Environmental Health

While federal rules have drastically cut use of asbestos in the U.S., the legacy of decades of use is still killing Americans. As many as 10,000 die of asbestos-related illness each year. Are scientists being paid to bring fraudulent science into court by companies who hope to limit their liability?

"The Obama administration has released a new analysis of chemical monitoring performed by BP PLC in order to tamp down concerns that offshore responders battling the oil giant's Gulf of Mexico gusher have been exposed to a chemical linked to lingering health problems among cleanup workers long after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill."

"U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer is demanding that the Pentagon explain how war contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root may have been granted immunity from harming any soldier or civilian in Iraq."

"The Delaware River Basin Commission hasn't heard the last word on natural gas  drilling in northeast Pennsylvania. It agreed last week to hold further hearings there on its drilling moratorium."

"Closed-door meetings between a select group of environmentalists and a handful of electric utility executives may determine the fate of climate change legislation in the Senate."

"The American Cancer Society and three federal agencies named 19 chemicals and shift work on Thursday as potential causes of cancer that deserve more investigation."

"The Army Corps of Engineers wants to use ash cast off from coal-fired electrical generation to shore up dozens of miles of Mississippi River levees, drawing fire from environmentalists worried that heavy metals from the filler might make their way into the river."

"The latest skirmish in the decades-long scientific battle over the health risks of the most toxic form of dioxin is heating up."

"It's shaping up to be an active season for West Nile virus in Santa Clara County. ... But plans for a Tuesday evening fogging have outraged many West San Jose residents, who fear the county's large-scale spraying does more harm than good."

"Detroit's  anti-lead program -- beset with alleged shakedowns and bogus treatments, missing files, incompetence and mismanagement -- was upended last year after such scorching claims were reported in state and federal investigations." But efforts to reform it have left many lead-poisoned kids untreated and permanently damaged.