The Effects Of Arsenic On Human Health

When Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published in 1962, it generated a storm of controversy over the use of chemical pesticides. Miss Carson's intent in writing Silent Spring was to warn the public of the dangers associated with pesticide use. Throughout her book are numerous case studies documenting the harmful effects that chemical pesticides have had on the environment. Along with these facts, she explains how in many instances the pesticides have done more harm than good in eradicating the pests they were designed to destroy. In addition to her reports on pesticide use, Miss Carson points out that many of the long-term effects that

Environmental factors can contribute to an individual’s health or disease state. A classic example is portrayed in the movie “Erin Brockovich”, which relates the story of the residents of Hinkley, a rural town in Southern California. Many inhabitants of Hinkley were becoming ill with non-specific diseases and cancers. The culprit was hexavalent chromium, which had contaminated the groundwater. More recently, water contaminated with lead has been discovered in Flint, Michigan. Lead toxicity can lead to gastrointestinal, neuromuscular and neurological symptoms.

“Along with the possibility of the extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man’s total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm-substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends” (Carson, 1962).

Copper is another pollutant that at very high levels is toxic and can cause vomiting, diarrhea, loss of strength or, for serious exposure, cirrhosis of the liver (Pure Water Services). In order for copper to metabolized the heavy metal zinc is needed. Zinc helps with copper breakdown but too much zinc can cause a copper deficiency which can also cause problems such as anemia. While copper has some severe side effects there have not been any cases that are related to cancer. In most cases throughout the Silver Bow Creek copper is not thought to be a severe threat to the community.

While nitrates are one of the major contaminants in the area, San Joaquin Valley residents face drinking water pollution from many other sources including arsenic, coliform bacteria, and pesticides. Arsenic is a naturally occurring semi-metal element that is found in different types of rocks. While arsenic primarily occurs naturally, human activities impact the amount of arsenic in groundwater. Arsenic is not only toxic at high concentrations, but also harmful after prolonged exposure at moderately elevated levels. California recognizes arsenic as a human carcinogen and believes prolonged exposure to the element to be associated with various cancers, including skin, bladder, kidney, lung, and liver cancers. A study in Maine found a connection between water contaminated

The Natural Step provides a framework for considering the effects of materials selection on human health. Robèrt suggested that many human health problems, particularly those of children, result from materials we use in our daily lives. The extraction of resources such as fossil fuels and metal ores from the planet’s crust produces carcinogens and results in heavy metals entering the earth’s surface biosphere

Rachel Carson, in her book, Silent Spring, asserts that Americans must seriously reconsider the reasons for which they unilaterally use poisons. Carson does not explicitly state this, for that would have little effect, rather she attempts to force the reader to reflect and question the status quo. She employs provocative and unapologetic diction and rhetorical questions to drive her message home.

Society struggled defending against diseases because they have been the causing the spread microbes without being aware of it . As time proceeds, communities develop ways to hinder the continuation of epidemics. Throughout multiple sources, such as the periodic table of elements, articles based on the industrial revolution, and research for a chemical information sheet from a website, it is clear that humans contribute to the spread of disease through contaminated water, a breeding ground of pathogens, and the negative impact of the element copper. Society confronts the disease through the practice of sanitation that diminishes death rates during surgeries and discovering the positive impact of the element copper.

Following the industrial revolution, societies across the world began to notice strange effects on individuals throughout certain local communities. Though toxicology was a relatively new and rudimentary practice at the time, scientists were able to trace these effects back to chemicals being exposed to industrial workers, their families, and nearby neighborhoods. Unfortunately, industry in the United States continued to expand with little regard for the effects on human health. As a result from this expansion the amount of chemicals released into the atmosphere skyrocketed continuously all the way to present day society. However, as industry expanded so did scientific technology, the understanding of chemicals, their exposure

Every year millions of American’s purchase chemicals intended to clean their home, remove weeds from lawns, and promise to eradicate various insects and other household pests. It is a deadly love affair with scientific advancements to create larger crops, more appealing food items and the promise of cleaner environments. Yet until recent years and the noticeable focus on organic and natural foods, very few have questioned these advancements. Rachel Carson was one of the people who had the courage and determination to stand up and question just how healthy these new advancements truly were for living creatures. Mrs. Carson’s effort to bring these things to light in her most well-known book, Silver Spring, a book that exposed just how

There is a higher likelihood of being exposed to arsenic via food ingestion compared to inhaling arsenic-contaminated air or drinking arsenic-contaminated water. Once the arsenic has been absorbed through the lungs or gastrointestinal tract, the arsenic is distributed through the body via the bloodstream. For metabolism, in the blood stream, the arsenic becomes attached to the red cells, white cells, and cells that can convert arsenate to arsenite. Some of those arsenites are taken to the liver, where they are methylated by the enzymatic transfer of the methyl group from S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) and the arsenite are converted into methyl arsonate (MMA V) and dimethyl arsenate (DMA V). Those metabolites, methyl arsonate and dimethyl arsenate, are then ready to be excreted. If the liver is at its limit of methylation, excess arsenites are stored in the body’s soft tissues. Arsenic and its many variations (ie. MMA V, DMA V, arsenate, and arsenite) are excreted through the kidneys. There is a possibility that two to four weeks after being exposed to arsenic, some of the arsenic can still be found in the human’s hair, nails, skin, and bones and teeth (ATSDR,

Rachel Carson played a pivotal role in shaping the Environmental Movement and American culture because of her honest, direct disclosure of the matters at hand. Although Carson was not the first person to make these scientific discoveries, she was able to radically change the way millions of Americans perceived the environment and the dangers of toxic chemicals to themselves through vivid, articulate, yet easily understandable language. For instance, in her chapter titled “Elixirs of Death,” she says “For these chemicals are now stored in the bodies of the vast majority of human beings, regardless of age. They

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a biosensor capable of detecting arsenic in a short time.SOLUTION: The arsenic detection biosensor is composed of a recombinant Escherichia coli containing a phytoene-producing vector for producing phytoene which is a substrate of lycopene and a lycopene-producing sensor vector for specifically producing lycopene in the presence of arsenic by using phytoene as a substrate, wherein the phytoene-producing vector contains a gene of geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate synthase and a gene of phytoene synthase, and the lycopene-producing sensor vector contains a gene of a phytoene desaturase and an arsenic inducing promoter connected to the upstream of the gene in an operable manner.

At least 140 million people in Asia are drinking arsenic-contaminated water. It pours out of countless tube wells, hand-cranked pumps attached to plastic or metal pipes sunk into the earth. More than 18 million of these small wells have been dug across India alone, often by hand, over the past three decades, according to government census figures. They were sunk in an attempt to bypass surface waters teeming with illness-causing bacteria or infused with industrial runoff. But death also lays underground.The troubles in India date to the 1960s, when the country began drinking groundwater as an alternative to being poisoned by bacteria-infested surface water, often stagnant and unprotected from sewage or agricultural runoff. In 1969 India launched

Arsenic in ground water poses a serious environmental hazard for Bangladesh. About ninety-seven percentages (97%) of Bangladesh people have been using ground water as the main source of drinking water but the water has been threatened by arsenic contamination. More than half (52%) of the studied population drink well-water containing >50ug/L of arsenic and more than two-thirds (70%) drink well-water containing >10ug/L of arsenic. The acceptable level of arsenic in drinking water is 0.05 mg/L for Bangladesh but some places it is found more than 70 times higher than that standard. About 80 million people are at a risk of arsenic contamination.