Like a broken clock that accidentally gets the time right, California has finally stumbled upon the correct approach to coffee. Sort of. After widespread mockery and condemnation, the Golden State has had an epiphany: Maybe coffee doesn't cause cancer. The FDA agrees.
Chemicals & Chemistry
The EPA is evaluating 10 chemicals under the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act. So we have created explanations for each, with recommendations when the science is clear.
The explosion of Mount Tambura, killed 100,000 people and changed the climate for several years. It was responsible for the "year without a summer," Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, and perhaps the military failing of Napoleon Bonaparte.
You've probably never even heard of osmium (no relation to Donny Osmond). That may be because 1) You are not a dork, and 2) It is the rarest metal in the world. It also has some interesting properties. It is an unreactive, very hard metal, which is used in fountain pens but add four oxygens and it becomes a different beast - one that can blind you.
How is science used in environmental litigation, and by whom? A new study finds patterns in the litigants and their strategies.
Jurors in California awarded $289 million to a man who claimed that his cancer was due to Monsanto’s herbicide glyphosate – even though that's biologically impossible. Even the judge acknowledged that there was no evidence of harm. Yet trial lawyers manipulated a jury’s emotions and the public’s misunderstanding of science to score another jackpot verdict.
Poorer people often live in areas with more pollution and crime, that is no surprise, but pollution is relative in 2018. American air is incredibly clean, (1) so clean epidemiologists and activists have tried to define harmful smog all the way down to 2.5 μm (microns) in diameter in hopes of showing air quality is still a worry. And they have begun to consider noise the same as smog for harm, along with lots of other things.
Air quality is very good pretty much everywhere in the United States. This fact stands in stark contrast to utterly absurd claims in the media, such as blaming air pollution for killing 155,000 Americans. Take a look at the maps provided by the World Health Organization.
The EPA must evaluate the risk of existing chemicals and has selected the first 10 for review. As part of our role, the American Council on Science and Health is producing risk-based evaluations of each. Up today - Cyclic aliphatic bromides used primarily as flame retardants.
Perhaps Nick Kristof, the New York Times' non-expert on chemical toxicology, was on vacation. But the paper had a backup - Niraj Chokshi - to replace him. Chokshi is a psychology major who interviewed a member of the United States Public Interest Research Group, a bunch of lawyers, about scary chemicals in school supplies which aren't really scary at all.
Countries that use more pesticides don't have higher rates of pediatric cancer.
Trial lawyers are cheering that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California ordered EPA to finalize its proposed ban on chlorpyrifos but the science is even less settled than the court case is. If you are not familiar with American law, the 9th is the most overturned appeals court by the Supreme Court of the United States, because their rulings are often overtly political, and therefore not grounded in evidence.