basis of recommendations of the Interagency Testing Committee (ITC), which coordinates the needs of government organizations for data on existing chemicals. An ITC subcommittee on endocrine-modulating chemicals has already started work on a group of alkylphenols and alkylphenol ethoxylates that have the potential to cause endocrinemodulating effects. Research has linked several alkylphenols and alkylphenol ethoxylates to proliferation of human estrogen-sensitive breast tumor cells. Others in this group have been shown to stimulate fish to produce a precursor egg yolk protein, vitellogenin, normally produced only in female fish. ITC's most recent recommendations, released November 22, add 28 alkylphenols and alkylphenol ethoxylates to the Priority Testing List, which calls for the release of unpublished data on the chemical composition and environmental fate of these chemicals as well as information on their health and ecological effects, including endocrinemodulating effects. "U.S. government agencies need data on composition, environmental fate, and health and ecological effects. Data on endocrine modulation is just one part of those needs," said Walker. Nine of the alkylphenols and alkylphenol ethoxylates have recent production and importation volumes > 1 million lb, according to TSCA. The other 19 are being recommended because they are structurally similar to the highvolume chemicals. Industrial production of plastics, elastomers, textiles, agricultural chemicals, and paper accounts for 55% of the usage of alkylphenols and alkylphenol ethoxylates; 45% are used in industrial cleaning and household cleaning products. In response to ITC's recommendations, EPA will issue two TSCA rules requiring manufacturers and importers to submit data on production, exposure, and health and safety studies. After the rules are issued, manufacturers and importers have 60 days to comply. ITC will then review the data to decide whether further testing is required. —REBECCA RENNER
NEWS SOCIETY Mohawk environmental health project integrates research into the community Research in the late 1980s found that women in a 12,000-member community of Native Americans living along the St. Lawrence River in New York and Canada had extremely high polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) levels in their breast milk—nearly twice that of control groups. The PCBs had leaked into the St. Lawrence from three aluminum foundries, now Superfund sites, and been taken up by fish, a primary food source for community members of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne. They live on a thin strip of land of less than 25 square miles in Ontario, Quebec, and New York. When researchers at the University at Albany School of Public Health began investigating PCB's effect on humans, they took the unusual step of involving the Mohawks in conducting research and designing the project. The Native Americans and the scientists developed a "new paradigm for how research would be done in the Mohawk community," according to Katsi Cook, an aboriginal midwife and clinical instructor at the university's Department of Environmental Health and Toxicology who led in creating the bridge between the Mohawks and the scientists. Cook's work is now being supported through a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). In this second year of the four-year, $700,000 grant, she will continue to build a community-based health education, outreach, and training program. The NIEHS grant program is one of several federal community assistance programs that have sprung up over the past few years at the urging of environmental justice advocates. NIEHS supports seven community education and training programs in rural and inner-city communities with a wide range of environmental problems. The number of "Partnerships for Communica-
2 0 A • VOL. 30, NO. 1, 1996 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
tion" grants will grow to 12 in the years ahead, according to NIEHS officials. The grants are intended to bring environmental health researchers and health care providers together with community members. What first confronted the Mohawks has in one form or another faced other environmental justice communities: Health problems springing from toxic wastes created by sources outside community control followed by studies
"For generations we've seen anthropologists and social scientists come in, do studies, earn academic laurels, build careers, and do absolutely nothing for the community." —Katsi Cook and cleanup attempts equally out of their control. When the community questions decisions, it is hit with impenetrable scientific and technical jargon. As Cook explained, "For generations we've seen anthropologists and social scientists come in, do studies, earn academic laurels, build careers, and do absolutely nothing for the community." But now, Mohawks are involved as field investigators and members of some dozen university research projects that grew from that first investigation of PCB levels in breast milk. Increased Mohawk involvement was advocated by Cook and actively supported by David Carpenter, dean of the School of Public Health, who led the early PCB research and is a co-investigator on Cook's grant. Carpenter is now beginning a new series of studies of the Mohawks, particularly to examine the impact of PCBs on development and the brain. "Enormous anger" is how
