News Articles
| NIGERIA: Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it by John Vidal, The Guardian (UK) May 30th, 2010 With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. More oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the current BP/Transocean oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. |
| WORLD: Disaster Plans Lacking at Deep Rigs by Ben Casselman and Guy Chazen, Wall Street Journal May 17th, 2010 Dealing with a deep-sea spill is a a problem that spans the industry, whose major players include Chevron Corp, Royal Dutch Shell and Petróleo Brasileiro SA. Without adequately planning for trouble, the oil business has focused on developing experimental equipment and techniques to drill in ever deeper waters, according to a Wall Street Journal examination. |
| US: U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits by Ian Urbina, New York Times May 13th, 2010 The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf. |
| US: BP touts itself as 'green,' but faces PR disaster with 'BP oil spill' by Paul Farhi, Washington Post May 6th, 2010 Ever careful of its public image, BP has been careful not to invoke its name in regard to the massive ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "We refer to it as Gulf of Mexico response," said Andrew Gowers, the company's spokesman. The name of a disaster can be critical, both as a historic matter and the more immediate matters of image, public relations and legal liability. |
| US: FBI Probes Explosion in West Virginia Mine by Kris Maher and Siobhan Hughes, Wall Street Journal April 30th, 2010 The Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting a criminal probe of the deadly explosion at a Massey Energy Co. mine in West Virginia in early April that killed 29 miners, according to people familiar with the matter. In a statement on Friday Massey Energy said, "Massey has no knowledge of criminal wrongdoing." |
| CANADA: Munk takes on mine protesters, defends capitalism by John Spears, The Star April 28th, 2010 Mark Ekepa journeyed from Papua New Guinea to tell the shareholders of Barrick Gold Corp. how police had burned down his house near the Barrick’s Porgera mine. Idolia Bornones travelled from Chile to say that Barrick operations are damaging local glaciers and rivers. But Barrick chairman Peter Munk was unrepentant as he faced the company’s annual meeting. |
| US: Deaths at West Virginia Mine Raise Issues About Safety by Ian Urbina and Michael Cooper, New York Times April 6th, 2010 Rescue workers began the precarious task Tuesday of removing explosive methane gas from the coal mine where at least 25 miners died the day before. The mine owner’s -- Massey Energy Company -- dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, left federal officials and miners suggesting that Monday’s explosion might have been preventable. |
| CHINA: Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively by Keith Bradsher, New York Times December 26th, 2009 Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. Most of these come from China. “In many places, the mining is abused,” said Wang Caifeng, the top rare-earths industry regulator at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China. |
| US/ECUADOR: New nonprofit uses Web to pressure Chevron by David A. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle November 16th, 2009 Retired retail executive Richard Goldman was astonished when he heard about the $27 billion pollution lawsuit against Chevron Corp. in Ecuador. SO he has created a nonprofit group, Ethos Alliance, that will use social-networking tools to spread word of the case and put pressure on Chevron. |
| UK: Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading by Ashley Seager, The Guardian (UK) November 5th, 2009 The world's carbon trading markets growing complexity threatens another "sub-prime" style financial crisis that could again destabilise the global economy, campaigners warn. In a new report, Friends of the Earth says that to date "cap and trade" carbon markets have done little to reduce emissions but have been plagued by inefficiency and corruption. |
| IVORY COAST: Trafigura offers deal to 31,000 Africans over dumped waste http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6837795.ece October 17th, 2009 British oil trader Trafigura has offered to settle a court case brought by 31,000 Africans who say that they were injured in the largest personal injuries class action mounted in an English court. The action resulted from the dumping of 400 tonnes of waste in the Ivory Coast by an oil tanker, the Probo Koala, in 2006 — one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history. |
| IVORY COAST: Trafigura offers deal to 31,000 Africans over dumped waste by Frances Gibb, The Times (London) October 17th, 2009 British oil trader Trafigura has offered to settle a court case brought by 31,000 Africans who say that they were injured in the largest personal injuries class action mounted in an English court. The action resulted from the dumping of 400 tonnes of waste in the Ivory Coast by an oil tanker, the Probo Koala, in 2006 — one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history. |
| US: E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection by Michael Moss, New York Times October 3rd, 2009 Tracing the chain of production of an E. Coli-contaminated hamburger made by Cargill, through interviews and government and corporate records obtained by The New York Times, shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe. |
| US: Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering by Charles Duhigg, New York Times September 12th, 2009 Violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found. Polluters include small companies, like gas stations, dry cleaners, and shopping malls. They also include large operations, like chemical factories, power plants, sewage treatment centers and one of the biggest zinc smelters, the Horsehead Corporation of Pennsylvania. |
| ECUADOR: Chevron Offers Evidence in Ecuador Bribery Case by Reuters, New York Times September 7th, 2009 On Monday Chevron said it gave Ecuadorean authorities evidence of a bribery scheme linked to a $27 billion environmental damages lawsuit against the oil company. Last week, the judge hearing the case, Juan Núñez, recused himself. The Amazon Defense Coalition said the recusal did not “change the overwhelming evidence against Chevron.” |
| FIJI: Fiji Water: Spin the Bottle by Anna Lenzer, Mother Jones August 17th, 2009 Obama sips it. Paris Hilton loves it. Mary J. Blige won't sing without it. How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool? |
| UK: Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant by Danny Fortson, Sunday Times (UK) July 19th, 2009 In Colchester, Essex, John and Alfred Donovan are compiling perhaps the world's largest dossier on Royal Dutch Shell, at royaldutchshellplc.com. It's an awkward position for Shell, this month crowned by Fortune magazine as the world’s largest company, as trying to shut the website down would draw even more attention to it. |
| UK: Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant by Danny Fortson, The Sunday Times (UK) July 19th, 2009 In Colchester, Essex, John and Alfred Donovan are compiling perhaps the world's largest dossier on Royal Dutch Shell, at royaldutchshellplc.com. It's an awkward position for Shell, this month crowned by Fortune magazine as the world’s largest company, as trying to shut the website down would draw even more attention to it. |
| TANZANIA: The human cost of gold: And a deadly price to pay This Day Tanzania June 30th, 2009 Villagers living near a gold mine owned and run by Canada’s Barrick Gold Corp. in Tarime District, Mara Region are demanding the immediate closure of the project, saying they are paying a deadly price for the mining activities in the area. |
| ECUADOR: Chevron's Amazon 'fake cleanup' trial United Press International June 25th, 2009 A report submitted this week to a court in Ecuador finding dangerous levels of contamination at oil wells Chevron says it cleaned up in the 1990s is expected to reinforce a fraud indictment against two Chevron lawyers in a $27.3 billion environmental lawsuit against the oil company. |
| NIGERIA: Shell to Pay $15.5 Million to Settle Nigerian Case by Jad Mouawad, New York Times June 8th, 2009 Royal Dutch Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle a case accusing it of taking part in human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, a striking sum given it has denied any wrongdoing. Ken Saro-Wiwa, Shell’s most prominent critic at the time in Nigeria, was hanged in 1995 by that country’s military regime after protesting Shell's environmental practices in the oil-rich delta, especially in his native Ogoni region. |
| INDONESIA: Scramble for coal assets in Indonesia by Sundeep Tucker and John Aglionby, Financial Times June 7th, 2009 Some of the world’s largest energy groups are scrambling to acquire coal mining assets in Indonesia as family-run conglomerates consider divestments to raise cash. Peabody Energy, the US coal miner, and Xstrata, the Anglo-Swiss miner, are believed to be among those interested. Industry analysts said Chinese, South Korean, Indian and Middle Eastern companies were also scouring Indonesia for assets. |
| FINLAND: In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble by James Kanter, New York Times May 28th, 2009 As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site. The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. But things have not gone as planned. |
| ECUADOR: In Ecuador, Resentment of an Oil Company Oozes by SIMON ROMERO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS, New York Times May 14th, 2009 Texaco, the American oil company that Chevron acquired in 2001, once poured oil waste into pits used decades ago for drilling wells in Ecuador's northeastern jungle. Texaco’s roughnecks are long gone, but black gunk from the pits seeps to the topsoil here and in dozens of other spots. These days the only Chevron employees who visit the former oil fields do so escorted by bodyguards toting guns. They represent one side in a bitter fight that is developing into the world’s largest environmental lawsuit, with $27 billion in potential damages. |
| WORLD: When Chevron Hires Ex-Reporter to Investigate Pollution, Chevron Looks Good by Brian Stelter, New York Times May 10th, 2009 When Chevron learned that “60 Minutes” was preparing a potentially damaging report about oil company contamination of the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador, it hired a former journalist to produce a mirror image of the report, from the corporation’s point of view. An Ecuadorean judge is expected to rule soon on whether Chevron owes up to $27 billion in damages. |
| US: Oil Giants Loath to Follow Obama’s Green Lead by Jad Mouawad, New York Times April 7th, 2009 The Obama administration seeks the most ambitious transformation of energy policy in a generation. But Big Oil is not on board. Royal Dutch Shell said last month that it would freeze research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving “beyond petroleum,” has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program. The list goes on. |
| US: Online Age Quiz Is a Window for Drug Makers by STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, New York Times March 25th, 2009 RealAge, promising to help shave years off your age, has become one of the most popular quizzes on the Internet. The test asks 150 questions about lifestyle and family history to assign a “biological age." But then pharmaceutical companies pay RealAge to compile test results of RealAge members and send them marketing messages by e-mail. |
| US/CANADA: Alaskan lake’s fate could echo across continent by Todd Wilkinson, Christian Science Monitor March 24th, 2009 A landmark legal case now before the US Supreme Court holds huge implications for lakes across the continent. Nearly four decades the Clean Water Act was passed to protect waterways from industrial pollution, a proposal by Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. to dispose of tons of effluent in Alaska's Lower Slate Lake has sparked an international debate. |
| CHILE: Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water by Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times March 15th, 2009 Nowhere is the system for buying and selling water more permissive than in Chile, where water rights are private property, not a public resource, and can be traded like commodities with little government oversight or safeguards for the environment. The small town of Quillaga is being swallowed up in the country’s intensifying water wars. |
