Poison pill: Not all mercury is toxic

A global treaty on mercury pollution will do more harm than good if it bans the vaccine preservative thiomersal

NEXT week, governments from around the world will gather in Geneva to finalise a long-overdue treaty on mercury. The aim of the negotiations is laudable: to ban those mercury-laden products and pollutants that are a danger to human health and the environment.

Among the targets are some of the most toxic products of the industrial age, including methyl mercury. This notorious compound killed and injured thousands in the Japanese city of Minamata in the 1950s and 1960s and still poses a significant global health risk.

Another compound facing a possible ban, however, is a benign medicinal preservative called thiomersal (thimerosal in the US). Although it contains mercury, there is no evidence that it is harmful. In fact, it helps save the lives of well over a million children every year. Banning it would be a grave mistake.

Thiomersal aside, the world clearly needs to deal with mercury pollution. Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that is especially dangerous to unborn children. Estimating its global impact is difficult but in some populations almost 2 per cent of children are born with mental retardation caused by mercury poisoning.

Much of this mercury comes from industry, which consumes about 3400 tonnes of the element a year. About a third of this is used in batteries, 800 tonnes in a process called chlor-alkali manufacturing and 650 tonnes in so-called artisanal mining.

Most eventually finds its way into the environment, along with mercury released from burning coal, smelting metal, making cement and incinerating waste. Large quantities of mercury are also released by natural processes such as volcanic eruptions, forest fires and erosion. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that the total global emissions of mercury are between 4400 and 7500 tonnes a year.

Mercury released into the environment eventually finds its way into oceans, lakes and rivers, where it is converted into methyl mercury by microorganisms. This toxic compound accumulates up the aquatic food chain and is often concentrated at high levels in fish, shellfish and marine mammals - and ultimately in the people who eat them. Methyl mercury in food is the biggest cause of mercury poisoning.

In comparison to industrial and natural mercury emissions, thiomersal is negligible. The European Union's vaccine industry uses less than 0.25 tonnes of thiomersal a year, corresponding to just 100 kilograms of mercury. The American Academy of Pediatrics has described this as "infinitesimally small".

Thiomersal also serves an irreplaceable function. It has been added to medical products since the 1930s as a preservative, including in vaccines packaged in multi-dose vials. These are especially vulnerable to bacterial and fungal contamination because many doses are drawn from each vial. Single-dose vials, in contrast, are used once and then thrown away.

Vaccinating from multi-dose vials is cheaper than from single-dose ones. Multi-dose vials also take up less space, reducing the amount of refrigerated storage required to get them to where they are needed. They are thus particularly important for poorer countries, which do not have the money or facilities to use single-dose vials for large-scale immunisation programmes.

Currently 120 countries, accounting for 64 per cent of global births, depend on thiomersal-containing vaccines. These prevent an estimated 1.4 million child deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization. At present there is no substitute.

Thiomersal is also added to influenza vaccines, which can be important in developed countries. The consequences of banning the compound are therefore wide-reaching and dramatic.

A number of developing countries have expressed concern over thiomersal's proposed ban. Public health experts around the world, including the WHO, have no doubt about the importance of allowing it to remain in vaccines.

So why has thiomersal been dragged into the negotiations? The debate is partly fuelled by a historic confusion between risks ascribed to methyl mercury and the ethyl mercury in thiomersal. In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Public Health Service issued a joint statement recommending the removal of thiomersal from vaccines as a precautionary measure, following a US Food and Drug Administration review.

At the time there was abundant evidence that methyl mercury was toxic, but little evidence on ethyl mercury. Additional pressure came from rumours of a link between thiomersal and autism. Since then, however, numerous studies have shown that thiomersal is harmless.

In 2006, an expert panel convened by the WHO issued a statement on thiomersal in vaccines, concluding that there was "no evidence of toxicity". It highlighted the fact that while methyl mercury builds up in the body, ethyl mercury is excreted rapidly. The American Academy of Pediatrics has since endorsed the WHO's position.

Nonetheless, a handful of well-meaning campaigners still believe that thiomersal is harmful. Led by two groups - the Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs and SafeMinds - they have brought the thiomersal "debate" into negotiations designed to address environmental problems.

