"With efforts to reduce lead poisoning among children at a crossroads, Maryland lawmakers are wrestling with proposals to expand state regulation of home sales, rentals and repairs to reduce youngsters' exposure to the toxic metal."

"More than two billion people have gained access to better drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells, between 1990 and 2010, UN officials said on Tuesday. The figure means the world has met the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people with no safe drinking water well ahead of a 2015 deadline, UNICEF and the World Health Organization said."

"Campbell's Soup has agreed to stop using the chemical BPA in the lining of its cans, joining a host of other brands moving away from using the substance."

"DONNA, Texas -- Signs bearing a skull and crossbones dot the banks of a reservoir and canal near this town on the U.S.-Mexico border, but the fishermen standing in the reeds nearby ignore them, casually reeling in fish that are contaminated with toxic chemicals and banned for human consumption."

"It is a pattern seen in various parts of the world — children being sickened from exposure to lead from mining activities. But the scale of the problem in Nigeria’s gold-mining region of Zamfara is unprecedented: More than 400 children have died and thousands more have been severely poisoned by exposure to lead dust."

Elizabeth Grossman reports for Yale Environment 360 March 1, 2012. [24]

"Exposure to certain pollutants early in a rat’s pregnancy can foster disease in her offspring during their adulthood as well as in subsequent generations, a new study shows. A wide range of pollutants elicited such lasting effects, despite future generations never encountering the triggering pollutant."

"After 21 years of contentious scientific analysis, the Environmental Protection Agency has established a safe level of exposure to the most toxic form of dioxin."

"Mount Sinai School of Medicine virologists find signs of infection in 1-2% of blood samples screened, but most people didn't seek or need treatment."

"WINFIELD, W.Va. -- A proposed settlement has been reached in a huge class-action lawsuit where Nitro residents say the chemical giant Monsanto unsafely burned dioxin wastes and spread contaminated soot and dust across Nitro, polluting homes with unsafe levels of the chemical."

Several federal agencies and an array of environmental groups and companies are at odds over how much selenium pollution should be allowed from an Idaho phosphate mine. It is the two-headed trout that may end up carrying the argument.