California's county and city environmental health services delivery system.

The purpose of the authors' research was to assess the current status of county and city environmental health service delivery in California with the aim of providing a foundation for informed decision making about environmental health service delivery. Standardized interviews were conducted from March 2005 to May 2005 with 55 (88 percent) of the 62 county and city directors of environmental health; their jurisdictions represented 90 percent of the state's population and 94 percent of the landmass. Relevant databases and other publicly available information germane to project goals were also evaluated. The directors who were interviewed reported a total of 2,477 professional environmental health staff employed in county and city agencies, complemented by 520 support personnel. Percentages of respondents reporting technical-training needs were greatest for Certified Unified Program Agency (CUPA) activities (60 percent), dairy programs (57 percent), and septic-system programs (55 percent), while nontechnical training was desired in conflict resolution (55 percent), written/oral communication (49 percent), and problem solving (49 percent). Sixty-seven percent (67 percent) of directors reported difficulty in recruiting qualified applicants. Fifty-six percent (56 percent) were familiar with the 10 essential services of environmental health, while only 11 percent collected and reported health outcome measures to demonstrate agency effectiveness. The study team concluded that at the local level, environmental health services are largely provided as a reflection of local need; however, this tendency toward customization leads to stakeholder confusion about the purpose and value of environmental health services. The authors offer seven recommendations for improving environmental health services in California. Many of these recommendations can be generalized to the nation at large.

Pesticide mixtures, endocrine disruption, and amphibian declines: are we underestimating the impact?

Amphibian populations are declining globally at an alarming rate. Pesticides are among a number of proposed causes for these declines. Although a sizable database examining effects of pesticides on amphibians exists, the vast majority of these studies focus on toxicological effects (lethality, external malformations, etc.) at relatively high doses (parts per million). Very few studies focus on effects such as endocrine disruption at low concentrations. Further, most studies examine exposures to single chemicals only. The present study examined nine pesticides (four herbicides, two fungicides, and three insecticides) used on cornfields in the midwestern United States. Effects of each pesticide alone (0.1 ppb) or in combination were examined. In addition, we also examined atrazine and S-metolachlor combined (0.1 or 10 ppb each) and the commercial formulation Bicep II Magnum, which contains both of these herbicides. These two pesticides were examined in combination because they are persistent throughout the year in the wild. We examined larval growth and development, sex differentiation, and immune function in leopard frogs (Rana pipiens). In a follow-up study, we also examined the effects of the nine-compound mixture on plasma corticosterone levels in male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis). Although some of the pesticides individually inhibited larval growth and development, the pesticide mixtures had much greater effects. Larval growth and development were retarded, but most significantly, pesticide mixtures negated or reversed the typically positive correlation between time to metamorphosis and size at metamorphosis observed in controls: exposed larvae that took longer to metamorphose were smaller than their counterparts that metamorphosed earlier. The nine-pesticide mixture also induced damage to the thymus, resulting in immunosuppression and contraction of flavobacterial meningitis. The study in X. laevis revealed that these adverse effects may be due to an increase in plasma levels of the stress hormone corticosterone. Although it cannot be determined whether all the pesticides in the mixture contribute to these adverse effects or whether some pesticides are effectors, some are enhancers, and some are neutral, the present study revealed that estimating ecological risk and the impact of pesticides on amphibians using studies that examine only single pesticides at high concentrations may lead to gross underestimations of the role of pesticides in amphibian declines.