Danger Dust

A disturbing detail has been discovered in those most at-risk when in comes to what is being labelled the “new asbestos” that is plaguing the construction and mining industries.

Lung Foundation Australia is exposing the risk of silicosis, which impacts more than 600,000 Aussies in the construction, mining, manufacturing and tunnelling industries.

Silicosis is caused by items with a high silica content such as engineered stone — which has been linked to the incurable illness since 2015. Engineered stone is a common item used in kitchen benchtops but is banned in Australia.

Workers need to be in full protective gear to cut the engineered stone while it’s wet for it to be considered “safe”.

However, a survey of more than 500 people in the most vulnerable industries revealed that only 36 per cent knew what symptoms to look out for.

Symptoms include a persistent cough, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing, which can appear from a few weeks to many years after exposure to silica dust.

A whopping 78 per cent are aware of silica dust and the risk of silicosis but only 23 per cent are worried about developing the lung condition. Only eight per cent have discussed it with a health professional and just 34 per cent understand it’s incurable.

Purpose of review

There is a well established association between silica inhalational exposure and autoimmune disease, particularly in the context of intense exposure. We will provide in this article an update overview of new sources of silica dust exposure, with evidences of mechanisms from human and animal studies for association between silica and autoimmune diseases, their early detection of silicosis and new options for treatment.

The association between silica exposure and autoimmune disease was first described by Bramwell in 1914, who observed scleroderma among stone masons .

Fifty years later, Erasmus found an increased incidence of systemic sclerosis (SSc) among South African gold miners, later referred to as Erasmus syndrome .

In 1952, Caplan described the occurrence of multiple lung nodules in coal miners who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis (RA), comorbidity known as Caplan's syndrome or rheumatoid pneumoconiosis.

Significant risk of developing SSc, RA, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), dermatomyositis/polymyositis and antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-positive vasculitis has been linked to silica exposure and a study demonstrates that male patients with SSc have a high prevalence of occupational exposure to silica or solvents.

The eight-year study, published in Nature Medicine, outlines how cancer immunotherapy induces tumor recognition through neoantigens to reshape the tumor ecosystem. Neoantigens are small peptides produced when cancer cells mutate and are a primary marker for the immune system to recognize cancer cells as different from self.

Neoantigens are thought to be the primary way that the immune system recognizes tumors, but neoantigen prediction tools lack accuracy due to a lack of existing data in this space. To overcome this issue, the team developed the largest neoantigen screen to date, where they validated their predictions and monitored the dynamic response to neoantigens with longitudinal blood draws.

Within three weeks of treatment, people who went on to respond well to nivolumab had a sharp decline in clonal neoantigens. Meanwhile, individuals whose cancer did not go into remission still mounted an immunologic response, but to smaller sub-clonal populations. This is important because many believed that non-responders were unable to activate and recognize the tumor, but here they show it may be that the immune system is mounting a response to neoantigens but that this is insufficient to destroy all tumor clones.

A first-of-its-kind study has measured the toxicity of several types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as "forever chemicals," when mixed together in the environment and in the human body.

The good news: Most of the tested chemicals' individual cytotoxicity and neurotoxicity levels were relatively low.

The bad news: the chemicals acted together to make the entire mixture toxic.

The study is novel in that it assesses the mixture toxicity of PFAS. These synthetic compounds have been widely used in consumer products—from nonstick pans to makeup—for decades, and they can take hundreds to thousands of years to break down, if ever. They are estimated to be in at least 45% of the nation's drinking water and in the blood of practically every American, and they have been linked to cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders.

The EU has banned animal testing for cosmetics and non-animal alternative methods are preferable for the risk assessment of new chemical substances.

At the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB, a three-dimensional skin model has now been set up for the first time that directly displays the skin's reaction to substances: The reporter skin.

Thanks to the built-in reporter, the cellular response can be measured precisely and quickly – using a living model. This means that not only cosmetics can be tested effectively, but also allergens and the inflammation-causing or toxic effects of biocides, pesticides and chemicals.

After decades of merely assisting doctors, are sophisticated machines ready to take charge?

Robots have been found in the operating suite since the 1980s for things like holding a patient’s limbs in place, and later for laparoscopic surgery, in which surgeons can use remote-controlled robot arms to operate on the human body through tiny holes instead of huge cuts. But for the most part these robots have been, in essence, just very fancy versions of the scalpels and forceps surgeons have been using for centuries — incredibly sophisticated, granted, and capable of operating with incredible precision, but still tools in the surgeon’s hands.

