The whole world is Fukushima'd.....

Fukishima nuclear disaster update.

Fukushima Medical Care Provider: Hospital president says people will be healthier after radiation exposure from triple meltdowns — “There is no argument allowed”

Post-Fukushima, Japan’s irradiated fish worry B.C. experts
The numbers show that far from dissipating with time, as government officials and scientists in Canada and elsewhere claimed they would, levels of radiation from Fukushima have stayed stubbornly high in fish. In June 2012, the average contaminated fish catch had 65 becquerels of cesium per kilo. That’s much higher than the average of five Bq/kg found in the days after the accident back in March 2011, before cesium from Fukushima had spread widely through the region’s food chain. In some species, radiation levels are actually higher this year than last.

Asahi: Fukushima nuclear disaster is affecting every region of the world – Japanese Professor

Yum yum

Eyeless shrimp, fish with oozing sores... enjoy your ocean and your seafood courtesy of BP.

BP poisoned the Gulf. Life there is still suffering.

A study of 32 dolphins were

underweight, anaemic and suffering from lung and liver disease, while nearly half had low levels of a hormone that helps the mammals deal with stress as well as regulating their metabolism and immune systems.

Mercury is delicious

The Republicans would like you to have more.

Even more shocking...

Roundup: Birth Defects Caused By World's Top-Selling Weedkiller, Scientists Say

Round up the usual suspects?

Besides nuking your house or spraying with DDT

This may work on bedbugs....(my bold)

How to Build Your Own Bedbug Detector.

Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey have created a homemade bedbug trap using a plastic cat-food dish, an insulated jug and some dry-ice pellets. According to Wan-Tien Tsai, who reported her findings in December at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America, the dry-ice-and-thermos combo captured the bloodsucking critters in an infested apartment just as effectively as, if not more so than, equipment used by professional exterminators.

The most important part of this MacGyverized contraption is an insulated one-third-gallon jug--like the kind sold in camping-supply stores--filled with 2½ lb. of frozen carbon dioxide, which costs about $1 per lb. (and should be handled only with gloves). As the dry-ice pellets slowly evaporate, the open thermos spout lets the CO[subscript 2]--which falsely signals bedbugs that a breathing, blood-filled meal is nearby--seep out overnight. That's usually enough time to entice the nocturnal insects into the other key component of the trap: the overturned food-and-water dish on which the thermos sits. The bugs climb the outer surface of the dish, which can be scuffed with sandpaper for better traction, and get stuck in its moat, made slippery-smooth with a dusting of talcum powder.

This trap was designed to give consumers a cheap way to determine if they have--or, in many cases, still have--a bedbug problem that requires a proper extermination. Bedbugs have made a serious comeback in North America over the past few years, especially in big cities like Toronto and San Francisco.

This would be wonderful if it works. I'm still getting hits and the occasional argument in favor of bringing back DDT. Which would really make Rachel Carson turn in her grave.

Getting the toxins out

Of the Bush government, of our children's toys. Start with this petition from Sierra Club:

Parents, local health departments, and children's health advocates have lost faith in the federal government's ability and commitment to protect children from lead poisoning. If the Consumer Product Safety Commission had the tools it needed to do inspections, then we could guarantee safer toys for our children. I call for the immediate resignation of Acting CPSC Chair Nancy Nord and nomination of a Chairperson and Commissioner with proven leadership on consumer product safety issues. We need more inspectors in the field and more testing of the products we buy for our children.

One by one, we will hunt down the incompetent cronies of the Bush administration and demand they resign or actually start doing their jobs. We demand accountability.

Remember what was allowed into the United States under the Bush administration:

Date rape drug:



Lead:





Anti-freeze:



Formaldehyde in baby clothes:



Poisons in pork and fish:



Melamine in both human and pet food:




And the reaction of the Bush administration? To try and hinder inspections, try and close half of the FDA's laboratories, and tell the American public that holding China to account would hurt the economy.

We demand accountability.

OMG! The toys weren't enough?

Now China is poisoning Cub Scouts!

Home testing lead kits don't work

On kid's toys.



