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LIBBY QUAID The government declared Thursday that food from cloned animals is safe to eat. After more than five years of study, the
EU's parliament votes to regulate 30,000 toxic substances. The reforms will have a major effect on U.S. industry. By Marla Cone The European Parliament on Wednesday approved the world's most stringent law aimed at protecting people and the environment from thousands of toxic chemicals — legislation that will have a far-reaching effect on industries and products worldwide, including in the United States.
The Evening Standard A study of thousands of men and women revealed that those who stick to a vegetarian diet have IQs that are around five points higher than those who regularly eat meat. The researchers, from the University of Southampton, tracked the fortunes of more than 8,000 volunteers for 20 years.
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE In a startling turnaround, breast cancer rates in the United States dropped dramatically in 2003, and experts said they believe it is because many women stopped taking hormone pills. The 7.2 percent decline came a year after a big federal study linked menopause hormones to a higher risk of breast cancer, heart disease and other problems. Within months, millions of women stopped taking estrogen and progestin pills.
By Catherine Komp Nearly two months after DuPont claimed to have evidence that a chemical it uses in the Teflon-manufacturing process is safe for workers, the chemical giant still refuses to release its full findings to the public. Now unions have joined in pressuring DuPont to release the study and other information on the health effects of PFOA, a chemical used to make Teflon that the Environmental Protection Agency says is potentially harmful to humans.
Los Angeles Times The US Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday streamlined the way it updates regulations for the nation's worst air pollutants, a move that drew immediate charges that officials are trying to quash scientific review to benefit industry at the expense of public health.
By Sarah Boseley A world-famous British scientist failed to disclose that he held a paid consultancy with a chemical company for more than 20 years while investigating cancer risks in the industry, the Guardian can reveal. Sir Richard Doll, the celebrated epidemiologist who established that smoking causes lung cancer, was receiving a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day in the mid-1980s from Monsanto, then a major chemical company and now better known for its GM crops business.
By Deborah Zabarenko Old toothbrushes, beach toys and used condoms are part of a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says. Because plastic doesn't break down the way organic material does, ocean currents and tides have carried it thousands of miles to an area between Hawaii and the US West Coast, according to the study by the international environmental group Greenpeace.
Inter Press Service News Agency Lulled by social indices that compare with the developed world's and tourist brochures that gush over ‘God's Own Country', the deaths of 125 people from an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease, chikungunya, has come as a reality check for people in this southern state.
The Evening Standard UK McDonald's is closing its outlet in a town known for quality food and healthy, local produce. The fast food chain in Tavistock, Devon, simply wasn't being used enough by locals.
www.rachel.org The American Chemistry Council (ACC) -- formerly known as the Chemical
Even ‘premium’ chickens harbor dangerous bacteria By Consumer Report If you eat undercooked or mishandled chicken, our new tests indicate, you have a good chance of feeling miserable. CR’s analysis of fresh, whole broilers bought nationwide revealed that 83 percent harbored campylobacter or salmonella, the leading bacterial causes of foodborne disease.
Environmental Science & Technology Online The explosion in the creation of better and more complicated nanomaterials is moving far ahead of research on such materials’ environmental safety, leaving many to wonder about their potential effects on human health and the environment.
Watch the Real Story Behind Our Poison Milk Courageous Reporting!
By CLARE NULLIS Africa, a continent usually synonymous with hunger, is falling prey to obesity. It's a trend driven by new lifestyles and old beliefs that big is beautiful. Ask Nodo Njobo, a plump hairdressing assistant. She is coy about her weight, but like many African women, proud of her "big bum." She says she'd like to be slimmer, but worries how her friends would react.
By Michael Doyle The Bush administration pleased farmers and frustrated environmentalists Monday by declaring that pesticides can be sprayed into and over waters without first obtaining special permits. The heavily lobbied decision is supposed to settle a dispute that's roiled federal courts and divided state regulators. It's popular among those who spray pesticides for a living, but it worries those who fear poisoned waters will result.
