Free Republic

For over two years now, environmental activists and anti-industry groups have been raging against the U.S. government, the European Union, and practically anybody else that would listen about the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate is a weed killer and the main ingredient in RoundUp. Weed killers are obviously a critical tool for American farmers and farmers around the world. The left-wingers are attacking weed killers despite the chemical receiving a clean bill of health from both the EPA and Europe’s main food safety and chemical authorities. PRI.org reported late last year that “in November 2015, the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA,...

For over two years now, environmental activists and anti-industry groups have been raging against the U.S. government, the European Union, and practically anybody else that would listen about the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate is a weed killer and the main ingredient in RoundUp.  Weed killers are obviously a critical tool for American farmers and farmers around the world. The left-wingers are attacking weed killers despite the chemical receiving a clean bill of health from both the EPA and Europe’s main food safety and chemical authorities. PRI.org reported late last year that “in November 2015, the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA,...

WHEELING — West Virginia’s congressional delegation is showing a unified front in pushing for an ethane storage hub for central Appalachia, and they hope state leaders in Ohio and Pennsylvania join them. U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., were joined Thursday by Rep. David McKinley, R-Wheeling, and American Chemistry Council President Cal Dooley for a news conference to tout the economic benefits of placing the hub near oil and gas reserves in Appalachia rather than near chemical industry operations on the Gulf Coast. Manchin and Moore, along with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, last week introduced the...

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey was holding a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday. Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment to go to Venezuela. Authorities detected the equipment during a search of 22 containers labeled "tractor parts," Tosun said. They were brought to Mersin by trucks from neighboring Iran, he said. Turkey's Interior Ministry said an investigation was under way....

The household cleaning agent chlorine, in heavy concentration is purchased by Iran and and fitted with detonators, to provide President Bashar Assad with a vehicle for cheating on his undertaking to surrender Syria’s chemical arsenal under the year-old US-Russian chemical disarmament accord. And Assad is indeed getting away with using chlorine bombs, with crippling effect, especially on children, every few days. On April 7, Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon offered chapter and verse to prove that the Syrian army had perpetrated a chemical attack on civilians in he town of Harasta on March 27, causing scores of serious injuries and...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- All expanded polystyrene products used for packaging food products, including foam carriers, could be banned from all Maryland food businesses if pending legislation is passed in the General Assembly this session. The legislation, sponsored in the House by Delegate Brooke Lierman, D-Baltimore, will prohibit a person or business from selling or providing food in an expanded polystyrene food service product beginning Jan. 1, according to a Department of Legislative Services fiscal analysis. The bill, which has also been cross-filed in the state Senate, also bans the sale and use of loose fill packaging.

While initial reports indicated that the smell originated from a chemical plant, the source has yet to be definitively determined.

Rust remover, anyone? Or maybe a dash of cement with your meal? Swapping your “full-fat” Coke for a diet alternative might seem like the sensible, healthy thing to do. But think again. Last week, experts at Imperial College, London claimed sugar-free drinks won’t help you lose weight or avoid Type-2 diabetes. In fact, they could stimulate your appetite and make you gain weight. And worse, some sugar-free soda has ingredients you wouldn’t usually dream of consuming — chemicals found in rust remover, steel cleaner, and cement, albeit in tiny quantities. They also have ingredients that in high doses have been...

Just in time for the holidays, an industrywide shortage of canned whipped topping, such as Reddi-wip, appears to be looming after a fatal explosion at a Florida nitrous oxide plant in late August stunted the supply chain. Conagra Brands, the Chicago-based food manufacturer that makes Reddi-wip, confirmed Monday that its supply of nitrous oxide — a propellant for aerosol toppings — was affected by the blast. Spokeswoman Lanie Friedman said stores still have the product in stock, but supplies may be limited in the peak holiday season, when consumers are indulging in pies, hot chocolate and other desserts that call...

Imagine that I’m a mad scientist (or perhaps just a geneticist who doesn’t blink an eye while fiddling with nature’s design) and I want to see what happens when I introduce substantial genetic changes into a chimpanzee.In my experimentation, I double the chimp’s height, change it’s hair color to yellow, induce mutations to change eye color, give it the ability to see better at night, increase muscle strength in its lower body so that it can jump long distances, and several dozen other changes. The end result looks different, acts different, has changes in physiology, its capacity to tolerate heat,...

