Environmental Health

"The Camorra mafia has been dumping and burning toxic waste for decades in the area between Naples and the province of Caserta."

"Javier Sepulveda watches the cockroaches skitter across the floor of his Harlem apartment with a mixture of anger and angst. For him they are more than just a nauseating nuisance: They’re one of the main reasons his 12-year-old daughter, Melissa, sometimes struggles to breathe with the scary sensation that she’s suffocating."

Malaria is still a major killer in the developing world. Eliminating malaria may be less about nets and medicines than about draining the wetlands that breed mosquitoes, as was the case in the American South.

"The U.S. government is planning stricter controls on exposure to silica, a carcinogen found in workplaces ranging from dentist's offices to granite quarries, according to a new report."

"An unprecedented wintertime outbreak of West Nile virus has killed more than two dozen bald eagles in Utah and thousands of water birds around the Great Salt Lake, state wildlife officials said on Tuesday."

"FRISCO, Colo. — Massive use of antibiotics for food production is only marginally beneficial and poses a huge long-term risk to human health, researchers in Canada say. In a new paper, the scientists proposed a user fee that could help curb excessive application antibiotics in the agriculture and aquaculture industries."

"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will sign into law Monday a ban on using electronic cigarettes anywhere conventional cigarette use is prohibited. Critics says the new restriction may – contrary to its stated intent – harm public health."

"WASHINGTON -– The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly updated its website in response to a complaint that its public information on artificial turf made from old tires understated potential concerns about safety."

"Recent salmonella outbreaks that sickened at least 523 people and sent dozens to the hospital underscore 'serious weaknesses' in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s oversight of poultry plants, according to a study released Thursday by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which also criticized the government’s failure to push more aggressively for recalls of contaminated meat."