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• New test seen as big advance in diagnosing TB
  Posted: 9/1/2010
  From Yahoo! News:
  
  Scientists are reporting a major advance in diagnosing tuberculosis: A new test can reveal in less than two hours, with very high accuracy, whether someone has the disease and if it's resistant to the main drug for treating it.
  
  The test could revolutionize TB care and replace the 125-year-old process used now, which is slow and misses more than half of all cases, experts say. A better test would be a powerful tool to curb TB in poor countries, where most people spread the lung disease before they are diagnosed and treated, and many don't return for follow-up doctor visits to get test results.
  
  In the United States, it could be a big help in inner city clinics, where diagnosing a drug-resistant strain on someone's first visit enables proper treatment right away.
  
  "You can tell the patient before they leave the office if they have TB and if it's drug-resistant. It's transformational," said Dr. Peter Small, head of TB programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helped fund the work, along with the U.S. government.
  
  The World Health Organization will meet with experts over the next few days to review results and plan steps forward, says a statement from one of its TB experts, Dr. Mario Raviglione.
  
  "These results suggest that it has the potential to revolutionize TB care, and WHO will treat it as a top priority," the statement says.
  
  A study of the test was published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
  
  TB kills about 1.8 million people a year and increasingly is caused by bacteria that are resistant to one or more drugs. The best test -- growing the bacteria in a lab dish from a mucus sample -- takes a week or more, so the most common approach is to look for bacteria in a sample under a microscope. That misses many cases, tells nothing about drug resistance, and doesn't usually give an answer before a patient leaves the clinic.
  
  "It's antiquated," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "If you have 50 patients in a clinic and one person looking at a microscope it could take hours and hours."
  
  The government set out to develop a better test with a host of partners: Cepheid, a California-based diagnostics company; the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, a Swiss-based nonprofit group supported by the Gates Foundation.
  
  The test they devised is simple enough to be done with minimal training. It requires only 15 minutes of manual labor, for taking the mucus sample, mixing it with chemicals and putting it in an inkjet-like cartridge that goes into a machine. The machine amplifies the DNA in the sample and checks for bits of bacterial genes.
  
  The whole process takes less than two hours.
  
  The study tried it on 1,730 patients with suspected TB in Peru, Azerbaijan, South Africa and India. The test successfully identified 98 percent of all confirmed TB cases and 98 percent of ones resistant to rifampin, one of the top drugs to treat the disease.
  
  It correctly picked out nearly three-quarters of TB cases that were mistakenly declared negative from the microscope exam. And it accurately ruled out TB in 99 percent of people who did not have it.
  Read More »
• Diverse diet of veggies may decrease lung cancer risk
  Posted: 9/1/2010
  Adding a variety of vegetables to one's diet may help decrease the chance of getting lung cancer, and adding a variety of fruits and vegetables may decrease the risk of squamous cell lung cancer, especially among smokers.
  
  Study results are published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
  
  "Although quitting smoking is the most important preventive action in reducing lung cancer risk, consuming a mix of different types of fruit and vegetables may also reduce risk, independent of the amount, especially among smokers," said H. Bas Bueno-de-Mesquita, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., senior scientist and project director of cancer epidemiology at The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, The Netherlands.
  
  Using information from the ongoing, multi-centered European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, Bueno- de-Mesquita and colleagues evaluated 452,187 participants with complete information, 1,613 of whom were diagnosed with lung cancer.
  
  Information was obtained on 14 commonly eaten fruits and 26 commonly eaten vegetables. The fruits and vegetables evaluated in the EPIC study consisted of a wide variety of fresh, canned or dried products.
  
  Previous results from the EPIC study showed that the quantity of vegetables and fruits may decrease risk of lung cancer; in particular the risk of one specific type of lung cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, decreased in current smokers.
  
  Regardless of the amount, the researchers on the current studyfound that risk of lung cancer also decreased when a variety of vegetables were consumed. In addition, the risk of squamous cell carcinoma decreased substantially when a variety of fruits and vegetables were eaten. However, Bueno-de-Mesquita said that they "cannot exclude that these results can still be explained by smoking."
  
  "Fruits and vegetables contain many different bioactive compounds, and it makes sense to assume that it is important that you not only eat the recommended amounts, but also consume a rich mix of these bioactive compounds by consuming a large variety," he said.
  
