"At least 600 million people, or 1 in 10 worldwide, fall ill from contaminated food each year and 420,000 die, many of them young children, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday."
Reporters trying to get information from federal agencies find press offices stonewalling and running out the clock on their interview requests. "The public information model," one agency flak said, "is dead." The result: the public is uninformed, the government is unaccountable, and people's health is endangered.
"US regulators clear a viral melanoma therapy, paving the way for a promising field with a chequered past."
In the Summer 2015 cycle of the Fund for Environmental Journalism, SEJ awarded $43,683 in grants to 11 journalism projects in three reporting categories. Pictured: Gabriel Popkin, a freelance science and environmental writer based in Maryland.
Whether pesticides harm the birds and bees — or human health — matters a lot. One of the public's protections is the requirement for disclosure in the nation's pesticide laws. Three groups, represented by Earthjustice, argue that EPA has authority under current federal pesticide law to require disclosure of inert ingredients.
Donald Trump's statement, during the September 16, 2015, debate, that vaccinations cause autism contradicted science and endangered human lives, doctors say. Moreover, the idea (expressed by several candidates) that scheduling childhood vaccinations less frequently than pediatricians recommend also endangers the health of children.
"A rare, incurable brain disorder that resembles Parkinson's disease is caused by a misfolded brain protein called a prion, similar to the prions that cause mad cow disease, researchers reported on Monday."
The Center for Food Safety has sued the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service under the Freedom of Information Act for withholding information on genetically modified crops (GMOs), after unsuccessfully seeking information over a period of 13 years.
As the 10th anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe approaches, many news media are doing stories that try to make sense of it. For journalists, it's an inexhaustible subject because it's about people's lives and the moral perils of the governments we choose. It's about the looming catastrophes we deny.
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