#Forever Chemicals

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #13

April 5-12 2024

President Biden announced the cancellation of a student loan debt for a further 277,000 Americans. This brings the number of a Americans who had their debt canceled by the Biden administration through different means since the Supreme Court struck down Biden's first place in 2023 to 4.3 million and a total of $153 billion of debt canceled so far. Most of these borrowers were a part of the President's SAVE Plan, a debt repayment program with 8 million enrollees, over 4 million of whom don't have to make monthly repayments and are still on the path to debt forgiveness.

President Biden announced a plan that would cancel student loan debt for 4 million borrowers and bring debt relief to 30 million Americans The plan takes steps like making automatic debt forgiveness through the public service forgiveness so qualified borrowers who don't know to apply will have their debts forgiven. The plan will wipe out the interest on the debt of 23 million Americans. President Biden touted how the plan will help black and Latino borrowers the most who carry the heavily debt burdens. The plan is expected to go into effect this fall ahead of the election.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced the closing of the so-called gun show loophole. For years people selling guns outside of traditional stores, such as at gun shows and in the 21st century over the internet have not been required to preform a background check to see if buyers are legally allowed to own a fire arm. Now all sellers of guns, even over the internet, are required to be licensed and preform a background check. This is the largest single expansion of the background check system since its creation.

The EPA published the first ever regulations on PFAS, known as forever chemicals, in drinking water. The new rules would reduce PFAS exposure for 100 million people according to the EPA. The Biden Administration announced along side the EPA regulations it would make available $1 billion dollars for state and local water treatment to help test for and filter out PFAS in line with the new rule. This marks the first time since 1996 that the EPA has passed a drinking water rule for new contaminants.

The Department of Commerce announced a deal with microchip giant TSMC to bring billions in investment and manufacturing to Arizona. The US makes only about 10% of the world's microchips and none of the most advanced chips. Under the CHIPS and Science Act the Biden Administration hopes to expand America's high-tech manufacturing so that 20% of advanced chips are made in America. TSMC makes about 90% of the world's advanced chips. The deal which sees a $6.6 billion dollar grant from the US government in exchange for $65 billion worth of investment by TSMC in 3 high tech manufacturing facilities in Arizona, the first of which will open next year. This represents the single largest foreign investment in Arizona's history and will bring thousands of new jobs to the state and boost America's microchip manufacturing.

The EPA finalized rules strengthening clean air standards around chemical plants. The new rule will lower the risk of cancer in communities near chemical plants by 96% and eliminate 6,200 tons of toxic air pollution each year. The rules target two dangerous cancer causing chemicals, ethylene oxide and chloroprene, the rule will reduce emissions of these chemicals by 80%.

the Department of the Interior announced it had beaten the Biden Administration goals when it comes to new clean energy projects. The Department has now permitted more than 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects on public lands, surpass the Administrations goal for 2025 already. These solar, wind, and hydro projects will power 12 million American homes with totally green power. Currently 10 gigawatts of clean energy are currently being generated on public lands, powering more than 5 million homes across the West. 

The Department of Transportation announced $830 million to support local communities in becoming more climate resilient. The money will go to 80 projects across 37 states, DC, and the US Virgin Islands The projects will help local Infrastructure better stand up to extreme weather causes by climate change.

The Senate confirmed Susan Bazis, Robert White, and Ann Marie McIff Allen to lifetime federal judgeships in Nebraska, Michigan, and Utah respectively. This brings the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 193

[reasonsforhope]

"Despite a huge amount of political opposition from the chemical industry, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its first regulations aimed at limiting quantities of PFAs, or ‘forever chemicals,’ in American drinking water.

For decades, Polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAs have been used for coatings that resist fire, oil, stains, and water and are now found in a wide variety of products like waterproof clothing, stain-resistant furniture, food packaging, adhesives, firefighting spray foams, and non-stick cooking surfaces.

There are thousands of PFAS compounds with varying effects and toxicity levels, and the new EPA regulations will require water utilities to test for 6 different classes of them.

The new standards will reduce PFAS exposure—and thereby decrease the health risk—for 100 million people in the U.S.