  While previous research has shown the influence of the quantity of fruits and vegetables on cancer development, Stephen Hecht, Ph.D., editorial board member for Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, believes this study is one of the first to evaluate diversity of fruit and vegetable consumption, rather than quantity.
  
  "The results are very interesting and demonstrate a protective effect in smokers. There are still over a billion smokers in the world, and many are addicted to nicotine and cannot stop in spite of their best efforts," added Hecht, who is the Wallin Land Grant Professor of Cancer Prevention at the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota.
  
  Tobacco smoke contains a complex mixture of cancer causing agents. Therefore, a mixture of protective agents is needed to have any beneficial effect in reducing one's chance of lung cancer, Hecht said.
  
  "Nevertheless, the public should be made aware and be reminded that the only proven way to reduce your risk for lung cancer is to avoid tobacco in all its forms," he said.
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• Roll-your-own cigarette machines help evade steep tax
  Posted: 8/30/2010
  WOOD DALE, Ill.-- Scores of tobacco retailers in the U.S. are taking advantage of a federal tax loophole to offer deep discounts on roll-your-own cigarettes. But the practice is attracting scrutiny from regulators and cigarette manufacturers.
  
  At Smoke Zone, a store in this Chicago suburb, customers one recent afternoon flocked to two high-speed rolling machines that produce a carton of cigarettes in eight minutes. The price: $21 -- less than half the cost of a carton of Marlboro cigarettes.
  
  "People have waited an hour for these some days," said Taren DeNicolo, the store's manager.
  
  About 150 tobacco outlets in some 20 states are deploying the novel roll-your-own machines to tempt recession-weary smokers, according to an estimate by one maker of the devices. But some regulators say the stores may be violating U.S. and state laws that govern cigarette manufacturing.
  
  "These machines raise a number of questions," said David Rienzo, an assistant attorney general in New Hampshire, which has sued several retailers alleging they are acting as cigarette manufacturers and should pay applicable fees.
  
  Here's where the tax loophole comes into play: At Smoke Zone and other retailers, The Wall Street Journal found, store employees or customers insert into the machines tobacco labeled "pipe tobacco." This substantially reduces the stores' and smokers' costs because the federal excise tax on pipe tobacco is $2.83 a pound -- compared with $24.78 a pound for the rolling tobacco traditionally used to make hand-rolled cigarettes.
  
  Congress in 2009 sharply raised the federal excise tax on rolling tobacco to help finance the expansion of a children's health-insurance program backed by President Barack Obama.
  
  New Hampshire's Mr. Rienzo said that after the tax increase took effect, "numerous manufacturers that sold roll-your-own [tobacco] said, 'Why not just put a pipe-tobacco label on it, and you won't have to pay the increased federal excise tax?'"
  
  Other companies created new brands they call pipe tobacco but essentially contain the same tobacco as in their roll-your-own products, said Kevin Altman, an independent tobacco-industry consultant in Richmond, Va.
  
  Shargio Patel, president of Inter-Continental Trading USA Inc. in Mount Prospect, Ill., confirmed his company began offering pipe tobacco under its OHM brand that is similar to its rolling tobacco due to the tax increase. "We're just following what other companies are doing," he said.
  
  Some cigarette makers decry the loophole that has created new low-priced competition. "We are complying with the law, but some companies are not doing so in order to gain an unfair advantage," said Ron Bernstein, chief executive of Liggett Vector Brands Inc., a unit of Vector Group Ltd. that is the fifth-largest U.S. cigarette maker by sales.
  
  In the 14 months since the tax increase, the volume of pipe tobacco sold in the U.S. more than tripled to about 21 million pounds, according to data from the U.S. Treasury's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Rolling-tobacco sales volumes, in contrast, fell about 60%.
  
  The tax loophole cost the U.S. government more than $345 million in the first 15 months since the tax increase, estimated Daniel Morris, who tracks tobacco production data for the Oregon Public Health Division.
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• Medicare expands coverage of tobacco cessation
  Posted: 8/26/2010
  From The Hill:
  
  The Obama administration on Wednesday expanded Medicare to cover more seniors hoping to kick their tobacco habits.
  
  "Most Medicare beneficiaries want to quit their tobacco use," Health and Human Services Department (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement announcing the move. "Now, [they] can get the help they need."
  