Despite many challenges, that is changing. Today, five years after that award announcement, engineers are taking steps toward building independent machines that not only can cut or suture, but also plan those cuts, improvise and adapt. Researchers are improving the machines’ ability to navigate the complexities of the human body and coordinate with human doctors. But the truly autonomous robotic surgeon that the military may envision — just like truly driverless cars — may still be a long way off. And their biggest challenge may not be technological, but convincing people it’s OK to use them.

The challenge of providing affordable housing to the majority of citizens is a pressing issue in many countries, particularly in Ghana. The soaring prices of homes can be largely attributed to the rising costs of building materials.

Below, are some alternatives that can potentially lower the cost of construction while ensuring sustainability and efficiency.

Occupational health and safety in agriculture

An average of 12,000 people suffer with work related ill heath in agriculture.

Illnesses can range from respiratory diseases such as:

• Farmers lung, from exposure spores from mouldy grain, hay, and straw.

• Silicosis, from exposure to silica dust.

• Asthma, from exposure to dust – agriculture has the highest incident rate compared to occupational rates in other industries.

• Asbestosis, from exposure to asbestos.

In conclusion, it may be said that this Point of Care kit may be employed for semi-quantitative estimation of CC16 in human serum samples for the selective population (having a history of occupational silica dust exposure). The inverse relationship between serum CC16 levels and the severity of silicosis has already been evidenced in the previous studies performed by ICMR-NIOH

The individuals exhibiting three bands in LFA (CC16 concentration > 9 ng/ml) need not go for X-ray. This can significantly decrease the risk of X-ray exposure to the individuals. Hence, this assay would be useful for early detection of silicosis for various purposes such as notification to the local authority, secondary prevention and financial compensation as per guidelines of the country.

Erasmus syndrome is the association of silica exposure and subsequent development of systemic sclerosis. 

Here we discuss five cases that presented with progressive shortness of breath, arthralgia, skin tightening, and Raynaud's phenomenon. History of exposure to silica dust was present in all cases, and further serological (Anti-Scl-70 antibody positive), radiological, and histopathological (skin biopsy) investigations confirmed the diagnosis of systemic sclerosis. Hence the diagnosis of Erasmus syndrome was made.

Therefore, careful screening should be done in patients of silicosis with systemic symptoms to rule out any associated connective tissue disorder. Timely diagnosis and early intervention can prevent the patients from developing life-threatening complications and improved quality of life.

The troubled biopharma company Cassava Sciences agreed last week to pay $40 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charges that it had misled investors about early clinical results for its experimental Alzheimer’s disease drug, simufilam. The compound is now in pivotal phase 3 trials, but SEC’s announcement may fuel calls to halt those studies.

SEC’s moves follow Wang’s recent indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged research fraud in laboratory work associated with simufilam, which Wang and Burns invented. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had identified a raft of serious deficiencies in Wang’s lab procedures, strongly suggesting some tests he ran on simufilam clinical trial samples were invalid. CUNY itself found Wang had committed “egregious” scientific misconduct associated with his work for Cassava and other studies.

The SEC complaint said Cassava and Barbier knew Wang’s lab was not qualified to conduct the biomarker testing that suggested simufilam was effective for Alzheimer’s, among other problems. The agency also charged that Wang had been “unblinded” for patient fluid samples that he tested. That means he would have known which samples came from those given the drug rather than a placebo, potentially biasing his data.

By analyzing mice that had been first infected with SARS-CoV-2 and then with influenza A virus, the scientists found that having recovered from COVID had a protective effect against the worst effects of the flu, and that this memory response was coming from an unexpected corner of the immune system.

It turned out that epigenetic changes in macrophages—innate immune cells that are among the first responders to a threat—had developed a kind of "memory" following COVID that allowed these cells to mount a better defense against an unrelated virus. Immunological memory has long been thought to be limited to adaptive immune cells, though recent work has challenged this dogma. More intriguingly, what macrophages were remembering wasn't unique to any particular virus.

The findings increase our understanding of innate immune memory and may enable researchers to exploit the phenomenon in new ways to create therapies that confer widespread protection against multiple viruses.

Microplastics were detected in all the samples under investigation, suggesting a widespread occurrence of microplastics in the Southern Bight of the North Sea. The highest abundance of microplastics was reported off the coast of East Anglia; however, the concentrations were lower compared to other locations globally. Fragments were the main prevalent (78%) morphology of microplastics followed by beads (8%), filaments (6%), and films (6%).

This suggests that the microplastics in UK waters mainly break down from larger items such as bags, bottles, and food containers. The adoption of surface water as a common indicator for microlitter for OSPAR environmental assessments would allow for future studies at a regional level to allow for regional action plans and risk maps. This work and data are also important at the global level to feed into and help advance the SDG indicator 14.1.1 on Plastic Litter in the Ocean.

