So you’re thinking about trading in your old cell phone, and you want to know how much radiation the new models emit. Think scavenger hunt and you’ve got the idea. Technically speaking, the Federal Communications Commission makes that information public through its FCC SAR Database. But only the...

Green chemistry is one of those ideas that sounds great – until you look closely and find a bevy of devils lurking in the details. That’s the problem with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to implement the state’s much ballyhooed Green Chemistry initiative, conceived as a means of restricting...

The Interphone Study Group, a 10-year, 13-nation scientific collaboration coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a United Nations agency, has wrapped up its work without determining conclusively whether link exists between cell phone use and head and neck tumors. But some findings...

By Renee Sharp, Director, EWG California Office, and Bill Allayaud, California Director of Governmental Affairs In September 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a measure that aimed to strengthen California’s trail-blazing Green Chemistry Initiative and transform the way that chemicals...

In 2008, the state of Maine took a big step toward protecting its children from exposures to potentially dangerous chemicals when its legislators passed the pioneering Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Products Act. Now officials of the Pine Tree State are writing regulations to implement that law, and...

Millions of Americans don’t trust that the water coming out of their taps is safe to drink. New research by Environmental Working Group (EWG) suggests that for many, there’s good reason to be concerned. Over the last three years, EWG assembled an unprecedented database of 20 million tap water testing...

Back in 1991, a young paralegal poking around in some real estate files noticed a peculiar concentration of cancer in tiny Hinkley, CA. The rest was almost history. Erin Brockovich’s find led to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, whose compressor station, California state investigators determined ,...

Last week I realized (again) how hard it is for citizens to protect their children when corporate interests are at stake.  It’s a maddeningly familiar equation: Threat to children  + Overwhelming constituent support + Solid science + Well-financed industry opposition with fear tactics = =...