Recently in Pollution Category

(NaturalNews) Have you ever flown on an airplane and later become mysteriously ill? Maybe you developed a headache, had trouble breathing or experienced severe brain fog? These symptoms (and many others) just might be the result of breathing toxic fumes that regularly circulate throughout many commercial airline cabins.

Aerotoxic Syndrome, the unofficial name now being used to identify the laundry list of both acute and chronic symptoms caused by breathing contaminated jet cabin air, include things like chronic fatigue, respiratory difficulties, vision problems and cognitive disorder.

For some, the symptoms may be short-lived, but for others, persistent neurological damage may occur as a result of exposure, and many don't even realize it's happening until it's too late.

Natural News
June 11, 2010
By Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) After weeks of silence on the issue, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally decided to go public with the list of ingredients used to manufacture Corexit, the chemical dispersant used by BP in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. There are two things about this announcement that deserve our attention: First, the ingredients that have been disclosed are extremely toxic, and second, why did the EPA protect the oil industry's "trade secrets" for so long by refusing to disclose these ingredients until now?

As reported in the New York Times, Brian Turnbaugh, a policy analyst at OMB Watch said, "EPA had the authority to act all along; its decision to now disclose the ingredients demonstrates this. Yet it took a public outcry and weeks of complaints for the agency to act and place the public's interest ahead of corporate interests."

BP = “Benzene Pollutants”
By A. True Ott, PhD

Picture from a previous (Exxon Valdez) oil spill

What is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is truly a nightmare of epic proportions. Untold millions (if not billions) of gallons of raw crude oil, mixed with natural gas has been spewing (not spilling) into the pristine waters of the Gulf of Mexico for over a month. All efforts to plug the massive leak have ended in abject failure. Sadly, the “mainstream media” is failing to accurately report the substantial health risks the massive oil geyser is posing to all coastal residents.

Raw crude oil is naturally loaded with a petrochemical called benzene. Unfortunately, several regulatory agencies (e.g., the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], and the International Agency for Research on Cancer) classify benzene as a confirmed human carcinogen (CHC). In other words, benzene causes cancer and other chronic disease states.

This paper will review the dangers of benzene exposure, and offer solutions to help detoxify the body following exposure – either via the air, or by seawater, or rain and precipitation in contact with the skin.

The first question most people ask is: “How much benzene exposure is safe?” The answer is: “There is no minimum safe amount. ”According to one online resource, (the Leukemia Info Center) - “Documented cases of benzene-related blood diseases date back to before the turn of the 20th Century. The relationship between benzene and leukemia was first reported in 1928. In 1948, the American Petroleum Institute published a report linking benzene exposure to leukemia, concluding that the only safe level of benzene exposure is no exposure at all. Since that date, various studies have demonstrated that a number of trades – including plastics workers, painters, gasoline distribution workers, petroleum refinery workers, chemical workers, rubber workers, and printing press operators -- have an increased risk of developing leukemia and other blood cancers and blood disorders as a result of their work-related exposure to benzene.”

So sorry to break the news, but the unvarnished truth is that if you can smell raw crude, and if the rain and ocean mists are oily, rest assured you are being exposed to dangerous cancer-causing levels of benzene molecules. Studies have linked benzene exposure in the mere parts per billion (ppb) range to terminal leukemia, Hodgkins lymphoma, and other blood and immune system diseases within 5-15 years of exposure. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set a permissible exposure limit of 1part of benzene per million parts of air (1ppm) in the work place during an 8-hour workday, 40-hour workweek. The short term exposure limit for airborne benzene is a mere 5ppm for 15 minutes. Typically, if one can smell raw crude oil that has evaporated into the air from a massive oil spill, the OSHA safe limits for “short term exposure” have been massively exceeded.

Furthermore, according to Wikipedia, “The short term breathing of high levels of benzene can result in death, while low level inhalation can cause drowsiness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremors, confusion, and unconsciousness. Eating or drinking foods containing high levels of benzene (sea food affected by a crude oil spill for instance) can cause vomiting, irritation of the stomach, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions, and death.” Get the picture?? This is very, very serious business not only for the flora and fauna of the Gulf coast states, but also for human residents. Reports of “oily rain” originating over the massive plume could mean that drinking water could become contaminated with toxic benzene as well.

It is therefore, a very good idea to implement a plan for detoxification of benzene.

Wellness Resourses
May 23, 2010
Byron Richards, CCN

A new study in women over the age of 45 has shown that long-term, regular use of vitamin E can lower the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by about 10 percent in both smokers and non-smokers.

“The findings from our study suggest that increasing vitamin E prevents COPD,” said Ms. Agler. “Previous research found that higher intake of vitamin E was associated with a lower risk of COPD, but the studies were not designed to answer the question of whether increasing vitamin E intake would prevent COPD. Using a large, randomized controlled trial to answer this question provided stronger evidence than previous studies.”

Yes, it is studies like this that make the vitamin-hating, Big Pharma-sponsored public health goons heads spin. COPD is the 4th leading cause of death in America and costs the health care system well over 40 billion dollars per year. While they are busy telling everyone there is nothing you can do about it besides take your symptom-alleviating drugs, this new study shows that the vitamin the American Heart Association loves to hate may help this problem immensely. Of course, vitamin E also helps heart health but the AHA doesn’t want you to believe that, as its bad for drug sales.

Studies linking environmental substances to disease are coming fast and furious. Chemicals in plastics and common household goods have been associated with serious developmental problems, while a long inventory of other hazards are contributing to rising rates of modern ills: heart disease, obesity, diabetes, autism.

Add attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to the list. A new study in the journal Pediatrics associates exposure to pesticides with cases of ADHD in the U.S. and Canada. In the U.S. alone, an estimated 4.5 million children ages 5 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and rates of diagnosis have risen 3% a year between 1997 and 2006. Increasingly, research suggests that chemical influences, perhaps in combination with other environmental factors -- like video games, hyperkinetically edited TV shows and flashing images in educational DVDs aimed at infants -- may be contributing to the increase in attention problems.(See pictures of a school for autistic children.)

The Huffington Post
May 5, 2010
Shiv Chopra
Microbiologist and human rights activist
Posted: May 3, 2010 11:47 AM

I am one of many million Indians who during the last couple of hundred years settled abroad. I have lived in Canada for the last 50 years. Coming here initially as a post-graduate student of agro-medical sciences I made it my home in 1960. Since then, I earned a Masters and Ph.D. in microbiology and a fellowship of the World Health Organization in international safety and efficacy standards for vaccines. During 1969-2004 I worked as a senior food and drug regulator at Health Canada. I was partly responsible for the Canadian rejection of rBGH.

Canada may not be richest country on earth but it is pretty close to it. With vast amounts of arable land, fresh water and well educated farmers it can feed its entire population of 33 million on the healthiest of food. But, it does not. Another country that comes close to Canada in this regard is its next door neighbor and closest trading partner -- the United States. Most food in both these countries is heavily contaminated with hormones, antibiotics, slaughterhouse wastes, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and pesticides. Due partly to these substances in food production there occurs in both these countries a greater and greater incidence of food-borne disease (FBD). The types of FBD that these products induce include cancer, antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, neurological conditions, including Bovine Spongiform Disease (BSE), Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular, immune, reproductive, neurological and various other disorders.

Xenophilia

April 29, 2010

Supreme Court justices sounded skeptical Tuesday of a federal court decision blocking US biotech giant Monsanto’s sale of genetically modified alfalfa because some farmers fear their crops will be contaminated.

A federal judge in California in May 2007 ruled in a finding upheld on appeal in 2009 to block the sale of Monsanto’s GM alfalfa seeds.

The ruling also asked the USDA to carry out an environmental impact study which it had not done before giving a green light back in 2004 to the sale of these seeds.

Plaintiffs, who are organic farmers supported by organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity, worry that genetically modified seeds will contaminate their crops.

Brasscheck TV

April 29, 2010

The unfriendly skies

Original article here:

By William Thomas

Congratulations! You've reclaimed your personal space. The headaches signaling destruction of your brain cells have ceased after you finally ditched your portable phones, cell phone, Bluetooth and wireless routers and disabled your wireless laptop, Kindle and iPad. And everyone on your block's resting easier after stopping that new cell tower from going in down the street.

CTV.ca News Staff

May 27, 2009

A Columbia University professor is warning the public about the negative health effects of man-made electromagnetic fields, which come out of cellphones and power lines.

Dr. Martin Blank, a professor with the school's Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, compared the EMF waves to the ripples caused by dropping a pebble into a quiescent pond.

"The water doesn't move, it just carries the energy further and further out," Blank told CTV's Canada AM Wednesday.

"It's the same thing about these waves. These waves are generated in all kinds of charges that are present anywhere.

"When you get an electromagnetic field that's coming out of a power line, or it's coming out of a cellphone antenna or a cellphone tower it's going to do things to the molecules in our body."

Blank says EMFs in the environment may lead to brain tumours, Alzheimer's disease, dementia and breast cancer.

Farm Wars
By Barbara H. Peterson
May 18, 2008

Monsanto and its cohorts in crime promised us that they would not be using Terminator technology called GURT, or genetic use restricted technology. In fact, the United Nations actually issued a moratorium on the project. So we’re safe, right? Wrong.

As usual, the boys in the little white lab coats have not been idle. In spite of the moratorium, not only are they working heatedly on Terminator technology, but are getting ready to introduce Zombie technology. Terminator, and Traitor or Zombie technologies are just variations of GURT. Whereas Terminator technology produces plants with sterile seeds, Zombie technology carries this a step further by creating plants that could require a chemical application to trigger seed fertility every year. Pay for the chemical or get sterile seed. This is called reversible transgenic sterility. They have been working steadily on perfecting this technology, and are now poised to introduce it to the world as a solution to the current GMO contamination problem. Move over Terminator, here comes the Zombie.

Sott.net
Jeff Donn, Marths Mendoza & Justin Pritchard
Associated Press
April 19, 2009

In this photo taken on Feb. 26, 2009, aeration basins are seen in operation at the Wilmington Wastewater Treatment Plant in Wilmington, Del. Scientists took samples from the Delaware River nearby and found elevated concentrations of the painkiller codeine that are prompting them to try and track the source of the drug; this treatment plant handles sewage from a nearby pharmaceutical factory that makes codeine

SPIEGEL ONLINE
04/14/2009
MONSANTO UPROOTED

Germany has banned the cultivation of GM corn, claiming that MON 810 is dangerous for the environment. But that argument might not stand up in court and Berlin could face fines totalling millions of euros if American multinational Monsanto decides to challenge the prohibition on its seed.

The sowing season may be just around the corner, but this year German farmers will not be planting gentically modified crops: German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday she was banning the cultivation of GM corn in Germany.

Greenpeace activists take a sample from a Monsanto test site near Borken in North Rhine-Westphalia: The GM crop MON 810 has been banned in Germany.

Xenophilia
Posted by Xeno on April 15, 2009

Someone searching this blog for information on chemtrails was disappointed to find nothing, so here is a long video by chemtrail researcher Clifford Carnicom who claims that since the early part of 1999, substances have been sprayed in the atmosphere.

CommonDreams.org
Published on Saturday, March 28, 2009 by St Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
by Jeffrey Tomich

Earlier this month, a blogger named Brad fired a virtual salvo at Jeffrey Smith, the author of "Seeds of Deception" and one of the most vocal crusaders against genetically modified foods.

In a 600-word post, Brad questioned the credibility of an online petition on Smith's website, urging the administration of President Barack Obama to require labeling of biotech foods. He called the petition "sheer political theater" and prodded the activist for purportedly being a yogic flying instructor.

More than 30 comments followed in the next few weeks. On one level, the exchange was just another online debate about GMOs. But this one was notable because of who initiated and hosted it: Monsanto Co.