The Independent Is that tuna in your sandwich? Or was the fish in the can a different species altogether? Was the corn-fed, free-range egg you ate for breakfast actually battery-farmed? From careless labelling to outright deception, food fraud in Britain has reached epidemic proportions - and most of us have no idea what we're being sold. How can we sort the organic wheat from the GM chaff? Kate Ravilious uncovers the tricks of a very dirty trade
By Sarah Boseley The spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues unabated, with the number of people infected rising once more in some countries which had been thought to be beating the disease, according to the UN. There are now 39.5 million living with HIV infection, according to the annual UNAIDS report, released ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, and 4.3 million of those were infected in 2006. That is 400,000 more than were infected in 2004.
Factory farms are harmful to the public and the environment, researchers report. By Marla Cone Growing so large that they are now called factory farms, livestock feedlots are poorly regulated, pose health and ecological dangers and are responsible for deteriorating quality of life in America's and Europe's farm regions, according to a series of scientific studies published this week. Feedlots are contaminating water supplies with pathogens and chemicals, and polluting the air with foul-smelling compounds that can cause respiratory problems, but the health of their neighbors goes largely unmonitored, the reports concluded.
He says agency is swayed by politics By Diedtra Henderson Senator Edward M. Kennedy today will criticize the Food and Drug Administration during a Senate hearing for allowing "prevailing political winds" to trump science.
NewsTarget A team from Reading University and Rothamsted Research in the U.K. has discovered that wheat grown from sulfur-deprived soils creates flour with high acrylamide production levels. Acrylamides are found in foods such as potato chips, cookies and crusty bread, and is created when specific amino acids -- such as asparagines -- and sugars reach high temperatures while being cooked -- a process known as the Maillard reaction.
We can avert global thirst - but it means cutting carbon emissions by 60%. Sounds ridiculous? Consider the alternative By George Monbiot It looks dull, almost impenetrable in places. But if its findings are verified, it could turn out to be the most important scientific report published so far this year. In this month's edition of the Journal of Hydrometeorology is a paper written by scientists at the Met Office, which predicts future patterns of rainfall and evaporation.
The Associated Press Mental health problems soared after Hurricane Katrina, just as the city's ability to handle them plummeted, creating a crisis so acute that police officers say they take some disturbed people to a destination of last resort - jail. A prison spokeswoman said the jail spends $10,000 to $12,000 a month on psychiatric medication - 21% of the total it spends on pharmaceuticals. There are one full-time, board certified psychiatrist, and two part-time psychiatrists to treat 2,000 inmates.
BBC News Low levels of man-made chemicals in basic foods such as brown bread, butter and milk could combine to harm humans, a conservation charity has warned. WWF-UK said scientific tests link the chemicals to hormonal changes, cancers and immune deficiencies.
The Independent Chemical pollution may have harmed the brains of millions of children around the world in what scientists are calling a "silent pandemic". The world is bathed in a soup of industrial chemicals which are damaging the intellectual potential of the next generation and may increase the incidence of conditions such as Parkinson's disease, they say.
By Reuters Old toothbrushes, beach toys and used condoms are part of a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says.
By Christopher Lee Americans have a harder time than residents of several other countries getting after-hours appointments with a nurse or primary care physician without going to an emergency room, a study released yesterday found. Forty percent of U.S. primary care doctors said they had arrangements for after-hours care, according to the survey of more than 6,000 physicians in seven countries. That compared with 95 percent in the Netherlands, 90 percent in New Zealand, 87 percent in the United Kingdom, 76 percent in Germany and 47 percent in Canada.
By Rita Beamish President George W. Bush's administration is seeking world permission to produce thousands of tons of a pesticide that an international treaty banned nearly two years ago, even though U.S. companies already have huge stockpiles of the chemical.
Reuters Health A new study has found a "substantial" drop in U.S. men's testosterone levels since the 1980s, but the reasons for the decline remain unclear. This trend also does not appear to be related to age.
