Development of a pollution prevention and energy efficiency clearinghouse for biomedical research facilities.

This is the report of the National Association of Physicians for the Environment Committee on Development of a Pollution Prevention and Energy Efficiency Clearinghouse for Biomedical Research Facilities from the Leadership Conference on Biomedical Research and the Environment held at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, on 1--2 November 1999. A major goal of the conference was the establishment of a World Wide Web-based clearinghouse, which would lend tremendous resources to the biomedical research community by providing access to a database of peer-reviewed articles and references dealing with a host of aspects of biomedical research relating to energy efficiency, pollution prevention, and waste reduction. A temporary website has been established with the assistance of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regions III and IV, where a pilot site provides access to the EPA's existing databases on these topics. A system of peer review for articles and promising techniques still must be developed, but a glimpse of topics and search engines is available for comment and review on the EPA Region IV-supported website (http://wrrc.p2pays.org/).

Minimization and management of wastes from biomedical research.

Several committees were established by the National Association of Physicians for the Environment to investigate and report on various topics at the National Leadership Conference on Biomedical Research and the Environment held at the 1--2 November 1999 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. This is the report of the Committee on Minimization and Management of Wastes from Biomedical Research. Biomedical research facilities contribute a small fraction of the total amount of wastes generated in the United States, and the rate of generation appears to be decreasing. Significant reductions in generation of hazardous, radioactive, and mixed wastes have recently been reported, even at facilities with rapidly expanding research programs. Changes in the focus of research, improvements in laboratory techniques, and greater emphasis on waste minimization (volume and toxicity reduction) explain the declining trend in generation. The potential for uncontrolled releases of wastes from biomedical research facilities and adverse impacts on the general environment from these wastes appears to be low. Wastes are subject to numerous regulatory requirements and are contained and managed in a manner protective of the environment. Most biohazardous agents, chemicals, and radionuclides that find significant use in research are not likely to be persistent, bioaccumulative, or toxic if they are released. Today, the primary motivations for the ongoing efforts by facilities to improve minimization and management of wastes are regulatory compliance and avoidance of the high disposal costs and liabilities associated with generation of regulated wastes. The committee concluded that there was no evidence suggesting that the anticipated increases in biomedical research will significantly increase generation of hazardous wastes or have adverse impacts on the general environment. This conclusion assumes the positive, countervailing trends of enhanced pollution prevention efforts by facilities and reductions in waste generation resulting from improvements in research methods will continue.

New studies on the heat resistance of hamster-adapted scrapie agent: threshold survival after ashing at 600 degrees C suggests an inorganic template of replication.

One-gram samples from a pool of crude brain tissue from hamsters infected with the 263K strain of hamster-adapted scrapie agent were placed in covered quartz-glass crucibles and exposed for either 5 or 15 min to dry heat at temperatures ranging from 150 degrees C to 1,000 degrees C. Residual infectivity in the treated samples was assayed by the intracerebral inoculation of dilution series into healthy weanling hamsters, which were observed for 10 months; disease transmissions were verified by Western blot testing for proteinase-resistant protein in brains from clinically positive hamsters. Unheated control tissue contained 9.9 log(10)LD(50)/g tissue; after exposure to 150 degrees C, titers equaled or exceeded 6 log(10)LD(50)/g, and after exposure to 300 degrees C, titers equaled or exceeded 4 log(10)LD(50)/g. Exposure to 600 degrees C completely ashed the brain samples, which, when reconstituted with saline to their original weights, transmitted disease to 5 of 35 inoculated hamsters. No transmissions occurred after exposure to 1, 000 degrees C. These results suggest that an inorganic molecular template with a decomposition point near 600 degrees C is capable of nucleating the biological replication of the scrapie agent.