What happens next depends on the negotiators. The latest draft treaty does not specifically name thiomersal, but there is a clause that leaves the door open for additional items to be added.

There is no question that mercury is dangerous. But thiomersal is not a threat, and banning it would create far more human misery than failing to negotiate a treaty at all.

Heidi Larson is an anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who studies public trust in vaccines

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China to survey islands disputed with Japan

BEIJING: China is to carry out a geographical survey of islands in the East China Sea at the centre of a bitter dispute with Japan, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The survey of the Diaoyu islands was part of a programme to map China's "territorial islands and reefs", Xinhua said, citing a state geographical agency. They are known as the Senkaku in Japan, which controls them.

The survey was part of China's efforts to "safeguard its maritime rights and interests", Xinhua said, without giving a date for the exercise or making clear whether it would involve activities on land or be confined to the sea.

It quoted Zhang Huifeng, an official with China's National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, acknowledging that the mapping could encounter problems.

"There are some difficulties in landing on some islands to survey, and in surveying and mapping the surrounding sea area of the islands, because some countries infringed and occupied these islands of China," he said.

The maritime dispute, which has simmered off and on for years, intensified last year when the Japanese government nationalised islands in the small chain it did not already own, triggering anger and protests in China.

Both sides have scrambled fighter jets to the area in recent weeks in a further escalation, though no actual clashes have taken place.

- AFP/ck

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Feds: MegaUpload was not entrapped

Kim DotCom (at right) and his company managers shortly after being arrested in January 2012 for alleged copyright violations and fraud.

(Credit:
Screenshot by CNET)

Entrapment is one of MegaUpload's claims in its legal battle against the U.S. government. The feds are now saying this claim is "baseless."

"Megaupload's allegations are baseless, as even a cursory review of Megaupload's pleading and the search warrant materials at issue disproves the allegation that the government misled the court as part of a conspiracy to entrap Megaupload," the government wrote in a Friday filing (PDF).

MegaUpload, which was founded by Kim DotCom, is the highest-profile service to be accused of criminal copyright violations by the U.S. government -- and the case is being watched closely around the globe.

DotCom's saga has played out over the past year after he was arrested on allegations of criminal copyright violation, conspiracy, money laundering, and wire fraud. U.S. federal officials accused DotCom of pocketing millions of dollars in illegal profits from criminal file sharing and downloading that has reportedly cost the film industry more than $600 million in damages.

One of the reasons DotCom claims he was entrapped by the U.S. government is because he complied with a federal search warrant targeting five file-sharing services using MegaUpload's infrastructure in 2010, according to Wired. These file-sharing services, including Movies-Links.tv, Planetmoviez.com, and Ninjavideo.net, were accused of being movie-pirating sites.

MegaUpload reportedly gave the authorities a database of 39 pirated movies, which allowed the feds to raid the sites' operators and seize their assets. Even though DotCom cooperated with the government, the feds then used this same database as evidence in its case against MegaUpload. Apparently, DotCom never deleted the allegedly pirated movies from MegaUpload's servers, which the government said proved he was aware of pirated material on the platform.

In a January 2 court filing (PDF), DotCom's lawyer Ira Rothken wrote that "MegaUpload had every reason to retain those files in good faith because the government had sought and obtained MegaUpload's cooperation in retrieving those files and warned that alerting users to the existence of the warrant and the government's interest in the files could compromise the investigation."

However, the feds filing from Friday said this claim is meritless and that the government never told DotCom to keep the files. The feds also said that more than 2,000 users uploaded the 39 pirated movies because the material wasn't deleted from MegaUpload's servers.

Currently, DotCom and his company managers are free on bail in New Zealand while waiting for an extradition hearing. The hearing will determine whether they will be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial. The earliest the hearing will be scheduled is July 2013.

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.

While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toepad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

Yet these tree dwellers can easily escape notice—they spend most of their time in the canopy, she said.

Flying Frog On the Edge

Even so, Helen's flying frog won't be able to hide from development near Ho Chi Minh City, which may encroach on its existing habitats.

