"Consumer safety advocates are sounding the alarm now that fewer government officials are at work to inspect food in light of the shutdown. But in reality, the government wasn’t doing much of that in the first place."

"In resolving a longstanding dispute, the Food and Drug Administration has announced that it will rescind approval for three of the four arsenic drugs that had been used in animal feeds at the request of the companies that market them."

"Children who did not get vaccinated against whopping cough are one of the causes of the 2010 outbreak of the illness, when more cases were reported than in any year since 1947, researchers say."

"MARSHALL, Mich. -- People who canoe on, or wade or swim in, the Kalamazoo River near Marshall in southwestern Michigan are not expected to suffer any long-term harm from chemicals left in the water when an oil pipeline burst in 2010, according to a state report."

"Prions -- the infectious, deformed proteins that cause chronic wasting disease in deer -- can be taken up by plants such as alfalfa, corn and tomatoes, according to new research from the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison."

"Critics of hydraulic fracturing, known widely as 'fracking,' have been pushing hard for natural gas companies to disclose all of the chemicals in the fluids that are used in the process. But what if the companies themselves don't even know what those chemicals are?"

"Scientists have documented for the first time that banned flame retardants have declined in people in the United States, where levels of the chemicals had been growing exponentially."

"WHITING -- The Indiana Department of Environmental Management issued its final ruling on a permit application for BP's Whiting Refinery, requiring the company to cut its mercury releases into Lake Michigan by more than half."

"Cancer-causing industrial chemicals have been found in the sewers at a Columbia-area restaurant as a state investigation of illegal dumping expands from the Upstate to the Midlands, where utility officials scrambled this week to learn more about the threat to central South Carolina."