Recently added articles from Rachel's Environment & Health News:
Life After Cheap Oil -- Apollo and Beyond
Oct 13, 2005; ... A cleaner, brighter future for our children -- who doesn't want that? Urban areas that are more livable, free of smog and congestion. High- wage jobs in manufacturing, transportation and energy industries that are greener and more sustainable than ever before -- sign me up! More ...
Pediatricians Urge a Precautionary Approach to Toxic Lead
Sep 29, 2005; ... The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has just issued a new "policy statement" urging the U.S. to eliminate toxic lead from all housing, to stop poisoning the nation's children.[1]The Academy says 25% of children in the U.S. still "live in housing with deteriorating lead-based ...
The Great Lakes at a Crossroad
Sep 15, 2005; ... The Great Lakes stand at a crossroad. By some indicators -- like fish populations in Lake Erie which have rebounded in recent decades -- water quality has improved since the 1970's. But the fish aren't safe to eat. The beaches are increasingly contaminated with sewage. The water is generally ...
Part 2: Ending Government Regulation by Manufacturing Doubt
Sep 01, 2005; ... Continuing from Rachel's #824: Smokers started calling cigarettes "coffin nails" in the 1920s. Almost 40 years later, science caught up to popular knowledge: In 1956, the U.S. Surgeon General concluded cigarettes cause lung cancer. To prevent regulation of cigarettes, tobacco corporations ...
Part 1: Ending Government Regulation by Manufacturing Doubt
Aug 18, 2005; ... Thirty years ago, scientists began reporting birth defects and unusual homosexual behavior in wildlife, which they couldn't explain. (See Rachel's #146, #263.) By the late 1980s, Theo Colborn -- an expert on the Great Lakes -- thought she saw a pattern, and she pulled together a scientific ...
Science under seige
Jul 21, 2005; ... An ill wind is gusting through the halls of science these days: faked research, suppression of unwelcome results, corruption of science advisory panels, university research falling under the influence of corporate sponsors, and many other conflicts of interest.It's as if science were ...
Environmental Toxicants and Developmental Disabilities
Jul 07, 2005; ... "Sixth grade was a trying time for Karen Singer's autistic son, who spent recess wandering the periphery of the playground by himself and sometimes hid in the school bathroom when he needed a safe place to cry. He knew he was doing something wrong as he reached the social crucible of middle ...
Isn't It Time We Regulated Chemicals?
Jun 23, 2005; ... If you read almost any newspaper these days, you learn the following kinds of information:Many plastic toys contain chemicals that can interfere with the sexual development of laboratory animals and are now thought capable of doing the same in baby boys.[1]Most of the ...
A New Way to Inherit Environmental Harm
Jun 09, 2005; ... New research shows that the environment is more important to health than anyone had imagined. Recent information indicates that toxic effects on health can be inherited by children and grandchildren, even when there are no genetic mutations involved.[1] These inherited changes are caused by ...
Part 2 of 2: A Systemic Approach to Occupational and Environmental Health
May 26, 2005; ... In this second part of a two-part series, activist campaigner Skip Spitzer continues describing "the structure of harm" --some of the institutional and cultural features of U.S. society that make large-scale harm inevitable. Corporate power and economic concentration, patriarchy, racism, ...
Part 1 0f 2: A Systemic Approach to Occupational and Environmental Health
May 12, 2005; ... There are signs that public awareness about corporate impacts on society is rising.[1] A 1999 industry-sponsored global survey warned that citizens in general feel that protecting the environment and the health and safety of employees are more important corporate responsibilities than making a ...
Beyond Erin Brockovich
Apr 28, 2005; ... The movie "Erin Brockovich" is based on a true story, the David-and- Goliath variety. The protagonist is a tough, scrappy piece of eye candy who overcomes enormous odds (including but not limited to: no formal education and sarcastic co-workers) to bring a large, evil corporation to its knees ....
Nanotechnology and the Precautionary Principle
Apr 28, 2005; ... Nanotechnology -- or nanotech, for short -- is a new approach to industrial production, based on the manipulation of things so small that they are invisible to the naked eye and even to most microscopes.Nanotech is named for the nanometer, a unit of measure, a billionth of a meter, ...
Public Health Professionals Afraid to Speak Out
Apr 21, 2005; ... [A couple of weeks ago, graduate students in public health from five states gathered in Boston for a "summit" on the future of public health. Here are some notes I prepared for the occasion. --Peter Montague]I. "We can do this work but we can't talk about it."The anecdote ...
Try This at Home, Part 2
Apr 14, 2005 ... Deconstructing "Reform" In a world where "corporations" can break laws, they can also get permits. Most corporate harms to democracy (like other corporate harms -- to human rights, the environment, and so on) are perfectly legal, because corporations have "permits" to conceal, oppress, ...
Try This at Home, Part 1
Apr 07, 2005 ... The Ambassador It was Colombian Independence Day, so I suppose I should have expected to bump into the U.S. ambassador in the mummy room of the National Museum in Bogota. What better way for the ambassador to demonstrate her deep concern for the people of Colombia and bone up on ...
Human Exposure and Health Hazards, Part 2
Mar 31, 2005 ... Body Burden of Chemicals and Burden of Proof What are the health effects of all the pollutants in our bodies that we discussed in Rachel's #810? The magnitudes and multiplicity of health risks may be impossible to assess fully, because we are dealing with mixtures of chemicals, non- ...
Human Exposure and Health Hazards, Part 1
Mar 24, 2005 ... United States environmental regulations, intended to protect human health, generally fail to address major sources of pollutants that endanger human health. These sources are surprisingly close to us and within our control, such as consumer products and building materials that we use within our ...
Globalize Liberation, Part 2
Mar 10, 2005 ... Continuing from last week our celebration of the book, Globalize Liberation (San Francisco: City Lights Book, 2004), edited by David Solnit.We are celebrating this book by reprinting excerpts from one of its major essays, "Decolonizing The Revolutionary Imagination: Values Crisis, the ...
Globalize Liberation, Part 1
Mar 03, 2005 ... This is an odd sort of book review. This week and next, we reprint excerpts from an essay by Patrick Reinsborough, one of the founders of the smartMeme collective, a group whose work we hold in very high regard (http://www.smartMeme.com).This original essay "Decolonizing The ...