  Under previous rules, Medicare covered tobacco-related counseling only for beneficiaries already suffering from a tobacco-related disease.
  
  Under the new policy, Medicare will cover as many as two tobacco-cessation counseling tries each year, including as many as four individual sessions per attempt.
  
  The move is the latest in a string of White House efforts to shift the nation's healthcare system toward prevention, in lieu of simply treating diseases after they've developed.
  
  If successful, the new tobacco policy could pay dividends. Of the 46 million Americans estimated to smoke, about 4.5 million are seniors older than 65, HHS says. And nearly 1 million more smokers are younger than 65, but eligible for Medicare benefits.
  
  They aren't cheap. Tobacco-related diseases are estimated to cost Medicare about $800 billion between 1995 and 2015.
  
  Donald Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the expansion lends seniors valuable help "to avoid the painful ? and often deadly ? consequences of tobacco use."
  
  The change affects Medicare Parts A and B ? hospital care and physician services ? but not Part D, which already covers smoking-cessation drugs for all beneficiaries.
  
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• Tobacco companies are reaching out to kids via YouTube, study says
  Posted: 8/26/2010
  From LA Times:
  
  Tobacco advertising are strictly regulated on TV, and portrayals of smoking in movies continue to decline. Where can tobacco companies go to get their brands and products in front of kids?
  
  YouTube, of course.
  
  And apparently they are, according to a study published online Thursday by the journal Tobacco Control.
  
  Researchers from New Zealand identified the 163 most popular and relevant YouTube videos linked to five global cigarette brands -- Marlboro, L&M, Benson and Hedges, Winston and Mild Seven. They found that 71% were pro-tobacco, compared with 4% that were anti-tobacco. (The rest were either neutral, contained a mixture of positive and negative messages or had no clear message about tobacco whatsoever.)
  
  In addition, 71% of the videos analyzed showed people smoking a particular brand of cigarettes. About 18% of the videos included archival footage of old cigarette TV commercials (one 1961 ad featuring Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble smoking Winston cigarettes was especially popular). The next most popular categories were "celebrities/movies," "sports" and "music" -- all themes that tobacco companies have used in the past to appeal to children and teens, the researchers noted.
  
  Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and other cigarette makers "vehemently deny advertising on the Internet," according to the study, and there's no way to verify whether they are responsible -- either directly or indirectly -- for the proliferation of smoking-related videos on YouTube. But there is some circumstantial evidence that the researchers found "disturbing:" Many of the videos appeared to be professionally made, and some included songs and images for which tobacco companies own the copyright, the authors wrote.
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• Pressure Building on Future of 2 Coal-Burning Power Plants
  Posted: 8/6/2010
  From The New York Times:
  
  Mayor Richard M. Daley has repeatedly billed himself as a green mayor and recently vowed to use "every available tool" to reduce the city's carbon footprint, but critics say City Hall has failed to grapple with Chicago's two most significant sources of greenhouse-gas pollution.
  
  For the past decade, public health and environmental advocates have been trying to force Midwest Generation L.L.C. to reduce emissions from its aging Fisk and Crawford coal-burning power plants in the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods, abutting Cermak and Pulaski Roads near the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Yet Mr. Daley has fought City Council efforts to clean up emissions from the plants and has not said whether he will support a new proposal by Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward) to force the plants to reduce emissions.
  
  Together, the plants emit an estimated five million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The agency says particulate matter from coal-burning plants poses a serious public health risk for local residents.
  
  On July 21, Mr. Daley spoke at the official opening of the nation's largest urban solar-energy plant in West Pullman, a plant owned and operated by the Exelon Corporation. His pledge that day to use every means to combat heat-trapping gases drew applause from clean-air groups.
  
  But the same groups question why the 2008 Chicago Climate Action Plan -- which committed the city to sharply reducing its carbon output through sustainable development, renewable energy and energy efficiency -- does not deal with carbon-dioxide emissions from the two coal plants. Public health authorities and clean-air groups say they are among the dirtiest for their size in the nation.
  
  "It's just strange the two largest sources of global-warming pollution in the city aren't really addressed," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. "They're the elephants in the room."
  
  Critics say the action plan is just one of several instances in which the mayor has failed to address pollution from the plants, which were built in the early 1900s and which now have operating systems half a century old.
  
