"WASHINGTON — Federal food safety inspectors said a proposal by the Agriculture Department to expand a pilot program that allows private companies to take over the inspections at poultry plants could pose a health risk by allowing contaminated meat to reach customers.""Currently, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors are stationed along the assembly lines in poultry plants and examine the birds for blemishes, feces or visible defects before they are processed."

"The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) today recommended the publication of two controversial avian flu papers."

"Federal health authorities have significantly raised their estimate of the prevalence of autism in children, concluding in a new study of 8-year-olds that 1 in 88 has some form of the disorder."

When some 18 girls in the upstate New York town of Le Roy developed unexplained tics and twitches starting in August 2011, many were quick to suspect that the cause was toxic substances in the environment. There had been a major chemical spill there in 1970. Erin Brockovich, of movie fame, started an investigation (as did EPA). But many of the potential chemical causes were ultimately discounted. Later hypotheses about the cause included sociological, psychological, and infectious factors. Today, many of the victims are doing better.

"Every day, inspectors in white hats and coats take up positions at every one of the nation's slaughterhouses, eyeballing the hanging carcasses of cows and chickens as they shuttle past on elevated rails, looking for bruises, tumors and signs of contamination."

"A U.S. judge sided with tobacco companies on Wednesday, ruling that regulations requiring large graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging and advertising violate free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitution."