Urinary lead level and colonization by antibiotic resistant bacteria: Evidence from a population-based study.

Background: Infection by antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) is a global health crisis and asymptomatic colonization increases risk of infection. Nonhuman studies have linked heavy metal exposure to the selection of ARB; however, few epidemiologic studies have examined this relationship. This study analyzes the association between urinary lead level and colonization by ARB in a nonclinical human population.

Bicycling Rates and the Prevalence of Bicycle Helmet Usage in Wisconsin.

Introduction: Bicycles are a source of transportation, recreation, and exercise throughout the world. Bicycling is associated with both health and environmental benefits but also poses a risk of injury. The use of bicycle helmets has been shown to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with cycling.

Quantile regression in environmental health: Early life lead exposure and end-of-grade exams.

Conditional means regression, including ordinary least squares (OLS), provides an incomplete picture of exposure-response relationships particularly if the primary interest resides in the tail ends of the distribution of the outcome. Quantile regression (QR) offers an alternative methodological approach in which the influence of independent covariates on the outcome can be specified at any location along the distribution of the outcome. We implemented QR to examine heterogeneity in the influence of early childhood lead exposure on reading and math standardized fourth grade tests.

Moderate lead exposure and elementary school end-of-grade examination performance.

Purpose: This study investigated the association between moderate lead poisoning in early childhood with performance on a comprehensive set of end-of-grade examinations at the elementary school level in two urban school districts.

Methods: Children born between 1996 and 2000 who resided in Milwaukee or Racine, WI, with a record of a blood lead test before the age of 3 years were considered for the analysis. Children were defined as exposed (blood lead level ≥10 and <20 μg/dL) or not exposed (BLL < 5 μg/dL).

Early lead exposure (<3 years old) prospectively predicts fourth grade school suspension in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA).

School suspensions are associated with negative student outcomes. Environmental lead exposure increases hyperactivity and sensory defensiveness, two traits likely to increase classroom misbehavior and subsequent discipline. Childhood Blood Lead Level (BLL) test results categorized urban fourth graders as exposed (2687; lifetime max BLL 10-20 µg/dL) or unexposed (1076; no lifetime BLL ≥5 µg/dL).

Removing barriers to participation in clinical trials, a conceptual framework and retrospective chart review study.

Background: Enrollment in interventional therapeutic clinical trials is a small fraction of all patients who might participate given reasonable access.

Methods: A hierarchical approach is utilized in measuring staged participation from trial availability to patient enrollment. Our framework suggests that concern for justice comes in the design and eligibility criteria for clinical trials; attention to beneficence is given in the eligibility and physician triage stages.

Lead exposure and educational proficiency: moderate lead exposure and educational proficiency on end-of-grade examinations.

Purpose: To investigate and quantify the impact of moderate lead exposure on students' ability to score at the "proficient" level on end-of-grade standardized tests.

Methods: We compared the scores of 3757 fourth grade students from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam (WKCE). The sample consisted of children with a blood lead test before age 3 years that was either unquantifiable at the time of testing (<5 μg/dL) or in the range of moderate exposure (10-19 μg/dL).

Mesothelioma from chrysotile asbestos: update.

Purpose: There are different mineral classes of asbestos, including serpentines and amphiboles. Chrysotile is the main type of serpentine and by far the most frequently used type of asbestos (about 95% of world production and use). There has been continuing controversy over the capability of chrysotile asbestos to cause pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma.

Factors associated with the seasonality of blood lead levels among preschool Wisconsin children.

Context: Aggregate blood lead testing data for Wisconsin children younger than age 6 exhibit seasonal trends in both average blood lead levels and in the percent of those tested and found to have blood lead levels in excess of the 10 mcg/dL threshold for poisoning. Blood lead levels and poisoning rates typically peak during the late summer and early fall months, and are at their minimum during the late winter.

Method: Blood test data was analyzed to determine variations by month and age.

Nitrogen-nitrate exposure from drinking water and colorectal cancer risk for rural women in Wisconsin, USA.

