Environmental Health

"ATLANTA -- For the first time in 20 years, a federal panel is urging the government to lower the threshold for lead poisoning in children."

"The 'miracle fibre' that helped drive Quebec's economy for more than a century now represents an industry near death, despite government efforts to keep it afloat."

"The Food and Drug Administration plans to restrict a family of antibiotics commonly used to treat livestock, citing concerns that overuse might promote the development of drug-resistant bacteria that can infect people."

"The U.S. Food and Drug and Administration announced only days before Christmas that it has decided to back off a 34-year attempt to regulate the use of antibiotics in livestock feed for animals intended for human consumption, despite mounting scientific evidence that has linked the practice to the development of potentially fatal antibiotic-resistant superbugs in humans."

"WINFIELD, W.Va. -- Putnam County jurors chosen to sit in the upcoming case against Monsanto, a former Nitro chemical plant, will have to decide whether thousands of current and former Nitro residents should be periodically tested for disease at the expense of the company."

"In light of just-passed federal legislation, a chemical industry group is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to change course on its assessment of the most potent form of dioxin, a pollutant that causes cancer and is linked to reproductive problems. Such a move by the agency could drag out completion of the assessment, which has been underway for 20 years."

"Large numbers of infants and toddlers have died from lead poisoning in Nigerian villages where their parents process gold ore inside their family compounds, according to a report published Tuesday by an international team of researchers."

"The tobacco industry is accused today of misleading smokers over the safety of additives in cigarettes."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will release standards to combat air-toxics emissions from power plants during an event tomorrow at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington."

"Some media reported that a new analysis of environmental links to breast cancer tells women to stop worrying about consumer products. But these stories ignore the report’s explanation that definitive evidence is not attainable and lack of human evidence of harm doesn’t mean something is safe.The real news is that for the first time, an authoritative medical group stated that scientific evidence plausibly links pollutants and industrial chemicals with biological activity that suggests breast cancer risk."