The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "toxic exposure" ...
-
The Smokestack Effect: Toxic air and America's schools
The air outside hundreds of schools nationwide appears to be rife with toxic chemicals. Children are as much as 10 times more susceptible to toxic chemicals than are adults.
Tags: pollution; EPA; children's health; toxic chemicals; exposure risks; Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators; air quality; industrial pollution
-
Wasting Away: Superfund's Toxic Legacy
An analysis of the EPA's Superfund program listing nearly 100 companies responsible for more than 40 percent of America’s most contaminated sites. Since the Superfund’s creation in 1980, of the 700 sites less than one in five have been cleaned up or removed from the list. From 1998 to 2005, the companies spent more than $1 billion lobbying to the federal government and contributed more than $120 million to federal campaigns.
Tags: hazardous waste; unhealthy; contaminate; EPA; toxic exposure; solid waste;
-
Disease is swift, response is slow
Diacetyl is found in thousands of food products and used as a butter flavoring, but the toxicity levels has never been tested. Hundred of workers is a Midwestern popcorn plant developed lung damage after exposure to the chemical.
-
Betrayed
A former health inspector and environmental health specialist is now permanently disabled because of his exposure to toxic mold at his workplace, the Southern Nevada Health District's Environmental Health Wing, and he's not the only worker affected. Although his employer knew the problem existed (and was serious, as they are the agency that investigates and shuts down mold-infected sites) they fought correcting the situation, refused to re-locate infected workers, and contested their disability claims.
Tags: Mold; Air quality; Southern Nevada Health District; Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies at UNLV; rashes; Keck School of Medicine Environmental Sciences Laboratory at USC; Public Employees Retirement System of Nevada; U.S. Department of Labor Family and Medical Leave Act; Dan Pauluk; Apergillus; Stachybotrys; Yellow Rain; Aflatoxin; Saddam Hussein; Biological Weapons
-
What's in your backyard?
The news team learned that several people complained the EPA never told them about toxic chemical waste contamination in their residential area. The waste was dumped near their homes or contaminated their water. Some residents eventually found out as they started to fall sick, but the EPA had known about the exposure for decades. The news team obtained the EPA database, mapped out where contaminants were concentrated and spotted the affected people. The source of contamination is traced to two steel companies. As a result, legislation is on the way, and authorities are testing soil and water.
Tags: backyard; toxic waste; chemical waste; EPA; Environmental Protection Agency; contaminants; dumping; toxic chemicals; arsenic; Health Department; contamination; pollution; drinking water; municipal water; skin rash; stomach problems; illness; potential health threat; secret; playground; pneumonia; tumor; lymphoma; pond; well water; benzene; cancer; toxin; steel warehouse; Unit 5; sludge
-
The toxic valley: PCBs along the Upper Hudson
This WNYC special investigation traced how the PCBs found their way to Upper Hudson Valley environment, as a result from General Electric Corporation activities. For three decades many residents have been living with high levels of PCBs around their homes. Over the three months of investigation, WNYC found many people who were sick, even dying, from illnesses that have been linked to PCB exposure.
Tags: AUDIO TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); health; Toxics Targeting; contamination; lawsuits; Department of Environmental Conservation
-
Marine Corps Toxic Water
"For nearly twenty years, the US Marine Corps knew thousands of Marines and their families had been exposed to toxic drinking water at a North Carolina training base. But most Marines were never told about their exposure to the toxins - until a Wisconsin woman called Fox 6 News." WITI-TV investigated the leak toxic chemicals into the water supply at Camp Lejeune, NC, that may have resulted in the contamination of nearly 200,000 Marines. The chemicals that leaked into the water supply at Camp Lejeune have been known to cause cancer, as well as birth defects, and may have affected more people than the Corps first realized.
Tags: VIDEOCLIP; TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; military; Marine Corps; toxic chemicals
-
Poisoned on the Job
CBC News reports "a story about transit workers in the small Alberta city of Medicine Hat who say they are sick because they were exposed to dangerous levels of methanol during a federally funded test project of the alternative fuel. Methyl alcohol is highly toxic, but the workers were told it was 'environmentally friendly.' A report from an internal investigation confirmed the workers were exposed to excessive levels of the chemical for years as they worked in clothes soaked with the fuel and breathed formaldehyde fumes produced by incomplete combustion. Today, the workers say they suffer from chemical sensitivities because of their exposure. Alberta's Workers' Compensation Board has rejected their claims...."
-
No title (id: 13186)
Audubon examines the plight of the Swainson's hawk. The birds migrate from the United States and Canada to Argentina in the winters. Thousands of birds have perished in recent years due to exposure to acutely toxic chemicals that Argentine farmers use to kill grasshoppers, the hawk's prey. It is estimated that 5 percent of the hawk population perished in one season. (September - October, 1996)
-
Unhealthy Hospital?
The Anchorage, Alaska Daily News reports that "Valley Hospital workers wonder if there is a link between a 1983 poison gas leak and a recent rash of severe illness...But hospital administrators have met workers' questions about gas exposure with silence and legal challenges, according to court records and interviews..."
Tags: health care Ethylene oxide toxic working conditions hospital accident