Rachel's Precaution Reporter #83
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

From: The Telegraph (UK) ..................................[This story printer-friendly]
March 28, 2007

EATING BEEF COULD THREATEN SONS' FERTILITY

[Rachel's introduction: Today, a team of scientists says women who ate a lot of beef while pregnant bore sons who were more likely to suffer from poor sperm quality and suggests that the growth promoters used in cattle may be responsible.]

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

The sons of women who regularly ate beef during pregnancy are more likely to have low sperm counts, according to a report published today.

Copenhagen University researchers concluded that sperm counts were falling in the West more than a decade ago and exposure to pesticides and industrial chemicals have long been under suspicion, with principle suspects including "gender-bender" chemicals that act like the human sex hormones.

Today, an American team concludes that women who ate a lot of beef while pregnant had sons who were more likely to suffer from poor sperm quality and suggest that the growth promoters used in cattle may be responsible.

The study of men living in the USA and born between 1949 and 1983 revealed that those whose mothers ate more than seven beef meals a week had a sperm concentration that was more than 24 per cent lower than in men whose mothers ate less beef.

In addition, three times more sons of high beef consumers had a sperm concentration that would be classified as sub-fertile by World Health Organization standards, in comparison to men whose mothers ate less beef.

One British expert said that the findings are "alarming." Another added: "Don't mess with growth promoters is the obvious take home message."

But others were sceptical about findings which were based on asking women how often they ate beef decades ago.

Prof Shanna Swan, lead author of the study published in the journal Human Reproduction, said: "These findings suggest that maternal beef consumption is associated with lower sperm concentration and possible sub-fertility, associations that may be related to the presence of anabolic steroids and other xenobiotics (foreign chemicals) in beef.

"Theoretically, the foetus and young children are particularly sensitive to exposure to sex steroids. Therefore, the consumption of residues of steroids in meat by pregnant women and young children is of particular concern."

But while the study results revealed a significant link between the lowest sperm counts and mothers who were the highest beef consumers, researchers could not pinpoint hormones, pesticides or other environmental chemicals as a direct cause.

"What we're really doing here is raising an issue," said Prof Swan, who is director of the Centre for Reproductive Epidemiology at the University of Rochester, New York.

"The average sperm concentration of the men in our study went down as their mothers' beef intake went up."

Prof Swan and her colleagues recruited couples to the study when the pregnant women attended prenatal clinics between 1999 and 2005. As well as asking questions about the couples themselves (medical histories, lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and diet), the researchers requested the men to ask their mothers to fill in a brief questionnaire about their diet while pregnant with their sons.

The men also provided semen samples. Out of 773 men who provided samples, information was available for 387 on how many beef meals their mothers ate during their pregnancies.

Prof Swan said: "The number of beef meals consumed by the mother was significantly and inversely related to her son's sperm concentration. Sons of high beef consumers had an average sperm concentration of 43.1 million sperm per millimetre of seminal fluid, while sons of mothers who ate less beef had an average of 56.9 million sperm -- a statistically significant difference of 24.3 per cent.

"Among sons of mothers whose beef consumption was not high, only 5.7 per cent had sperm concentration below the WHO threshold for sub- fertility of 20 million sperm per millimetre of seminal fluid. This was significantly less than the 17.7 per cent of men whose mothers were high beef consumers who fell below this threshold.

"The proportion of men with sub-fertile sperm concentration and of men with a history of possible sub-fertility increased the more beef meals the mothers had eaten while pregnant. These findings suggest that maternal beef consumption is associated with lower sperm concentration and possible sub-fertility.

"However, I must point out that most mothers in this study lived in North America and our findings may not apply to other regions. In addition, pesticides, other contaminants and lifestyle factors correlating with greater beef consumption may play a role in the effect we observed.

"In order to clarify whether prenatal exposure to anabolic steroids is responsible for our findings, this study needs to be repeated in men born in Europe after 1988 when growth promoters were no longer permitted in beef sold or produced there." The study was not devised for making recommendations, she added.

"However, if a pregnant woman is concerned and wants to take precautionary action, there are a few things she can do that may lower risk and probably are not harmful. She might restrict her consumption to organic beef. She can also reduce the amount of beef she consumes while pregnant, if she is careful to eat sufficient protein from other sources."

Dr Allan Pacey at The University of Sheffield, said: "That hormones given to cattle might have lowered the sperm counts of adult men because their mothers ate a lot of beef when they were pregnant with them, is alarming to say the least. This clearly needs to be investigated further."

