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By IVER PETERSON TRENTON, — New Jersey will propose new controls to limit emissions of mercury, a toxic substance that is particularly harmful to fetuses and young children. The new rules on power plants and other sources would cut emissions by 75 percent in three years. Bradley M. Campbell, the commissioner of environmental protection, announced here on Wednesday that if the department adopts the proposal after a hearing period, 24 coal-fired power plants, municipal waste incinerators and iron smelters will have to adopt measures to cut the state's current mercury emissions of 2,000 pounds per year to 500 pounds. "New Jersey's largest sources of mercury air pollution must use today's technology wherever possible to protect our children and families," Mr. Campbell said at a news conference. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4684 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By THOM SHANKER with WILLIAM J. BROAD WASHINGTON, — The Defense Department sprayed live nerve and biological agents on ships and sailors in cold war-era experiments to test the Navy's vulnerability to toxic warfare, the Pentagon revealed today. The Pentagon documents made public today showed that six tests were carried out in the Pacific Ocean from 1964 to 1968. In the experiments, nerve or chemical agents were sprayed on a variety of ships and their crews to gauge how quickly the poisons could be detected and how rapidly they would disperse, as well as to test the effectiveness of protective gear and decontamination procedures in use at the time. Hundreds of sailors exposed to the poisons in tests conducted in the 1960's could be eligible for health care benefits, and the Department of Veterans Affairs has already begun contacting those who participated in some of the experiments, known as Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense, or SHAD. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 2129 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JODI WILGOREN HERCULANEUM, Mo., Jan. 18 — Carol Miller's family lives in the world of no. No playing on the swing set until someone washes off the black dust. No barbecues at Grandma's, where the view from the picnic table is of an enormous slag pile. No digging in the backyard. No using the ceiling fan or opening windows in the Millers' cramped house here in the shadow of the nation's largest lead smelter, whose 550-foot smokestack towers over this Mississippi River town 30 miles south of St. Louis. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 1370 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Although the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are well known for their health benefits, many fish are also the primary source of mercury in the general population. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently completed the first study of mercury and cognitive function in urban, U.S. adults between the ages of 50 and 70 years. They found that blood mercury levels were not consistently associated with adverse performance on a broad range of tests of cognitive function. This study may help policy makers with future decisions about mercury emissions from power plants as well as fish consumption recommendations for older adults. The study is published in the April 20, 2005, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). “Our study provides no evidence to challenge the government’s current recommendations for blood mercury levels, but neither does it indicate that they are safe. The key point is that the aging population may be more sensitive to toxic chemicals and this is the first study to examine mercury exposure in the older U.S. population,” said Megan Weil, MHS, lead author of the study and a PhD-candidate in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences. © 2005, Johns Hopkins University.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 7219 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Karen Wright Let’s start with a straightforward fact: Mercury is unimaginably toxic and dangerous. A single drop on a human hand can be irreversibly fatal. A single drop in a large lake can make all the fish in it unsafe to eat. Often referred to as quicksilver, mercury is the only common metal that is liquid at room temperature. Alchemists, including the young Sir Isaac Newton, believed it was the source of gold. In the modern era, it became a common ingredient of paints, diuretics, pesticides, batteries, fluorescent lightbulbs, skin creams, antifungal agents, vaccines for children, and of course, thermometers. There is probably some in your mouth right now: So-called silver dental fillings are half mercury. Mercury is also a by-product of many industrial processes. In the United States coal-fired power plants alone pump about 50 tons of it into the air each year. That mercury rains out of the sky into oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams, where it becomes concentrated in the flesh of fish, shellfish, seals, and whales. Last year the Food and Drug Administration determined there is so much mercury in the sea that women of childbearing age should severely limit their consumption of larger ocean fish. The warning comes too late for many mothers. A nationwide survey by the Centers for Disease Control shows that one in 12 women of childbearing age already have unsafe blood levels of mercury and that as many as 600,000 babies in the United States could be at risk. But that begs a critical question: At risk for what? © 2004 The Walt Disney Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 6884 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have identified an Australian poison frog that makes its own toxin rather than getting it from food sources. It is the first documented case of a vertebrate that generates its own poison alkaloids, complex chemicals that are usually associated with plants, the researchers said. Poison frogs release alkaloids from their skin to defend against predators. Until now, the researchers believed that all obtained their alkaloids from eating insects. The discovery was reported in the April 3 Web edition of the Journal of Natural Products, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society. The discovery will also be described April 8 in Orlando, Fla., at the Society’s 223rd national meeting.