Have you ever wondered what it would be like to leave Earth? Floating around the International Space Station and exploring new worlds may sound exciting, but space travel also poses a unique set of pretty intense health effects. Changes in gravitational force and radiation can cause physical harm to the body, while being in a […]

The post Podcast: How space travel affects human health first appeared on EDF Health.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.  Links to blog posts in this series:  Part 1     Part 2     Part 3 [UPDATE 9-25-14: I have updated this post to link directly to a copy of the Udall-Vitter TSCA reform proposal, which – though not released by the Senators – is now available online here. My […]

The post Real progress on chemical reform first appeared on EDF Health.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.  A coalition of health, labor, environmental and environmental justice groups (including EDF), represented by Earthjustice, filed a petition today with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that requests EPA establish a limit on how long information on chemicals submitted and claimed confidential by the chemical industry under the […]

The post Nothing is forever – and chemical industry trade secret claims shouldn’t be an exception first appeared on EDF Health.

Rachel Shaffer is a research assistant. Our mothers are no doubt on our minds right now, after Mother’s Day weekend. And I am no exception, especially since, as I blogged about last year, this month is the anniversary of my own mother’s breast cancer diagnosis. This year though, in addition to celebrating my mother’s recovery, […]

The post A gift for mothers (and daughters, and all of us): New tools for breast cancer monitoring and prevention first appeared on EDF Health.

Alissa Sasso is a Chemicals Policy Fellow.  Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. [Cross-posted from EDFVoices blog] Recent spills in West Virginia and North Carolina cast a spotlight on toxic hazards in our midst. But as bad as they are, these acute incidents pale in scope compared to the chronic flow of hazardous […]

The post Report: Staggering amounts of toxic chemicals produced across America first appeared on EDF Health.

Rachel Shaffer is a research assistant. Seven years ago, leading children’s environmental health experts Philippe Grandjean and Philip Landrigan published a groundbreaking review that identified five chemicals prevalent in the environment—lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), arsenic, and toluene—as developmental neurotoxicants. In their follow-up review released last week, they have added six more chemicals—manganese, fluoride, polybrominated diphenyl […]

The post Unnerving developments in the state of the evidence on developmental neurotoxicity first appeared on EDF Health.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. Today marks exactly a month since what is now said to be 10,000 gallons of “crude MCHM” – mixed with what was later found to have included other chemicals – spilled into West Virginia’s Elk River, contaminated 1,700 miles of piping in the water distribution system for nine […]

The post A full month after West Virginia spill, many questions linger … along with the chemical’s distinctive odor first appeared on EDF Health.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. [UPDATE 1/28/14:  See updates at several places in this post regarding a 2011 Eastman safety data sheet on crude MCHM – which, though more recent than the 2005 version initally circulated, still does not reference the additional oral toxicity studies conducted by Eastman in the 1990s.] Little more than […]

The post “Epic fail” in West Virginia chemical spill: Poor information, poor communications, poor decisions first appeared on EDF Health.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. Well, this story is rapidly evolving!  Even since my last blog post this morning, new information has come to light as to the identity of the “new” chemical that was present in the leaking tank that led to contamination of the drinking water in Charleston, WV. The Charleston […]

The post Another new wrinkle on the “new” mystery chemical in West Virginia spill first appeared on EDF Health.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. [PLEASE SEE UPDATE TO THE INFORMATION BELOW IN MY MORE RECENT BLOG POST.] I blogged last night that the Charleston Gazette had reported that a “new” chemical that was revealed to have been present in the tank in Charleston, WV, that began leaking into the Elk River on […]

The post Is this the mystery chemical in the WV spill? first appeared on EDF Health.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. Just when you thought this story couldn’t get any weirder or worse, it has just been revealed that another chemical substance was present alongside the crude MCHM mixture that leaked into the Elk River and contaminated the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginia residents. A story published late […]

The post Yet another chemical identified as present in West Virginia chemical spill first appeared on EDF Health.