A labeling issue is prompting Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit to recall some liquid Tylenol products.   Apparently, it is not noted on the front of the drugs’ labels that they contain small amounts of alcohol. The presence of alcohol from flavoring agents, however, is noted as an inactive ingredient listed on the package. [...]

A blowout at a North Dakota oil well where hydraulic fracking was taking place resulted in a fracking fluid spill this past weekend. According to The Bismarck Tribune, Whiting Petroleum shut down the well after 5,600 gallons of chemical-laced fracture water and 420 gallons of oil were spilled inside a lined dike around the well. [...]

After 50 years on the market, the prescription painkillers Darvon and Darvocet are finally being removed from the market.  The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) asked Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc. to remove these painkillers from the market after such drugs were found to increase the risk of serious Darvon/Darvocet heart problems. This could lead to serious [...]

If the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania City Council has its way, there will be no fracking within the city limits.  The City Council voted unanimously yesterday to ban gas drilling there, eliciting a standing ovation from opponents of the gas drilling technique knows as hydraulic fracturing at yesterday’s Council meeting. “With this vote we are asserting the [...]

Last Thursday’s gas line break that has left close to 8,000 Southwest Florida residents without gas service since last Thursday is being blamed on Posen Construction, a contractor working to widen Colonial Avenue in Fort Myers.  While TECO Peoples Gas said it has made progress restoring gas service to some customers, it could be Friday [...]

Customers of TECO Peoples Gas in the Southwestern Florida communities of Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach, Naples and Bonita Springs had their weekends ruined after a gas line break last Thursday shut off gas services to thousands.  TECO is still working today to get gas service restored to all 1,200 residential and 6,000 customers affected [...]

A generic version of the Yaz birth control pill called Gianvi carries all the same risks as that controversial medication, but there’s a good chance that many of the young women taking it don’t know that.  While Yaz side effects have received a lot of press in the past year because of hundreds of Yaz [...]

$3.35 Million. That’s how much BP has paid Kenneth Feinberg’s law firm, Feinberg Rozen LLP, to administer the $20 billion it has set aside to pay victims of the BP oil spill. The firm received $850,000 a month starting in mid-June, according to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility. Those payments will continue through the end [...]

Remember those assurances from BP that it was a “big ocean” and that damage to the environment following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill wouldn’t be as bad a many feared?  Most people were skeptical of those claims, and now it seems that the skepticism was well-warranted. Word today that dead and dying coral has [...]

News today that BP’s extensive pipeline in Alaska is in bad shape and that corrosion problems could lead to another oil spill.   In addition to oil, those pipelines on Alaska’s North Slope, carry other flammable and toxic substances. According to an inspection report obtained by ProPublica, at least 148 BP pipelines on Alaska’s North Slope [...]