| US: Food Problems Elude Private Inspectors by Michael Moss and Andrew Martin, New York Times March 5th, 2009 When food industry giants like Kellogg want to ensure that American consumers are being protected from contaminated products, they rely on private inspectors. With government inspectors overwhelmed by the task of guarding the nation’s food supply, the job of monitoring food plants has in large part fallen to an army of private auditors, and problems are rife. |
| EUROPE: Europe to Allow Two Bans on Genetically Altered Crops by James Kanter, New York Times March 2nd, 2009 European Union governments delivered a blow Monday to the biotechnology industry, allowing Austria and Hungary to maintain national bans on growing genetically modified crops from Monsanto. The market for genetically engineered crops is worth several billion dollars worldwide. |
| US: Board cancels hearing under Bayer pressure by Ken Ward, Jr., The Charleston Gazette February 25th, 2009 The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has canceled a public meeting to brief local residents on its investigation of an August 2008 explosion that killed two Bayer Institute plant workers. Chemical plant security activists expressed shock; the meeting was also to discuss concerns about a methyl isocyanate tank located near the site of the deadly blast. |
| US/WORLD: Smokeless Tobacco to Get Push by Venture Overseas by Kevin Helliker, Wall Street Journal February 4th, 2009 Swedish Match AB and Philip Morris International Inc. announced a joint venture Tuesday to market smokeless tobacco world-wide. The venture combines a world-wide giant in smokeless, Swedish Match, with the world's second-largest purveyor of cigarettes, PMI, an Altria Inc. spinoff. |
| US: Tobacco Trial Opens in Florida, First of Many Suits by Associated Press, Wall Street Journal February 3rd, 2009 The first of about 8,000 lawsuits blaming the health problems and deaths of Florida smokers on tobacco companies went to trial Tuesday. The key to the case is proving whether now-deceased Stuart Hess was addicted to cigarettes made by Richmond, Va.-based Philip Morris, a unit of Altria Group. |
| US: Plant Shipped Tainted Products, F.D.A. Says by Reuters, New York Times January 27th, 2009 Peanut Corp. of America plant in Blakely, Georgia, identified as the source of an outbreak of salmonella, shipped out products that managers knew might have been tainted, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said on Tuesday. |
| US: New Rules on Doctors and Medical Firms Amid Ethics Concerns by Barry Meier, New York Times January 24th, 2009 The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, reintroduced in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, would require device and drug makers to report all financial links with doctors on a federal Web site. The medical field has been troubled by federal investigations over the issue of frequently undisclosed financial ties between companies and physicians. |
| US: Plant That Spilled Coal Ash Had Earlier Leak Problems by John M. Broder, New York Times January 8th, 2009 The chief executive of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the coal-burning power plant responsible for an enormous flood of coal ash in East Tennessee late last month, acknowledged Thursday that the plant’s containment ponds had leaked two other times in the last five years but had not been adequately repaired. |
| CHINA: Chinese Dairies Agree to Pay $160 Million to Tainted-Milk Victims by David Barboza , New York Times December 30th, 2008 The China Dairy Industry Association, blamed for selling contaminated milk that killed six children and sickened nearly 300,000 others earlier this year, has agreed to pay $160 million in compensation to the victims and their families. |
| US: Altria Ruling Ignites Legal Moves
by BRENT KENDALL, The Wall Street Journal December 21st, 2008 The Supreme Court's ruling last week allowing smokers in Maine to sue Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris unit for allegedly deceptive advertising of "light" cigarettes already is prompting new legal activity, including an effort to revive a multibillion-dollar case against the tobacco company that had been thrown out. |
| US/IRAQ: Indiana guardsmen sue defense contractor KBR by Farah Stockman, Boston Globe December 4th, 2008 Sixteen Indiana national guardsmen filed a lawsuit yesterday against military contractor KBR. The complaint alleges that several reservists contracted respiratory system tumors and skin rashes after guarding reconstruction work at the Qarmat Ali treatment plant, strewn with the toxin chromium dichromate. |
| WORLD: Workforce deaths at Shell higher than for other western oil groups by Ed Crooks, Financial Times December 1st, 2008 Royal Dutch Shell last year suffered more workforce deaths than any other large western oil company. Two employees and 28 contractors were killed working for Shell in 2007. Nine of last year's deaths were in Nigeria, with two people killed in attacks on Shell facilities, and 10 in Russia. |
| US: Research Center Tied to Drug Company
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times November 24th, 2008 Court documents reveal that Dr. Joseph Biederman, a renowned child psychiatrist, pushed Johnson & Johnson to fund a research center whose goal was “to move forward the commercial goals of J&J.” |
| US: Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times November 21st, 2008 An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular NPR program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. |
| CHILE: Nearly 2,000 Carrying H.I.V. in Chile Were Not Notified
by PASCALE BONNEFOY and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO , The New York Times November 13th, 2008 Chile’s health minister said Thursday that the country’s public health system had failed to notify at least 512 people that they were infected with H.I.V., and that private-sector services did not inform an additional 1,364 that they were carrying the virus, which causes AIDS. |
| US: More BP refinery doubts Journal Gazette October 7th, 2008 Smoke rises from the Whiting refinery now owned by BP. Federal regulators are questioning BP’s permit process. According to the EPA, the agency “now has information suggesting that BP may have begun a project to process Canadian crude oil at the refinery in 2005 without the proper permit.” |
| US: Eli Lilly settles Zyprexa inquiries in 32 states by TOM MURPHY and MARLEY SEAMAN, Associated Press October 7th, 2008 Drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co. cleared another legal cloud hanging over its top-selling drug Zyprexa when it announced a $62 million settlement Tuesday, but several other storms are still brewing for the antipsychotic medication. |
| IVORY COAST: Pollution trial opens in Ivory Coast Agence France Press (AFP) September 29th, 2008 The trial opened in Ivory Coast on Monday of 12 people charged with involvement in a 2006 toxic waste scandal which killed 17 Ivorians and poisoned thousands. |
| IVORY COAST: Ivory Coast workers can't sue firms in U.S. by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle September 25th, 2008 Ivory Coast plantation workers who claim they were sterilized by a U.S.-made pesticide can't sue the manufacturers and distributors of the chemical in the United States because they can't show the companies intended to harm them, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. |
| ARGENTINA: Is GlaxoSmithKline Behaving Badly in Argentina?
by AINA HUNTER, ABC News September 23rd, 2008 Michaela, a deceased 5 month old, is one of more than 13,000 Argentine children to participate in a clinical study implemented a little more than a year ago by the London-based GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-largest drug manufacturer. |
| US: Judge to Unseal Documents on the Eli Lilly Drug Zyprexa
by MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, The New York Times September 5th, 2008 A federal judge in Brooklyn decided on Friday to unseal confidential materials about Eli Lilly’s top-selling antipsychotic drug Zyprexa, citing “the health of hundreds of thousands of people” and “fundamental questions” about the way drugs are approved for new uses. |
| US: Altria Said to Be in Talks With Tobacco Maker UST
by ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and ANDREW MARTIN, The New York Times September 4th, 2008 Altria Group is in advanced talks to buy UST, the maker of the popular Skoal and Copenhagen smokeless tobacco brands, for more than $10 billion, people with close knowledge of the negotiations said late Thursday. The terms could not be learned. |
| US: U.S. Drug Ads Questioned
by KEITH J. WINSTEIN and SUZANNE VRANICA, The Wall Street Journal September 3rd, 2008 Consumer advertising for prescription drugs had a negligible impact on sales of products studied by Harvard Medical School researchers -- in a finding that may confound both advertisers and their opponents. |
| US: For Widely Used Drug, Question of Usefulness Is Still Lingering
by ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times September 1st, 2008 About the only point on which both sides agree is that no one can judge ezetimibe’s safety and benefits for certain without more data, ideally from a clinical trial covering more than 10,000 patients and lasting several years, long enough to show that the drug actually helps patients live longer or avoid heart attacks. |
| GLOBAL: Drug Makers’ Push Leads to Cancer Vaccines’ Fast Rise
by Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times August 19th, 2008 The lightning-fast transition from newly minted vaccine to must-have injection in the United States and Europe represents a triumph of what the manufacturers call education and their critics call marketing. |
| US: Files Show Governor Intervened With Court by Ian Urbina, New York Times August 13th, 2008 West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin III filed a friend-of-the-court brief in June, arguing the State Supreme Court should review a $382 million judgment against DuPont. The case involves thousands of residents in the area of a DuPont-operated zinc-smelting plant, and the largest civil penalty ever levied against the company, for the dumping of toxic arsenic, cadmium and lead at the plant. |
| US: WellCare to Restate Years of Results
by THEO FRANCIS, The Wall Street Journal July 22nd, 2008 By accounting for medical expenses improperly, the company said it failed to return about $46.5 million in premiums to state programs providing health care to low-income adults and children in Florida and Illinois, and understated liabilities by about $46 million. |
| FRANCE: Pipe Break Causes Leak
Of Uranium at French Plant
Associated Press July 21st, 2008 Uranium-bearing liquid has leaked from a broken underground pipe at a nuclear site in southeastern France, the national nuclear-safety authority said Friday in the second leak discovered at a French site this month. |
| US: Menthol Dose Manipulated, Study Says by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times July 17th, 2008 A new Harvard study claims that the tobacco industry in recent years has manipulated menthol levels in cigarettes to hook youngsters and maintain loyalty among smoking adults. The report could further inflame a controversy over menthol in pending tobacco legislation. |
| US: Psychiatric Group Faces Scrutiny Over Drug Industry Ties
by BENEDICT CAREY and GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times July 12th, 2008 Senator Charles E. Grassley, right, Republican of Iowa, is demanding that the American Psychiatric Association give an accounting of its financing from the pharmaceutical industry. |
| INDIA: Decades Later, Toxic Sludge Torments Bhopal by Somini Sengupta, New York Times July 7th, 2008 Residents of Bhopal, India continue to suffer from Union Carbide's toxic legacy, this time in the form of toxic waste that still languishes inside a shoddy warehouse on the old factory grounds. Ailments such as cleft palates and mental retardation are appearing in numbers of Bhopali children, raising questions about contaminated soil and groundwater, clean-up, and liability. |
| TOBACCO: Altria Drops New Filter Cigarettes, In Strategy Setback
by VANESSA O'CONNELL, The Wall Street Journal June 23rd, 2008 The nation's largest cigarette maker, Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA, has failed in yet another attempt to sell Americans on a potentially safer cigarette, pulling the plug on Marlboro Ultra Smooth, a version of Marlboro that used a high-technology filter. |
| US: U.S. Probe of Glaxo's Paxil Widens
by ALICIA MUNDY, The Wall Street Journal June 20th, 2008 A Justice Department investigation of GlaxoSmithKline PLC's handling of its blockbuster antidepressant drug Paxil, including its marketing and safety research, appears to be widening. |
