CHICAGO (Reuters) - On days when there is a lot of dust and other large-particle pollutants in the air, slightly more elderly people go to hospital emergency rooms with heart problems, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

There was also an increase in hospital visits by elderly patients complaining of respiratory illnesses when "coarse," or large, particle pollution was plentiful, although the rise was not significant, the researchers said.

For almost half a century, scientists have struggled with plutonium contamination spreading further in groundwater than expected, increasing the risk of sickness in humans and animals.

It was known nanometer sized clusters of plutonium oxide were the culprit, but no one until now had been able to study its structure or find a way to separate it from the groundwater.

A newly released study commissioned by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), and overseen by environmental health consumer advocate David Steinman, analyzes leading "natural" and "organic" brand shampoos, body washes, lotions and other personal care products for the presence of the undisclosed carcinogenic contaminant 1,4-Dioxane. A reputable third-party laboratory known for rigorous testing and chain-of-custody protocols, performed all testing.

PDF Extracts :What is 1,4-Dioxane?

A federal report finds 'some concern' that fetuses, babies and children are at risk from bisphenol A. But plastics industry officials see no serious risk.

A controversial, estrogen-like chemical in plastic could be harming the development of children's brains and reproductive organs, a federal health agency concluded in a report released Tuesday.

Health campaigners today called for a Europe-wide ban on man-made chemicals found in cosmetics and pesticides to help cut rising rates of breast cancer.

A report published today warns that cases of the disease can only be reduced by removing hormone-disrupting man-made chemicals from a range of household products.

Pollution of the Indian river Ganga has reached septic levels in some stretches. Those using its waters are thus exposed to serious health problems, a noted campaigner has said.
 
Apparently hundreds of crores of rupees sunk in cleaning up India’s most sacred river have gone down the drain, literally.

“Dissolved oxygen has dropped to alarmingly low levels. In Varanasi alone, the seven km stretch from upstream Assi Ghat to Varuna Sangam, pollution has reached septic levels,” Professor Vir Bhadra Misra said.

The European Commission warned Italy it could follow Japan and South Korea in imposing an import ban on mozzarella cheese, a spokeswoman said Thursday, after high dioxin levels were found in milk used to make it.
The European Union's executive arm set a 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) deadline for Rome to provide more information about contaminated lots of mozzarella made from buffalo milk from the southern region of Campania.

A new study says that the chemical component of artificial butter flavoring can lead to serious lung diseases.Scientists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, found that exposure to diacetyl can cause a serious condition that can lead to obliterative bronchiolitis or "popcorn lung." Experiments showed that mice that inhaled diacetyl vapors for three months developed lymphocytic bronchiolitis—a potential precursor of obliterative bronchiolitis.

WASHINGTON - When the American team arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2003 to repair the Qarmat Ali water injection plant, supervisors told them the orange, sand-like substance strewn around the looted facility was just a "mild irritant," workers recall.
The workers got it on their hands and clothing every day while racing for 2 1/2 months to meet a deadline to get the plant, a crucial part of Iraq's oil infrastructure, up and running.

WESTERN ARCTIC–The iconic polar bear, already a marauding warehouse of toxic substances, is facing a new chemical assault that could trigger serious health problems in the bear population within the decade.
The damage may include higher risk of cancers and impaired reproduction, say Danish environmental scientists in a study to be published shortly.

Why does the United States remain one of the few developed countries to allow children to play with toys that some scientists say may cause infertility in boys? The toys in question contain substances called phthalates (pronounced "thal-ates"). While the European Union has banned these substances in products meant for children, there is powerful resistance from the chemical and toy industries to doing the same here.