Chemicals

"Pregnant women living in Texas neighborhoods with higher air levels of benzene – a pollutant often released from oil refineries and traffic exhaust – are more likely to have babies with neural tube defects. Women living in the areas with the highest benzene levels had a two times greater risk for their children to be born with spina bifida."

Kelly Gant told school board members that ever since gas drilling began near Argyle High School, her daughter has experienced asthma and headaches.

The alumina dust that coats a Texas Gulf Coast town is a sign of risks like those in the Hungarian villages recently buried in a spill of toxic red sludge.

"Children who sleep in bedrooms with fumes from water-based paints and solvents are two to four times more likely to suffer allergies or asthma, according to a new scientific study."

The Consumer Product Safety Commission did an about-face and announced that it will not regulate cadmium -- a toxic metal found in consumer products that is known to damage kidneys and bones. "Instead, the agency will defer to an independent, private-sector group that has been drafting voluntary limits for several months."

"A key U.N.  science panel has urged governments to ban the widely used pesticide endosulfan that can cause nerve damage to humans and wildlife."

Many personal care products sold in Canada contain one of 12 chemicals that can be harmful to human health and the environment, according to a report by the David Suzuki Foundation.

"A federal jury in Utica has found Certified Environmental Services, Inc., two of its managers and one of its employees guilty of falsifying lab reports to make it appear as if asbestos had been removed from homes, schools, and other buildings when, in fact, asbestos remained in the buildings."

"OTTAWA — The government of Canada formally declared bisphenol A, a chemical widely used to create clear, hard plastics, as well as food can liners, to be a toxic substance on Wednesday."

Tighter regulation of toxic chemicals that often threaten people's health isn't going to happen in the current Congress. The reason: a strong industry lobbying effort.