Toxic trailers used to house Hurricane Katrina victims are being sold as scrap by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  At least one lawmaker has already expressed concern that the trailers, which are likely contaminated with formaldehyde, could end up as housing once again, even though FEMA has designated them as scrap.

In 2005, thousands of people in Mississippi and Louisiana were given FEMA trailers as temporary housing following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But by 2006 FEMA was getting reports from field workers along the Gulf Coast that residents of FEMA trailers where getting sick from the air in the toxic trailers. The first suspect was formaldehyde, which is used in the manufacture of the trailers. Despite the reports, e-mails uncovered last summer during a congressional investigation into the trailers showed that FEMA lawyers told the agency to drag its feet on air quality testing. FEMA’s Office of General Council also advised the agency not to test the trailers because doing so “would imply FEMA’s ownership of the issue”. (more…)

Bisphenol A, commonly referred to as BPA, that ubiquitous, estrogenic chemical that has long been making headlines and has been written about by us for some time, may affect also human reproduction, according to one of some new recent research reports, says MedicineNet.com’s HealthDay News.  BPA is found in a wide variety of consumer and children’s products, including baby bottles, the linings of food cans, and some sport drink bottles.  An industrial chemical, BPA is used to harden plastics.

In one report presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, researchers state that BPA could adversely affect successful vitro fertilization, or the ability of embryos to attach to the uterus, said HealthDay news.  “The issue of environmental toxicants upon human reproduction is very important,” said Dr. Richard J. Paulson, chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, who was not involved in the studies, but was quoted in the HealthDay News report. (more…)

According to a Washington Post article, federal food safety officials are stepping up measures to keep melamine out of the American food system.  Yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began “holding up shipments of food from China that contain milk or milk-derived ingredients,” said the Washington Post.

The FDA, on its Website reports that:  “As part of its ongoing strategy to address the present problem with melamine contamination of consumer products exported from the People’s Republic of China, FDA has expanded its import controls on Chinese dairy products, and food and feed products manufactured in China that contain dairy ingredients.  Since Oct. 10, 2008, FDA has had an import alert in place for specific products found contaminated with melamine and melamine-related compounds.  FDA has collected additional information on the scope of the melamine contamination problem in China, and determined a countrywide import alert is warranted.”  Many see this as the FDA’s largest effort since news of the current China melamine scandal broke, said the Washington Post. (more…)

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that Chinese families are filing a class action lawsuit against one dairy in the hopes that the government there will initiate compensation payments to the tens of thousands of families affected by China’s widespread and ongoing melamine tainting scandal.

The class action case involving some “15 lawyers” and “nearly 100 families,” the AP says, is targeted against the “state-owned Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group” Company and is looking to point out the delays and cover-ups in what many feel is the largest such scandal in China’s history of product and food safety debacles. (more…)

In what seems to be a never-ending melamine scandal out of China, Hong Kong safety officials have now found elevated levels of the toxic chemical in fish feed from the mainland there, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is reporting today.  Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety said late Tuesday, according to the WSJ article, that “the fish feed contained 6.6 parts per million (ppm) of melamine, the chemical at the” core “of China’s” newest and massive “tainted-milk scandal.”  According to the WSJ, “like many other governments, Hong Kong limits melamine levels in food products to 2.5 ppm.”  The Centre reported, according to the WSJ piece, that the tainted fish feed originated from the Fuzhou Haima Feed Company located in China’s southeastern Fujian province.

The WSJ reported that “Hong Kong safety officials said the city’s agricultural and fisheries department” advised fish farms to discontinue using the feed.  Meanwhile, fish feed testing continues and officials advised they continue testing “milk, eggs, meat, and other products,” said the WSJ.  Also, “separately, Hong Kong health officials said they were investigating the cases of two four-year-old Hong Kong girls” who were sickened with “kidney stones and who had also consumed melamine-tainted milk products and biscuits,” the WSJ reports.  According the WSJ piece, both girls were treated and released, the city’s Department of Health stated. (more…)

According to the Associated Press and MSNBC.com, China’s state news agency—Xinhua—is reporting  that 1,272 babies remain hospitalized there with illnesses linked to melamine-tainted baby formula.  Two of the nearly 1,300 babies are in serious condition, the AP noted, adding that the widespread scandal also caused the deaths of four infants and the illness of over 50,000.

Meanwhile, we recently wrote about a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article  that revealed how farmers in China confirmed that milk spiking was an open secret in the Chinese dairy industry well before the massive and ongoing melamine scandal.  According to that piece, farmers there admitted that so-called “protein powder” of “often-unknown origin” has been used for years as a cheap way to ensure milk from undernourished cows dupes “quality checks.”  When the larger companies caught on, some additive makers switched additives and began using toxic melamine to raise protein levels in substandard milk.  Melamine mimics protein in lab tests and can cause severe kidney damage.  Now, dairy products and products made with dairy products from China are turning up with melamine contamination internationally, causing global health scares. (more…)

An Ohio woman claims her Victoria’s Secret bra left her with a painful rash, and is suing the lingerie company.   Now, hundreds of other women have come forward to allege similar experiences, and attorneys are seeking class action status for the Ohio lawsuit.

Roberta Ritter, 37, claims she became “utterly sick” after she wore her new Angels Secret Embrace and Very Sexy Extreme Me Push-Up bras.  In her lawsuit, the plaintiff said the rash she suffered was “red hot to the touch, burning and itching.”   (more…)

We recently reported that a panel of experts said that this country’s epidemic of the potentially dangerous superbug Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, will probably worsen before any improvement is seen.  Cases of the C. diff diarrhea bug have been seen in all 50 states, says L. Clifford McDonald, MD, of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Healthcare Quality and Promotion.  And “we haven’t hit bottom yet,” says Lance Peterson, MD, of the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute in Illinois.

Now, a new survey has revealed that over one percent of U.S. hospital patients are infected with Clostridium difficile.  And, although making precise comparisons between prior and new data is challenging, a variety of current studies indicate that the prevalence of C. diff has risen dramatically in the past decade.  “They’re all pointing to the same thing: This is a major public-health problem,” said McDonald. (more…)

Federal health officials are getting ready to launch a massive study to find out if IBM workers at a plant in upstate New York have higher rates of  cancer than other people.  The study, to be conducted by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), was the topic of a public meeting Saturday at the Broome County Department of Health in Binghamton, NY.

The IBM study will address concerns about chemical exposure at the company’s Endicott, NY plant and nearby neighborhoods polluted with industrial solvents. In January, dozens of former and current residents of Endicott and the neighboring Town of Union filed suit against IBM, accusing the company of releasing “millions of gallons of various industrial chemicals” into local groundwater between 1924 and 2002.  The plant produced circuit boards, integrated circuits and other computer components before IBM sold the property in 2002. (more…)

Many believe that the current China melamine scandal could worsen given past scandals that emerged out of that country.

What is now being called “The Chinese Product Safety Scandal of 2008,” seemingly began with the deaths of four infants and the sickening and hospitalization of tens of thousands of children in China as a result of consuming melamine-tainted formula.  Upon investigation, a long-established chain of greed, incompetence, negligence, and ignorance allowed the toxic industrial chemical entry into not only China’s food chain, but into the international food market, as well.  Inspections and action only occurred after the situation spiraled completed out of control and when the problem was first brought to the attention of the authorities months ago—as early as January, infants in China being fed Sanlu brand baby formula were developing kidney problems—it was downplayed and ignored by company and government officials for months. (more…)