Here’s one measure of how much the issue of toxic contaminants’ effects on health and development — especially in children – has gained traction: A continuing education program aimed mostly at psychotherapists is devoting a day-long course to the subject this weekend in Boston. It’s...

When people ask whether modern synthetics are damaging their health and endangering future generations, Topic A is nearly always bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic estrogen, an integral component of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins and one of the highest volume industrial chemicals in existence. Now...

Laboratory tests commissioned by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC) have found lead, a potent neurotoxin, in 100 percent of 10 popular children’s face paints. The amounts were low – but, as CSC points out, there’s no safe level of lead exposure, which is why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control...

Unsettling reports of “intersex” fish surface periodically in newspapers and scientific journals in scattered locations throughout the U.S.  These freakish fish are typically males with immature egg cells in their testes.  Occasionally they are female fish that display male characteristics. Intersex...

My reason for choosing food packaged sustainably has always been driven by concern for the environment, with recycling and less damaging manufacturing practices at the forefront of my mind. Until last week, when it became a health issue, too. The cover story in the August 31 edition of Chemical and...

A human body, when taking in more calories than it expends, makes fat faster than you can say couch potato. But a growing stack of laboratory research suggests that some of the chemicals used in everyday items predispose an individual to the battle of the bulge, despite normal diet and exercise. Scientists...

The American Chemistry Council released a set of 10 principles today for modernizing the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act.  EWG staff met with ACC President Cal Dooley and colleagues for a preview yesterday, and we congratulated them for stepping up to the challenge of mending a law that, in our view,...

A landmark study by Columbia University’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) has found that New York City children exposed in the womb to urban air pollutants score significantly lower on intelligence tests than children of mothers who breathed cleaner air during their pregnancies. The...

Channel Cameron Diaz, Vogue’s “Queen of Green?” Scour Martha Stewart for money-saving wedding tips? Tough call, and now you don’t have to make it. Not, at least, when you’re picking up a bottle of water for the drink-holder of your Prius/Mini/Trek Madone. Environmental...

Yale researchers may have solved a fundamental medical mystery: how bisphenol A (BPA), a ubiquitous plastics component, changes genetic chemistry and impairs fertility. The Yale team’s findings, previewed earlier this month to the Endocrine Society, a 14,000-member scientific and medical professional...