Environmental Factor

July 2015

This month in EHP

The July issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) examines the difficulties of developing safer food packaging to reduce chemical leaching.

Focus feature:

A Hard Nut to Crack: Reducing Chemical Migration in Food-Contact Materials

Although food packaging serves important safety functions, these painstakingly engineered containers can also leach chemicals and other contaminants into the food and drink they protect. Researchers and food producers are searching for ways to stem this chemical migration, but solutions are proving elusive.

Spheres of influence feature:

A Second Life for Scraps: Making Biogas From Food Waste — Decomposing food waste is a rich source of methane gas. In landfills, this presents a problem because escaping methane contributes to the greenhouse effect. Now, communities and food retailers are beginning to divert food waste to anaerobic digesters, capturing the resulting gas for use as fuel

Research summaries featured this month include:

• Increased Minimum Mortality Temperature in France: Data Suggest Humans Are Adapting to Climate Change — A new study based on 42 years of climatic and mortality data shows that the minimum mortality temperature in France has increased over time, suggesting some measure of adaptation to warming during that period.
• New Risk Factor for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)? Peaks in Cot Deaths Associated with Heat Waves — A new study of SIDS deaths suggests that hotter outdoor temperatures also may be a risk factor.
• What’s Normal for Fracking? Estimating Total Radioactivity of Produced Fluids — Researchers estimate total reactivity for a mixture of isotopes present in liquid fracking waste from Marcellus Shale.
• Persistent organic pollutants and Gut Microbiota: Dietary Exposure Alters Ratio of Bacterial Species — Researchers report that 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofuran (TCDF) alters the mouse gut microbiome in ways that may contribute to obesity and other metabolic diseases.