Environmental Health

"DEPUE, Ill. -- This tiny village tucked into the Illinois River Valley is known for its lake, a tranquil body of tree-lined water that has drawn thousands of spectators to a national boat race for nearly 30 years. But most visitors heading to Lake DePue must pass another village landmark before reaching the shore — a pile of contaminated slag weighing at least 570,000 tons that looms over the main road into town, left behind by a zinc smelter that employed many locals for decades."

Many anglers who pull fish out of the Anacostia River near Washington, DC, eat them despire health warnings.

"The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new standard for soot pollution on Friday that will force industry, utilities and local governments to find ways to reduce emissions of particles that are linked to thousands of cases of disease and death each year."

"Reviving a 20-year debate over illnesses of veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, a new scientific paper presents evidence that nerve agents released by the bombing of Iraqi chemical weapons depots just before the ground war began could have carried downwind and fallen on American troops staged in Saudi Arabia."

"PARIS -- The French parliament voted Thursday to ban the use of bisphenol A, a chemical thought to have a toxic effect on the brain and nervous system, in baby food packaging next year and all food containers in 2015."

"More than 100 physicians urged the Obama administration on Thursday not to approve the construction of liquefied natural gas export terminals until more is known about the health effects of hydraulic fracturing, the drilling process that has opened the way for a big increase in domestic gas production."

"Spurred by mounting scientific evidence, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is initiating a new effort to examine whether low doses of hormone-mimicking chemicals are harming human health and whether chemical testing should be overhauled."

Brominated vegetable oil, an ingredient in many commercial drinks, may have harmful health effects. But a loophole in the law allows its health effects to go unevaluated, grandfathering it and many other ingredients in as "generally recognized as safe."

"Representative Edward Markey and some of his congressional colleagues are imploring the US Food and Drug Administration to investigate hair straightening treatments, such as the popular Brazilian Blowout, that contain formaldehyde, a carcinogen. ..."