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 1815 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Environmental enrichment that stimulates brain activity can reverse the long-term learning deficits caused by lead poisoning, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health . It has long been known that lead poisoning in children affects their cognitive and behavioral development. Despite significant efforts to reduce lead contamination in homes, childhood lead poisoning remains a major public health problem with an estimated 34 million housing units in the United States containing lead paint. The Hopkins study is the first to demonstrate that the long-term deficits in cognitive function caused by lead can be reversed and offers a basis for the treatment of childhood lead intoxication. The findings appear in the online edition of the Annals of Neurology. “Lead exposure during development causes long-lasting deficits in learning in experimental animals, but our study shows for the first time that these cognitive deficits are reversible,” said lead author Tomás R. Guilarte, PhD, professor of environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “This study is particularly important for two reasons. First, it was not known until now whether the effects of lead on cognitive function were reversible. Secondly, the environmental enrichment that reversed the learning deficits was administered after the animals were exposed to lead. Environmental enrichment could be a promising therapy for treating millions of children suffering from the effects of lead poisoning,” added Dr. Guilarte.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 3081 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Cristen Conger, HowStuffWorks.com -- The first detailed anatomical atlas of a living wildlife species has been constructed by researchers. Mapping the California sea lion's (Zalophus californianus) brain with a combination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and volumetric measuring, scientists want to better understand how toxins in the water are causing neurological damage among marine mammal populations. Eric Montie, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Florida, spearheaded the study, which was published in The Anatomical Record in October. The brain atlas is a first step toward determining whether exposure to manmade chemicals, such as DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), increase California sea lions' susceptibility to life-threatening brain damage from domoic acid, a neurotoxin naturally produced by certain types of algae. Past studies have concluded that domoic acid, which accumulates in the sea lion's system from ingesting prey that feed on algae, causes the mammal's hippocampus to shrink. Research has also linked domoic acid to acute and chronic epilepsy and seizures in sea lions. But exactly how that neurotoxin-induced brain damage progresses is still unclear. sea lion "We don't know enough about the endocrinology and neurobiology of these animals," Montie told Discovery News. "That's why you start with baby steps like an atlas." © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13433 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jessica Knoblauch One night in February, high school principal Matthew Smith got a frightening wake-up call. The local fire department alerted him that the home of a student at Agua Fria High School was contaminated with liquid mercury that apparently had been taken from a science classroom. The next day, emergency crews descended on the school in haz-mat suits, discovering a toxic trail of mercury vapors in classrooms, locker rooms, and buses. The high school, in Avondale, Ariz., was shut down for a week so it could be decontaminated. The homes of six students were tainted with mercury, two so severely that the families had to be relocated for 11 days, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The total cleanup is expected to reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. The mercury mess in Arizona was only the latest in thousands of incidents where children are exposed to elemental mercury, a poison that can damage the brain, trigger respiratory failure and cause other serious health problems. Power plants are typically cast as the usual suspects of mercury contamination, since they emit mercury into the air, where it spreads globally. But many children are exposed to toxic levels of mercury much closer to home. Mercury spills inside schools and houses, often unreported, can release vapors into the air for weeks, even years. © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 12828 - Posted: 06.24.2010