For years, environmental and food activists have made good use of YouTube video and Facebook to skewer Monsanto in the blogosphere. Now, the biotech giant is turning the tables.

Treehugger.com
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York
on February 27, 2009
Business & Politics

Photo via SF Gate

Sott.net
OpEd News
Linn Cohen-Cole
February 16, 2009

[Editors' note: Community-Supported Agriculture or C.S.A., is the distribution system in which people buy shares in return for a weekly allotment of local fresh farm food.]

The New York Times ran on a piece on CSAs doing well despite the economy.

Forgive me, I am so boggled by the ironies that my computer is stuttering.

The New York Times is in New York state which is responsible for the fact that CSAs are actually in terrible trouble and that trouble stems directly from a New York source, Hillary Clinton. She pushed a centralized Food Safety Department when she ran for president, one that would bring together the USDA and FDA, giving them vastly more power over food. Both agencies are grossly corrupted by Monsanto so the multiplication of power accrues powerfully to Monsanto.

People say if farmers don't want problems from Monsanto, just don't buy their GMO seeds.

Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these days? How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields from GM-crops? How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?

Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they have), they then sue, saying they own the crop. It's a way to make money since farmers can't fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice.

And they have done and are doing a bucket load of things to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of NORMAL seeds.

Posted by Xeno on January 9, 2009

First the frogs started disappearing. Then the bees started disappearing. Now, according to the Seattle Times, its birds:

Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say.

Frogs and bees are so different from people that they are easier to ignore. But birds are larger, more complicated, warm-blooded animals, and thus closer to us biologically.

Telegraph.co.uk
Urmee Khan
December 9, 2008

Men are at risk of being "feminised" by thousands of "gender bending" chemicals that are changing the behaviour of humans and animals, according to a report.

Scientists are warning that manmade pollutants which have escaped into the environment mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen.

The males of species including fish, amphibians, birds, and reptiles have been feminised by exposure to sex hormone disrupting chemicals and have been found to be abnormally making egg yolk protein, normally made by females, according to the report by Chem Trust, environmental group.

The authors claim that the chemicals found in food packaging, cleaning products, plastics, sewage and paint cause genital deformities, reduce sperm count and "feminise" males.

www.opednews.com

November 16, 2008

by Institute for Responsible Technology (Posted by sadelaine)

Austrian Government Study Confirms Genetically Modified (GM) Crops

Threaten Human Fertility and Health Safety

Advocates Call for Immediate Ban of All GM Foods and GM Crops

IMMEDIATE RELEASE (November 13, 2008)

(Los Angeles, CA.) - A long-term feeding study commissioned by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, managed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth, and carried out by Veterinary University Vienna, confirms genetically modified (GM) corn seriously affects reproductive health in mice. Non-GMO advocates, who have warned about this infertility link along with other health risks, now seek an immediate ban of all GM foods and GM crops to protect the health of humankind and the fertility of women around the world.

Feeding mice with genetically modified corn developed by the US-based Monsanto Corporation led to lower fertility and body weight, according to the study conducted by the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. Lead author of the study Professor Zentek said, there was a direct link between the decrease in fertility and the GM diet, and that mice fed with non-GE corn reproduced more efficiently.

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
September 18, 2008

On April 26, 2008, the BBC Alabama arrived in Longview, Wash., carrying 6,700 tons of Kuwaiti sand. The sand had become contaminated with depleted uranium when U.S. military vehicles and munitions caught fire at Doha Army base in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War. The depleted uranium was being repatriated. The sand was a gift of the Kuwaiti government.

So was the cost of repatriation. Neither government will discuss just how much the tab was.

The Longview Daily News reported that Mike Wilcox, vice president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union Local 21, initially had been "concerned about the safety of longshoremen and the entire community when he heard a shipment of depleted uranium was coming into Longview."

But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that the sand contained "unimportant quantities" of radioactive material, and officials from the Department of Health would be available to test radiation levels -- just in case any of the sand spilled.

At the last minute, the Army notified port authorities that tests had revealed that the sand was also contaminated with lead -- in fact, four times more lead than the EPA's limit for hazardous materials. Transshipment was delayed for a few days awaiting a green light from the EPA.

Image via Wikipedia

The Washington Post
Lyndsey Layton
September 17, 2008

The first large study in humans of a chemical widely used in everyday plastics has found that people with higher levels of bisphenol A had higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and liver abnormalities, a finding that immediately became the focus of the increasingly heated debate over the safety of the chemical.

The research, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association by a team of British and American scientists, compared the health status of 1,455 men and women with the levels of the chemical, known as BPA, in their urine.

The researchers divided the subjects into four statistical groupings according to their BPA levels and found that those in the quartile with the highest concentrations were nearly three times as likely to have cardiovascular disease than those with the lowest levels, and 2.4 times as likely to have diabetes. Higher BPA levels were also associated with abnormal concentrations of three liver enzymes.

Image via Wikipedia

Keith Howe
OpEdNews
September 2, 2008

"Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, chief medical officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional subcommittee on July 22 that the risk of a large-scale biological attack on the nation is significant. Runge used the terrifying example of a terrorist flying over Providence with an aerosolized sprayer releasing air-borne anthrax over the metropolitan area." (1)

I don't recall any terrorist's flying over America with an aerosolized sprayer releasing airborne weapons of mass destruction on her citizens. I am aware, however, of the U.S. government spraying weapons of mass destruction on us, in the form of toxic nerve agents (malathion, pyrenone 5,25, Checkmate OLR-F, Checkmate LBAM-F) with the excuse of protecting us from non-threatening fruit flies, light brown apple moths, and mosquitoes allegedly carrying the West Nile Virus (which is almost no threat to humans).

Alternet
By Christopher Weber, ColorLines
June 12, 2008

Pesticides aren't just an agricultural issue. They are being used in cities too, with toxic results for residents.

Among scientists, pesticides were long regarded as an agricultural issue. They studied the impact of these chemicals on crops, rural residents, and farmworkers -- while by and large failing to examine their equally toxic effects in cities.

That is, until now. As scientists refocus on pesticides in urban areas, they're discovering that the effects of these poisons are particularly marked in communities of color. While this may be news to scientific researchers, it is no surprise for activists, who for years have been laboring to raise awareness of the swath of allergy, illness, and risk created by pesticides.

The secretive nature of pest control, the slow progress of science, and the persistent nature of some pesticides suggest this fight will last for years, perhaps generations. Meanwhile, people cough, grow sick, and don't know why.

"One of the biggest misconceptions," said Barry Zucker, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, "is that people think it's safe. People think that if [a pesticide] is approved by the EPA, it's safe."

But, he added, "There's a federal law prohibiting pesticide manufacturers from making any claims of 'safety' regarding pesticides, even if they're used as directed."

As Zucker suggests, many pesticides are far from safe. They have been linked with several types of cancer, neurological damage, autism, ADHD, and asthma.

There is evidence that people of color are disproportionately exposed to pesticides.

The Guardian/UK
May 24, 2008
by Alison Benjamin

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.

The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.

“It’s a real bee emergency,” said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers’ Association. “50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.”

Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.

The company says an application error by the seed company which failed to use the glue-like substance that sticks the pesticide to the seed, led to the chemical getting into the air.

Bayer spokesman Dr Julian Little told the BBC’s Farming Today that misapplication is highly unusual. “It is an extremely rare event and has not been seen anywhere else in Europe,” he said.

thedailygreen
May 21, 2008

The USDA Is Eliminating a Program That Many Groups Rely on to Track Pesticide Use and Safety — but Why?

Every year the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts research on pesticide use and risk associated with various crops, such as corn, soybeans, cotton, and wheat, and the body then releases its data files. That data is used by chemical groups, trade groups, public interest groups and government agencies to track pesticide use and safety, and several advocates say it is the only reliable, publicly searchable database of its kind.

In 2007, however, the USDA scaled back its data collection, and only gathered information on cotton, apples and organic apples. Now, the USDA has announced it will completely eliminate the program in 2008, due to budget cuts, and won't be collecting any data.

Sott.net
Jo Hartley
Natural News
May 10, 2008

Environmental and farm worker groups have now sued the Bush administration for allowing the continued use of four pesticides. They claim that the government brushed aside its own evidence that the chemicals are toxic to workers, children, and animals.

The suit challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's 2006 decision to reauthorize the four pesticides used on fruit and vegetable fields in California.

A 1996 federal law required the EPA to reassess the safety of all pesticides used on foods. Based on this reassessment, the EPA was to decide whether to approve their use. The EPA found that four substances posed substantial risks to human health but they concluded that the cost savings to growers outweighed the dangers to humans.

These four pesticides reportedly put thousands of farm workers and their families at risk of serious illness.

EPA spokesman Tim Lyons stated that the agency would review the lawsuit and respond in court. However, they did say: "Our mission is to protect the environment and human health."

Spiegel online
May 9, 2008
By Andrew Curry

Bees in the German state of Baden-Württemburg are dying by the hundreds of thousands. In some places more than half of hives have perished. Government officials say the causes are unclear -- but beekeepers are blaming new pesticides.

In Germany's bucolic Baden-Württemburg region, there is a curious silence this week. All up and down the Rhine river, farm fields usually buzzing with bees are quiet. Beginning late last week, helpless beekeepers could only watch as their hives were hit by an unprecedented die-off. Many say one of Germany's biggest chemical companies is to blame.

In some parts of the region, hundreds of bees per hive have been dying each day. "It's an absolute bee emergency," Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeeper's Association, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Fifty to 60 percent of the bees have died on average, and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."

On March 11 a new documentary was aired on French television (ARTE - French-German cultural tv channel) by French journalist and film ... all » maker Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto - A documentary that Americans won't ever see. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years

FOLKS, I KNOW THIS IS A VERY LONG VIDEO, AN HOUR AND FORTY NINE MINUTES, BUT TRUST ME, YOU HAVE TO MAKE TIME TO WATCH THIS ONE. THEN REMEMBER, THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE INSISTING THAT THEIR GMO PRODUCTS HAVE NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE HONEYBEE DIE-OFF.

Independent.co.uk
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Friday, 4 April 2008

The number of migratory songbirds returning to North America has gone into sharp decline due to the unregulated use of highly toxic pesticides and other chemicals across Latin America.

Ornithologists blame the demand for out-of-season fruit and vegetables and other crops in North America and Europe for the destruction of tens of millions of passerine birds. By some counts, half of the songbirds that warbled across America's skies only 40 years ago have gone, wiped out by pesticides or loss of habitat.

Forty-six years ago, the naturalist Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, a study of the ravages caused to wildlife, especially birds, by DDT. The chemical's use on American farms almost eradicated entire species, including the peregrine falcon and bald eagle.

The pesticide was banned and bird numbers recovered, but new and highly toxic pesticides banned by the US and European Union are being widely used in Latin America.

OpEdNews
April 2, 2008
By Barbara Peterson

The people of the Bay area of California are about to be sprayed with a new pesticide not registered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a pre-emptive strive against a perceived threat from the Light Brown Apple Moth.

"In August, the California Department of Food and Agriculture plans to spray pesticides in five Bay Area counties for the invasive species" (CBS 5, 2008). One of the chemicals being used is Checkmate, manufactured by Suterra, LLC, which is owned by Stewart Resnick, one of the richest men in California, and owner of the largest farming operation of tree crops in the world. Mr. Resnick is also included in California Governor Schwarzenegger's top 100 donors. (Arnold Watch, 2008)

OpedNews
March 25, 2008
by Frosty Wooldridge

If you should see this amazing floating pile of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, it’s called “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” It features three million tons of plastic debris floating in an area larger than Texas. An eye-popping 46,000 pieces of plastic float on every square mile of ocean! Humans toss another 2.5 million pieces into our oceans hourly.