So far, only five individuals have been found in two patches of lowland forest hemmed in by rice paddies in southern Vietnam, Rowley said. The animals can probably tolerate a little bit of disturbance as long as they have large trees and temporary pools, she added.

But lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, mostly because they're so accessible to people, and thus chosen for logging and development. (Get the facts on deforestation.)

"While Helen's flying frog has only just been discovered by biologists," Rowley wrote, "unfortunately this species, like many others, is under great threat from ongoing habitat loss and degradation."

The new flying frog study was published in December 2012 in the Journal of Herpetology.

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Armstrong Admits Doping in Tour, Sources Say

Lance Armstrong today admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he used performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France, sources told ABC News.

A goverment source tells ABC News that Armstrong is now talking with authorities about paying back some of the US Postal Service money from sponsoring his team. He is also talking to authorities about confessing and naming names, giving up others involved in illegal doping. This could result in a reduction of his lifetime ban, according to the source, if Armstrong provides substantial and meaningful information.

Armstrong made the admission in what sources describe as an emotional interview with Winfrey to air on "Oprah's Next Chapter" on Jan. 17.

The 90-minute interview at his home in Austin, Texas, was Armstrong's first since officials stripped him of his world cycling titles in response to doping allegations.

Word of Armstrong's admission comes after a Livestrong official said that Armstrong apologized today to the foundation's staff ahead of his interview.

The disgraced cyclist gathered with about 100 Livestrong Foundation staffers at their Austin headquarters for a meeting that included social workers who deal directly with patients as part of the group's mission to support cancer victims.

Armstrong's "sincere and heartfelt apology" generated lots of tears, spokeswoman Katherine McLane said, adding that he "took responsibility" for the trouble he has caused the foundation.

Riccardo S. Savi/Getty Images|Ray Tamarra/Getty Images

Lance Armstrong Stripped of Tour de France Titles Watch Video

Lance Armstrong Doping Charges: Secret Tapes Watch Video

McLane declined to say whether Armstrong's comments included an admission of doping, just that the cyclist wanted the staff to hear from him in person rather than rely on second-hand accounts.

Armstrong then took questions from the staff.

Armstrong's story has never changed. In front of cameras, microphones, fans, sponsors, cancer survivors -- even under oath -- Lance Armstrong hasn't just denied ever using performance enhancing drugs, he has done so in an indignant, even threatening way.

Armstrong, 41, was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from the sport for life by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in October 2012, after allegations that he benefited from years of systematic doping, using banned substances and receiving illicit blood transfusions.

"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," Pat McQuaid, the president of the International Cycling Union, said at a news conference in Switzerland announcing the decision. "This is a landmark day for cycling."

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a 200-page report Oct. 10 after a wide-scale investigation into Armstrong's alleged use of performance-enhancing substances.

Armstrong won the Tour de France from 1999 to 2005.

According to a source, speaking to ABC News, a representative of Armstrong's once offered to make a donation estimated around $250,000 to the agency, as "60 Minutes Sports" on Showtime first reported.

Lance Armstrong's attorney Tim Herman denied it. "No truth to that story," Herman said. "First Lance heard of it was today. He never made any such contribution or suggestion."

Armstrong, who himself recovered from testicular cancer, created the Lance Armstrong Foundation (now known as the LIVESTRONG Foundation) to help people with cancer cope, as well as foster a community for cancer awareness. Armstrong resigned late last year as chairman of the LIVESTRONG Foundation, which raised millions of dollars in the fight against cancer.

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Benefits of emissions cuts kick in only next century

Are we the altruistic generation? Do we care what happens to our grandchildren, and to their children? Or are we with Groucho Marx when he said: "Why should I care about future generations? What have they ever done for me?"

A new study of climate change lays out in detail why this matters. According to its author, Nigel Arnell of the University of Reading, UK, the unpalatable truth is that even rapid action now to curb greenhouse gas emissions would have only a "negligible effect by 2030, and the benefits in 2050 would remain small". The big dividend – cooler temperatures, fewer floods and droughts and better crop yields, compared to carrying on as we are – would only become clear by about 2100.