Freakish green snow blanketed the Russian Ural Mountains today - caused by pollution at a chrome factory. The disturbing emerald scene was caused by an 'accident' at a plant in Pervouralsk, in the industrial Chelyabinsk region, said officials. They insisted there was no danger to the health of locals. 'The accident today happened on a pipe between a pump and a cleaning station,' said a spokesman at Russian Chrome company. 'Some of the water pumped from under the ground went on the surface.'

The Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of toxic chemicals that will be the first reviewed under a recently enacted law that gives regulators increased authority to ban substances shown to endanger human health. […] The list includes such common chemicals as asbestos and trichloroethylene that have for decades been known to be hazardous, yet EPA lacked the legal authority necessary to ban their manufacture or use. …

A new study about aloe vera gel, used to treat sunburns and other skin issues, might make some consumers feel even more burned, especially those partial to store brand products. Bloomberg hired a lab to test various store brands, and it found the aloe gel sold at stores like Walmart, Target and CVS is lacking one important ingredient — aloe vera. The report said all of the brands listed aloe vera juice as a prominent ingredient but the three specific chemical markers that would indicate the presence of aloe were missing. The four gels Bloomberg tested were Walmart's 'Equate Aloe...

I am frankly shocked this information is not making front page news right now. Monsanto will do anything to bury this story… and as of right now, it’s working. Not a single mainstream media outlet has covered this appalling new report that shows millions of people being poisoned by a chemical that does not belong in our food. This chemical is ending up in processed foods like Cheerios, Ritz Crackers, and Oreos and being consumed by humans across the world. The health of millions of people is on the line and this news must go mainstream! That’s why I’m calling on every single one of you...

Classified documents obtained by the Al Arabiya network and released Thursday have revealed that the Syrian regime moved a chemical weapons stockpile with the help of Iran and knowledge of Russia. Furthermore, additional documents also reveal that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has also sought cross border cooperation with the State of Israel. The confidential files were acquired by Al Arabiya with the assistance of members of the Syrian opposition who refused to elaborate on how they got hold of the documents. Al Arabiya said it verified and authenticated hundreds of these documents and that it has decided to disclose the...

Chemotherapy warning as hundreds die from cancer-fighting drugs (cancer drugs may kill up to 50 % patients) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/30/chemotherapy-warning-as-hundreds-die-from-cancer-fighting-drugs/ Sarah Knapton, Science Editor 30 August 2016 Patients should be warned about the dangers of chemotherapy after research showed that cancer drugs are killing up to 50 per cent of patients in some hospitals. For the first time researchers looked at the numbers of cancer patients who died within 30 days of starting chemotherapy, which indicates that the medication is the cause of death, rather than the cancer. In Milton Keynes the death rate for lung cancer treatment was 50.9 per cent,...

Pollution, pesticides and fast food is killing our children, with new government statistics revealing that the number of youngsters diagnosed with cancer has risen by 40% over the past 16 years. Analysis compiled by researchers from the charity Children with Cancer UK found new cases of cancer in young people rose by 1,300 every year since statistics were last compiled in 1998. The charity found this is most evident in colon cancer, which has increased by 200%, and thyroid cancer, which has seen its cases doubled during the 18 years since the last report was released. […] Alasdair Philips, science...

On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers. Death came suddenly to Dorchester County, S.C. Stressed insects tried to flee their nests, only to surrender in little clumps at hive entrances. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested that colony collapse disorder was not the culprit — in that odd phenomenon, workers vanish as though raptured, leaving a living queen and young bees behind. Instead, the dead heaps signaled the killer was less mysterious, but no less devastating. The pattern matched acute pesticide poisoning. By one estimate, at a single apiary — Flowertown...

The researchers studied acetaminophen use in nearly 7,800 women living in Bristol, England, and then surveyed these women seven years later about their child’s behavior. They found that compared to women who did not take the drug during pregnancy, acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with a variety of behavioral issues in children. Compared to the children of women who did not take the drug, children of women who did take acetaminophen had a 42 percent increased risk of conduct problems, a 31 percent increased risk in hyperactivity disorders and a 29 percent increased risk in emotional problems in their...

RIO DE JANEIRO — Olympics officials on Saturday gave what they said was a definitive explanation why the water in two competition pools turned green this week. Someone, the officials said, mistakenly added 160 liters of hydrogen peroxide on Aug. 5, neutralizing the chlorine and allowing the growth of “organic compounds” that might have included algae. On Saturday, the water in the diving pool was still a murky bottle-green color, while the water in the second pool, used for water polo and synchronized swimming, had begun to look a bit lighter and a bit bluer. Athletes have been complaining that...