Public Health

Your Beer Probably Contains Arsenic

Beer won't kill you, but the poisonous chemicals that come from the commonly used brew filtering process just might. NPR reports that German researchers recently found traces of arsenic in "hundreds of samples of beer, some at levels more than twice that allowed in drinking water."

Sunset Park Rent Strike Continues Despite New Management

Last fall, it seemed as if justice was finally in the works for tenants in Sunset Park. In August, after organizing a year-long rent strike with three buildings on their block, residents finally had their day in court. At the time, Judge Sylvia Hinds-Radix seemed sympathetic, noting, "This building ... More >>

After the Storm, Mold is Taking Over Flooded Rockaways Homes

Nearly three months after Sandy pushed the ocean clear across the Rockaway spit, there's a hidden aftermath. In basements and first floors across the peninsula, a vast bloom of dangerous mold is spreading across flood-soaked beams and floorboards, studs and drywall. Stakes are high. "What starts in ... More >>

The Gowanus Canal Cleanup Will Cost Half a Billion Dollars

The Environmental Protection Agency released its plan for cleaning up the Gowanus Canal Superfund site yesterday, and as expected, the process is going to be complicated, time-consuming, and mind-bogglingly expensive. Since its completion in the 1860s, the Gowanus has been the home of virtually eve ... More >>

9/11 Healthcare Worker Fund Will Now Start Covering Cancer Link

Thankfully, this bit of news is a little more resounding for the World Trade Center anniversary on Tuesday than our report of the political dispute between Bloomberg and Cuomo over the Museum funds from earlier today.According to the New York Post, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and ... More >>

Fracking Dangers: Does Hydraulic Fracturing Cause Deadly Lung Disease?

As fracking spreads across the Marcellus shale formation and the rest of America with the White House's support, a government researcher has announced today that sand dust emitted during hydraulic fracturing might be one "of the most dangerous threats to workers." Citing a National Institute for Oc ... More >>

Dangerous Dioxins: NYC Green Groups Call for Stronger Enforcement

A little more than a month after the Environmental Protection Agency released its long-awaited report on the non-cancer dangers of dioxins, consumer groups have called on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration to officially stop buying products which contain these chemicals. New York's Center fo ... More >>

EPA Releases Report on Dangerous Dioxins After 27-Year Delay

The Environmental Protection Agency has finally released its report on the non-cancer dangers of dioxins -- toxic chemicals that abound in most consumer products. Though health advocates have been wary of dioxins for years, the FDA has said after a nearly 3 decades-long delay that the nasty carcino ... More >>

Second Avenue Subway Construction Is Not Bad for You, Says the MTA

Ah, Second Avenue subway. We've had some ups and downs with you in the seemingly interminable time we've been waiting for your completion. You're noisy, some of us had to move because of you, there was that gross thing with the flies, and, of course, a big question has been, how sick are you making ... More >>

Food Industry Wants to Keep Dioxins in Your Dinner: Report

It's always good to know that the people who raise the nation's livestock and sow the country's crops really want to put health first. Or not. A group of top U.S. food producers has recently protested the Food and Drug Administration's upcoming demands for tougher dioxin limits in nutritional stap ... More >>

U.K. Docs: Cheap Booze Will Kill Us

​Public health experts in the U.K. have recently begged the government to ban cheap booze, saying that low-cost alcohol causes 13,000 cases of cancer yearly -- and 25 percent of deaths in young Britons, according to the BBC.

9/11 Benefit Show

Dying Is In Vogue: Americans' Life Expectancies Dropping

​Each week, Death by Science gets on its hands and knees and crawls around, searching the dark world of science and technology. Often terrifying, sometimes humbling, our discoveries will make you run to the nearest 7-11 and stock up on canned goods and doomsday porn. This week, we found a stud ... More >>

9/11 Responders Must Show They're Not Terrorists Before Receiving Benefits

​The new 9/11 health bill requires "tens of thousands of cops, firefighters, construction workers and others who survived the worst terrorist assault in U.S. history and risked their lives in its wake" to prove to the government that they're not terrorists before they can receive medical care, ... More >>

Radioactive Water Gushing into Pacific From Nuclear Plant Is 'Millions of Times Over Limit'

​The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant seems to get worse daily. According to CNN, the radiation level of water now flowing into the Pacific from the plant is "more than millions of times above the regulatory limit." Radiation from samples taken over the weekend outside one of t ... More >>

