a. Agent Orange
Fatal
Flaws: How the Military Misled Vietnam Veterans and Their Families about
the Health Risks of Agent Orange
(The San Diego Union-Tribune, In-depth report, 1999)
"The U.S. military's $200 million study of the health effects of
Agent Orange on Vietnam War veterans is so flawed that it might be useless,
a six-month investigation by The San Diego Union-Tribune has
found. The study has been a key factor in denying compensation to Vietnam
veterans suffering from illnesses they blame on Agent Orange, a powerful
herbicide used to destroy enemy crops and jungle hiding places."
b. Asbestos
The
Dangers of Asbestos
Andrew Schneider and Carol Smith
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer, ongoing coverage)
"Almost everyone believes that the mining, production, sale and
use of asbestos in America has been banned. They're wrong. Since November
1999, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published a series of
reports on the continuing risks posed by the nation's asbestos legacy."
Nation's
Mechanics at Risk (November 16, 2000)
Virginia
Miners at Risk from Asbestos (October 4, 2000)
Asbestos:
The Forgotten Killer (August 2000)
Generations
of Miners Were Fiber's Victims (June 22, 2000)
Crayons and Asbestos
(May 23, 2000)
Uncivil Action:
A Town Left to Die (November 18, 1999)
c.
Chemical Industry Abuse
In
the Strictest Confidence:
The Chemical Industry's Secrets
Jim Morris
(Houston Chronicle, Multi-part series, June 1998)
For years, makers and users of vinyl chloride concealed the terrible
truth: The chemical can cause cancer."
Spill
Sends Investigators to Harbin
PART
OF 2005's YEAR IN REVIEW
David Lague and Jim Yardley
(International
Herald Tribune and The New York Times, November 25, 2005)
"China
on Friday sent investigators to examine the handling of a chemical spill
that has forced this city of almost four million people to endure three
days without running water...Environmental agencies estimated that about
100 tons of contaminants were spewed into river that supplies Harbin
with water after an explosion at a chemical plant upstream in neighboring
Jilin Province on Nov. 13."
e.
Chronic Wasting Disease
Did
Wild Game Feasts Lead to Fatal Brain Disorders?
PART OF 2002's YEAR IN REVIEW
Ongoing
coverage by John Fauber and Mark Johnson
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, beginning June 2002)
"One
by one...three [participants in annual wild game dinners] have died
from rare brain diseases, leaving their families and health officials
wondering whether their deaths were an eerie coincidence or evidence
that the deer and elk brain disorder known as chronic wasting disease
has crossed the threshold from animals to people."
Part
of the special report:
Endangered
Herd
f.
Environmental Injustice
Unwelcome
Neighbors:
Civil Rights and the Environment
John McQuaid
(The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Four-part series, May 21-24,
2000)
"History, geography and the legacy of racism have conspired to
place factories, dumps and chemical plants next to the poor."
g.
Global Warming
A
Change in the Seasons
John Fauber and Tom Vanden Brook
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Three-part series, May 28-30, 2000)
Using an e-mail survey of 122 of the world's leading climate-change
experts, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examines the myths and
realities of global warming.
A
Future Told in Trees
Scientists'
Motivation, Funding Fuel Debate
Victims
of a Hot Climate and a Cold Society
PART
OF 2003's YEAR IN REVIEW
Opinion
Eric Klinenberg
(The International Herald Tribune, Aug. 22, 2003)
"Dr. Lucien Abenhaïm, France's director general for health,
resigned this week after acknowledging that up to 5,000 French citizens
died during the recent heat wave. The minister for the aged said Thursday
the number would 'most probably' be more than twice that. French officials
initially said that there was little they could do to prevent the catastrophe.
But health experts and citizen groups have shown that the epidemic was
caused by a sweeping set of social breakdowns and political failures.
The heat wave, they insist, is hardly a natural disaster."
The
Mud Flies
PART OF 2003's YEAR IN REVIEW
(The Economist, Aug. 21, 2003)
"After the heatwave, the mudbath. Literally, in parts of southern
France, northern Italy and Spain, where heat gave way to floods. Politically
too, in several countries, where critics are now pelting the authorities
with charges that they were slow to notice the effects of the heat,
and ill-prepared to react to them."
i.
Lead Poisoning/Contamination
Lead
in Mexican Candies: 'Toxic Treats'
PART OF 2004's YEAR IN REVIEW
Jenifer
B. McKim, Keith Sharon, and William Heisel
(The Orange County Register, California, Six-day
series, April 25–30, 2004)
"The
California Department of Health Services has documented more than 1,500
tests of Mexican candy since 1993 -- and one in four of those results
has come up high for lead...Until today, the state's testing records
have not been made public. Orange County Register reporters spent
two years investigating the problem: from the chili mills of Aguascalientes,
where dangerous levels of lead exist in key candy ingredients; to the
makeshift factories of Guadalajara, where unsafe manufacturing practices
are routine; to the dirt-floor poverty of Santa Fe de la Laguna, where
a village has become contaminated making packages for candy. But perhaps
the most troubling reason lead-tainted candy keeps poisoning children
is that government regulators do next to nothing to stop it."
(From part
one of the series)
Free registration required.
