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Children’s Health
Tylenol Use During Pregnancy Linked to Reproductive Changes in Daughters
Danish research raises concerns about the potential impact of a common pain medication during pregnancy. Researchers in Denmark recently published findings in Human Reproduction Open suggesting that girls whose mothers took acetaminophen (Tylenol) during pregnancy had reproductive changes that may signal fertility risks.
The study, led by Dr. Margit Bistrup Fischer at Copenhagen University Hospital, analyzed data from more than 300 baby girls and their mothers.
At 3 months, girls exposed to acetaminophen in the womb had ovaries that were 40 percent smaller, utereses that were 13 percent smaller, and 23 percent fewer ovarian follicles (the structures that contain immature eggs) compared with girls who were not exposed.
Low Levels of Lead Exposure Tied to Strep Throat in Kids
Researchers examined medical record data on more than 13,000 children who were 14 years old or younger in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 2010-20. Lead exposure data was collected through routine blood lead screening. Medical records also were checked for a clinical diagnosis of strep throat or croup infections.
Compared with children whose blood lead concentration was under 1 microgram per deciliter, which is below public health intervention thresholds, children with levels between 1 and 3.4 micrograms per deciliter had about 2.5 times the odds of being diagnosed with strep.
Children at or above 3.5 micrograms per deciliter — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s threshold for taking public health action — had about 2.7 times the odds. Higher lead concentrations were also associated with more frequent strep diagnoses. Researchers found no clear association between lead exposure and croup.
Hospital Beds for the Nation’s Sickest Kids Are Disappearing
Hospital units dedicated to treating the nation’s sickest kids are disappearing nationwide. In the past year alone, hospitals have closed pediatric intensive care units for critically ill kids in Montana, Oregon, and Missouri. Overnight hospital wings for kids have also shuttered in Illinois and California.
Depending on the hospital, pediatric units — which are separate from neonatal intensive care units — can serve patients ranging from a few weeks old to well into their teens or early adulthood. As hospitals look to cut costs, many are converting those beds into more services for newborns or adults. As a result, pediatric intensive care has become centralized in medical hubs, requiring critically ill children to travel farther for lifesaving care.
“You can’t expect that people will be fine if the next-closest children’s hospital is a flight away or an eight-hour drive,” said Elizabeth Mack, a pediatric critical care doctor and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Big Chemical
Why More Than Half the World Has Likely Breathed Unhealthy Air This Year
Extreme heat waves and wildfires have contributed to unhealthy levels of smog and smoke around the world so far in 2026, a recent global analysis of air quality trends found.
More than half of the world’s population was exposed to very high or extremely high levels of ground-level ozone pollution, or smog, between January and September, according to the September report by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, or CAMS, a program of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The report uses air-monitoring data, satellite data and meteorological models to estimate the amount of air pollution and how it moved across the planet.
Ozone can cause lung problems, including shortness of breath, asthma, inflammation and infection, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It is created when air pollutants, including methane and nitrogen oxides released by vehicles, power plants, fossil fuel production and other sources, react with sunlight and high temperatures.
‘Peak Greenwashing’: Two Bills in Congress Endorse Misleading Recycling Claims
The plastics industry spent decades convincing consumers that throwing used products stamped with the “chasing arrows” symbol into a curbside bin meant they would be recycled.
Now, amid growing awareness that many of those items never get reprocessed, the industry is championing a pair of proposals in Congress that would give misleading recycling claims the support of federal law.
On the surface, the two bipartisan House bills promise transparency for consumers by establishing national standards for recycling and recycled content labels.
Texas, Lululemon Sign Pact Over Alleged ‘Forever Chemicals’ Use
Texas and Lululemon USA Inc. have reached a voluntary settlement following the state’s investigation into the presence of “forever chemicals” in its clothes.
Lululemon signed an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ® said Thursday following a probe the state announced in April.
The agreement requires the company to maintain chemical safety standards and oversight of materials used in its products. This includes ensuring its vendors comply with the company’s restricted substances list, which limits the amount of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also called PFAS or “forever chemicals,” that can be in its clothing.
Rare Brain Disorder Linked to Water Pollution Sources
People living near industrial facilities that polluted the water supply were more likely to develop progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare and severe neurodegenerative tauopathy, a study of U.K. Biobank participants showed.
PSP risk was linked with proximity to facilities that emitted heavy metals, pesticides, other organic pollutants, and other inorganic pollutants, reported Charlie Weige Zhao, MD, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, and co-authors.
The risk of PSP decreased as the distance from the facilities increased, the researchers wrote in Neurology. “There is also evidence that the length of time people lived near the polluting facilities played a role in their risk of PSP,” Zhao said in a statement.
Pennsylvania Lawmakers Propose Bill That Would Ban ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Pesticides
State Representative Tarik Khan and colleagues have introduced a bill that would ban PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, in pesticides.
H.B 2883 follows a PennEnvironment report that found perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances in 96% of 88 Pennsylvania waterways tested and implemented a “Do Not Eat” advisory for fish caught in the Wissahickon Creek basin due to perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, contamination.
“It’s incredibly sad that we can’t even eat the fish in the Wissahickon because they’re contaminated with toxic forever chemicals,” said Khan. “As a nurse, I know these chemicals can harm our health, affect children’s development and even pass from mothers to their unborn babies. And these waterways ultimately feed into the rivers we rely on for drinking water. We need to stop PFAS pollution at its source so our families and future generations have clean water that’s safe to drink and fish in.”
