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."

"COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Doctors given new access to the proprietary chemical recipes that oil and gas drillers use to crack into Ohio shale would be prohibited from sharing the information with the public under an energy proposal moving through the Ohio House."

"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."

"WASHINGTON -- Moms, a few dads and some children gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday to urge Congress to strengthen the federal government's powers to regulate harmful chemicals."

"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.

Maryland is set to ban the arsenic-containing drug Roxarsone in chicken feed. Maryland is a major chicken producer, and that puts it ahead of most other states as well as the federal government. It is all the more remarkable, given that 'Big Chicken' is a major force in Maryland politics.

"At his family farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Lee Richardson raises thousands of chickens from fuzzy hatchlings to the juicy broilers stacked at grocery stores far and wide. Like a lot of farmwork, this seems simple, but it's not.

"A new law in Pennsylvania has doctors nervous."

"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."