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The scourge of PowerPoint

I'm currently at a meeting in Europe and listening to -- really looking at -- scientific papers. I say "looking at" because they all are using PowerPoint, the scourge of modern day lecturing. Don't get me wrong. I use PowerPoint, too. Everyone uses PowerPoint. It is so easy to make nice looking slides and modifying them at the last minute is also easy-- I have been known to do it on the fly while sitting on a panel waiting to give my own paper, we are almost forced to use them. In fact if you have 35 mm slides these days you are likely out of luck as the meetings no longer provide 35 mm…

WHO Director General race

As promised, we have the full slate (13) of those running for Director General of the World Health Organization: Dr. Kazem Behbehani (Kuwait); Dr. Margaret Chan (China); Dr. Julio Frenk (Mexico); David Gunnarsson (Iceland); Dr. Nay Htun (Myanmar); Dr. Karam Karam (Syria); Dr. Bernard Kouchner (France); Dr. Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi (Mozambique); Dr. Shigeru Omi (Japan); Dr. Alfredo Palacio (Ecuador); Pekka Puska (proposed by Finland); Elena Salgado (Spain) and Dr. Tomris Turmen (Turkey). (Canadian Press) The CP story (no byline but likely Helen Branswell) also tells us the Executive Board (see…

Coming out [Blogging the Origin]

Hi! My name is John. I've got a PhD in evolutionary biology, and I've spent much of the past decade writing about evolutionary ideas, as applied to everything from literary criticism, to language, to anti-terror policy, and even on occasion to biology. And I've got a confession - I've never read the Origin of Species. Do I shock you? Good. I am not proud of this (really, I'm not), but if my professional life has been less stellar than it might have been, it's not for want of reading Darwin. Here's why. Darwin was working at the dawn of biology. He had none of the specialist knowledge and…

Blogging for University Honors Credit. A Success - I think. [Of Two Minds]

I'm currently teaching Introduction to Psychology which has a number of university honors students who are required to do extra work in a certain number of their courses each semester in order to get 'honors credit.' The University leaves it up to me as to what they students should do to get this credit. I decided, along with my students, to let them explore the psychological literature through blogging. Each week they pick a relevant piece of literature (in this case - aggression, attractiveness, and political psychology) and write a short blog post about it. I've found the blog to be a…

Twitter is clean, expressive and human

Twitterers of the world. We've all heard the questions. The murmurs. The doubts and whispers. "Twitter is a waste of time," they say. "People are just talking about what they ate for breakfast, or what their dog is doing." "No good can come of it, no way to spend work time, turning us all into ADHD cases." The mother of all social media doubter articles came out a little while back, The New York Time's Bill Keller on The Twitter Trap: I don't mean to be a spoilsport, and I don't think I'm a Luddite. I edit a newspaper that has embraced new media with creative, prizewinning gusto. I get that…

What One Hardy Papaya Can Tell Us About Ending World Hunger

This Op-Ed just published today in the NY TImes. Here it is with links and a few edits. A REPORT by the National Research Council last month gave ammunition to both sides in the debate over the cultivation of genetically engineered crops. More than 80 percent of the corn, soybeans and cotton grown in the United States is genetically engineered, and the report details the "long and impressive list of benefits" that has come from these crops, including improved soil quality, reduced erosion and reduced insecticide use. It also confirmed predictions that widespread cultivation of these crops…

I had no idea I was so fluent in German

I was interviewed by humanistischer pressedienst about the New Atheism and American politics and religion. I am amazingly erudite auf Deutsch, so much so that I can only read what I said with considerable effort. OK, I confess—the interview was in English, and it's the fluency of the interviewer we ought to praise. I've put the original text below the fold for those of us who'd rather not read slowly with the aid of a dictionary. 1. You received quite a number of threads, even death threads, for mistreating a cracker that supposedly contained the body of Jesus. You never really made the…

Power Players: Why We Need More Scientists as Public Policy Makers

By USA Science & Engineering Festival Founder Larry Bock The answers to some of the biggest challenges facing us this century lie waiting to be discovered in the laboratories and institutions of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. But we must remember, scientists do not operate in a vacuum in such endeavors. Increasingly, policy makers -- often working in the highest seats of government -- are playing an important role in the research discovery scenario, including deciding which projects to fund, and assuring that scientific discoveries and their resulting impacts are sound…

How Big is Biotech?

