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Chemicals

Chemical Desolation In Appalachia

East Palestine, Ohio - In the village of East Palestine, on a late Friday evening, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed on the Ohio side of the Pennsylvania border, causing tanker cars to rupture and catch fire, releasing thousands of tons of hazardous chemical compounds into the surrounding land and atmosphere. At the time of the crash, the known chemicals aboard included the highly toxic vinyl chloride and hydrogen chloride. An EPA document dump on February 12 revealed additional carcinogenic chemicals were aboard too, as well as some highly flammable solvents and gases.

Bayer On The Edge As Jury Awards $265 M To US Peach Farmer Over Illegal Dicamba Drift

A jury on Saturday awarded US$ 250 million in punitive damages to a southeastern Missouri peach farmer who argued that weedkiller dicamba that had drifted onto his orchards from other farms had severely damaged his trees — an award that could bode well for over 140 other farmers suing the chemical’s makers – Bayer (Monsanto) and BASF. The punitive damages awarded to farmer Bill Bader, of Campbell, came a day after the jury awarded him $15 million in actual damages...

OPCW Investigator Testifies At UN That No Chemical Attack Took Place In Douma, Syria

A former lead investigator from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has spoken out at the United Nations, stating in no uncertain terms that the scientific evidence suggests there was no gas attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018. The dissenter, Ian Henderson, worked for 12 years at the international watchdog organization, serving as an inspection team leader and engineering expert. Among his most consequential jobs was assisting the international body’s fact-finding mission (FFM) on the ground in Douma.

U.S. Drinking Water Widely Contaminated With ‘Forever Chemicals’: Environment Watchdog

WASHINGTON - The contamination of U.S. drinking water with man-made "forever chemicals" is far worse than previously estimated with some of the highest levels found in Miami, Philadelphia and New Orleans, said a report on Wednesday by an environmental watchdog group. The chemicals, resistant to breaking down in the environment, are known as perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Some have been linked to cancers, liver damage, low birth weight and other health problems.

What Are We Doing To Ourselves? 84,000 Chemicals, And Only 1% Have Been Tested

There are around 84,000 chemicals on the market, and we come into contact with many of them every single day. And if that isn't enough to cause concern, the shocking fact is that only about 1 percent of them have been studied for safety. In 2010, at a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health, Lisa Jackson, then the administrator of the EPA, put our current, hyper-toxic era into sharp perspective: "A child born in America today will grow up exposed to more chemicals than any other generation in our history."

US Allows Poisons In Food Not Allowed In The UK

A 'food activist' has called out the discrepancies in ingredient listings on the same packaged products when they are sold in the U.S. versus the U.K. Vani Hari, who goes by the moniker The Food Babe online, showed the differences between common bodega goods like chips and soda and how they are formulated on each side of the Atlantic.  The author and campaigner, 38, shared her findings with her audience, who were horrified to see ingredients like the preservative BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) and artificial colorings in products sold to American consumers while the British versions - and Australian and Canadian - come without.

Los Angeles County Sues Monsanto Over Chemical Contamination

According to the lawsuit, Monsanto had been aware that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were harmful but concealed the data for years while polluting the water. Los Angeles County recently filed a lawsuit against Bayer, the company that purchased Monsanto last year, for allegedly contaminating the local environment with an outlawed chemical that Monsanto used in many of its products decades ago. According to the lawsuit, Monsanto had been aware that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were harmful but concealed the data for years while polluting the water.

Judge In Monsanto Roundup Trial Is Already Hindering Testimony

Anyone concerned about probable carcinogens in the environment needs to keep an eye on the trial of Edward Hardeman v. Monsanto Company, which begins on February 25, in the Federal District Court in San Francisco. A bellwether for future challenges against the company, the federal court has grouped hundreds of plaintiffs into this multidistrict litigation case. The plaintiffs have sued Monsanto claiming to have contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) after being exposed to Roundup, the company’s glyphosate-based herbicide.

Popular Brands Of Beer And Wine Found To Contain Glyphosate Weedkiller

Many brands of beer and wine sold in the U.S. contain the weedkiller glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, according to a new report by CALPIRG Education Fund. In their new report, Glyphosate Pesticide in Beer and Wine, CALPIRG tested 20 beers, wines and hard cider, including several organic brands, for glyphosate and found that all but one contained the harmful chemical. This revelation comes on the same day a San Francisco court begins hearing arguments in the first federal civil case over whether Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller causes cancer.

