Environmental Health

As the current measles vaccine flap shows, bad science (from the fraudulent to the sloppy) sometimes pollutes public health policy discussions. Especially environmental health policy. Mainstream media with a weak understanding of the subject can make it worse.

"For the past few years, the geologists Brenda Buck and Rodney Metcalf have combed the wild terrain of southern Nevada, analyzing its stony dunes and rocky outcroppings — and to their dismay, tallying mounting evidence of a landscape filled with asbestos."

"Thousands of chemical storage tanks across West Virginia would be exempt from the law passed in the wake of the Freedom Industries spill, under legislation introduced Tuesday in the House of Delegates."

"Medical experts reacted with alarm Monday as two top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination appeared to question whether child vaccinations should be mandatory — injecting politics into an emotional issue that has taken on new resonance with a recent outbreak of measles in the United States."

"Mercury levels in yellowfin tuna caught in the Pacific Ocean have been rising at a 3.8% annual rate since 1998, according to a new study."

Congressional Republicans plan to re-launch some bills they fielded last year -- bills attacking the science on which environmental and health regulations are based. But this time, with GOP control of the Senate, the bills may clear Congress."

"Each year, contaminated food sickens forty-eight million Americans, of whom a hundred and twenty-eight thousand are hospitalized, and three thousand die." The federal food safety system under the Agriculture Department and other agencies fails to protect them."

"A diesel fuel spill has left about 12,000 people in south-eastern West Virginia without drinking water."