  In 2002, Alderman Edward M. Burke (14th Ward) proposed an ordinance that would have forced the plants to cut their sulfur-dioxide and nitrogen-dioxide emissions by up to 90 percent. But, lacking support from the mayor, the measure never made it out of committee.
  
  Now Alderman Moore has introduced a proposed ordinance that could force the plants either to shut down or to convert to cleaner-burning natural gas. Unlike Mr. Burke's proposal, Mr. Moore's addresses carbon dioxide emissions -- which scientists see as the main culprit in climate change -- along with pollutants that pose an immediate health risk.
  
  Midwest Generation said that the city lacked the authority to regulate the coal plants and that only the state and federal government could do so. If the Moore proposal passes, the company will challenge Chicago's regulatory authority in court, said Charley Parnell, a spokesman for Midwest Generation.
  Read More »
• Teen anti-smoking campaign keeps it cool
  Posted: 7/27/2010
  Surrounding the dirt bike course that was the center of the AST Dew Tour in Soldier Field's parking lot last weekend was a village of marketing booths trying to get young action sports fans to do something: Drink more Mountain Dew or join the National Guard or shop at JCPenney.
  
  But one booth was trying to get youth to stop doing something: smoking. It took a soft-sell approach toward the teens and preteens who strolled past.
  
  "We don't want our message to be preachy," said Jocelynn Jacobs, assistant brand manager with Legacy, a nonprofit anti-smoking organization that developed the Truth campaign that targets youths ages 12 to 17. "We want to message to be like your older brother giving you advice."
  
  With booths, or "Truth trucks," replete with video monitors and deejay decks, they got some attention. Kids crowded around the booth, clamoring for T-shirts emblazoned with facts about the dangers of tobacco. There were no brochures, no lectures, hardly any mention of ciggies at all.
  
  Summer months are important to get the message out because that's when most young people take their first puffs, said Jacobs. The campaign, born a decade ago in response to the tobacco industry's marketing, attempts to combat the advertising efforts of big tobacco. The goal is to convince youths that smoking isn't cool and not smoking is.
  
  There is evidence that the approach is effective, said Joel Africk, president and CEO of the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, a century-old not-for-profit that helps those with lung disease, promotes healthy lungs and assists those trying to quit smoking.
  
  "Ninety percent of all smokers start as kids," Africk said. "If we can stop them before they start, that will have a big effect overall." The rate of teen smoking declined for many years, he said, but, "Around 2003 or 2004, it plateaued. We're trying to jump-start that so the rate declines again."
  
  Communicating the message effectively is key to that, Africk said. Smoking's effect on the pocketbook is another significant deterrent to teen smoking, he said. Especially in Illinois, where the cigarette tax ($3.66 combined state, county and city taxes on cigarette sales) is the second-highest in the nation, behind New York.
  
  Still, some 3,500 children light up for the first time each day in this nation, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. That adds up to more than 1.2 million new fresh-faced puffers each year.
  
  A recent study suggests those new smokers could be hanging out at convenience stores and other retail outlets. Teens exposed to smoking ads at retailers are more likely to smoke, according to the study, by Stanford University School of Medicine and published in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics.
  
  In the steamy Soldier Field parking lot last weekend, a group of peppy Truth campaign workers enlisted the young people in Simon says and a limbo contest. They persuaded one girl to spin a hula-hoop while collecting her friends' e-mail address. Male Truth campaign workers, sporting earrings and dreadlocks, buddied up to crowd members while their female counterparts managed to keep the attention of smitten boys.
  
  True to their word, there was no heavy-handed preaching about smoking.
  
  "We're not much older than these kids," said Sanni Youboty, 24. "We respect their opinions and decision-making."
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• It's hot out there
  Posted: 7/16/2010
  The mercury is rising, and before you reply, "Duh - it's July," keep in mind that heat kills more Americans every year than do hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods and lightning combined, according to AARP.
  
  Temperatures are expected to hit 90 or higher every day through Sunday, and the National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory that includes Will County, saying the heat index - a measure of the combined effects of heat and humidity - could rise to 105 degrees. Kane County also issued an extreme heat watch for residents, and Cook County advised residents to limit outdoor exertion and drink plenty of fluids.
  
