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The Pill Turns 50: Medicine That Makes You SickROBERT F. CONKLING, M.D.Recently three major health stories appeared in the Washington press in less than two weeks that were an occasion to pause and reflect. Recently three major health stories appeared in the Washington press in less than two weeks that were an occasion to pause and reflect.First, the Potomac Conservancy made headlines about the contamination of rivers and drinking water in major metropolitan areas, including Washington DC. Contaminants include not only bacteria, industrial chemicals and agricultural pesticides but also potentially endocrine-active pharmaceuticals, such anti-depressants, contraceptive sex hormones, antibiotics and...

An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film "Erin Brockovich." The study, which will be released Monday by the Environmental Working Group, is the first nationwide analysis of hexavalent chromium in drinking water to be made public.

Dr. Chris Kahlenborn is the lead author of the Mayo Clinic Proceeding’s article cited below. Kahlenborn testified before the FDA in June of 2000 regarding the link between oral contraceptives and breast cancer. May 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the birth control pill in the United States. Newspapers and magazines around the country ran stories on this, mostly extolling the social and medical benefits of the pill. This theme was bolstered by a recent communiqué from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) which noted: “The pill remains one of the...

FReep This Poll! Do you want fluoride added to your drinking water supply? Yes No Not sure Go to the North County Times/The Californian link provided. Scroll down a bit and look for the poll on the right hand side. Vote your choice.

NEW YORK -- A 41-year-old paramedic who worked at a morgue for months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center was buried Monday after dying of an asbestos-related cancer. Deborah Reeve, a 17-year paramedic, died on March 15 of mesothelioma, a lung cancer associated with exposure to asbestos, her family said. Reeve developed a cough in late 2003 and retired at the end of 2004 after becoming too ill to work. Her doctors and family say her cancer was caused by exposure to toxic dust from the World Trade Center site. City health officials say it's...

WASHINGTON - Twenty-one senators asked the Environmental Protection Agency for more information Thursday about an internal paper that reportedly concludes that the gasoline additive MTBE may cause cancer. Key elements of the document, which has not been made public, surfaced as lawmakers considered whether to shield the makers of MTBE from product liability lawsuits as a result drinking water contamination in at least 36 states. MTBE, which was put into gasoline to cut air pollution, has been banned in several states because of complaints that it adds a foul smell and turpentine-like taste to drinking water when it leaks into...

Teflon, and the products that contain PFOA, are everywhere — from pots and pans, to Gore-Tex jackets, carpet coatings, computer chips, engine fuel lines and even pizza boxes... The issue now before the EPA is whether a chemical that's become a part of everyday life is also a threat

DuPont and 3M, makers of Teflon and Scotchgard, will remove a key ingredient used to make nonstick and stain-resistant products that also contaminates our bodies and the global environment. The move away from the chemical, known as PFOA, affects just a small fraction of DuPont's and 3M's business and won't take effect until the end of 2006. The compound, being studied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a potential carcinogen, will still be used in other consumer and industrial products. "It's a small part of our sales," DuPont spokesman R. Clifton Webb said Tuesday. "We're taking this step not...

Forty-five years ago this week, ...1959, most Americans celebrated Thanksgiving sans cranberry sauce. Earlier that month, a government health official had announced that traces of the weed killer aminotriazole — a chemical that caused cancer in rodents — had been found in the cranberry crop. The spokesman urged housewives to "be on the safe side" and refrain from buying cranberries because the rodent data suggested that the "contaminated" cranberries could pose a human cancer risk. There was never any real health risk. The cranberry scare of 1959 marked the beginning of a modern wave of "chemical phobia" and a government...

<p>WASHINGTON - Anthrax, the bioterrorism agent that killed five people in 2001 and has frightened millions more, may be an effective cancer killer, according to new research from the National Institutes of Health.</p> <p>Genetically engineered anthrax protein -- designed to activate only on contact with a chemical on the surface of malignant tumors -- dramatically reduced and even eradicated cancers in tests on hundreds of mice, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. Thanks to the genetic engineering, the anthrax did not poison the mice.</p>