A Champion For Workers' Safety
New York Times - 8/5/2009. Editorial - President Obama has chosen wisely in picking a respected scientist and safety advocate to head the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. David Michaels, a research professor and occupational health expert at the George Washington University School of Public Health, seems just the right man to steer the agency back toward an emphasis on protecting workers after eight years of lax oversight and favoritism to industry under the Bush administration.
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Opposing camps agree on rewriting toxin law
USA Today - 8/5/2009. Environmentalists and chemical manufacturers don't often agree. But on Tuesday, environmentalists and industry leaders called on Congress to change the way that the country protects children from toxic chemicals. The law that governs toxins, the Toxic Substances Control Act, is more than 30 years old and "badly broken," says Richard Denison, senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund. In three decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has used the law to ban or severely restrict only about half a dozen chemicals, says Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group.
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What's Getting Into Our Children?
New York Times - 8/5/2009. In the past century, the threats to our children's health have shifted radically. Life-threatening infectious diseases - a smallpox, polio, and cholera - have largely been conquered. Babies born in the United States today are expected to live two decades longer than their ancestors were 100 years ago. But our children are growing up in a world in which environmental toxins are ubiquitous.
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State warns on bottles with BPA (Bisphenol A)
Boston Globe - 8/4/2009. Massachusetts public health officials warned parents of young children yesterday to avoid storing infant formula or breast milk in plastic bottles containing bisphenol A - and urged pregnant or breast-feeding women to avoid the common chemical in other food and drink containers.
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Chemical Plants Could Be More Safe
New York Times - 8/3/2009. Editorial - This should, by all rights, be the year that Congress passes a tough chemical plant safety bill, protecting the public from one of the most serious terrorism vulnerabilities. There are already signs, however, that the chemical industry and its Republican allies may succeed yet again in blocking effective safety rules. The White House, which has remained in the background, needs to speak out, and Democratic leaders in Congress should work to make sure a strong bill is enacted without further delay.
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