Senators to hold hearings on drugs in drinking water

March 11, 2008 at 1:15a.m.

Two veteran U.S. senators said Monday they plan to hold hearings in response to an Associated Press investigation into the presence of trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.

Also, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., has asked the EPA to establish a national task force to investigate the issue and make recommendations to Congress on any legislative actions needed.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, chairman of the Transportation, Safety, Infrastructure Security and Water Quality Subcommittee, said the oversight hearings would likely be held in April.

Boxer, D-Calif., said she was “alarmed at the news” that pharmaceuticals are turning up in the nation’s drinking water, while Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat who said he was “deeply concerned” by the AP findings, both represent states where pharmaceuticals had been detected in drinking water supplies, but not disclosed to the public.

Medical records sold at store as scrap paper

SALT LAKE CITY — The medical records of 28 Central Florida Regional Hospital patients were sold last month at a Salt Lake City surplus store for about $20, a newspaper reported.

The records were sold to a local school teacher looking for scrap paper for her fourth-grade class, The Deseret Morning News of Salt Lake City reported Monday. The mix-up is being blamed on a shipping problem.

“I’m aghast,” said Marcy Lippincott, a Florida attorney whose father’s records were among those sold. “I’m wondering who to sue. It’s a complete invasion of privacy. It’s appalling to think your records can be out there somewhere like that.”

The records contained detailed medical histories, phone numbers, addresses, Social Security numbers and insurance information. Several of the patients whose information was lost are dead.

Suspicious liquids found on flight, China discloses

BEIJING — China disclosed Monday that suspicious liquids were found on a flight headed to Beijing from a far western Muslim region, and Olympic organizers tried to dismiss fears that the summer games were under threat.

The government announced over the weekend that authorities had foiled a plot by Islamic terrorists targeting the August games and also said there was an apparently unrelated attempt to crash a passenger jet Friday.

Scant details were initially released about the reported plot or the airplane incident.

However, China’s head of civil aviation said Monday that the flight from the far western Xinjiang region to Beijing had been diverted after some passengers were found with suspicious liquids.

Shuttle ready for launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Endeavour was poised for a rare nighttime launch tonight to the international space station and the longest visit ever to the orbiting outpost.

NASA filled the shuttle’s external fuel tank Monday evening; everything went exactly as planned.

Good weather was forecast for the 2:28 a.m. liftoff. It will be the first shuttle launch in darkness since 2006; only a quarter of all shuttle flights have begun at nighttime. It also will be NASA’s longest space station mission: 16 days.

Endeavour’s seven-man crew will deliver a new Japanese compartment to the space station — the first of three lab installments — as well as a Canadian robot designed to help with outside maintenance.

The Japanese lab — called Kibo, or Hope — is so big that it will require three shuttle flights to get everything up. A storage compartment for the lab is loaded aboard Endeavour; the lab itself will fly on the next mission in May.

Israeli army ordered to scale back operations

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister ordered the army to scale back operations in Gaza on Monday after a sharp drop in Palestinian rocket fire, raising the possibility of a wider truce that would ease the path for peace talks.

Ehud Olmert denied talk of a cease-fire with Gaza’s Hamas rulers but said there was no need to attack Gaza as long as calm prevailed.

Hamas said it was encouraged by the relative lull, saying it proved that attacks on Israel were paying off.

Associated Press