Local Government and Community Development (LGCD) Director General Tahir Husain has announced Rs20million for the development and survey of water problems in Punjab at a seminar on arsenic monitoring and mitigation here on Tuesday. Organised in conjunction with the government of Punjab and the UNICEF, the seminar discussed the findings of UNICEF Chief Provincial Officer Dr Deepak Bajracharaya, whose team conducted arsenic and bacterial surveys throughout Punjab.

A joint team of scientists of the Sindh University and doctors of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences on Tuesday detected skin diseases among four villagers caused by consumption of arsenic-heavy underground water in Arbab Allah Bux village near Tando Allahyar. The team led by eminent scientist Prof Dr Mohammad Yar Khuhawar, project director of High-tech Research Central Laboratory of Sindh University, visited the village after tests conducted earlier confirmed high arsenic levels in underground water of the village.

Hairless mice that ingested arsenite in drinking water exhibited more than a 5-fold enhancement of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) carcinogenesis, whereas arsenite alone was carcinogenically inactive. Dietary organoselenium blocked the cancer enhancement effect of arsenic but not cancer induction by UVR.

Cameco, the world's largest uranium producer, has told the Canadian nuclear regulator that its refinery might have leaked uranium, arsenic and fluorides into Lake Ontario. A section of the Port Hope, Ontario, plant of Cameco, the world's largest uranium producer. The plant at Port Hope, Ontario, across the lake from Rochester and down the shore from Toronto, first refined uranium for the Manhattan Project during World War II. It has been temporarily closed since July to remove contaminated soil.

Health Canada, a drug and health regulatory body, has once again said some Ayurvedic products may contain high levels of heavy metals, such as lead, mercury and arsenic. Saying these medicines may pose serious health risks, the Canadian regulator has asked people to exercise caution while purchasing them.

UNLESS there is heavy rain in the Murray-Darling Basin over the rest of the year, 90% of South Australians face environmental catastrophe caused by the movement of heavy metals in solution up the river by osmosis. Osmosis is the process by which any solution that is in higher concentration in one part of a body of fluid will flow into the other parts with a lower concentration until the solution is evenly distributed.

there is now an addition to the list of benefits that breast milk offers. It protects infants from arsenic, says a study conducted inBangladesh. The study is crucial because almost 50 per cent of

Contamination of groundwater by arsenic and its adverse effect on human being have been reported in 20 countries in different parts of the world. Groundwater arsenic contamination has raised its ugly head recently in Assam. Arsenic concentration in groundwater samples from the three blocks viz.

The objective of this study was to use data collected by Gonoshasthaya Kendra, a large nongovernmental organization providing health care to some 600 villages, to describe the epidemiological pattern of stillbirth and any additional contribution made by arsenic contamination of hand-pump wells in Bangladesh. March 2008

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