1014_BO

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news for Sonoma, Marin & Napa Counties

“Official Newspaper of Not Becoming a Coal Miner�

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If 10 percent of the material or less is absorbed by the body ‘and your hair falls out,’ Jim Mulowney says, ‘you should be concerned about where the rest of the material goes.’

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Chemotherapy drugs can work wonders for cancer patients, but what might they do to the rest of us? By Bruce Robinson

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hat is that stuff ?� Jim Mulowney wondered as he watched a hazardous waste crew disposing of used medical syringes. The only answer he got was, “It’s not regulated.� More specifically, he learned that the syringes had held a chemotherapy drug, also known as a mutagen. So Mulowney read through the material safety data sheet for the drug, and he recalls, “The side effects said, ‘May cause cancer. May cause heritable genetic damage.’ And then, ‘May cause harm to the unborn child.’ I went back to the guys who were breaking the syringes and said, ‘You’ve gotta stop doing that.’� Then, with a curiosity informed by a chemistry degree and 20 years in the hazardous-waste-disposal business, Mulowney

checked out the Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations for such drugs. “I was in disbelief,� he says, still incredulous three years later. “The people who manufacture them are basically in spacesuits: Level 1 containment, zero exposure allowed. And then the chemical is shipped to the pharmacy and the pharmacist is in a Level 3 biological safety cabinet, as if you’re handling anthrax. And once it’s done,� he shakes his head, “it’s thrown away.� The drugs in question are known as cytotoxins, developed specifically to break through the wall of a cancer cell, attack the DNA inside and break off chromosomes so the cancer cell cannot reproduce. “These chemicals work on every cell, not just cancer cells,� Mulowney cautions, adding that they are also administered in extremely small concentrations, some as low as a “nanogram

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per liter, a part per trillion� solution. And just like virtually all other medicines, not all of the active compound is used within the patient. If 10 percent of the material or less is absorbed by the body “and your hair falls out,� he says, “you should be concerned about where the rest of the material goes.� That’s not limited to flushing the toilet. “A patient on these drugs, it’ll come through their skin, and they can actually breathe it out. It’s excreted through your hair and through your sweat glands. Some of the greatest exposure to these cytotoxic drugs is to the people doing the laundry from the hospitals.� Of course, today many cancer patients take their chemotherapy doses at home. “It’s a worldwide issue,� agrees Lynn Small, deputy director of environmental services for the city of Santa Rosa, adding that although some studies are %-

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THE BOHEMIAN

Ă…<gZiX]Zc <^aZh

04.07.10-04.13.10

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