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‘Forever Chemicals’ in Baby Formula? Scientists Unpack FDA Results
The big takeaway from a new government survey of infant formula is that the U.S. supply is largely safe. But experts and health officials say there are still steps that can be taken to make a product consumed by two-thirds of infants in the U.S. even safer.
One noteworthy finding from the Food and Drug Administration’s testing of 312 formula samples concerned per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”
The FDA detected five PFAS in the samples it tested, with the most common one — PFOS — found in half of all samples. Of those samples, the vast majority (95%) contained less than 2.9 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFOS. What, exactly, does that mean?
The FDA analysis doesn’t explain the PFAS results in much detail. But parents are bound to wonder, given that higher levels of exposure to PFAS, man-made chemicals used in products like nonstick cookware and stain-resistant clothing and rugs, have been linked to conditions including higher cholesterol, kidney and testicular cancer, and reduced vaccine efficacy.
We Are Bombarding America’s Forests With Roundup
In remote Northeast California, about 10 miles outside the lumber mill town of Chester and a half-hour’s drive from the old hunting cabin I bought and fixed up about a decade ago, I steer my old Toyota Tacoma down a bumpy dirt road to where the Lassen National Forest gives way to private timberland. Lilly rides shotgun.
We’d come to this exact spot seven years ago. Lilly, my sharp-eyed border collie, had jumped out of the truck and chased a rabbit through a meadow of knee-high grass, returning covered in mud and burrs. The landscape was straight out of an L.L.Bean catalog: a flower-dotted meadow buzzing with life. Douglas firs, incense cedars, and some of the tallest sugar pines on the planet sheltered protected species ranging from gray wolves to Pacific fishers and northern goshawks.
The Sierra Nevada red fox, one of California’s rarest mammals, was known to live nearby, amid the vast patchwork of private and public lands. The Lassen area is where I come to reset, forage for wild mushrooms, and let stress evaporate.
The Invisible Force Making Food Less Nutritious
In 1988, the chickpeas and rice in this curry were part of a well-balanced meal — a serving of each provided a plethora of essential nutrients, including roughly 22 percent of the zinc a person needs to consume each day. Today, the very same meal has become a little less wholesome, meeting only 20 percent of the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation for daily zinc intake, according to a meta-analysis of relevant research.
And by 2040, chickpeas could contain even fewer nutrients, including just 17 percent of recommended daily zinc — putting those who rely on them at greater risk of life-threatening deficiencies. Chickpeas and rice are not the only foods steadily growing less nutritious. Many of humanity’s most important crops — including wheat, potatoes, beans — contain fewer vitamins and minerals than they did a generation ago.
The invisible culprit behind this damaging phenomenon? Carbon dioxide pollution.
Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow — from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc. Experts fear the degradation of Earth’s food supply will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger, in which even people who consume enough calories won’t get the nutrients they need to thrive.
Microplastics in Crops Could End Up on Your Plate, Study Warns
Microplastics have been detected in nearly every location on the planet with consistently bad outcomes for whatever they touch. New research indicates that food crops such as tomatoes and wheat are anything but exempt from this pattern. A study published in Environmental Science and Pollution Research by Griffith University in Australia examined the influence of microplastics and nanoplastics on tomato and wheat crops.
The small plastic particles negatively impacted plant growth and even entered plant tissue, as described in a news release shared by EurekAlert. The researchers took great pains to avoid pitfalls that might produce unrealistic scenarios for microplastic contamination in soil. To that point, they used older plastics and ones that could be found in real-life agriculture based on their sizes and characteristics.
In the study, reductions in chlorophyll levels and overall plant health due to fiber-shaped plastic from textiles created the most negative effects. Mixes of micro- and nanoplastics demonstrated more toxicity than individual ones. These plastics didn’t stay confined to the stems and roots throughout the study’s duration, either. They ended up in tomato leaves, which is a cause for alarm, according to study lead Shima Ziajahromi.
EPA, Conservation Groups: Wyoming’s ‘Impaired’ Water Protocols Run Afoul of the Clean Water Act
Federal environmental regulators and water quality advocates want the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality to rectify a policy restricting who can submit water samples used to decide whether waters are too polluted and below Clean Water Act standards.
Currently, Wyoming only accepts water samples collected by the state and federal government and their subdivisions when it’s directly making “impaired” water determinations — that’s been the case since 2020, according to state officials who in March proposed to continue that policy. The revision is part of a DEQ document titled: “Methods for Determining Attainment of Surface Water Quality Standards: Basis and Overall Approach.”
That wordy proposal triggered a number of concerned parties to speak up.
Among them, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In an April 24 letter to the DEQ, acquired by WyoFile through a Wyoming Public Records Act request, the federal agency’s regional office in Denver quoted language from its regulations implementing the cornerstone water-protection law.
Indigenous and Rural Communities Are More Exposed to Harmful Pesticides, Study Finds
A Peruvian study mapping agricultural pesticide mixtures linked to cancer found a strong connection between environmental exposure and increased risk of illness.
Combining biological research, national cancer registry data, and environmental monitoring, the research team reveals new insights into how pesticide exposure may drive the development of certain cancers.
Pesticides are often found as complex mixtures rather than single substances in food, water, and the environment, therefore making their health impact difficult to measure. In particular, Peru, with its diverse climates and ecosystems, has regions with intensive agriculture and some communities with particularly high levels of pesticides.
The study authors note that prior studies have focused on individual chemicals in controlled settings, which does not reflect how people are exposed in real life. They look closer at the interaction between multiple pesticides and their human impact.