A fund worth $1 billion for treatment and testing will be made available to water utilities nationwide—part of a $9 billion investment made possible by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to assist communities impacted by PFAS contamination.

“Drinking water contaminated with PFAS has plagued communities across this country for too long,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan in a statement Wednesday.

Under Regan’s leadership, the EPA began in 2021 to establish a roadmap for dealing with widespread PFAS contamination, and so far they’ve gathered much data, including monitoring drinking water, and begun requiring more reports from businesses about use of the unregulated substances.

The agency reported that current peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to a myriad of health issues that are difficult to specify because of the variety of compounds coming from different places.

Regardless, the 66,000 water utility operators will have five years to test for the PFAS pollution and install necessary technology to treat the contamination, which the EPA estimates that 6%–10% of facilities will need. [Note: Deeply curious where they got a number that low, but anyway.]

Records show that some of the manufacturers knew these chemicals posed health hazards. A few major lawsuits in recent years have been settled that sought to hold chemical companies, like 3M, accountable for the environment damage.""

-via Good News Network, April 13, 2024

[reality-detective]

Anything with the F in it 🤔

[liberalsarecool]

This regulation was long overdue.

#VotingMatters #VoteBlue

[mindblowingscience]

Forever chemicals are falling in the rain, running through our waterways, and swimming in our bloodstreams, and now, initial research suggests these potentially harmful pollutants are 'clogging up' a crucial drainage system in our bodies. The new study indicates forever chemicals are impacting kidney health, with changes to the gut microbiome explaining at least some of the effects. Kidneys filter excess water and toxins out of the bloodstream, and forever chemicals are now circling these two 'drains' in a worrisome way. While evidence is currently limited, there is a chance that pollutants gathering in the kidneys are driving chronic disease, as well as cancer. In rodents, when some forever chemicals accumulate in the kidneys, the high concentrations lead to injury via oxidative stress.

Continue Reading.

[odinsblog]

Whether you call it climate change or pollution, it’s still a series of policy decisions (deregulation). Deregulation that is disproportionately upheld by greedy corporations, red state Democrats, and is enforced overwhelmingly by Republican and Libertarian controlled legislatures.

(sources and other relevant links beneath the cut)

👉🏿 https://heatmap.news/climate/wildfire-smoke-east-air-quality

👉🏿 https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-david-wallace-wells

👉🏿 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1666541345069219840.html

👉🏿 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1648986424098652160.html

[unbfacts]

[probablyasocialecologist]

When plastic straws were banned, new alternative straws of paper, bamboo, and glass were advertised as more sustainable, eco-friendly, and healthy. Groffen’s team wanted to know if they hold up to the hype, but they found that the majority of them do not. With the exception of the stainless steel straws they tested, all of the brands they examined—which are commercially available in Belgium—contained chemicals that are harmful not only for the environment, but also for people. Known as PFAS, which stands for poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, and dubbed forever chemicals, these compounds don’t break down under heat or sunlight and dissolve in neither water nor oil. For a few decades these PFAS were the darlings of the chemical industry, used in everything from fire-resistant cushions to water-repellant clothing and from nonstick pan coating to disposable plates. Unfortunately, what makes PFAS so durable in kitchenware and other products is also what makes it last so long in the environment. More importantly, in recent years, scientists have linked them to a gamut of damaging health effects, including thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pregnancy problems, liver damage, and several cancers. They have also been linked to adverse reproductive, developmental and immunological effects in animals. The team found PFAS to be present in 90 percent of the paper straws, 80 percent of bamboo, 75 percent of plastic, and 40 percent of glass ones.

[rjzimmerman]

Something’s Poisoning America’s Land. Farmers Fear ‘Forever’ Chemicals. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

For decades, farmers across America have been encouraged by the federal government to spread municipal sewage on millions of acres of farmland as fertilizer. It was rich in nutrients, and it helped keep the sludge out of landfills.

But a growing body of research shows that this black sludge, made from the sewage that flows from homes and factories, can contain heavy concentrations of chemicals thought to increase the risk of certain types of cancer and to cause birth defects and developmental delays in children.

