Environmental Health

"The economic decline and elevated infant mortality rate in the 53210 ZIP code area exemplify the challenges facing [Milwaukee] city leaders."

'Indian children play on the sloping face of a man-made mountain of mining detritus. Factory workers toil in a blizzard of white fibre with little or no protection. These are just some of the disturbing daily scenes in India where asbestos is a booming building product.'

'Scientists Increasingly Link Vehicle Exhaust With Brain-Cell Damage, Higher Rates of Autism'

An independent EPA science panel has taken issue with EPA's longstanding conclusion that Atrazine, the second most widely used pesticide on US farms, is not likely to cause cancer.

The Martins, a Latino family who live in Maywood, California, 10 minutes from downtown Los Angeles amid a sea of heavy industry, suffered from a variety of chronic sicknesses. Test results finally showed "The Martin family had traces of eight dangerous heavy metals and 17 industrial byproducts in their bodies. Levels of arsenic, chromium, mercury, manganese and vanadium were far higher than for most Americans."

"All this month [October], the market has been saturated with pink-ribbon products sold in the name of breast cancer awareness, some with dubious ties to good health. How about some pink-certified wine? Or how about a Smith & Wesson handgun with a pink grip and engraved ribbon insignia?

"Today, the United States has begun marching millions of airline passengers through the X-ray body scanners, parting ways with countries in Europe and elsewhere that have concluded that such widespread use of even low-level radiation poses an unacceptable health risk. The government is rolling out the X-ray scanners despite having a safer alternative that the Transportation Security Administration says is also highly effective."

"The Interior Department plans to issue a proposal soon forcing companies to reveal the chemicals they use in the so-called fracking drilling process on federal lands, as the Obama administration responds to public safety concerns over the shale exploration boom."

"THERMAL – At one end of Avenue 54, a road slicing through some of the most fertile land in the United States, resides the California of the popular imagination: a place of Bermuda shorts, putting greens and picture-window champagne dinners overlooking the infinity pool.

"Maryland's highest court struck down Monday a key provision of state law that shielded owners of older rental housing from civil lawsuits -- and potentially costly payments to victims -- if they took precautions to protect children in their units from lead-paint poisoning."