By Tijani Musa. Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted from animals to humans). According to the WHO, the symptoms of monkeypox are similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although the monkeypox symptoms are clinically less severe. Another significant differentiation is that smallpox was known to have been eradicated in the 1980s. Due to the subsequent cessation of the smallpox vaccination following the eradication, monkeypox is making an entrance and attracting the attention of public health practitioners, everywhere. Historically, the environmental conditions in which cases

By Leanna Theam. I grew up in the suburbs of sunny Southern California then moved to the opposite end of California to a small college town to study Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning at the University of California, Davis. Regardless, living my entire life in California meant that have I never understood or experienced the severity of climate change. This summer, I moved to Washington, D.C. for a 10-week program to be an intern for the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice. To put it simply, I was not ready

By Jose Aguayo. CHEJ attended the 3rd National PFAS Conference in Wilmington, NC this past week. The conference was hosted by the North Carolina State University Center for Environmental and Health Effects of PFAS in conjunction with the Cape Fear Community College and funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. In attendance were environmental research and advocacy organizations, state and federal agencies, several universities, and representatives of affected communities and tribes. The city of Wilmington was chosen as the venue due to the serious PFAS contamination in the

By Stephen Lester. Dr. Sheldon (“Shelly”) Krimsky, internationally esteemed scholar, and pioneer in environmental ethics, passed away unexpectedly in Cambridge, MA, April 23rd, 2022. He was 80. His probing work investigated the connections between science, ethics, and biotechnology, and the pernicious role chemicals play in the environment. A truly adored professor at Tufts University for 47 years, he held the distinguished position of Lenore Stern Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. He also taught ethics at the Tufts University School

By Sharon Franklin. While modern science has greatly improved the American way of life, it has also increasingly revealed the human costs of these advances. Of these costs are the large-scale environmental pollution that has the potential to impact the health of people across the world. Kyle Bagenstose a reporter for phys.org, recently published an alarming article emphasizing this impact. In this article, Bagenstose reports that during last month, a groundbreaking study from the University of California, San Francisco of 171 pregnant women found more than 9 in 10 had

By Hunter Marion. Remediation is the process of removing pollutants from the soil or water of a contaminated location and return it to a healthy state. This process is the desired goal for most environmental endeavors. However, remediation is usually a difficult, dissatisfactory process whereby state or federal government (or their contractors) bungle, delay, or quit during it. Traditional remediation efforts can have big flaws: pollutants or contaminated soils may be relocated to a nearby landfill; chemical wastes from heavy machinery might mix in with the present toxins; or funding