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Common Plastic Chemical BPA Found to Feminize Males and Masculinize Females
Very low exposure to bisphenol A can have lasting effects on health. In a study of adult rats that were exposed before birth, researchers observed long-term changes in gene activity that differed by sex. Females showed gene expression patterns typically associated with males, while males showed patterns more commonly seen in females, Sci Tech Daily reported Saturday.
These shifts were linked to females moving toward a cancer-like biological state and males toward metabolic syndrome, a condition associated with higher risks of diabetes and heart disease. Bisphenol A is a man-made chemical with estrogen-like effects that is widely used in food packaging. Although it has been banned from many products, it is still found in some types of packaging. In this study, scientists focused on how bisphenol A influences the body during the fetal stage.
Pregnant rats were given drinking water containing bisphenol A. The researchers tested two exposure levels, one matching typical daily human exposure (0.5 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day) and a higher dose that was considered safe in 2015 (50 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day). “We saw lasting effects in the adult rat,” says Thomas Lind, the study’s first author. “Even very low doses changed how the genes were expressed. Females were masculinized, and males were feminized.
Outrage at European Science Center as Director Ousted After Study on Glyphosate
A leading European chemical safety institute has ousted the director of its cancer research center after the director led an extensive testing program into the safety of the pesticide glyphosate, sparking concerns about chemical industry influence into what has been an independent research institution. Dr. Daniele Mandrioli joined the Ramazzini Institute in Bologna, Italy in 2012 and has directed the Institute’s Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center since 2020.
The institute’s work has been used to inform regulatory decision-making and policy work on multiple chemicals, including vinyl chloride, benzene, and formaldehyde, and the group says it collaborates with the US National Toxicology Program as well as the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. It touts “50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENT RESEARCH” on its website and lists the World Health Organization as a partner. But the dismissal of Mandrioli and the suspicion that it is tied to his work on glyphosate, has roiled scientific circles.
In a Jan. 21 letter to Ramazzini Institute President Loretta Masotti, Dr. Philip Landrigan, a US environmental epidemiologist and pediatrician who leads Boston College’s global public health program and who also is head of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Ramazzini Institute, described Mandrioli as a “superb scientist” and complained that the committee had not been consulted on the termination. The decision appeared to be due to industry pressure, the letter alleges.
Scientists Just Calculated How Many Microplastics Are in Our Atmosphere. The Number Is Absolutely Shocking
Microplastics are pervasive, found everywhere on Earth, from the Sahara Desert to patches of Arctic sea ice. Yet despite these plastic particles’ ubiquity, scientists have struggled to determine exactly how many of them are in our atmosphere. Now a new estimate published in Nature suggests that land sources release about 600 quadrillion (600,000,000,000,000,000) microplastic particles into the atmosphere every year, about 20 times more than the number of particles contributed by oceans (about 26 quadrillion).
The median concentration of microplastics is 0.08 particle per cubic meter (m3) over land and 0.003 particle per m3 over sea, the study found. These estimates are between 100 and 10,000 times lower than previous accountings of atmospheric microplastics — a discrepancy that the researchers behind the new study say underscores the need for better global measures of these pollutants. “We knew that uncertainties of existing emission estimates were very large,” says Andreas Stohl, senior author of the study and an atmospheric scientist at the University of Vienna.
“They are even still large after our study, but we could at least narrow down the uncertainty range, especially when it comes to the importance of land-based versus ocean-based emissions.” A microplastic is any plastic particle sized between one micron and five millimeters. Easily swept up by wind and carried long distances by water, these tiny motes are also exceedingly difficult to detect and almost impossible to remove from the environment.
‘A Fraudulent Scheme’: New Mexico Sues Texas Oil Companies for Walking Away From Their Leaking Wells
The state of New Mexico is accusing three Texas oil executives of orchestrating “a fraudulent scheme” to pocket revenue from hundreds of oil and gas wells in New Mexico and offload the cost of plugging and cleaning up the wells onto the state’s taxpayers. The suit, filed in late December by the New Mexico attorney general’s office, is the latest salvo in the state’s fight against oil and gas executives accused of foisting old wells onto the public.
The 72-page complaint alleges a yearslong pattern of fraud and self-dealing in which the oil executives — Everett Willard Gray II, Robert Stitzel and Marquis Reed Gilmore Jr., all of Midland, Texas — repeatedly transferred wells among “a series of shell corporations, LLCs, and partnerships they created.” On multiple occasions, the men placed companies into bankruptcy protection, only to move their profitable wells to other companies they owned or managed outside the bankruptcy proceedings, the suit said.
New Mexico faces millions of dollars in costs to plug wells the companies shed through the bankruptcies. Unplugged oil and gas wells can emit climate-warming methane and carcinogenic gases and often leak briny, radioactive wastewater, as ProPublica and Capital & Main detailed in a 2024 investigation. The newsrooms uncovered Gray, Stitzel and Gilmore’s early business dealings and use of bankruptcy proceedings. “I will not stand by while bad actors take advantage of the system — avoiding responsibility, burdening the state with costly remediation, and recklessly endangering the health of New Mexicans,” Raúl Torrez, the state’s attorney general, said in a statement.
A Pesticide That Has Been Banned for Decades Is Still Showing up in Long Beach and Other Communities Near Shipping Yards
The Los Angeles Times reported:
A highly toxic pesticide that was banned in California more than two decades ago is still widely used across the state, potentially endangering communities near farm fields and bustling shipyards, according to a new study. For much of the 20th century, methyl bromide, an odorless and colorless fumigant, had been touted as a miracle product for its effectiveness in killing pests, both on farms and in the shipping containers that conveyed produce across the world.
But research later determined that the neurotoxic gas also can cause serious health issues in humans and contributed to the depletion of the ozone, ultimately leading to its ban under the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty, in 2005. However, researchers from UCLA and UC Irvine recently found that methyl bromide remains in use in 36 of 58 California counties, according to data collected by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation over the last decade.
From 2016 to 2023, more than 12 million pounds of the pesticide were applied in these counties, according to those data. And more than 200 fumigation facilities had active permits to emit methyl bromide statewide during that eight-year span. How is this possible? Well, the international ban, it turns out, included broad exemptions.
The counties with the highest methyl bromide use —Siskiyou, Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin — were made up of mostly rural communities that were using it for exempted agricultural purposes, such as soil fumigation for specialty crops without feasible alternatives or in greenhouse nurseries.
A ‘Bombshell’ Article Misses the Point About Health and Plastics
New Hampshire Bulletin reported:
As a family doctor, I have been trained to ask questions, and after years of study and practice, I’ve become pretty good at it. The question I find myself asking about a recent article published by The Guardian (“‘A bombshell’: Doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body,” Jan. 13), calling into question the relevance of micro- and nanoplastics to human health is, why?
Why would a publication known for its journalistic commitment to robust and factual evidence give oxygen to aspersions on a well-established quorum of scientific consensus? This is a confounding question in light of the plethora of articles that The Guardian has previously published to the contrary regarding micro- and nanoplastics and human health. Just two weeks ago, for instance, The Guardian ran an article highlighting the widely agreed upon finding that “burning plastic releases noxious compounds such as dioxins, furans, and heavy metals” (“Household burning of plastic waste in developing world is hidden health threat, study shows,” Jan. 8).
This research surveyed 1,000 respondents across 26 countries. The “bombshell” article fails to provide similar significant quantitative objections. In New Hampshire, where the literal downstream health and environmental impacts of micro- and nanoplastics are readily apparent, The Guardian’s assessment grossly undervalues the lived experience in favor of weak general claims of insufficient scientific rigor.
