Agent Orange

A few recent pieces worth a read: Sarah Kliff at Vox: Why Obamacare enrollees voted for Trump Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the New Yorker: Now is the time to talk about what we are actually talking about Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic: My President Was Black Nidhi Subbaraman at BuzzFeed: Obamacare Repeal Will Bring Lean Times To 9,000 Clinics For The Poor Helen Branswell at STAT: With latest Zika research, our picture of the virus gets cloudier Charles Ornstein and Hannah Fresques, ProPublica, and Mike Hixenbaugh at ProPublica/The Virginian-Pilot: The Children of Agent Orange
Charles Ornstein at ProPublica and Mike Hixenbaugh at the Virginian-Pilot investigate the man known as Dr. Orange for his “fervent” defense against claims that exposures to Agent Orange sickened American veterans. A part of their long-running investigation “Reliving Agent Orange,” this most recent article reports that the Veterans Administration has repeatedly cited Dr. Orange’s (real name: Alvin Young) work to deny compensation to veterans, even though many argue Young’s work is compromised by inaccuracies, inconsistencies and omissions. In addition, the very chemical companies that make…
Chemical Safety Board Chair Rafael Moure-Eraso testified before the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee regarding its preliminary findings on the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people in April. Ramit Plushnick-Masti reports for the Associated Press: "The safety of ammonium nitrate fertilizer storage falls under a patchwork of U.S. regulatory standards and guidance — a patchwork that has many large holes," according to the report presented to the panel by Rafael Moure-Eraso, the board's chairman. The board, which has no regulatory authority, recommended in…
Mark Pendergrast writes: To kick off this book club discussion of Inside the Outbreaks, I thought I would explain briefly how I came to write the book and then suggest some possible topics for discussion. The origin of the book goes back to an email I got in 2004 from my old high school and college friend, Andy Vernon, who wrote that I should consider writing the history of the EIS. I emailed back to say that I was honored, but what was the EIS? I had never heard of it. I knew Andy worked on tuberculosis at the CDC, but I didn't know that he had been a state-based EIS officer from 1978…