A simple web search says biotech is really big. One estimate indicates that the industry will have $400 billion in sales in 2017 with growth to over $775 billion by 2024 [1]. Another report suggests there are over 77,000 employers [2]. That’s big, but is it real, and what you can do with this information? Worldwide locations of biotechnology employers.  Source Biotech-Careers.org   At Biotech-Careers.org we're interested in helping students and graduates of biotech programs at community and four-year colleges learn about the multitude of opportunities available in the biotech industry. To…

How does blogging about science benefit students?

Why should students blog about science?  Don't they have enough to do already? Last Thursday night I participated in a panel discussion about science blogging (see the video) at ScienceOnline Seattle (#scioSEA)(video) and mentioned that we have two students blogging for us at Bio-Link.  A question I saw afterward via Twitter, from @NurhafizPiers was this: what is the purpose of the blog for the student? I didn't get to answer the question Thursday night, so I'll answer now. We're doing an experiment.  My student bloggers and I are going to try and figure out if their blogs help them get jobs…

Things that go wrong in the lab

These are the real things that give nightmares to post-docs and graduate students. One thing that you don't learn, until you either do a research project in a lab or you start graduate school, is that science isn't really the straightforward cut and dry: we do this step, then we do this step; sort of field that you might imagine. You come to graduate school all bright-eyed and amazed, with the scientific method burned into your brain, only to find out that it's usually the little things that no one told you about that make the difference between productive experiments and a waste of time.…

While students do forensics, I dissect the class

The blood typing lab, part I. What went wrong? and why? Blood typing part II. Can this laboratory be saved? Those wacky non-major Zoo students are at it again! And this time they drew blood! Mike's undergraduate students learned about blood typing, a common tool of detectives and real crime TV. They did the classic blood typing lab, and by golly, they refused to parrot the correct answer on the test! The nerve! After all, he pretty much told them the answer and even used the exact same wording that was used on the test question. Why didn't the students just memorize it and…

San Francisco's New Bridge Leads to Biotechnology

Yet another Bio-Link blog post. The San Francisco bay area has experienced phenomenal growth in both the number of biotech companies and the need to find employees. But, no matter how many attractions entice potential employees to move to the Bay Area, they still face the problem of finding a place to live. Housing prices are, well, a bit startling to anyone from just about any other part of the country. This presents a dilemma for local companies. If there aren't enough trained people nearby, and you can't get people from elsewhere, what do you do? The City College of San Francisco may…

Does quarantine work for pandemic flu?

We've written here frequently about the ineffectiveness of quarantine for stopping the spread of influenza, but now a piece comes out in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that claims quarantine was an effective mitigation method for influenza in 1918. Time Magazine, for example, had an article with the headline: "Study: Quarantines Work Against Pandemics": To plan for the future, researchers in Michigan went straight to the past. Led by Dr. Howard Markel, director of the University of Michigan Medical School's Center for the History of Medicine, a team of public-health…

"Universal" flu vaccine enters Phase I trial

The first of the putative "universal" vaccines against influenza A is entering Phase I (small scale safety and efficacy) testing. Manufactured by UK vaccine company Acambis, the vaccine is designed to protect against a wide range of influenza A viruses of many subtypes and many strains. Here's the idea. The immune system mainly "sees" viral proteins on the outside of the virus. The most visible of these is the hamagglutinin (HA) protein which gives its initial letter to the H-subtypes like H5N1 and H3N2, etc. The other visible protein is the neuraminidase (NA) protein, the initial letter of…

How long do we shed flu virus?

CDC recommends (MMWR Recomm Rep. 2005 Jul 29;54(RR-8):1-40) hospitalized patients with influenza A be placed under standard and droplet isolation precautions for 5 days after the onset of their symptoms. This is based on studies of volunteers who received live attenuated flu vaccine drops in their noses. After 7 days only 1 of 18 were shedding virus. One might wonder if attenuated flu vaccine in healthy volunteers is the best way to estimate the length of viral shedding. A new paper of viral shedding in hospitalized elderly patients at the Mayo Clinic suggests it isn't. Sensitive methods for…