Captain Paul Watson, www.seasheperd.org, composed an essay, “The Plastic Sea.” He wrote a penetrating piece on humanity’s desecration of our oceans. If you ever see this plastic ‘monster’ as I have, it will sicken you to the core of your soul. But the terror it manifests sickens you further!

“On the beach on San Juan Island, Washington, Allison Lance walks her dogs every morning,” Watson said. “She carries a plastic bag in her hand to carry the bits and pieces of plastic debris she picks up. Each morning she fills the bag, but by the next morning there is always another bag to be filled. Joey Racano does the same in Huntington Beach further south in California. The harvest of plastic waste is never-ending. Allison's and Joey's beaches, and practically every beach around the world is similarly cursed.

Alternet
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
March 25, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80505/

Editor's Note: Read more about this topic on AlterNet from Wenonah Hauter of Food and Water Watch.

AMY GOODMAN: Saturday was World Water Day, and the United Nations estimates close to 1.5 billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water. What about here in the United States?

The Associated Press has conducted an extensive investigation into the drinking water in at least twenty-four major American cities across the country, which contain trace amounts of a wide array of pharmaceuticals. The amounts might be small, but scientists are worried about the long-term health and environmental consequences of their presence in the water supplies of some forty-one million Americans.

The five-month investigation of sixty-two metropolitan areas and fifty-one smaller cities found that many drinking water suppliers, including bottled water companies, do not even test for the presence of drugs in the water. The utilities that do test for drugs often don't tell customers about the trace amounts of medications in their water.

NaturalNews.com
March 18, 2008
by Cheryl McCoy

(NaturalNews) Armed with the proper information, there's no reason to fear the latest news about toxins and pharmaceutical drugs being found in your water. Not to say that this news isn't alarming. Measures must be taken to remove these harmful substances from our eco-system. But until the day that dream becomes a reality, you can protect yourself and your loved ones with calcium bentonite clay. Taken internally, calcium bentonite clay safely removes toxins from your system.

What's All the Uproar About?

A recent article in the Washington Post (Area Tap Water Has Traces of Medicines) warned that trace amounts of 6 popular prescription drugs had been found in the area's drinking water, and that these harmful substances could not be filtered out by most treatment systems. The drugs found included antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, a disinfectant, and even anti-seizure medication – all found in a water supply that serves more than 1 million people. And this is not an isolated incident.

According to the article, "Pharmaceuticals, along with trace amounts of caffeine, were found in the drinking water supplies of 24 of 28 metropolitan areas tested." Nationwide, the AP reported that researchers found anti-depressants, antacids, synthetic hormones from birth control pills, and many other human and animal medicines in the water. In San Francisco, tests found a sex hormone. In New York, the water tested positive for heart medicines and a prescription tranquilizer. The article states that scientists do not know the health effects of long-term exposure to such drugs. And while some scientist are saying there's nothing to worry about, other's fear chronic exposure could alter immune responses or interfere with adolescents' developing hormone systems. Although experts agree that aquatic life are most at risk from exposure to the drugs in rivers and streams, researchers are concerned about what they don't know about human health effects.

NaturalNews.com
March 11, 2008
by Rami Nagel

(NaturalNews) People of the world, the US Government is planning to poison more than two million people, in California, using an untested biological "pesticide" this summer. The chemical to be sprayed is classified by the EPA as a "pesticide" and the plan is to douse cities with this chemical designed to stick on everything for 90 days or longer. This application is not a one time event, but will continue every 1-3 months for as long as five years. The pesticide to be sprayed is not designed to harm the light brown apple moth's who it is designed for, but merely to confuse its mating habits. While harmless to moths, the pesticide has been documented to harm humans.

Side effects range from vomiting and flu like systems, to male and female reproductive cycle disruption. One child nearly died from the exposure, and some people have developed asthma from being exposed to this chemical concoction. It is cause for alarm that a chemical being labeled as harmless and "safe" even in minute doses, causes severe health effects in some people. The government is racing to cover up and hide the dangerous health effects so that they can continue their aerial spray plans this summer. Your attention and action on this subject is needed in the most important way.

Xenophilia
March 10, 2008

This is in the news today but see the 2001 article on Salon.

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit, Michigan, to Louisville, Kentucky.

Daily Mail
Geoffrey Lean
February 27, 2008

Next time you hear a starling sing, stop and listen hard. It may well be warning of a peril that endangers the whole world of nature - and the very future of the human race itself.

For scientists have found that gender-bender chemicals - increasingly contaminating the environment, our food, our water and our bodies - are having a bizarre effect on common birds, causing the males to give voice to longer and more complex songs.

This is only the latest in a long series of increasingly urgent alarms being sounded by wildlife against an insidious but devastating danger that threatens our children.

But so far our leaders have steadfastly and scandalously turned a deaf ear to them - and, even more shamefully, ignored the first signs that the peril is already affecting birth patterns, causing thousands of babies who should have been boys to be born as girls instead.

Starlings and their diverse, complicated and mimicking - though not beautiful - songs have long fascinated humanity.

Mozart was entranced by a starling after it copied a tune that the great composer was whistling in a pet store.

Modern scientists have discovered that starlings' songs contain similar patterns to human speech.

But if we could, indeed, understand what they are communicating, we would be wise to take heed.

The New York Times
January 30, 2008
By STEVEN CHILLRUD, GREG O’MULLAN and WADE McGILLIS

AT the suggestion of the federal Department of Homeland Security, New York City Council members have drafted legislation requiring anyone who has or uses a detector that measures chemical, biological or radioactive agents to get a license from the Police Department.

The purpose of the bill is to reduce unwarranted anxiety and damage from false alarms of terrorist attacks. Proponents say police officers need to know where detectors are and make sure they’re reliable. But the bill, which appears to be the first of its kind in the country and a model for other cities, could stifle the collection of environmental information vital to the public good.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Air Car Preps for Market
Some still question the vehicle's chances of success, despite a boost from India.
By Tyler Hamilton
http://www.technologyreview.com/

A French-designed car that's propelled by compressed air and claims speeds of more than 60 miles per hour is expected to go into commercial production as early as this summer, although skeptics of the technology aren't holding their breath.

Using compressed air, they argue, may mean zero tailpipe emissions, but it's unlikely to provide enough range or speed to appeal to the masses, particularly in North America. "Compressed air does not contain much energy--that's the killer," says Larry Rinek, senior research analyst for automotive technologies at consultancy Frost & Sullivan. "This is more a nice garage project for a Popular Science subscriber."

But the dream lives on. Motor Development International (MDI), based near Nice, France, has developed several prototypes of its Compressed Air Technology (CAT) car since its first engine was created 14 years ago. Now company founder Guy Negre, an aeronautics engineer who developed a high-performance racing engine for Formula 1 in the late 1980s, is counting on India's largest carmaker, Tata Motors, to bring his highly anticipated Air Car to market later this year.

The Air Car was supposed to hit the streets years ago, but its release always seems just around the corner. MDI announced in 2002 that the cars would be used to replace taxis in Mexico City, but nothing resulted.

Prison Planet

January 15, 2008

By Paul Joseph Watson

NewsWithViews.com
By Jim Kouri
December 7, 2007

In comprehensive tests for an industrial chemical used in the United States to line cans of foods, a watchdog group's laboratory discovered a compound linked to birth defects in more than half of the samples of canned fruit, vegetables, soda, and baby formula from supermarket shelves, according to an Environmental Working Group report released last November.

The lab tests conducted for EWG found bisphenol A, or BPA, in 55 of 97 cans of food purchased from major supermarket chains in the states of California, Connecticut and Georgia. The EWG lab tested 27 national name brands and three store brands, according to their report.

rumormillnews.com
By: tangodog
November 12, 2007

On November 7, 2007, the Cosco Busan container ship bound for South Korea hit the protective bumper around the second bridge tower west of Yerba Buena Island while sailing in very heavy fog. The Cosco Busan sustained a gash on its port side 70 feet long. The buffer around the tower was damaged and so was the ship, but the tower itself suffered no damage. Fuel spilled for thirty minutes following the collision and resulted in 58,000 gallons of fuel oil polluting the Bay.

The Sydney Morning Herald
November 13, 2007

Authorities say more than 30,000 birds have been killed by the thousands of tonnes of oil that leaked after a heavy storm broke a tanker apart near the Black Sea.

Countless other birds, weighed down by thick coatings of the fuel oil, hopped weakly along the shore or sat helplessly in the sand yesterday.

Workers with pitchforks and shovels started the backbreaking labour of gathering up vast clumps of oil mixed with sand and seaweed.

The spill from the tanker that split apart in the strait connecting the Black and Azov seas is seen as potentially the worst environmental disaster in the region in recent years. It prompted criticism that many Russian tankers aren't seaworthy.

"Some 30,000 birds have died and it's not possible to count how many fish. The damages are so great that it's hard to assess. It can be equated with an ecological catastrophe," Alexander Tkachev, the governor of the Krasnodar region, said yesterday..

CommonDreams.org
November 13, 2007
by Agence France Presse

LONDON - Countries gathered under an international accord on maritime pollution have warned against offbeat experiments to tackle climate change by sowing the sea with chemicals to help soak up airborne carbon dioxide (CO2).

Parties to the London Convention and London Protocol declared that they hold authority over such experiments, and “large-scale operations” of this kind “are currently not justified,” according to a statement issued on Monday.

Several controversial experiments have been carried out or are being planned to “fertilise” areas of the sea with iron or urea to see whether this encourages the growth of plankton.

NewsTarget.com
October 25 2007
by Rami Nagel

(NewsTarget) On September 9th, 2007 several planes hired by the State of California Food and Agricultural Department (CDFA) flying at an altitude of approximately 500ft sprayed the untested biochemical, CheckMate®OLR-F, on over 30,000 citizens in Monterey and other surrounding cities in California. This occurred without the permission of the citizens. The spraying continued for three nights from approximately 8pm to 5am. About 1,500 pounds of biochemical were dumped on the cities. Many citizens did not even know what was happening when the planes were buzzing overhead.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
October 7, 2007

Congressional investigators will hammer the Environmental Protection Agency in a soon-to-be-released report for its flawed examination and cleanup of hundreds of factories that once processed asbestos-contaminated vermiculite into insulation.

But public health specialists say the investigation ignores an even greater failure: the EPA’s refusal to adequately warn millions of homeowners that they may be exposed to cancer-causing asbestos in that insulation.

The Government Accountability Office conducted the investigation for Congress. The report, expected to be made public later this month, will say that the EPA’s examination of sites in Spokane, Portland and 264 other communities that processed ore from Libby, Mont., used outdated criteria and underestimated or completely missed the dangers to people who worked there or lived nearby.

ScienceDaily
October 4, 2007

Science Daily — Swedish researchers have discovered that oseltamivir (Tamiflu); an antiviral drug used to prevent and mitigate influenza infections is not removed or degraded during normal sewage treatment. Consequently, in countries where Tamiflu is used at a high frequency, there is a risk that its concentration in natural waters can reach levels where influenza viruses in nature will develop resistance to it.

Widespread resistance of viruses in nature to Tamiflu increases the risk that influenza viruses infecting humans will become resistant to one of the few medicines currently available for treating influenza.

"Antiviral medicines such as Tamiflu must be used with care and only when the medical situation justifies it," advises Björn Olsen, Professor of Infectious Diseases with the Uppsala University and the University of Kalmar. "Otherwise there is a risk that they will be ineffective when most needed, such as during the next influenza pandemic."

CommonDreams.org
September 27, 2007
by Rachel Shields

American researchers claim to have answered the riddle of the deformed frogs that have been appearing in increasing numbers around the world.