Prof Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council's Human Reproductive Sciences Unit, Edinburgh, said: "This is a serious scientific study conducted in the most rigorous fashion, so it needs to be taken seriously.

"The difficulty in repeating the study in Europe with men whose mums conceived them after the ban on use of growth promoters in animals is that we know that such young men have remarkably low sperm counts overall, probably unrelated to meat consumption by their mothers, so this may not prove possible to do.

"Also we should be looking at a similar study in relation to chicken consumption years ago as DES was used very widely for growth promotion in chickens whereas various growth promoters were used in cattle. Don't mess with growth promoters is the obvious take home message."

But others were sceptical. Alastair Hay, Professor of Environmental Toxicology, University of Leeds, said: "There are major difficulties with this type of study not the least of which is asking a woman how often she ate beef whilst pregnant 25-30 years ago. We have no idea how much beef she ate which would be important to know. At the very least this study should prompt further investigations." Today's news

Copyright Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007

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From: The Telegraph (UK) ..................................[This story printer-friendly]
March 28, 2007

DON'T MESS WITH HORMONES, EXPERT WARNS

[Rachel's introduction: A new report on men in the U.S. finds low sperm counts correlate with eating beef, and a well-known British scientist advises a precautionary approach to hormone-treated meat.]

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

The relevance of this work to the UK is open to question, according to Professor Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council's Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh.

"I don't think that in Europe we ever used these chemicals to quite such the same extent as in the United States," he said.

However, Prof Sharpe said there was no doubt that sperm counts in young men across Europe "are very low on average".

Although there is no clear explanation, he said there was mounting evidence "that if you mess around with hormones of the male baby in the womb there are going to be consequences, one of which is to affect sperm counts and fertility".

But to prove a single chemical is responsible is "an impossible task," Prof Sharpe added.

The latest studies from Europe and America show that mixtures of hormone-like chemicals, each of which is at levels thought to have no effect, can have significant effects when they act in concert.

"Individual chemicals are probably not to blame while mixtures are almost certain to have some effect," Prof Sharpe said.

Over the years, growth promoters used in America have changed from those with a female hormone-like action to having a male action, he said.

In Europe, the use of these hormones has been banned since 1988 and there has been an EU-wide ban of US beef.

Prof Sharpe said today's news "will be music to the EU's ears because of its fight with the US on embargoing imports of their meat".

Growth promoters for cattle, such as the synthetic hormone diethylstilbestrol (DES), have been used in the USA since 1954.

Although DES was banned for use in cattle in 1979, other hormones such as oestradiol, testosterone, progesterone, zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengestrol continue to be used.

Residues of these chemicals remain in the meat after slaughter, so American authorities have regulated their use to avoid unintended adverse effects in humans eating the meat and defined an "acceptable daily intake".

Acceptable intakes are, however, based on traditional toxicological testing "and the possible effects on human populations exposed to residues of anabolic sex hormones through meat consumption have never, to our knowledge, been studied," said Prof Shanna Swan, author of the new work.

Copyright Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007

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From: The Register (London, England) .....................[This story printer-friendly]
March 28, 2007

UK GOVERNMENT SLATED BY OWN BOFFINS ON NANOTECH POLICY

Teeny stuff, big issues

[Rachel's introduction: A new report from the British government's own Council for Science and Technology criticizes British policy on nanotechnology for paying too little attention to harm from this new technology.]

By Lewis Page

The UK government has been castigated by its own picked scientists for spending too much on research into developing nanotechnology and not enough on looking into its dangers.

The Council for Science and Technology (CST), "the UK government's top-level advisory body on science and technology policy issues", says the government has committed £90m to the nanotech industry for 2003-09, but only £3m on checking out "toxicology and the health and environmental impacts of nanomaterials".

In a report (300Kb PDF) released yesterday, the top-level advisory boffins expressed their disappointment that the government hadn't stuck to its original plans to take a precautionary approach to nanotech development. Indeed, the scientists seemed to feel at times that there was a wider-ranging problem with the UK's attitude to technology.

"CST also wishes to highlight a more generic issue concerning the way in which government identifies, funds, and manages obstacles to the exploitation of new technologies," it wrote. "The balance between research that develops new applications of nanotechnologies and that which provides the necessary underpinning for its safe and responsible development must be addressed."

But the scientists were scrupulously fair, with harsh words for their academic colleagues too.

"There is no guarantee that the research necessary to public safety and the research that interests the scientific community will be identical."

