Environmental Health

"Nearly 1,600 children age 5 and younger live close enough to an airport in Brevard County to be at risk from leaded gasoline used by small piston planes and helicopters."

Bottled water companies seem to be actively marketing their products to minority groups. Latinos and African Americans spend a higher portion of their income on bottled water than whites do, and surveys say this is because they view tap water as risky. There is evidence that public drinking water systems in minority communities are either lacking or less safe.

"The federal Conservative party has sent a threatening email to the widow of an asbestos victim in the latest chapter of Canada's debate over the hazardous mineral."

"Millions of Americans have been ingesting them for years—perchlorate, hexavalent chromium, volatile organic compounds—not because they’re safe, but because they are among 6,000 toxins the EPA has not gotten around to regulating in municipal drinking water systems.

But after a change in administrations and a scathing review by the General Accounting Office, the EPA has begun to develop regulations to remove these chemicals from tap and bottled water—and industry has begun efforts to delay or prevent their implementation."

"Releasing genetically modified, spermless male mosquitoes into the wild could in future help to prevent malaria transmission and reduce the chances of large outbreaks of the killer disease, British scientists said on Monday."

"For shale gas to meet its potential, millions of Americans will have to live with drill rigs in or near their own neighborhoods. And that opens the door to a range of potential environmental health problems: pipelines and wellheads can explode, the process produces toxic air emissions, and fracking generates liquid wastes that can contaminate surface and drinking water supplies."

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, unveiled an online tool allowing users to look up the potential health effects of climate change by zip code.

With the Japanese government apparently failing in the task of protecting the public from radiation after the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear station, ordinary Japanese citizens are buying dosimeters -- and making startling discoveries.