"Americans are likely to be exposed at higher levels than previously thought to bisphenol A, a compound that mimics hormones important to human development and is found in more than 90 percent of people in the United States, according to new research."

"Children whose drinking water contains high concentrations of manganese appear to have lower IQ scores on average than children not exposed to the metallic element, researchers have found."

"The first genetically modified animal could move one step closer to the U.S. market on Monday, when a federal advisory panel makes its recommendation on whether such food -- a salmon -- is safe for consumers to eat."

"Moscow registered nearly 11,000 deaths due to an unprecedented heatwave this summer, a city official told AFP Friday, as the mortality rate more than doubled in the Russian capital."

"A Veterans Affairs official told Congress on Thursday that despite the evidence of widespread contamination of drinking water at Camp Lejeune, the agency doesn't think that the science yet exists to link exposure to the toxic water led to a host of cancers and other diseases suffered by former base residents."

"The New Mexico Environmental Law Center today appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that allows uranium mining in the Four Corners region of New Mexico. The appeal claims the mine would contaminate drinking water used by some 15,000 Navajo people."

"Dispensing antibiotics to healthy animals is routine on the large, concentrated farms that now dominate American agriculture. ... Now, after decades of debate, the Food and Drug Administration appears poised to issue its strongest guidelines on animal antibiotics yet."

"The Corn Refiners Association, which represents firms that make the syrup, has been trying to improve the image of the much maligned sweetener with ad campaigns promoting it as a natural ingredient made from corn. Now, the group has petitioned the United States Food and Drug Administration to start calling the ingredient 'corn sugar.'"

"A new government study adds to the evidence that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative until recently found in many vaccines, does not increase children's risk of autism."

"U.S. Department of Agriculture experts found growing sanitary problems including bugs and overflowing trash earlier this year on the Iowa farm at the center of the national egg recall, but didn't notify health authorities, according to government documents and officials."

Three environmental groups have issued a report detailing some 39 cases across the U.S. where pollution from the ash left from coal-burning electric power plants has cause pollution that often threatens human health. Now as EPA moves to close the electric utilities' longtime exemption from hazardous waste laws, industry lobbyists may have quietly put the fix in at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

"Hundreds of people packed a public hearing Wednesday in Dallas to sound off on a federal proposal to label the ash from coal-burning power plants a hazardous waste."
 

"In the rush to develop America's biggest new source of domestic energy, one community is fighting to protect its rural way of life from the environmental strains that accompany shale gas drilling."

"The Environmental Protection Agency sent letters to nine drilling companies on Thursday requesting detailed information about the chemicals contained in fluids used to crack open underground rock formations in the hunt for oil and natural gas."

In a classic two-sided story, the New York Times reports scientific uncertainty about whether the ubiquitous plastic chemical BPA hurts humans or not. It does not explore another key question: should the burden of proof be on companies to prove chemicals they widely expose people to are safe? -- or on environmental health scientists to prove them unsafe?