  Since last summer had only four 90-degree days, here's a refresher on what to do:
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• When breathing isn't easy: Living with COPD
  Posted: 7/16/2010
  Alice Nulle of Woodstock has been attending regular rehabilitation sessions for five years, dealing with the effects of a disease that is the fourth-leading cause of death in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But she still spends time explaining what the disease entails to people she encounters.
  
  "When you say you have COPD, a lot of people say, 'Well, what's that?' " Nulle said.
  
  Of the estimated 24 million people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the United States, only half are diagnosed, said Eileen Lowery, manager of the lung health initiative for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago.
  
  COPD is a combination of two main conditions -- emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Individuals with the disease struggle to breathe and often develop a cough, wheezing and chest tightness, the conditions worsening with time.
  
  "People don't notice the symptoms because they are kind of insidious," Lowery said. "They don't ask their physicians to test them for COPD, so they don't know they have it."
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• Stolen inhalers pose risk
  Posted: 7/16/2010
  From U.S. FDA:
  
  The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use inhalers stolen from a Virginia warehouse after some of the pilfered medicine turned up in some pharmacies.
  
  The stolen Advair Diskus inhalers (fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder) were found recently - the first batch known to have hit the supply chain since the August 2009 theft. As the investigation continues, FDA officials warned the public that more of the stolen inhalers could still be on the market.
  
  Used to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the stolen medicine may itself pose a health risk, FDA experts say. The inhalers may have been stored at improper temperatures or humidity levels - or they might have been contaminated or lost potency.
  
  More than 25,000 of the inhalers were stolen from drug maker GlaxoSmithKline's distribution center near Richmond, Va., last year. They are set to expire in September.
  
  FDA experts are advising anyone who uses the Advair Diskus inhaler to check the label for the following lot numbers:
  - Lot 9ZP2255 - NDC 0173-0696-00, Advair Diskus 250/50, 60 Dose
  - Lot 9ZP3325 - NDC 0173-0697-00, Advair Diskus 500/50, 60 Dose
  
  Patients who have inhalers with matching lot numbers should discontinue use and call GlaxoSmithKline's Customer Response Center at 888-825-5249. Consumers should also contact their physicians or pharmacists to obtain a replacement.
  
  FDA is also asking the public to report suspicious or unsolicited offers for the Advair Diskus lots in question by contacting the agency's Office of Criminal Investigations.
  
  Read More »
• Chicago's growing clean power campaign
  Posted: 7/15/2010
  From The Huffington Post:
  
  How green is Chicago?
  
  Thanks to a growing ward-by-ward grassroots campaign for clean energy, the Windy City has attracted the attention of national environmental and citizens organizations to ask that very question.
  
  On Thursday, July 15th at Dvorak Park, Alderman Joe Moore and Dorian Breuer, of the Pilsen Environmental Rights & Reform Organization, will be joined by an unusually broad coalition of fellow aldermen, clean energy and health care activists, and over 50 Chicago organizations, along the Sierra Club's Executive Director Michael Brune and Greenpeace National Climate Director Damon Moglen to call on Mayor Daley and the Chicago City Council to adopt the nationally acclaimed Clean Power Coalition energy platform.
  
  Thirteen aldermen have signed onto Moore's breakthrough Clean Power Ordinance, which calls for reducing pollution at the city's two notorious coal-fired plants by 90 percent.
  
  With one of the worst asthma rates in the nation, the Fisk Generation Station in Pilsen and Crawford Power Plant in Little Village--where nearly 50,000 tons of toxic pollution have led to atrocious health care rates over the past three years--were built before the invention of the Model T.
  
  The CO emissions from the two plants are equivalent to the pollution of nearly 875,000 cars.
  
  Over the past seven years, the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO)has been leading "toxic tours" for researchers, journalists, politicians and city officials. LVEJO notes:
  
  According to a report compiled by the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, Chicago ranks second among all cities in the country adversely affected by power plant pollution, leading to 855 premature deaths, 848 hospitalizations, 1,519 heart attacks and 23,650 asthma attacks. The report also states that according to EPA officials, fine particle pollution from power plants shortens the lives of 1,356 Illinoisans every year, citing Crawford and Fisk as two main pollutants.
  