Run-off from farmland drenched in fertilisers is behind the explosion in amphibians missing legs, or having extra legs and other deformities, according to the scientists.

Nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilisers are leaching into rivers, causing significant changes to the aquatic ecosystem. This prompts algae growth and increases numbers in the snail population, animals which play host to parasitic flatworms called trematodes. These parasites infect birds, snails and amphibian larvae, causing severe limb deformities and an increase in mortality.

CommonDreams.org
July 25, 2007
by Adrianne Appel

BOSTON — A U.S. health agency has made research subjects of people in tiny Mossville, Louisiana by repeatedly monitoring dangerously high levels of dioxin in their blood while doing nothing to get the community out of harm’s way, residents say.

Further, the agency failed to release important test results for five years, and made it difficult for the community to obtain the actual data, say residents and their lawyers.

“The air is staggering,” said resident Haki Vincent. “Come stay at my place and you will see firsthand that the air and water is repulsive.”

Mossville is closed in by 14 chemical factories, including Petroleum giant Conaco Phillips and Georgia Gulf, a vinyl products manufacturer that had revenues of 2.4 billion dollars in 2006, according to the company.

The Independent
By Geoffrey Lean
July 8, 2007

Two-thirds of Britons believe radiation from mobile phones and their masts has affected their health, a startling official survey shows. And huge majorities are dissatisfied with government assurances about the potential threat.

The survey is the result of a giant European Union exercise that polled more than 27,000 people across the continent, 1,375 of them in Britain. It shows that concern about the radiation is far greater than even the most ardent campaigners had dared to believe, and that official attempts to downplay the issue have backfired.

NewsTarget/Truth Publishing, June 6, 2007
Published June 07, 2007
by Healthy News Service

Pharmaceuticals, including birth-control hormones and anti-seizure medications, have been found in Lake Michigan and public water supplies, according to a new study. The study was jointly sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the American Pharmacists Association.

The water system examined serves more than a quarter-million people in Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, Walker, part of Kentwood, Ada, Cascade and Grand Rapids townships, as well as parts of Ottawa County.

PhysOrg.com
June 18, 2007

So many carp have died in a lake near Toronto that local public works officials have scheduled special pickup days for dead fish.

People living near Lake Scugog, an hour's drive north of Toronto, also would like to know what is killing the fish, the Toronto Star reported. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has sent water samples to Guelph University but does not expect any results for about two weeks.

There's no agreement on what is happening in the lake. J.J. Beechie, a spokesman for the ministry, said the die-off involves only carp. But Jim Adams told the newspaper he has seen dead rock bass, sunfish and other species.

"There's something seriously wrong here," he said. "Normally the lake is covered with thousands of geese and seagulls. Where are they all? They know something we don't."

In the meantime, with Lake Scugog property owners hauling hundreds of pounds of dead fish off the beach, the Durham Region public works department scheduled dead fish pickups Saturday and Monday.

"It became painfully obvious there were far more fish than people could handle," said Cliff Curtis, the public works commissioner.

CNN.com
June 12, 2007

Story Highlights

• 75,000 Marines, families exposed to toxic tap water, health official said
• Chemicals in water may be carcinogens
• Children on based have had cancer and other disorders
• 850 former Camp Lejeune residents have filed legal claims

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Some 75,000 Marines and their families at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were exposed to toxic tap water that may have caused cancer and birth defects, a federal health official testified Tuesday.

Results of a new study of the base's water were released Tuesday, the same day lawmakers heard emotional testimony from families who were affected by the water, which contained 40 times the amount of toxins considered safe by today's standards.

Los Angeles Times
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2007

Exposure to toxic materials in the womb can cause health problems later in life, an international panel declares.

In a strongly worded declaration, many of the world's leading environmental scientists warned Thursday that exposure to common chemicals makes babies more likely to develop an array of health problems later in life, including diabetes, attention deficit disorders, prostate cancer, fertility problems, thyroid disorders and even obesity.

The declaration by about 200 scientists from five continents amounts to a vote of confidence in a growing body of evidence that humans are vulnerable to long-term harm from toxic exposures in the womb and during their first years.

The Independent
May 13, 2007
By Marie Woolf and Geoffrey Lean

'IoS' report on the dangers of electronic smog from wireless technology examined by ministers

Ministers are to investigate arrangements for erecting mobile phone masts in the light of growing fears that they may cause cancer and other diseases because of "electronic smog".

They will review the exceptionally favourable rules that allow mobile phone companies to escape normal planning regulations and stop councils from considering the effects of the masts on health, even when they are sited near homes and schools.

Science daily
May 7, 2007

Science Daily — The growing premature birth rate in the United States appears to be strongly associated with increased use of pesticides and nitrates, according to work conducted by Paul Winchester, M.D., professor of clinical pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He reports his findings May 7 at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting, a combined gathering of the American Pediatric Society, the Society for Pediatric Research, the Ambulatory Pediatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

GNN
guerrilla news network
May 2, 2007
By Peter Dearman

Please Lord, not the bees
It sounds like the start of a Kurt Vonnegut novel:

Nobody worried all that much about the loss of a few animal species here and there until one day the bees came to their senses and decided to quit producing an unnaturally large surplus of honey for our benefit. One by one, they went on strike and flew off to parts unknown.

Among the various mythologies of the apocalypse, fear of insect plagues has always loomed larger than fear of species loss. But this may change, as a strange new plague is wiping out our honey bees one hive at a time. It has been named Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, by the apiculturalists and apiarists who are scrambling to understand and hopefully stop it. First reported last autumn in the U.S., the list of afflicted countries has now expanded to include several in Europe, as well as Brazil, Taiwan, and possibly Canada. (1)(24)(29)

PHYSORG.com
May 3, 2007

(AP) -- Hundreds of dead seals have washed up on Kazakhstan's Caspian Sea shoreline in the past several days, bringing the total number of the animals found dead along the shoreline in recent weeks to 832, the Emergencies Agency said Wednesday.

Environmental officials in the Central Asian nation were trying to determine what killed seals - most of them young - the agency said in a statement. Preliminary tests showed some of the animals were infected with the distemper virus, authorities said.

Science and space
CNN.com
May 3, 2007

• USDA official: "This is the biggest general threat to our food supply"
• One-quarter of U.S. colonies vanish, about five times the normal winter loss
• Honeybees pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops in U.S.
• Not all scientists foresee a food crisis, noting prior large-scale bee die-offs

BELTSVILLE, Maryland (AP) -- Unless someone or something stops it soon, the mysterious killer that is wiping out many of America's honeybees could have a devastating effect on the country's dinner plate, perhaps even reducing its people to a glorified bread-and-water diet.

Honeybees do not just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops the country has.

Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

12 April 2007
New Scientist
Aria Pearson

If true, it could turn the conventional wisdom of how obesity causes diabetes on its head. Emerging evidence suggests that pollutants stored in body fat may be contributing to the ongoing rise of type 2 diabetes.

While obesity is still thought to be a major cause, there is more and more evidence to suggest that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) also play a key role.

POPs are synthetic chemicals that can accumulate in the fatty tissue of animals. Many POPs - such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were used as coolants in electrical equipment, and pesticides such as DDT - have been banned in developed countries, but they remain in the food chain and often end up in people.

BBC NEWS
April 3, 2007

Air pollution may be a bigger risk to health than exposure to radiation, such as that after the Chernobyl disaster, a study suggests.

Researchers examined the health impact of the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

They concluded the risks were probably no greater than those posed by obesity, smoking and urban pollution.

However, a radiation expert cast doubt on the BMC Public Health research.

I'm not sure that it helps to compare the health risks from radiation among survivors of the atomic bombings in Japan with the risks from obesity or smoking -Dr Michael Clark, Health Protection Agency

He said the risks posed by radiation were not comparable to those from other sources.

Researcher Dr Jim Smith, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said exposure to radiation took fewer years off life expectancy than heavy smoking or severely obese.

Crusador Health Truth Revealed
April 3, 2007
By Sally Deneen

Glen Boyd's students didn't know what they might find as they dipped containers into the water and took them back for tests. What turned up? Medicine.

There was cholesterol medication. There was the hormone estrone, a form of the estrogen prescribed to help menopausal women. And there was a strong pain reliever called naproxin. Low levels of these medications have also shown up in surface waters in other parts of the world.

While no one claims this mildly revved-up water hurts humans--it is further diluted before it reaches home faucets--some scientists are concerned about negative effects on the environment. And with a flood of new drugs as findings from the Human Genome Project are released, researchers wonder: How many more medications will end up in rivers and lakes?

The New York Times
April 3, 2007
By CORNELIA DEAN

Residues of birth control pills, antidepressants, painkillers, shampoos and a host of other compounds are finding their way into the nation’s waterways, and they have public health and environmental officials in a regulatory quandary.

On the one hand, there is no evidence the traces of the chemicals found so far are harmful to human beings. On the other hand, it would seem cavalier to ignore them.

The pharmaceutical and personal care products, or P.P.C.P.’s, are being flushed into the nation’s rivers from sewage treatment plants or leaching into groundwater from septic systems. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, researchers have found these substances, called “emerging contaminants,” almost everywhere they have looked for them.

NewsWithViews.com
By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.
March 22, 2007

The main factor responsible for the rapidly rising incidence of prostate cancer in men and breast cancer and uterine cancer in women appears to be the excessive exposure of modern men and women to estrogen. If testosterone had anything to do with prostate cancer there should be an epidemic of this disease in teenage males. All persons on planet earth are getting, for the first time in history, steady large exposure to estrogen from inhaled fuel exhaust, plastics, estrogen implants in meat and fed to chickens, herbicides, pesticides and propylene glycol.

Los Angeles Times
By Lianne Hart
March 19, 2007

An unusually high number are washing up along Texas' Gulf Coast this calving season for unknown reasons.

GALVESTON, TEXAS — An unusually large number of dead bottlenose dolphins have washed ashore near this Gulf of Mexico city in the last month, and investigators are looking at laboratory slides, satellite photos and anything else they can think of in their search for clues.

About 180 dolphins are stranded in Texas each year, many from January through March — their calving season, when infants may die during birth or become separated from their mothers and are unable to survive alone.

The 47 bodies found recently included many newborns with umbilical cords still attached. That is three times the number found during the same period last year.

Mercury Policy Project
Earthtimes.org
PressRelease
March 1, 2007

MONTPELIER, Vt., March 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Advocates applauded the work of the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee which passed out two important bills today that will significantly decrease mercury pollution in Vermont. The first requires dentists to have patients sign a consent form before receiving any procedure involving mercury-amalgam which informs them of the potential hazards to human health. The second requires a cash incentive be given to contractors that turn in mercury containing thermostats for recycling.

Omega News
March 9, 2007
By Dr. Gerald Goldberg

As concerns the pineal, the role of calcium in general and the role of crystals within the pineal gland reveal some interesting points. As in radio and other transmitters, crystals act to convert certain discrete frequencies into electrical signals. Before we had all of the electro-pollution, animals could simply orient themselves to the earths electromagnetic signature. Additionally animals could store into memory at a subconscious level the discrete signatures of subtle variations in electromagnetic signalling from various regions. This would explain the highly specific nature of migratory behaviour seen in certain animals. What has not been appreciated is the ability which has probably evolved over time to see, complex patterns that are generated from the earth's electromagnetic signature.

The New York Times
February 27, 2007
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

VISALIA, Calif., Feb. 23 — David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.

In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable.

