A mayor news item this past week was a report about a new study published in "Science" which found that the offspring of mice exposed to high levels of air pollution - near two steel mills and close to a major highway in Hamilton, Ontario - had significantly greater rates of genetic mutations than mice housed in a non-polluted environment.

Although the report didn't mention fluoride, what came to mind immediately was the work by Dr. Cecilioni which had been published in "Fluoride" in the 1970s. Dr. Cecilioni had found increased cases of lung cancer in the same area, and thought that the incredibly high
amounts of fluoride in the Hamilton atmosphere were responsible.

Below we post the news item as it appeared in Canadian newspapers, and a summary of Cecilioni's research as it appeared in a 1990  edition of "Fluoride".

“Air pollution may cause genetic damage that crosses generations: study”

HELEN BRANSWELL
Canadian Press

Thursday, May 13, 2004

TORONTO (CP) - Everyone knows exposure to air pollution can be dangerous to one's health - but can it have a detrimental effect on one's unborn children?

New work from a team of Canadian researchers suggests pollution may indeed exact a toll that crosses generations. The researchers, from McMaster University in Hamilton, found that the offspring of mice exposed to high levels of air pollution - near two steel mills and close to a major highway - had significantly greater rates of genetic mutations than mice housed in a non-polluted environment.

Their findings were reported Friday in the journal Science.

While mice and men are not the same beast, lead researcher Jim Quinn of McMaster said he believes exposure to air pollution could be having the same impact on people.

"I think I would find the same thing in humans," said Quinn, a professor of biology who specializes in ecological studies. He admitted he finds the idea disturbing.

"Yeah. I think the way to view it is it's like the canary in the coal mine kind of thing. It's an early warning."

An expert in particulates, the sooty airborne pollution particles that appear to be the culprit here, described the study as "elegant" - high praise in the scientific world. But Jonathan Samet said it's early to try to interpret the findings in relation to human health.

"I think the human extension of this work needs to be done very cautiously," said Samet, an environmental epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., who wrote a commentary on the findings for the journal.

"I know scientists are always cautious in calling for more research. But I think this is a case where there is an initial, very interesting observation in an animal system that now really needs follow up."

Quinn and his team's work stems from research he did in the early 1990s, studying herring gulls' colonies in the highly industrialized Hamilton harbour area. He observed that colonies living closest to the two steel mills had markedly higher levels of genetic mutations than those based further afield.

Gulls are awkward to deal with, from a research point of view. So his team devised another study, using two colonies of mice. One was housed in a garden shed in the harbour area, the other in a rural setting 30 kilometres away.

When the mice were bred, the team observed that the mutation rate among the offspring of the city mice was 1.5 to two times higher than the country mice. Those findings were reported in 2002.

In this study, the mice were divided into three groups: the country mice, the city mice and a subset of city mice enclosed in a Plexiglas container. The air supply for the container passed through a high-efficiency particulate air - or HEPA - filtration system.

The offspring of the mice breathing the filtered air had the same rate of genetic mutations as the country mice, despite being as close to the smoke stacks of the steel mills as the unprotected city mice.

That both provides strong evidence that the particulates in the air were responsible for the mutations and shows that something can be done to protect human health in industrialized settings, Quinn said.

"If I were living in an area that is heavily industrialized, I would have HEPA filtration systems in my house," he said.

Quinn also said the findings should be considered by urban planners trying to determine the location of highways or whether to remove or plant trees in a city setting. Trees act as a natural filtration system for particulates.

© Copyright 2004 The Canadian Press

================

Corresponding articles:

Sooty air pollution may cause genetic damage
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/675012.c ms