This has been true ever since the first mad professor set up his dungeon laboratory, of course. Any scientist worth his salt would rather work out how to make dead flesh live again than write up the safety case for doing it. Even so, it's nice to see boffins finally admitting this.

The CST certainly isn't bashing the idea of nanotech in general. It admits that "Greenpeace and the Soil Association suggest that a moratorium is a necessary part of any precautionary approach", but it doesn't agree.

This is unsurprising given that one of the report's principal authors, Dr Sue Ion, holds a senior slot at British Nuclear Fuels and the rest seem to be similarly hardcore pro-technology types.

Indeed, one of the CST's main arguments for research into nanomaterial toxicology is that it would allow "nanoremediation", the use of new nano wonder-substances to clean up previous, old-fashioned environmental disasters.

For instance, it seems that PCB contamination might be neutralised using nanoparticles of iron: but it would clearly make sense to find out whether nano-iron is bad for people first. The report recommends a minimum £5-6m per annum of government funding for this kind of research.

Essentially, the CST's idea seems to be that nanotechnology can't develop and be used without a knowledge of the risks and the likely regulatory framework.

The report's authors reckon that as recently as 2004 the UK was "seen as a world leader in its engagement with nanotechnologies". But the British now risk becoming nano also-rans, well-armed with ideas but no idea whether they're safe.

The CST concludes that "the UK is losing that leading position and falling behind in its engagement with this fast developing field, primarily due to a distinct lack of government activity".

Copyright Copyright 2007

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From: Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia) .........[This story printer-friendly]
March 26, 2007

PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE ON TRIAL IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

[Rachel's introduction: In British Columbia, the Tsawwassen indigenous people have gone to court to try to stop a major electric power line from crossing their land. They are using precautionary arguments.]

By Andrew A Duffy, Times Colonist

Day one of the B.C. Court of Appeal hearings into the $230-million Vancouver Island Transmission Reinforcement project dealt a blow to Tsawwassen residents hoping to re-route the work.

A three-judge panel ruled it will not consider whether existing right- of-way agreements permit the construction of new overhead transmission lines in Tsawwassen, as it felt the question does not fall within its jurisdiction.

That means the only question the court will consider is whether the precautionary principle must be applied by the B.C. Utilities Commission when rendering decisions on projects such as this one.

The precautionary principle says when there is an element of doubt -- as in questions of whether high-voltage power lines increase the risk of developing cancers -- courts should err on the side of safety.

The panel heard the submission from the Tsawwassen Residents Against High Voltage Overhead Lines Monday, and on Tuesday will hear from project proponent B.C. Transmission Corp.

"That came as a surprise to us," said corporation spokeswoman Donna McGeachie of the dismissal of the right-of-way issue. "We were anticipating it would be discussed."

The Court of Appeal has suggested its ruling will be released within three weeks.

The project intends to replace the aging, 51-year-old power lines that link Vancouver Island to the mainland's electricity grid.

B.C. Transmission Corp. has said the old submerged cables, which provide about 10 per cent of the electricity to Vancouver Island, will be unreliable after the fall of this year.

The new lines, which will carry five times as much electricity as the unreliable old ones, are expected to be in service by October 2008.

Copyright 2007 CanWest Interactive

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From: Daily News (Sri Lanka) .............................[This story printer-friendly]
March 23, 2007

PREVENTIVE CONFINEMENT AND THE SECURITY OF STATE

[Rachel's introduction: With President Bush invading Iraq and denying prisoners the right of habeas corpus -- all in the name of precautionary action -- advocates for the precautionary principle need to think deeply about the precautionary principle in relation to preventive war and preventive detention.]

By Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne

MISTAKE: As little ones in school, one of the stories that we revelled in was Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. In one instance, we find Alice being confused by an argument adduced by the queen in support of preventive confinement. The queen tells Alice that the king's messenger is in prison, being punished and the trial does not even begin until the following week.

The messenger is being incarcerated for a crime he was yet to commit. "Suppose he never commits the crime?" asks Alice. "That would be all the better, wouldn't it?" says the queen. Alice does not agree.

"Were you ever punished"? The queen asks Alice. "Only for faults" says Alice. "And you were all the better for it" the queen retorts. "Yes, but then I had done the things I was punished for" says Alice, "and that makes all the difference".

Dilemma The queen is triumphant: "but if you had not done them, that would have been even better still".

And Alice thinks to herself, "there is a mistake here somewhere". Mistake indeed. This puts all of us who live in the modern world in a dilemma between proactively pre-empting a calculating evildoer on the one hand, and honouring the most fundamental tenet of democracy which says that preventively confining someone is antithetical to the tenets of civil liberty and erodes the fundamental right of a person to liberty, on the other.