| TOBACCO: FTC Counters Altria In 'Light' Cigarettes Case
by LAUREN POLLOCK, The Wall Street Journal June 20th, 2008 The Federal Trade Commission is asking the Supreme Court to reject Altria Group Inc.'s argument that only that agency can regulate cigarette advertising, saying such an interpretation mischaracterizes the FTC's "scope and effect" on the issue. |
| US: Justices Turn Down Appeal by Exxon
REUTERS June 17th, 2008 The Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear an appeal by Exxon Mobil seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by 11 Indonesian villagers. |
| US: Mannatech Settles Holder Suits
by SUZANNE SATALINE, Wall Street Journal June 13th, 2008 Dietary-supplements maker Mannatech Inc. said it settled several lawsuits with shareholders who accused the company of using improper sales tactics to boost the value of the stock. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: S Africa bans Aids vitamin trials BBC News June 13th, 2008 A South African court has banned unauthorised trials of vitamin therapies for Aids, which some say are a health risk. |
| EUROPE: Chemical Law Has Global Impact by Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post June 12th, 2008 Europe this month rolled out new restrictions on makers of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems. The changes follow eight years of vigorous opposition from the U.S. chemical industry giants like DuPont, and the Bush administration. |
| TOBACCO: Profits in Hand, Wealthy Family Cuts Tobacco Tie
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times June 11th, 2008 Now, the next generation of Tisches has removed tobacco from the portfolio of the conglomerate they lead, the Loews Corporation, spinning off its tobacco unit, Lorillard, as a stand-alone business, with the Newport brand representing more than 90 percent of the new company’s revenue. The new stock began trading Tuesday, and analysts have said the new company might be a takeover target. |
| US: Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay
by GARDINER HARRIS and BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times June 8th, 2008 A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators. |
| US: Calstrs May Remove
Ban on Tobacco Stocks
by CRAIG KARMIN, The New York Times June 5th, 2008 In a move that could reverberate throughout the fund industry, the nation's second-largest pension fund is considering lifting a nearly eight-year ban on tobacco investments. |
| US: Walgreen to Pay $35 Million
To Settle Drug-Switch Charges
by HEATHER WON TESORIERO, Wall Street Journal June 4th, 2008 Walgreen Co. has agreed to pay $35 million to settle allegations that it improperly switched customers to more expensive forms of pills paid for by Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor. |
| US: Bush administration files nuclear dump application by H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press June 3rd, 2008 Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday he's confident the government's license application to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada will "stand up to any challenge anywhere." |
| US: Tyson Pulls Antibiotic-Free Label
by LAUREN ETTER, Wall Street Journal June 3rd, 2008 Under pressure from regulators and competitors, Tyson Foods Inc. withdrew its antibiotic-free chicken label awarded by the Agriculture Department barely a year ago. |
| US: Former Colo. nuke plant contractors ordered to pay $925M AP June 3rd, 2008 Two companies that worked as contractors with the now-defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant have been ordered to pay $925 million to residents who claimed that contamination blown from the facility endangered people's health and devalued their property. |
| US: Exxon investors reject green initiatives by Andrew Clark, The Guardian May 29th, 2008 The world's biggest oil company emerged bruised but victorious from a bust-up with the billionaire Rockefeller family yesterday as an effort to foist green initiatives on ExxonMobil failed to capture wholehearted support from shareholders. |
| US: Express Scripts to Pay $9.5 Million
To Settle Drug-Swapping Allegations
by ANDREW EDWARDS, The Wall Street Journal May 27th, 2008 Pharmacy-benefits manager Express Scripts Inc. agreed Tuesday to pay $9.5 million to settle allegations that the company asked doctors to switch drugs primarily to get bigger rebates from pharmaceutical companies. |
| US: Medtronic Settles a Civil Lawsuit on Allegations of Medicare Fraud by MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, The New York Times May 23rd, 2008 A unit of Medtronic defrauded Medicare of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a civil lawsuit that was unsealed Thursday and simultaneously settled with the Justice Department. |
| US: Merck Agrees to Settlement Over Vioxx Ads
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times May 21st, 2008 The drug maker, Merck & Company, has agreed to pay $58 million as part of a multistate settlement of accusations that its ads for the once-popular painkiller Vioxx deceptively played down the health risks. |
| US: Slaughter Ban Is Implemented
On Cows Too Sick, Weak to Stand
by Associated Press, Wall Street Journal May 20th, 2008 Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer announced Tuesday a total ban on meat plant slaughter of cows too sick or weak to stand. |
| NETHERLANDS: Nigerians seek damages from Shell over pollution by Arthur Max, Business Week May 14th, 2008 Four Nigerian villagers and the environmental group Friends of the Earth are demanding Shell take responsibility for damage from oil leaks caused by its Nigerian subsidiary, lawyers said Wednesday. |
| CHINA: In China City, Protesters See Pollution Risk of New Plant by Edward Wong, New York Times May 6th, 2008 Residents took to the streets of Chengdu to protest a $5.5 billion ethylene plant under construction by PetroChina, reflecting a surge in environmental awareness by urban, middle-class Chinese determined to protect their health and the value of their property. |
| US: Court Orders Tyson to Suspend Ads For Antibiotic-Free Chicken by Annys Shin, Washington Post May 2nd, 2008 Poultry giant Tyson Foods has 14 days to dismantle a national multimillion dollar ad campaign centered on the claim that its chickens are raised without antibiotics, a federal appeals court in Richmond ruled yesterday. |
| US: Drug Makers Near Old Goal: A Legal Shield
by GARDINER HARRIS and ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times April 6th, 2008 The Bush administration has argued strongly in favor of the doctrine, which holds that the F.D.A. is the only agency with enough expertise to regulate drug makers and that its decisions should not be second-guessed by courts. The Supreme Court is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted. |
| US: Reynolds Ads Oppose Move to Regulate Tobacco
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times April 1st, 2008 As legislation moves through Congress that would empower the F.D.A. to regulate the tobacco industry, Reynolds, whose brands include Camel cigarettes, is attacking what it views as the bill’s vulnerability: a weak, overextended F.D.A. |
| CHILE: Salmon Virus Indicts Chile’s Fishing Methods
by ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO, The New York Times March 27th, 2008 The new virus is spreading, but it has primarily affected the fish of Marine Harvest, a Norwegian company that is the world’s biggest producer of farm-raised salmon and exports about 20 percent of the salmon that come from Chile. |
| US: Cigarette Company Paid for Lung Cancer Study
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times March 26th, 2008 Prominent cancer researchers and journal editors, told of the foundation by The Times, said they were stunned to learn of Dr. Henschke’s association with Liggett. |
| AFGHANISTAN: Missing: The £5bn aid needed to rebuild lives by JEROME STARKEY AND ROSS LYDALL, The Scotsman March 25th, 2008 Vast sums of aid are lost in corporate profits of contractors and sub-contractors, which can be as high as 50 per cent on a single contract. A vast amount of aid is absorbed by high salaries, with generous allowances, and other costs of expatriates working for consulting firms and contractors. |
| US: Study says diesel emissions raise cancer risk by Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer, The San Francisco Chronicle March 20th, 2008 The analysis by the California Air Resources Board, released Wednesday night, shows that the greatest health dangers related to toxic air emissions stems from diesel trucks traversing the freeways and other roadways around West Oakland and the Port of Oakland. |
| US: Eli Lilly E-Mail Discussed Unapproved Use of Drug by ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times March 17th, 2008 John C. Lechleiter, an Eli Lilly official who is about to become the company's top executive, wrote an e-mail message in 2003 that appears to have encouraged Lilly to promote its schizophrenia medicine Zyprexa for a use not approved by federal drug regulators. |
| IRAQ: KBR Faulted on Water Provided to Soldiers by Dana Hedgpeth, The Washington Post March 11th, 2008 U.S. soldiers at a military base in Iraq were provided with treated but untested wastewater for nearly two years by KBR, the giant government contractor, and may have suffered health problems as a result, according to a report released yesterday by the Pentagon's inspector general. |
| US: Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a 'Clean' Fuel by BRENDA GOODMAN, The New York Times March 11th, 2008 The spills, at the Alabama Biodiesel Corporation plant outside this city about 17 miles from Tuscaloosa, are similar to others that have come from biofuel plants in the Midwest. The discharges, which can be hazardous to birds and fish, have many people scratching their heads over the seeming incongruity of pollution from an industry that sells products with the promise of blue skies and clear streams. |
| US: Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label
by ANDREW MARTIN, The New York Times March 9th, 2008 A new advocacy group closely tied to Monsanto has started a counteroffensive to stop the proliferation of milk that comes from cows that aren’t treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone. |
| CHINA: Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China by Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post March 9th, 2008 The Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co. of Henan, China, is a green energy company, producing polysilicon for solar energy panels. But the byproduct -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards. |
| US: In Shift, Ashcroft to Testify on Oversight Deal by Carrie Johnson, The Washington Post February 26th, 2008 Former Attorney General John D. Ashcroft agreed last night to appear at a House hearing to discuss his lucrative arrangement overseeing a medical equipment company, averting a showdown with committee members who had planned to meet today to authorize a subpoena. |
| US: Court Considers Protecting Drug Makers From Lawsuits
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times February 26th, 2008 Less than a week after issuing a sweeping ruling that bars most lawsuits against medical device makers, the Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in the first of two cases that could determine whether drug makers receive similar protection. |
| US: Pfizer to End Lipitor Ads by Jarvik
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times February 26th, 2008 Under criticism that its ads are misleading, Pfizer said Monday that it would cancel a long-running advertising campaign using the artificial heart pioneer Robert Jarvik as a spokesman for its cholesterol drug Lipitor. |
| US: Inside the world of war profiteers
by David Jackson and Jason Grotto|Tribune reporters, Chicago Tribune February 21st, 2008 Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand. |
| GLOBAL: 2 Reports At Odds On Biotech Crops by Rick Weiss, The Washington Post February 14th, 2008 Dueling reports released yesterday -- one by a consortium largely funded by the biotech industry and the other by a pair of environmental and consumer groups -- came to those diametrically different conclusions. |
| CHINA: China Plant Played Role In Drug Tied to 4 Deaths
by ANNA WILDE MATHEWS and THOMAS M. BURTON, The Wall Street Journal February 14th, 2008 A Chinese facility that hasn't been inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made the active ingredient in much of the widely used Baxter International Inc. blood-thinner that is under investigation after reports of hundreds of allergic reactions and four deaths among the drug's users, the agency said yesterday. |