BBC News UK and US forces have continued to use depleted uranium weapons despite warnings they pose a cancer risk, a BBC investigation has found. Scientists have pointed to health statistics in Iraq, where the weapons were used in the 1991 and 2003 wars.
The Associated Press A report from the state Department of Human Resources says an industrial waste plant is likely responsible for sickening more than 600 residents in Fairburn and nearby communities by exposing them to a toxic chemical used in crop pesticides.
Germ levels in Blue River and Indian Creek surge to 1,000 times more than state permits. The Kansas City Star Here’s a sign you don’t see along the Blue River or Indian Creek: Don’t go near the water. But a recent six-year study by the U.S. Geological Survey showed that the Blue River and its tributaries can be cesspools that some experts say are dangerous not only to wildlife but also to humans who wade or fish.
The Korea Times The more mercury pregnant women are exposed to, the greater chance they have of giving premature birth to babies, according to a study. Research on 85 pregnant women conducted by Ha Eun-hee, a professor of Ewha Womans University's preventive medicine department, showed that women with high levels of mercury in cord blood are three to five times more likely to give premature birth, which is to deliver a child in less than 37 weeks of pregnancy.
The Times Acupuncture can ease the pain and disability caused by arthritis, a study in Germany has indicated.
By MANNY FERNANDEZ In New York City, air pollution levels have typically been monitored by inanimate objects, at more than a dozen locations around town. But in the South Bronx, from 2002 to 2005, air pollution monitors went mobile. They went to the playground, to the gritty sidewalks, even to the movies.
AlterNet The corporations that sell bottled water are depleting natural resources, jacking up prices, and lying when they tell you their water is purer and tastes better than the stuff that comes out of the tap.
By Erik Eckholm Unable to afford health insurance, Dee Dee Dodd had for years been mixing occasional doctor visits with clumsy efforts to self-manage her insulin- In one 18-month period, Ms. Dodd, 38, was rushed almost monthly to the emergency room, spent weeks in the intensive care unit and accumulated more than $191,000 in unpaid bills.
The world's natural ecosystems are being degraded at a rate unprecedented in human history. World Wildlife Fund WWF's Living Planet Report 2006, the group's biennial statement on the state of the natural world, shows that we are currently using the planet's resources far faster than they can be renewed. On current projections, this means that as a whole, humanity will need at least two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050.
An aging population and our growing addiction to pharmaceuticals may have disastrous consequences for our water supply. On Earth Magazine Norman Leonard moved to Heritage Village, a sprawling retirement community in western Connecticut, 11 years ago. Its green-gabled condominiums and Capes were well maintained, and the landscapers hadn't skimped on the rhododendrons. A retired CPA, Leonard considers himself, at age 80, to be in pretty decent shape: He plays platform tennis on the grounds and hikes often in nearby forests and reserves. But still, he takes five different drugs a day to manage his blood pressure, acid reflux, and high cholesterol. Heritage Village is home to about 4,000 residents with similar medical profiles, who take an average of six drugs a day.
Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends Reuters "For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.
By Jeff Milchen and Stacy Mitchell When Wal-Mart recently issued a press release announcing discounts on some generic drugs at Tampa area stores, its executives probably hoped for some favorable publicity in Florida media. So Bentonville surely was festive the next day when sweeping headlines like "Wal-Mart to sell generic drugs for $4 a month" ran nationwide - often on page one of newspapers.
Experts estimate 200 worldwide, up from 149 just two years ago MSNBC News Service NAIROBI, Kenya - The number of “dead zones” in the world’s oceans may have increased by a third in just two years, threatening fish stocks and the people who depend on them, the U.N. Environment Program said on Thursday. Fertilizers, sewage, fossil fuel burning and other pollutants have led to a doubling in the number of oxygen-deficient coastal areas every decade since the 1960s.
