Synthetic chemicals in food system creating health burden of $2.2tn a year, report finds

Scientists issue urgent warning about chemicals, found to cause cancer and infertility as well as harming environment…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/10/synthetic-chemicals-food-system-health-burden-report

 

Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change, scientists warn

The industrial economy has created more than 100 million "novel entities", or chemicals not found in nature, with somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 in commercial use and production, the report says. But the environmental and human health effects of this widespread contamination of the biosphere are not widely appreciated, in spite of a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer...

The report found there were correlational or causal data linking widely used chemicals with threats to human reproductive, immune, neurological, cardiovascular, respiratory, liver, kidney and metabolic systems…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/06/chemical-pollution-threat-comparable-climate-change-scientists-warn-novel-entities?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Key takeaways: RFK Jr’s ‘Maha’ report on chronic disease in children | Robert F Kennedy Jr | The Guardian

Report ignores common dangers to children, focuses on Kennedy's favored topics – and will be forcefully opposed…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/rfk-jr-maha-health-report-explained 

Trump announces rollback of chemical disaster protections - The Washington Post

"We've been here before, and the losers are always the families, workers and first responders," said Adam Kron, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental law firm. "The EPA should be implementing its chemical disaster safety, not rolling it back."…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/07/trump-chemical-disasters-protections-rule/

Trump’s proposed EPA leadership stacked with lobbyists and attorneys

Donald Trump is stacking his proposed Environmental Protection Agency leadership with former industry lobbyists, executives, and attorneys who have spent their careers attacking protections covering everything from water quality to greenhouse gas emissions to toxic chemicals…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/05/trump-epa-lobbyists-attorneys

 

More than 400 chemicals in plastic products linked to breast cancer – study

Despite the known risks, plastic in general remains a little-regulated substance, largely because of the petrochemical and plastic industry's lobbying power. But regulation can be effective: the addition of some phthalates to California's Proposition 65 law, which targets toxic chemicals in consumer goods, broadly reduced the level of the dangerous compound in Californians' blood...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/06/plastic-chemicals-breast-cancer

‘These levels are crazy’: Louisiana tap water sees huge spike in toxic chemicals

Since early summer, the combination of drought and rising sea levels has helped drag salty water from the ocean up the Mississippi River. The high levels of saltwater have made much of the region's water undrinkable. But public health experts have also voiced worries that the saltwater intrusion could, over time, corrode the region's ageing water infrastructure, leach heavy metals into the drinking water and create other knock-on problems...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/27/louisiana-mississippi-river-tap-water-contamination-chemicals

Rich Nations Are Burying the Developing World in Plastic Waste – Mother Jones

"Toxic chemicals from these plastics are poisoning communities," said Therese Karlsson, a science and technical adviser for the nonprofit International Pollutant Elimination Network, or IPEN...

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/03/rich-countries-nations-waste-plastic-exports-chemical-contamination/

Revealed: the US is averaging one chemical accident every two days

…chemical accidents in the US shows that accidental releases – be they through train derailments, truck crashes, pipeline ruptures or industrial plant leaks and spills – are happening consistently across the country…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/25/revealed-us-chemical-accidents-one-every-two-days-average

Norfolk Southern is paying $6.5 million to derailment victims. Meanwhile, it's shelling out $7.5 billion for shareholders | CNN Business

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw pledged Tuesday the freight railroad will spend $6.5 million to help those affected by the release of toxic chemicals from its derailment nearly three weeks ago in East Palestine, Ohio. But in a plan released earlier this year, the company said it's planning to spend more than a thousand times that amount — $7.5 billion — to repurchase its own shares in order to benefit its shareholders...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/investing/norfolk-southern-share-repurchases/index.html

Scientists sound alarm at US regulator’s new ‘forever chemicals’ definition

…PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 12,000 compounds most frequently used to make products water-, stain- and grease-resistant. They are in thousands of products across dozens of industries, and have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems. They are dubbed "forever chemicals" due to their longevity in the environment...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/05/epa-pfas-definition-scientists-forever-chemicals

Revealed: the dangerous chemicals in your food wrappers

Tests by Consumer Reports found PFAS in all kinds of food packaging, even from companies that say they've phased out the chemicals…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/24/revealed-pfas-dangerous-chemicals-food-wrappers

One in three Americans have detectable levels of toxic weedkiller, study finds

…Exposure to high levels of 2,4-D, an ingredient of Agent Orange used against civilians during the Vietnam war, has been linked to cancers including leukemia in children, birth defects and reproductive problems among other health issues. While little is known about the impact of low-level exposure to the herbicide, it does disrupt the endocrine system – a network of glands that make hormones which control growth and development, reproduction, metabolism and our organs and moods…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/09/toxic-herbicide-exposure-study-2-4-d

Monsanto, Seed Money: We still haven’t properly reckoned with the company’s destruction.

…Seed Money documents in devastating detail the consequences of that triumph: the highly predictable (but denied for years by Monsanto) rise of weeds that evolved to resist Roundup, credible suspicions that Roundup is more toxic than the company originally let on, the deluge of older and more toxic herbicides that were deployed in a futile attempt to control those superweeds, and a festering legal dispute over the company's phosphate mines in Idaho, which have "contaminated soil and groundwater with hazardous chemicals and radioactive constituents," as the Environmental Protection Agency has found…

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2021/12/monsanto-glyphosate-dicamba-lawsuits-bartow-j-elmore-bayer/

Radioactive material and pesticides among new contaminants found in US tap water

"We're testing for things that are already in our drinking water after the fact … and we're not keeping pace with these chemicals."…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/03/us-tap-water-contaminants-discovery-radioactive-material-pesticides

Your fast food is wrapped in grease-proof ortho-phthalates. Why is that allowed?

Fast food boxes and wrappers contain toxic chemicals known to interfere with our reproductive systems and contribute to attention and learning disorders…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/03/your-fast-food-is-wrapped-in-grease-proof-ortho-phthalates-why-is-that-allowed

EPA Withheld Reports of Risk Posed by 1,240 Chemicals

"The TSCA program is underfunded. The previous Administration never asked Congress for the necessary resources to reflect the agency's new responsibilities under amended TSCA. These shortfalls have implications that matter to all stakeholders, not just industry." Despite the funding challenges, the EPA pledged to try to rectify the situation…

https://theintercept.com/2021/11/01/epa-toxic-chemicals-reports-withheld/

Biden plan puts chemical industry’s feet to the fire - POLITICO

…"This comprehensive, national PFAS strategy will deliver protections to people who are hurting, by advancing bold and concrete actions that address the full lifecycle of these chemicals," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/18/biden-pfas-chemical-industry-516179

Floods, Fires, and Outdated Disaster Plans at Chemical Facilities (Union of Concerned Scientists; Got Science? podcast #119)

Researcher Casey Kalman discusses how chemical facilities can prepare for worsening climate change and natural disasters. 

Interview: 

https://soundcloud.com/gotscience/ep-119-floods-fires-and-outdated-disaster-plans-at-chemical-facilities

Got Science? · Ep. 119: Floods, Fires, and Outdated Disaster Plans at Chemical Facilities

EPA is falsifying risk assessments for dangerous chemicals, say whistleblowers

Agency scientists say management silences and harasses them to appease chemical industry…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/27/epa-whistleblowers-falsifying-risk-assessments-dangerous-chemicals