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- In a world where Nature is "red in tooth and claw" as Tennyson wrote, a handful of predatory garter snakes have won an evolutionary arms race against a tribe of rough-skinned newts so poisonous that the toxin in just one newt could kill thousands of mice or a dozen humans. It's a saga of what biologists call co-evolution. For many millennia the two species have competed against each other, evolving through natural selection in order to survive in the territory they share. Generation after generation, the newts have developed more and more powerful poison in their skins to protect themselves against the hungry snakes, and the snakes have evolved stronger and stronger resistance to the poison, so they can eat the newts in safety. Now biologists tracking more than 20,000 garter snakes and 500 newts in 28 habitats along the Pacific coast have discovered four sites in California where the snakes have clearly won the arms race: Evolution has given them a kind of super-resistance that overcomes the strongest poison the newts can possibly stir up. In other words, the snakes are free to gobble up their prey with impunity from now on. © 2008 Hearst Communications Inc

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 6: Evolution of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 0: ; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 11403 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By David A. Fahrenthold and Steven Mufson A federal appeals court yesterday threw out the Environmental Protection Agency's approach to limiting mercury emitted from power-plant smokestacks, saying the agency ignored laws and twisted logic when it imposed new standards that were favorable to plant owners. The ruling, issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, was another judicial rejection of the Bush administration's pollution policies. It comes less than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuked the administration and the EPA for refusing to regulate greenhouse gases. This court's critique -- which undid a controversial program to "trade" emissions of mercury, a potent neurotoxin -- was especially sharp. It compared the EPA to the capricious Queen of Hearts in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," saying the agency had followed its own desires and ignored the "plain text" of the law. "What the administration did when they came in was to essentially try to torpedo environmental regulations," said James Pew, a lawyer with the activist group Earthjustice who worked on the case. "This really is a repudiation of the Bush administration's environmental legacy." Coal-fired power plants are responsible for about a third of the country's total mercury emissions. In the Washington area, mercury pollution in waterways has triggered advisories against consuming too much fish from the Chesapeake Bay, the Potomac River and other bodies of water. © Copyright 1996-2008 The Washington Post Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 11299 - Posted: 06.24.2010

United States researchers suggest long-ago lead exposure can make an aging person's brain work as if it's five years older than it really is. "We're trying to offer a caution that a portion of what has been called normal aging might in fact be due to ubiquitous environmental exposures like lead," says Dr. Brian Schwartz of Johns Hopkins University, a leader in the study of lead's delayed effects. The notion of long-delayed effects is familiar; tobacco and asbestos, for example, can lead to cancer. But in recent years, scientists are coming to appreciate that exposure to other pollutants in early life also may promote disease much later on. "It's an emerging area" for research, said Dr. Philip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. It certainly makes sense that if a substance destroys brain cells in early life, the brain may cope by drawing on its reserve capacity until it loses still more cells with aging, he said. Only then would symptoms like forgetfulness or tremors appear. Studying delayed effects in people is difficult because they generally must be followed for a long time. Research with lead is easier because scientists can measure the amount that has accumulated in the shinbone over decades and get a read on how much lead a person has been exposed to in the past. © CBC 2008

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 11255 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Elizabeth Quill Your mother may have warned that you'd get a tummy ache if you scarfed down your food, but for one Australian snake, eating too fast could be deadly. The death adder dines on frogs, but some of them are poisonous. So the snake has learned patience: After striking a particular poisonous frog, it waits for its victim's toxin to degrade before it dines. The finding could help ecologists decipher how one species can outevolve another. The death adder stabs unsuspecting frogs with its fangs, injecting venom to kill its supper. The frogs have fought back, however, evolving various defenses--longer legs for bigger jumps or chemical substances that taste nasty and can kill. Ecologists Ben Phillips and Richard Shine, both of the University of Sydney, Australia, decided to study the snake's general feeding behavior. And when they did, they stumbled upon a strange twist in this evolutionary arms race. The team dropped frogs of various species in the snakes' glass pens and kept a video camera rolling to record the action as the snakes captured their prey. The snakes gobbled up nontoxic frogs right after injecting them with venom, but they took more time with two other species, the researchers report in the December issue of The American Naturalist. The snake waited 10 minutes before munching on the marbled frog, which produces a gluelike substance on its skin when irritated. © 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 10979 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Deborah Mitchell CHICAGO (Reuters Health) - Physicians, nurses and other health care providers should be aware that patients receiving intravenous treatment with the antifungal drug voriconazole may develop a range of neurological side