Rupert Hough

A multi-country case control study of arsenic and cancer was set up to meet a number of concerns: That exposure to low concentration of arsenic could in principle be responsible for a significant proportion of the incidence of some cancers, the absence of rather few direct ...

Composting of source-separated green waste (SSGW) is essential to meet the EU Landfill Directive target and agricultural land is considered a significant market for the resulting composts. A critical review of the literature was performed to evaluate the potential for pathogens to enter the composting process via SSGW feedstocks and the likelihood of their survival of the composting process and subsequent application to land. This is discussed in the context of application of other organic wastes to land. It was concluded that zoonoses such as verotoxigenic Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. are unlikely to survive and effective composting process, whereas spore forming organisms are more resistant to composting but are also ubiquitous in the environment. Adherence to existing guidelines, such as those for farm yard manures, is likely to provide a rational degree of health protection for humans and livestock.

The ecological hazard of weathered hydrocarbons and the effect of biopiling management is being investigated. A number of ecological tests were selected and assessed for their suitability. Here, a summary of preliminary results is presented showing the performance and justification of the final selection.

Natural Arsenic in Groundwater: Occurrence, Remediation and Management– Bundschuh, Bhattacharya and Chandrasekharam (eds) © 2005, Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 04 1536 700 X Estimating previous exposure to arsenic for populations living in parts of Hungary, ...

Preface and Acknowledgments, In recent years, Local Authorities have become increasingly aware of the issues associated,with contaminated,land largely through,theimplementation of Part IIA of the Environment Act, 1990. Concurrent with this there has been,a strong focus on urban regeneration,and the use of brownfield,land for housing,developments.,Subsequently,tools for assessing,derelict sites for possible remediation and redevelopment are highly developed. However,

The increase in asthma and allergies has been attributed to declining exposure to environmental microorganisms. The main source of these is soil, the composition of which varies geographically and which is a major component (40-45%) of household dust. Our hypothesis-generating study aimed to investigate associations between soil components, respiratory health and allergy in a Scottish birth cohort. The cohort was recruited in utero in 1997/8, and followed up at one, two and five years for the development of wheezing, asthma and eczema. Lung function, exhaled nitric oxide and allergic sensitization were measured at age five in a subset. The Scottish Soils Database held at The James Hutton Institute was linked to the birth cohort data by the residential postcode at birth and five years. The soil database contained information on size separates, organic matter concentration, pH and a range of inorganic elements. Soil and clinical outcome data were available for 869, 790 and 727 childre...

We performed a risk assessment of metal exposure to population subgroups living on, and growing food on, urban sites. We modeled uptake of cadmium, copper, nickel, lead, and zinc for a selection of commonly grown allotment and garden vegetables. Generalized linear cross-validation showed that final predictions of Cd, Cu, Ni, and Zn content of food crops were satisfactory, whereas the

The U.K. government has emphasized redeveloping derelict land for housing. As a result, tools for assessing brownfield sites are well developed. However, there are many potentially contaminated sites on which people live, often not to the people's knowledge. For these situations, statutory guidance for risk communication is underdeveloped and, in certain situations, inadequate. This paper illustrates limitations of current methods using a heavily populated site where levels of specific contaminants exceed statutory limits. The authors describe how residents were involved in the site assessment process and how the process may be improved, and propose a framework to incorporate risk communication into the contaminated-land use strategy.

A potential problem in hospital-based case control studies arises if the catchment populations for cases and controls for the same hospital are different. If the exposure is distributed spatially and varies between the two catchment populations, then selection bias may occur. As an ...

Background/Aims: Past control of water supplies to reduce arsenic intake is good for public health; however, it complicates the task of accurate reconstruction of past exposures in the service of investigating exposure response relationships between arsenic and cancer. Classifying people based on the current drinking water concentrations would be an unsatisfactory option by ignoring individual differences in patterns of concentrations over time. Methods: For the ASHRAM study—-a case-control study investigating arsenic in drinking water and cancer, in counties with arsenic exposure in Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia—-the exposure history of each person was constructed taking into account how much water was consumed (as water, in drinks, and in food), sources of drinking water in their various residences over their lifetime and the concentrations of arsenic in the water supply, in many cases measured in the ASHRAM study, or from routine data based on measurements performed by the authorities in each country. Following 4 indices of exposure were calculated: the current concentration of residential drinking water, the time weighted average concentration of residential drinking water, the highest daily dose of As derived from residential drinking water, and the lifetime cumulative dose. Results: For 1392 participants, the assignment of concentrations to water supplies was very successful with 81% of the population lifetime residential person time being matched to an arsenic concentration. The exposure indices were all log-normally distributed and the median lifetime concentrations were in Hungary 13.3 µg/L, Romania 0.7 µg/L, and Slovakia 0.8 µg/L. Overall, 25% of the population has average concentrations over 10 µg/L and 8% with exposure over 50 µg/L. Conclusion: Classifying exposure by current rather than lifetime measures of arsenic exposure leads to an underestimate of the strength of relationship between arsenic and cancer.

We provide a primer and critical review of the characterization, risk assessment, and bioremediation of weathered hydrocarbons. Historically the remediation of soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons has been expressed in terms of reductions in total petroleum ...