Environmental Health

The U.S. food industry's response to the emerging obesity problem has often put its own profits ahead of public health.

"Community advocates are outraged that a contaminated playground at a Newark public housing complex remained open, allowing children to be exposed to dangerous levels of lead."

"An international team of experts reported [Tuesday] that evidence linking hormone-mimicking chemicals to human health problems has grown stronger over the past decade, becoming a 'global threat' that should be addressed."

A Texas company quit plans to build a coal-fired power plant -- blaming President Obama's environmental rules, but admitting the low price of natural gas was a key reason.

Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case testing the reach of GMO companies' market power based on intellectual property claims -- and while environment and health are not immediately before the court, a case that could have wide impacts on both.

"Are people exposed to doses of bisphenol A in their canned foods and other consumer products that can harm them? Or are the amounts too low to cause any harm? This is the crux of a vehement debate that is being waged as federal officials are trying to decide whether the chemical, known as BPA, should be regulated."

"BOSTON -- Exposure to lead—so toxic—is a problem of the past, right? Wrong. Since the U.S. took lead out of gasoline in 1976 and banned lead paint in 1978, most health scientists, regulators and the public have considered the problem largely solved. But ongoing testing shows that even though the average concentration of lead in the American bloodstream has dropped by a factor of 10 since the late 1970s, the levels are still two orders of magnitude higher than natural human levels, which have been determined by studying skeletal remains of native Americans dating to before the industrial revolution."

Are people exposed to doses of bisphenol A in their canned foods and other consumer products that can harm them? Or are the amounts too low to cause any harm? This is the crux of a vehement debate that is being waged as federal officials are trying to decide whether the chemical, known as BPA, should be regulated."

"Women who took folic acid supplements before and during pregnancy were about 40% less likely to have a baby later diagnosed with autism, according to a provocative new study generating high interest in the scientific community."