| US: UnitedHealth Faces Suit Over Payment System
by VANESSA FUHRMANS and THEO FRANCIS, The Wall Street Journal February 13th, 2008 The New York attorney general said his office plans to sue UnitedHealth Group Inc. as part of a broader investigation into the way the health insurance industry sets payment rates for hospitals and doctors outside of their networks. |
| US: Committee Investigates Ad Tactics for Lipitor by Stephanie Saul, New York Times February 8th, 2008 A Congressional investigation revealed that Pfizer agreed to pay Dr. Jarvik $1,350,000 as a celebrity pitchman for the heart drug Lipitor, and wants to know how much stunt doubles in the ads may have also been paid. |
| US: Drug Ads Raise Questions for Heart Pioneer
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times February 7th, 2008 Celebrity advertising endorsements are nothing new, of course. But the Lipitor campaign is a rare instance of a well-known doctor’s endorsing a drug in advertising — and it has helped rekindle a smoldering debate over whether it is appropriate to aim ads for prescription drugs directly at consumers. |
| US: Some Campuses Decide Tobacco Company Money Is ‘Tainted’
by ALAN FINDER, The New York Times February 4th, 2008 Across academia, universities and graduate schools are wrestling with whether to accept financing from tobacco companies for research or student activities. In the past few years, 15 public health and medical schools have turned away donations from the industry; McCombs’ move was unusual because of its longstanding ties to an array of corporations. |
| EL SALVADOR: "Life Is Worth More than Gold" Say Anti-Mining Activists by Raúl Gutiérrez, Inter Press Service (IPS) February 1st, 2008 Peasant farmers from the northern Salvadoran province of Cabañas fear that mining operations planned for the region will consume 30,000 litres of water a day, drawn from the same sources that currently provide local residents with water only once a week. |
| PERU: For Peru's Indians, Lawsuit Against Big Oil Reflects a New Era by Kelly Hearn, The Washington Post January 31st, 2008 Oxy is Occidental Petroleum, the California-based company that pulled a fortune from this rain forest from 1972 to 2000. It is also the company that Maynas and other Achuar leaders now blame for wreaking environmental havoc -- and leaving many of the people here ill. |
| CHINA: Tainted Drugs Tied to Maker of Abortion Pill
by JAKE HOOKER and WALT BOGDANICH, The New York Times January 31st, 2008 A huge state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company that exports to dozens of countries, including the United States, is at the center of a nationwide drug scandal after nearly 200 Chinese cancer patients were paralyzed or otherwise harmed last summer by contaminated leukemia drugs. |
| US: Altria to spin off foreign cigarette unit March 28 by Vinnee Tong, Associated Press January 31st, 2008 Altria Group Inc. said Wednesday it would spin off its international tobacco business on March 28, freeing it to pursue cigarette sales more aggressively without ties to its U.S. counterpart - and U.S. regulatory oversight. |
| US: McDonald’s Ending Promotion on Jackets of Children’s Report Cards
by STUART ELLIOTT, New York Times January 18th, 2008 McDonald’s has decided to stop sponsoring Happy Meals as rewards for children with good grades and attendance records in elementary schools in Seminole County, Fla. |
| US: Antidepressants Under Scrutiny Over Efficacy
by DAVID ARMSTRONG and KEITH J. WINSTEIN, Wall Street Journal January 17th, 2008 The effectiveness of a dozen popular antidepressants has been exaggerated by selective publication of favorable results, according to a review of unpublished data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. |
| EU: European Antitrust Regulators Raid Large Drug Makers
by STEPHEN CASTLE and JAMES KANTER, New York Times January 17th, 2008 Antitrust regulators on Wednesday raided big European drug makers as part of an investigation into whether patents and lawsuit settlements are being manipulated to keep generic products off the market. |
| US: Protests Greet Nuclear Power Resurgence in US South by Matthew Cardinale, IPS January 14th, 2008 Residents and environmental activists are in a bitter dispute with large U.S. energy corporations and the federal government over the safety of nuclear power, as more than a dozen corporations plan to, or have filed, paperwork to open new nuclear power plants, primarily in the U.S. South. |
| NIGERIA: Nigeria delays $44bn smoking case by BBC News, BBC January 14th, 2008 A court in Nigeria has adjourned a multi-billion dollar lawsuit brought by the government against three major tobacco firms until March. |
| NIGERIA: Inefficient Gas Flaring Remains Unchecked by Sam Olukoya, IPS January 10th, 2008 Some of the largest multinational oil companies in the world -- including the U.K. and Dutch owned Shell, the French company Total, and the American companies Mobil and Chevron -- are responsible for the bulk of the scores of gas flares burning in Nigeria. |
| US: Cloned Livestock Poised by Jane Zhang, John W. Miller and Lauren Etter, Wall Street Journal January 4th, 2008 After more than six years of wrestling with the question of whether meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to declare as early as next week that they are. The food industry appears to be divided over the issue. |
| US: Suit says IBM dumped chemicals in New York state
by Dan Wilchins and Philipp Gollner, Reuters January 3rd, 2008 Neighbors of a former IBM plant in New York state sued the company on Thursday, saying it released chemicals into the air, ground and water for nearly 80 years that caused birth defects and cancer. |
| US: Former miners oppose bond release by Nathan Blackford, Warrick Publishing Online January 2nd, 2008 Former miners do not want the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to release the final portion of a $4 million bond on a large section of the North Field at the Squaw Creek Mine. |
| EUROPE: Both Sides Cite Science to Address Altered Corn by Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times December 26th, 2007 A proposal made by Europe’s top environment official, to ban the planting of a genetically modified corn strain produced by companies like Syngenta and Monsanto, sets up a bitter war within the European Union. |
| INDIA: Many rescued child laborers in India soon back at another dismal job by Heidi J. Shrager, Chronicle Foreign Service December 23rd, 2007 A 2006 report by the Child Welfare Committee found that 12 of 22 children from a village in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar were re-trafficked, mostly to different states, within a year after being rescued from a Delhi hand-embroidery sweatshop. |
| CHINA/US: The Recalls’ Aftershocks by Louise Story and David Barboza, New York Times December 22nd, 2007 Toy makers are investigating whether they need to treat their tainted products with stabilization chemicals or if they must seal the toys in giant polyethylene bags. |
| CHINA: China Grabs West’s Smoke-Spewing Factories by Joseph Kahn and Mark Landler, New York Times December 21st, 2007 In its rush to re-create the industrial revolution that made the West rich, China has absorbed most of the major industries that once made the West dirty. |
| GLOBAL: Mining Firms Bulk Up, Echoing Big Oil Mergers by Patrick Barta and Robert Guy Matthews, Wall Street Journal December 18th, 2007 Mining are embarking on another round of deals that promises industry juggernauts with great influence over the cost of raw materials -- and, by extension, the price of consumer electronics, cars and new apartment blocks. |
| US: Producer of Poisonous Toy Beads Issues Apology by Keith Bradsher, New York Times November 29th, 2007 The Hong Kong company that manufactured millions of poisonous toy beads in mainland China issued a public apology on Thursday, with the chairman saying that it had not occurred to anyone to check whether an inexpensive glue ingredient in the beads would be dangerous for children to eat. |
| DRC: Six arrested in Congo radioactive dumping scandal by Joe Bavier, Reuters November 10th, 2007 Congolese authorities arrested six people in connection with the dumping of tonnes of highly radioactive minerals into a river near the southeastern town of Likasi. A report said some 17 tons of the minerals confiscated were destined for Chinese firm Magma. |
| US: Merck Agrees to Settle Vioxx Suits for $4.85 Billion by Alex Barenson, New York Times November 9th, 2007 Three years after withdrawing its pain medication Vioxx from the market, Merck has agreed to pay $4.85 billion to settle 27,000 lawsuits by people who claim they or their family members suffered injury or died after taking the drug. |
| US: Mom: Chemical-Laced Toy Made Son 'Drunk' by Dikky Sinn, Washington Post November 7th, 2007 Chemical on toy beads makes children sick. |
| US: Hearing on Beef Packaging Fails Activists' Smell Test by Rick Weiss, Washington Post October 30th, 2007 A congressional hearing on the use of carbon monoxide to keep meat looking fresh promises to be an odious affair. |
| US: Lessons Even Thomas Could Learn by David Leonhardt, NY Times October 24th, 2007 Toy manufacturer RC2 recalls toys due to lead content, replacing them with new lead-contaminated toys. |
| US: F.D.A. Panel Urges Ban on Medicine for Child Colds by Gardiner Harris, NY Times October 20th, 2007 A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted Friday to ban popular over-the-counter cold products intended for children under the age of 6. |
| US: V.A. Is Limiting Use of Diabetes Drug by Stephanie Saul, NY Times October 18th, 2007 The Department of Veterans Affairs has decided to severely limit the use of Avandia, the once-popular drug for Type 2 diabetes, delivering another blow to the product’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: Old perils resurface as trapped S African miners emerge alive by Alec Russell in Carletonville, Financial Times October 5th, 2007 Old perils resurface as trapped S African miners emerge alive. |
| US: 77 multi-million dollar suits filed against Monsanto by Chris Dickerson, WV Record October 5th, 2007 A Charleston attorney has filed more than 70 cancer lawsuits against Monsanto and related companies over its old plant in Nitro. |
| US: Cribs Recalled After Deaths of 2 Children by Michael M. Grynbaum, nytimes September 24th, 2007 One million cribs designed by Simplicity for Children, a manufacturer based in Pennsylvania, have been recalled after the suffocation deaths of at least two children, the government said yesterday. It was the company’s fourth recall in a little more than two years. |
| INDONESIA: Mr. Clean: Accused of Poisoning Indonesian Villagers, Rick Ness Tries to Prove His Innocence by David Case, Mother Jones magazine September 10th, 2007 Ever since Rick Ness was accused of contaminating pristine Indonesian water, he's been spending a million a month to convince the world that he's innocent. And once you meet him, you'll want to believe him. |
| US: FTC: Milk Ads Not Misleading by Sam Hananel, Guardian (UK) August 28th, 2007 Federal regulators have turned down a request from Monsanto Co. to take action against dairy companies that advertise milk as free of synthetic hormones. |
| US: Lead found in more baby bibs? Bibs sold in Toys R Us, Babies R Us questioned
by Anna Marie Kukec, Daily Herald August 16th, 2007 A California consumer group said Wednesday it has filed a legal action against Toys R Us and Babies R Us for selling vinyl baby bibs said to contain high levels of lead. |
| INDIA: Novartis Patents Case Far From Dead by Praful Bidwai, Inter Press Service News Agency August 9th, 2007 Cancer patients in India have reason to be relieved at a high court ruling this week which dismissed a petition by Swiss pharmaceuticals multinational corporation (MNC) Novartis challenging an Indian law which denies patents for minor or trivial improvements to known drugs. |
| INDIA: Setback for Novartis in India Over Drug Patent by Amelia Gentleman, The New York Times August 7th, 2007 Indian companies will be free to continue making less expensive generic drugs, much of which flow to the developing world, after a court rejected a challenge to the patent law on Monday. |
| US: Lawmaker Calls for Registry of Drug Firms Paying Doctors by Gardiner Harris, New York Times August 4th, 2007 An influential Republican senator says he will propose legislation requiring drug makers to disclose the payments they make to doctors for services like consulting, lectures and attendance at seminars. |