Press Release
Source: www.organicconsumers.org
February 19, 2007

Secret Monsanto Genetically Engineered Potato Study Suppressed for 8 Years
GM Potatoes are "unfit for human consumption"
GM Free Cymru, Feb 16, 2007
Straight to the Source

A secret feeding study of Monsanto GM potatoes, conducted in 1998 by the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and suppressed for 8 years, showed that the potatoes did considerable damage to the organs of the rats in the study (1) (2). In comparison the rats in the "control groups" which were fed on normal potatoes or on a non-potato diet were healthier, and had much less organ and tissue damage. This research, fully supported by Monsanto through the provision of the GM potatoes, was conducted at approximately the same time as Arpad Pusztai's research in the Rowett Institute.

BBC NEWS:
February 13, 2007

Dutch-based oil trading group Trafigura is to pay the Ivorian government $198m (£102m) for a clean-up and inquiry after a"toxic waste" incident in 2006.

Trafigura say this is not "damages" and that there is no admission of liability on their part for whatever happened.

Ten people died and many fell ill after waste was shipped to Abidjan and left around the city in August.

As part of the deal, the Ivory Coast will drop any prosecutions or claims, now or in the future, against the firm.

Common Dreams News Center
February 12, 2007
The Guardian/UK
by John Vidal

Inquiry after chemicals found at site 30 years after their disposal

Evidence has emerged that the Monsanto chemical company paid contractors to dump thousands of tonnes of highly toxic waste in British landfill sites, knowing that their chemicals were liable to contaminate wildlife and people. Yesterday the Environment Agency said it had launched an inquiry after the chemicals were found to be polluting underground water supplies and the atmosphere 30 years after they were dumped.

NewsTarget.com
January 30 2007
by M.T. Whitney

(NewsTarget) The waters off the Los Angeles County coast still possess high levels of DDT contamination, according to a recent report.

The report, released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, shows that the pesticide, which companies dumped into the water soon after it was banned from use in the United States, is still found with high levels in fish caught near the Los Angeles area. DDT, banned from use in the United States at the end of 1972, is considered a toxic substance by the EPA, and the federal agency associates it with an increased risk of liver cancer. It also can affect the human reproductive and nervous systems, and is toxic to many animals, especially aquatic life.

The Times
January 20, 2007
Alice Miles and Helen Rumbelow

• It's right to have worries, says expert
• Don't buy phones for primary pupils'

If we came expecting reassurance from this bearded, 6ft 4in grandfather, the emeritus professor of physics who heads the Government’s mobile phone safety research, we are about to be a little shaken.

We begin by asking if this isn’t all a bit old hat. Haven’t we all got into an unnecessary lather about the dangers of mobiles, and wireless technology? There are all these vague concerns — “There should be,” Lawrie Challis cuts in.

nbc4.tv
January 19, 2007

LOS ANGELES -- The number of children being diagnosed with autism is on the rise. Improved detection could be one reason. A new study has many experts believing environmental toxins may play a bigger role than you may think.

Many parents believe that there is a link between mercury in vaccines and autism.

NBC4's Dr. Bruce Hensel said that has not been proven and the findings suggest there may be links to other toxins.

The Centers for Disease Control said autism spectrum disorders affect one in every 166 children. The cause is still unknown, but there is focus on a possible link between the condition and pesticides.

"There's so much we don't know about the long term and short term effects of pesticides on the developing child," said Dr. Claudia Miller.

Common ground
CG : Archive : December 2006
by Amanda Brown PhD

Few people would be surprised to hear that cell phones are unhealthy. But how many of us actually know the degree of damage they cause, the extent of the cover-up by the industry, or that there is a viable solution? Dr. George Carlo, a mobile phone industry whistleblower, recently presented a talk in Vancouver about how electropollution from wireless technology can cause brain damage, cancer and an array of mental illnesses.

By Amanda Covarrubias
Times Staff Writer
December 12, 2006

The company will ask the state to ease limits on pollution at its former Simi Hills lab. Critics say it could be an effort to thwart a federal probe.
Boeing Co. on Wednesday will seek to ease limits on runoff pollution at its former nuclear research and rocket testing lab in the Simi Hills amid a criminal investigation into whether the company violated clean-water standards there.

Mobile phone technologies are using microwaves to allow voice communication as well as transmit messages. Practically, we can no longer do without them, although major adverse health effects of these handy transmitters have been suspected and are being documented by different researchers.

Paul Raymond Doyon, an Associate Professor at Kyushu University has collected the available evidence on the health effects of microwave radiation and its effects on human health, especially in relation to chronic fatigue and ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy). Here is his paper:

By Jessica Fraser
NewsTarget.com
December 4, 2006

(NewsTarget) Industrial chemicals are hindering children's development, lowering IQ scores and triggering attention and behavior disorders, according to a new study by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health.

The study, published in The Lancet, warns that 201 chemicals that can have neurotoxic effects on the public -- and on children in particular -- lack sufficient safety regulation. According to the study's lead author, Dr. Philippe Grandjean, such chemicals are causing "a silent pandemic in modern society," and millions of children may have already been affected by exposure to industrial toxins.

New York Times
Second Opinion
By DENISE GRADY
November 28, 2006

When our first son developed asthma as a 3-year-old, my husband and I felt pretty much blindsided. We were only a little less shocked when the same thing happened to our second son, at the same age.

The disease turned out to be tenacious, and for years both boys needed inhalers or a nebulizer machine several times a day to prevent asthma attacks that could keep them up half the night, coughing and wheezing.

Omega-News
By David Johnson
November 8, 2006

Families living within feet of a phone mast say it is to blame for 27 deaths and illnesses in their streets in the past 13 years.

Now residents are spending hundreds of pounds trying to protect themselves from radiation.

They are lining their lofts with tin foil, putting up metal mesh curtains and installing specialist windows.

They want the 82-foot Orange-owned antenna in Shooters Hill, Stoke-on-Trent - which collects and distributes signals from other masts - to be torn down.

They say the microwaves from the mast are potentially lethal.

Mother-of-two Karen Owens, pictured, aged 40, who lives 300 feet from the mast, has just had a mastectomy after contracting cancer.

thisislondon.co.uk
November 23, 2006

Sufferers like Kate Figes say wi-fi leaves them feeling exhausted, nauseous and sleepless.

It is the hi-tech tool that has revolutionised home and office alike - but a growing band of campaigners claim wi-fi is a major threat to health.

Sufferers say the electro-magnetic waves emitted by wireless computer networks - wi-fi - leave them feeling exhausted, nauseous and sleepless.

Author Kate Figes, spent hundreds of pounds installing wireless internet in her Stoke Newington home, then found it made her so ill she had to scrap it.

Los Angeles Times
By Jim Puzzanghera
Times Staff Writer
November 27, 2006

The conflict between technology and nature hasn't gone well for migratory birds. The light from cellphone and TV towers has lured millions of them to their deaths.

WASHINGTON — Is the pursuit of fewer dropped calls leading to more dropping birds?

The lights atop communications towers that warn pilots to stay away can have a come-hither effect on birds — killing millions of migrating warblers, thrushes and other species every year.

During bad weather, birds can mistake tower lights for the stars they use to navigate. They will circle a tower as if in a trance, often until they crash into the structure, its guy wires or other birds. Sometimes disoriented birds simply plummet to the ground from exhaustion.

By Jeremy Laurance
The Independent UK
Wednesday 08 November 2006

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.

One in every six children has a developmental disability, such as autism, attention deficit disorder or cerebral palsy, the effects of which may be life-long.

BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk
November 7, 2006

Toxic chemicals may be causing a pandemic of brain disorders because of inadequate regulation, researchers say.

A report in the Lancet identifies over 200 industrial chemicals, including metals, solvents and pesticides, which have potential to damage the brain.

Studies have shown low-level exposure of some can lead to neurobehavioral defects in children, the US and Danish team behind the report said.

UK experts remained divided over the findings.

NewsTarget.com
November 7 2006

(NewsTarget) At a Friday meeting in New Delhi, the Bush administration won international approval for the use of a little more than 5,900 tons of ozone-destroying pesticide methyl bromide, despite the objections of European nations.

Nearly two years ago, methyl bromide was banned under international treaty except in critical cases, but after Friday, the U.S. farmers are exempt from the ban if the pesticide is used on tomatoes, strawberries and some other crops in agriculture-heavy states such as Florida and California.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk
October 24 2006

A Dutch lawyer representing some 1,000 victims of toxic waste dumped in Ivory Coast says he is suing the company that shipped the waste there.

Dutch firm Trafigura has denied responsibility for dumping the waste in the city of Abidjan, saying it employed a local company to dispose of it.

But the lawyer says Trafigura should pay $12.5m within two weeks as a preliminary settlement.

Ten people died and many thousands more needed treatment after the dumping.

About 40,000 people were treated in hospital for nausea, breathing problems and nosebleeds.

By Kathryn Price
www.operationinformation.com
October 11, 2006

We have watched the evening news as story after story of incidents related to the E. coli outbreak is told. Many are ill while others die after consuming tainted leafy greens.

What is E. coli? According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Escherichia coli, a.k.a. E. coli, is "a subgroup of fecal coliform bacteria that is present in the intestinal tracts and feces of warm-blooded animals. It is used as an indicator of the potential presence of pathogens. There are many different strains of E. coli that are classified into more than 170 serogroups. Although most strains of E. coli are harmless and live in the intestines of healthy humans and animals, the E. coli O157:H7 strain produces a powerful toxin and can cause severe illness."

Here is what is known. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 2006, "federal authorities announced they will investigate farms in Salinas Valley seeking evidence of what caused the outbreak." [i]

The article goes on to quote Dr. David Acheson of the FDA saying, "Acheson, who called the outbreak one of the larger E. coli outbreaks ever reported, extended indefinitely the federal recommendation not to eat any fresh spinach or products that contain or are packaged with spinach that have a sell-by date of Aug. 17 through Oct. 1.

From: http://www.ewg.org
October 4, 2006
CONTACT: Bill Walker or Renee Sharp, (510) 444-0973

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Federal Study Confirms Perchlorate as Widespread Public Health Threat

OAKLAND, CA — A startling new study by the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says minute traces of a toxic rocket fuel chemical found in milk, fruit vegetables and drinking water supplies nationwide lowers essential thyroid hormones in women. An Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis finds that 44 million American women who are pregnant, thyroid deficient or have low iodine levels are at heightened risk from exposure to the chemical.

Regulators have known for years that perchlorate, the explosive component of solid rocket fuel, can lower levels of the thyroid hormones essential to proper development of fetuses and infants and good health in adults. But new scientific evidence clearly shows that perchlorate is a much greater public health threat than previously realized. Tests of almost 3,000 human urine and breast milk samples — along with tests of more than 1,000 fruit, vegetable, cow's milk, beer, and wine samples — reveal that perchlorate exposure in the population is pervasive.

NewsTarget.com
Originally published October 10 2006

(NewsTarget) According to research by Chad Kinney, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Eastern Washington University, fertilizer made from sewage sludge may be adding pharmaceuticals, flame retardants and other chemicals to the land.

Kinney's research showed that no less than nine different biosolid products were produced by municipal wastewater treatment plants in seven different states -- Washington, Arizona, Wisconsin, Kansas, Colorado, Texas and Iowa. These biosolid products were analyzed for 87 different organic wastewater contaminants, which represents a cross section of medicinal, industrial and household compounds.

October 2, 2006
By LYDIA POLGREEN and MARLISE SIMONS

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Sept. 28 — It was his infant son’s cries, gasping and insistent, that first woke Salif Oudrawogol one night last month. The smell hit him moments later, wafting into the family’s hut, a noxious mélange reminiscent of rotten eggs, garlic and petroleum.

Mr. Oudrawogol went outside to investigate. Beside the family’s compound, near his manioc and corn fields, he saw a stinking slick of black sludge.

“The smell was so bad we were afraid,” Mr. Oudrawogol said. “It burned our noses and eyes.”