Smaller items (smaller than 300 mm) are potentially under-sampled in surface water when they are smaller than the mesh size such as the small pink beads from cosmetics.

With as much as 80 percent of Brazil under a blanket of smoke from historic wild fires, face masks last used during the coronavirus pandemic are coming out again.

South America's biggest country has for weeks been choking on pollution along with much of the rest of the continent battling extreme drought and record fires.

Millions of hectares of forest and farmland have burnt in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru.

The Amazon basin, usually one of the wettest places on Earth, is experiencing its worst fires in nearly two decades, according to the EU's Copernicus observatory.

Air pollution can worsen bronchitis and asthma, and the risk is greater the longer the exposure.

Researchers have succeeded in making artificial muscle fibers from rubber thread, paving the way for sewing the muscles into a blouse and giving renewed strength to the wearer.

"I know it doesn't look like a lot, but it corresponds to what our own muscles can lift," says Anne Ladegaard Skov, Professor at DTU Chemical Engineering.

Together with her research team, she has designed the silicone thread with a cavity which a conductive liquid can run through. Just like when the brain sends an electrical signal to the body's muscles to activate, the researchers can send current through the artificial muscle fibers via the conductive fluid and cause them to contract.

When this happens, they can lift 200 times their own weight. They thus have the potential to make life easier for millions of people with impaired muscle function.

What are the symptoms, and what should people be looking for?

After inhaling fungal spores from the environment, Coccidioides initially infects the lungs, causing symptoms like mild to severe cough, fever, difficulty breathing, chest pain and tiredness. Valley fever symptoms can resemble other common respiratory infections, so it’s important for people to get checked by a doctor if they’ve experienced prolonged symptoms, particularly if they have been given antibiotics that they are not responding to.

In California and Arizona, an estimated one-third of community-acquired pneumonia cases – or pneumonia acquired outside of the hospital – are caused by valley fever.

A team of Chinese and Mongolian researchers has examined a work known as Yinshan Zhengyao, written in 1330 by Hu Sihui, the Yuan Dynasty’s Imperial Dietician. This extraordinary text, which the researchers dub “the first nutritional science treatise in the world,” offers a philosophy on managing one’s diet for preventive health. It is followed by over 200 recipes for soups and elixirs and details 232 foods and 174 medicinal plants, highlighting their usefulness and benefits to well-being. Hu Sihui incorporated a wide variety of dietary and medical knowledge from Chinese, Mongol, and Arab sources for his work.

The researchers hope that this medieval source can offer new insights into the ancient concept of using food to treat ailments, bolstered by modern knowledge of genetics and metabolism to bring the teachings of Yinshan Zhengyao back into the public eye.

Conclusion

In the United States, there is a growing reliance on industry to conduct cancer clinical research. Underinvestment in federally sponsored research comes at a cost for both patients and researchers, with lost opportunities for scientific, clinical, and population advances.

Our study demonstrates that the landscape of clinical cancer research in the United States is shifting toward one dominated by industry.

This has policy implications since industry sponsors focus predominantly on drug and biological agent interventions, whereas federally sponsored trials are more inclusive of different combinations of agents and modalities and are more oriented toward research questions important for a diverse population of patients.

These different models for cancer clinical research both serve vital functions in new treatment discovery and are, ultimately, complementary.

Nonetheless, an underinvestment to the main avenues for federally supported clinical research is occurring at a time when such research is greatly needed to perform the trials that industry will not do.

Thus, policymakers should aim to address the increasing imbalance between industry and federally funded cancer clinical research to benefit both researchers and patients in terms of scientific, clinical, and population advances.

Motivation

Organisations often opt for easy-to-implement initiatives, such as hosting wellbeing talks or offering mindfulness or yoga classes. They then complain that employees don’t attend or don’t appreciate them.

Many employees say they don’t attend these activities because they find them irrelevant, unhelpful or they don’t value them enough to attend – meaning their workplace has failed in identifying their needs.

For a long time, it was thought that the human brain existed in splendid isolation from the rest of the body. The so-called blood-brain barrier, a special layer of cells, protects the brain from all manner of pathogens and harmful substances. However, we now know that the blood-brain barrier can be breached because small plastic particles have been found in the human brain.

New research has suggested that the blood-brain barrier has at least one vulnerable spot where microplastics may be able to get into the brain. This potential entry point was suggested by researchers at the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of São Paulo. It is in the nose, where there are special nerves, the olfactory nerves, that detect smells.....

