Links

AARP Blog on Healthy Aging and the Environment

AARP has just launched a blog on Healthy Aging and the Environment. The inaugural piece links to a number of resources that can help educate AARP’s 35 million members on environmental influences on health, including a report on the environmental threats to healthy aging and EDF's web site on toxic chemical impacts and TSCA reform.

Food & Environment Reporting Network Launches

The Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN) is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan news organization that produces investigative reporting on food, agriculture, and environmental health for distribution to major media outlets. You can sign up for their free newsletter on their website.

Health Effects of Shale Gas Extraction (Hydrofracking)

The 2nd Annual Conference on Health Effects of Shale Gas Extraction explored the science and methodological approaches behind understanding environmental health impacts associated with increasing development of natural gas extraction from shale deposits. Presentations from the conference are now available on line.

Climate Change, the Indoor Environment, and Health

Amid the considerable research on how climate change may affect public health, one subject has received relatively little attention—the impact of climate change on indoor environments. In this report, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM) outlines the major climate-induced indoor environmental problems and recommends ways to reduce the health effects these problems cause. The IOM also recommends a number of specific actions for the EPA to take, in cooperation with other government organizations and the private sector.

Hydrofracking: Map of schools on private well water released. Child Health Groups Call for Robust Health Impact Assessment; Concerned About Children’s Health and Safety, School Building Impacts

On December 20, 2011, Healthy Schools Network and a range of other children’s health advocates called on New York State to consider the impacts of proposed hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) on the state’s children and schools. The groups urged the New York State Department of Conservation, Department of Health, and Education Department to thoroughly assess the possible health impacts of the proposed hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale region and provided detailed recommendations on elements the assessment should include.

Common Cause Report on Hydrofracking - "Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets"

According to a study by Common Cause, natural gas interests have spent more than $747 million during a 10-year campaign to avoid government regulation of hydraulic “fracking." The report comes as the EPA is scheduled to publish new, preliminary findings about the potential dangers of fracking in 2012, giving the industry a powerful incentive to increase political spending now in an attempt to shape public opinion and the debate over fracking in Congress, as well as affect the outcome of the 2012 congressional elections.

Hydrofracking: "Extracting the Facts: An Investor Guide to Disclosing Risks from Hydraulic Fracturing Operations"

New report from the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, intended to help increase disclosure and mitigate the impacts of natural gas operations using hydraulic fracturing. The report calls for deeper disclosures on community impacts for energy companies to earn their license to operate. The report recommends 12 core management goals supplemented by best management practices (BMPs) and key performance indicators (KPIs). Rich Liroff is principal author.

Toxics Tools and Resources

Physicians for Social Responsibility's Environmental Health Policy Institute has compiled the best and brightest tools and resources about toxic chemicals, including databases, clinical tools, and advocacy resources all designed to help reduce and prevent exposures to toxic chemicals.

Women's Voices for the Earth releases new report on harmful chemicals in cleaning products.

Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE) commissioned an independent laboratory to test twenty popular cleaning products for hidden toxic chemicals from five top companies: Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, SC Johnson and Son, and Sunshine Makers (Simple Green). We found reproductive toxins, carcinogens, hormone disruptors, and allergens, and none of these chemicals were listed on the product label.


Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3) Retailer Portal: Tools to Evaluate Chemical Ingredients in Products

This Retailer Portal features a database of tools and systems to evaluate and manage chemical ingredients in the products retailers buy and sell, and a summary document explaining the organization of the Retailer Portal and how it can help retailers.

Hydrofracking Exemptions in Federal Regulations

The New York Times prepared a chart of 7 federal environmental laws for which the natural gas industry has exemptions or exclusions.

EPA Greener Products Web Portal

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a new tool designed to provide Americans easy access to information about everyday products like home appliances, electronics and cleaning products that can save money and protect people's health and the environment.

Healthy Schools Network’s new guide, Markers, finds dry erase markers unsafe for kids because of their hazardous chemicals and health effects

Inspired by public health complaints from parents and teachers, a new user-friendly guide by Healthy Schools Network argues that dry erase and permanent markers are not safe for children, and are in fact toxic. The report outlines the health threats of these markers and offers suggestions for safer alternatives.

New NRDC report, The Delay Game, documents chemical industry efforts to delay health assessments of toxic chemicals

Big business chemical industries have repeatedly blocked the Environmental Protection Agency and other government bodies from assessing the harms of hazardous chemicals. NRDC provides a meticulous accounting of the evidence behind this in The Delay Game. This new report, released today, uses three chemicals, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene (TCE) and styrene, to illustrate a larger systemic breakdown, in desperate need of a fix. Our report outlines the “Four Dog Defense” that big business has developed to defend its dangerous products, first tobacco, then asbestos, and now toxic chemicals generally: 1) My dog (product) doesn’t bite, 2) My dog bites, but it didn’t bite you, 3) My dog bit you, but it didn’t hurt you, and 4) My dog bit you, and hurt you, but it wasn’t my fault. Skeptical? You should be! FULL BLOG AND LINKS TO REPORT AT: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jsass/new_nrdc_report_-_the_delay_ga.html

Trailblazing States Make Industry Cry "Uncle" on BPA

In response to the growing introduction and passage of BPA bans in state legislatures across the country, the American Chemistry Council has asked the FDA to ban the toxic chemical from baby bottles and sippy cups. This groundbreaking action shows that industry is taking note of state-based efforts to protect people from toxic chemicals.

Blind Rush? Shale Gas Boom Proceeds Amid Human Health Questions (Hydrofracking)

Shale gas is booming. But in order for it to meet its potential, millions of Americans will have to live with drill rigs in or near their own neighborhoods, which opens the door to a range of potential environmental health problems. Pipelines and wellheads can explode; the process produces toxic air emissions; and fracking generates liquid wastes that can contaminate surface and drinking water supplies.

Toxic Flame Retardants: In Our Homes, Our Dust, Our Lives

The latest blog post from Safer States details the pervasive danger of toxic flame retardants, and what's being done to keep us safe from them.

May 2011 Issue of Health Affairs - Devoted to Environmental Challenges for Health

The journal articles provide “an overview of the large body of evidence demonstrating the impact of environment on health and health care costs, in areas as diverse as air and water quality, food policy, the built environment, and genetics.” The issue also includes “Philanthropy at the Intersection of Health and the Environment,” co-authored by HEFN Directors Karla Fortunato and Kathy Sessions. The issue was funded by the Kresge Foundation.

SEC Action Validates Shareholder Concerns about Hydrofracking Operations

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun pressing oil and gas companies to provide increased disclosure on the financial risks associated with the environmental impacts of their fracturing operations. The action comes after two years of investor pressure in the form of resolutions coordinated via the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN).

Fact Sheet on Natural Gas Extraction and Hydrofracking

The Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units has completed a fact sheet dealing with natural gas extraction and hydraulic fracturing.