Chemicals

"Owners of thousands of U.S. homes tainted with foul-smelling Chinese drywall agreed to a legal settlement on Thursday with a German manufacturer."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is expected Friday to approve a tough new rule to limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxic substances from the country's power plants, according to people with knowledge of the new standard."

"Some media reported that a new analysis of environmental links to breast cancer tells women to stop worrying about consumer products. But these stories ignore the report’s explanation that definitive evidence is not attainable and lack of human evidence of harm doesn’t mean something is safe.The real news is that for the first time, an authoritative medical group stated that scientific evidence plausibly links pollutants and industrial chemicals with biological activity that suggests breast cancer risk."

"Honeywell and fertilizer maker J.R. Simplot have agreed to build the first commercial facility for Sulf-N 26, a granular fertilizer that is comparable to ammonium nitrate but would be ineffective as a bomb material. Ammonium nitrate combined with fuel oil was used in the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995."

"Too much exposure to barium can cause tremors, breathing problems, diarrhea, irregular heartbeats, paralysis and death. Who could blame people for worrying if they live near huge mounds of soil laced with it?
The prospect of dust kicking up from those mounds when crews finally start building a freeway segment on top of them is causing some anxiety in neighborhoods west of downtown Modesto."

Garth Stapley reports for the Modesto Bee December 12, 2011.

"Patented as a flame retardant for plastics, and banned in food throughout Europe and Japan, a brominated chemical called BVO has been added to sodas for decades in North America. Now some scientists have a renewed interest in this little-known ingredient, found in 10 percent of sodas in the United States. Research on its toxicity dates back to the 1970s, and some experts now urge a reassessment."

"Air concentrations of the brominated chemicals doubled every 13 months in recent years in Cleveland and Chicago."

"The Food and Drug Administration must come up with a decision by March 31 on whether to ban a chemical that’s widely used in plastics and the metal linings of food containers, according to a court settlement reached Wednesday between the agency and the Natural Re­sources Defense Council."

"At a hearing in Washington yesterday, lawmakers pressed product safety and health regulators about their three-year investigation into contaminated drywall, expressing frustration with their progress on all fronts."