| WORLD: We must count the true cost of cheap China by Richard McGregor, Financial Times August 2nd, 2007 In the wake of the multiple scandals over tainted Chinese food and drug exports in recent months, Chinese goods now have an indelible image of being not just cheap, but life-threatening as well. But the fact that wrongly labelled foods, liquor and pharmaceuticals have routinely sickened and even killed people en masse in China has been largely overlooked. |
| US: Mattel Recalls One Million Toys by Louise Story , New York Times August 2nd, 2007 Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, is recalling nearly one million toys in the United States today because the products’ surfaces are covered in lead paint. According to Mattel, all the toys were made by a contract manufacturer in China. |
| CHINA: Thomas & Friends Toy Maker Discusses Lead Paint Problem by Louise Story , New York Times July 26th, 2007 Since the toy manufacturer RC2, discovered lead paint on a Thomas train in April, it has tried to strengthen its safety safeguards in China. |
| US: FDA Panel to Review Avandia by Jennifer Corbett Dooren, The Wall Street Journal July 26th, 2007 The Food and Drug Administration will ask a panel of outside medical experts Monday whether it thinks GlaxoSmithKline PLC's diabetes drug Avandia should remain on the U.S. market. |
| US: Drug Safety Critic Hurls Darts From the Inside by Stephanie Saul, New York Times July 23rd, 2007 An activist doctor emerges as the nation's unoffical ariter of drug safety by digging deep into companies' clinical data. At the same time, he presides over industry-financeed research worth millions of dollars. |
| US: 3 Executives Spared Prison in OxyContin Case by Barry Meier, The New York Times July 20th, 2007 After hearing testimony from parents of young adults who died from overdoses involving the painkiller OxyContin, a federal judge Friday sentenced three top executives of the company that makes the narcotic to three years' probation and 400 hours each of community service in drug treatment programs. |
| NIGERIA: Pfizer wins early Nigeria battle BBC News June 26th, 2007 A Nigerian court has refused to allow more cases to be added to a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical giant accused of improper drugs trials on children. |
| INDONESIA: Mud Volcano Sullies Top Investment Firms
by Emad Mekay, Inter Press News Service (IPS) June 21st, 2007 Environmental campaigners are urging several heavyweight investment firms, including Credit Suisse, Barclays, Fortis Group and Merrill Lynch, to shoulder some responsibility for a catastrophic mud volcano on the Indonesian island of Java that resulted from a gas project the firms helped fund. |
| MALAYSIA: Death of a Migrant Worker by Anil Netto, Inter Press Service News Agency June 19th, 2007 False promises of good pay and healthy working conditions fed to Indian migrant workers in Malaysia have led to destitution, physical abuse, and now, it seems, death. |
| COLUMBIA: Studies Find DNA Damage from Anti-Coca Herbicide by Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service News Agency June 16th, 2007 U.S.-funded aerial spraying of coca plantations in Colombia near the Ecuador border has severely damaged the DNA of local residents, a new study has found. |
| WORLD: Food Firms Accused of Pushing Toddler Milk by Bellinda Kontominas, Sydney Morning Herald June 9th, 2007 Food and drug companies are using aggressive marketing tactics similar to those used in the tobacco industry to circumvent advertising bans on infant formulas and sell milk drinks to parents. |
| CHILE: Chile Must Pay US$5.4 Million to Aricans Living Amid Toxic Waste
by Mike Hager, The Santiago Times June 1st, 2007 In a landmark case, Chile’s Supreme Court ruled this week that the state must compensate 356 residents of two slums in the northern mining city of Arica for health problems brought on by years of exposure to open deposits of toxic waste. Promel, the Swedish company responsible for the importation of the toxic materials, cannot compensate the plaintiffs because the company no longer exists. |
| US: Bristol-Myers to Pay Fine Agence France Presse May 31st, 2007 Bristol-Myers Squibb has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $1 million criminal fine for lying to the government about a patent deal on its blood-thinning drug Plavix, officials said Wednesday. The Justice Department said in a statement that the company’s actions had threatened to reduce competition for the drug, one of the best-selling prescription medications worldwide. |
| NIGERIA: Pfizer Faces Criminal Charges in Nigeria by Joe Stephens, Washington Post May 30th, 2007 Officials in Nigeria have brought criminal charges against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for the company's alleged role in the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic. |
| THAILAND: Holding Big Pharma's feet to the fire by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service May 17th, 2007 For nearly a week, the advertising pages of Thai- and English-language dailies have been the stage for debates on Thailand's decision to break patents on anti-AIDS drugs in the interest of public health. A lobby championing the cause of the powerful pharmaceutical companies ran full-page spreads in the morning newspapers with an eye-catching warning in large, bold text, which said: "The Wrong Prescription for Thailand". |
| US: Another Chemical Emerges in Pet Food Case by DAVID BARBOZA, The New York Times May 9th, 2007 A second industrial chemical that regulators have found in contaminated pet food in the United States may have also been intentionally added to animal feed by producers seeking larger profits, according to interviews with chemical industry officials here. |
| INDONESIA: Jakarta launches appeal in case against Newmont Mining Corp Reuters May 8th, 2007 Indonesian prosecutors have launched the first stage of an appeal after Newmont Mining Corp’s Indonesian unit was cleared in a high-profile pollution case two weeks ago, a court official said yesterday. |
| BRAZIL: Brazil to break Aids drug patent
BBC May 4th, 2007 Brazil's president has authorised the country to bypass the patent on an Aids drug manufactured by Merck, a US pharmaceutical giant. |
| US: KFC to tell customers of chemical in potatoes by Tim Reiterman, The Los Angeles Times April 25th, 2007 To resolve a suit by the state attorney general, the maker of Kentucky Fried Chicken agreed Tuesday to tell its California customers that its fried or baked potatoes contain a suspected carcinogen. |
| CANADA: UN Body Holds Canada Responsible for Corporations’ Actions Abroad by Mark Cherrington, Cultural Survival April 10th, 2007 In a groundbreaking decision, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has told Canada that it must rein in Canadian corporations operating on Indian land in the United States. |
| US: Gore needs a greener Apple by Marc Gunther , CNN Money April 3rd, 2007 Environmental groups tell Al Gore to push the computer maker to improve its practices and limit its impact on the environment. |
| CHILE: Water clash at Chile copper mine by Jane Chambers, BBC News March 26th, 2007 A dispute over water rights has hit one of Chile's largest copper mines, Los Pelambres. |
| BURMA: Natural Gas Project Threatens Human Rights Human Rights Watch March 24th, 2007 South Korean, Indian Investments May Lead to Complicity in Abuses |
| US: World Bank raps Exxon over Chad by Lesley Wroughton, Reuters March 22nd, 2007 The World Bank has told an Exxon Mobil-led consortium to take corrective action to fully compensate farmers in southern Chad who lost land and their livelihoods as the U.S. company expands its search for oil in the Doba basin. |
| US: Doctors’ Ties to Drug Makers Are Put on Close View by Gardiner Harris, The New York Times March 21st, 2007 Dr. Allan Collins may be the most influential kidney specialist in the country. He is president of the National Kidney Foundation and director of a government-financed research center on kidney disease. |
| PERU: Human Rights Commission May Examine Violations at La Oroya, Peru Earthjustice Legal Fund and CIEL March 21st, 2007 Public health and environmental organizations from throughout the Western Hemisphere today announced the filing of a petition with the human rights division of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. The petition accuses the Peruvian government of doing little to halt contamination from a metallurgical complex that is impacting the lives and health of the citizens of La Oroya, Peru. |
| US: Lockheed: Health care data off-limits by Donna Wright, Bradenton Herald March 1st, 2007 Spokeswoman says she misunderstood company's policy on free medical plan |
| HONDURAS: Protests Mount Against Mining Giant by Stephen Leahy, Mines & Communities February 24th, 2007 Dangerous levels of lead and arsenic have been found in the blood of Honduran villagers living downstream from a controversial gold and silver mine owned by Canada's Goldcorp Inc., the world's third largest gold mining firm. |
| CHINA: China's besieged factories: Activists aim to expose unscrupulous labor practices to shame companies by Craig Simons, Atlanta Journal-Constitution February 14th, 2007 Lei Huang could be a poster child for China's laboring classes. For each 60-hour week he works on an assembly line for Foxconn, a manufacturer of electronics and computer parts in this south China manufacturing hub, he earns $32 and a bunk in a dormitory room with 19 other laborers. |
| NIGERIA: Oil Spill Displaces 10 Ijaw Communities
by Emma Arubi, Vanguard (Lagos) February 13th, 2007 CHEVRON'S Abiteye flow station oil spill of over 1,500 barrels of crude has rendered over 10 Ijaw communities and 500 hundred persons homeless in Gbaramatu kingdom in Warri South West local government area of Delta State. |
| JAMAICA: Dust, stench and claim of impotence: Pollution killing us, say communities near bauxite plants - Firms insist waste not toxic by Karyl Walker, Jamaica Observer February 11th, 2007 The approximately US$400 million earned by the bauxite sector last year means nothing to Sandra McLean and other residents of districts surrounding the Alumina Partners of Jamaica (Alpart) refinery in Nain, St Elizabeth. |
| NIGERIA: Corruption and Misuse Robs Nigerians of Rights Human Rights Watch January 31st, 2007 Human Rights Watch Report: Rivers State, Nigeria Local Governments Squander Oil Revenues Instead of Funding Health, Education |
| UK: Campaigners urge Shell to put profits into clean-up by Terry Macalister, Guardian (UK) January 31st, 2007 Record annual profits to be announced by Shell tomorrow should be used towards paying off a bill estimated at more than $20bn (£10bn) for the damage caused by its oil activities to local communities and the wider environment, according to an alliance of human rights and green groups including Friends of the Earth (FoE). |
| INDIA: Novartis challenges India's patent law by Matthew Allen, Swiss Info January 29th, 2007 A court case brought by Swiss drugs giant Novartis in India could define how the industry distributes discount medicine to the developing world while maintaining profits. |
| BRAZIL: Enslaved workers make charcoal used to make basic steel ingredient by Michael Smith and David Voreacos, Seattle Times January 21st, 2007 Enslaved workers make charcoal used to make basic steel ingredient |
| US: US farming watchdog accuses Wal-Mart of mis-selling by Stephen Foley in New York, Independent (UK) January 21st, 2007 Wal-Mart, the controversial retailing giant, is under investigation in the US over allegations it is trying to pass off non-organic foods as organic. |
| US: Nicotine boost was deliberate, study says by Stephen Smith, Boston Globe January 18th, 2007 Data supplied by tobacco companies strongly suggest that in recent years manufacturers deliberately boosted nicotine levels in cigarettes to more effectively hook smokers, Harvard researchers conclude in a study being released today. |
| UK: Chief's Departure Ignites Criticism of BP's Structure and Environmental Policies by Heather Timmons, New York Times January 16th, 2007 Poor management and cost-cutting created a dangerous work environment at oil giant BP, according to a report released today based on hundreds of interviews with employees. |
| UK: UK class action starts over toxic waste dumped in Africa by John Vidal, Guardian (UK) January 8th, 2007 Lawyers will today begin preparing the ground for one of the largest class actions heard in the UK over 400 tonnes of allegedly highly toxic waste dumped in the Ivory Coast from a cargo ship chartered by a London-based company. |
| UK: Probe after workers burned in toxic leak The Northern Echo January 5th, 2007 Dozens of workers at a Teesside chemical plant received hospital treatment after suffering burns and breathing difficulties following a leak of 4.5 tonnes of toxic chemicals. |
