Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Today, I provided testimony before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, at hearings entitled: Science under Siege: Scientific Integrity at the U.S. EPA about political interference with Agency scientists, in their efforts to assess and regulate...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
The smell of a humid Washington summer is rising from the concrete like steam off a blood-sticky slaughterhouse floor as the Nation's capitol winds down from a week of chasing our tails, and switches to chasing mocha-frappa-cuppa-crappa from head shops...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Today, a scathing letter was sent to the Department of Labor (DOL) blasting them for their proposed risk assessment rule that would make it even more difficult for the already-slower-than-molasses department to issue workplace safety rules. In this time of...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Today, NRDC filed a lawsuit against the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for their failure to hand over their communications with industry related to a class of toxic plastics chemicals called phthalates.Phthalates make plastics flexible, like infant products and children's...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Today, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the residues of the pesticide carbofuran that end up on our food and in our drinking water are too high, and may be unsafe. Thus, after first registering the chemical for...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Today NRDC joined a coalition of advocacy groups filing a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to consider all the risks associated with endosulfan, an extremely hazardous persistant bioaccumulative pesticide and the topic of several previous NRDC...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
On the very same day, Sunday 20th, two of my favorite blogs posted on events and though neither referenced each other, the overlap of interests is worth noting. In the first blog crack investigative reporter and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Today the Economist reported on new proposed legislation in the European Union that will shift the regulation of pesticides from an assumption of "innocent until proven guilty" to a precautionary requirement that manufacturers provide data that their products can be...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in EXXON SHIPPING CO. ET AL. v. BAKER ET AL., regarding Exxon's 1989 Valdez oil spill off coastal Alaska, which spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into the surrounding environment....continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
The dangerous pesticide endosulfan was in the news this week, as the presence of 22,000 pounds of it on a capsized ferry in the Philippines has prevented divers from recovering some 800 bodies from the vessel. Although the presence...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Honeybees make the world go round. Really! They contribute approximately $15 Billion..with a 'B'..billion dollars to the U.S. economy annually through their free services to pollinate over 130 cash crops, including 1/3 of the foods of the human diet. No...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Today, the headline blares to the world: "The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) adopted a first resolution on nanotechnologies and nanomaterials at its recent Executive Committee meeting. The key demand: the precautionary principle must apply to nanotechnologies.". What does this...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
Multi-walled carbon nanotubes cause asbestos-like damage in test mice. That is what a new study is just out today in Nature Nanotechology is reporting, titled: Carbon nanotubes introduced into the abdominal cavity of mice show asbestos-like pathogenicity in a pilot...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
A coalition of public interest groups including NRDC, the Center for Food Safety, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and The Organic Center came together to protest budget cuts that will kill the collection and public reporting of pesticide use...continued→
Posted by Jennifer Sass in Health and the Environment
To commemorate Workers Memorial Day, April 28, 2008, many worker and community health advocacy groups including the Environmental Justice Foundation, Pesticides Action Network Europe (PAN Europe), and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied...continued→
