Unhealthy Health Policy: A Critical Anthropological Examination

Unhealthy Health Policy:. Critical Anthropological Examination . Arachu Castro and Merrill Singer, eds. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2004. 387 pp.     

Managing Global Atmospheric Change: A U.S. Policy Perspective

There are several air pollution issues that concern the international community at the regional and global level, including acid deposition, heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, stratospheric ozone depletion, and climate change. Governments at the regional and global levels have entered into various agreements in an effort to deal with these problems. This paper deals with two major global atmospheric change issues: stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change. The focus is on the policy responses of the United States to these global issues. The United States has signed and ratified international agreements to deal with both problems. The Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer have led to an effort in both developed and developing countries to phase out ozone depleting substances. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been signed and ratified by over 180 countries. The UNFCC contained no binding targets and timetables for emissions reductions. The Kyoto Protocol (1997) to the UNFCCC did contain targets and timetables for reductions of greenhouse gases on the part of developed countries. The United States has signed but not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The United States has experienced some movement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the part of various levels of government as well as the private sector. The policy process is constantly informed by scientific research. In the case of stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change, much of this work is carried out under the auspices of international scientific panels. From a policy perspective, there is a great deal of interest in the use of indicators for assessing the scope and magnitude of these problems, both for fashioning policy responses as well as assessing the impact of adopted programs to reduce ozone depleting substances, and potentially, greenhouse gases. This paper will discuss some of the indicators used for stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change.     

Justice and Medical Research: A Global Perspective

Economic globalization has profound implications for health. The scale of injustice at a global level, reflected in inexorably widening disparities in wealth and health, also has critical implications for health related research – in particular when the opportunities for exploiting research subjects are carefully considered. The challenge of developing universal guidelines for international clinical research is addressed against the background of a polarizing, yet interdependent, world in which all are ultimately threatened by lack of social justice. It is proposed that in such a world there is a need for new ways of thinking about research and its relevance to health at a global level. Responsibility to use knowledge and power wisely requires more radical changes to guidelines for research ethics than are currently under consideration.     

Rethinking Environmental Performance from a Public Health Perspective: A Comparative Industry Analysis

To date the most common measures of environmental performance used to compare industries, and by extension firms or facilities, have been quantity of pollution emitted or hazardous waste generated. Discharge information, however, does not necessarily capture potential health effects. We propose an alternative environmental performance measure that includes the public health risks of toxic air emissions extended to industry supply chains using economic input-output life-cycle assessment. Cancer risk to the U.S. population was determined by applying a damage function to the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) as modeled by CalTOX, a multimedia multipathway fate and exposure model. Risks were then translated into social costs using cancer willingness to pay. For a baseline emissions year of 1998, 260 excess cancer cases were calculated for 116 TRI chemicals, dominated by ingestion risk from polycyclic aromatic compounds and dioxins emitted by the primary aluminum and cement industries, respectively. The direct emissions of a small number of industry sectors account for most of the U.S. population cancer risk. For the majority of industry sectors, however, cancer risk per $1 million output is associated with supply chain upstream emissions. Ranking industries by total (direct + upstream) supply chain risk per economic output leads to different conclusions about the relative hazards associated with these industries than a conventional ranking based on emissions per economic output.     

Global Phosphorus Flows and Environmental Impacts from a Consumption Perspective

Human activities have significantly intensified natural phosphorus cycles, which has resulted in some serious environmental problems that modern societies face today. This article attempts to quantify the global phosphorus flows associated with present day mining, farming, animal feeding, and household consumption. Various physical characteristics of the related phosphorus fluxes as well as their environmental impacts in different economies, including the United States, European countries, and China, are examined. Particular attention is given to the global phosphorus budget in cropland and the movement and transformation of phosphorus in soil, because these phosphorus flows, in association with the farming sector, constitute major fluxes that dominate the anthropogenic phosphorus cycle. The results show that the global input of phosphorus to cropland, in both inorganic and organic forms from various sources, cannot compensate for the removal in harvests and in the losses by erosion and runoff. A net loss of phosphorus from the world's cropland is estimated at about 10.5 million metric tons (MMT) phosphorus each year, nearly one half of the phosphorus extracted yearly.     

