If the FDA concluded in 1977 that adding low-dose antibiotics used in human medicine to animal feed raised the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, why has it still done nothing about it? A suit filed by some health and consumer organizations says the FDA has not met its legal responsibility to protect public health – the practice of routinely adding low-dose antibiotics to animal feed has to stop, and the FDA has the authority to make it so.

Peter Lehner, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) executive director, said:

“More than a generation has passed since FDA first recognized the potential human health consequences of feeding large quantities of antibiotics to healthy animals.

CNN | The proportion of children and teens in the U.S. who have a developmental disability such as autism has increased 17% since the late 1990s, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Between 1997 and 2008, the number of children with a disability rose from 8.2 million to roughly 10 million, or more than 15% of all kids between the ages of 3 and 17, the researchers found.

This upward trend has been driven largely by surges in the number of children found to have autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, although the prevalence of stuttering and learning disabilities has also increased.

The study, which appears in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, is the first time nationally representative data on developmental disabilities has been collected since 1988, says Sheree Boulet, Dr.P.H., one of the study's authors and an epidemiologist at the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.

Yahoo | Scientists have found that a gene linked to diabetes and cholesterol is a "master switch" that controls other genes found in fat in the body, and say it should help in the search for treatments for obesity-related diseases.

In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics, the British researchers said that since fat plays an important role in peoples' susceptibility to metabolic diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes, the regulating gene could be target for drugs to treat such illnesses.

"This is the first major study that shows how small changes in one master regulator gene can cause a cascade of other metabolic effects in other genes," said Tim Spector of King's College London, who led the study.

More than half a billion people, or one in 10 adults worldwide, are obese and the numbers have doubled since the 1980s as the obesity epidemic has spilled over from wealthy into poorer nations.

Infowars.com | A damning new study conducted by German scientists has found that so-called energy saving light bulbs contain poisonous carcinogens that could cause cancer and should be “kept as far away as possible from the human environment,” but Americans will be forced to replace their traditional light bulbs with toxic CFLs ahead of a government ban set to take effect at the start of next year.

“German scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene,” reports the London Telegraph.

The study, conducted by Peter Braun at the Berlin’s Alab Laboratory, led the scientists involved to warn that the bulbs should only be used sparingly, in areas with good ventilation, and “definitely not in the proximity of the head,” due to the danger of the electrical smog the bulbs generate impacting human health.

That’s going to cause difficulties for Americans who will be forced to buy the bulbs following a government ban on traditional incandescent lighting that comes into effect on January 1, 2012.

PR-USA.NET | Poul Thorsen, the principal coordinator of multiple studies funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used to deny a vaccine/autism link was indicted on April 13th on 13 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money-laundering.  The charges relate to funding for work he conducted for the CDC, which claimed to disprove associations between the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, and increased rates of autism.

SafeMinds first voiced concerns in 2003 regarding a series of epidemiology studies out of Denmark and under the jurisdiction of Thorsen that provided the basis for the Institute of Medicine's claim that there was no association between thimerosal and autism.  That claim has been responsible for the continued unsafe use of mercury in influenza vaccines in the United States and infant vaccines around the world.

"The quality of this epidemiological research has always been questionable," states Sallie Bernard, SafeMinds president.  "Many biological studies support a link between mercury and autism, but these Danish studies have been used to suppress further research into thimerosal.  With clear evidence of Dr. Thorsen's lack of ethics, it is imperative to reopen this investigation."

Ft.com | Greenhouse gas emissions in the US dropped to their lowest level in 15 years in 2009 as the impact of the financial crisis led to decreases in fuel and electricity consumption, according to newly published figures.

In 2009, the US saw its emissions of the six main greenhouses gases drop 6 per cent year-on-year to 6,633m metric tonnes, the lowest total since 1995. Despite that annual fall, emissions rose by more than 7.3 per cent between 1990 and 2009.The figures, released by the Environmental Protection Agency, are likely to be seized upon by Republicans as evidence that there is no need for further regulation of carbon emissions. The GOP has embarked on a campaign in recent months to strip the EPA of its ability to regulate hydrocarbons as well as other pollutants.