The EPA has proposed “regulatory determinations” for two chemicals whose presence in drinking water has raised alarm among the public and health experts. The agency is proposing to regulate two contaminants perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) – but not six others: 1,1-dichloroethane, acetochlor, methyl bromide, metolachlor, nitrobenzene, and RDX.

Although obese employees incur higher direct and indirect costs, the extent of obesity-related costs tends to be lower in some industrial sectors — including healthcare, reports a study in the February Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Dominique Lejeune, MSc, of Groupe d'analyse, Ltée, Montréal, QC, Canada, analyzed variations in the relationship between obesity and healthcare and other employee costs.

Longer sitting times were associated with higher levels of heart disease risk among overweight and obese post-menopausal women overall, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the open access journal of the American Heart Association.

The coronavirus continues to claim victims; new incidents at Chevron’s Richmond, California refinery and OSHA launches a website to help it commemorate its 50th anniversary. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

Research from the University of Kentucky’s Superfund Research Center (UK-SRC) shows that a diet high in fiber could possibly reverse the adverse effects that environmental toxins have on cardiovascular health. The findings are part of UK-SRC’s “Project #1,” which examines how nutrients affect toxicity caused by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in vascular tissues.

The CDC yesterday confirmed another infection with 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the United States in California. The patient is among a group of people under a federal quarantine order because of their recent return to the U.S. on a State Department-chartered flight that arrived on February 7, 2020. All people who have been in Hubei Province in the past 14 days are considered at high risk of having been exposed to COVID-19 and subject to a temporary 14-day quarantine.

The American Red Cross and the American Cancer Society have partnered to launch a Give Blood to Give Time campaign to raise awareness on how blood donations help patients fighting cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation, used to treat cancer, can damage the body's ability to generate healthy blood cells and cause potentially life-threatening conditions. Blood transfusions from generous donors help to provide patients with critical clotting factors, proteins and antibodies needed to help their bodies fight back.

In rodeo, it’s not really a matter of if you’ll get injured, but when and how badly. Last year, a major shoulder injury that tore six of the eight tendons in his riding arm took one rider out of competition for several months. Every rider who competes in professional rodeos carries a catalog of their injuries.

Doctors met a patient at a surgical center outside Boston to invent a new operation, a way to perform arm amputations that might allow patients to move their prosthetic hands more like real ones. The right arm resting on a blue surgical drape before them came from a cadaver; it’s just the limb, ending at the shoulder. It came from the Anatomy Gifts Registry. Devising a new operation is like re-engineering the anatomy.

A heart attack may cause tingling and numbness in one hand. If a person is experiencing a suspected heart attack, they or someone near them should seek emergency medical help. Severe blockages in the heart's main blood supply can cause chest pain as well as tingling and numbness down one arm or the other.