Login
This Small Oregon City Voted to Stop Adding Fluoride to Its Drinking Water. It’s Part of a Larger Trend.
The City Council of Sweet Home, Oregon, a city of roughly 10,000 people, voted this summer to remove fluoride from its drinking water. In passing the ordinance, which went into effect Aug. 7, Sweet Home joined a growing number of U.S. municipalities that are removing or exploring the removal of fluoride from public drinking water this year.
Utah became the first state to prohibit local communities from adding fluoride to their public water systems, a ban that took effect in May. Florida instituted a similar ban beginning July 1. Community water fluoridation, endorsed by health organizations and commonplace in the U.S. since the 1950s, came under renewed public scrutiny in the U.S. after U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began advocating for its removal from public water systems, calling it “industrial waste” and saying it’s associated with detrimental health effects.
The American Dental Association called those claims misleading, noting adverse health impacts were found where fluoridation levels were far higher than in the U.S. In September 2024, a federal judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review potential health risks posed by fluoride in drinking water. The EPA announced in April it would review “new scientific information” on fluoride in coordination with Kennedy and HHS.
Exposure to Some Common PFAS Changes Gene Activity, New Study Finds
New research suggests exposure to some common PFAS or “forever chemical” compounds causes changes to gene activity, and those changes are linked to health problems including multiple cancers, neurological disorders and autoimmune disease.
The findings are a major step toward determining the mechanism by which the chemicals cause disease and could help doctors identify, detect and treat health problems for those exposed to PFAS before the issues advance. “This gives us a hint as to which genes and which PFAS might be important,” said Melissa Furlong, a University of Arizona College of Public Health PFAS researcher and study lead author.
PFAS are a class of about 15,000 compounds most frequently used to make products water-, stain- and grease-resistant. They 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” because they do not naturally break down in the environment.
The study checked the blood of about 300 firefighters from four departments across the country who were exposed to high levels of PFAS. The chemicals are the main ingredient in most firefighting foam, and are frequently used in “turnout gear” worn by firefighters because of their heat repelling properties. Furlong said she was surprised to find the number of genes and biological pathways that were impacted by PFAS, which suggests the chemicals may cause or contribute to a broad range of health problems.
New Evidence of Chlorpyrifos Harm to Kids’ Brains Amid Regulatory Retreat
Children highly exposed to an insecticide prior to birth showed signs of impaired brain development and motor function, according to a new study of chlorpyrifos — a pesticide still used on U.S. crops despite decades of warnings about its impact on children’s health.
The study, which focused on a group of children born to mothers in New York City, is the first to tie prenatal exposure to the pesticide to “enduring and widespread molecular, cellular, and metabolic effects in the brain,” the authors wrote. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Neurology, comes months after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its plans to partially ban chlorpyrifos but allow continued use on 11 crops.
The EPA was set to ban chlorpyrifos from use in agriculture in 2017 but the newly installed first Trump administration reversed the move. The EPA then banned chlorpyrifos in 2021 after a federal court ordered the agency to take action amid litigation and a wealth of evidence of the risks it poses to children. But the agency reversed course again after a different federal court sided with farm groups in opposition. “With more exposure we saw more brain effects, but there is no level below which you don’t see impacts,” he said.
From Landfills and Recycling Programs to Desks in Offices, Toxic Chemicals in Plastics Poison Workers
So much plastic waste ends up in dumps around the world that millions of people, mostly in poor countries, make their living as “waste pickers,” sifting through mountains of trash, looking for recyclable materials to sell.
Not surprisingly, waste pickers, who work alongside burning garbage with no protective gear, are highly exposed to toxic chemicals in plastics, according to a new report assessing differences in chemical exposures between people who handle plastic and those who work in offices.
Plastics are made from more than 16,000 chemicals, most of them sourced from fossil fuels, thousands known to be hazardous, others not yet studied, the vast majority unregulated.
Environmental and health groups have long urged negotiators working on a U.N. treaty to end plastic pollution to stop using toxic chemicals in plastic. Negotiations in Geneva ended Friday without reaching an agreement during what were supposed to be the final talks, largely because oil- and plastic-producing countries, including the U.S., opposed the limits on plastic production that close to 100 nations say are desperately needed.
This Class of Toxic Pesticides Is Now Prevalent in Michigan Waters
A commercially valuable but unpronounceable toxicant with multiple chemical variations is being increasingly found at harmful levels in Michigan waters. Sound familiar? It’s not PFAS or PCBs this time. Now, it’s neonicotinoids, or “neonics” — a type of synthetic pesticide that’s widely used on corn and soybeans. In the past few years, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has found high concentrations in creeks and rivers that drain to the Great Lakes in St. Clair County, Saginaw County, Ottawa County and Huron County.
The agency’s growing concern with neonics prompted their addition to a statewide water sampling program and the development of “pollution diets” for certain waterways. The state effort builds off U.S. Geological Survey sampling from 10 years ago, which was limited but still found neonic concentrations exceeding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency benchmark for aquatic harm by 100 times.
The findings are compiled in a new Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) analysis from biologist Pierre Mineau, who concluded that the chemicals are “likely causing significant and widespread damage” to Michigan’s aquatic environment.
The Unseen Harvest: Pesticides, Cancer and Rural Missouri’s Health Crisis
Nestled in Missouri’s Bootheel is the small town of Kennett, the Dunklin County seat. With just over 10,000 residents, it’s a close-knit community where good-natured teasing is a common show of affection. Once a sprawling swampland, it has since been transformed into an expanse of flat, fertile fields where agriculture stands as the backbone of the region’s economy. It’s the kind of community where if something tragic happens, everyone finds out.
Bobbi Bibbs found this out the hard way. She discovered she had cancer in her colon in December 2023, which then metastasized to her liver, making it a stage four diagnosis.
Bibbs isn’t alone. Dunklin County is among the 10 counties with the highest rates of that type of cancer in the state. This isn’t just a statistic, Bibbs said she can see it and almost can’t fathom it. “There are so many (cases) where we are from,” Bibbs said. “Like, it’s got to be coming from somewhere.”
Bibbs is surrounded by people who understand her struggles, many of whom work in the agriculture industry. In Dunklin County, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of crops — and most of that land is blanketed by pesticides. Estimates suggest that thousands of kilograms of pesticides are sprayed over Missouri cropland each year. In some places, wastewater sludge containing “forever chemicals” — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — is applied on farmland as fertilizer.