Radioactive Water From Japan Plant Leaking Into Pacific; Arkansas Students Must Pull Up Pants

via Reuters​Officials say that highly radioactive water is leaking into the Pacific from a crippled reactor at Fukushima Daiichi. Water from a concrete pit has been seen escaping through a crack into the ocean; radiation levels in that pit have been measured at "1,000 millisieverts per hour, which ... More >>

Berkeley Residents Panicking Over Almost Non-Existent Radiation

​The Daily has an article (not that I can read the whole thing in my iPad-less state!) about irritating Berkeley, Calif. residents being irrationally afraid of radiation from the nuclear crisis in Japan. They are flocking to the area's health food vitamin apothecary-places to buy potassium iodide, ... More >>

Radiation From Japan Is Headed for California...But Don't Worry

​Before you freak out over the words "radioactive plume" hitting Southern California, know that any radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan will be diluted and, via the New York Times, "at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of ... More >>

Toxic PCBs Found in New York Public Schools

alamosbasement​Low levels of PCBs, a chemical compound linked to cancer, have been found in public schools across New York. The New York Times reports leaky light ballasts are to blame. Parents are being told that there is no immediate danger, but that long-term exposure could increase health ... More >>

Gowanus Canal Is Totally Grody, Finds EPA

​After a yearlong evaluation of Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, the EPA has released their report on the levels of contamination in the waterway. The results, published yesterday, aren't good for the Superfund site. Two suspected carcinogens -- PAHs and PCBs -- were found to be "widespread" in the ... More >>

Peter Vallone, Fluoride-Hating Councilman, Wants Your Teeth to Rot

​A city councilman from Queens apparently wants your your teeth to rot and fall out. The Daily News says Councilman Peter Vallone is planning to introduce a bill that would end New York's 45-year practice of adding fluoride to its tap water, citing safety concerns and comparing the miner ... More >>

People More Important Than Natural Resources, Says Lead-Fearing NYC Government

​Uh-oh. After finding "elevated" levels of lead in New York City tap water, the city's Department of Environmental Protection is warning New Yorkers to run their faucet for 30 seconds before drinking it, cooking it, or feeding it to their babies. While the DEP says the lead levels are "too sma ... More >>

Here's the 2010 Dirty Dozen Seafood (Dubious) Honor Roll

Copyright GreenpeaceBluefin tuna: don't eat it.​Navigating the increasingly murky waters of sustainable seafood isn't an easy task, particularly when it's abetted by grocery stores whose eco-conscious posturing doesn't quite extend to what's being sold at their fish counters. Fortunately, Food ... More >>

Lily Tomlin+Kate Clinton

No Connection Between 9/11 Attacks and Disease?

​At this point, saying that science has yet to directly link 9/11 exposure to the wide range of ailments suffered by Ground Zero workers is like poking a gorilla in the eye with a stick or commanding a boulder to stop rolling downhill. After all, the city is ready to fork over more than $600 ... More >>

SWEET SHOT

Lia Halloran shreds the streets of L.A. for her art

NYPD Seeks an Air Monitor Crackdown for New Yorkers

A city councilman and the cops don't want you to have that Geiger counter without their permission

Dangerous Dildos, Part 1

In an unregulated industry, can sex toys be toxic?

This Land Is Their Land

The Disease in Vogue

Remember the Earth's Other Plagues

Grading the Speaker

Miller's Council Gets 'A' for Courage, Mixed Results on Budget and Bills

Lead Poison Legacy?

Councilmember Dilan No Help on 'Lead Belt' Relief

Getting the Lead Out

Will the City Council Finally Protect Kids From Toxic Paint?

The Dust May Never Settle

How Dangerous Was That Dark Cloud Hanging Over Manhattan?

Nation

Cluster Bomb

A New Map Shows Which Parts of the City Have Higher Breast Cancer Rates. Moving?

The Uncovered

How New York’s Uninsured Really Survive

Pesticides and Propaganda

City Council's Whitewash

Speaker Vallone's Pamphlet Flies Like a Lead Balloon

Poisoned Politics

Children Suffer While Peter Vallone Thins Lead-Paint Law

Peter's Poisoned Pen

Will Vallone Write a Sickening Lead-Paint Bill to Please Landlords?

Clinic Depression