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Personal care product use during pregnancy, lactation may increase exposure to ‘forever chemicals’: Study

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Tuesday, November 12, 2024

The use of certain personal care products during pregnancy or lactation may be linked to increased levels of "forever chemicals" in both blood plasma and breast milk, a new study has found. While past research has confirmed the presence of these toxic compounds in such items, the study authors sought to determine whether the use of nail polish, makeup and hair dyes alters the concentrations of the compounds in the body during and after pregnancy. Exploring this question in the maternal context was important because prenatal exposure to the chemicals — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — has been connected to adverse birth outcomes, according to the researchers, who published their findings in Environment International. Some such effects include reduced birth weight, preterm birth, certain neurodevelopmental disorders and diminished vaccine uptake in children, according to the multi-national research team. Known for their ability to persist in the body and the environment, PFAS are already linked to a variety of serious health conditions, including thyroid disease, kidney cancer and testicular cancer. There are thousands of types of PFAS, many of which are known for their nonstick and water-resistant properties — making them frequent ingredients in cosmetics and numerous household products. To evaluate the personal care product and pregnancy question, the researchers analyzed data from the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals Study, which included 2,001 pregnant people from 10 Canadian cities, between 2008 and 2011. The scientists considered the contributions of personal care products to PFAS concentrations in both prenatal blood plasma, from six to 13 gestational weeks, and human milk, from two to 10 weeks postpartum. They also received reports from participants about the frequency of product use across eight categories during the first and third trimesters, one to two days postpartum and two to 10 weeks postpartum. Participants who wore makeup daily in the first and third trimesters had 14 percent and 17 percent higher PFAS concentrations in their blood and breast milk, respectively, compared to those who did not, according to the study. People who used colored-permanent dye one to two days postpartum had 16 to 18 percent higher levels of PFAS in their milk than those who did not use dyes, the researchers found. Because the study only evaluated four types of PFAS commonly used in industry and commerce, the authors stressed their belief that their results were an underestimation of exposure levels. Despite the alarming nature of their results, the scientists stressed that on the plus side, such scientific evidence can help inform future regulation and guide individual choices. “While PFAS are ubiquitous in the environment, our study indicates that personal care products are a modifiable source of PFAS,” lead author Amber Hall, a postdoctoral research associate in epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, said in a statement. “People who are concerned about their level of exposure to these chemicals during pregnancy or while breastfeeding may benefit from cutting back on personal care products during those times,” Hall added.

The use of certain personal care products during pregnancy or lactation may be linked to increased levels of "forever chemicals" in both blood plasma and breast milk, a new study has found.

While past research has confirmed the presence of these toxic compounds in such items, the study authors sought to determine whether the use of nail polish, makeup and hair dyes alters the concentrations of the compounds in the body during and after pregnancy.

Exploring this question in the maternal context was important because prenatal exposure to the chemicals — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — has been connected to adverse birth outcomes, according to the researchers, who published their findings in Environment International.

Some such effects include reduced birth weight, preterm birth, certain neurodevelopmental disorders and diminished vaccine uptake in children, according to the multi-national research team.

Known for their ability to persist in the body and the environment, PFAS are already linked to a variety of serious health conditions, including thyroid disease, kidney cancer and testicular cancer.

There are thousands of types of PFAS, many of which are known for their nonstick and water-resistant properties — making them frequent ingredients in cosmetics and numerous household products.

To evaluate the personal care product and pregnancy question, the researchers analyzed data from the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals Study, which included 2,001 pregnant people from 10 Canadian cities, between 2008 and 2011.

The scientists considered the contributions of personal care products to PFAS concentrations in both prenatal blood plasma, from six to 13 gestational weeks, and human milk, from two to 10 weeks postpartum.

They also received reports from participants about the frequency of product use across eight categories during the first and third trimesters, one to two days postpartum and two to 10 weeks postpartum.

