Group digs up dirt on swing set

In the latest episode of Life Under the Microscope, the White House playground for Sasha, Malia and friends is stirring controversy. An environmental health group is contending that the playground’s ground-up-tire mulch poses a health risk.

“This is not a material that children should be playing on,” wrote Nancy Alderman, president of Environment and Human Health Inc., which calls itself a “non-profit organization composed of doctors, public health professionals and policy experts … dedicated to protecting human health from environmental harms.”

The group said an analysis of ground-up tires done by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station found a carcinogen as well as chemicals that irritate the skin, eyes and mucous membranes.

A pediatrician at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City concluded in March that “we are suddenly, and belatedly, beginning to realize that synthetic turf fields may, in fact, be associated with health problems in children.”

WWTOUTUSD?

/what will TOTUS do?