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Almost 25 years after federal regulators curbed household use of a pesticide linked to learning disorders in children, and three years after a total ban on its use on food crops, the chemical is again being applied to everything from bananas to turnips in most states. The saga of this pesticide, which has the unwieldy name chlorpyrifos, is a stark reminder of why so many Americans are alarmed about industrial farming and the food supply. The concern helped propel Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential candidacy and subsequent selection to head the Department of Health and Human Services. (Rabin, 12/4)

Gen X bears an extra burden of conditions such as depression, anxiety, ADHD and neurotic behavior because of the leaded gasoline they were exposed to as children, according to a study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Leaded gas was banned in the United States in 1996, but the study said years of exposure during development made them particularly vulnerable. Lead gas peaked from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, and children born during that era would later develop some of the highest rates of mental health symptoms, the study said. (Alltucker, 12/4)

Splash pads found in public parks across the United States are linked to thousands of cases of waterborne diseases that leave a calling card of diarrhea, fever and vomiting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week. More than 10,000 children became ill from 1997 to 2022 after using splash pads, and most of those outbreaks were attributed to cryptosporidium, a parasite that causes diarrhea and spreads through contaminated water. (Malhi, 12/4)

Even after state officials found multiple batches of raw milk products contaminated by the bird flu virus from Fresno-based Raw Farm, triggering the dairy’s eighth product recall in recent years, CEO Mark McAfee remains defiant about the safety of unpasteurized milk. “It is certain that decades-old FDA anti-raw-milk policies will shift soon,” according to a statement released to the press by McAfee, who said he has been asked to apply for a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory position by the transition team for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time Raw Farm customer and President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. (Krieger, 12/4)

A recent mammal H5N1 avian flu strain and an H5N1 virus strain from an infected Texas dairy worker showed low but increased ability to transmit by air compared to older H5N1 strains, according to a ferret study published yesterday by a research team based at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. (Schnirring, 12/3)

A flu-like disease that has killed dozens of people over two weeks is being investigated in southwestern Congo, local authorities said. The deaths were recorded between Nov. 10 and Nov. 25 in the Panzi health zone of Kwango province. Symptoms include fever, headache, cough and anaemia, provincial health minister Apollinaire Yumba told reporters over the weekend. (Kamale, 12/3)

A large new study suggests there might be good reason to indulge in chocolate this holiday season: It found that people who regularly ate chocolate had a lower likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes. But the findings came with an important caveat. It was only dark chocolate that was associated with a lower risk of developing the disease, not milk chocolate. It’s not entirely clear why that is. But the researchers believe that dark chocolate offers greater metabolic benefits than milk chocolate because it contains less sugar and higher levels of plant compounds that have been shown in some studies to reduce inflammation and improve insulin sensitivity. (O'Connor, 12/4)

The number of years an athlete played ice hockey correlated with his risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a study of deceased male brain donors found. The study included brains from 77 hockey players who died at a median age of 51 years. Overall, 54.5% had CTE, including 27 of 28 professional players. Evidence of CTE -- a degenerative brain disease that can be diagnosed only at autopsy -- was found in 19.2% of donors who played hockey for less than 13 years, 51.9% of those who played for 13 to 23 years, and 95.8% of those who played for more than 23 years, reported Jesse Mez, MD, MS, of Boston University, and co-authors. (George, 12/4)