"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tight restrictions on using people as test subjects — or, as critics have put it, guinea pigs — in pesticide research."
After illegally high levels of antibiotics were routinely found in dairy cows headed for the slaughterhouse, the Food and Drug Administration decided to test milk from the farms those cows came from. Dairy farmers, worried more about profits than antibiotic resistance that could sicken their customers, have objected. Now the two sides may be looking for win-win solutions. Meanwhile, testing is on hold.
Non-profit, non-partisan ECOS is the national association of state and territorial environmental agency leaders. Focus areas include: Air, Water, Waste, Cross Media, Planning, Compliance, Info Management, and Quicksilver Caucus.
"iPhone maker Apple was criticized by Chinese green groups for lax corporate oversight of its suppliers in China, leading to poor environmental and work safety standards that poisoned dozens of factory workers."
Cash-strapped communities across the country find themselves being courted by private companies -- including Goldman Sachs -- who want to buy their water utilities. They should heed the unhappy experiences of communities who have already privatized.
"People who spend their evenings in relatively bright light run the risk of stressing their bodies by ratcheting down the production of melatonin. Produced in the brain's pineal gland, this hormone plays a pivotal role in setting the body's biological clock – and, potentially, in limiting the development of certain cancers."
"In an emotionally charged meeting this week sponsored by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, fishermen, Gulf residents and community leaders vented their increasingly grave concerns about the widespread health issues brought on by the three-month-long disaster."
Members of Congress inclined not to regulate hydraulic fracturing for natural gas are getting about 19 times as much money from the gas industry as those who want to disclose the toxic chemicals in the fracturing fluid companies are pumping into the ground near people's drinking water supplies.
"If a company dumped the black goop behind a factory, it would violate all sorts of environmental laws and face an expensive hazardous-waste cleanup. But playgrounds, parking lots and driveways in many communities are coated every spring and summer with coal tar, a toxic byproduct of steelmaking that contains high levels of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems."
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