D.C.'s
Troubled Waters
PART OF 2004's YEAR IN REVIEW
David Nakamura and Carol D. Leonnig
(The Washington Post, April 2, 2004)
"The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority [WASA] violated federal law
by failing to properly notify city residents of high lead levels in
the drinking water and to adequately protect public health, regulators
at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday...WASA officials
first learned of lead problems during the 2001-02 testing period when
about half of 53 houses showed water with lead levels that exceeded
the federal limit of 15 parts per billion, which under the law required
WASA to take action. Since then, tests on more than 5,000 additional
homes have found water with excessive lead. "
Coverage from The Washington Post
Free registration required.
Seattle,
Washington: Schools' Water Fails Lead Testing
PART OF 2004's YEAR IN REVIEW
Deborah Bach
(Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, April
30, 2004)
"The
first six Seattle public schools to have their water tested all exceeded
federal limits for lead -- with dangerous levels found at dozens of
drinking fountains that children have sipped from for years. At one
school, 22 of the 24 fountains tested exceeded federal safety guidelines.
At another school, the amount of lead in one fountain's water was almost
50 times more than the Environmental Protection Agency allows."
See
full
coverage
Damaged
Lives: Lead's Toxic Toll
Emilia
Askari, Tina Lam, Shawn Windsor, Wendy Wendland-Bowyer, Hugh McDiarmid,
Jr., and Dan Shine
(The Detroit Free Press, Five-day series, Jan. 21-25, 2003)
"Lead is an insidious poison. It damages brains. It harms
bodies. Currently, an estimated 300,000 U.S. children -- including 22,000
in Michigan -- face lives of reduced intelligence and diminished futures
because of lead. A Free Press investigation has found that the
toll is needlessly high -- the result of a national lead strategy that
is disjointed, bureaucratically tangled and not nearly expansive enough
to solve a problem that has led to the poisoning of 2.5 million Americans
in the last decade."
Poisoned
PART OF 2001's YEAR IN REVIEW
Peter B. Lord
(The Providence Journal, Rhode Island, Six-day series, May
13-18, 2001)
"Landlords deny it. The middle class ignores it. You can't see
it. It's difficult to describe...Many environmental and health experts
rank lead poisoning as [Rhode Island's] number-one environmental threat.
Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse calls the poisonings 'a public health
crisis.'"
Poison
Paint: Hidden Danger, Hidden Damage
Greg J. Borowski
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Two-part series, July 2, 2000)
"From chipping and flaking paint to dust in the air, lead would
get into [young children's mouths] and lungs and blood. Milwaukee is
considering joining a small but growing number of cities, counties,
and states that have sued the paint industry in what most observers
consider a longshot legal battle to force the cleanup of hazardous properties."
Includes graphics.
Painting
Lead Trouble into Corner Wouldn't Be Easy
Staining
the Amazon
PART
OF 2003's YEAR IN REVIEW
Tom Knudson
(The Sacramento Bee, In-depth report, April 27, 2003)
"Journey to the South American nation of Ecuador and you find pollution
and misery on a scale that never would be tolerated in California, a
state that guards its own majestic coastline from oil development and
is home to some of the toughest environmental laws on Earth...Yet the
link between petroleum consumption in California and environmental damage
and human suffering abroad is not well known, in part because such harm
happens thousands of miles away, out of view of consumers, policy-makers
and many environmental groups."
k.
Occupational Health
Is
Your Office Killing You?
Michelle Conlin and John Carey
(Business Week, June 5, 2000)
"...[T]he World Health Organization estimates that one out of every
three workers may be toiling away in a workplace that is making them
sick. The culprit: a stew of largely undetected dangers--from the carbon
monoxide and other contaminants sucked into a building when air-intake
vents overhang exhaust-filled loading docks and parking garages, to
the volatile organic chemicals seeping out of building materials, furniture,
office equipment, carpet, paint, and pesticides, to the molds and bacteria
funneled through muck-filled heating, ventilation, and cooling systems."
Poisoned
Workers & Poisoned Places
Peter Eisler
(USA TODAY, Multi-part series, September 6-8, 2000)
"In the 1940s and '50s, the U.S. government secretly hired scores
of private companies to process huge volumes of nuclear weapons material.
But the companies were not prepared for the hazards of handling nuclear
material. Workers were not informed of the risks. Thousands were exposed
to dangerous levels of radiation. Government reports were classified
and buried. The result is a legacy of poisoned workers and communities
that lingers to this day."
Includes video links.
l.
Toxic Air from Factories in Indiana
Neighborhood
at Risk
Tammy
Webber, Mark Nichols, and Bill Theobald
(The Indianapolis Star, Two-day series, Feb. 22-23, 2004)
"It's hard to miss the sprawling manufacturing plants between downtown
Indianapolis and Indianapolis International Airport. But people live
there, too. An Indianapolis Star investigation found residents
may pay a price for living in Marion County's industrial hub."
m. Water Scarcity
Making
Every Drop Count
PART OF 2001's YEAR IN REVIEW
Reporting
by Peter H. Gleick, Sandra Postel, and Diane Martindale
(Scientific American, Three-part report, Feb. 2001)
"We drink it, we generate electricity with it, we soak our crops
with it. And we're stretching our supplies to the breaking point. Will
we have enough clean water to satisfy all the world's needs?"
Growing
More Food With Less Water
How
We Can Do It
The views expressed by individuals on this website do not necessarily reflect the views of Harvard University, and the selection of linked websites does not necessarily reflect Harvard's endorsement of those sites or of their content. ©2006 Harvard School of Public Health