  Today's press conference brings Chicago's leading clean energy effort to the forefront of several national campaigns to transition away from fossil fuels. Says Lan Richart, with the Eco-Justice Collaborative:
  
  The decisions by the national offices of Sierra Club and Greenpeace to make the Chicago Clean Power Campaign a priority are signs that not only is the campaign gaining momentum, but it is part of a growing recognition across the country that our addiction to fossil fuels is literally killing us. The on-going oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the recent mining disaster in West Virginia, the destruction of the Appalachian mountains by mountaintop removal coal mining and the poisoning of our air in Chicago should shake us to the core. How loud must our wake-up call be before we act?
  
  
We are calling on Mayor Daley and the members of the Chicago City Council to demonstrate that they are serious about making Chicago a green city. Right now the Clean Power Ordinance is bottled up in the Rules Committee. With the entry of the national offices of Greenpeace and Sierra Club into the campaign, we are sending a message to our city leaders that the public call to clean up the power plants is growing and the issue is not going to go away.
  
  For more information, visit the Clean Power Campaign.
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• Clean coal dream a costly nightmare
  Posted: 7/11/2010
  Sold on a promise of cheap, clean electricity, dozens of communities in Illinois and eight other Midwest states instead are facing more expensive utility bills after bankrolling a new coal-fired power plant that will be one of the nation's largest sources of climate-change pollution.
  
  As the Prairie State Energy Campus rises out of a Downstate field, its price tag already has more than doubled to $4.4 billion -- costs that will largely be borne by municipalities including the suburbs of Naperville, Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles and Winnetka.
  
  The communities are locked into 28-year contracts that will require higher electricity rates to cover the construction overruns, documents and interviews show. Municipal officials told the Tribune they expect costs to soar even higher before the plant begins operating next year.
  
  Then there are the environmental costs of the project, which was designed by St. Louis-based Peabody Energy, the world's largest private coal company, to burn fossil fuel from one of its nearby coal mines.
  
  Though the company and its partners promote the plant as a national model for environmentally friendly "clean coal" technology, Prairie State will be the largest source of carbon dioxide built in the United States in a quarter-century.
  
  Each year, it will churn more than 13 million tons of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, an amount equivalent to adding 2 million cars to the nation's highways. Most U.S. power plants emitting that much climate-change pollution date to the 1960s and '70s.
  
  The pollution also could make the plant more expensive to operate. Climate and energy legislation pending in Congress would slap a price on greenhouse-gas emissions, requiring Prairie State's owners to spend hundreds of millions more a year. Local officials didn't account for those costs when buying into the plant.
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• EPA lags on setting some air standards, report finds
  Posted: 6/27/2010
  From The New York Times:
  
  WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency is 10 years behind schedule in setting guidelines for a host of toxic air pollutants, according to a report from the agency's inspector general.
  
  The report, which was released last week, found that the agency had failed to develop emissions standards, due in 2000, for some sources of hazardous air pollutants. These included smaller sites often located in urban areas, like dry cleaners and gas stations, but also some chemical manufacturers.
  
  The inspector general also found that the agency had not met targets outlined in a 1999 planning document, the Integrated Urban Air Toxics Strategy, including tracking urban dwellers' risk of developing health problems from exposure to pollutants.
  
  Some experts said the failures were persisting largely because the E.P.A.'s Office of Air and Radiation, which is responsible for regulating air pollutants, lacked the money needed to meet its deadlines.
  
  In a written response to the report, E.P.A. officials also said budget cuts had made it difficult to meet their deadlines, noting that "air toxics support has been cut over 70 percent" since 2001.
  
  In the past, the Government Accountability Office has found that the low priority for the air toxics program and limited financing were in part to blame for the agency's failure to stay on schedule.
  
  Frank O'Donnell, the president of Clean Air Watch, an environmental watchdog group based in Washington, said the inspector general's report made clear that "the issue of breathing cancer-causing chemicals in city air is something of an orphan issue."
  
  For example, the agency's last assessment of the risk of toxic air pollutants is based on emissions data from 2002. That analysis found that 1 in 28,000 people, or 36 in 1 million, could develop cancer from lifetime exposure to air toxics from outdoor sources. That number is an average, however, and people living in densely populated cities may face a higher risk.
  
  The people most exposed, Mr. O'Donnell said, "are probably not out in the wheat farms -- they're going to be people living near where the bus depots are."
  
  Jeffrey Holmstead, who was assistant administrator for air and radiation at the E.P.A. from 2001 to 2005, said that even though Congress increased the agency's budget when it passed significant amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990, the E.P.A. still did not have enough money to fulfill all its requirements.
  