The Eukaryotic Tree of Life from a Global Phylogenomic Perspective

Molecular phylogenetics has revolutionized our knowledge of the eukaryotic tree of life. With the advent of genomics, a new discipline of phylogenetics has emerged: phylogenomics. This method uses large alignments of tens to hundreds of genes to reconstruct evolutionary histories. This approach has led to the resolution of ancient and contentious relationships, notably between the building blocks of the tree (the supergroups), and allowed to place in the tree enigmatic yet important protist lineages for understanding eukaryote evolution. Here, I discuss the pros and cons of phylogenomics and review the eukaryotic supergroups in light of earlier work that laid the foundation for the current view of the tree, including the position of the root. I conclude by presenting a picture of eukaryote evolution, summarizing the most recent progress in assembling the global tree.It is redundant to say that eukaryotes are diverse. Plants, animals, and fungi are the charismatic representatives of the eukaryotic domain of life, but this narrow view does not do justice to the eukaryotic diversity. Microscopic eukaryotes, often unicellular and known as the protists, represent the bulk of most major groups, whereas multicellular lineages are confined to small corners on the global tree of eukaryotes. If all eukaryotes possess structures enclosed within intracellular membranes (the organelles), an infinite variation of forms and feeding strategies has evolved since their origin. Eukaryotic cells can wander on their own, sometimes forming hordes of free-living pico-sized organisms that flourish in oceans. They can be parasites or symbionts, or come together by the billions in tightly packed, highly regulated multicellular organisms. Eukaryotes have occupied just about every ecological niche on Earth. Some actively gather food from the environment, others use plastids (chloroplasts) to derive energy from the light; many can adapt to variable conditions by switching between autotrophy and the predatory consumption of prey by phagotrophy. Eukaryotes also show a great deal of genomic variation (Lynch and Conery 2003). Some amoebozoan protists, for instance, have the largest known genomes—more than 200 times larger than that of humans (Keeling and Slamovits 2005). Conversely, microbial parasites can have highly compact, bacterial-size genomes (Corradi et al. 2010). Even smaller are the remnant nuclear genomes (nucleomorphs) of what were once free-living microbial algae. At around 500,000 nucleotides and hardly encoding a few hundreds genes, nucleomorphs are the smallest nuclear genome of all (Douglas et al. 2001; Gilson et al. 2006; Lane et al. 2007).Recognizing this great diversity and pushed by a desire to establish order, biologists have long attempted to assemble a global eukaryotic tree of life. A fully resolved phylogenetic tree including all organisms is not only the ultimate goal of systematics, it would also provide the foundation to infer the acquisition and evolution of countless characters through the history of long-dead species. But early attempts to resolve the eukaryotic tree, most of which were based on comparisons of morphology and nutrition modes, faced the impossible challenge of describing in an evolutionary sensitive way a world in which most of the diversity occurs among tiny microbes. For decades, biology textbooks assigned the eukaryotes to evolutionary entities called “kingdoms” in which the lords were the animals, plants, and fungi (Copeland 1938; Whittaker 1969; Margulis 1971). This is not to say that biologist ignored protists, and they have been in fact recognized as a kingdom for more that a century (Haeckel 1866), but protists were considered to be "simple" organisms from which more elaborate, multicellular species emerged. Although these early proposals succeeded in recognizing several major assemblages, such as animals and plants, they were less successful in resolving the relationships between the groups and, with the benefit of hindsight, failed to account for the fundamental paraphyletic and complex nature of the protist lines.     

Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective

The technology to recover natural gas depends on undisclosed types and amounts of toxic chemicals. A list of 944 products containing 632 chemicals used during natural gas operations was compiled. Literature searches were conducted to determine potential health effects of the 353 chemicals identified by Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) numbers. More than 75% of the chemicals could affect the skin, eyes, and other sensory organs, and the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. Approximately 40–50% could affect the brain/nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems, and the kidneys; 37% could affect the endocrine system; and 25% could cause cancer and mutations. These results indicate that many chemicals used during the fracturing and drilling stages of gas operations may have long-term health effects that are not immediately expressed. In addition, an example was provided of waste evaporation pit residuals that contained numerous chemicals on the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) lists of hazardous substances. The discussion highlights the difficulty of developing effective water quality monitoring programs. To protect public health we recommend full disclosure of the contents of all products, extensive air and water monitoring, coordinated environmental/human health studies, and regulation of fracturing under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act.     

Global Health Policy, Local Realities: The Fallacy of the Level Playing Field

Global Health Policy, Local Realities: The Fallacy of the Level Playing Field. Linda M. Whiteford and Lenore Manderson. eds. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000. 331pp.     

Global Health Policy, Local Realities: The Fallacy of the Level Playing Field

Global Health Policy, Local Realities: The Fallacy of the Level Playing Field. Linda M. Whiteford and Lenore Manderson. eds. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000. vi. 333 pp.     

The Ethics of Research Biobanking: A Critical Review of the Literature

Abstract

Human tissue has been stored and used for research on a regular basis for more than 80 years. During the 1990s, collections of human tissue suddenly became framed as ethical problems in a process reflecting developments in genetic research intertwined with developments in patient rights and steps towards increased commercialization of research. This review describes the process of framing tissue storage as an ethical problem and the solutions proposed in the process. It gives an overview of the academic debate and relates this debate to empirical studies of donor attitudes and interests. It points to the clear discrepancy between the concerns of donors, legislators and ethicists. The academic debate and legislatory action tend to focus on informed consent, and most of the concerns that donors have remain unattended to.     