One unintentional result of widespread adoption of nitrogen application to croplands over the past 50 years has been nitrate contamination of drinking water with few studies evaluating the risk of colorectal cancer. In our population-based case-control study of 475 women age 20-74 years with colorectal cancer and 1447 community controls living in rural Wisconsin, drinking water nitrate exposure were interpolated to subjects residences based on measurements which had been taken as part of a separate water quality survey in 1994. Individual level risk factor data was gathered in 1990-1992 and 1999-2001.

Nanomaterial health effects part 3: conclusion--hazardous issues and the precautionary principle.

This is the third and final paper in a series about nanomaterials and their potential health effects. There has been an incident of apparent respiratory health effects in Germany in consumers using a "nano" cleaning product. Other recently proposed consumer products seem to carry potential health and/or ecological hazards.

Risk of breast cancer for women living in rural areas from adult exposure to atrazine from well water in Wisconsin.

Research has suggested possible human health effects from low-level widespread exposure to environmental contaminants. We employed a novel exposure estimation technique using a publicly available data set to examine atrazine exposure, a suspected endocrine disruptor, in relation to breast cancer risk for women living in rural areas of Wisconsin. Incident breast cancer cases who were 20-79 years of age from 1987 to 2000 (n=3,275) and living in rural areas of Wisconsin at the time of interview were identified from Wisconsin's statewide cancer registry.

Nanomaterial health effects--Part 2: Uncertainties and recommendations for the future.

In this paper, we summarize some of the key data gaps, uncertainties, and unknowns that need to be addressed to develop adequate risk assessments for nanomaterials. We make recommendations to take timely and appropriate public health precautions. We also briefly discuss nanotechnology applications for food and food packaging, and describe the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Nanotechnology in Society Project.

Nanomaterial health effects--part 1: background and current knowledge.

Nanotechnologies are among the fastest growing areas of scientific research, and have important applications in a wide variety of fields. At the same time, scientists and regulators are concerned about the potential health and environmental risks related to the widespread production and use of the nanomaterials created by these technologies. Several recent animal and cell culture studies have suggested that some engineered nanomaterials may have biological effects similar to ultrafine particulates.

Tuberculosis cases in Wisconsin: documentation of treatment improvement and completion of treatment, 2000-2002.

Objective: In 2000, the Wisconsin Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Tuberculosis (TB) sets goals of 90 percent treatment completion and 95 percent documentation of treatment improvement for all reported cases of TB. This study measures the success in achieving these goals.

Methods: Data were abstracted from charts of all 249 reported TB cases during 2000-2002.

Maternal exposure to Great Lakes sport-caught fish and dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene, but not polychlorinated biphenyls, is associated with reduced birth weight.

Fish consumption may be beneficial for a developing human fetus, but fish may also contain contaminants that could be detrimental. Great Lakes sport-caught fish (GLSCF) are contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene (DDE), but the effects of these contaminants on birth outcome are not clear. To distinguish potential contaminant effects, we examined (1) whether the decrease over time in contaminant levels in GLSCF is paralleled by an increase in birth weight of children of GLSCF-consuming mothers and (2) the relation between maternal serum concentrations of these contaminants and birth weight.

Potential exposure to PCBs, DDT, and PBDEs from sport-caught fish consumption in relation to breast cancer risk in Wisconsin.

In Wisconsin, consumption of Great Lakes fish is an important source of exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and other halogenated hydrocarbons, all of which may act as potential risk factors for breast cancer. We examined the association between sport-caught fish consumption and breast cancer incidence as part of an ongoing population-based case-control study. We identified breast cancer cases 20-69 years of age who were diagnosed in 1998-2000 (n = 1,481) from the Wisconsin Cancer Reporting System.

Endometrial cancer incidence in relation to electric blanket use.

Endometrial cancer is associated with endogenous and exogenous estrogen excess. Some investigators have posited that electromagnetic fields may influence cancer risk through estrogenic hormonal mechanisms; however, there have been no studies reporting on electric blanket exposure in relation to endometrial cancer. The authors examined this possible association between endometrial cancer risk and electric blanket or mattress cover use as part of a population-based, case-control study.