Environmental Health

"Efforts to come up with a new chemical regulation bill face an uphill battle in the Senate."

After an outbreak of drug-resistant salmonella in 2013 was traced to Foster Farms chickens, the Natural Resources Defense Council used the Freedom of Information Act to get records of the firm's food-safety violations. As a result of the pressure, Foster Farms says it has cleaned up its act and is using less antibiotics.

"Some workers at oil and gas sites where fracking occurs are routinely exposed to high levels of benzene, a colorless gas that can cause cancer, according to a study by the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety."

"Two academic studies exploring health and water issues in the gas drilling industry on Wednesday painted very different pictures of its potential impact and brought rebukes from advocates on both sides."

"Canadian beekeepers have filed a class action lawsuit against Bayer CropScience Inc. and Syngenta Canada Inc. claiming C$450 million ($414 million) in damages for negligence related to the use of neonicotinoid insecticides."

In-home pre-schools sometimes expose children to toxic lead hazards that stem from old paint in the houses themselves.

"PINK HILL, N.C. — On many mornings, as tobacco plants tower around her, Saray Cambray Alvarez pulls a black plastic garbage bag over her 13-year-old body to protect her skin from leaves dripping with nicotine-tinged dew."

"The cloud of insecticide that drifted from a neighbour's corn field onto the asparagus on Andrew and Melissa Dunham's central Iowa farm cast a shadow over their organic vegetable business."

"PASCAGOULA -- An EPA inspector, during a tour of Mississippi Phosphates in 2009, walked through a puddle so acidic it ate leather off the inspector's steel-toed boots."

"The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has started to review new regulations for hydraulic fracturing on federal land, the last step before the rules can be made final."