Federal Judge Robert C. Chambers, US District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, ruled in favor of environmental groups in their claim against coal mine operators and practices related to mountaintop removal mining.* This form of surface mining involves blasting off the top of mountains, scooping out the coal, and dumping the unwanted rock and […]
By Ruthann Rudel and Dick Clapp Two recent papers by Ruthann Rudel and Julia Brody published in the journal Cancer compiled a list of 216 chemicals shown to cause mammary gland tumors in animal studies and presented a comprehensive state-of-the-science review of environmental factors in breast cancer. When such important studies are published, itâs typical for […]
The Houston Chronicle is reporting that over the next two years, OSHA will be sending 300 federal inspectors to petroleum refineries to evaluate operators processes for handling hazardous chemicals. This announcement comes after the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued its comprehensive investigation report of the BP Texas City refinery explosion which took the lives of 15 […]
Tomorrow (June 12th), the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing entitled âAn Examination of the Health Effects of Asbestos and Methods of Mitigating Such Impacts.â The first witness listed is Senator Patty Murray, who for the past several years has been pushing to ban asbestos in the U.S.; as chair of […]
Given the lack of encouraging global warming developments coming out of the G8 summit, itâs nice to have good news on other topics: After a two-year boycott by doctors, authors, and healthcare and peace advocates, Lancet publisher Reed Elsevier has agreed to end its involvement in weapon sales â Grrl Scientist at Living the Scientific […]
By Dick Clapp Rachel Carson has been in the news quite a lot recently, first as the object of a diatribe by a U.S. Senator, and also in a series of news stories commemorating what would have been her 100th birthday last week. Tim Lambert at Deltoid has addressed the false allegations about Carson and […]
By Liz Borkowski In a commentary in the latest issue of JAMA, Sheldon Krimsky (a member of the planning committee for the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, and a contributor to this blog) and Tania Simoncelli examine the EPAâs guidelines for testing pesticides on humans and find that the agency is making âa […]
By David Michaels The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else. -Barry Commoner Tomorrow in New York City Barry Commonerâs friends are gathering to celebrate his 90th birthday. In 2007, Barryâs statement on ecology seems obvious if not trite, but that was not the case in 1966, when his landmark […]
The editors at the Charleston Gazette and the Louisville Courier-Journal deserve a pat on the back for allowing their reporters to follow-up on worker safety and health stories.  Ken Ward at the Charleston Gazette is still covering important matters related to MSHA and the Sago mine, more than 15 months after the terrible January 2, 2006 disaster.  In “MSHA […]
Caution: Put down your fork before reading this post. In a recent op-ed published in the Baltimore Sun, colleagues at Johns Hopkins University put in perspective the recent revelations about contaminated animal feed imported from China. …we should be at least as concerned about the “business as usual” ingredients that are routinely fed to the […]