The incidence of autism seems to be increasing, and genetics does not account for all the cases. Researchers are asking whether environmental factors like toxic chemicals are partly to blame, but definitive answers have not yet been found.
"Environmental regulators in Kentucky have found high levels of lead contamination at a former foundry site in Newport that is located next to homes. In Portland, Ore., state officials said Thursday that they will start canvassing a neighborhood near a former lead factory site as they prepare to test yards there for contamination."
"The White House appears to be blocking Environmental Protection Agency efforts to tighten oversight of engineered nanoscale pesticides and other chemicals, according to environmental and safety advocates."
"For years, U.S. government agencies have told the public, veterans and Congress that they couldn't draw any connections between the so-called 'burn pits' disposing of trash at the military's biggest bases and veterans' respiratory or cardiopulmonary problems. But a 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room flat-out stated that the burn pit at one of Afghanistan's largest bases poses 'long-term adverse health conditions' to troops breathing the air there."
"Black and Latino toddlers may have significantly higher levels of toxic flame retardants in their bodies than white children, according to a new study that challenges one of industry's chief arguments for expanding use of the chemicals."
"Melinda Olson has given her 12-year-old son raw milk for years. When he walked away virtually unscathed from a serious bike accident last year, she credited his healthy diet of raw milk dairy products. Matthew Caldwell fed his 2-year-old son, Owen, raw milk in the spring of 2010. The boy was hospitalized for 13 days, victim of an E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak traced to raw milk producer Mike Hartmann."
"RAYNHAM -- A new study on Eastern equine encephalitis shows the number of people in Massachusetts who have contracted the mosquito-borne virus has grown in recent years."
"Exposed to poisoned water at Camp Lejeune, these vets may hold the key to a scourge that kills some 40,000 American women -- and a few hundred men -- per year."
"It all started with Mike Partain, a.k.a. Number One. A barrel-chested father of four with a goatee and a predilection for aviator sunglasses, Partain was born at Camp Lejeune, the North Carolina base where his father, a first lieutenant in the US Marine Corps, was stationed in the late 1960s. Now he lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where he makes his living as an insurance claims adjuster.
"With "Golden Holocaust," historian Robert Proctor deconstructs an industry that still kills more than 400,000 Americans a year."
"FRAZEE, MINN. - Don and Norma Smith couldn't understand why their sheep stopped producing lambs in the mid-1990s. When half the animals died mysteriously over one winter, they gave up on the profitable hobby that had won blue ribbons for their kids at the Minnesota State Fair."
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