Halt the Harm Webinar — May 18th @ 7 PM

Webinar scheduled by the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (EHP) and Halt the Harm Network, May 18, 2021 at 7 PM

WEBINAR— “Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals and Shale Gas Development”

Presenters include Chris Kassotis, PhD, of Wayne State University, and Laura Vandenberg, PhD, of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The webinar will be moderated by EHP’s medical advisor, Ned Ketyer, MD, FAAP.

​This live webinar will take place on Tuesday, May 18 from 7 – 8:30 p.m. EDT. Register here for the webinar​.

What you’ll get from this webinar presentation:
1. A better understanding of how environmental exposure affects growth and development
2. Background knowledge to equip you in advocating for stronger regulation and policies to protect health
3. How to mitigate exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)

About the presenters:

>>> Dr. Chris Kassotis is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Department of Pharmacology at Wayne State University in Detroit. He completed his PhD at the University of Missouri working with Susan Nagel and Fred vom Saal to assess unconventional oil and gas operations as a novel source of endocrine disrupting chemicals and potential for adverse human and animal health outcomes. During a postdoc at Duke University, he assessed the metabolic health disruption potential of complex chemical mixtures (e.g. indoor house dust) via a combination of cell and zebrafish models. Now in his own laboratory, he is funded with a K99/R00 award from NIEHS to better evaluate metabolic health risks from exposure to various ethoxylated surfactants, used in hard surface cleaners, detergents, and also in hydraulic fracturing. His lab is focused on identifying and characterizing novel endocrine disrupting chemicals from diverse sources, including unconventional oil and gas operations, and evaluating potential health effects from these exposures.

>>> Dr. Laura N. Vandenberg is an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Her work addresses how low doses of chemicals during critical windows of development can alter gene expression, cell differentiation, and tissue organization in subtle ways that can lead to adult diseases such as cancer, obesity, and infertility. She is specifically interested in endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and has worked extensively with chemicals used as plasticizers and flame retardants. Her work also focuses on how traditional toxicology assays have failed to identify a number of ubiquitous endocrine disruptors, and how current risk assessment practices can be improved in the study and regulation of this class of chemicals.

>>> Dr. Ned Ketyer is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-area pediatrician. Dr. Ketyer enjoyed 26 years in private practice before retiring from patient care in 2017. He remains a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health and is a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Pennsylvania. Dr. Ketyer is a consultant for the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, bringing attention to the health impacts of fracking in the Marcellus Shale gas patch.

​Register here for the webinar (Tuesday, May 18 from 7 – 8:30 p.m. EDT)​

About these webinars: This upcoming webinar is part of our training series… short webinars brought to you by members of Halt the Harm’s leader directory. These programs are short, focused on tangible skills or information that you can use to be more effective in your campaigns protecting yourself from the oil & gas industry. If you have a presentation, campaign, skill, or tool to share with the network, please reply and let’s start the conversation.

>>> Sincerely, Ryan Clover, Halt the Harm Network, Halttheharm.net

A doctor for every gland in the body?

Authors: Ashley L. Bolden, Kim Schultz, Katherine E. Pelch and Carol F. Kwiatkowski

Reference: Environmental Health, 17:26, 2018 — https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-018-0368-z

Manuscript Received: 4 September 2017; Accepted: 20 February 2018; Published: 21 March 2018

Background

In the last decade unconventional oil and gas (UOG) extraction has rapidly proliferated throughout the United States (US) and the world. This occurred largely because of the development of directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing which allows access to fossil fuels from geologic formations that were previously not cost effective to pursue. This process is known to use greater than 1,000 chemicals such as solvents, surfactants, detergents, and biocides. In addition, a complex mixture of chemicals, including heavy metals, naturally-occurring radioactive chemicals, and organic compounds are released from the formations and can enter air and water. Compounds associated with UOG activity have been linked to adverse reproductive and developmental outcomes in humans and laboratory animal models, which is possibly due to the presence of endocrine active chemicals.

Methods

Using systematic methods, electronic searches of PubMed and Web of Science were conducted to identify studies that measured chemicals in air near sites of UOG activity. Records were screened by title and abstract, relevant articles then underwent full text review, and data were extracted from the studies. A list of chemicals detected near UOG sites was generated. Then, the potential endocrine activity of the most frequently detected chemicals was explored via searches of literature from PubMed.

Results

Evaluation of 48 studies that sampled air near sites of UOG activity identified 106 chemicals detected in two or more studies. Ethane, benzene and n-pentane were the top three most frequently detected. Twenty-one chemicals have been shown to have endocrine activity including estrogenic and androgenic activity and the ability to alter steroidogenesis. Literature also suggested that some of the air pollutants may affect reproduction, development, and neurophysiological function, all endpoints which can be modulated by hormones. These chemicals included aromatics (i.e., benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene), several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and mercury.

Conclusion

These results provide a basis for prioritizing future primary studies regarding the endocrine disrupting properties of UOG air pollutants, including exposure research in wildlife and humans. Further, we recommend systematic reviews of the health impacts of exposure to specific chemicals, and comprehensive environmental sampling of a broader array of chemicals.