Environmental Health

"Nearly nine months after Zika was declared a global health emergency, the virus has infected at least 650,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean, including tens of thousands of expectant mothers. But to the great bewilderment of scientists, the epidemic has not produced the wave of fetal deformities so widely feared when the images of misshapen infants first emerged from Brazil. Instead, Zika has left a puzzling and distinctly uneven pattern of damage across the Americas."

"The Detroit incinerator, long controversial for its burning of the city’s waste, is being targeted by a lawsuit that claims the facility repeatedly fails to meet safe air emission standards."

"More than 100 people were treated for respiratory problems after a chemical spill at an MGP Ingredients Inc facility on Friday generated a chemical cloud over the northeastern Kansas city of Atchison before authorities declared the threat over."

"With the EPA struggling to collect data on these huge farms, understanding their pollution levels is almost impossible."

"The Environmental Protection Agency was slated to hold four days of public meetings focused on essentially one question: Is glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide and the lynchpin to Monsanto’s fortunes, as safe as Monsanto has spent 40 years telling us it is? But oddly, the EPA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meetings, called to look at potential glyphosate ties to cancer, were 'postponed' just four days before they were to begin Oct. 18, after intense lobbying by the agrichemical industry."

"If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you may have seen ads urging you to vote 'no' on a grocery tax. 'Don't Tax Our Groceries' is the tagline of the $9.5 million campaign, which is funded by the American Beverage Association. ... But here's the thing. There's no grocery tax on the ballot."

"The Environmental Protection Agency had the authority and information to issue an emergency order protecting residents of Flint, Mich., from lead-tainted water a full seven months before it did so, an EPA internal investigation has concluded."

"Lawmakers have proposed pesticide-free zones around schools and daycare centers. Environmental and community activists say they fall short, given pesticides’ reach and persistence; pesticide manufacturers say they're unwarranted."

"Federal health officials have made a new color-coded map for Miami and say pregnant women should stay out of the "red zone" — where Zika virus is actively infecting new people daily."

"Long before the first winter frost, hundreds of drinking fountains in Chicago parks have been shut off after testing revealed high levels of brain-damaging lead in the water."