"New York’s environmental study of the possible risks of high-volume hydraulic fracturing, a technique for natural gas drilling, addresses everything from the possible impact on job creation and the character of communities to damage to roads and wildlife. But a group of doctors, medical associations and environmental groups say there is one glaring omission: the possible effects on public health."
"Critics claim the leading breast cancer research group is in the pocket of its BPA-happy sponsors."
Many people have told stories of getting severely sick near natural gas wells, especially ones using the controversial fracking technique. One of the biggest barriers to determining whether the gas production is causing illness is the gas industry's resistance to disclosing the toxic emissions and hazardous wastes they generate.
Abrahm Lustgarten and Nicholas Kusnetz originally reported the story for ProPublica September 16, 2011.
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"Bed bugs might make you itch, but the chemicals used to combat the pests are making some people ill.
As more people in the United States are feeling the bed bug's bite, there has been a spike in illnesses from pesticides used to kill the insects, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC.L reported on Thursday.
From 2003 to 2010, 111 people were sickened and one died from bed bug insecticide, the government agency reported in a study that is the first of its kind in the country.
"Worrying levels of BPA, an industrial chemical with suspected links to cancer, lurk inside canned soups and pasta targeted at American children, the Breast Cancer Fund said Wednesday."
Federal agents from several agencies arrested 12 in a sweep targetting illegal imported pesticides in New York's Chinatown. The unlabelled or mislabelled pesticides were especially dangerous because they could be mistakenly consumed and were potent enough to kill a child.
"TIOGA - Brenda and Richard Jorgenson have a long list of reasons why they dislike and fear the reserve pit from an oil well buried on their land, located a half-mile from their house. They say it reeked of chemicals when it was being filled with diesel-saturated mud, rock cuttings and fluids left over from drilling last year."
"As an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News has shown , oil refining is one of the country’s most dangerous industries, where even seemingly small recurring events such as equipment breakdowns and fires can have fatal consequences. Yet an easily manipulated regulatory system allows companies to delay or avoid improvements. While the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration occasionally appears to take a tough stance, identifying perils and proposing fines, the fines are often small and can be appealed for long periods of time, delaying fixes."
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"Nationwide, water is screened for lead by checking the first sample of water from homeowners' faucets. But results of recent federal testing in Chicago show that although all homes passed that first test, nearly 45 percent had lead levels spike when more water samples were taken directly afterward."
"PLATTEVILLE — Colorado's wave of gas and oil drilling is resulting in spills at the rate of seven every five days — releasing more than 2 million gallons this year of diesel, oil, drilling wastewater and chemicals that contaminated land and water."
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