| US: Exxon Mobil's biggest oil spill is in Brooklyn, not Alaska by Matthew Leising, Bloomberg January 4th, 2007 The biggest oil spill Exxon Mobil has to answer for is not the cargo that gushed from the Exxon Valdez tanker into Alaska's Prince William Sound. It is the fuel that soaked into the ground beneath a working class section of Brooklyn, New York. |
| US: Toxic Teflon: Compounds from Household Products Found in Human Blood by Stan Cox, Alternet January 2nd, 2007 DuPont and other companies use those synthetic compounds to make an extraordinarily wide range of products, including nonstick cookware (e.g, Teflon), grease-resistant food packaging (e.g., microwave popcorn and pizza boxes), stain-resistant fabrics and carpets (e.g., Stainmaster), shampoos, conditioners, cleaning products, electronic components, paints, firefighting foams, and a host of other artifacts of modern life. |
| ASIA: Asian Govts Push Generic Drugs by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service December 18th, 2006 In moves that are winning them praise, two South-east Asian governments -- in Thailand and the Philippines -- appear determined to push ahead with plans to provide cheaper generic drugs even if they incur the wrath of pharmaceutical giants. |
| UK: Renowned cancer scientist was paid by chemical firm for 20 years by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian (UK) December 8th, 2006 A world-famous British scientist failed to disclose that he held a paid consultancy with a chemical company for more than 20 years while investigating cancer risks in the industry, the Guardian can reveal. |
| US: Apple gets low score in Greenpeace e-waste report by Jim Dalrymple, Macworld December 6th, 2006 Environmental group Greenpeace on Wednesday issued the first quarterly update on the technology industry’s performance on environmental issues. While the group recognized many companies are improving Apple does not appear to be among them — Apple remains in last place. |
| GHANA: Ghana's gold inflicts heavy price by James Haselip, People and the Planet December 6th, 2006 Gold mining is Ghana�s most valuable export industry: in 2005, US$1.4 billion worth of gold was shipped from the country, dwarfing the value of its other major foreign currency earners - timber and cocoa. However, very little of the gold revenues stay in the country while damage to the physical environment by both large and small-scale mining is inflicting an incalculable cost to the economy with vast tracts of farming land permanently ruined, forests destroyed and water resources diverted and polluted. |
| PHILIPPINES: Banana firm bars DoH team from proving chemical poisoning by Jeffrey M. Tupas, Inquirer (PHIL) December 1st, 2006 Experts from the Department of Health (DoH) were denied entry Thursday by the management of the Tagum Agricultural Development Corporation, Inc. (Tadeco) to the company-owned hospital in Panabo City where victims of toxic chemical inhalation from the nearby town of Braulio Dujali in Davao del Norte were confined. |
| WORLD: Safety of Nanotechnology Needs More Attention Environment News Service November 28th, 2006 The number of consumer products made with nanotechnology is exploding, with a 70 percent increase in the past eight months. While recognizing the value of these molecular-level advances, critics say the Bush administration is doing too little to ensure the safety of nanotechnology for workers and the public. |
| US: BLIGHTED HOMELAND: Mining firms again eyeing Navajo land by Judy Pasternak, The Los Angeles Times November 22nd, 2006 Decades after the Cold War uranium boom ended, leaving a trail of poisonous waste across the Navajo Nation, the mining industry is back, seeking to tap the region's vast uranium deposits once again. |
| US: Uranium mining could contaminate Goliad aquifer
by Joe Conger, KENS 5 Eyewitness News November 17th, 2006 Just a pound of uranium brings top dollar on the market and could help to wean the United States off its foreign oil dependence. However, opponents say it could threaten the environment around San Antonio. |
| US: The Package May Say Healthy, but This Grocer Begs to Differ by Andrew Martin, The New York Times November 6th, 2006 The chain, Hannaford Brothers, developed a system called Guiding Stars that rated the nutritional value of nearly all the food and drinks at its stores from zero to three stars. Of the 27,000 products that were plugged into Hannaford’s formula, 77 percent received no stars, including many, if not most, of the processed foods that advertise themselves as good for you. |
| US: Pfizer Drug Dealt Blow in Testing
by Alex Berenson, The New York Times November 1st, 2006 Pfizer said yesterday that clinical trials of torcetrapib — a heart medication that is the most important drug in the company’s pipeline — confirmed that it raises blood pressure, a potentially serious side effect. |
| NIGERIA: Niger Delta bears brunt after 50 years of oil spills by Jonathan Brown, The Independent (UK) October 26th, 2006 Up to 1.5 million tons of oil, 50 times the pollution unleashed in the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster, has been spilt in the ecologically precious Niger Delta over the past 50 years, it was revealed yesterday. |
| IVORY COAST: Ivorians to sue 'toxic ship' firm BBC News October 24th, 2006 A Dutch lawyer representing some 1,000 victims of toxic waste dumped in Ivory Coast says he is suing the company that shipped the waste there. |
| US: Unwanted Imports: Goods deemed toxic elsewhere shipped to U.S. Associated Press October 15th, 2006 Destined for American kitchens, planks of birch and poplar plywood are stacked to the ceiling of a cavernous port warehouse. The wood, which arrived in California via a cargo ship, carries two labels: One proclaims "Made in China," while the other warns that it contains formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical. |
| US: Copper Plant Illegally Burned Hazardous Waste, E.P.A. Says by Ralph Blumenthal, The New York Times October 11th, 2006 A bankrupt copper giant facing billions of dollars in pollution claims across the nation pretended for years to recycle metals while illegally burning hazardous waste in a notorious El Paso smelter, according to a newly released Environmental Protection Agency document. |
| INDIA: 80,000 coal belt families face evacuation Statesman News Service October 10th, 2006 As many as 80,000 families living near the Jharia mine in Dhanbad coal belt face relocation. Officials say the coalfield area is, in effect, sitting on a “giant fireball deep inside the earth,” after they discovered at least six underground leaks of toxic fumes. Experts fear massive underground explosions followed by subsidence occuring at any moment. |
| US: Harvard Researcher Forced Bayer to Disclose Drug Toxicity Study by Justin Blum and Eva von Schaper, Bloomberg October 6th, 2006 Bayer AG's disclosure last week of a study showing that a promising medicine has deadly side effects came only after a Harvard drug safety expert told U.S. regulators that the research existed. |
| US: Oil Companies Settle Fuel Violations for $1.5 Million Environment News Service October 6th, 2006 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached a $1.5 million settlement with BP and Shell for alleged violations of the motor vehicle fuels provisions of the federal Clean Air Act. |
| US: Doe Run ordered to clean up tailings site by Cheryl Wittenauer, Associated Press October 2nd, 2006 The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Doe Run Co. to clean up a mine tailings site in Leadwood, saying negotiations failed to produce a settlement. |
| US: Dump site back on Superfund list
by Laura Incalcaterra, The Journal News September 27th, 2006 Pollutants dumped by Ford Motor Co. and others have led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to restore the Ringwood mines and landfill to the Superfund National Priorities List of the country's most-contaminated sites. |
| US: Tobacco firms to face US class action over 'light' cigarettes by Simon Bowers, The Guardian (UK) September 26th, 2006 Leading tobacco firms in the US, including British American Tobacco, are to face a class action lawsuit seeking punitive damages of up to $200bn (£105bn) relating to the alleged fraudulent promotions suggesting "light" branded cigarettes are safer, or less addictive, than regular ones. |
| US: Tobacco Makers Lose Key Ruling on Latest Suits by David Cay Johnston and Melanie Warner , The New York Times September 26th, 2006 In a legal blow to the tobacco industry, a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that people who smoked light cigarettes that were often promoted as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes can press their fraud claim as a class-action suit. |
| IVORY COAST: Toxic dumpers face jail term Reuters September 24th, 2006 SUSPECTS charged in connection with the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast, which killed seven people and made thousands ill, could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted, a Justice Ministry official said. |
| IVORY COAST: Waste Headed for a Third World Bin by Julio Godoy, Inter Press Service September 21st, 2006 The Panamanian flagged ship Probo Koala unloaded more than 550 tonnes of toxic waste at Abidjan port in C- te d'Ivoire a month back. Emissions from that toxic waste have killed seven people and poisoned thousands. |
| PERU: Leaching Out the Water with the Gold by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service (IPS) September 20th, 2006 The conflict that brought operations at Yanacocha, Latin America's largest gold mine, to a halt just a month after President Alan García took office in Peru was merely the latest illustration of the tensions between mining companies and local communities in the northern province of Cajamarca. |
| IVORY COAST: Ivory Coast Nabs 2 Execs in Dump Scandal Associated Press September 18th, 2006 Authorities arrested and charged two executives of a Dutch commodities company whose dumped toxic waste has caused seven deaths and widespread sickness in the Ivory Coast's largest city, a government official said Monday. |
| COLOMBIA: 'No' to Storm Sewer Runoff, Says Fishing Village by Constanza Vieira, Inter Press News Service September 14th, 2006 The residents of a picturesque fishing village in northern Colombia are up in arms against a storm drain system being built by a majority Spanish-owned water and sewage company that will serve shantytowns in the nearby port city of Santa Marta, discharging the runoff into the cove where their village is nestled. |
| Ivory Coast: More die from Ivory Coast waste BBC News September 12th, 2006 Six people have now died from the toxic waste dumped in the biggest Ivory Coast city, Abidjan, while 9,000 have sought treatment, the government says. |
| AFRICA: Toll jumps to 5,000 poisoned in Ivory Coast toxic waste scandal Agence France Presse September 10th, 2006 The human toll in Ivory Coast's toxic waste scandal rose sharply from 1,500 to more than 5,000 people contaminated by open-air dumping sites in Abidjan, the health ministry said. |
| US: Walking with purpose by Edward Marshall, The Journal September 5th, 2006 After 32 days and 380 miles of walking, Ed Wiley, a concerned grandfather of a Marsh Fork Elementary School student and grass roots activist, stopped in Shepherdstown Monday to speak with residents on his way to Washington where he hopes to meet with federal lawmakers. Wiley is on a mission to ensure the safety of the children in Sundial, W.Va., where their elementary school sits next to a coal preparation plant and just 400 yards downstream from a dam holding back over two billion gallons of toxic sludge. |
| WORLD: Private Sector 'Not the Answer to Poverty' by Philip Thornton, Independent (UK) September 1st, 2006 Rich countries must deliver more money directly to poor nations to avert a growing health and sanitation crisis spreading across the southern hemisphere, Oxfam will say today. |
| INDIA: Union Carbide Must Clean Bhopal Mess - Residents by Nityanand Jayaraman, Inter Press Service (IPS) September 1st, 2006 After an appellate court in the United States rejected claims by Bhopal city residents, seeking compensation from Union Carbide for environmental contamination around the site of the world's worst industrial disaster, plans are afoot to have the case transferred to India. |
| US: Schering-Plough Agrees To Plead Guilty, Pay Fine by Denise Lavoie, Associated Press August 30th, 2006 Schering-Plough Corp. on Tuesday agreed to pay $435 million and plead guilty to conspiracy to settle a federal investigation into marketing of its drugs for unapproved uses and overcharging Medicaid for certain drugs. |
| US: It's Not Easy Being Green: Are weed-killers turning frogs into hermaphrodites?