Arnell and colleagues used climate models to look at how different policies to curb greenhouse gases would affect temperature, sea levels, crop yields and the incidence of droughts and floods. Two findings emerged. The first is that lags in the climate system mean the real benefits of cutting emissions will only show up late this century. This, says Arnell, underlines that there is a lot of global warming "in the pipeline" that cannot now be prevented.

But the study also shows that tackling climate change early brings big rewards. Arnell compared a policy of letting emissions peak in 2016 and then cutting them by 2 per cent a year with one that delays the peak till 2030 and then cuts by 5 per cent a year. He found that both restricted warming in 2100 to about 2 °C, but the climate disruption over the next century would be much less with the early start. Coastal flooding from sea-level rise in particular would be much reduced. This, he told New Scientist, contradicts a common view that drastic action to curb warming should wait for renewable energy to become cheaper.

"Arnell has shown just how crucial the emissions pathway we take today will be for our children and grandchildren," said Dave Reay, geoscientist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Bill McGuire of University College London agrees: "It shows taking effective action now is far better than putting it off until later."

It's a shame, then, that even if all goes well with UN negotiations, no global deal to bring down emissions will come into force until at least 2020. Our great-great-grandchildren will be cursing our delay.

Journal reference: Nature Climate Change, DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1793

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Jodie Foster teases Globes about "coming out"

 

LOS ANGELES: Jodie Foster teased the Golden Globes on Sunday by hailing her female ex-partner as "one of the deepest loves of my life" -- but then denying she was giving a coming-out speech.

Foster, long rumoured to be lesbian, surprised the audience by announcing she had a confession to make, saying she had "a sudden urge to say something that I've never really been able to air in public".

Announcing a "declaration that I'm a little nervous about, but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist," she said: "I'm just going to put it out there, right?

"Loud and proud, right? So I'm going to need your support on this," she told the A-list audience at the Beverly Hilton hotel, but this time listening intently.

"I am single," she said, to laughter, "Yes, I am. I am single. No, I'm kidding, but I mean, I'm not really kidding, but I'm kind of kidding.

"Seriously, I hope that you're not disappointed that there won't be a big coming-out speech tonight, because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the Stone Age."

She then went on to give a shout-out to a list of friends in the audience, including Mel Gibson, before saying: "There is no way I could ever stand here without acknowledging one of the deepest loves of my life.

Pointing to ex-partner Cydney Bernard, she called her "my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love, but righteous soul sister in life, my confessor, ski buddy, consigliere, most beloved BFF of 20 years."

"Thank you Cyd," she said, "I am so proud of our modern family. our amazing sons, Charlie and Kit (Christopher), who are my reason to breathe and to evolve, my blood and soul."

The 50-year-old, who won a Golden Globe and Oscar for her role in 1991's "Silence of the Lambs", was picking up the award from Globes organizers the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which announced it last November.

Previous honourees include Al Pacino, Steven Spielberg, Judy Garland, Harrison Ford, Walt Disney, Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis and Lucille Ball. Morgan Freeman received the award at last year's show.

-AFP/fl

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Anonymous hacks MIT after Aaron Swartz's suicide

Anonymous' message on an MIT page (click for larger image).

(Credit:
Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET)

Just hours after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pledged an investigation into its role in events leading up to the suicide of Aaron Swartz, online hacktivist group Anonymous defaced the school's Web site.

Swartz, a Reddit cofounder who championed open access to documents on the Internet, committed suicide on Friday. The 26-year-old was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. He faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if convicted.

After MIT President L. Rafael Reif issued a statement this afternoon promising a "thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present," Anonymous targeted at least two MIT Web sites. Lacking the loose-knit group's usual feisty language, the message posted on the Web site was a call for reform in the memory of the late Internet activist.

After calling the prosecution of Swartz "a grotesque miscarriage of justice" and "a distorted and perverse shadow of the justice that Aaron died fighting for," Anonymous outlined its list of goals under a section reservedly labeled "Our wishes:"

• We call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of computer crime laws, and the overzealous prosecutors who use them.


• We call for this tragedy to be a basis for reform of copyright and intellectual property law, returning it to the proper principles of common good to the many, rather than private gain to the few.
  