You'd have to spend $25,000 for an industrial grade machine to make any difference:

Home testing kits are not reliable. If you want an accurate reading, be prepared to shell out $25,000 for an industrial grade scanner.

Don't believe us? How about the CPSC, EPA, and CDC? Oh, you hate the government and only trust the private sector? Fine, let's ask the makers of the home testing devices: "Vendors say that test kits are not intended to gauge lead levels but can be useful for parents." So what exactly do they do? "...they can empower the consumer and help parents rule out a product."

We're all for empowering consumers, but parents concerned about the dangers of lead poisoning should focus their fidgety need for action on the lead in old house paint - a significantly more potent and reliable source of danger to children. For now, testing for lead at home has all the use of digging up the backyard in search of gold, without the prospect of finding anything valuable.

China sends out bad clothing

Not bad fashions but infused with poisonous chemicals: (via Cookie Jill at skippy the bush kangaroo)

Poison in children's clothing is emerging as the latest health risk from China.

TV3's Target programme will this week detail how scientists found formaldehyde in woollen and cotton clothes at levels 500 times higher than is safe.

It questions why there are no New Zealand safety standards for clothes.

National Poisons Centre spokesman Dr John Fountain told the Sunday Star-Times the testing had highlighted an area where little was known in New Zealand about the effects tainted clothing would have on people.

However, international research supported by the World Health Organisation shows exposure to formaldehyde in concentrations of 20 parts per million (ppm) can cause eye, skin and nasal irritations, respiratory problems, asthma and cancer.

The European Union limits formaldehyde residues in children's clothes to a maximum of 30ppm. The chemical is used to give a permanent press effect to clothes.

Consumers are advised to wash and air all clothes before they are worn for the first time.

Toys from China have toxic amount of lead

Via whig at Cannablog and Meghann Marco at The Consumerist:

1.5 million Thomas & Friends wooden train sets have been recalled due to toxic levels of lead. The toys were sold in toy stores and at various retailers nationwide from January 2005 through June 2007 for between $10 and $70.

If your kid has any of the above-pictured toys, you should take the toy away immediately and contact the manufacturer for a replacement at: recalls.rc2.com.

Super rats: immune to poisons

Are appearing in Europe and in North America:

The first poison of this type was called warfarin, which became available in 1953. It has many advantages, but also one decisive disadvantage: Just a few years after its introduction, rats capable of surviving their warfarin snack showed up in Scotland. The population's DNA had mutated so that blood coagulation was not affected by the poison. Today, resistant brown rats exist in several parts of Europe as well as in North America. Many of these rats are immune to both warfarin and some of the more recently developed agents.

"We've discovered the mutants in some areas of Germany as well," says Hans-Joachim Pelz from Germany's Federal Biological Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry. The area where resistant rats are thought to live stretches from the northern edge of the Ruhr area to southern Emsland in the Lower Saxony region. Its western edge extends into the Netherlands. "That was the extent of our knowledge at the end of the 1990s, at least," says Pelz. The super-rats have continued to spread since then, and rats resistant to commonly used poisons have now also been found in Hanover and Hamburg.

It is all part of their ingeeeeeenious plan! Today the sewers, tomorrow the world! Muhahahaha!

Update May 3, 2009:

The British Pest Control Association (BPCA) is calling on the Government to allow the use of more powerful pesticides to contain Britain's growing rodent population.

It is estimated that their numbers have swelled by 13 per cent in the past year to more than 50 million, one for every person living in England.

Infestations in some towns and cities have reportedly doubled in the past 12 months. Exeter council has seen a 66 per cent rise in vermin call-outs in 2008, while there was a 40 per cent rise in Salford.

The BPCA says the situation has also escalated in two Berkshire towns, which it has not named, because the local rat population is now almost completely resistant to the standard poisons.

[snip]

Pest control experts want the law changed so that two powerful rodenticides, brodifacoum and flocoumafen, can be applied outdoors. Currently their use is only allowed inside properties.

Other EU countries allow the use of the powerful poisons outside, but there is concern this endangers birds and pets.

Rats and mice are capable of spreading more than 35 diseases, including a fever inducing nausea and muscle aches passed to humans either via a bite or the rodent's urine.