The Blacksmith Institute has released a new report on the world's most polluted places and there are, unfortunately, a lot of sites in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union on the list.

That's the bad news. The good news is that seven of the eight pollution clean-up success stories that Blacksmith cites are also in Russia.

Pollution takes a huge toll on the world's children, causing high rates of birth defects and infant mortality, high rates of asthma, cancer and other diseases, impairing brain... more

Late last evening, I got hit with that question that no adoptive mother wants to hear from a medical professional: "Does he have a history of …..?"

It felt so ridiculously helpless to say "I don’t know". The doctor is looking for answers as to how we wound up in the emergency room, and all I could manage was "I don't know".

Last year, my little guy got stung by a bee. It made a welt on his leg that was uncomfortable for a few days, but that was it. Yesterday, just after we returned home from a great Chinese dinner, he got stung again. One welt... more