by William Souder, Harpers August 25th, 2006 In the summer of 1997, Tyrone Hayes, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, accepted what seemed a harmless offer to join a panel of eight other scientists investigating the safety of the common weed-killer atrazine. The panel had been commissioned by atrazine's inventor and primary manufacturer, the Swiss-based chemical giant then called Novartis and since renamed Syngenta. The company wanted to know if its product threatened “non-target” organisms, including fish, reptiles, and amphibians—creatures whose fate had remained largely unexplored through the half century in which atrazine had become the most heavily used herbicide in the United States as well as one of its most widespread environmental contaminants. |
| INDONESIA: Newmont Exec to Defend Himself in Court by Robin McDowell, Associated Press August 25th, 2006 An American gold-mining executive was preparing Friday to defend himself in court for the first time against charges his company dumped millions of tons of mercury and arsenic-laced waste into an Indonesian bay, sickening villagers. |
| PHILIPPINES: Lafayette test run cause of water contamination by Mark Ivan Roblas, The Manilla Times August 25th, 2006 GOVERNMENT officials and Greenpeace activists have discovered contamination of the waters on Rapu-Rapu Island as the test run for the resumption of the operations of Lafayette Philippines Inc. continues. |
| US: Alaska's Air Sullied by Oil Production by David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle August 24th, 2006 North Slope operations -- like oil production facilities everywhere -- release into the air a steady stream of pollutants and greenhouse gases, spewed by vehicles, power generators and the drilling process itself. Estimates vary, but the North Slope oil fields probably produce more smog-forming nitrogen oxides than Washington, D.C., and more carbon dioxide than San Francisco. |
| THAILAND: Patent or patient? How Washington uses trade deals to protect drugs by Alan Beattie, Andrew Jack and Amy Kazmin, The Financial Times August 22nd, 2006 As the World Health Organisation's top man in Thailand, William Aldis knew Thai officials were hosting their US counterparts in the northern city of Chiang Mai to negotiate what to many outsiders might seem an entirely worthy objective: a bilateral free-trade deal. But he saw dangers - and decided to make his views public. |
| INDIA: Pesticide Charge in India Hurts Pepsi and Coke by Amelia Gentleman, International Herald Tribune August 22nd, 2006 When claims were first published on the front pages of Indian newspapers this month that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo beverages were contaminated with pesticides, executives at the two companies were breezily confident that they could handle the issue. Three weeks later, though, they are still struggling to win back Indian consumers. One-quarter of India’s component states have imposed partial bans on their products, and a complex legal battle to overturn those bans is only just beginning. |
| US: Unapproved Transgenic Rice Found in U.S. Rice Supply Environment News Service August 21st, 2006 U.S. supplies of long grain rice have been contaminated with a genetically modified variety not approved for human consumption, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said late Friday. The secretary said he learned about the contamination from the company that engineered the rice, Bayer CropScience, and could say nothing about how the contamination arose. |
| US: Mother's Milk Saves Lives by Alberto Cremonesi, Inter Press News Service August 21st, 2006 Although experts say that breastfeeding gives children the best start in life, protecting them from life-threatening diseases and providing essential nutrients, barely a third of all infants in developing countries are exclusively breastfed for the first six months. |
| WORLD: Has Coke become the new McDonald's? by David Teather, The Guardian (UK) August 18th, 2006 Welcome to the Coke side of life. Africa's planned legal action is just the latest in a litany of alleged human rights and environmental abuses in developing markets that has made Coca-Cola a cause celebre. |
| US: Company testing mine to determine extent of uranium contamination by Jim Tiffin, The Gallup Independent August 18th, 2006 A state geologist said Thursday afternoon Rio Cinto Mining Co., also known as Sohio Western Mining, is planning to drill two water wells and sample 11 vent shafts at a former uranium mining site north of the Pueblo of Laguna. |
| PERU: Indigenous Community to Take Oil Company to Court by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service August 17th, 2006 Arankartuktaram! This Achuar cry sums up what indigenous communities in the heart of Peru's Amazon jungle region are demanding from the State and multinational oil companies -- a little respect. |
| INDONESIA: Java sinks deeper into toxic crisis by Mark Forbes, The Age (AUS) August 12th, 2006 TOXIC mud still spurting from a gas drilling well part-owned by Australian mining giant Santos is threatening to mire East Java in a full-scale disaster. |
| US: Approval of Antibiotic Worried Safety Officials by Gardiner Harris, The New York Times July 19th, 2006 In an internal review, a federal drug safety official concluded that a controversial antibiotic made by a French drug company should be withdrawn, according to e-mail messages exchanged among top agency officials. |
| VIETNAM: Tons of Expired Coca Cola Materials Destroyed in Vietnam Thanhnien News July 18th, 2006 Days before, municipal inspectors discovered almost 7.5 tons of aromatic spice material with 2003 expiry dates in the company’s warehouse. |
| NEW ZEALAND: Tobacco company's claims disputed One News July 14th, 2006 On it's website, British and American Tobacco says many claims against environmental or second hand smoking have been overstated. |
| US: Once an Enemy, Health Industry Warms to Clinton by Raymond Hernandez and Robert Pear, The New York Times July 12th, 2006 Some of the same interests that tried to derail Mrs. Clinton’s health care overhaul are providing support for her Senate re-election bid. The Health Insurance Association of America ran the famous “Harry and Louise” commercials mocking the Clinton health care plan as impenetrably complex. Some companies that were members of that group are now donating to Mrs. Clinton. |
| WORLD: Prices Soar for Cancer Drugs by Liz Szabo, USA Today July 10th, 2006 Spiraling prices for new cancer therapies — up to $10,000 a month for a single drug — are causing alarm among patients and insurance companies. |
| INDIA: Petri Dish for Pharmaceutical MNCs by Ann De Ron, Inter Press News Service July 10th, 2006 Pharmaceutical multinationals, seeking to ramp up profits through cheap drug trials, are increasingly turning to India with its combination of a vast pool of poor, ignorant patients on the one hand and skilled medical personnel and fine research infrastructure on the other. |
| US: Johnson & Johnson Told to Pay Damages in Pain-Patch Death Bloomberg News July 8th, 2006 Jurors in a state court in Houston decided yesterday that Johnson & Johnson, the consumer health care company, must pay $772,500 to the family of a Texas woman who died after a patch intended to release pain-killing drugs leaked. |
| US: Court Voids $145 Billion Judgment in Tobacco Case by Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times July 6th, 2006 The Florida Supreme Court upheld today a decision that threw out a $145 billion judgment against the nation's largest tobacco companies. |
| US: Vioxx 'a Hazard,' Doctor Testifies The Associated Press July 6th, 2006 Patients who took the painkiller Vioxx were at risk of heart attacks and strokes — something shown by studies conducted years before the product went on the market, a doctor testified Wednesday. |
| US: Another Merck Drug Is Under Legal Attack by Molly Selvin, The Los Angeles Times July 5th, 2006 As Merck & Co. defends itself against a deluge of litigation involving its pain reliever Vioxx, the pharmaceutical giant also is fielding the first of what could be another wave of lawsuits involving Fosamax, its second-biggest seller. |
| US: Charities Tied to Doctors Get Drug Industry Gifts by Reed Abelson, The New York Times June 28th, 2006 Around the country, doctors in private practice have set up tax-exempt charities into which drug companies and medical device makers are, with little fanfare, pouring donations — money that adds up to millions of dollars a year. And some medical experts see that as a big problem. |
| EUROPE: Drug Firms Attacked on Marketing BBC News June 27th, 2006 The Consumers International lobby group accused drugmakers of using the methods to get doctors to prescribe products and persuade consumers they need them. |
| US: Correction to Study Shows Vioxx Risks Appeared Early on The Associated Press June 26th, 2006 A correction published Monday to a key study on withdrawn painkiller Vioxx reveals the risk of heart problems was elevated throughout the time people were on the drug and did not develop only after 18 months of use as the drug's maker, Merck & Co., has contended. |
| US: Drug Firms a Danger to Health – Report by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian (UK) June 26th, 2006 Drug companies are accused today of endangering public health through widescale marketing malpractices, ranging from covertly attempting to persuade consumers that they are ill to bribing doctors and misrepresenting the results of safety and efficacy tests on their products. |
| AUSTRALIA: Mt Isa Lead Risk For Children by Michelle Wiese Bockmann, The Australian June 21st, 2006 Children in the Queensland mining capital of Mount Isa have been put at risk by fallout from the city's copper and lead smelters because the state Government has failed to routinely test for lead poisoning. |
| US: Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure
by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian June 17th, 2006 A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market. |
| UK: Drugs Firm Blocks Cheap Blindness Cure by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian (UK) June 17th, 2006 A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market. |
| US: Lawyer: Merck Scrapped Study on Vioxx by Linda A. Johnson, The Associated Press June 16th, 2006 Merck & Co. scrapped a planned study of the cardiac safety of Vioxx once it knew U.S. regulators were going to tone down their warning about heart risks for patients taking the painkiller, a plaintiff's lawyer argued Friday in a product liability trial. |
| US: KFC Gets Burned for Using Unhealthy Fat Reuters June 13th, 2006 A consumer group is suing the operator of the KFC to try to stop it from frying foods in an artery-clogging trans fat. |
| US: Ag-Mart influence alleged by Kristin Collins, The News and Observer June 11th, 2006 A state report on pesticides and birth defects might have been influenced by the company that was its focus, some researchers who worked on the report say. |
| CANADA: Abnormal Birth Rates in Canadian Native Reserve by Cindy Drukier and Rory Xu, The Epoch Times June 9th, 2006 There's something is in the air at the Aamjiwnaang First Nations reserve near Sarnia, Ontario. But it's not just in the air. It's also in the water, the soil, and in the residents themselves: alarming levels of toxic chemicals, believed to be behind the area's skewed birth ratios. In Aamjiwnaang, two girls are born for every boy. |
| US: Questions Raised on Another Chief's Stock Options by Barnaby J. Feder, The New York Times June 9th, 2006 Accusations of corporate stock option abuse were leveled against Cyberonics, a medical device maker that is no stranger to controversy. |
| US: Grandmother Takes on Merck in Vioxx Trial by LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press June 5th, 2006 Drug maker Merck & Co. repeatedly tried to downplay the cardiac risks of its painkiller Vioxx, so user Elaine Doherty didn't know about them and couldn't control them before she suffered a heart attack after taking the drug, her lawyer told jurors as a product liability trial began Monday. |
| CANADA: Air Pollution Goes Global by Stephen Leahy , Inter Press News Service (IPS) June 2nd, 2006 Last month, the province of Ontario joined the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, along with two environmental groups, in a legal action against seven coal-fired electricity plants run by Duke Energy Corp. |
| US: Needy Texans' Application Faxed into a "Black Hole" by Polly Ross Hughes, Houston Chronicle June 2nd, 2006 The snafu is just the latest example of confusion during the state's transition this year from public to private screening of health and welfare applicants under an $899 million contract with outsourcing giant Accenture LLP. |
| WORLD: WHO charges major tobacco firms for misleading public Vietnam News Service June 1st, 2006 The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday accused the tobacco industry of continuing to use misleading labeling such as light, clean, fresh, cool or mild in order to lure millions of people, many of them children, to take up the deadly habit of smoking. |
| AUSTRALIA: Judge Reopens Investigation of BAT by Elizabeth Sexton, The Age May 31st, 2006 A Sydney judge has reopened the legal assault on the tobacco industry with a preliminary finding that British American Tobacco's controversial document retention policy was intended to conceal the destruction of legally potent records. |
| US: Merck Admits a Data Error on Vioxx by Alex Berenson, New York Times May 31st, 2006 In an admission that could undermine one of its core defenses in Vioxx-related lawsuits, Merck said yesterday that it had erred when it reported in early 2005 that a crucial statistical test showed that Vioxx caused heart problems only after 18 months of continuous use. |
| US: FDA Warns Wyeth on Quality at Puerto Rico Plant RUETERS May 30th, 2006 Possible contaminants in headache remedies, hormone replacement therapy and other pills made at Wyeth's (WYE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) plant in Puerto Rico have not been adequately checked out or corrected, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday. |
| WORLD: Drug Companies 'Failing to Meet Health Needs of World's Poorest'
by Jeremy Laurance, Independent (UK) May 23rd, 2006 The existing system of drug patenting and pricing is fundamentally flawed and does not meet health needs, according to report released to health experts last month. |
