News
Headlines
Toxic Chemical and Product Safety News for Investors
Headline stories are selected by IEHN staff from environmentalhealthnews.com's "Above the Fold" daily news service. IEHN releases annotated versions several times monthly. Headlines listed here are linked to their original sources and are subject to those sources' archiving policies.
November 3, 2009
Are Proposition 65 warnings healthful or hurtful?
Los Angeles Times
November 2, 2009
Supporters of Prop. 65 say the law has been key in ensuring accountability among manufacturers and retailers whose products contain chemicals that are potentially harmful. Critics say the system is often abused, and contend that the omnipresence of Prop. 65 warnings has essentially rendered them meaningless.
Nanotechnology: A risky frontier?
Minneapolis Star Tribune
November 2, 2009
Nanotechnology already has found hundreds of high-tech uses. But do its tiny particles pose big health risks? That uncertainty, and companies' reluctance to embrace the field, cloud its future.
Setting the limits for engineered nanoparticles in European surface waters: are current approaches appropriate?
Journal of Environmental Monitoring
October 28, 2009
This article concludes that it is impossible to set limit values for engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) in European surface waters now and in the foreseeable future. The researchers, at the Technical University of Denmark, say this inability is due to the extensive lack of knowledge not only of toxic effects, degradability, and bioaccumulation of ENPs in the aquatic environment, but also due to the questionable validity of test systems and methods to establish environmental quality standards.
Why boys are turning into girls
London Daily Telegraph
October 24, 2009
Official research from Denmark shows that two-year-old children are at risk from an array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, nappies and sunscreen lotion. Yet gender-benders are largely exempt from new EU regulations controlling hazardous chemicals.
Kicking formaldehyde out of bed
Wall Street Journal
October 22, 2009
A bill backed by industry and environmental groups would set federal limits on a potentially dangerous chemical inside your home: formaldehyde. But it could mean a small increase in furniture prices for consumers.
Mattel lead settlement could add up to $50M-plus
Associated Press
October 15, 2009
Mattel Inc. and its Fisher-Price subsidiary have agreed to settle a consumer lawsuit for what could total more than $50 million over the 2007 recall of millions of toys made in China that were found to contain high levels of lead.
Toxic chemicals found in Maine health workers.
Bangor Daily News
October 9, 2009
Doctors and nurses in 10 states, including Maine, tested positive for at least 24 different toxic chemicals in their blood and other body fluids in a study released Thursday by the national organization Physicians for Social Responsibility.
With natural gas drilling boom, Pennsylvania faces an onslaught of wastewater
ProPublica
October 3, 2009
Workers at a steel mill and a power plant were the first to notice something strange about the Monongahela River last summer. The Monongahela, a drinking water source for 350,000 people, had apparently been contaminated by chemically tainted wastewater from the state's growing natural gas industry Pennsylvania is at the forefront of the nation's gas drilling boom, with at least 4,000 new oil and gas wells drilled here last year alone, more than in any other state except Texas. This rapid expansion has forced state regulators to confront a problem that has been overlooked as gas drilling accelerates nationwide: How will the industry dispose of the enormous amount of wastewater it produces?
Federal judge throws out most of C8 suit against DuPont
Charleston Gazette
September 28, 2009
A federal judge on Monday dismissed most of a lawsuit filed against chemical giant DuPont Co. by Parkersburg residents over the pollution of their city's water with the toxic chemical C8.
Pennsylvania halts Cabot's hydraulic gas drilling
Associated Press
September 25, 2009
Citing three recent chemical spills at one well site, Pennsylvania regulators said Friday they had ordered Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. to halt its use of a drilling technique that uses liquids to fracture rock and release natural gas.
