Environmental Health

"Trichloroethylene, formerly a widely used solvent, will be listed as a 'known human carcinogen' in a federal Report on Carcinogens to be published Nov. 3."

"The Environmental Protection Agency once again gave its stamp of approval to a new weed-killing pesticide from Dow Chemical Co. following a review a court granted in response to an agency request."

"Rep. Dan Kildee has asked Congressional leaders to launch an investigation into a pharmaceutical company accused of raising prices of its lead treatment drug in the wake of Flint's lead water crisis receiving international attention."

"RUSSELL, Pa. — There are 44 miles of dirt roads in rural Farmington Township, Warren County, hard against the New York state line, and it’s not uncommon to see horse-drawn Amish buggies clip-clopping up and down them. In summer, Amish children walk the roads barefoot. It’s also not uncommon over the last decade to see tanker trucks spraying and spreading thousands of gallons of salty “brine,” wastewater from gas and oil well drilling, onto those same roads."

"The controversy over genetically modified crops has long focused on largely unsubstantiated fears that they are unsafe to eat. But an extensive examination by The New York Times indicates that the debate has missed a more basic problem — genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides."

"About 300 million children in the world breathe highly toxic air, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a report on Monday that used satellite imagery to illustrate the magnitude of the problem."

"A new analysis shows the lead poisoning level for children in Wisconsin is lower than in recent years, but is nearly as high as Flint, Mich., where lead contamination caused a drinking water crisis."

"The Manchester community is one of several on Houston's east side that environmental activists say is concerned about chemical exposure. Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, or Tejas, has teamed up with the Center for Science and Democracy’s Union of Concerned Scientists to publish data they say supports their stance that living in communities near chemical plants and refineries can lead to deadly illnesses."

"For decades, the military and the VA have repeatedly turned to one man to guide decisions on whether Agent Orange harmed vets in Vietnam and elsewhere. His reliable answer: No."

"Nearly nine months after Zika was declared a global health emergency, the virus has infected at least 650,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean, including tens of thousands of expectant mothers. But to the great bewilderment of scientists, the epidemic has not produced the wave of fetal deformities so widely feared when the images of misshapen infants first emerged from Brazil. Instead, Zika has left a puzzling and distinctly uneven pattern of damage across the Americas."