Early clinical trials suggest the drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, may be beneficial in treating and even curing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The research protocol used in the MAPS studies uses a male-female team of therapists working with each patient. It is an expensive and labor intensive approach, but Executive Director Rick  Doblin says there are several sound reasons for proceeding that way.

As more and more people color their hair, often starting at younger ages, their exposure to the chemicals in those dyes is increasing, and their risk of a cumulative allergic reaction is going up, too.

Since her own allergic response to PPD, nearly three years ago, Marcia Beauchamp has been alert to any other news about the compound. And she says, there has been quite a lot.

PPD (para-phenylenediamine) is also found in many Henna dyes, whether used for hair coloring or temporary tattoos. Both uses can lead to reactions, but Marcia explains that the scalp is especially vulnerable.

Online searches about PPD and allergic reactions to it now result in myriad links, enough to be more than a little confusing. Beauchamp's response to that—and her own experience—has been the creation of a website of her own, one intended to be a one-stop resource for information on the issue.

Marcia Beauchamp

Rachel Carson may have been America’s first environmental whistle-blower. That’s inspired for a west county poet to create her own biographical one-woman show about the author of Silent Spring.

Lilith Rogers describes herself as a lifelong gardener and poet—she’s even written a book of her own about horticulture in western Sonoma County—but she got the spark of an idea about doing something new when she saw a one-woman show about Alberta King, the mother of Martin Luther King, at Santa Rosa Junior College. So Rogers began casting about for a subject that she might take on for a similar presentation.

One reason that Silent Spring had such an immediate and widespread impact when it was published, explains Lilith Rogers, was that the book offered a clear and well-documented explanation that linked a number of troubling events that were readily observable in the American environment.

Rachel Carson and Silent Spring were a media sensation, too, by the standards of 1962. Rogers says the flavor of that fascination, and the some of the now-discredited attitudes that were prevalent then, could be seen in an exchange that was broadcast on national television on the prominent CBS Reports program.

Doing the one-woman show  offers a way for Carsons’ voice to be heard again today, as in this excerpt from Rachel Carson Returns in which Rogers reads from the final chapter of Silent Spring.

Fish oil capsules have long been suspected of including small amounts of toxic PCBs, but a new lawsuit contends some manufacturers of the supplements contain far more of the banned chemicals than others.

 Oakland attorney David Roe, who filed the suit on behalf of the Eureka-based Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation (known for their actions seeking enforcement of California's Proposition 65) and two other plaintiffs, says it included actions against General Nutrition Center and CVS  Pharmacy stores because it is important that the consumer warnings also be prominently placed in locations where consumers purchase these products.

 Roe says the tests his clients have conducted, and the lawsuit those tests prompted, are also intended to encourage the industry that produces fish oil supplements to do more rigorous testing themselves.

 A new website set up to publicize the lawsuit has details on the  legal action as well as  an online petition calling for stronger labeling requirements. There is also a list of the products tested and  their  test results. A summary graph is shown below.

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