A Critical Examination of Escherichia coli Esterase Activity

The ability of Escherichia coli to grow on a series of acetylated and glycosylated compounds has been investigated. It is surmised that E. coli maintains low levels of nonspecific esterase activity. This observation may have ramifications for previous reports that relied on nonspecific esterases from E. coli to genetically encode nonnatural amino acids. It had been reported that nonspecific esterases from E. coli deacetylate tri-acetyl O-linked glycosylated serine and threonine in vivo. The glycosylated amino acids were reported to have been genetically encoded into proteins in response to the amber stop codon. However, it is our contention that such amino acids are not utilized in this manner within E. coli. The current results report in vitro analysis of the original enzyme and an in vivo analysis of a glycosylated amino acid. It is concluded that the amber suppression method with nonnatural amino acids may require a caveat for use in certain instances.The central question addressed in this paper is whether the glycosylated amino acids GlcNAc-Ser and GalNAc-Thr have been genetically encoded into proteins in vivo (1, 2). The reports for the incorporation of these two amino acids are unique from all other reports (3) that have incorporated unnatural amino acids using the recoded UAG codon and Methanococcus jannaschii orthogonal pairs in that these two amino acids required further processing by the host organism before incorporation (see Fig. 1). Here we posit that the primary barrier to their incorporation would appear to be the fact that the host organism used in the original reports, Escherichia coli, maintains very low levels of nonspecific esterase activity. In fact, the original reports used citations from mammalian biology to substantiate the nonspecific esterase mechanism (see below).Open in a separate windowFIGURE 1.Proposed product of an esterase with GlcNAc-Ser and other esterase substrates discussed in this study.E. coli is likely the most thoroughly studied microorganism. This is especially true in regard to carbohydrate and amino acid uptake and utilization (4). Therefore, it should not be surprising that it has long been known that esterified carbon sources are not metabolized by E. coli in standard assays used to probe for microorganism lipase and esterase activity (5). Such results and our current analysis underscore the limitations of the reports that triacetyl O-linked glycosylated amino acids (GlcNAc-Ser and GalNAc-Thr) were deacetylated in E. coli by endogenous “nonspecific” esterases. The deacetylated amino acids were then believed to have been genetically encoded into full-length proteins in vivo (1, 2).In these previous studies the glycosylated amino acids were provided to the growth media as their tetraacetate analogs, and it was construed from the mass spectra and lectin binding assays that the ester groups of the saccharide had all been hydrolyzed. The notion that E. coli rapidly hydrolyzes a simple ester is not easily reconciled with what is commonly observed when the ester functional group is introduced into cultures of E. coli. For example, we were prompted by reports that claimed to have harvested β-hydroxy esters from E. coli (6). There was nothing in such a report to indicate that the E. coli strain used had undergone a drastic genetic modification beyond the introduction of one enzyme derived from yeast. The enzyme from yeast was expressed in E. coli to asymmetrically reduce β-keto esters to the corresponding β-hydroxy esters. The reduction was accomplished in 87% yield and was performed in whole cells. It stands to reason that such a report having claimed to extract significant amounts of an esterified product would not be possible if E. coli maintained even moderate levels of nonspecific esterase activity. The fact that E. coli maintains low levels of endogenous esterases and lipases has been quite pivotal for a number of studies that have used this organism as the host to express esterase genes in vivo (see below).Nonspecific esterase activity is common in eukaryotic organisms, for example, our ability to hydrolyze triacylglycerides to access an important energy source, but this stands in stark contrast to E. coli where it is possible to directly extract O-acetylated oligosaccharides (7) and other simple esters (6) in high yields. These reports are consistent with the observation that UDP-2,3-diacylglucosamine accumulates in E. coli when genes from lipid biosynthesis are deleted (8). E. coli is also the preferred host for evaluating esterase and lipase activity when screening genes from cultured and uncultured organisms (9, 10). Screening for lipase activity from various microorganisms is often performed on tributyrin agar plates (11). The results are typically the same as for triacetin, and it is repeatedly observed that E. coli does not naturally grow on triesters of glycerol (12, 13). These and many other similar esterase screens (14) would not have been feasible if E. coli produced even moderate levels of a lipase or nonspecific esterase.In the present article we use a combination of our current findings and a thorough review of the relevant literature to conclude that E. coli may not maintain sufficient levels of nonspecific esterase activity to permit the in vivo incorporation of the glycosylated amino acids by the mechanism reported (Fig. 1). Our conclusion is further supported by isothermal calorimetry measurements of Zhang et al. (1) original enzyme showing it retains considerable wild-type activity. We also show that the amino acid GlcNAc-Ser appears to be metabolized in E. coli.     

The Disclosure of Genetic Information: A Human Research Ethics Perspective

Increasing emphasis on genetic research means that growing numbers of human research projects in Australia will involve complex issues related to genetic privacy, familial information and genetic epidemiology. The Office of Population Health Genomics (Department of Health, Western Australia) hosted an interactive workshop to explore the ethical issues involved in the disclosure of genetic information, where researchers and members of human research ethics committees (HRECs) were asked to consider several case studies from an ethical perspective. Workshop participants used a variety of approaches to examine the complex ethical issues encountered, but did not consistently refer to the values and principles outlined in the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (NHMRC 2007) or apply rational ethical approaches. Overall, the data suggested that both researchers and HREC members may benefit from further education and support regarding the application of ethical frameworks to the issues encountered in genetic research.