Eight out of the 15 brains studied had microplastics in their olfactory bulbs. However, these eight samples had only 16 microplastic particles between them, which is perhaps some comfort.

Those 16 plastic particles included fragments, spheres and fibres, and were made of polypropylene, nylon and other plastics. Some of the fibres could have come from clothing. This makes sense because laundering clothes made from synthetic fibres is a significant source of microplastics in the environment.

Dust swept from the Sahara desert provides life at the bottom of the marine food chain with a critical nutrient. Without the iron carried far and wide in this mineral cloud, oceanic phytoplankton would struggle to bloom.

Source:

Long-range transport of dust enhances oceanic iron bioavailability

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2024.1428621/full

A possible marker for the risk of developing long COVID.

Key points

• The risk of developing long COVID is low, but the consequences can be severe.

• Pre-existing conditions like anxiety, depression and loneliness can all increase risk.

• The role of depression and other psychological issues in long COVID is worthy of further investigation.

Depression and your immune system

One of these comorbidities that appears to increase the risk of long COVID is depression. It might seem somewhat odd that a problem associated with having long COVID is also a predictor of long COVID, but there is good reason to suspect that depression might be an important precursor. That is because clinical depression, even without the added complication of COVID, can and does impair the functioning of the immune system. It makes sense that a virus that compromises the immune system might have a more lasting effect on the body if that immune system is already weakened by depression.

In short:

Foodbank says millions of tonnes of food is wasted every year in Australia, while at the same time there's been a doubling in the need for food relief.

A tax incentive has been proposed that would give farmers and manufacturers the ability to claim some of the expenses involved in food donations.

What's next?

The food tax bill is due to go before the Senate later this year. If passed, the incentive would be available for three years in the hope cost of living pressures will have eased by then.

Chlorine trifluoride is an interhalogen compound with the formula ClF3. This colorless, poisonous, corrosive, and extremely reactive gas condenses to a pale-greenish yellow liquid, the form in which it is most often sold (pressurized at room temperature). Despite being famous for its extreme oxidation properties and igniting many things, chlorine trifluoride is not combustible itself. The compound is primarily of interest in plasmaless cleaning and etching operations in the semiconductor industry, in nuclear reactor fuel processing, historically as a component in rocket fuels, and various other industrial operations owing to its corrosive nature.

This oxidizing power, surpassing that of oxygen, causes ClF3 to react vigorously with many other materials often thought of as incombustible and refractory.

It is known to ignite sand, asbestos, glass, and even ashes of substances that have already burned in oxygen. In one particular industrial accident, a spill of 900 kg of ClF3 burned through 30 cm of concrete and 90 cm of gravel beneath.

There is exactly one known fire control/suppression method capable of dealing with ClF3—flooding the fire with nitrogen or noble gases such as argon. Barring that, the area must simply be kept cool until the reaction ceases. The compound reacts with water-based suppressors and CO2, rendering them counterproductive.

Exposure to larger amounts of ClF3, as a liquid or as a gas, ignites living tissue, resulting in severe chemical and thermal burns. ClF3 reacts violently with water and exposure to the reaction also results in burns. The products of hydrolysis are mainly hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid, which are usually released as steam or vapor due to the highly exothermic nature of the reaction.

The lungs are constantly exposed to danger from the dusts we breathe. Luckily, the lungs have another function - they have defence mechanisms that protect them by removing dust particles from the respiratory system. For example, during a lifetime, a coal miner may inhale 1,000 grams of dust into their lungs. When doctors examine the lungs of a miner after death, they find no more than 40 grams of dust. Such a relatively small residue illustrates the importance of the lungs' defences and certainly suggests that they are quite effective. On the other hand, even though the lungs can clear themselves, excessive inhalation of dust may result in disease.

Dusts are tiny solid particles scattered or suspended in the air. The particles are "inorganic" or "organic," depending on the source of the dust. Inorganic dusts can come from grinding metals or minerals such as rock or soil. Examples of inorganic dusts are silica, asbestos, and coal.

Organic dusts originate from plants or animals. An example of organic dust is dust that arises from handling grain. These dusts can contain a great number of substances. Aside from the vegetable or animal component, organic dusts may also contain fungi or microbes and the toxic substances given off by microbes. For example, histoplasmosis, psittacosis and Q Fever are diseases that people can get if they breathe in organic that are infected with a certain microorganisms.

Dusts can also come from organic chemicals (e.g., dyes, pesticides). However, in this OSH Answers document, we are only considering dust particles that cause fibrosis or allergic reactions in the lungs. We are not including chemical dusts that cause other acute toxic effects, nor long term effects such as cancer for example.