Environmental Health

After CDC researchers confirmed that dengue fever had returned to the U.S., a Key West health officer said no new cases had been reported since October 2010.

"Within weeks of setting off a geiger counter and scrubbing three layers of skin off his hands and arms, former Navy quartermaster Maurice Enis recalled being pressured to sign away U.S. government liability for any future health problems."

"TSAWWASSEN, B.C. — With five coal export terminals under consideration in Washington and Oregon, Northwest residents are grappling for the first time with issues that are old hat in coal states like West Virginia and Kentucky. One of those issues: coal dust."

"The EPA has not revised key hazard standards that protect children from lead poisoning since 2001, despite science showing harms at far lower levels of exposure than previously believed."

"ATLANTA, Ga. -- Drug-resistant germs called carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, are on the rise and have become more resistant to last-resort antibiotics over the past decade, warns a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

"The number of Detroit children with lead levels exceeding a newly revised federal guideline has dropped more than 70 percent, from about 10,000 kids to 2,900 since 2004. Nevertheless, the number of children with elevated lead levels in Detroit and other Rust Belt cities remains much higher than the national average, and low-income people of color are most at risk."

"Marika Holmgren will never be sure why she was diagnosed with breast cancer at 37. She was a devoted athlete and vegetarian. Cancer ran in her family, but not breast cancer."

"The rate of advanced breast cancer for U.S. women 25 to 39 years old nearly doubled from 1976 to 2009, a difference too great to be a matter of chance, a study finds."

"High levels of a dangerous toxin found in bagged dog food on a grocery store shelf in Iowa have highlighted the prevalence of a problematic mold in last year's U.S. corn crop, as state and federal officials work on limiting the food safety concern."

Researchers and campaigners claim that some 40 percent (19,200) of the children born to mothers taking the epilepsy drug Epilim have developed physical or mental problems.