Local pandemic flu hotline: selling a good idea

CIDRAP had an interesting story about some Stanford undergraduates who designed a local pandemic flu hotline staffed by home-based volunteers. The idea emerged from a course in innovation and "entrepreneurship." The course was designed to teach students the rudiments of taking an idea of social utility and getting it implemented and they are fairly common. They give students a perspective on the many steps and obstacles between a good idea and a good product in the real world. But I sometimes wonder if they teach the right things. First the idea: The classes aim to teach students methods of…

History, ancient and not

It may seem to have nothing to do flyways for avian influenza virus, but bear with me. In 1962 there was another flyway that revealed Soviet missiles in Cuba: It was 0737 in the morning of Sunday 14 October 1962 when Major Richard Heyser began the crossing of Cuba in his U-2. He flew almost due north-on a course some 60 miles to the west of Havana and passed over the northerly beaches six minutes later. In that brief timespan be took 928 pictures, which covered a swath 75 miles wide. The resolution of his best shots was a matter of three feet. Once past the target, he headed for McCoy Air…

Gerald Ford and doing well by doing good (The Old Dope Peddler)

Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States and the only one not to be elected as either President of Vice President, isn't even in the ground yet but some of him is being resurrected. Over at Gristmill Dave Roberts has an excellent piece on Ford's 1975 State of the Union speech (complete with a long excerpt of the relevant part) where the former President worried over the country's loss of energy independence. In it he noted that America's surplus oil -- and its attendant ability to stabilize world oil prices and prevent the emergence of a petroleum cartel -- had vanished in 1970; we…

Pneumococcal vaccine

In William Osler's day (turn of the 20th century), pneumonia was called "the old man's friend," because it took the elderly away quietly and with relatively little fuss. It was most often caused by the pneumococcal organism, now called Streptococcus pneumoniae. When penicillin came on the scene in the mid 20th century, there was at last a treatment for pneumonia with this organism, but soon resistant strains developed. S. pneumoniae is a frequent resident of the human respiratory tract and usually causes no problems. But if it gets into the wrong place it can also cause sepsis, otitis media…

Ethics sting in Big Pharma country

As an academic epidemiologist I routinely do NIH funded research involving human subjects. That means my university must adhere to very strict regulations and guidelines for the protection of research subjects. Approval and monitoring of the ethical conduct of research funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), of which NIH is a part, was made a legal requirement in the 1970s following widespread abuses, of which the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study and the experiments by Nazi doctors were the most notorious. But less flagrant ethical breeches were widespread in medical research. I…

The right (or wrong) size for a committee: less than 20 but not equal to 8

New Scientist reporter Mark Buchanan has a fascinating article this week on "the curse of work." The title might be the least satisfactory thing about this examination of a new mathematical article that attempts to explain the inexplicable: "Parkinson's law", first published in an article of 1955, states: work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Is it more than just a cynical slogan? (Image: OJO Images/Rex Features) It is 1944, and there is a war on. In a joint army and air force headquarters somewhere in England, Major Parkinson must oil the administrative wheels of the…

Palin comparison, X: Biden and Palin on rape [Updated]

This is another in our Daily Dose of Sarah Palin, because even if John McCain didn't think it was that important to learn a lot about the person who might be the next President should some medical event befall the 72 year old cancer survivor should he be elected, most people want more information. Previous installments here. This story is all over the news today, so while I've had in in my back pocket for a few days, I decided to go with it along with everyone else: Palin and rape. Joe Biden is the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President. One of Biden's many accomplishments was the…

YouTube Demand letter: Criminal or just dumb and dumber?

Suppose you had a high priced lawyer who sent a notice to someone on your behalf certifying, upon pain and penalty of perjury, that the information in her notice was accurate but that it turned out it was nothing of the kind? And that the falsity of the statement would have been immediately evident to a large number of non lawyer lay people, much less a lawyer acting on behalf of the US government? It seems there are only two choices here: deliberate perjury (a serious crime); or the engagement on your behalf of seriously incompetent people (business as usual in this Administration). I'll let…

Bird flu in Pakistan, the picture at this point

If I knew for sure what was going on with the reported human bird flu outbreak in Pakistan's northwest border region I'd tell you. At this point it appears no one knows for sure -- not WHO, not CDC, not even the Pakistani authorities. The region where the cases are reported is near the Afghan border and is not under firm government control. The unsettled political situation merely adds to the usual confusion inevitable in the early days of any outbreak. We are all looking for a pandemic signal embedded in a lot of noise, difficult enough, but we don't even know what the signal sounds or looks…

Can you hear me now?

