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Kentucky Governor Vetoes Bill Blocking Kentuckians From Suing Pesticide Makers
Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has vetoed a bill that critics say would block Kentuckians from suing pesticide companies for failing to warn of their products’ hazards. Beshear called it “dangerous for Kentuckians” and something that “flies in the face of making America healthy.”
Beshear in his Tuesday veto message said Senate Bill 199, sponsored by Sen. Jason Howell, R-Murray, would “slam the door shut on citizens’ access to courts to seek damages from the makers of these pesticides if the product simply has the warning label approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.”
“These labels do not warn consumers of the risks of using these pesticides, such as possible chronic disease risks like leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or other cancers and chronic diseases. They are not enough to allow corporations to escape legitimate lawsuits over their failure to warn,” Beshear said.
Advocates for SB 199 include farm industry groups, who argue the bill ensures farmers have “crop protection tools” available to them amid litigation over those lawsuits. In particular, the company that makes the herbicide Roundup has faced thousands of lawsuits from people who claim it caused their cancer. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015 found the herbicide was “probably carcinogenic.”
US ‘Population Collapse’ Looming as Toxic Chemicals and Delayed Parenthood Tank Birth Rates, Warns Joe Rogan
Podcaster Joe Rogan spoke with epidemiologist Shanna H. Swan, PhD on Tuesday about how chemical and cultural factors are destroying America’s birthrate. Swan, an environmental epidemiologist and author of “Count Down,” spoke with Rogan about how widespread exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in plastics, food, water, and everyday products is contributing to declining fertility in modern society.
Rogan noted that treatments like IVF have become an increasingly commonplace topic, particularly as “older people that are, you know — they put their careers aside in their 30s, they decided now it’s time to have kids. They’re worried that it’s too late.”
“But listening to you talk about it, it seems like that’s only one part of the issue and not the big part,” Rogan said. “The big part seems to be that we’re being poisoned, and we’re doing it by virtue of our modern world that we live in where so much of your life relies on plastic.”
Study Finds Pesticides Effects Lasting Generations
The Organic & Non-GMO Report reported:
A systematic review and meta‑analysis published ahead of print in Critical Reviews in Toxicology found substantial DNA damage and alterations in DNA methylation patterns associated with prenatal and early childhood pesticide exposure across diverse populations. The analysis integrated 28 observational studies and reported significant outcomes including DNA strand breaks, cytogenetic aberrations, and downregulation of genes involved in damage response and detoxification pathways.
In related research, studies in animal models demonstrate that pesticide exposure can have effects that persist across multiple generations. A Washington State University publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that a single fungicide exposure during pregnancy increased disease risk for up to 20 subsequent generations through epigenetic inheritance, suggesting that toxicant exposures may have far‑reaching biological consequences beyond directly exposed individuals.
These findings are reinforced by controlled laboratory research showing transgenerational epigenetic effects of pesticide exposure in amphibians, where herbicide exposure was linked to altered DNA methylation and physiological traits across generations in frog populations. Continued integration of genetic and epigenetic research into agricultural risk assessments may inform policies that better protect reproductive and developmental health in farming communities and beyond.
Microplastics Found in 9 of 10 Prostate Cancer Samples in Pilot Study
Tiny plastic particles were found in nine out of 10 prostate cancer tumor samples in a new study, with cancerous tissue containing more than twice the concentration of microplastics as nearby healthy tissue. The findings are from a pilot study that examined tissue samples from 10 men who had their entire prostate removed due to cancer — a sample size researchers acknowledge is too small to draw firm conclusions from.
The findings have been recently presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium. “By uncovering yet another potential health concern posed by plastic, our findings highlight the need for stricter regulatory measures to limit the public’s exposure to these substances, which are everywhere in the environment,” study senior author Vittorio Albergamo, an assistant professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics, said in a statement.
EPA Wants to Let Plastic Incinerators Skirt Clean Air Act
The US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to remove air emission regulations from plastic pyrolysis plants, also known as chemical or advanced recycling facilities, that essentially burn plastic to make fuel. Pyrolysis plants are currently regulated as incinerators under the Clean Air Act. But buried in part IV of a proposal to change permitting requirements for incinerators during natural disasters, the EPA asks for public comment on the agency’s suggestion to remove the reference to “pyrolysis/combustion units” in the definition of “municipal waste combustion unit” in the emission guidelines for what the EPA calls “other solid waste incinerators.”
“What EPA is now trying to do is illegal,” says Cynthia Palmer, petrochemicals senior analyst at the advocacy group Moms Clean Air Force. If the proposal goes through, it means that pyrolysis facilities would have no environmental regulations, except any state laws, she says. “There would be no pollution controls, no air monitoring, and no reporting requirements.”
The way the EPA presented this potential change is shocking, says Jessica Roff, plastics and petrochemicals program manager for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), an environmental advocacy group. “This [action] is not listed in the title of the proposed rule. It’s not listed in the description. It’s not listed in the announcement,” she says.
New PFAS Research Reveals Worrying Findings in Wilmington, N.C. Residents’ Blood
Wilmington Star-News reported:
First, the good news. “The positive news for the environment and our drinking water is that PFAS levels are much, much lower than they were and the regulations that have been adopted and those in the works should help drop those numbers even more,” said Dr. Jane Hoppin, principal investigator of the GenX Exposure Study and a member of N.C. State’s Center for Human Health and the Environment.
But, as we all know, there’s always a but. “Yet even if people are no longer exposed to them in the levels that they once were, we really still don’t know the health consequences for those who were exposed for an extended period of time,” Hoppin said. Since the presence of manmade “forever chemicals” — formally known as per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — was first reported by the StarNews in 2017, health officials have been scrambling to get a handle on how widespread the contamination of these previously unknown substances is and what level of health threats they pose to people who had been unknowingly ingesting them in their water.
As part of that push to gauge potential long-term health impacts to residents from prolonged PFAS exposure, Hoppin and other researchers have been looking at historical blood samples to see if the forever chemicals had been accumulating in people’s bodies and what health effects they might have experienced. Research has already shown the manmade chemicals to be known human carcinogens that can impact the immune system, thyroid, fetal growth, and can lead to kidney, testicular and other cancers.
Warming Winters Lead to More Nitrate Pollution in the Drinking Water Near Farms
When pollution gets bad enough in the rivers supplying Iowa’s largest city with drinking water, it costs Des Moines around $16,000 a day to run a special system to filter out dangerous nitrates. It’s a fact of life in the agriculture-dependent state — and climate change is making the water quality problem even worse.
The nitrates come from fertilizer and pesticides that make their way into the soil and then waterways like the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers. It’s not usually a problem in winter, but this year Iowa’s capital had to filter in January and February — just the second time that’s happened in more than 30 years. That’s likely going to mean higher water bills for people who live in a state with some of the nation’s waterways that are most vulnerable to nitrate pollution.
Experts blame weather conditions, including warming winters, for a costly problem they say will only grow across farm country. When it comes to winter nitrate pollution events, “We are more apt to see these in the future. Are they going to occur every year? No. But the ingredients are there for them to potentially occur more often,” said Justin Glisan, Iowa’s state climatologist.
