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EPA has failed to protect consumers from PFAS-laced containers, lawsuit alleges

By Shannon Kelleher

US regulators have failed to protect the public from millions of plastic containers that contain toxic PFAS chemicals, which can leach into pesticides, condiments, household cleaners, and many other products, alleges a lawsuit filed this week by environmental groups.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) by neglecting to demand that manufacturers stop making containers using a fluorination process that results in per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

When the EPA proposed drinking water regulations for six PFAS chemicals in March 2023, the agency stated it had determined there is no safe level of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and that this type of PFAS is likely to cause cancer. Under the TSCA, the agency had six months to start addressing PFOA’s presence in plastic containers but failed to do so, allege the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

“EPA’s failure to protect the public from exposures to toxic PFOA in their daily lives is inexcusable and reflects a severe leadership deficit at the agency,” said Kyla Bennett, science policy director for PEER, in a statement.

The EPA declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

PFOA is one of thousands of PFAS chemicals, which do not break down naturally in the environment and are found in the blood of most Americans. PFAS are in many everyday products, including nonstick cookware, dental floss, rain gear, and makeup.

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The perils of plastics extend to our pets

By Aidan Charron

By now, you’d practically have to be living on Mars not to have heard about the health risks associated with plastics and the toxic chemical cocktail used to produce them.

Almost all plastics are derived from fossil fuels and have been found to contain over 16,000 chemicals, many of which are considered hazardous. Shockingly, despite evidence of harm, the US regulates only six percent of chemicals used to produce plastic, leaving potential health risks from most of the chemicals unchecked.

As plastics break down, they don’t disappear – they degrade into smaller pieces known as microplastics. When we eat, drink, or inhale microplastics, they leach plastic chemicals directly into our bodies.

To bring attention to these dangers, EARTHDAY.ORG released a report last November, Babies VS. Plastics, highlighting infants’ heightened plastics exposure and vulnerability to  health risks. It makes for grim reading: microplastics and their additive chemicals are linked to interruptions in maternal-fetal communication, damaged DNA, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, early onset puberty, and some forms of cancers.

Writing that report, I discovered that crawling on the floor puts babies at increased risk of inhaling microplastics in household dust. And since babies chew on everything, they are also more likely to ingest microplastics. The report made me wonder about my own plastics exposure, and about my two rescue dogs, Buzz and Sally. Since dogs and cats crawl on the floor and chew on everything their whole life span, are pets, like babies, especially vulnerable to microplastics?

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Pesticide exposure as risky as smoking, study finds

By Shannon Kelleher

People who don’t farm, but live in US agricultural communities where pesticides are used on farms, face an increased cancer risk as significant as if they were smokers, according to a new study.

The study, published July 25 in the journal Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society, analyzed cancer incidence data from nearly every US county and looked at how that data corresponded to federal data on agricultural pesticide use. Researchers reported that they found the higher the pesticide use, the higher the risk for every type of cancer the researchers looked at.

“Agricultural pesticide usage has a significant impact on all the cancer types evaluated in this study (all cancers, bladder cancer, colon cancer, leukemia, lung cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and pancreatic cancer); and these associations are more evident in regions with heavy agricultural productivity,” the study states.

“Pesticide-associated cancers appear to be on par for several smoking-associated cancer types,” the study states. It has been well established that smoking increases cancer risk, with at least 70 of the thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke considered carcinogens.

The findings add to a wealth of research on pesticides and human health risks that point to shortcomings in US pesticide regulations, said Dana Barr, and environmental health researcher at Emory University who was not involved in the study.

“Right now, I don’t think the regulations for pesticides are the most health-protective, and they seem to presume that a chemical is safe until it is proven toxic, not the other way around,” she said. “I do think we need policy reform that puts the onus on the manufacturers to do a better job of evaluating safety before allowing new registrations.”

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PFAS increasingly added to pesticides, study finds

By Shannon Kelleher

Despite widespread alarm about the health and environmental impacts of toxic PFAS, the chemicals are increasingly being added to pesticides applied in homes and crops across the US, according to a new study.

The findings, published July 24 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, add to growing concerns about PFAS contamination in the US food system and waterways and highlight pesticides’ “underappreciated” role in the problem, said David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group and an author of the study

The study revealed that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) account for 14% of all active ingredients in pesticides used in the US, including almost one-third of active ingredients approved in the last decade. Even when PFAS are not intentionally added to these products, the fluorinated containers in which they are stored have been found to leach PFAS into their contents, the study concluded.

“This is truly frightening news, because pesticides are some of the most widely dispersed pollutants in the world,” Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity and an author of the study, said in a statement. “Lacing pesticides with forever chemicals is likely burdening the next generation with more chronic diseases and impossible cleanup responsibilities.”

The authors reviewed pesticide data from the US EPA, the US Geological Survey, and the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency, as well as publicly available databases, finding that PFAS-laced pesticides are regularly used nationwide on staple crops including corn, wheat, kale, spinach, apples and strawberries. PFAS are also common ingredients in flea treatments for pets and sprays to kill insects, they found.

The study comes on the heels of a petition delivered to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday by the Center for Food Safety and other nonprofits, asking the agency to ban PFAS in pesticides.

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