"Pollution from burning wood in stoves, fireplaces and elsewhere is the top cancer risk in Oregon's air, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis."
During the Bush administration and earlier, the Pentagon waged a war to keep EPA from regulating perchlorate, a rocket fuel that has widely contaminated drinking water, by fudging the science about its health effects. Now the defense industry is pushing the same case to the Obama Office of Management and Budget.
"A lawsuit filed by about 5,700 Baton Rouge residents against ExxonMobil Corp. over a 1993 fire crawled through federal court for almost 15 years and has finally come to an end -- the residents lost, lawyers said."
Heart arrhythmias in females and permanent, deleterious modifications of a gene that plays a pivotal role in reproduction are two new problems being linked to bisphenol A. New findings about the toxicity of this chemical and data suggest human exposures may be higher than U.S. regulatory agencies have assumed.
Heavy lobbying by companies eager to get a slice of the $23 billion-a-year organic food business is watering down USDA "organic" standards to the point where consumers "are not always getting what they expect: foods without pesticides and other chemicals, produced in a way that is gentle to the environment."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday a proposed settlement of a lawsuit that could result in scrutiny of how dozens of dangerous pesticides affect threatened and endangered species living around San Francisco Bay."