Cook and Carpenter described the Mohawks' response upon learning that dangerous levels of PCBs were in mothers' milk and were caused by fish consumption, which scientists said must end. Both in legend and ceremony, Mohawks celebrate their relationship to the fish of their rivers, Cook said, and now they were being told the solution to their health problems was to not eat the fish. "This was no solution," she said. "This was the last straw for the Indian people." To Mohawks, Cook said, "our society and culture is the environment. It was as if we can't even trust the natural world anymore." Chemical fumes and fears of contamination in and near her home first brought Cook to the university in the early 1980s to seek information. From then on, she began to promote what she calls "sustainable science" that keeps health knowledge in the community even if research projects end. By involving the community, usually women, in designing health surveys and conducting field research, Cook said Mohawks are learning to understand problems and reach solutions. "They are the ones who are the most motivated and have the biggest stake in knowing what the truth is. Grants may dry up, but the knowledge will stay with us." To start, Cook said, community members had to recognize that toxic chemicals are real. To help do this, she brings contaminated soil and water and molecular models of PCB and dioxin to Mohawk ceremonies. There, she has people pass around the models. "They pray for the Earth," she said. At the ceremonies people get sick. "One man said, 'I just want to drink the water because I know my body would clean it.' " Cook has also brought PCBrelated health problems to the attention of health service providers on the reservation, as well as to traditional Mohawk healers, to whom many Mohawks turn. "We sent the community medical providers to toxicological conferences, and our knowledge base has skyrocketed," she said. "They're excited now and are looking at past charts and won-
Mohawk midwife and clinical instructor Katsi Cook (right) with mother and child in PCB breast milk study.
dering if earlier illnesses were related to environmental problems. "Today, we are seeing increased rates of diseases with roots in immune and reproductive systems and neuro-behavioral developments. We see diabetes in teenagers that we used to see only in grandparents and chronic liver problems in people with no history of alcohol use," said Cook. Although much of the earlier work on PCB levels in breast milk has been completed and fish consumption has declined, the legacy of PCB contamination remains.
Carpenter is now in the early phases of two new studies: one focusing on children and looking at PCB blood levels and physical and mental growth and development rates, and the other examining adults' PCB blood levels and possible correlation to a variety of diseases, including mental illness. Animal studies and a few human studies have shown that PCBs can influence the brain in many ways, Carpenter said, in particular by suppressing the neurotransmitter dopamine, which leads to depression. PCBs also can lower intelligence and impair thyroid functions, resulting in less physical and cognitive growth. His study will further explore the relationship between PCB exposure and these effects, particularly looking at the effect of PCBs and its breakdown product compounds on the brain. Meanwhile, over the next three years Cook plans to hold more workshops to train traditional health practitioners and medical clinicians, produce radio programs on health, conduct a survey on health needs, and gauge the success of the overall program. The Mohawks are not "antiexpert," stressed Cook. "We are just tired of an epistemology that is not ours." —JEFF JOHNSON
Environmental justice grants "level the playing field" Over the past few years, the federal government has created a wide range of environmental justice grant programs. In 1995, EPA offered 174 small technica assistance grants to churches, schools, community organizations, and tribal governments. Now in its third year, grants are $20,000 or less and are directec to educational programs and to provide technical assistance to help "level the playing field" when community organizations deal with regulators and industries, EPA officials said. Other EPA environmental justice grants include seven for universities to provide assistance to community groups. About $300,000 each, the one-year grant program began last year {ES&T, Nov. 1995, 491A). The Agency also has several programs to help communities near Superfund sites, as does the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). ATSDR also began the Mississippi Delta Project three years ago with an environmental health needs assessment for 216 counties in a seven-state region bordering the Mississippi River from Illinois to Louisiana. In early January, the assessment will be complete, and in late 1996, the program will initiate several demonstration projects to address environmental health needs. Depending on the results of the demonstrations, ATSDR will began longterm health and environmental outreach programs in 1997. Although directed by ATSDR, the project involves a large number of universities; local health departments; community groups; and federal agencies, including EPA, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control. —JEFF JOHNSON
VOL.30, NO. 1, 1996/ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 2 1 A
