UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

China 'e-waste' recycling said hazardous

CORVALLIS, Ore., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Much of the world's electronic waste ends up in China for recycling, an activity creating significant health and environmental hazards, researchers say.

Scientists from China and Oregon State University have identified toxic elements in the emissions from cottage-industry recycling workshops in southern China that use low-tech methods to separate reusable electronic components from circuit boards, a university release said Thursday.

The study was conducted in Shantou City, population 150,000, in southern China's Guangdong province.

Researchers collected samples as workers were removing the electronic components by heating the circuit boards over grills on stoves burning coal briquettes.

In this "roasting process," researchers found numerous organic chemicals, heavy metals, flame retardants and persistent organic pollutants being emitted into the air via the smoke.

"The most immediate problem is the health of the workers and the people who live in the city," Bernd R.T. Simoneit, OSU professor and one of the authors of the study, said. "But this may also be contributing to global contamination. For example, previous studies have found carcinogens in wind-carried dust from Asia.

"The next step is to see to what extent this is harming the environment and creating a health hazard for both the workers, and people living in the path of the emissions," Simoneit said. "Some of these chemical compounds may be carcinogens; others may be just as harmful because they can act as 'environmental disruptors' and may affect body processes from reproduction to endocrine function."

New artificial lung keeps toddler alive

ST. LOUIS, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- A 2-year-old Missouri boy has become the first person in the United States to be kept alive by a new type of artificial lung, doctors say.

Medical officials at St. Louis Children's Hospital say Owen Stark is alive thanks to the NovalungsLA artificial lung developed in Germany, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday.

Owen was brought to the hospital after collapsing at a toy store, and doctors said his heart and lungs were shutting down.

He was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary hypertension, or high blood pressure in the lungs. The rare disease is almost unheard of in young children, doctors say.

Doctors said Owen would need a lung transplant, and put the boy on a heart-lung bypass machine, but the device can cause organ damage after extended use and leave a child ineligible for a transplant.

So the hospital petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use the German-made artificial lung. The machine is used in Europe and Canada but is not approved by the FDA for use in the United States.

The FDA granted a "compassionate release use," in effect, special permission.

"I don't think there's any question it saved his life," pediatric cardiologist Dr. Mark Grady said.

Doctors assumed the device would buy time while they waited for a lung to become available for a transplant, but say Owen's lung function has improved so much he is no longer on the transplant list.

"He's got the potential to be able to go home, which we didn't think was even possible," Grady said.

If Owen continues to improve, he could leave the hospital in about a month, Grady said.

Receding ice could unlock arctic trove

HELSINKI, Finland, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Receding arctic ice from global warming may open new avenues for tourism and trade and could reveal vast new natural resource reserves, researchers say.

The northern ice cover is becoming smaller and thinner, and scientists predict the Arctic Ocean could lose its icecap completely during summertime by the end of the century at the latest, and possibly as early as the 2030s, Finland's Helsingen Sonomat reported.

Twenty years from now it may be possible to travel to the North Pole by ship, they say. Russia has already organized luxury cruises to the North Pole in its nuclear-powered icebreakers, but the next generation may be able to reach the top of the world in their pleasure boats, they say.

More important would be what the opening of the sea channels could mean for world trade. The Northeast Passage along Russia's north coast and the Northwest Passage through Canada's Arctic archipelago would shorten the sea journey from Asia to Europe and to the east coast of North America by as much as a third.

The receding ice could also allow access to rich natural resources.

More than a quarter of the world's catches of fish currently come from Arctic waters. An estimated 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's untapped natural gas resources and 5 percent to 13 percent of oil resources are in the Arctic region, researchers say.

All this new opportunity would require the cooperation among countries, politicians in Arctic states say.

In April the World Wide Fund for Nature published a report on questions concerning the administration of the Arctic Ocean.

"Arctic states must remember that the Arctic Ocean is not their backyard," report author Professor Timo Koivurova of the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland said. "International maritime law already guarantees the commercial fleets and fishing fleets of all countries in the world access to the area. It would be sensible to get them to commit to a treaty concerning the Arctic region."

Ky. doctors perform double hand transplant

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Doctors in Kentucky replaced a man's burned hands with two new ones in the region's first double-hand transplant, officials said.

The experimental surgery at Louisville's Jewish Hospital Hand Care Center, only the third double-hand transplant in the United States after two in Pittsburgh, took about 17 hours, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal reported Wednesday.

Lead surgeon Dr. Warren Breidenbach said the patient could recover 80 percent to 90 percent of function in his hands, resume all his activities and end up with "a reasonably good grip strength."

"The real issue is the next 24-48 hours, which is critical," Breidenbach said.

Post-operative complications can include infections, rejection and blockage of the blood supply, he said.

The hospital did not release details on the patient or how he was burned, except to say he was a married man and was not injured in the military.

The U.S. Department of Defense, Office of Naval Research and the Office of Army Research sponsored the transplant, and Breidenbach said similar surgeries could someday replace soldiers' injured hands.

"This technology coincides with a shift in the type of military injuries -- face and extremity injuries," Breidenbach said.