United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson exhorted this principle years ago when he said that the jailing of persons by the courts because of anticipated but yet uncommitted crimes could not be reconciled with traditional American law and is fraught with danger of excess.

There have certainly been exceptions to this principle. One is called the "dangerous person approach" based on self defence.

Principle

A striking example of this is found in the closing argument of John Adams on behalf of the British soldiers accused to have carried out the Boston massacre, when he said that the first and strongest principle is to prevent our own deaths by killing those about to attack us.

However, to resort to an extreme measure such as preventive confinement, one has to have compelling and incontrovertible evidence of the guilt of a person beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Immanuel Kant, the eighteenth century German philosopher, in his book Metaphysical Elements of Justice, said that it is intolerable to impose punishment for a future crime, as judicial punishment must always be imposed for a crime that has already been committed.

There is no doubt that we live in interesting times, when we propound our own principles that are calculated to cocoon us from evil and terror. One such is the "precautionary principle" which the New York Times called one of the most important ideas of 2001.

The precautionary principle has its genesis in environmental protection and is founded on the theory that it is morally justifiable to take precaution against environmental damage.

This has now been extended to respond to threats to liberty and security. However, the question is, to what extent can we spread the precautionary principle over the canvass of the law?

We have created laws that justify our confining potential evildoers, on the basis that we are preventing acts against the security of the State by doing so.

In the United Kingdom, in the 1942 case of Liversidge v. Anderson, the House of Lords considered Defence Regulation 18B which allowed the Home Secretary to order a person detained if he has reasonable course to believe that such a person was of hostile origin or association. The majority decision in this case was to the effect that if the Home Secretary thinks he has good cause that was good enough.

The dissenting judgment of Lord Atkin, who was of the view that judges should not be more executive minded than the executive, was later upheld in the appellate stage of the 1951 Sri Lankan case Nakkuda Ali v. Jayaratne where the court held that such a power, to detain persons, must be exercised on objectively reasonable grounds.

In the United States, of corresponding analogy is the wartime experience where 120,000 Japanese persons were placed in detention camps during the second world war. In 1988, the United States Congress passed legislation to the effect that the prisoners had largely been detained under racial and other subjective motivation which were determinants of a weak political leadership.

There are instances where a State can be defended for invoking preventive detention based on the overarching principle of social contract by which the citizens charge the State with the responsibility of ensuring their security.

Social Contract describes a broad class of philosophical theories whose subject is the implied agreements by which people form nations and maintain social order.

Social contract theory provides the rationale behind the historically important notion that legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed which, in other words means that a democratic State is precluded from enacting draconian laws against the civil liberty of citizens unless with the consent of the people.

The first modern philosopher to articulate a detailed contract theory was Thomas Hobbes, who contended that people in a state of nature ceded their individual rights to create sovereignty retained by the state, in return for their protection and a more functional society, so social contract evolves out of pragmatic self-interest.

Hobbes named the state Leviathan, thus pointing to the artifice involved in the social contract.

Civil liberties

This brings one to the fact that, at the heart of the debate is the concept of civil liberty. Civil liberties is the name given to freedoms that protect the individual from government. Civil liberties set limits for government so that it can not abuse its power and interfere with the lives of its citizens.

Basic civil liberties include freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

There are also the rights to due process to a fair trial and to privacy. The best known genesis of civil liberties is the Magna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter", literally "Great Paper").

Also called Magna Carta Libertatum ("Great Charter of Freedoms"), it is an English charter originally issued in 1215. Magna Carta was the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today.

Unlawful

For modern times, the most enduring legacy of the Magna Carta is reposed in the right of Habeas Corpus which in common law countries is the term ascribed to a legal action or writ by means of which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

Known as the "Great Writ", a writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a prisoner be brought before the court so that the court can determine whether that person is serving a lawful sentence or should be released from custody.

The prisoner, or some other person on his behalf (for example, where the prisoner is being held incommunicado), may petition the court or an individual judge for a writ of habeas corpus.

The right of habeas corpus -- or rather, the right to petition for the writ -- has long been celebrated as the most efficient safeguard of the liberty of the subject. The great jurist Albert Venn Dicey wrote that the Habeas Corpus Acts "declare no principle and define no rights, but they are for practical purposes worth a hundred constitutional articles guaranteeing individual liberty".

