Forever chemicals are everywhere, including in period and incontinence products—even in some that companies claim are free of such substances.
Environmentalists and academics are urging EPA to bolster the exposure data it uses to inform chemical risk assessments under TSCA and other laws, arguing that the agency needs “new approaches” to close what they say are serious gaps in the information it receives on toxic substances.
High levels of a cancer-causing chemical have forced evacuations at two Milwaukee apartment developments this year. Here’s what you need to know about the chemical and its health hazards.
‘Forever chemicals’ and acids used in plastic production connected to poor pregnancy outcomes: study
Cancer-linked “forever chemicals” and certain compounds used in plastic production may be associated with a heightened risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, according to a study from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
California researchers have found new evidence that several chemicals used in plastic production and a wide array of other industrial applications are commonly present in the blood of pregnant women, creating increased health risks for mothers and their babies.
July 19, 2023Press Release
Chemicals used in plastic production and PFAS are widespread in Bay Area pregnant women and are associated with an increased risk of poor pregnancy outcomes including gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, and hypertension, according to UCSF researchers.
Vanessa Langness had always been a bit worried about the chemicals she worked with as a biomedical researcher, but when she got pregnant in October, her concerns grew. The 34-year-old based in Santa Maria, California, suspected the ethidium bromide she was using in the lab for molecular cloning could put her and her baby at risk.
In 1953, a paper developed for cigarette maker RJ Reynolds detailed possible cancer-causing agents in tobacco, but the document would remain hidden from public view for decades. In the interim, the industry told the public: “We don’t accept the idea that there are harmful agents in tobacco.”
Companies making so-called "forever chemicals" knew they were toxic decades before health officials, but kept that information hidden from the public, according to a peer-reviewed study of previously secret industry documents.
The female employees at the DuPont chemical company’s Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, W. Va., were not given much of an explanation in 1981 when they were all abruptly moved away from any part of the factory that produced a category of chemicals then known as C8. They certainly were not told about their eight recently pregnant coworkers who had worked with C8 and given birth that year—one of them to a baby with eye defects and just a single nostril; another to a baby who had eye and tear duct defects; and a third with C8 in its cord blood.
As early as the late 1950s, tobacco companies knew that smoking could cause cancer, but they still spent decades funding scientific research to obfuscate that fact. Back in 1979, Exxon knew that fossil fuels were linked to global warming, but the oil industry disputed climate science for years. And now, a new report reveals that as early as the 1960s, the chemical industry knew that PFAS, so-called forever chemicals, had adverse health effects—and they went on to suppress that knowledge.
The water you drink has been poisoned. The same goes for the air you breathe, the soil where your vegetables grow, and the lakes where you fish. In fact, there’s likely a good amount of the poison in your body right now, making its way through your system, and the damage of which you might not see for many years.
Makers of PFAS, a class of chemicals used in everything from cookware to food containers and makeup, had evidence the substances were toxic as early as the 1970s and obscured the danger, according to a new study based on industry archives held at the University of California.
June 01, 2023Press Release
Widely Used in Clothing, Household Products and Food, They Resist Breaking Down in the Environment
The unpleasant reality facing the anti-abortion movement is that most Americans don’t actually want to ban abortion. This explains why the pro-life summer of triumph, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, led to a season of such demoralizing political outcomes. Voters in Montana, Kansas, and Kentucky in November rejected ballot measures to make abortion illegal; just last month, in Wisconsin, voters elected an abortion-rights supporter to the state supreme court.