Big Pharma
Rivers Downstream of Wisconsin CAFOs Are Full of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, Study Finds
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are pervasive in streams and rivers downstream of large Wisconsin livestock operations, increasing the risk of superbugs that make people sick and cannot be treated, according to a new study.
The water contamination likely stems from high use of antibiotics in animals housed in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, according to the study.
While the practice of livestock antibiotic use decreased significantly over the past decade, there was a recent trend reversal in the US: sales and distribution of antibiotics approved for use in food-producing animals increased by 16% between 2023 and 2024 — the highest increase on record, according to a 2024 US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) report.
Lyme Disease Vaccine Candidate Just Misses Its Mark in Late-Stage Trial
An investigational Lyme disease vaccine covering six serotypes across four Borrelia species had a vaccine efficacy (VE) rate of over 70%, but it just missed a preset noninferiority threshold, a placebo-controlled phase III trial showed.
Among participants ages 5 years and older in the evaluable population, four who received four doses of the LB6V vaccine developed Lyme disease compared with 15 participants who received placebo, for a VE rate of 73.2% (95% CI 15.8-93.5), which missed the predefined success threshold in which the lower end of the confidence interval had to be greater than 20%.
However, viewing the numbers through a modified intent-to-treat lens allowed the trial to just clear its success threshold, with a VE rate of 74.8%, reported Paul Auwaerter, MD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, at the IDWeek annual meeting. Despite the statistical miss, “overall, I do think this vaccine has the potential to lower the Lyme disease burden,” Auwaerter said.
GLP-1s May Interact With Psychiatry Medication, Case Report Suggests
During an appointment with her psychiatrist, a 50-year-old woman with bipolar disorder reported new symptoms of tremor in both hands, slurred speech, and blurred vision.
She was taking lithium, but 3 weeks prior, she had also started treatment with the dual GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist tirzepatide (Zepbound), Jay Davis, MD, of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, and colleagues wrote in a case report in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.
Labs showed her serum lithium level had increased from 0.7 to 1.2 mmol/L; a lithium dose reduction resolved her symptoms, suggesting a probable drug interaction, the researchers reported.
While this interaction has been reported before — it’s the fourth reported case of tirzepatide-associated lithium toxicity, they said — it’s still not well understood, Davis said.
Big Brother (Big Tech)
From Bioweapons to Blackmail, Here’s What’s in Anthropic’s Nearly 100-Page List of Risks, Including ‘Risks to Humanity’
It’s typical for companies that file to go public to include dozens of pages of risk factors outlining the biggest obstacles to their business. What happens if consumers don’t like the product? Are we liable if the product is misused?
Anthropic’s IPO filing included a massive and wide-ranging list of potential roadblocks, including fears that its tech could be used to develop chemical weapons, make it a target of expensive lawsuits, and concerns that its own product could grow out of humanity’s control.
The filing painted a picture of a company that’s juggling massive growth and enormous competitive pressure to develop technology it claims could change the world — but potentially at the cost of catastrophic consequences.
Meta, Snap Face Los Angeles Jury in Teen Social Media Addiction Trial
Jury selection began October 28 in Los Angeles Superior Court in a trial in which two teenage plaintiffs accuse Meta and Snap of designing addictive platforms that harmed their mental health, per CBS News. The case is the second to reach trial involving individual plaintiffs who allege social media companies built their products to be addictive and the latest test of thousands of U.S. lawsuits over social media’s effect on young people.
The plaintiffs, identified in court papers as S.J., a 16-year-old from Illinois, and K.D.B., an 18-year-old from Mississippi, sued in 2023. They allege that features including endless scrolling, autoplay and Snapstreaks drove compulsive use and contributed to depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-harm. Both say they began using social media as young children. They are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Both plaintiffs also sued TikTok and Alphabet’s YouTube and settled with those companies ahead of trial. S.J. also settled with Meta. The trial therefore covers both plaintiffs’ claims against Snap and K.D.B.’s claims against Meta.
Are Delivery Robots Scanning You Into a Database Scarier Than Flock?
For all the controversy they’ve caught this year, Flock cameras only collect and store license plate data from passing vehicles.
But the WALL-E-esque delivery robots now trundling through America’s cities are bristling with cameras and sensors that help them navigate the bustling world around them as they make their way to customers’ doorsteps — and according to a pair of new lawsuits, you might be coughing up sensitive data in exchange for your dinner.
According to reporting by the Associated Press, delivery robot companies Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics have been hit with similar lawsuits from Chicago residents claiming that their bots are illegally collecting sensitive biometric data.
License Plate Camera Crackdown Spreads to Red and Blue States
State lawmakers are moving to restrict automated license plate readers as privacy concerns intensify about the technology’s surveillance potential.
Democratic lawmakers in Oregon, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York are pushing bills ahead of the upcoming legislative session that would impose some of the strictest guardrails on the technology in the US.
But the issue is ricocheting across the political spectrum; Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas ended state funding for Flock Safety cameras earlier this year, citing Fourth Amendment concerns, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis directed the state’s Department of Transportation to remove the cameras from the state’s …
