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Picher, Oklahoma - The Environmental Protection Agency planned to check for high lead levels Monday after a deadly tornado blew through a town so polluted with lead-filled mining waste that it's a Superfund site.
Families claiming that a mercury-based preservative in vaccines triggers autism will challenge mainstream medicine Monday as they take their case to a federal court.
Merck's bulk drug substances used to manufacture many of its vaccines are adulterated, and the FDA is requesting a meeting with senior management to expedite the firm's corrective actions, according to a recent warning letter.
The FDA cited the company for numerous GMP violations at its vaccine production operations, including those for human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil and combination measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox vaccine ProQuad.
The FDA cited the company for numerous GMP violations at its vaccine production operations, including those for human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil and combination measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox vaccine ProQuad.
There is a growing controversy over the number of vaccines that children receive and when they receive them. According to the National Vaccine Information Center, in the 1970s, children received 23 doses of vaccine by the time they were 6 years old. Now, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends more than twice as many. For some doctors and parents, that number is disturbing.
A team of Canadian scientists using a lotion which glows under ultraviolet light have shown that up to a third of patient toilets are not properly cleaned. Their findings also show that spores from the nasty bacteria Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) linger in the loo even when it has been thoroughly wiped down.
Michelle Alfa and a team of scientists from Manitoba, Canada investigated the spread of so-called superbugs in hospitals. Hospital patients are thought to catch bugs like vancomycin resistant Enterococci (VRE), methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and C. difficile because they are not eradicated from the hospital environment. These bugs may be transferred between patients through cross-contamination in the bathroom.
"Various studies have looked at the most effective cleaning agents, but none of these studies considered whether housekeeping staff were actually cleaning the toilets properly," says Alfa. "It is impossible to assess the effectiveness of any action against these bacteria unless you can be sure that cleaners comply with protocols."
Michelle Alfa and a team of scientists from Manitoba, Canada investigated the spread of so-called superbugs in hospitals. Hospital patients are thought to catch bugs like vancomycin resistant Enterococci (VRE), methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and C. difficile because they are not eradicated from the hospital environment. These bugs may be transferred between patients through cross-contamination in the bathroom.
"Various studies have looked at the most effective cleaning agents, but none of these studies considered whether housekeeping staff were actually cleaning the toilets properly," says Alfa. "It is impossible to assess the effectiveness of any action against these bacteria unless you can be sure that cleaners comply with protocols."
Gardasil. It is a first of its kind vaccine designed to prevent cervical cancer and approved by the Food and Drug Administration on June 8, 2006 for use in females aged 9 to 26. Within weeks the vaccine was unanimously approved by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for 11 and 12- year old girls. What followed was a cascade of calls by legislators around the country, including in Florida, pushing for this new to the market vaccine to be mandated for scores of young girls.
"This is a real danger zone, " says Dr. Diane Harper.
Why might you care about what she says? Dr. Harper is one of the world's top experts on the Human Papilloma virus, HPV, which can lead to cervical cancer. In fact, she's one of the leading scientists the pharmaceutical industries turned to for help to conduct clinical trials - including those that led to approval by the US Food and Drug Administration of Gardasil - and the recommendations that followed.
"This is a real danger zone, " says Dr. Diane Harper.
Why might you care about what she says? Dr. Harper is one of the world's top experts on the Human Papilloma virus, HPV, which can lead to cervical cancer. In fact, she's one of the leading scientists the pharmaceutical industries turned to for help to conduct clinical trials - including those that led to approval by the US Food and Drug Administration of Gardasil - and the recommendations that followed.
Environmental and farm worker groups have now sued the Bush administration for allowing the continued use of four pesticides. They claim that the government brushed aside its own evidence that the chemicals are toxic to workers, children, and animals.
The suit challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's 2006 decision to reauthorize the four pesticides used on fruit and vegetable fields in California.
The suit challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's 2006 decision to reauthorize the four pesticides used on fruit and vegetable fields in California.
A Central Michigan University study has determined that many college students have sleep patterns that could have detrimental effects on their daily performance.
Tarrytown, N.Y. - Cooking, like farming, for all its down-home community spirit, is essentially a solitary craft. But lately it's feeling more like a lonely burden. Finding guilt-free food for our menus - food that's clean, green and humane - is about as easy as securing a housing loan. And we're suddenly paying more - 75 percent more in the last six years - to stock our pantries. Around the world, from Cairo to Port-au-Prince, increases in food prices have governments facing riots born of shortages and hunger. It's enough to make you want to toss in the toque.
Human identity, the idea that defines each and every one of us, could be facing an unprecedented crisis.
It is a crisis that would threaten long-held notions of who we are, what we do and how we behave. It goes right to the heart - or the head - of us all.
This crisis could reshape how we interact with each other, alter what makes us happy, and modify our capacity for reaching our full potential as individuals.
It is a crisis that would threaten long-held notions of who we are, what we do and how we behave. It goes right to the heart - or the head - of us all.
This crisis could reshape how we interact with each other, alter what makes us happy, and modify our capacity for reaching our full potential as individuals.
