Connecticut

When negotiations over legislation to reform the 39-year-old Toxics Substance Control Act (TSCA) broke down this past fall, among the major points that remained unresolved were how a revised TSCA would treat state and other local chemicals management regulations and how – and under what timelines – the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would prioritize chemicals for safety review. As of early this year, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate have issued statements about their commitment to produce a bipartisan bill. Chemical industry trade associations and…

You wanted it. You've been pestering me about it for days now. So now you've got it. You might be surprised at what I say about it though. I realize that I've written time and time again about children with cancer who refuse chemotherapy in favor of quackery. It's been one of the recurring story types that I've blogged about because, depressingly, such stories are not uncommon. It began with Katie Wernecke and Abraham Cherrix several years ago, the latter of whom is still around but was continuing to battle recurrences of his Hodgkin's lymphoma when last we revisited his case nearly two…

Apotropaic magic is designed to ward off or control evil. In vampire fiction, as well as in real life in cultures that include a belief in vampires, apotropaic objects might be crucifixes, cloves of garlic, etc. Apotropaic methods are known to have been used in burials. In the photograph above, a sickle blade has been placed across a person's neck at burial time, probably to keep them from reanimating and becoming all vampiry (Individual 49/2012 (30–39 year old female) with a sickle placed across the neck, from the paper cited below.) Some people have believed that a regularly occurring…

Student guest post by Kyle Malter In many areas of the country there is a vile blood sucker that lurks in our forests, our parks and even our backyards.  What concerns us is not what this creature takes but rather what it leaves in our body after it bites us:  corkscrew shaped bacteria called spirochetes and with the name Borrelia burgdorferi.  When the bacteria invade our bodies and cause problems along the way we call it Lyme disease. It is Lyme, not “Lymes” disease, and here’s how it got that name. In the early 1970’s a large number of cases emerged involving children with a “bulls-eye”…

You've likely already seen this story all over the news: Chimp's owner calls vicious mauling 'freak thing' STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The owner of a 200-pound chimpanzee that viciously mauled a Stamford woman calls the incident "a freak thing," but says her pet was not a "horrible" animal. Sandra Herold told NBC's "Today Show" in an interview aired Wednesday that Travis, her 14-year-old chimpanzee, was like a son to her. Herold tried to save her friend by stabbing the chimp with a butcher knife and bludgeoning it with a shovel. I have extremely strong emotions concerning this particular issue…