Health: Body Burden (Pollution in Bodies)

Originally published in Yale Environment 360, Sonia Shah writes that in the past dozen years, three new diseases have decimated populations of amphibians, honeybees, and -- most recently -- bats. Increasingly, scientists suspect that low-level exposure to pesticides could be contributing to this rash of epidemics.

A three-year study of the nation's drinking water quality has found more than 200 unregulated chemicals in the tap water of 45 states.

U.S. minority infants are born carrying hundreds of chemicals in their bodies, according to a report released today by an environmental group.

The average British woman "hosts" 515 chemicals on her body every day, according to a new study.

Your body is probably home to a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. It’s a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies -- to the tune of six pounds per American per year. That’s a lot of estrogen.

One of the nation's most widely-used herbicides has been found to exceed federal safety limits in drinking water in four states, but water customers have not been told and the Environmental Protection Agency has not published the results.

The Disappearing Male is a documentary about one of the most important, and least publicized, issues facing the human species: the toxic threat to the male reproductive system. The last few decades have seen steady and dramatic increases in the incidence of boys and young men suffering from genital deformities, low sperm count, sperm abnormalities and testicular cancer. At the same time, boys are now far more at risk of suffering from ADHD, autism, Tourette's syndrome, cerebral palsy, and dyslexia. The Disappearing Male takes a close and disturbing look at what many doctors and researchers now suspect are responsible for many of these problems: a class of common chemicals that are ubiquitous in our world. Found in everything from shampoo, sunglasses, meat and dairy products, carpet, cosmetics and baby bottles, they are called "hormone mimicking" or "endocrine disrupting" chemicals and they may be starting to damage the most basic building blocks of human development.

Tapped, a new documentary about the bottled water industry from director Stephanie Soechtig and the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car?, is a pretty damning look at how consumers have been tricked into spending too much money on water packaged in plastic and quite often not as clean as what’s available from the faucet.

Here are some tips to help you steer clear of hidden toxins that masquerade as safe products.

Air fresheners, disinfectants, and cleaners found under your sink are more dangerous than you think.