obtain clues to the development of safer use of pesticides. Direct and indirect impacts, both real and potential, favourable and adverse, were intended to identify and evaluate systematically and comprehensively as their cause and effect sequences were studied. Adverse impacts were divided into tradable and untradable categories, untradable adverse impacts were related mostly to human health. As to the evaluation of impacts, it was suggested that the size of area and population affected, irreversibility and controllability of the impact be considered. It was recognized as urgent and requisite to develop and establish a more efficient and satisfactory method of testing the safety of pesticides and their metabolites over a wider spectrum of organisms and with respect to newer aspects of toxicology as mutagenesis, teratogenesis and cancerogenesis.

Construction of the Welland Canal enabled shipping to by-pass Niagara Falls and enter the upper Great Lakes and also eliminated the barrier to the entry to the lakes by the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus Linnaeus). Within forty years the commercial fisheries of the Great Lakes was almost eliminated by this parasitic cyclostome. A search for selective chemical control of the sea lamprey was undertaken in the 1950's and culminated with the discovery of TFM (3-Trifluoromethyl-4-nitrophenol). At the request of the International Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife undertook to assess the hazard of TFM to the aquatic ecosystem, to humans as well as to fish and wildlife. Studies were undertaken in Bureau laboratories as well as by contracts with university and private laboratories. Results of these studies to-date indicate that this material is not subject to biomagnification and does not pose a hazard to man or the the environment.

Routine monitoring of Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 levels in the main classes of food consumed in Israel has been carried out for a number of years. Calculations have been made of the intake of these isotopes by various groups in the Israel population using Food Consumption Survey data made available by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. More detailed analyses have been carried out to calculate the exposure of groups selected on the basis of demographic, economic and family-size criteria. This was carried out in an attempt to detect "critical groups" in the population who might be overly exposed. Results of these data indicate that in the case of Israel the monitoring of a single food item such as milk or the extrapolation of local fallout data cannot be relied on to give an estimate of radionuclide exposure through food. The relation between high consumption groups and the intake of "average" consumers is discussed in detail and the use of the statistical models developed in these studies for the estimates of radionuclide exposure during periods of high fallout levels which occurred in the past and possible applications with regard to other environmental contaminants is discussed.