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Drinking Water of 41 Million Americans Contaminated with Pharmaceuticals
An investigation by the Associated Press (AP) has revealed that the drinking water of at least 41 million people in the United States is contaminated with pharmaceutical drugs.
It has long been known that drugs are not wholly absorbed or broken down by the human body. Significant amounts of any medication taken eventually pass out of the body, primarily through the urine.
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Environmentalists Target Snack Food Makers Over Palm Oil Use
(Fortune) -- What do Oreo cookies made by Nabisco (KFT, Fortune 500), Cheez-It crackers from Kellogg's (K, Fortune 500) or General Mills' (GIS, Fortune 500) Fiber One Chewy Bars have to do with global warming and the destruction of tropical rainforests? A lot, say environmental activists.
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Food riots as floods swamp South Asia
Flood victims demanding food and shelter beat up government officials in India on Friday as monsoon rains spread misery among millions of people across South Asia and forced thousands from their homes.
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What Governments Must Do To Protect Elderly From Global Warming
The first casualties of global warming, when its effects really set in, will be the elderly. What are governments doing to prevent the worst impact? Little is known about any strategies or contingency plans in place. That is because the plans are only in the research stage.
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Bisphenol A exposure can increase risk of Diabetes and Heart Attacks.
In human fat tissues, bisphenol A (BPA) suppresses levels of a key hormone, adiponectin, that protects people from heart attacks and Type II diabetes. These results implicate BPA as a potential cause of metabolic syndrome, one of the most serious and costly public health problems in the US.
Most Americans have levels of BPA within their serum within the range of concentrations sufficient to suppress adiponectin in these experiments. The BPA effect on adiponectin disappears at higher levels.
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UK citizens using 58 baths of water a day
While each person in the UK drinks, hoses, flushes and washes their way through around 150 litres of mains water a day, they consume about 30 times as much in “virtual” water embedded in food, clothes and other items — the equivalent of about 58 bathtubs full of water every day.
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Making Waves — World Water Week 2008
We are in the midst of World Water Week. The 2008 theme is “Progress and Prospects on Water: For a Clean and Healthy World with Special Focus on Sanitation.” World Water Week is a international conference focused on collaboration and the promotion of work that advances environmental and humanitarian development.
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Humanitarian Aid Looms as Georgia's Next Crisis
Diana Khidasheli and her four children spent the night before the August 8 outbreak of war with Russia in their house basement, hoping for an end to the intensive shelling of their village, Kemerti, in the Georgian-controlled South Ossetia conflict zone. Now Khidasheli thinks the decision to hide was a mistake. The next day, she had no time to pack.
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World needs global water agreement now
WWF Director-General James Leape today called on governments to support the entry into force of the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention—an international agreement which could play a key role in water security for about 40% of the world's population.
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Ivory Coast toxic sites still a threat: U.N. expert
Tens of thousands of people in Ivory Coast are still suffering serious health problems two years after toxic waste was dumped there, a United Nations human rights expert said on Friday.
Okechukwu Ibeanu, an independent U.N. investigator, said in a statement the seven sites around the commercial capital Abidjan had still not been decontaminated, with dire consequences for those living around them.
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Is Your Organic Food Really Organic?
When you buy food with a "USDA organic" label, do you know what you're getting? Now is a good time to ask such a question, as the USDA just announced Monday it was putting 15 out of 30 federally accredited organic certifiers they audited on probation, allowing them 12 months to make corrections or lose their accreditation. At the heart of the audit for several certifiers were imported foods and ingredients from other countries, including China.
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Researchers find cancer-inhibiting compound under the sea
University of Florida College of Pharmacy researchers have discovered a marine compound off the coast of Key Largo that inhibits cancer cell growth in laboratory tests, a finding they hope will fuel the development of new drugs to better battle the disease.
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Water Advocates Speak Out for Improved Sanitation
The Ganges is proof that even the holiest of nature's creations can fall victim to the destructive powers of pollution.
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Mystery killer disease may be spread by vampire bats
A mysterious illness has killed at least 38 people in a remote patch of South American rain forest in recent months. Most, if not all, of the dead are Warao, an indigenous tribe native to north-eastern Venezuela.
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Malaria cannot be halted on its own
Concentrating efforts on malaria alone is unlikely to sustain malaria control or achieve its eradication, say Peter J. Hotez and David H. Molyneux in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. They suggest an integrated approach, linking malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Together malaria and the seven most common NTDs cause two million deaths a year.
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The Death of the Globalization Consensus
The world economy has seen globalization collapse once already. The gold standard era—with its free capital mobility and open trade—came to an abrupt end in 1914 and could not be resuscitated after World War I. Are we about to witness a similar global economic breakdown?
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Azerbaijan: Energy Rich, Healthcare Poor.
Azerbaijan may have the mega-energy revenues needed to build roads and to refashion its military, but when it comes to regional healthcare, the country’s attention appears to be focused elsewhere.
Like many rural Azerbaijanis, Intigam Mammadov, a resident of Imamgulubayli village in southern Azerbaijan’s Agdam district, feels shortchanged by the situation.
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Chinese Take 50% Of All Cars Off Beijing Roads To Improve Air Quality For Olympics
Scientists will study this for years to come; China has ordered 50% of all cars off the roads off Beijing to make sure air quality is okay for the upcoming Olympics. The measures might be perhaps the world's most measurable traffic pollution reduction effort ever. What's more, they've launched an airquality forecast tool online.
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RUNNING FOR WATER
As a fundraising platform, the Blue Planet Run Foundation creates epic endurance events that showcase human commitment, passion and stamina. These are all qualities absolutely essential for solving the drinking water crisis.
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Odiferous Overcrowded Dairy Farms Not Just A Problem for Cows
Vegetarians and concerned carnivores alike have long protested the way livestock is raised at many large farms. But it's taking some time for Americans to view this not only as an animal-mistreatment issue but one that directly affects human health. The Union of Concerned Scientists has taken the issue up, and is driving its point home by citing a recent event in which rural Minnesotans actually fled their homes as a result of animal crowding's side-effects.
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Global warming may raise kidney stone cases: study
One more unwanted consequence of global warming may be an increase in cases of kidney stones in areas with rising temperatures, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
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It's a long road to a H5N1 vaccine stockpile
Several measures must be put in place to ensure an adequate vaccine stockpile in the event of a H5N1 avian influenza pandemic, write Tadataka Yamada, Alice Dautry and Mark Walport in Nature. H5N1 could kill up to 80 million people, according to recent data models — with 95 per cent of deaths in the developing world.
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Population boom will pressure forests: reports
Booming demand for food, fuel and wood as the world's population surges from six to nine billion will put unprecedented and unsustainable demand on the world's remaining forests, two new reports said on Monday.
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Invest in water for farming, or the world will go hungry
Super crops won't be enough — the planet will run short of food by 2030 unless we invest to avoid an imminent world water crisis, says Colin Chartres.
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Researchers say popular fish contains potentially dangerous fatty acid combination
The researchers say the combination could be a potentially dangerous food source for some patients with heart disease, arthritis, asthma and other allergic and auto-immune diseases that are particularly vulnerable to an "exaggerated inflammatory response." Inflammation is known to cause damage to blood vessels, the heart, lung and joint tissues, skin, and the digestive tract.
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