  "It's fair to point out that the E.P.A. has not met its statutory deadlines," Mr. Holmstead said. "But there are hundreds and hundreds of statutory deadlines that the E.P.A. hasn't met. Even though E.P.A. has a fairly large budget, it's not big enough to do everything the E.P.A folks are supposed to do."
  
  In the past, Mr. Holmstead has represented semiconductor, aerospace and chemical companies as an environmental lawyer. He is now a partner at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, where his clients include oil companies and others in the energy sector.
  
  James S. Pew, a lawyer with the environmental law group Earthjustice, said that the E.P.A. had the financing it needed, and that it undercut itself by moving money away from the division that specifically deals with air toxics. "This is a situation where the lack of resources is just not a valid excuse," Mr. Pew said.
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• Chicago health officials praise anti-smoking rules
  Posted: 6/22/2010
  From The Associated Press:
  
  CHICAGO - Health officials in Chicago are lauding federal regulations taking effect Tuesday that limit tobacco marketing to kids.
  
  The Family Smoking and Prevention act includes new restrictions on the sale and promotion of tobacco. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin says the reforms end decades of tobacco industry deceit and targeting children.
  
  The regulations include larger health warnings on smokeless tobacco. They also require stores to place tobacco products behind the counter, and ban cigarette marketing terms such as "light," ''mild," and "low-tar."
  
  Dr. Bechara Choucair of Chicago's public health department notes that tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death. He says the act will help persuade people to avoid cigarettes and to quit smoking.
  
  Joel Africk at the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago says the regulations will save lives.
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• 'My purpose'
  Posted: 6/9/2010
  From Northwest Herald:
  
  Ann Baker never smoked.
  
  It's a fact that the Cary resident feels compelled to clarify on a regular basis. That's because about two years ago, she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.
  
  "As you start to tell family and friends, people are very confused," Baker said. "The comments are, 'You never smoked, did you?' There's a lot of misunderstanding."
  
  She said that even CT scan technicians would ask, "Are you a smoker?"
  
  "It became almost a point of contention with me," Baker said. "I would say, 'No. I'm not a smoker, and what difference does it possibly make?' "
  
  The conversations also gave her an insight into what it must be like for smokers who get the disease.
  
  "It's no less devastating for them," Baker said.
  "In fact, I feel worse, because they do feel the guilt and the shame."
  
  And regardless of what led to the cancer, the odds never are good. For Baker, they're especially bad. In her condition, only 2 percent of patients live past the five-year mark.
  
  "I've come to a place that recognizes ... we're here to do something good for the people that we leave behind," Baker said.
  
  "So with my kids, my family, [I] make things count."
  
  Baker first noticed her own symptoms during a walk for a different cancer -- the Avon Breast Cancer Walk. She was having trouble breathing and thought she had a cold.
  
  After numerous tests and treatments without success, she had a lung biopsy performed; during the surgery, doctors discovered the cancer.
  
  "I was shocked more than anything else," Baker said. "It probably took me two months before I could actually say the phrase, 'I have lung cancer' to someone because I just didn't believe it."
  
  She's a come long way since then, though. Now as an advocate for awareness of the disease, Baker has raised money by doing half of the Hustle up the Hancock, become involved with the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, and met with legislators in Washington, D.C.
  
  "It's sort of become my purpose," she said. "I have three kids, and I want there to be better research and treatments out there. I want there to be screening so they don't have to get this diagnosis so late."
  
  Specifically, she'd like to see more money go to lung cancer research and screening ideas, because right now a lot of the funding goes to anti-smoking campaigns.
  
  "The biggest belief is that if you just got people to stop smoking, lung cancer would go away," she said. "[But] there's got to be more research ... we've got to understand why lung cancer is occurring."
  
  Joel Africk, president and CEO of the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago points out that in 2009, more women died in the U.S. from lung cancer than who died from breast, cervical and ovarian cancer combined -- 70,490 compared with 58,840, according to the American Cancer Society.
  
  A lack of awareness of that fact is part of the reason his organization has started a campaign that targets women.
  
  It features a pink butterfly and the slogan "Catch your breath."
  
  "We don't want people to think of lung cancer as only affecting old smokers," Africk said. "Ann's story reminds us very vividly that lung cancer can strike any of us."
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