The Erectile Dysfunction (ED) drugs already carry the required warnings we know from our misspent youth: Warning: you can go blind doing this. Okay, it says you may experience sudden loss of vision. Same thing. Now a new warning is being added: Warning: it might make you hard -- of hearing: The impotence drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra will get prominent warnings on the risk of sudden hearing loss, U.S. regulators said. [snip] The FDA found 29 reports of sudden hearing loss in people who took the erectile dysfunction drugs since 1996. More than 40 million people worldwide have used the…

Sleep Schedules in Adolescents

Earlier this year, during the National Sleep Awareness Week, I wrote a series of posts about the changes in sleep schedules in adolescents. Over the next 3-4 hours, I will repost them all, starting with this one from March 26, 2006. Also check my more recent posts on the subject here and here... I am glad to see that there is more and more interest in and awareness of sleep research. Just watch Sanjay Gupta on CNN or listen to the recent segment on Weekend America on NPR. At the same time, I am often alarmed at the levels of ignorance still rampant in the general population, and even more…

A note tacked to the door

The lights are out at Effect Measure. It is closed and locked. No one is there any more. So consider this a note tacked on the door. I had always intended to leave it as a way to connect you with The Pump Handle and that's still its purpose. But now I feel compelled to add a thank you note as well. Shortly after publishing the final post I went off to my university's commencement. Of all the duties of a university faculty member, this is one of the nicest and happiest, the moment where we send our intellectual offspring into the world to do good on their own. The students who receive their…

Mental illness as a disability in the "healthy"

I don't write about mental health here, but not because I don't think it is of public health importance. It may be one of the most consequential and expensive maladies we have. It's not because I don't know anyone whose life it has touched. I know many. And it isn't because it is without intellectual interest. It may be one of the most difficult, entangled and ambiguous topics in public health. It is mainly because of lack of expertise on my part coupled with my attention being directed elsewhere. You can't write about everything and can't get up to speed on everything. Life is too short. But…

Open science, openly arrived at

As an academic researcher I don't write grant proposals for a living, although sometimes it feels like I do. I need grants to do my work, but I also need to get to work and I don't consider myself to be commuting for a living. Although sometimes it feels like I do. Having said that, low on my list of favorite things would be anything that required even more compliance paperwork for a grant proposal, but the National Science Foundation (NSF) is now about to spell out a new compliance paperwork requirement, and frankly I approve of it. In principle, at least, although I won't like doing it if…

Study examines effects of San Francisco paid sick leave policy, finds low-wage workers especially benefited

As paid sick leave policies gain momentum across the country, a new study finds that such policies do indeed improve worker morale and have little overall effect on employer profitability. Published in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the study examined the effects of a 2007 paid sick leave policy in San Francisco, which became the first U.S. jurisdiction to enact a paid sick leave ordinance. (A number of states and cities have followed San Francisco’s lead — most recently Massachusetts, which passed a statewide earned paid sick leave policy by ballot measure…

CDC: Ebola worsening in West Africa; little risk to general US population

Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, has been reported in humans since 1976, but the current epidemic of the disease – affecting Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone – is unprecedented. There is no vaccine or cure for Ebola, and in past outbreaks up to 90% of people confirmed to have the disease died (the case-fatality rate is closer to 60% this time). A WHO fact sheet gives a grim list of the symptoms: EVD is a severe acute viral illness often characterized by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by…

Studies: Students initially complained about healthier school food, but now it’s like totally not a big deal

Nearly two years ago, American schoolchildren began sitting down to healthier school lunches, thanks to new federal nutrition guidelines. Media reports of the nutrition upgrade weren’t terribly encouraging, with stories of unhappy kids, unhappy parents and politicians who think addressing childhood obesity is an example of the “nanny state.” However, recent research has found what most parents probably already know: Kids are pretty adaptable — they just need some time. First, a little background. With the 2010 passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act came the first major update to school…

OSHA gave me a reason to visit at Recovery.gov

Flashback to February 2009. The economy was in the tank. President Obama was marking his second month in office. Congress passed and the President signed H.R. 1, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,” which authorized $800 billion in government spending to stimulate the economy. $800 Billion is not chump change, and who would get the money was on people’s minds. The President understood “It’s your money. You deserve to know where it’s going and how it’s spent.” His answer: the Recovery.gov website, which launched on February 17, 2009. I never had a reason to visit the site…

