How Well Do Product Labels Indicate the Presence of PFAS in Consumer Items Used by Children and Adolescents?

PFAS are persistent and toxic chemicals used in many commercial and industrial applications that are often added to consumer products, including those used by children and adolescents, to impart water and stain resistance. Since product labels rarely list chemical additives, including PFAS, we evaluated whether other information on product labels can be used by consumers to select products without PFAS. We selected 93 items marketed to or often used by children and adolescents across three product types (furnishings, apparel, bedding) and five labeling groups representing different combinations of water and/or stain resistance and "green" (including "nontoxic") assurances.

Wastewater-contaminated groundwater as a source of endogenous hormones and pharmaceuticals to surface water ecosystems.

Increasing residential development in watershed recharge areas increases the likelihood of groundwater and surface water contamination by wastewater effluent, particularly where on-site sewage treatment is employed. This effluent contains a range of compounds including those that have been demonstrated to mimic or interfere with the function of natural hormones in aquatic organisms and humans. To explore whether groundwater contaminated by discharge from on-site septic systems affects water quality in surface water ecosystems, we measured steroidal hormones, pharmaceuticals, and other organic wastewater compounds (OWCs) in water collected from six aquifer-fed ponds in areas of higher and lower residential density on Cape Cod (Massachusetts, USA).

Breast cancer risk and drinking water contaminated by wastewater: a case control study.

Background: Drinking water contaminated by wastewater is a potential source of exposure to mammary carcinogens and endocrine disrupting compounds from commercial products and excreted natural and pharmaceutical hormones. These contaminants are hypothesized to increase breast cancer risk. Cape Cod, Massachusetts, has a history of wastewater contamination in many, but not all, of its public water supplies; and the region has a history of higher breast cancer incidence that is unexplained by the population's age, in-migration, mammography use, or established breast cancer risk factors.

Steroid estrogens, nonylphenol ethoxylate metabolites, and other wastewater contaminants in groundwater affected by a residential septic system on Cape Cod, MA.

Septic systems serve approximately 25% of U.S. households and may be an important source of estrogenic and other organic wastewater contaminants (OWC) to groundwater.

Breast cancer risk and historical exposure to pesticides from wide-area applications assessed with GIS.

Pesticides are of interest in etiologic studies of breast cancer because many mimic estrogen, a known breast cancer risk factor, or cause mammary tumors in animals, but most previous studies have been limited by using one-time tissue measurements of residues of only a few pesticides long banned in the United States. As an alternative method to assess historical exposures to banned and current-use pesticides, we used geographic information system (GIS) technology in a population-based case-control study of 1,165 women residing in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, who were diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988-1995 and 1,006 controls. We assessed exposures dating back to 1948 (when DDT was first used there) from pesticides applied for tree pests (e.

Association between residence on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and breast cancer.

Purpose: Massachusetts cancer registry and case-control data suggest that breast cancer incidence is elevated on Cape Cod relative to other parts of the state. We examined the association between length of residence on Cape Cod and breast cancer, since residential history could be acting as a surrogate for unidentified environmental risk factors.

Methods: We computed odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence limits (CL) for 1121 cases occurring between 1988 and 1995 on Cape Cod and 992 controls, according to categories of residence time on Cape Cod, after adjusting for age, family history, parity and age at first live or stillbirth, education, body mass index, and breast cancer history.

Historical reconstruction of wastewater and land use impacts to groundwater used for public drinking water: exposure assessment using chemical data and GIS.

Land use in geographic areas that replenish groundwater and surface water resources is increasingly recognized as an important factor affecting drinking water quality. Efforts to understand the implications for health, particularly outcomes with long latency or critical exposure windows, have been hampered by lack of historical exposure data for unregulated pollutants. This limitation has hindered studies of the possible links between breast cancer risk and drinking water impacted by endocrine disrupting compounds and mammary carcinogens, for example.

Arsenic mobility and groundwater extraction in Bangladesh.

High levels of arsenic in well water are causing widespread poisoning in Bangladesh. In a typical aquifer in southern Bangladesh, chemical data imply that arsenic mobilization is associated with recent inflow of carbon. High concentrations of radiocarbon-young methane indicate that young carbon has driven recent biogeochemical processes, and irrigation pumping is sufficient to have drawn water to the depth where dissolved arsenic is at a maximum.