Known as “forever chemicals” because of their longevity, these toxic contaminants are now being detected, sometimes at high levels, on farmland across the country, including in Texas, Maine, Michigan, New York and Tennessee. In some cases the chemicals are suspected of sickening or killing livestock and are turning up in produce. Farmers are beginning to fear for their own health.

The national scale of farmland contamination by these chemicals — which are used in everything from microwave popcorn bags and firefighting gear to nonstick pans and stain-resistant carpets — is only now starting to become apparent. There are now lawsuits against providers of the fertilizer, as well as against the Environmental Protection Agency, alleging that the agency failed to regulate the chemicals, known as PFAS.

In Michigan, among the first states to investigate the chemicals in sludge fertilizer, officials shut down one farm where tests found particularly high concentrations in the soil and in cattle that grazed on the land. This year, the state prohibited the property from ever again being used for agriculture. Michigan hasn’t conducted widespread testing at other farms, partly out of concern for the economic effects on its agriculture industry.

In 2022, Maine banned the use of sewage sludge on agricultural fields. It was the first state to do so and is the only state to systematically test farms for the chemicals. Investigators have found contamination on at least 68 of the more than 100 farms checked so far, with some 1,000 sites still to be tested.

In Texas, several ranchers blamed the chemicals for the deaths of cattle, horses and catfish on their properties after sewage sludge was used as fertilizer on neighboring farmland. Levels of one PFAS chemical in surface water exceeded 1,300 parts per trillion, they say in a lawsuit filed this year against Synagro, the company that supplied the fertilizer. While not directly comparable, the E.P.A.’s drinking-water standard for two PFAS chemicals is 4 parts per trillion.

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

This week, the Air Force claimed it has no legal obligation to comply with an order from the Environmental Protection Agency in May to abate the threat of “forever chemicals” to the drinking water of Tucson, Arizona.

Read More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/health/pentagon-defies-order-to-clean-up-forever-chemicals-contaminating-us-drinking-water

#TheFreeThoughtProject

[reality-detective]

Ladies, stop wearing tight polyester sports bras and leggings. When you sweat, they release toxic PFAS and BPA into your skin.

Polyester and spandex are not “performance” fabrics like they are marketed to be, It's literally made of plastic, and It retains odor so they STINK after just one workout.

It’s a total sham and these synthetic fibers lead to serious health issues. 🤔

Source: 👇

I've made a few posts about this 👆 in the past 🤔

[mindblowingscience]

What do firefighting foam, non-stick cookware, water-repellent textiles and pesticides all have in common? They all contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS—human-made chemicals that don't break down naturally. It's no wonder, then, that PFAS are now contaminating soil and water and can also be detected in the bodies of humans and animals. The dangers are well known: these forever chemicals can damage the liver, trigger hormonal disorders and cause cancer, to mention just a few of their effects. Researchers in the group under Salvador Pané i Vidal, Professor at ETH Zurich's Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, have developed a new method to break down a subgroup of PFAS called perfluorooctane sulfonates, or PFOS. Due to their toxicity, PFOS are now severely restricted or even banned. The study is published in the journal Small Science.

Continue Reading.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Laura Bassett at Men's Health:

LESS THAN A year after launching his independent campaign for president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began shopping around his endorsement—and the loyalty of his small but significant base—to both major political parties in exchange for a cabinet position. Kamala Harris reportedly rejected a meeting with him outright. Donald Trump, however, has taken him up on the offer, announcing that in exchange for Kennedy’s endorsement, he’d let the anti-vaccine candidate “go wild” on health, food, and medicine if he wins a second term. Kennedy says Trump has promised him control of multiple government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—which includes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—and the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Therefore, a hybrid anti-vax and Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement was born: MAHA, short for “Make America Healthy Again.”

Supporting this movement to push Kennedy voters toward Trump is the MAHA Alliance, a Super PAC led by Del Bigtree, former communications director for the Kennedy campaign and CEO of the anti-vax group Informed Consent Action Network. The operation appears to be widely geared towards men, partnering with right-wing influencers like Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson who champion traditional masculinity, and aims to combine “the health-conscious, independent-minded voters with Trump’s proven ability to disrupt the status quo,” according to its mission statement. “This includes prioritizing regenerative agriculture, preserving natural habitats, and eliminating toxins from our food, water, and air.”