Over the next few days, the skin of his 6-month-old son, Salam, bloomed with blisters, which burst into weeping sores all over his body. The whole family suffered headaches, nosebleeds and stomach aches.

We have all heard about spinach being practically taken off the market in the US over an incident of contamination with e.coli bacteria. Some random examples: E. coli case in W.Va. linked to bagged spinach - Spinach Recall - Stores Begin To Carry Spinach Again.

To put all this in perspective, here is a discussion posted by Rocky Ward on the Alternative Medicine Forum.

NewsTarget.com
June 26 2006

A recent study by the California Department of Health Services indicates that industrial air pollutants may increase the risk of autism by 50 percent in young children and unborn babies. The report was published online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Researchers compared 959 children from six San Francisco Bay area counties who were born in 1994. Out of these, 284 were diagnosed with autism-spectrum disorders. The study showed that children with autism were more likely to be born in areas with high levels of mercury, cadmium, nickel, trichloroethylene and vinyl chloride. Elemental mercury -- which is released into the air from coal-burning power plants, chlorine factories and gold mines -- appears to be particularly hazardous.

International Medical Veritas Association
June 6, 2006

Radiation at extremely low levels is a health hazard that medicine is not dealing with because it uses dangerous levels of radiation in both its diagnosis and treatment of disease. Radiation hazards have been grossly underestimated because they have to be. If they were not then both the medical industry and the atomic power industry would be vulnerable to staggering liabilities. Radiation is an invisible terror that works insidiously in the background so it is easy to hide its place in the deterioration of the publics' health. But slowly and steadily radiation hazards are destroying not only our health but that of our children and our children's children and many more generations to come. (This week the IMVA will publish about mercury in the air as a similar hazard. But coming next is Uranium Causes Cancer)

"Chernobyl" remains what it became 20 years ago, the name of a horror that doesn't show itself.

Serge Schmemann
NY Times

By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
The Korea Times
May 3 2006

Mobile operators and governments have claimed cell phones don’t emit enough microwaves harm people, but sensitive Koreans are feeling their negative effects.

According to a survey by Rep. Suh Hae-suk at the governing Uri Party, 10.9 percent of 1,034 respondents said that they felt physical disorders due to cell phone usage.

As for the most common symptoms, 67 complained about a brief deafness and 59 suffered from headaches. Forty-six felt a sudden paroxysm of tiredness and 29 couldn’t concentrate.

ISIS Press Release 25/04/06
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

At least 1 800 sheep reported dead from severe toxicity after grazing on Bt cotton fields in just four villages in Andhra Pradesh India

The Bt trail of dead sheep, ill workers and dead villagers over three years

At least 1 820 sheep were reported dead after grazing on post-harvest Bt cotton crops; the symptoms and post-mortem findings strongly suggest they died from severe toxicity. This was uncovered in a preliminary investigation conducted by civil society organisations in just four villages in the Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh in India. The actual problem is likely to be much greater.

ENN Headline News
By Randall Chase
Associated Press
April 20, 2006

DOVER, Del. ˜ Drinking water supplies near a DuPont facility in New Jersey have been contaminated with chemicals, including a suspected carcinogen used in the production of Teflon, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges that the contamination is linked to the manufacturing, use and disposal of perfluorinated chemicals, including PFOA, at DuPont's Chambers Works plant in Salem County, N.J.

By Caroline Collard

OBREGON, Mexico - Yaqui from Sonora, Mexico, are seeing an increase in birth defects, while young people are dying from cancer after working without protective clothing with pesticides in agricultural fields near their villages.

Francisco Villegas Paredes, Yaqui from Vicam village, said doctors have confirmed that the birth defects and cancers are the result of Yaquis working in fields where these dangerous pesticides and chemicals - which have been banned in other countries - are being used by farmers who lease Yaqui lands primarily for wheat and corn crops.

Describing the deformities of a 9-year-old child who sleeps face-down because of a bone growth on his spine, Paredes said, ''It would make you so sad to see these Yaqui children.''

BBC News
March 13, 2006

Tough measures to reduce the use of mercury in Europe are to be debated in the European parliament.

A resolution from Cypriot MEP Marios Matsakis calls for a ban on EU mercury exports by 2010 and steps to extract and collect mercury from all waste.

Mercury collects and concentrates in the aquatic food chain

The resolution describes mercury as a "global threat", particularly harmful to babies as they develop in the womb.

Experts say many fishing communities in the Mediterranean and Arctic have already absorbed unsafe levels.

New Phones Danger
by Robbie Collin
News of the World,
5th February 2006

Cordless handsets 100 times worse than mobiles, say experts.
Having a cordless phone in your house can be 100 times more of a health risk than using a mobile. The popular phones constantly blast out high levels of radiation - even when they are not in use. Landlines are widely thought a safer option than mobiles. But researchers in Sweden now warn cordless phones are far more likely to cause brain tumours than today's mobiles.
Emissions from a cordless phone's charger can be as high as six volts per metre - twice as strong as those found with a 100 metres of mobile masts. Two metres away from the charger the radiation is still as high as 2.5 volts per metre - that's 50 times what scientists regard as a safe level.

Powerful
At a metre away the danger is multiplied 120 times - and it only drops to a safe 0.05 volts per metre when you are 100 metres away from the phone. Because of the way cordless phones work, the charger constantly emits radiation at full strength even when the phone is not in use - and so does the handset when it is off the charger.
The most common cancers caused by such radiation are leukaemias. But breast cancer, brain tumours, insomnia, headaches and erratic behaviour in kids have also been linked. Those with chargers close to their beds are subjected to radiation while they sleep.
Phone watchdog Powerwatch, using a testing device called the Sensory Perspective Electrosmog Detector, even found electromagnetic fields as strong as three volts per metre in a bedroom above a room holding a cordless phone.
The group's director, Alasdair Philips said: "As ill-health effects have been found at levels of only 0.06 volts per metre, this is very concerning. It's likely everyone in a house with a cordless phone will be constantly exposed to levels higher than this."

The shock Swedish report - by scientists Lennart Hardell, Michael Carlbery and Kjell Hansson Mild - is backed up by many medical experts who believe cordless phones are a health risk.
Harley Street practitioner Dr David Dowson said: "Having a cordless phone is like having a mobile mast in your house. I'd recommend anyone who has one to switch to a plug-in phone."
But BT's health advisor, John Collins, disagreed. He said: "There's no conclusive scientific evidence linking the radiation to any of the symptoms experienced. The evidence is that it doesn't do us any harm. We're a responsible company and abide by all the guidelines set down by recognised experts."
News of the World, 5th February 2006

By Carla McClain
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
March 9, .2006

Dana Reeve coughed for a year before she knew why.

She never once thought of lung cancer. She had never smoked. The cancer threat never entered her mind, so she tragically did not take the cough too seriously, she said in one of her last public interviews.

Older men with voices turned gravelly by decades of heavy smoking get lung cancer, most of us assume. Certainly not young women who have always shunned cigarettes.

How wrong we are.

Dana Reeve died Monday, six months after she learned her cough was caused by the worst of all cancer killers, lung cancer. It was an unimaginable and seemingly unfair event, occurring just two years after she lost her paralyzed husband, actor Christopher Reeve. Dana Reeve was 44.

By: www.SixWisecom
February 16, 2006

Americans are prescribed millions of doses of prescription drugs every year. Livestock are given millions more. But after the pill has been swallowed or the injection taken, the active components of the drugs do not become inert or completely absorbed by the body.

One study found that 80 percent of streams tested contained antibiotics, steroids, synthetic hormones or other common drugs.

Los Angeles Times
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer
January 30, 2006

Various medications are detected in drinking water that has been derived from treated sewage. The health risk, if any, is unknown.

Behind a tangle of willows, every second of every day for almost half a century, recycled sewage has gushed into an El Monte creek and nourished one of Los Angeles County's most precious resources: the drinking water stored beneath the San Gabriel Valley.

Cleansed so thoroughly that it is considered pure enough to drink, this flow from the Whittier Narrows reclamation plant meets all government standards. Yet county officials now report that they have found some potent — and until recent months undetected — ingredients in the treated waste: prescription drugs.

By John Heilprin, Associated Press Writer
December 20, 2005

WASHINGTON - Drinking water may have a lot more in it than just H20 and fluoride, according to an environmental group's analysis of records in 42 states.

A survey by the Environmental Working Group released on Tuesday found 141 unregulated chemicals and an additional 119 for which the Environmental Protection Agency has set health-based limits. Most common among the chemicals found were disinfection byproducts, nitrates, chloroform, barium, arsenic and copper.

The research-and-advocacy organization compiled findings from the states that agreed to provide data they collected from 1998 to 2003. That data comes from nearly 40,000 water utilities, serving 231 million people. The utilities were required by federal law to report that data to consumers.

Los Angeles Times
October 10, 2005
latimes.com: California
By Lee Romney, Times Staff Writer

Pesticide Case is Upping the Ante
A poisoning trial pitting two brothers comes as farm activists, regulators seek stricter controls.

OAKDALE, Calif. — When toxic fumigant sprayed Arturo Becerra across the face, his vision blurred, his skin tingled and "it felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my head."

It was the second time the brittle hose had ruptured in the almond orchard in as many days, Becerra told agricultural investigators. But his supervisor ordered him to patch the sprayer and get back to applying methyl bromide, a soil pesticide that can cause irreversible neurological damage and death. The next day, after complaining again of ill health, the 59-year-old Becerra hauled firewood while nauseated and stumbling, his statement said. By the time a son took him to a hospital, he was in a condition investigators would describe as "life-threatening."

The March 2004 poisoning triggered California's first criminal prosecution in a pesticide-related matter in 14 years. Trial is scheduled to begin next month against Oakdale ranch manager John Becerra — the injured worker's brother — and Jon Hoff, a co-owner of Golden West Nuts, whose offices and processing plant are in nearby Ripon.

Science of Low Level Toxicities

International Medical Veritas Association
Mark Sircus Ac., OMD

It is the inability to see the effects of chronic, low level toxicities on human health that has been, and remains, our greatest failing as intelligent beings.
Dr. Boyd Haley

One of the greatest alarm calls in human history has gone unnoticed for years and as such, the low levels of toxicities are moving higher. Even with the rising tide of reports of chemical pollution in human blood streams, among newborn babies and adults alike, we get reporters and medical officials dismissing concerns of chemical toxicity. The WallStreet Journal published last week, "For years, scientists have struggled to explain rising rates of some cancers and childhood brain disorders. Something about modern living has driven a steady rise of certain maladies, from breast and prostate cancer to autism and learning disabilities." The last thing the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Federal Drug and Food Commission (FDA) care to admit is that these increases are being driven by the rising tide of chemical poisons entering peoples' blood streams.

A Scottish lady, who has lived for much of her life in Lincolnshire in England, says that suffering from adrenal exhaustion has been an ordeal that health professionals don't seem to be interested in. Rena Scott-Murphy has written a complaint naming British prime minster Tony Blair as the major political figure responsible for and in a position to do something about the pollution and the progressive depletion of health-giving nutrients that are at the heart of the problem.

Although called a "criminal complaint", the work is a personal review of the science of health as applicable to a number of illnesses that are officially left by the wayside. Sufferers these environmentally induced diseases are often told it's "all in your head", when in fact there are physical problems that are more than real.

See also this article on chemical sensitivity and an interview with Martin Walker, author of an excellent book titled SKEWED to get some insight into the interests that lie behind the official negation of all health problems, apparently chemically caused.

Here is what Rena says about her complaint.

The complete text is at the end of this article:

Microwave ovens have been accused of changing the properties of our foods by violently shaking water-containing molecules, altering the physical properties of what we eat. The scientist first blowing the whistle on these "modern cooking method" was silenced by industry initiated legal action.

