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Common Pesticides and Plastic Chemicals Stifle Healthy Gut Bacteria
More than a hundred chemicals in pesticides, plastics and other products that people are routinely exposed to stifle the growth of health-promoting gut bacteria, according to a new study.
Health experts in recent years have increasingly focused on the importance of the gut microbiome and what might harm it. Humans have, on average, hundreds of types of gut bacteria that are critical for digestion, managing weight, immune system function and mental health.
These bacteria, along with other types of microorganisms such as viruses and fungi, form what’s referred to as the gut microbiome. Gut bacteria disruptions have been linked to a variety of health problems including allergies, Parkinson’s disease and type 2 diabetes.
The new study, which was published in Nature Microbiology and builds on previous evidence that certain pesticides and chemicals impact gut health, cautions that most current chemical safety testing does not account for impacts to gut health even though it’s likely people are regularly exposed to many of the chemicals they tested.
“Certain industrial and agricultural chemicals can inhibit the growth of gut bacteria and select for increased antibiotic resistance,” said Indra Roux, lead author of the study and a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit. “This could disrupt the normal function of the microbiome and reduce the effectiveness of antibiotics.”
New Texas Petrochemical Facilities Are Mostly in Low Income Areas, Communities of Color, Study Finds
Houston Public Media reported:
A recent report from Texas Southern University found that new and expanding petrochemical facilities in Texas are overwhelmingly located in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Researchers evaluated the neighborhoods around 89 proposed or expanding petrochemical facilities across the state using a screening tool from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
They looked at air pollution and proximity to other “hazardous facilities” in the areas. Data related to the race, education, income level and languages within the areas was also collected.
“The communities that are on the fenceline are getting pollution and they also are getting poverty,” said Robert Bullard, one of the study’s authors. “And also, if you look at the infrastructures within those neighborhoods that have these facilities, they are of poor quality.”
The report found that 9 in 10 of the facilities are located in counties with “higher demographic vulnerability” — meaning they had more people of color, more low-income residents, or both, compared to the state and national averages.
Kidney Cancer Cases Spiked in This Town. Will Residents Find out Why?
After the largest ground water contamination in New Hampshire history, a state-commissioned study released this fall found significantly elevated rates of kidney cancer in the town of Merrimack.
Residents fear that toxic “forever chemicals” are to blame. But to pin down a cause, the researchers need millions in funding. With federal dollars in flux, it’s unclear whether the final phase of research will be completed, leaving residents in the dark and policies to address pollutants on the table.
The chemicals, PFAS, are widespread in drinking water and have been linked to a range of adverse health effects, including certain cancers. The study in Merrimack puts the community on the brink of a rare chance to tie PFAS contamination to a cancer cluster, confirming suspicions that are often impossible to prove due to the limitations of science.
EPA to Scrap Lifesaving Soot Pollution Limit
The Trump administration has crossed a key threshold in its campaign to toss a stricter air pollution standard for soot, in a move that threatens to erase one of the Biden administration’s core public health accomplishments.
In a motion filed Monday evening, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) attorneys asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the standard, which is predicted to save thousands of lives by tightening the exposure limit to a pollutant tied to a higher risk of strokes, lung cancer and other cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
The case could provide a landmark test of the agency’s ability under President Donald Trump to successfully pull off an industry-friendly agenda of regulatory rollbacks.
In the newly filed motion, EPA echoed the arguments of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business advocates in faulting the Biden administration for allegedly taking a “regulatory shortcut” by adopting the stricter annual standard for the fine particles often dubbed soot without first conducting the “thorough review” required by the Clean Air Act.
Maine Was First to Ban Spreading PFAS-Contaminated Sludge on Farmland. Now Sludge Is Filling up Landfills.
Farmland is everywhere in tiny Unity Township, from neat fields of corn to open cattle pastures. And so are layers of wet organic sludge, a onetime fertilizer that has triggered a crisis over “forever chemicals” in central Maine and how best to rid the land of the poisons.
Farmers relied on sludge from local wastewater treatment plants for years to support their crops and improve yields. Unity Township, a farming community home to less than 50 people, now has some of the highest concentrations of PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, on agricultural land anywhere in Maine.
Three years ago, Maine was the first state in the nation to recognize the risks of PFAS — manmade chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects and other dire health problems — by outlawing the use of sewage sludge on farmland. But PFAS, testing showed, had already seeped into drinking-water wells and crop roots, tainting vegetables, beef and milk.
Research about PFAS is sobering and so are the concerns of people in this northern state who have worked and lived with them — and testified to state legislators about the high rates of contamination at their farming businesses and in their bodies.
Virginia Communities Push Back Against Sewage Sludge on Agricultural Land as PFAS Concerns Grow
A flush of a toilet, the rinse of a washing machine, or the discharge from factories — it all ends up as wastewater. That waste is then treated and made into a sludge called biosolids. Biosolids can be converted to agricultural fertilizer and by using it, many farmers in Virginia may be unknowingly spreading toxic chemicals on their land that could end up in crops and the state’s waterways.
As state Sen. Richard Stuart, R-King George, said in a recent State Water Commission hearing, “we don’t want it to go in the river anymore, for goodness’ sake.”
Biosolids can contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which pose serious health risks if people are exposed to them in higher amounts. The danger has led some states to outright ban, or enact stricter requirements in the use of biosolids, and prompted calls from some Virginia communities to do the same.
At Virginia Tech, Shilai Hao researches analysis of PFAS in the environment and is looking for ways to permanently remove it. He said that people are commonly exposed to forever chemicals by way of the products they use. Hao said it is critical for the state government to be testing biosolids due to the concentration of those chemicals in one source.
Plastic ‘Bio-Beads’ From Sewage Plants Are Polluting the Oceans and Spreading Superbugs — but There Are Alternatives
A recent spill of bio-beads — small plastic pellets used by some wastewater treatment facilities since the 1990s — has brought renewed attention to a problem that has been quietly accumulating in coastal waters for years.
Millions of bio-beads recently washed up onto the beach at Camber Sands in East Sussex. But this is not just another form of plastic pollution. Bio-beads can carry potentially dangerous bacteria.
Plastic bio-beads are used in wastewater treatment plants to help break down waste. They resemble the plastic pellets known as nurdles that are used as a feedstock by the plastic industry which are often found on beaches.
Bio-beads, however, are compressed, like a concertina, to maximise their surface area-to-volume ratio. This promotes the growth of bacteria that form a biofilm on their surface. These bacteria break down nutrients in the wastewater effluent and help process sewage.
Bio-beads are a relatively cheap and efficient method for treating waste. However, this efficiency comes with a significant environmental cost when these plastics escape.