effects, including auditory and visual hallucinations, according to a report presented at the 47th annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Voriconazole, sold under the trade name Vfend, is a relatively new drug used to treat serious fungus infections, such as invasive mold infections and invasive candidiasis. Many of these patients are extremely ill and are receiving several different drugs, which makes it difficult to distinguish the side effects of specific drugs from the symptoms of the underlying illness. To estimate the frequency and seriousness of voriconazole side effects, Dr. Dimitrios Zonios and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, evaluated patients in an ongoing prospective study that was assessing voriconazole toxicity. The researchers focused on side effects of the central nervous system, which are not well characterized for the drug. Between March 2006 and June 2007, the researchers evaluated 66 cancer patients who were being treated with intravenous voriconazole at their institution. Careful interviews and toxicity evaluations were conducted for each patient. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 16: Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavior Disorders
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 12: Psychopathology: The Biology of Behavioral Disorders
Link ID: 10769 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Troops exposed to sarin risk brain damage: report U.S. Army 1st Armored Division elements pass a burning Iraqi tank during Operation Desert Storm. Scientists have found evidence that the kind of low-level exposure to sarin gas experienced by more than 100,000 U.S. troops in the first Gulf war can cause "lasting brain deficits," The New York Times reported on Wednesday. REUTERS/U.S. Army/Handout WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have found evidence that the kind of low-level exposure to sarin gas experienced by more than 100,000 U.S. troops in the first Gulf war can cause "lasting brain deficits," The New York Times reported on Wednesday. While the results are preliminary, scientists working with the U.S. Department of Defense said they found apparent changes in the brain's connective tissue -- known as white matter -- in soldiers exposed to the gas. The extent of the changes -- less white matter and slightly larger brain cavities -- correspond to the extent of exposure, the Times reported on its Web site. The results are to be published in the June issue of the journal NeuroToxicology, it said. The report is likely to revive the debate over why so many troops returned from the 1991 Gulf conflict with unexplained physical problems. Many scientists have questioned whether Gulf war-related illnesses have a physiological basis. © 1996-2007 Scientific American, Inc.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 10307 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JOHN HEILPRIN WASHINGTON -- Companies that make or distribute toys, zippers and other children's products will face tougher government scrutiny to keep out any lead that could poison and kill children or harm their brain development. The Environmental Protection Agency agreed in response to legal pressure to write up to 120 importing and manufacturing companies by the end of the month, instructing them to provide health and safety studies if any lead might be found in the products they make for children. "Parents still need to be vigilant about the recalls on products marketed to children that might contain lead, and take those products away from children as soon as they are recalled," Jessica Frohman, co-chair of the Sierra Club's national toxics committee, said Sunday. The EPA letters are part of a settlement it signed Friday with the Sierra Club and another advocacy group, Improving Kids' Environment. The agency also must tell the Consumer Product Safety Commission "that information EPA has reviewed raises questions about the adequacy of quality control measures by companies importing and/or distributing children's jewelry." Lead, a highly toxic element, can cause severe nerve damage, especially in children. The EPA says lead emissions have dropped more than 90 percent since it was first listed as an air pollutant in 1976, mainly by removing lead from gasoline. Other sources of exposure to it include food and soil, solid waste, coal, oil, iron and steel production, lead smelters and tobacco smoke. © 2007 The Associated Press

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 10182 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Clear summer skies may cloud our thoughts of air pollution. But however clear the day might be, pollution from cars, trucks and the burning of fossil fuels still abounds. And it doesn't just affect those of us who breathe it. A new study suggests that those who can't breathe yet are also at risk. "Children who had had more exposure in the womb to these combustion-related air pollutants scored significantly lower on the tests for mental development, and were more than twice, almost three times as likely to be developmentally delayed compared to the less exposed children," says environmental health scientist and molecular epidemiologist Frederica Perera. Her research team tested the mental development of 183 New York City kids at ages one, two and three. Their mothers wore air monitors during the final month of pregnancy to measure their exposure to pollutants. "The pollutants we're looking at are extremely widespread, really everywhere, not only in the urban areas but, in the suburban areas as well," she says. "We generate a lot of these pollutants locally, right here out on our streets and highways, we also have pollution from smoke stacks and power plants." © ScienCentral, 2000-2006.