| WORLD: From Asia to America, How Bausch's Crisis Grew by Barnaby J. Feder, The New York Times May 18th, 2006 Early in March, Bausch & Lomb received a troubling phone call from a New Jersey eye doctor. Dr. David S. Chu, a specialist in cornea diseases, alerted the company that three of his recent patients had been afflicted with a microbe that caused a potentially blinding eye infection. |
| COSTA RICA: Farmers Win Suit vs. DuPont
by Randall Chase, Associated Press May 17th, 2006 A group of Costa Rican fern growers received a multimillion-dollar award against DuPont Co. on Wednesday for damages to their crops caused by the fungicide Benlate. |
| US: Disney Loses Its Appetite for Happy Meal Tie-Ins by Rachel Abramowitz, Los Angeles Times May 8th, 2006 Disney is not renewing its cross-promotional pact with the fast-food giant, ending the arrangement with this summer's release of "Cars" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." One reason, say multiple high-ranking sources within Disney, is that the company — which prides itself on being family friendly — wants to distance itself from fast food and its links to the epidemic of childhood obesity. |
| WORLD: Study Faults US health effort in Iraq, Afghanistan by Will Dunham, Reuters April 20th, 2006 The United States has botched efforts to improve public health in Iraq and Afghanistan, missing a chance to gain support in those countries, an independent report released on Wednesday said. |
| US: Experts Defining Mental Disorders Are Linked to Drug Firms by Shankar Vedantam, The Washington Post April 20th, 2006 Every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses, a new analysis has found. |
| HONG KONG: Hong Kong Stores Accused in Pesticide Scare Agence France Presse April 18th, 2006 Hong Kong supermarkets have halted some vegetable sales amid a new food scare after pressure group Greenpeace accused grocery chains of selling produce tainted with dangerous levels of pesticides. |
| US: Study: Health Insurers Are Near-Monopolies Associated Press April 18th, 2006 Consolidation among health insurers is creating near-monopolies in virtually all reaches of the United States, according to a study released Monday. |
| US: Private contractor dropping eligible Texas kids from health coverage by Polly Hughes, The Houston Chronicle April 18th, 2006 As of last week, 30,000 children had been dropped from the Childrens Health Insurance Program since Accenture, LLP began running the call center in December. |
| US: The Case Against Coke by Michaeil Blanding, The Nation April 14th, 2006 The Coca-Cola Company will hold its stockholders' meeting, an annual exercise designed to boost the confidence of investors. If the meeting is anything like last year's, however, it may do the opposite. |
| UK: Body Shop's Popularity Plunges after L'Oreal Sale by Cahal Milmo, The Independent (UK) April 10th, 2006 The sale of the Body Shop to the French cosmetics giant L'Oréal last month has dented the reputation of the British high street retailer once vaunted as the champion of ethical beauty products. |
| US: Food Companies Criticized Over Health Commitments by Kate Holton, Reuters April 4th, 2006 Many of the world's top food companies are not doing enough to help cut the salt, fat and sugar which are contributing to a global, diet-related health crisis, according to a report on Tuesday. |
| NIGERIA: Government Investigation Indicts Shell over Toxic Waste by Yemie Adeoye, Vanguard (Lagos) April 4th, 2006 THE Ministerial investigation committee into alleged dumping of toxic waste by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) at Igbeku and Ejekimoni communities of Sapele local government area of Delta State has come up with recommendations for the company to remove and treat in situ the "alleged buried waste" to acceptable statutory levels. |
| AFRICA: WHO advisers urge drugs firms cut prices for poor Reuters April 3rd, 2006 International drugs companies should seek to reduce prices for medicines sold to the poorest countries and avoid filing for patent protection there, a report prepared for the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday. |
| US: Benzene Fears Prompt Call for Banning Some Soft Drinks at Schools by David Goldstein, Knight Ridder March 28th, 2006 Some leading public-health experts want education officials to ban certain soft drinks from public schools until they're proved safe and free of the cancer-causing chemical benzene. |
| VIETNAM: Agent Orange Victims Gather to Seek Justice Reuters March 28th, 2006 Vietnam War veterans from the United States, South Korea, Australia and Vietnam gathered on Tuesday to call for more help for the victims of the Agent Orange defoliant used by the U.S. military. |
| US: Survey Ranks 'Organic-ness' at Dairies by Marian Burros, The New York Times March 22nd, 2006 THE CORNUCOPIA INSTITUTE, a nonprofit agricultural policy research group in Cornucopia, Wis., will release a report today that ranks organic milk and dairy products based on federal organic standards as well as environmental and humane concerns. |
| US: Dirtier Side Betrays Promise of ‘Clean Coal’ by Kari Lydersen, The New Standard March 15th, 2006 Between the coal-rich Appalachian Mountains and coal-hungry energy consumers like the state of Ohio, critics say the concept of an eco-friendly use for the fossil fuel is far more misnomer than reality. |
| US: Mercury control program approved despite objections by Jeff DeLong, Reno-Gazette-Journal March 9th, 2006 A mandatory program to control mercury emissions from Nevada gold mines was approved by state officials Wednesday over the objections of environmentalists and residents from the neighboring states of Utah and Idaho. |
| MEXICO: Mexican strikes cripple mines, mills and refineries by Frank Jack Daniel, Reuters March 2nd, 2006 Tens of thousands of Mexican miners and metal workers joined a nationwide strike on Wednesday in two separate disputes that crippled output at the country's biggest mines, metals refineries and steel mills. |
| PERU: Bank Rejects Rapid Review of Controversial Pipeline by Emad Mekay, Inter Press Service News Agency March 1st, 2006 The main public investor in a controversial gas pipeline in Peru's Amazon rainforest that has ruptured four times already appears adamant not to bow to pressure from green groups demanding a full investigation after a study asserted that the pipeline is shoddily built and likely to break again. |
| UK: Bone researcher: Proctor & Gamble is hiding data United Press Inernational March 1st, 2006 A British-based researcher Wednesday accused Procter and Gamble of hiding data regarding its osteoporosis drug Actonel. |
| US: Wal-Mart critics put workers in spotlight over health care by Marcus Kabel, Associated Press February 28th, 2006 One of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s most vociferous critics launched a campaign Tuesday with 17 current and former Wal-Mart workers speaking out against health insurance coverage they claim is too expensive, leaving them uninsured or on taxpayer funded programs. |
| INDIA: Battle over Indian steel mills by Mark Dummett, BBC News February 26th, 2006 A South Korean firm, Posco, last year promised to build a steel plant costing $12bn - the biggest ever single foreign investment in India. The only problem is that many of the people living in Kalinga Nagar, near the town of Jajpur, do not want to make way for the new factories. |
| US: Chromium Evidence Buried, Report Says by Rick Weiss, The Washington Post February 24th, 2006 Scientists working for the chromium industry withheld data about the metal's health risks while the industry campaigned to block strict new limits on the cancer-causing chemical, according to a scientific journal report published yesterday. |
| US: Company Town Relies on G.M. Long After Plants Have Closed by Jeremy W. Peters and Micheline Maynard, The New York Times February 20th, 2006 General Motors once had so many plants here that it had to stagger their schedules so that the streets would not be clogged with traffic when the workday ended. At the city's peak, 35 years ago, one of every three people in Anderson worked for G.M. |
| US: EPA cites Northshore Mining for clean-air violations by John Meyers, Duluth News Tribune February 16th, 2006 The EPA alleged Wednesday that Northshore, a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs and its former owner, Cyprus Minerals, modified three taconite furnaces at its Silver Bay processing plant without installing the best available pollution control technology. |
| INDONESIA: U.S. mine to pay Jakarta $30 million to settle suit by Jane Perlez, The New York Times February 16th, 2006 Newmont Mining agreed Thursday to pay $30 million to Indonesia in a settlement of a civil lawsuit in which the government argued that the company had polluted a bay with arsenic and mercury. |
| US: Maryland Power Plants Linked to 700 Premature Deaths Per Year Environmental News Service February 15th, 2006 Nationwide, 700 premature deaths, 30,000 asthma attacks and 400 pediatric emergency room visits each year are linked to current pollution from six Maryland power plants, according to a new study released today by the Maryland Nurses Association (MNA). |
| US: Teflon Chemical a Likely Carcinogen by Randall Chase, Associated Press February 15th, 2006 A group of scientific advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a recommendation that a chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon and other nonstick and stain-resistant products should be considered a likely carcinogen. |
| EU: Europe Defends Stance on Genetically Altered Foods by Paul Meller, The New York Times February 8th, 2006 The European Commission defended its current practices on screening genetically altered foods in the wake of a report from the World Trade Organization that criticized its past action in restricting the entry of modified products into the European Union. |
| US: Exposed: the secret corporate funding behind health research by George Monbiot, The Guardian February 7th, 2006 Three weeks ago, while looking for something else, I came across one of the most extraordinary documents I have ever read. It relates to an organisation called Arise (Associates for Research into the Science of Enjoyment). Though largely forgotten today, in the 1990s it was one of the world's most influential public-health groups. |
| US: Record Sales of Sleeping Pills Are Causing Worries by Stephanie Saul, The New York Times February 7th, 2006 Americans are taking sleeping pills like never before, fueled by frenetic workdays that do not go gently into a great night's sleep, and lulled by a surge of consumer advertising that promises safe slumber with minimal side effects. |
| US: EPA probing why arsenic found at toxic cleanup site by Jan Barry, North Jersey Media Group February 7th, 2006 The federal Environmental Protection Agency is investigating the source of arsenic found at a cleanup site in Upper Ringwood where a Ford Motor Co. contractor recently removed tons of paint sludge. |
| WORLD: WHO Shuts Life Sciences Industry Group Out of Setting Health Standards Environment News Service February 2nd, 2006 The World Health Organization (WHO) has barred a life sciences industry association from participating in setting global standards protecting food and water supplies because its members have a financial stake in the outcome. |
| US: EPA Calls for End to Releases of Chemical in Teflon Process by Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times January 26th, 2006 In a rare move to phase out a widely used industrial compound, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it was asking all U.S. companies to virtually eliminate public exposure to a toxic chemical used to make Teflon cookware and thousands of other products. |
| US: Multiple Risks of Surgery Drug Seen by Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times January 26th, 2006 |
| GERMANY: Tobacco giant sponsors work on DNA repair Nature.com January 25th, 2006 |
| US: How Dr. Weil, Dr. Phil, and Larry King Turn Your Trust into Cash Center for Science in the Public Interest January 25th, 2006 These three men use their fame to hawk vitamins, herbs, and other dietary supplements that often rely on inflated claims and dubious (or nonexistent) science. Consumers who buy these products may be overpaying or wasting their money entirely, according to CSPI. |
| US: Writer Says Ex-Chief of HealthSouth Paid for Positive Coverage Associated Press January 19th, 2006 |
| US: Maryland Sets a Health Cost for Wal-Mart by Michael Barbaro, The New York Times January 13th, 2006 The Maryland legislature passed a law Thursday that would require Wal-Mart Stores to increase spending on employee health insurance, a measure that is expected to be a model for other states. |
| LATIN AMERICA: Big Tobacco Fights Back by Diego Cevallos, Inter Press Service January 12th, 2006 According to the non-governmental Corporate Accountability International, based in the northeastern U.S. city of Boston, the tobacco industry is interfering in public health policy in several Latin American countries, and is attempting to block the regulations implemented in compliance with the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). |
| US: For One Clerk, Fight for Wal-Mart Bill Is Personal by Mary Otto, Washington Post January 12th, 2006 The debate over the Fair Share Health Care Fund Act, commonly known as the Wal-Mart bill, has dominated politics in the run-up to the General Assembly, with the retailer arguing that Democrats have unfairly singled out one company and union leaders arguing that workers deserve better treatment. |
| US: Former Biogen Executive Settles Insider-Trading Charges by John Hechinger, Wall Street Journal January 12th, 2006 The former general counsel of Biogen Idec Inc. settled securities-fraud and insider-trading charges, agreeing to pay more than $3 million related to his sale of company shares on the day the biotech company learned that a patient taking its new multiple sclerosis drug was sick with a deadly infection. |
| US: Boeing Settles Cancer Suit Associated Press January 12th, 2006 Boeing Co. has agreed to pay $30 million to settle a lawsuit by residents who alleged that pollutants from a company lab caused them to get cancer. |
| US: Moving Mountains by Erik Reece, Orion Magazine January 9th, 2006 It is the people of Appalachia who pay the highest price for the rest of the country's cheap energy—through contaminated water, flooding, cracked foundations and wells, bronchial problems related to breathing coal dust, and roads that have been torn up and turned deadly by speeding coal trucks. |
| US: Wal-Mart in Their Sights, States Press for Health Benefits by Michael Barbaro, The New York Times January 5th, 2006 |