The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Dec. 28, 2007, proposal in a second attempt to exempt farms from reporting air pollution caused by animal waste and to reduce information available about toxins at the local level.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will revise seven of eight decisions made under the Endangered Species Act program after reviewing them for improper political interference. The four-month review came as a result of a Department of Interior inspector general's investigation of allegations that former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Julie A. MacDonald, intimidated staff and changed the scientific information agency scientists developed for decisions about listing or delisting threatened or endangered species.

All 35 participants tested positive for three toxic chemical groups in a study conducted by the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center and the Body Burden Working Group. The report on the study, Is It In Us?: Chemical Contamination in our Bodies, released Nov. 8, is the first multi-state, multi-organizational effort to evaluate the presence of this particular combination of chemicals in Americans.

If you are worried about products exposing you or your children to toxic chemicals, don't look to the federal government for much help. The government, to a large extent, does not require companies to test chemicals for possible health effects before using them in consumer products, nor does it require that such products be fully labeled with chemical ingredients. In the absence of such government activity, public interest groups and the media have stepped into the role of testing and informing the public.