Washington Post Staff Writer Three years after the Food and Drug Administration first hinted that it might permit the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, prompting public reactions that ranged from curiosity to disgust, the agency is poised to endorse marketing of the mass-produced animals for public consumption.
The Chicago Sun-Times It gets little attention, but it is deadly nonetheless. More than 200,000 women will get breast cancer in America this year. More than 40,000 will die from it. In comparison, we lost more than 50,000 men and women in Vietnam, and nearly 3,000 in Iraq.
By Lisa Stiffler A federal program to safeguard poor and racially diverse communities from pollution and other environmental harm is at risk of being dissolved, activists say.
Confronting the possibility of a global catastrophe. The New Yorker Most mornings, the line begins to form at dawn: scores of silent women with babies strapped to their backs, buckets balanced on their heads, and in each hand a bright-blue plastic jug. On good days, they will wait less than an hour before a water tanker rumbles across the rutted dirt path that passes for a road in Kesum Purbahari, a slum on the southern edge of New Delhi. On bad days, when there is no electricity for the pumps, the tankers don’t come at all. “That water kills people,’’ a young mother named Shoba said one recent Saturday morning, pointing to a row of battered pails filled with thick, caramel-colored liquid. “Whoever drinks it will die.’’ The water was from a community standpipe shared by thousands of the slum’s residents. Women often use it to launder clothes and bathe their children, but nobody is desperate enough to drink it. Instead, they take their buckets to a tanker stop, sit in the searing heat, and wait. Shoba found a spot in the shade next to a family of sleeping hogs. She wore a peach-colored sari and, to ward off the sun, a thin purple scarf around her head. Two little girls played happily in piles of refuse that lined the road.
The New York Times Soon after the news broke last month that nearly 200 Americans in 26 states had been sickened by eating packaged spinach contaminated with E. coli, I received a rather coldblooded e-mail message from a friend in the food business. “I have instructed my broker to purchase a million shares of RadSafe,” he wrote, explaining that RadSafe is a leading manufacturer of food-irradiation technology. It turned out my friend was joking, but even so, his reasoning was impeccable. If bagged salad greens are vulnerable to bacterial contamination on such a scale, industry and government would very soon come looking for a technological fix; any day now, calls to irradiate the entire food supply will be on a great many official lips. That’s exactly what happened a few years ago when we learned that E. coli from cattle feces was winding up in American hamburgers. Rather than clean up the kill floor and the feedlot diet, some meat processors simply started nuking the meat — sterilizing the manure, in other words, rather than removing it from our food. Why? Because it’s easier to find a technological fix than to address the root cause of such a problem. This has always been the genius of industrial capitalism — to take its failings and turn them into exciting new business opportunities.
Associated Press Baskets overflow with fresh greens. Tomatoes blush a deep red. The competition for customers' attention is fierce at the Heirloom Organics farm stand during the lunch-hour rush. Despite a recent E. coli outbreak, shoppers at this farmers market are reaching with confidence for spinach, reassured that the food is grown nearby, by farmers they can talk to, on land they can visit. Experts predict that as awareness of farming methods grows, interest in farmers markets, restaurants that buy locally and direct farm-to-consumer sales is bound to grow as well.
"Does the agro-food industry know how to control GMO?" Le Monde The question presents itself as the General Directory for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Repression (DGCCRF) publicized its annual audits account on Wednesday October 11. In 2005, out of 69 food product samples taken, 17 contained traces of genetically modified organisms. Their quantity was, however, inferior to the regulatory threshold of 0.9%. That publication comes at a time when transgenic rice had been discovered this summer in trade channels, as the DGCCRF confirms. But this episode is only the most recent in a series that began several years ago.
Environment Committee backs the substitution of hazardous chemicals in REACH WECF The Environment Committee today voted for a host of rules which will in the future make chemicals and their us much saferthan they currently are. As part of the Parliament's second reading process of the draft REACH regulation, the Environment Committee strengthened key passages of the draft law such as: |