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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS laboratory found phthalates in Pantene Pro V "Healthy Hold" and Aqua Net hairsprays, Arrid and Degree deodorants, and fragrances like Poison by Christian Dior and Coty's Healing Garden Pure Joy Body Treatment, to name just a few. (Source: Not Too Pretty website, http://www.nottoopretty.org/report.htm) wo young men from Michigan who died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) last (northern) autumn were only diagnosed because a specialist insisted on tests that wouldn't normally be done. He is now saying that when anyone, no matter how young, dies with suspicious neurolog- ical symptoms, there should be a post- mortem to check for CJD. The men, aged 26 and 28, were brought to the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor last summer with rapidly wors- ening neurological symptoms. One had severe epilepsy, the other had symptoms of dementia. Norman Foster, the attending neurolo- gist and a CJD specialist, says that, although neither man's symptoms fitted all the official criteria for the disease, he still pushed for biopsies. They revealed that each had a different form of sporadic CJD. The pattern of brain lesions and an analysis of the prion proteins that caused the disease showed it was not vCJD, the human form of BSE. Nor did it look like the chronic wasting disease of deer that occurs in neighbouring Wisconsin, which some fear might also be transmissible to humans. Foster warns that anyone who dies with dementia should be autopsied, and brain biopsies should be taken from young people who might have CJD. (Source: New Scientist, May 11, 2002) ik May 2002, a coalition of American environmental and public health organi- sations contracted with a major national laboratory to test 72 name-brand, off-the- shelf beauty products for the presence of phthalates—a large family of industrial chemicals linked to permanent birth defects in the male reproductive system. The laboratory found phthalates in 52 of 72 products tested—including nine of 14 deodorants, all 17 fragrances tested, six of seven hair gels, four of seven mousses, 14 of 18 hair sprays, and two of nine hand and body lotions—in concentrations ranging from trace amounts to nearly three per cent of the product formulation. Major loopholes in federal law allow the US$20-billion-a-year cosmetics industry to put unlimited amounts of phthalates into many personal care products—with no required testing, no required monitoring of health effects, and no required labelling. To the coalition's knowledge, the 72 product tests detailed in the study represent the most comprehensive information avail- able on the occurrence of phthalates in individual beauty care products. None of the 52 phthalate-containing products lists the offending chemical on its ingredients label. Phthalates damage the developing testes of offspring and cause malformations of the penis and other parts of the reproduc- - tive tract. , The same | offi | phthalates 7 _Uorenr found to cause % US SPACE AND STRATEGIC COMMANDS TO MERGE A part of the ongoing initiative to transform the US military into a 21st- century fighting force, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has announced the intention to merge two uni- fied commands whose missions include control of America's nuclear forces, mili- tary space operations, computer network operations, strategic warning and global planning. The intended merger of US Space Command (SpaceCom) and US Strategic Command (StratCom) is meant to improve combat effectiveness and speed up infor- mation collection and assessment needed for strategic decision-making. "The missions of SpaceCom and StratCom have evolved to the point where merging the two into a single entity will eliminate redundancies in the command structure and streamline the decision- making process," said Rumsfeld. en as the reproduc- tive tract. a STs | t The same | oBFENGISN ; phthalates A a found to cause hk w& & Y permanent , } ~~ ~~ harm of the male reproductive system in laboratory studies are also found in hairsprays, deodorants and fragrances— including those from big-name companies like Revlon, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior "Qh, the Anglo guy in black? He left his mobile phone switched and Procter & on during a film festival." Gamble. The BSE RISK FROM POLIO VACCINE lhe UK drugs safety watchdog has been criticised for allowing polio vaccines made from banned cattle products to be given to hundreds of thousands of people. Prof. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, said the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) should have taken extra care and acted more proactively to stop the potential contamination with BSE- infected material in the late 1990s. He accused drug companies of giving inaccurate information about vaccines, and called on the MCA to monitor the industry more carefully. His report investigated a brand of oral polio vaccine recalled in October 2000 after fears that it could be contaminated with BSE. The vaccine, one of two used in Britain, was made using British foetal calf serum dating from the mid-1980s. (Source: The Telegraph, UK, June 7, 2002) ag "Oh, the Anglo guy in black? He left his mobile phone switched on during a film festival." NEXUS +7 ALERT ON NEW FORM OF CJD PHTHALATES IN COSMETICS AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2002 www.nexusmagazine.com