By Dan Ross on December 14, 2017
In the early 1900s, a young dentist named Frederick McKay moved to a Colorado town where the residents’ teeth — though in some cases stained chocolate brown — had far less decay than was typical back then. He and other researchers eventually linked the phenomenon to fluoride in the town’s drinking water – a eureka moment that would usher in what is often called one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Consumer Protection, Drinking Water, Environmental Safety and Health |
By Paul Raeburn on October 11, 2017
On Oct. 26, 2005, Alfred Caronia, a sales consultant for a little-known pharmaceutical company based in California, met with a doctor to discuss promotion of one of the firm’s drugs. The drug, a depressant called Xyrem, had been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat only certain patients with the sleep disorder…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Medical Errors, Pharmaceutical Industry and Drugs |
By Ted Rohrlich on October 3, 2017
As an attorney representing California Central Valley farmers and labor contractors who rely heavily on undocumented workers, Anthony Raimondo has become widely known for performing a sort of magic trick. He can sometimes make legal complaints against his clients – and the people who file them – disappear. In at least seven cases where workers…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Workplace |
Leaf Blowers Flagged as Prodigious Polluters -- And Possible Health Threat
By Stuart Silverstein and Anna Boiko-Weyrauch on September 19, 2017
Five years after starting his first job with a landscaping crew in the suburbs of Seattle, Fredi Dubon decided he had enough and called it quits. The work days were long, sometimes 12 hours, but a bigger problem was having to inhale exhaust from his gas-powered leaf blower.
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Environmental Safety and Health, Workplace Safety and Health |
By Myron Levin on August 30, 2017
Just after noon on March 29, a pickup truck crossed the center line of a rural road in South Texas and slammed into a church bus, killing 13 members of the First Baptist Church of New Braunfels. A police report said the 20-year-old pickup driver, who survived, had taken medication and was texting. In other…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Auto and Highway Safety, Cell Phones, Gadgets and Distracted Driving |
By Dan Ross on May 4, 2017
Soon after Erin Card moved to within two miles of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia two years ago, she began to notice threads of smoke that occasionally rose above the heavily wooded site. She started asking about the source, and eventually was stunned by what she learned: Toxic explosives were being burned in…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Air Pollution/Toxic Exposure, Environmental Safety and Health |
By Rick Schmitt and Paul Feldman on March 22, 2017
After a long downward trend, U.S. traffic deaths are on the rise again, and a key factor is the stubbornly high fatality toll among some of the most exposed people on the road: motorcyclists. Nevertheless, federal regulators have balked at requiring a safety measure that, many experts say, could save hundreds of bikers’ lives every year.
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Auto and Highway Safety, Consumer Protection |
By Paul Feldman on March 2, 2017
Editor's note: See update at bottom of story.
In November, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced fines against businesses with workers who were killed when they were pulled into a wood chipper, burned in a refinery fire and crushed in collapsing grain bins and construction trenches. In all, OSHA issued 33 enforcement news releases that month, and over 50 more from…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Whistleblowers, Workplace, Workplace Safety and Health |
By Dan Ross on February 28, 2017
At toxic cleanup sites across the country, environmental agencies have allowed groundwater contamination to go untreated and slowly diminish over time—a strategy that saves money for polluters but could cost taxpayers dearly and jeopardize drinking water supplies. The strategy is called monitored natural attenuation, or MNA. With little public awareness or debate, it has come…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Air Pollution/Toxic Exposure, Drinking Water, Environmental Safety and Health |
By Myron Levin on February 9, 2017
Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, the top seller of the menthol cigarettes favored by most black smokers, is seizing on the hot button issue of police harassment of blacks to counter efforts by public health advocates to restrict menthol sales. In recent months, the company has quietly enlisted black groups and leaders, including civil rights activist…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Cigarette Smuggling, Consumer Protection, Product Hazards and Recalls, Smoking and Tobacco Industry |