Some of MAHA’s goals sound pretty great in theory—especially during a time when public trust in the medical system and American food safety are so low. Incentivizing sustainable farming, improving soil health, protecting natural habitats, and cleaning up our air, water, and food are goals everyone should be able to get behind, paired with a viable policy strategy and leaders who are actually willing to take on the big oil and big agriculture lobbies to address our systemic environmental problems.

[...]

Meanwhile, other ideas being pushed by the movement and by Kennedy himself—like eroding public trust in vaccines and peddling pseudoscientific alternatives to vaccines—are downright dangerous to public health. In an October 25 post on X, Kennedy threatened to dismantle the entire FDA if Trump is elected, accusing the agency of “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.”

Many of these buzzwords he’s using—ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in particular—are just snake oil alternatives to the Covid vaccine that don’t work, and in some cases, actually kill people. Jennifer Nuzzo, Ph.D., Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, told me that Kennedy’s tweet “is straight from the anti-vaxxers' playbook that aims to sow doubt about credible medical approaches in order to sell and profit from unproven alternative approaches.”

[...]

Encouraging people to drink raw milk is another very dangerous health trend being promoted by supporters of the movement. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Fla.) recently waded into this one, tweeting a glass of unpasteurized milk with the caption, “Raw milk does a body good. Make America Healthy Again!” The problem is, by skipping the process of killing off harmful bacteria in milk, we are leaving it potentially contaminated with lethal pathogens. “Pasteurization has been one of the most effective public health measures ever, essentially ending the illnesses that used to come from drinking tainted milk,” explains Dr. Nestle. “Infectious diseases used to be the leading causes of death and disability among Americans. Public health measures effectively ended them. It makes no sense to bring them back.”

One thing MAHA gets somewhat right is addressing the serious health harms of microplastics and “forever chemicals,” which have been linked to chronic disease, heart attack, and stroke. It’s great that we’re starting to pay attention to those. Unfortunately, though, the Trump administration created a loophole during his final few months in office that allows companies to dodge having to report how many forever chemicals they’re discharging into the environment.

Laura Bassett wrote in Men’s Health what the MAHA movement gets right and wrong (and it’s mostly wrong) about our state of health.

[fenrislorsrai]

But what made my raincoat so trustworthy that day on the mountain could also, in theory, kill me — or, more likely, kill or sicken any of the thousands of people who live downstream of the manufacturers that make waterproofing chemicals and the landfills where waterproof clothing is incinerated or interred. Outdoor apparel is typically ultraprocessed and treated using perfluoroalkyl and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, a class of water- and stain-resistant “forever chemicals” that are more commonly referred to as PFAS (pronounced “pee-fass”). After decades of work by environmental groups and health advocates, states and retailers are finally banning the sale of textiles that have been treated with the chemicals, which in the outdoor industry often manifest in the form of Gore-Tex membranes or “durable water repellent” treatments. These bans are fast approaching: Beginning in 2025 — less than 12 months from now — California will forbid the sale of most PFAS-treated textiles; New York will restrict them in apparel; and Washington will regulate stain- and waterproofing treatments, with similar regulations pending or approved in a number of other states. Following pressure from activists, the nation’s largest outdoor retailer, REI, also announced last winter that it will ban PFAS in all the textile products and cookware sold in its stores starting fall 2024; Dick’s Sporting Goods will also eliminate PFAS from its brand-name clothing. - - - It is also because of this bond that PFAS are so stubbornly persistent — in the environment, certainly, but also in us. An estimated 98% to 99% of people have traces of PFAS in their bodies. Researchers have found the molecules in breast milk, rainwater, and Antarctica’s snow. We inhale them in dust and drink them in our tap water, and because they look a little like a fatty acid to our bodies, they can cause health problems that we’re only beginning to grasp. So far, PFAS have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, decreased fertility, elevated cholesterol, weight gain, thyroid disease, the pregnancy complication pre-eclampsia, increased risk of preterm birth and low birth weight, hormone interference, and reduced vaccine response in children.