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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."
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."
Winnifred Bird and Jane Braxton Little, a former SEJ mentor program pair, describe (with humor!) the process of how they turned their shared interest in the Fukushima disaster's affect on forest ecosystems and rural communities into a successful writing collaboration.