I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a controversial Great Lakes health report after congressional investigations were begun to find out why the report was delayed for nine months.
The report, some details of which leaked out last month, is titled “Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern.” Half of the “areas of concern” are in Michigan. They are the Clinton River, Deer Lake, Detroit River, Kalamazoo River, Manistique River, Muskegon Lake, River Raisin, Rouge River, Saginaw River and Bay, St. Clair River, St. Mary’s River, Torch Lake and White Lake.
The report was requested in 2001 by the International Joint Commission, a group that monitors environmentally degraded areas in the Great Lakes region. According to the CDC, the purpose of the draft report was to “help decision-makers set future priorities for research and public health action.”
The report was originally scheduled to be released last June, but was delayed, causing some to charge that the agency was covering up information about health risks.
Continued – The CDC publication of the draft report last week comes after two Michigan Democrats, U.S. Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak, officially launched an investigation into allegations that the agency was withholding the report and that it had taken retaliatory measures against one of the scientists involved in its production.
“What we still do not know is why this agency, given its historically credible reputation, has kept this report under wraps for almost a year,” Dingell said in a statement released last week. “The Committee [on Energy and Commerce] will continue its investigation into who made the decision to withhold the publication of the report, the basis for doing so, and how the CDC and [Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry] treated the scientists involved in conducting the study and writing the report.”
In a nine-page statement provided by an agency spokeswoman, the CDC said that it had chosen not to release the report in June out of concern that it contained data likely to be misinterpreted. The agency said that delaying the release of the draft report did not harm the public because the information used to create the report is available through other sources.
Last month, a researcher with the ATSDR shared concerns about risk communication for those in the Saginaw River watershed, the largest Michigan area of concern. Kory Groetsch said that residents of Saginaw are largely unaware of the serious health risks posed by eating dioxin-contaminated fish from the Saginaw River.
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