A quick look at two papers and an editorial on the effects on lung function of exposure to levels of air pollution below current EPA standards, published in this weekâs New England Journal of Medicine. Epidemiologic studies of the health effects of air pollution keep improving, with scientists designing studies able to measure small but […]
A quick look at Blood Lead Concentrations Less than 10 Micrograms per Deciliter and Child Intelligence at 6 Years of Age by Todd A. Jusko, Charles R. Henderson, Jr., Bruce P. Lanphear et al., published online in Environmental Health Perspectives. The current CDC definition of elevated blood lead in a child is 10 micrograms of […]
Dr. Lynn Goldman, former EPA Assistant Administrator For Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances and current Chair of Johns Hopkins’s Indepartmental Program in Applied Public Health, will be at George Washington University tomorrow (Tuesday, 11/27) to give a talk entitled “Chemicals: Making Public Health Policy in the Face of Uncertainty.” The event will run from noon until 1:30pm […]
The Center for American Progress has been running some new TV ads in Midwestern media markets as part of âa pilot experiment to begin defining progressivism in the publicâs mindâ (hat tip to Common Sense). Here are two that are styled after the Mac/PC ads â but in these, the two guys wear stickers identifying […]
Somehow, I missed Devra Davisâ powerful essay Off Target in the War on Cancer which appeared in the Washington Post last week. Davis, a well known environmental epidemiologist, is the author of the just published The Secret History of the War on Cancer. In the Post essay, she makes a very convincing case that there […]
At last week’s annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the organization adopted more than a dozen new policy resolutions which will guide its work into the future. Included among them was a call for “Congress to fundamentally restructure the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA)” so that more attention is paid to the […]
Devra Davisâs The Secret History of the War on Cancer is getting some wonderful, well-deserved reviews. Davis is a well-known an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh. Robin Mejia, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, writes The book is a must-read for those concerned about their own health or […]
Mondayâs edition of the On Point radio show (a production of WBUR in Boston) focused on the issue of the chemicals that surround us, and the movement for âgreen chemistry.â The first guest was Pete Myers, who produces the indispensable Environmental Health News and co-authored the book Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, […]
The US Dept of Justice (DOJ) announced last week an agreement with British Petroleum (BP) on three outstanding criminal cases, with monetary penalities totaling more than $370 million. Included among the settlement were violations of the Clean Air Act associated with the March 2005 explosion at the firm’s Texas City refinery, which killed 15 workers and injured 170 others.  BP agreed […]
On both sides of the Atlantic, new research into lead and crime is attracting attention. The New York Times and The Independent both reported on a new study by Amherst College economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, who found a correlation between blood lead levels and violent crime rates. Jascha Hoffman explains in the New York Times: