public health

When UBC food safety researcher Tianxi Yang became a mother, she wondered how much microplastic her son would ingest when drinking milk out of widely available plastic containers.

The decline in smog-causing aerosol particles resulting from China's ambitious cleanup efforts are an unlikely culprit for recent extreme heat waves in the Pacific. Scientists are grappling with the fact that reducing such pollution, while essential for public health, is also heating the atmosphere.

Federal Addictions Minister Ya'ara Saks says she had "deep concerns" about the lack of limits Toronto put on its now-rejected pitch to decriminalize the possession of illegal drugs — and the city health agency's refusal to make any changes.

The Canadian documentary Plastic People advocates urgently reducing plastic production to aid human health.

High-income countries have long sent their waste abroad to be thrown away or recycled — and an independent team of experts says they’re inundating the developing world with much more plastic than previously estimated.

A strange thing happened to the leaders of the so-called freedom convoy during their occupation of downtown Ottawa last winter: they became celebrities. Now they desperately want back into the spotlight and plan to use another gathering — this time in Winnipeg — to reclaim their infamy, writes columnist Tom Brodbeck.

When the full story of this pandemic is finally written, the behaviour of people like Dr. Kieran Moore — to say nothing of his political masters at Queen’s Park — will feature prominently, writes columnist Max Fawcett.

The stiff upper lip that characterized the conservative mindset in Great Britain has been replaced in contemporary Canada by a perpetually quivering bottom one, writes columnist

Even as we mourn the loss of life due to the climate crisis, we’re out hunting for more oil and gas, building more pipelines and fighting over carbon taxes, writes pediatrician and science writer Dr. Elaine Blacklock.

It’s hard to believe anyone in the United Conservative Party could find a silver lining in their government’s disastrous mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, writes columnist Max Fawcett.

More than two dozen Democrats in Congress are demanding the White House pause construction on the oil project and carry out new environmental studies.

While 90 per cent of health-care workers in the province are already vaccinated, Premier François Legault said the remaining 10 per cent pose a risk to patients.

Alberta's top doctor is defending the province's plan to lift all its COVID-19 public health restrictions despite mounting concerns from physicians and political leaders across Canada, including federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu.

While ongoing delays feel like the same old story for Canada's main environmental law, we cannot let this setback spell the end of Bill C-28, write Larry Barzelai and Jane McArthur of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

For those who fetishize freedom and worship at the altar of liberty, the removal of mask restrictions is probably worth celebrating. But for the rest of us, it marks the beginning of an uncomfortable experiment, writes columnist Max Fawcett.