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 9004 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jacqueline Ruttimann Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but for some it's about survival. Animals often avoid predators by copying the appearance of poisonous creatures. Usually the impostor tries to look like the most toxic species around, or imitates a range of toxic animals. But this is not so in the case of Ecuadorian frog Allobates zaparo. This frog chooses to mimic the less toxic of two local species. "It runs counter to traditional models," says Molly Cummings of the University of Texas, Austin, who describes the frog's strategy in this week's Nature1. The poison frogs Epipedobates bilinguis and Epipedobates parvulus share a similar warning sign: a bright red back. But the less poisonous and rarer of the two, E. bilinguis, also has yellow markings on its upper arms and thighs. Cummings found that when A. zaparo was found in the same region as one of these poisonous species, it would imitate that one. But in areas where all three species lived, A. zaparo tended to mimic E. bilinguis. This is odd. Mimics usually evolve to imitate the more abundant or more toxic species, says Cummings, because that normally guarantees the most protection. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 6: Evolution of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 8631 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Juliet Eilperin Women in coastal communities have twice as much mercury in their blood as those living inland, according to an analysis by an Environmental Protection Agency scientist. The preliminary findings, based on a survey of 3,600 women conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 1999 and 2002, provide fresh evidence of the link between fish consumption and concentrations of methylmercury, a neurotoxin that causes developmental problems in young children. The study focused on the 10 percent of women with the highest mercury levels, and in that group, it found that inland residents had an average level of 2.4 parts per billion, compared with 5.9 parts per billion for coastal residents. EPA guidelines hold that mercury levels higher than 3.5 parts per billion pose a possible health threat. Mercury, spewed into the air in emissions from power plants and other sources, ends up in water and accumulates in predator fish such as tuna and swordfish. In pregnant women with high levels, methylmercury crosses the placenta and can affect the developing brain of the fetus. "What's evident in these data is there's a real difference between the coastal and non-coastal" women, said Kathryn Mahaffey, who conducted the analysis as director of the EPA's division of exposure assessment, coordination and policy. "The message is people need to eat a variety of foods and, when choosing fish species, they need to choose more than one type of fish." © Copyright 1996-2005 The Washington Post Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior; Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 4: Development of the Brain; Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology
Link ID: 7939 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Petula Dvorak, Washington Post Staff Writer District health officials prowled many of the stores in Adams Morgan yesterday that carry plantain chips, tamarindo candies and other Latino specialties in search of one particular treat that is dangerous to children. The thumb-size shakers of Lucas Limon -- a sweet-and-sour powder made in Mexico that kids love to "waterfall," or knock back whole -- were found in one store earlier this week by a congressional staff member studying dangerous food imports. The 39-cent candy -- meant to be a seasoning for fruit, ice cream or chips -- has been targeted in other cities across the United States after health officials found it contained six to seven times the maximum amount of lead a person can safely consume in one day. Gregg A. Pane, director of the D.C. Department of Health, said no packets of the treat were found yesterday by Health Department employees who visited about a dozen stores along Columbia Road NW. "Hopefully, this was an isolated find," Pane said. One mother who ran into the health workers was surprised by the news yesterday. "Lucas Limon? Yes, I buy that for my kids," said Maria Diaz, who was stopped by a health official while running her errands. © Copyright 1996-2005 The Washington Post Company

Related chapters from BN: Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 7: Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior
Related chapters from MM:Chapter 3: The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology; Chapter 4: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 7278 - Posted: 06.24.2010