Occupational Health News Roundup

At an appearance at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida last month, President Obama spoke about how the problems of stagnant wages and inadequate paid leave affect women workers: Today, more women are their family’s main breadwinner than ever before.  But on average, women are still earning just 77 cents on every dollar that a man does.  Women with college degrees may earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less over the course of her career than a man at the same educational level.  And that’s wrong.  This isn’t 1958, it’s 2014.  That’s why the first bill I signed into law was called the…

Industry has abandoned the dangerous practice; let’s seal the deal with an OSHA regulation

The Hartford Courant’s Dave Altimari and Matthew Kauffman reported recently on what has transpired since the February 2010 explosion at the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown, CT. Six workers were killed in the incident at the new, nearly-completed electric power plant. The Courant story’s headline says a lot: “4 Years After Deadly Plant Explosion: No Ban On Gas Blows, Fines Slashed.” It’s a must-read piece. The technical cause of the accident was Keystone Construction’s decision to use highly-pressurized natural gas to clean fine construction debris from the pipe structures. The term used to…

“Let’s find out what happened to make sure it never happens again"

[Updated (April 9, 2015) below] [Updated (July 21, 2014) below] That’s a common phrase offered by government officials after workers are killed on-the-job. It’s the sentiment shared yesterday by Labor Secretary Tom Perez in response to the January 20 incident that claimed the lives of Keith Everett, 53 and David Ball, 47. The worksite, International Nutrition, manufactures additives for livestock and poultry feed. Perez’s exact remark was: “There are many questions yet to be answered about what caused this disaster, but I am confident that the answers provided by federal, state and local…

Flavoring chemicals may taste yummy but still damaging lungs of workers making food

"I played by the rules. I worked to support my family. The unregulated industry virtually destroyed my life. These chemicals that are used on food in large-scale production must be tested, and proper instructions and labels supplied with their sale." Those were the words of Eric Peoples at a congressional hearing in 2007. He testified about his experience working at a food-manufacturing plant where he was exposed to flavoring chemicals including diacetyl. Those exposures led to severe lung damage. At the time of his testimony, Peoples was awaiting a lung transplant. Eric Peoples became one of…

Always with the Preps

The most important thing about the power outages in the mid-Atlantic is that no one expected them to be this bad, so no one was ready.  The storms on Friday were stronger than expected, so no one, including the power company, was prepared.  That meant that for 3 million homes, the loss of electricity was a total shock, arriving in the middle of a heat wave.  Almost a million households still lack power five days later. For many of those households, had this been a blizzard or a hurricane, bottles of water would have been purchased, gas cans filled up, prescriptions refilled,  pantries stocked…

Money, Class, Politics and Foster-Parenting

A superb article by Benjamin Dueholm in Washington Monthly about Foster Parenting and its connection to politics and a whole host of other things. Well worth a read: In a way that we never really anticipated, welcoming Sophia into our home led us into the wilderness of red tape and frustration navigated every day by low-income parents who struggle to raise children with the critical help of government programs. That same week, the office of the bone specialist who had treated Sophia's broken leg at the hospital tried to get out of scheduling her for an urgent follow-up appointment. Like many…

Sheet Mulching

Kate at "Living the Frugal Life" has a great post on the merits and techniques of sheet mulching in the garden. Since this has been the key to soil improvement (and we have dreadful soil) in our garden, I wanted to highlight it. Significant soil improvement is one of them. This isn't exactly surprising; it's routinely mentioned as the "other" benefit of the technique besides weed control. But knowing intellectually that it would help the soil didn't quite prepare me for the fat earthworms I've been coming across. They're not inordinately long as worms go, but they are rotund. Wider…

Are Dangly Things an Evolutionary Development to Limit Rape?