• We call for this tragedy to be a basis for greater recognition of the oppression and injustices heaped daily by certain persons and institutions of authority upon anyone who dares to stand up and be counted for their beliefs, and for greater solidarity and mutual aid in response.


• We call for this tragedy to be a basis for a renewed and unwavering commitment to a free and unfettered internet, spared from censorship with equality of access and franchise for all.

CNET has contacted MIT for comment on the apparent hacking and will update this report when we learn more.

Critics of the prosecutors in the case say the feds were unfairly trying to make an example out of Swartz. "Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy," Swartz's family said in a statement released yesterday. "It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office and at MIT contributed to his death."

CNET has also contacted the U.S. Attorney's office and will update this report when we hear back.

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse Cancelmo

A fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.

From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew and put them in irons.

The officers were allowed to keep their swords and wander the deck as long as they promised not to lead an uprising against the Alabama's crew, he added.

From there, the Alabama dropped off their captives in Jamaica, leaving them to make their own way back to the U.S.

Delgado wants to dig even further into the crew of the Hatteras. He'd like see if members of the public recognize any of the names on his list of crew members and can give him background on the men.

"That's why I do archaeology," he said.

(Read about other Civil War battlefields in National Geographic magazine.)

Published January 11, 2013

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Big Winners, Top Moments From the Golden Globes

Let's finally bury this idea that women can't be funny once and for all. Fey and Poehler were undeniably hilarious throughout the Globes, so much so that many fans on Twitter demanded more of them during the ceremony. From their opening bit -- Poehler: "Meryl Streep is not here tonight, she has the flu. And I hear she's amazing in it." -- to their pseudo drunk heckling of best TV comedy actress winner Lena Dunham, they were radiant, energetic, and above all, funny. More please.

Foster made her acceptance of the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award a coming out, of sorts. She first shocked the audience by leading them to think that she was about to make a huge public statement about her sexuality. Instead, she said she was single, adding "I already did my coming out in the stone age."

"Now, apparently, I'm told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference ... You guys might be surprised, but I'm not Honey Boo Boo child," she said, to a flurry of laughter and applause.

"If you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler ... then maybe you too might value privacy above all else," she said. "Privacy."

But Foster did specifically thank her ex-partner Cydney Bernard, with whom she has two kids. Both boys gestured to her from the audience.

She also implied that she was retiring from acting when she said she would not be returning to the Globes stage or any stage. "It's just that from now on, I may be holding a different talking stick," Foster said, bringing many in the audience to tears.

But backstage, Foster clarified to reporters that she was not retiring from acting. "Oh that's so funny," she responded to reporters. "You couldn't drag me away. And I'd like to be directing tomorrow."

It takes a lot to make Hollywood star struck. Bill Clinton did it when he strutted on stage to introduce a clip of "Lincoln," which was up for best drama. He brought the crowd of A-listers to its feet and commended the 16th president. "We're all here tonight because he did it," he said of Lincoln's battle to end slavery.

If there was any doubt that Lena Dunham wasn't Hollywood's next big thing, it was obliterated Sunday night. The star and creator of HBO's "Girls" went home with two awards, best actress in a TV comedy and best TV comedy. Her heartfelt acceptance speech for best actress struck a chord: "This award is for everyone who feels like there wasn't a place for her," she said. "This show made a space for me."

Jessica Chastain won the Globe for best actress in a drama for "Zero Dark Thirty." She offered a moving tribute to director Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win a best director Oscar who failed to get a nomination for that award this year, though "ZDT" was up for a slew of other awards, including best picture. "I can't help but compare my character of Maya to you," Chastain said to Bigelow. "When you make a film that allows your character to disobey the conventions of Hollywood, you've done more for women in cinema than you take credit for."

Blame it on nerves, the spirit of spontaneity, or the a-a-a-a-alcohol (apologies to Jamie Foxx), but Jennifer Lawrence's acceptance speech was a tad insulting to a Hollywood icon, if totally hilarious. "Oh what does it say?" she asked, looking at her trophy. "I beat Meryl." She meant Meryl Streep, who was also up for the award.

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