Environmental Health

"Ordinary cleaning compounds—used in ordinary amounts—create long-lasting risks of spinal and brain defects in a lab study".

"House Republicans say they’ll protect programs that affect their districts. That’s a lot of the EPA’s work." "Members of the congressional committee responsible for the Environmental Protection Agency's budget—Republican and Democrat alike—made clear Thursday they have no intention of approving the White House's proposal to slash the agency's spending."

"FLINT, Mich. — By the time Robert Skidmore, an 85-year-old former auto industry worker, died in late 2015, officials had seen signs for months that Flint was wrestling with outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, prosecutors say. Yet despite a wave of such cases in 2014 and 2015, no public warning was issued until early 2016."

"A key federal official who helps adjudicate claims by veterans who say they were exposed to Agent Orange has downplayed the risks of the chemical herbicide and questioned the findings of scientists, journalists and even a federal administrative tribunal that conflict with his views."

"In 1933, workers at a plant in Delaware began suffering breakdowns. Enter Alice Hamilton, one of history’s foremost occupational-health detectives."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will delay implementation of an Obama-era chemical safety rule for nearly two years while it reassesses the necessity of the regulation."

"UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that by 2050 global demand for fresh water is projected to grow by more than 40 percent and at least a quarter of the world's population will live in countries with a 'chronic or recurrent' lack of clean water."

"Five percent of pregnant women with a confirmed Zika infection in the United States territories, including Puerto Rico, went on to have a baby with a related birth defect, according to the most comprehensive report to date from federal officials."

"The overwhelming majority of bats are friends of humanity. They gobble up the insects that bite us and ruin our crops. They pollinate flowers and they replant forests by spreading seeds around. But as agriculture overtakes rain forests and jungles, humans have come into conflict with one bat species: the common vampire bat."

"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has resumed its first-ever endeavor to evaluate how much of a controversial chemical is making its way into the U.S. food supply. And the tests can’t come soon enough as safety concerns about the herbicide known as glyphosate grow."