Login
Something in the Environment Could Be Driving Up Autism
Autism is often considered to have a strong genetic basis. However, since the 1970s, cases have risen in a way that can’t be explained by genetics. “Genetics is stable, and it’s very infrequent when it does change,” Michael Skinner, Eastlick distinguished professor and founding director of the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University, told The Epoch Times.
To explain the rise, experts often point to two things happening in tandem: broadening diagnostic criteria and the environment. Since the 1950s, worldwide chemical production has expanded 50-fold, with 350,000 different types of manufactured chemicals, chemical mixtures, and plastics.
“The number of chemicals that we’re using continues to increase,” Deborah Bennett, associate professor and exposure scientist at the University of California, Davis, told The Epoch Times. “[Yet] so many of them haven’t been assessed for their relationship to autism.”
EPA Coordinated With Bayer on Reapproval for Controversial Herbicide Dicamba
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) worked directly with pesticide maker Bayer in approving the controversial herbicide dicamba earlier this year, presenting the company with different options for how to reduce drift and runoff and then aligning on those options in the final decision, according to internal agency records.
The records show that the EPA gave a presentation to Bayer in May 2025 — two months before the agency proposed to reapprove the herbicide — and put forth two options for how to mitigate dicamba drift when it’s applied at higher temperatures.
Dicamba is notorious for its ability to drift far from where it is sprayed and to thus damage other crops and landscapes.
In its presentation, the EPA proposed one option that would have not allowed dicamba applications above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, while another option allowed applications at temperatures up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit as long as treatments take place on 50% or less of a farmer’s untreated dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybean acres.
Inhaled Microplastics Linked to Lung Cancer, Study Finds
U.S. News & World Report reported:
People with lung cancer are more likely to have hidden deposits of microplastics in their lungs, a new study says. About 66% of lung cancer patients had detectable microplastics found in fluid samples taken from their lungs, compared to 46% of people without lung cancer, researchers reported Sunday at a meeting of the European Respiratory Society in Barcelona, Spain.
Lung cancer patients also were twice as likely to have heavier loads of microplastics in their lungs, researchers said. “Our results suggest that inhaled microplastics can be found in the human lung more frequently than many people may realize,” said researcher Dr. Ilias Dimeas, a respiratory physician from the University College Dublin School of Medicine.
“This adds to the growing evidence that reducing environmental plastic pollution may have benefits that extend beyond ecosystems and into human health,” Dimeas said in a news release.
You Don’t Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules
On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which alleged the city knowingly let residents drink lead-contaminated water. The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, says the contamination violated Jacksonians’ constitutional right to bodily integrity. Donald Trump-appointed judge Kurt Engelhardt disagreed.
“The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing,” Engelhardt said. “Defendants’ actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information. These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.”
That may be true in Mississippi—but on the state level in at least nine US states, and in more than a dozen other countries, clean drinking water is in fact a protected right. In countries including Uruguay and South Africa, a right to clean water is enshrined in the constitution.
New York’s state constitution, as of a 2021 amendment, states that “each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” So too in Massachusetts, where “the right to clean air and water” has been constitutionally protected since 1972.
Industry Interests Spent Big Money to Stop California From Banning PFAS Pesticides
An ambitious bill to keep toxic “forever chemicals” off California produce lost its teeth after the chemical and agricultural industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying against it. The bill that landed on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk last week simply requires regulators to track and disclose pesticide applications in the state.
It’s “a shell of what we set out to do,” said its author, Assemblymember Nick Schultz, D-Burbank. “We missed an opportunity this year to really be a national leader on this issue, and to catch up with a handful of other states that are already pursuing this legislation,” he added, referring to Maine and Minnesota, which have already enacted laws restricting PFAS pesticides.
Early versions of Schultz’s bill, A.B. 1603, would have prohibited state regulators from approving new pesticides with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, starting in 2028. In 2030, the legislation would have outlawed the sale of 23 PFAS pesticides already banned in Denmark and started to phase out the rest of the already approved products in 2035.
Chemours, Corteva, Dupont Reach $590m Settlement With NC Over PFAS Lawsuits
The three chemical companies that dumped forever chemicals into North Carolina’s rivers for decades have reached a $590 million settlement to resolve several lawsuits in the state. The settlement, announced Thursday, is the “largest state environmental damages recovery in North Carolina history,” a spokesperson for N.C. Attorney General Jeff Jackson told The N&O.
It also comes days before Jackson and his staff were set to argue a contentious state Supreme Court case against the three companies — Chemours, DuPont and Corteva.
Under the settlement, Chemours, DuPont and Corteva will pay a total of $455 million to North Carolina authorities over the next 15 years, according to a Thursday news release from Chemours.
$380 million will be paid to 11 local authorities that were impacted by the companies’ PFAS pollution, while another $75 million will be paid to the state. Chemours will pay for half of the $455 million, and DuPont and Corteva will pay the other half.
Toxic ‘Forever Chemical’ Cleanups at Military Sites Face Years of Delay
The email from the Pentagon to members of Congress, on the cleanup of toxic “forever chemicals” that have contaminated military installations across the country, opened on a decidedly upbeat tone.
“Good morning!” the email dated Aug. 31 read. “The Department of War is committed to addressing our PFAS releases and we remain dedicated to confronting this national challenge.” Yet the news the email carried was dire. PFAS cleanups at nearly 243 military sites had been pushed back by an average of 5 years, and some as long as 19 years.
That came after rounds of previous delays, first reported by The New York Times, of work to remove the PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of synthetic chemicals that don’t break down easily in the environment and have been used for decades in military firefighting foam.