It seems that, despite health concerns, microwaves are becoming ubiquitous. Not only are they used in the transmission through networks of antennas, of television programming, they are also what radar runs on. Not enough, we recently have launched into a planet-spanning communication technology using "packets" of information riding on microwaves, to transmit our voice on the mobile phone network. Amy Worthington examined the question and wrote about it in the Idaho Observer two years ago.

A recent message from someone who says he has worked in radar systems adds a personal perspective tending to confirm the data from others...

Reuters
Wed Mar 16, 2005 08:02 PM ET
By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Mercury released primarily from coal-fired power plants may be contributing to an increase in the number of cases of autism, a Texas researcher said on Wednesday.

A study to be published on Thursday in the journal "Health and Place" found that autism, a developmental disorder marked by communication and social interaction problems, increased in Texas counties as mercury emissions rose, said Claudia Miller, a family and community medicine professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

"The main finding is that for every thousand pounds of environmentally released mercury, we saw a 17 percent increase in autism rates," she said in an interview.

Los Angeles Times
THE NATION
March 2, 2005
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer

Study finds more sex organ abnormalities in 1950s, when chemicals were more widespread.

Scientists who compared frogs collected over the last 150 years have discovered a dramatic increase in hermaphrodites during the times when contamination from the pesticide DDT and other chlorinated compounds was widespread.

Frogs with both male and female reproductive organs were rare in the 19th and early 20th centuries but more common during the 1950s, when the largest volumes of the chemicals were used.

The findings, reported Tuesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, add to the growing evidence that an array of pesticides and industrial chemicals can alter the sex hormones of animals.

Los Angeles Times - The World
February 22, 2005
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer

At a meeting in Kenya, European ministers will seek deadlines and bans on the global pollutant, but the U.S. opposes a binding treaty.

Environmental ministers meeting in Nairobi this week to tackle one of the most widespread pollutants will be asked to choose between strict curbs on mercury proposed by the European Union and a voluntary approach advocated by the United States.

The EU is calling for deadlines, bans and detailed promises, whereas the U.S. prefers partnerships between industries and governments with no specific goals or deadlines for reducing either the global supply or demand of mercury.

In 2001, the United Nations Environment Program, or UNEP, declared that "national, regional and global actions, both immediate and long-term, should be initiated as soon as possible" to reduce emissions of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that has contaminated fish and other food sources around the world.

Meeting at UNEP's world headquarters in the Kenyan capital through Friday, more than 100 environmental ministers from six continents will decide whether to begin drafting a binding international treaty to restrict the buying, selling and use of mercury.

Los Angeles Times
February 14, 2005
EDITORIAL

Later this month, Europe and other industrialized regions will grapple with the problem of mercury pollution. The United States, apparently, will continue to pretend it doesn't exist.

Like greenhouse gases, mercury is a global rather than local problem. The metal, a liquid at room temperature, vaporizes easily, traveling the world's air currents and settling into waterways, where it has become so common in ocean fish that pregnant women and young children, the most vulnerable, are warned to severely limit their consumption of seafood, and everyone is told not to eat too much swordfish and other predator fish. In humans, it turns into highly toxic methyl mercury, which can cause memory lapses and increase the risk of heart attacks.

CNN.com International
January 26, 2005

(AP) -- Nine chlorine plants in the South and East pour at least eight tons of mercury into the environment each year -- a situation that demands federal action to force companies to convert to cleaner technology, activists said Wednesday.*

Environmentalists think the amount of mercury emitted by the plants may be even greater; the industry acknowledges that tons of the toxic metal are unaccounted for each year, though it does not believe that mercury is dumped into the environment.

Chlorine at the plants is made by pumping electrically charged salty water through a vat of mercury, a process devised more than 100 years ago. Environmentalists say these plants are a largely ignored and unchecked source of mercury pollution.

Feb 10, 2004 3:54PM
Knight-Ridder / Tribune Business News – 

A group of common chemicals found in indoor air, some perfumes and plastic tubing used in hospitals may be more prevalent and dangerous than previously thought -- with pregnant women and infants especially at risk, new studies say.

New research on the substances, called phthalates (pronounced THAL-aytes), finds that at least one type can disrupt the human hormone system -- putting pregnant women at risk for delivering premature babies, damaging sperm in some men, and harming reproductive systems of children.

Recent studies also refute the notion that humans are only exposed to phthalates orally; the studies have established that indoor exposure to the chemical is more widespread than previously thought and that modest levels of some phthalates can be harmful.

Phthalates are one of the most ubiquitous manmade substances in the environment. They are found in everything from vinyl flooring to cosmetics and toys. Their popularity stems from the fact that the chemical's molecules easily slip and slide past each other, making the materials they are in pliable. 

Last Updated: 2005-01-11 12:27:42 -0400 (Reuters Health)
http://www.reutershealth.com/
By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Pregnant women who use a lot of household chemical products are more likely to have babies with persistent wheezing, new research reports. The products included bleach, disinfectant, air fresheners, aerosols, carpet cleaners and pesticides.

Children with wheezing are more at risk of eventually developing asthma, explained study author Dr. Andrea Sherriff at the University of Bristol in the UK.
Moreover, "persistent wheezing stops the child from living a normal life -- exercising, going to school," she told Reuters Health. This "may make them susceptible to other conditions, such as obesity."

Mon Dec 20, 2004 04:37 PM GMT

MUNICH/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Radio waves from mobile phones harm body cells and damage DNA in laboratory conditions, according to a new study majority-funded by the European Union, researchers said on Monday.

The so-called Reflex study, conducted by 12 research groups in seven European countries, did not prove that mobile phones are a risk to health but concluded that more research is needed to see if effects can also be found outside a lab.

The $100 billion a year mobile phone industry asserts that there is no conclusive evidence of harmful effects as a result of electromagnetic radiation.

About 650 million mobile phones are expected to be sold to consumers this year, and over 1.5 billion people around the world use one.

The research project, which took four years and which was coordinated by the German research group Verum, studied the effect of radiation on human and animal cells in a laboratory.

By Benjamin Spillman
The Desert Sun
January 11th, 2005

Perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel, has been detected in drinking water throughout the United States.

The Environmental Protection Agency has suggested limiting the acceptable level of perchlorate in drinking water to 1 part-per-billion. California health officials have proposed a 6 parts-per-billion health goal.

However, studies have suggested that humans can tolerate more than 100 parts per billion without adverse health impacts.

The maximum concentration level in the United States is 200 parts per billion in Duval County, Fla. The chemical was detected at 67 parts-per-billion in San Bernardino County.

It has been detected in at least two wells in the Coachella Valley. One well in Palm Springs had a concentration of 6 parts-per-billion. A well in La Quinta tested at 5.5 parts-per-billion. The La Quinta well has been shut down.
Source: Desert Water Agency/Coachella Valley Water District/State of California/National Academy of Sciences.

December 15, 2004

Food supply vulnerable to contamination by drugs and plastics from gene-altered crops UCS calls for ban on food crops genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals

WASHINGTON, D.C. - For more than a decade, corn, soybeans, and other food crops genetically engineered to produce drugs, vaccines, and industrial chemicals have been grown on American farms. But a new report by six agricultural experts now warns that the food supply is vulnerable to contamination by these "pharmaceutical crops" unless substantial changes are made in the ways and places such crops are grown and managed.

Based on the experts' findings, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to immediately ban the field production of corn, soybeans, and other food crops engineered to produce pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals. UCS recommends that the USDA spearhead a major campaign to encourage and fund safer alternatives like non-food crops or growing pharmaceutical food crops indoors.

WASHINGTON - The government has found traces of a rocket fuel chemical in organic milk in Maryland, green leaf lettuce grown in Arizona and bottled spring water from Texas and California. What's not clear is the significance of the data, collected by the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) through Aug. 19.
Sufficient amounts of perchlorate can affect the thyroid, potentially causing delayed development and other problems.

But Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) official Kevin Mayer called for calm, saying in an interview Tuesday: "Alarm is not warranted. That is clear."

Pesticides linked to child cancer

Pesticides and other pollutants in the environment may contribute to childhood leukaemia, say UK scientists. (Pesticides crossed the placenta)

In laboratory studies the Bristol University team showed pollutants were able to travel across the placenta to the unborn baby.

The scientists presented their findings to a conference held by the Children with Leukaemia charity in London.

Pesticides May Be Linked to Rising Child Leukaemia
By Lyndsay Moss and Jennifer Sym, PA News
September 6, 2004
Source: Scotsman.com

Pesticides and other environmental pollution may affect unborn children – and play a role in the rising rates of childhood leukaemia, new research suggested today.

A study, unveiled at the First International Scientific conference on Childhood Leukaemia in London, indicated harmful environmental agents can cross the placenta from mother to foetus.

The study suggests the transfer could affect the immune system of the child, which could be linked to the increasing incidence of the disease.

Fish on Prozac

By Jeff Dankert | Winona Daily News

LANESBORO, Minn. — Potential for human drugs polluting waterways and short circuiting aquatic biochemistry will be the topic of a speech Saturday night in Lanesboro.

Ira Adelman will present a lecture at Eagle Bluff Environmnetal Learning Center titled "Hormones in our water, fish on Prozac." Adelman is a University of Minnesota fisheries biology professor.

The topic may sound like comedy over dinner, but reflects a growing concern about trace chemicals from drugs and other medical compounds creating havoc with aquatic ecosystem functioning.

Prozac is an antidepressant drug manufactured by Eli Lilly Co.

Pollution triggers bizarre behaviour in animals
03 September 04
Source: New Scientist

 Hyperactive fish, stupid frogs, fearless mice and seagulls that fall over. It sounds like a weird animal circus, but this is no freak show. Animals around the world are increasingly behaving in bizarre ways, and the cause is environmental pollution.

The chemicals to blame are known as endocrine disruptors, and range from heavy metals such as lead to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and additives such as bisphenol A.

For decades, biologists have known that these chemicals can alter the behaviour of wild animals. And in recent years it has become clear that pollutants can cause gender-bending effects by altering animals' physiology, particularly their sexual organs.

The "Teflon* Tactic": Deny, Deny, Deny

Source: http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/courses/geog100/Plastics-DenyDamage.htm

*Trademark for polytetrafluoroethylene, a substance used to provide a nonsticking coating on some cookware and industrial products

To keep their profitable chemicals on the market, corporations commonly deny, and deny time and again, that their products cause any harm.  With this Teflon™ tactic companies attempt to escape blame by metaphorically coating their "chemical-X" with a non-sticking shield to repel censure. 

This approach has been practiced not only by chemical companies, but also by tobacco companies, asbestos companies, drug companies, nuclear power companies and many other industries.

Fluoride: the pros, the cons, the court
By ROGER TALBOT
Sunday News Staff
Source: The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News

With a Washington-based scientist visiting Manchester and the possibility of an appearance by a former surgeon general, the debate on water fluoridation could come to a boil this week as voters weigh their options and a judge hears a lawsuit that could affect a referendum scheduled for Sept. 14.

The government scientist is John William Hirzy, a chemist who works for the Environmental Protection Agency and is an outspoken opponent of fluoridation. The former surgeon general is C. Everett Koop, who has long been a proponent of adding fluoride to drinking water to reduce tooth decay.

Researcher says symptoms of mercury contamination rising in some Ont. natives
Source: Canada.com

WINNIPEG (CP) - A renowned Japanese neurologist who sounded the alarm decades ago about mercury poisoning in residents of two northern Ontario aboriginal bands says some people there are experiencing an increase in symptoms even though the chemical's level is dropping in their bodies.

Dr. Masazumi Harada visited Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemong reserves over the last week. On Thursday, he said while mercury levels in band members - measured through hair samples - are dropping, some residents' symptoms from long-term exposure, such are impaired motor skills and fatigue, are increasing.