There's quite a bustle among my colleagues about the deficiencies of recent studies about whether X female thingie evolved as a strategy to prevent rape. My favorite such study is one that seems to think that the only critical thing that happens when women ovulate is that they might get raped. The (probably bullshit) increase in strength, for example, one study showed couldn't be part, say of making sex more fun, could it? Mike the Mad Biologist as always makes a cogent analysis of the general limits on that study while Greg Laden critiques speculation about tears being used to limpify…

Things I Have Learned Blogging at Science Blogs Part II: Mental Images Aren't Always Correct

It is funny, when you interact with people on the internet, you develop a mental image of them - or at least I do. And sometimes people look pretty much like you expect, but sometimes not. I've found this situation to be particularly acute at science blogs, where I rapidly developed strong mental images of my colleagues, only to find that most of them are totally different in real life (thanks Google for clueing me in) than the sense you get from their blogs (even their photos can be misleading). I'm not sure what the correct word for someone whose internet presence creates a mistaken…

Workplace safety ranked #1 labor standard

Just in time for the Labor Day holiday, the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC) released a study indicating 85 percent of workers rank safety on the job as their top labor standard. NORC's report, Public Attitudes towards and Experiences with Workplace Safety, assembled the results of dozens polls and surveys to assess public opinion about US labor standards and practices, such as minimum wage, maternity leave, paid sick days and overtime pay. Of the 1,461 workers surveyed in 2010, 85% gave "workplace safety regulations" the top rank: very important. Despite…

Recipe for Contaminated Meat

The Whole Foods chain is recalling fresh ground beef sold in several states between June 2 and August 6, 2008 after seven people in Massachusetts were sickened by E. coli 0157:H7 that was linked to the meat. Illnesses have also been reported in 11 other states, DC, and Canada. The meat came from Nebraska Beef, and was sold to Whole Foods by Coleman Natural Meats. In todayâs Washington Post, Annys Shin notes that this recall highlights a difference in the way USDA treats different cuts of meat: The ground beef that Whole Foods recalled was made using primal or intact cuts -- meat typically…

U.S. Slipping on Science

At a summit at the World Science Festival, panelists agreed that the U.S. is losing its stature as a leader in science. Panelists cited two reasons: diminished funding for research, and âa perceived high-level disdain for science.â Keith B. Richburg of the Washington Post explains: Speaking at a science summit that opens this week's first World Science Festival, the expert panel of scientists, and audience members, agreed that the United States is losing stature because of a perceived high-level disdain for science. They cited U.S. officials and others questioning scientific evidence of…

Preterm Births and Changing Minds

TIMEâs Laura Blue notes that the U.S. has an appalling rate of preterm births (we were ranked 30th in the world in 2005, behind Cuba and Poland) and that prematurity costs us around $26 billion a year â but, she tells us, researchers donât know why we have this problem. In many cases, thereâs an apparent cause â like the motherâs age or health status, the babies being multiples, or a caesarean-section delivery â but doctors still canât pinpoint a culprit in approximately 40% of preterm births. Blue highlights the work of Emory University researcher Dr. Alfred Brann, who uses a different…

Pandemic prep teachable moment

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure For years those concerned about the consequences of an influenza pandemic from an exceptionally virulent flu virus, like A/H5N1 ("bird flu") have despaired about motivating business, government and neighbors to take it seriously enough to make serious preparations. It's understandable. There's are a lot of potential catastrophes competing for our attention and while each can be made plausible if we can get someone to listen long enough, it's rare we can do this. As I said, too much competition. Now that a real life influenza pandemic has arrived,…

Erin Brockovich Revisited: New Evidence Linking Cancer with Chromium in Drinking Water

The journal Epidemiology has just published new evidence that drinking hexavalent chromium -- also called chromium 6 -- increases risk of stomach cancer. The study is important for public health purposes, since many drinking water sources are chromium contaminated (including the water in the community in the movie Erin Brockovich). This new study is also the latest piece of a very ugly scandal that illustrates how polluters manufacture doubt to impede regulation. And this scandal is but one of several in which chromium polluters have manipulated epidemiologic studies to sow uncertainty -…

BP Texas City Victims Force Judge's Recusal

In late October, the Dept of Justice (DOJ) announced an agreement with British Petroleum (BP) on three outstanding criminal cases including violations of the Clean Air Act related to the March 2005 explosion at their Texas City refinery which killed 15 workers and injured 170 others.  We wrote here about the disparity in government fines for causing environmental damage compared to those killing and injury workers.  Now, Bloomberg.com is reporting that U.S. District Court judge Gray H. Miller, who was overseeing the DOJ/BP settlement has recused himself after victims accused him of …