US Silent When Syrian Rebels Use Pepper Chemical Weapons

ALEPPO, SYRIA — On Saturday evening, a barrage of mortars filled with chemical weapons was launched into Syrian government-controlled territory in the Aleppo province by “rebels” linked to al Qaeda in the nearby Idlib province. The attack – which was confirmed by both pro-government and pro-opposition sources – left over 100 civilians hospitalized after the gas released by the mortars caused “difficulty breathing, eye inflammation, shivering and fainting,” according to the head of the Aleppo Doctors Syndicate, Zaher Batal, as cited by Reuters. Batal and other Aleppo doctors suspect that chlorine gas was the substance responsible for the symptoms of those affected.

Glyphosate Found In Human Hair As Unique Testing Project Releases First Results

The Kudzu Science mass spectrometry gold standard method used for testing glyphosate, AMPA and glufosinate is fully validated, which gives these results even more significance. The Detox Project Director, Henry Rowlands, stated Wednesday; “Even at this early stage of testing we believe it is vital to warn the public and regulators that glyphosate is being found in human hair. “The levels found are surprising to everyone involved, as we have been working on urine testing with university and commercial laboratories over the past four years and we have never seen such results.” One of the main questions now for the public, scientists, regulators and the pesticide industry, is how are such levels of the world’s most used herbicide first entering the blood stream and then ending up in our hair?

Years After EPA Cited Health Risks From Chemical Plant, Is Enough Being Done To Protect Its Louisiana Neighbors?

What should be done about a chemical plant in Louisiana’s St. John the Baptist Parish that releases chloroprene — a chemical so toxic that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined nearby residents face the highest risk in the country of developing cancer from air pollution? The answer is simple, according to Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré: “Fix it, move it, or shut it down.” Honoré is founder of the Green Army, a coalition of environmental groups and concerned citizens fighting against pollution in their communities. But local, state, and federal regulators haven’t resolved issues swirling around emissions released by the Denka Performance Elastomer plant, located in LaPlace, Louisiana. The plant is next to the Mississippi River, on a stretch of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge known as Cancer Alley.

How Agro-Chemical Giant Monsanto Been Destroying Environment, Human Lives For Decades

In 1995, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, listed Monsanto among the top 5 lethal corporations dumping toxic waste, as it was recorded dumping nearly 37 million tons of toxic waste, through air, water, and land. On April 10, the terrifying news of the U.S. court allowing a merger of the German chemical firm, Bayer, with U.S' Monsanto alarmed environmentalists, heralding it as "Bad News for the Planet."   The Bayer-Monsanto merger would create a company which controls over a quarter of the world’s seed and pesticide market. The two firms have individually caused immense harm to the environment, and a merger, which environmentalists have been protesting for months, would make them eminently stronger and harder to fight.

In ToxicDocs.org, A Treasure Trove Of Industry Secrets

Philip Scranton, a historian at Rutgers University, had taken aim at their book“Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution” — and at Markowitz in particular. Scranton accused him of everything from “overgeneralization and failure to corroborate” to “selectively appropriat[ing] information,” among a list of other alleged misdeeds. Rosner and Markowitz’s peers quickly came to their defense, calling Scranton a “hired gun” for the chemical industry. (Scranton had in fact been hired by a group of companies to review two chapters in the book, along with a report Markowitz had prepared for a court case involving job-related chemical exposure.) But Rosner and Markowitz knew there would be more rounds to the stressful, time consuming, and seemingly never-ending fight.

U.S. Air Force Is Spraying 6 Million Acres With Chemicals In Response To Harvey

By Whitney Webb for Eco Watch - While the Pentagon has framed its efforts to "assist" as seeking to eliminate a potential human health risk, the particular chemical it is using to control insect populations is likely to do more harm than good. According to the Air Force, the mosquito control protocol involves spraying the "Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved and regulated material, Naled," which the Air Force insists will not be used in amounts large enough to "cause any concern for human health." However, the insecticide Naled, manufactured and sold by a strategic partner of Monsanto, is currently banned in the European Union due to the "unacceptable risk" it presents to human health. Naled is a known neurotoxin in animals and humans, as it inhibits acetylcholinesterase—an enzyme essential to nerve function and communication—and has even been known to have caused paralysis. Mounting scientific evidence, including a recent Harvard study, has also pointed to Naled's responsibility for the mass die-off of North American bees. Just one day of Naled spraying in South Carolina killed more than 2.5 million bees last year. Yet, the most concerning consequence Naled poses for human health is the chemical's ability to cross the placental barrier—meaning that Naled freely crosses from mother to fetus.

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