In most countries, however, the procedure of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of national emergency. In most civil law jurisdictions, comparable provisions exist, but they are generally not called "habeas corpus".

There are instances where preventive detention will be necessary. Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Law at Harvard University, in his book Pre- emption -- A Sword that Cuts Both Ways, asserts that " There is a desperate need in the world for a coherent and widely accepted jurisprudence of pre-emption and prevention, in the context of both self-defence and defence of others".

Of course, here Dershowitz is referring to the international scene, but it would not be wrong to ascribe this principle to the national level when there is a dire need to control anarchy and insecurity of a nation.

However, the bottom line for any preventive jurisprudence in the omestic context is the social contract theory where State authority must be derived from the people.

There must be a preventive jurisprudence in place governing the acts of the executive and law enforcement officers. Preventive acts must never be ad hoc, or decided at the whim of the law enforcer. If this were not to be the case, as Alice said: "There is a mistake here somewhere".

The writer is Coordinator, Air Transport Programmes, International Civil Aviation Organization, Canada.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

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From: PR Newswire ........................................[This story printer-friendly]
March 27, 2007

WTO 'FEVER' CAN STEM ADVANCE OF PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE 'VIRUS'

[Rachel's introduction: The sky is falling! The precautionary principle is spreading around the globe like a deadly virus. Be afraid. Be very afraid!]

Princeton, N.J. -- In a recent editorial and newsletter interview, trade and regulatory lawyer Lawrence Kogan discusses why commencing a WTO [World Trade Organization] legal action against the European Union's (EU's) REACH chemicals regulatory regime remains the most effective way to halt the global advance of the extra-WTO Precautionary Principle.

The costly and burdensome REACH was adopted last winter despite widespread international protest. Nevertheless, Brussels' allies within the new 110th Congress have admonished U.S. negotiators preparing for the upcoming April EU-US Transatlantic Summit to work towards the harmonization of REACH with U.S. chemicals laws. Apparently, these representatives do not 'care' whether it will cost America its economic health.

Mr. Kogan argues that, "for the past decade, the EU has exported its regulatory aversion to best-available science, economic-cost benefit analysis and strong intellectual property right protections throughout the world to 'level the economic playing field' for its noncompetitive industries." It has tried to make the global legal environment "more hospitable to the Precautionary Principle", he says, "in much the same way that a protein-coated virus infects a healthy human body and redesigns its metabolism."

According to Kogan, "The Precautionary Principle virus' REACH protein has already attached itself to and penetrated foreign host cells (U.S. and other non-EU sovereign jurisdictions), is reprogramming them with its unique DNA code (hazard- as opposed to risk-based chemicals laws and industry practices), and is rapidly reproducing itself (at federal, state/provincial and local levels) and spreading to other uninfected cells" (nations) in the global economy. He emphasizes that "we must arrest the Precautionary Principle just as the human body destroys infections, before it spirals out of control, reforms international law and overtakes the American free enterprise system".

Kogan makes an important point. The human body does not rid itself of debilitating viruses by becoming more hospitable, and thus, less resistant, to them. Rather, the human immune system aggressively attacks infections by producing toxic chemicals that cause the body's temperature to rise.

The resulting fever helps the body by slowing down the rate of viral reproduction and ultimately killing off the virus. The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) is a non-partisan non-profit international legal research and educational organization that examines international law relating to trade, industry and positive sustainable development around the world. These ITSSD documents are accessible online at:

http://www.itssd.org/Publications/p04_SCM03_Viewpoint2.pdf and http://www.itssd.org/interviews/200701300402Precautionary2.pdf.

Contact: Lawrence Kogan Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development +1-609-951-2222 info@itssd.org

Copyright 1996-2007 PR Newswire Association LLC.

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Rachel's Precaution Reporter offers news, views and practical examples of the Precautionary Principle, or Foresight Principle, in action. The Precautionary Principle is a modern way of making decisions, to minimize harm. Rachel's Precaution Reporter tries to answer such questions as, Why do we need the precautionary principle? Who is using precaution? Who is opposing precaution?

We often include attacks on the precautionary principle because we believe it is essential for advocates of precaution to know what their adversaries are saying, just as abolitionists in 1830 needed to know the arguments used by slaveholders.

Rachel's Precaution Reporter is published as often as necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the subject.

As you come across stories that illustrate the precautionary principle -- or the need for the precautionary principle -- please Email them to us at rpr@rachel.org.

Editors:
Peter Montague - peter@rachel.org
Tim Montague - tim@rachel.org

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