Chemicals

"The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to delay enforcing a new lead-paint regulation following pressure from home builders and members of Congress."

"The director of the national institute that oversees environmental health research said Monday that a new study raises many important questions about how flame retardants in common household items may pose a threat to the health of pregnant women and their infants."

The Superfund tax on oil and chemical companies that helped support cleanup of abandoned hazardous waste sites expired in 1995. Now the Obama administration plans an effort to revive it.

"Environmental groups filed two new major lawsuits Thursday, aimed at forcing the coal industry to stop violations of water-quality limits for toxic selenium."

"As arguments rage over how to clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an examination of toxicity tests reveals flaws in the data used to determine the safety of dispersants."

Petrochemical companies like BP won a key battle in achieving unpoliced self-regulation early in the Bush administration -- when they got friends in Congress and the White House to shut EPA out of chemical safety and security oversight. As public health advocates point to possible disasters more lethal than the Gulf spill, there may be an opportunity to reverse the federal government's decisions not to protect the public from petrochemical disasters.

"Children exposed to higher levels of C8 are at an increased risk of developing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a scientific paper published this week."

"A U.S. senator called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Sunday to reveal findings about a possible link between a chemical found in most sunscreens and skin cancer."

"Scientists have found evidence suggesting that chemicals designed to prevent fires are getting into your children's blood and rewiring their brains, leading to attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, hearing problems, slow mental development and, possibly, cancer. They're not great for adults either -- men with high blood levels of flame retardants had a decreased sperm count, and women took longer to conceive -- but because children's nervous systems are still developing, they are even more vulnerable."

"The EPA, declaring that endosulfan is unsafe for farm workers, moves to ban one of the last organochlorine pesticides left in the United States. Like DDT, endosulfan accumulates in the environment and in the bodies of people and wildlife, and is transported around the world to remote places."