Welcome to PRHE

Our mission is to create a healthier environment for human reproduction and development through advancing scientific inquiry, clinical care and health policies that prevent exposures to harmful chemicals in our homes, workplaces, and communities.

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Turning our science into action

Research

PRHE conducts groundbreaking, multi-disciplinary research that answers important questions of how chemicals and contaminants in our homes and environment affect fertility, pregnancy, and fetal and child development.

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Policy

PRHE identifies and communicates how science should be used in policymaking to protect health and is a leading scientific voice on EPA’s problematic implementation of the updated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

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Education and Communications

PRHE is a leader in connecting the environment to pregnancy, prenatal health, and women’s health and works with major medical organizations to issue guidance on reducing chemical use and preventing harmful exposures.

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Latest News

How much should we worry about the health effects of microplastics?

New ScientistSeptember 25, 2024News

It seems every few months, we discover microplastics in a new part of the body. We have found them in our livers, kidneys, lungs and guts. They have even shown up in human breast milk and blood. Last week, they turned up again in eight people’s olfactory bulbs, a brain structure crucial for smell.

Scientists, Clinicians Charge EPA Underestimates Dichloroethanes’ Risks

Inside EPASeptember 13, 2024News

A group of academic scientists and clinicians is calling for EPA to strengthen its draft TSCA analyses of a pair of widely used dichloroethane chemicals, charging that the agency is understating their risks and appears to be inconsistently applying its non-cancer risk approach and what it deems unreasonable risk.

California Drinking Water Regulations Are Putting Cost Over People’s Safety

truthoutSeptember 09, 2024News

Health experts have long warned that pollutants like hexavalent chromium, PFAS and arsenic in drinking water are harmful to human health, even at low levels. While efforts to impose stricter drinking water contaminant limits in California, however, are repeatedly stymied by vested interests like polluters and utility groups, it’s the state’s low-income communities and people of color who bear the brunt of lax standards.

Draft DINP Evaluation Backs Eased Cancer Model Despite Stakeholder Doubts

Inside EPASeptember 06, 2024News

EPA’s draft TSCA evaluation of the phthalate known as DINP maintains a relatively lenient approach to cancer risk analysis that drew criticism from California regulators and scientists but praise from industry earlier this year, leaving it unclear how the agency will respond to those concerns.

EPA Thought Industry-Funded Scientists Could Support Its Conclusion That a Long-Regulated Pesticide Is Not a Cancer Risk

Inside Climate NewsAugust 27, 2024News

On a Southern California spring morning in 1973, a tanker truck driver jackknifed his rig and dumped the agricultural fumigant he was transporting onto a city street. A Los Angeles Fire Department emergency response team spent four hours cleaning up the chemical, 1,3-dichloropropene, or 1,3-D, a fumigant sold as Telone that farmers use to kill nematodes and other soil-dwelling organisms before planting.

EPA Bans Pesticide Linked to Lifelong Harm for Pregnant Farmworkers' Children

KQED NewsAugust 07, 2024News

For the first time in 40 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken emergency action to ban the use of a pesticide linked to serious health problems for fetuses.

Microplastics are everywhere, but are they harming us?

Associated PressAugust 05, 2024News

Microplastics have been found in the ocean and the air, in our food and water. They have been found in a wide range of body tissues, including the heart, liver, kidneys and even testicles.

California, Academics Say Draft TSCA Reviews Understate Phthalate Risks

Inside EPAJuly 29, 2024News

California regulators and a group of academic scientists are pressing EPA to substantially strengthen its approach to pending TSCA evaluations for a pair of phthalates, arguing that draft analyses for the chemicals underestimate health risks, fail to use the best available science and violate the agency’s just-finalized rule governing such reviews.

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