Harada's findings prompted the reserves' leaders to call on the federal and Ontario governments to launch a public inquiry.

"It should not be the Canadian way to permit this . . . . to linger any longer," Grassy Narrows chief Simon Fobister told reporters.

"If this was a Walkerton . . . . governments would have acted much more swiftly and decisively," Fobister said.

Mercury symptoms rising in natives, doctor says
Friday, September 3, 2004 - Page A5
Source: The Globe and Mail

Winnipeg -- A renowned Japanese neurologist who sounded the alarm decades ago about mercury poisoning in residents of two Northern Ontario aboriginal bands says some people there are experiencing an increase in symptoms, even though the level in their bodies is dropping.

Fluoride is added to Escondido water amid complaints
By Craig Gustafson
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 31, 2004
Source: SignOnSanDiego.com

ESCONDIDO – The city began adding fluoride to its water supply yesterday, and officials reported more than two dozen complaints since they announced their plans Thursday.

Meanwhile, two City Council members who oppose the plan said they would like to see the city track the much-publicized benefits of fluoride.

Workers at the city's water treatment plant began the process at noon, with nearby homes and businesses receiving fluoride-treated water shortly thereafter. It will take about 24 hours for the fluoridated water to flow through the entire system, which reaches about 75 percent of the city's 140,000 residents.

Mercury warnings envelop area's pristine rivers
September 2, 2004
HEALTH
By Bruce Ritchie

DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER
Source: Tallahasse Democrat

Florida officials are finding fish with higher mercury levels in some of the Florida Panhandle's wildest rivers.

A draft Department of Health fish-consumption advisory warns the public against eating largemouth bass from the Crooked River in Franklin County.

Children and women of childbearing age also are advised against eating certain fish species in the Aucilla and Chipola rivers and Equaloxic Creek in Liberty County.

Japanese expert says mercury victims need more than money
Japanese neurologist Dr. Masazumi Harada said Tuesday that money alone will not compensate First Nations residents for losses associated with mercury contamination.

By Mike Aiken
Source: Kenora Miner and News

Japanese neurologist Dr. Masazumi Harada examines Grassy Narrows First Nation resident Wayne Land during his visit to the reserve’s clinic Sunday. The Japanese researcher has now moved to nearby Wabaseemoong to see patients there.

Japanese neurologist Dr. Masazumi Harada said Tuesday that money alone will not compensate First Nations residents for losses associated with mercury contamination.
Speaking between seeing patients at the resource centre at Wabaseemoong First Nation (Whitedog), Harada said residents will also need to rebuild their social structure, including a secure economy, medical facilities and quality of life.
"You have to consider all those things, because of the environmental destruction that affected all those things," he said.
Harada is on his third visit to the communities of Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong in Northwestern Ontario, where pollutants from the paper mill in Dryden contaminated the river system with mercury.

Lawyers in DuPont C8 trial get more time for depositions
September 02, 2004

By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
Source: The Charleston Gazette

Trial has been delayed another month in a case in which thousands of Wood County residents allege DuPont Co. poisoned their drinking water.

Jury selection will start Oct. 12, with open arguments to begin on Oct. 25, according to an order from the Wood Circuit Court.

The trial had been scheduled to begin Sept. 20.

Judge named in DuPont Teflon chemical case - EPA
USA: September 1, 2004
Source: Planet Ark

NEW YORK - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said a judge was appointed yesterday to oversee its Teflon-related case against DuPont Co. (DD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) that could result in millions of dollars in fines.

Administrative Law Judge Barbara Gunning will handle the case. Administrative law judges preside over agency disputes with outside parties, the EPA said.

Students make polluted water drinkable again
28/08/2004
Source: Daily Yomiuri On Line

Takehiro Kusujima Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Tsutomu Kawahira, 18, is one of the three students from Miyako Agricultural High School on Miyakojima island, Okinawa Prefecture, who recently received the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, beating out students from 26 other countries.

"I want to protect the nature of the island I've inherited from my grandparents and ancestors," he said.

With no rivers on the island, islanders have to rely on underground sources for drinking water.

Pollutants cause huge rise in brain diseases

Scientists alarmed as number of cases triples in 20 years

Juliette Jowit, environment editor
Sunday August 15, 2004
Source: The Observer

The numbers of sufferers of brain diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, have soared across the West in less than 20 years, scientists have discovered.

The alarming rise, which includes figures showing rates of dementia have trebled in men, has been linked to rises in levels of pesticides, industrial effluents, domestic waste, car exhausts and other pollutants, says a report in the journal Public Health.

In the late 1970s, there were around 3,000 deaths a year from these conditions in England and Wales. By the late 1990s, there were 10,000.

DuPont Defends Its Reporting on Teflon Ingredient

By Juliet Eilperin
Source: Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A03

Chemical giant DuPont Co. told the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday that it fully complied with federal reporting rules on health and environmental risks associated with a key ingredient used in making Teflon.

The company's defense of its decision not to provide all the data it gathered over 20 years on perfluorooctanoic acid, a soaplike material used in making stick-resistant surfaces and materials for products, signals the start of legal wrangling between the nation's largest chemical maker and the administration. EPA announced last month that it is seeking millions in fines from DuPont, contending that the company failed to give the government information that has raised concerns about the compound, also known as C-8 or PFOA.

"We'll fight EPA on this issue," said Stacey J. Mobley, DuPont's general counsel. "We have and will continue to manage PFOA safely."

Teflon questions
August 16, 2004
Source: Boston.com

THERE IS no reason to throw out your Teflon pans, but the US Environmental Protection Agency last month opened a new chapter in society's love-hate relationship with miracle chemicals when it accused the Du Pont Co. of withholding evidence of the company's own concerns about a chemical used to make Teflon. In a response last week, Du Pont said it had met its reporting obligations and should not have to pay fines, which could reach $300 million.

The EPA has charged Du Pont with suppressing evidence that the chemical can move from a pregnant woman to her fetus and that it was found in the drinking water supply of a community near a Teflon manufacturing site in West Virginia. While the agency is right to pursue these charges against the company, it should give urgency to more investigations into the chemical's health risk to humans and into the mystery of how it has become so omnipresent in the environment.

Fluoridation: No Benefit, another study shows
2004-08-19
Source: Joplin Indipendent

NEW YORK, Aug. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Dental examinations of 4800 South Australian ten- to fifteen-year-olds’ permanent teeth reveal unexpected results – similar cavity rates whether they drink fluoridated water or not, reports Armfield and Spencer in the August 2004 “Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology” (1).

Children sampled lived in fluoridated and nonfluoridated metropolitan and rural areas of the Australian state, South Australia. Collected rainwater, or tank water, is the main non-fluoridated (non-public) water source for 37% of South Australians, 8% drink bottled water. The public water supply is fluoridated in Adelaide, South Australia’s capital city. The rest of South Australia is predominantly non-fluoridated, the authors report. “The effect of consumption of nonpublic (non-fluoridated) water on permanent caries (cavities) experience was not significant,” report Armfield and Spencer.

How Dentists Manipulate Legislators to Win Fluoridation Battles
By Sally Stride
Aug 11, 2004, 13:46

"Real People Helping Real People"

Ignoring the democratic process and discouraging a healthy dialogue, California fluoridationists worked secretly, quickly and dishonestly to pass a 1995 California fluoridation law, according to “The Fluoride Victory,” published in the Journal of the California Dental Association.(1)

California Assemblywoman Jackie Speier, working with the California Dental Association (CDA), sponsored a fluoridation bill, eventually signed into law, forcing all California water companies, with 10,000 service connections, to add nonessential fluoride chemicals into the drinking water to prevent tooth decay, without constituent or local governing body approval, discussion or vote.

“To make the most of the element of surprise, it was decided that Speier would wait until the last possible moment to introduce her fluoridation bill,” writes author Joanne Boyd.

Is the force-feeding of fluoride really necessary?

By BRIAN CARLSTROM
Special to the News
Source: Hoodrivernews
August 3

The City Council is considering adding a known poison to our drinking water supply. The argument for adding fluoride is to force kids to ingest it, as they claim that it may help prevent dental cavities. There are some major flaws with this argument:

1. Most fluoride put into municipal water systems is a waste product from the manufacture/processing of iron, steel, aluminum, copper, lead, zinc, uranium, and fertilizer. The companies who end up with the “hot potato” known as fluoride have convinced many people that their trash is another’s treasure. Well, we should be suspicious. It is one of the most toxic waste products around. In the Fifth edition (1984) of Toxicology of Commercial Products, Fluoride is rated “4” (very toxic). For comparison, Lead is rated a “3-4” (moderately toxic). In their effort to convince people of fluoride’s benefits, the aluminum industry paid for a study to determine that it was “good for us.” Before this study, fluoride’s primary uses was for insecticide and rat poison.

2. The FDA has never approved fluoride for human consumption. For more information on this, check out:
http://www.toothwisdom.net/f.absence_of_fda.html
Japan and continental Europe have banned its use for human consumption, citing health concerns and medical ethics.

Prozac 'found in drinking water'
Source: BBC News

Many people choose Prozac over other antidepressants
Traces of the antidepressant Prozac can be found in the nation's drinking water, it has been revealed.

An Environment Agency report suggests so many people are taking the drug nowadays it is building up in rivers and groundwater.

A report in Sunday's Observer says the government's environment watchdog has discussed the impact for human health.

A spokesman for the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) said the Prozac found was most likely highly diluted.

Science panel urges food safety, cites risks posed by genetically modified crops
Mike Toner
July 28, 2004
Source: NPIcenter.com

ATLANTA -- Unintended changes in the allergens, toxins and nutrients in genetically modified crops pose human health risks of uncertain magnitude, a panel of the National Academies warned Tuesday.

The academies' Institute of Medicine also reported that while the potential for human health effects appears greatest for genetically engineered crops, even conventional techniques that have been used to "improve" crops for centuries need some new form of government regulation.

'Keep our water free of fluoride'
by Howard Williamson
Source: Leeds Today

28 July 2004

PURE water campaigners are urging Yorkshire Water shareholders to oppose fluoridation of the county's supplies.
They will lobby them before the YW annual meeting tomorrow at the Marriott Hotel in Leeds.

Summary of Teflon-Related TSCA 8(e) Action Against DuPont

EPA finds DuPont guilty of withholding Teflon blood and water pollution studies
Company faces fines of up to $313 million
Source: Enviromental Working Group

JULY 15, 2004 — In an extraordinary announcement on July 8, 2004, the Environmental Protection Agency revealed the results of a year-long investigation into DuPont's failure to disclose to the agency internal company studies showing pollution of human fetal cord blood and local tap water with a toxic Teflon ingredient, known as C8 or PFOA. Acting on a petition filed by the Environmental Working Group, the Agency found that DuPont engaged in unlawful behavior on three separate counts of hiding critical study results in company file cabinets for up to 20 years.

QUICK LINKS
- EPA findings against DuPont
- The law that DuPont violated: TSCA 8(e)

EPA's legal action is all the more extraordinary when the scathing, no-holds-barred language of the agency's complaint is contrasted with the unwillingness of politically appointed agency higher-ups to announce a potential fine amount against the company. The amount, apparently, will be calculated at a later date, after the Agency begins "negotiations" with the company to determine the outlines of a possible out of court settlement.

Deaths from Asbestos Exposure Surge in U.S. - Report
July 22, 2004
By Paul Simao
Source: Reuters.com

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Deaths from asbestos exposure have surged in the United States and are set to keep rising in the next decade as more workers succumb to the lung disease caused by the industrial mineral, federal health experts warned on Thursday.

The number of Americans who died of asbestosis, which is caused by inhalation of asbestos particles, jumped to 1,493 in 2000 from 77 in 1968, a