Participants who wore makeup daily in the first and third trimesters had 14 percent and 17 percent higher PFAS concentrations in their blood and breast milk, respectively, compared to those who did not, according to the study.

People who used colored-permanent dye one to two days postpartum had 16 to 18 percent higher levels of PFAS in their milk than those who did not use dyes, the researchers found.

Because the study only evaluated four types of PFAS commonly used in industry and commerce, the authors stressed their belief that their results were an underestimation of exposure levels.

Despite the alarming nature of their results, the scientists stressed that on the plus side, such scientific evidence can help inform future regulation and guide individual choices.

“While PFAS are ubiquitous in the environment, our study indicates that personal care products are a modifiable source of PFAS,” lead author Amber Hall, a postdoctoral research associate in epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, said in a statement.

“People who are concerned about their level of exposure to these chemicals during pregnancy or while breastfeeding may benefit from cutting back on personal care products during those times,” Hall added.

Read the full story here.

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Jesse Marquez, tireless defender of L.A. port communities, dies at 74

One of the Los Angeles region's most important environmental justice advocates has died.

When Jesse Marquez walked into the Los Angeles harbor commission hearing room in 2013, he didn’t bring a consultant or a slideshow. He brought death certificates.Each sheet of paper, he told the commissioners, bore the name of a Wilmington resident killed by respiratory illness. Wedged between two of the country’s busiest ports, the neighborhood is dotted with oil refineries, chemical plants, railyards and freeways. It’s one of several portside communities known by some as a “diesel death zone,” where residents are more likely to die from cancer than just about anywhere else in the L.A. Basin. For decades, Marquez refused to let anyone forget it.He knocked on doors, installed air monitors, counted oil wells, built coalitions, staged demonstrations, fought legal battles and affected policy. He dove deep into impenetrable environmental impact documents.“Before Jesse, there was no playbook.” Earthjustice attorney Adrian Martinez said in an interview. “What was remarkable from the beginning is that Jesse wasn’t afraid to write stuff down, to demand things, to spend lots of time scouring for evidence.”Marquez, founder of the Coalition for a Safe Environment, or CFASE, died surrounded by family in his Orange County home Nov. 3. His death was due to complications after he was struck by a vehicle while in a crosswalk in January. He was 74.“He was one of a kind,” Martinez said. “He had a fierce independence and really believed in speaking up for himself and his community. He played an instrumental role in centering Wilmington in the fight for environmental justice.”In 2001, when the port planned to ramp up operations and expand a major terminal operated by Trapac Inc. further north into Wilmington, Marquez and neighborhood organizers pushed back, winning a $200-million green-space buffer between residences and port operations.When oil refineries evaded pollution caps through what organizers called a “gaping loophole” in Environmental Protection Agency policy, Marquez and others sued, overturning the policy and successfully curtailing pollution spikes at California plants.And when cargo ships idled at California ports burning diesel fuel, Marquez and his allies pressed the state to adopt the nation’s first rule requiring vessels to turn off their engines and plug into the electric grid while docked.Born Oct. 22, 1951, Marquez was raised in Wilmington, and lived most of his life there. As a child, he had a view of Fletcher Oil Co.’s towering smokestacks from his frontyard.Years later, black pearls of petroleum rained down on Wilmington the day the oil refinery exploded.Then 17, Marquez hit the floor when he heard the blast. Frantic, he helped his parents hoist his six younger siblings over a backyard fence as fireballs of ignited crude descended around their home, just across the street. His grandmother was the last over, suffering third-degree burns along the entire left side of her body.“From that moment on, he’s always had Wilmington in his mind,” his 44-year-old son, Alex Marquez, said in an interview.The memory shaped the battles he fought decades later. In college at UCLA, he crossed paths with young members of the Brown Berets, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán, and the Black Panther Party, later volunteering in demonstrations led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.“He started off within that movement,” Alex Marquez said. “It was his reason to bring a lot of different communities into his work.”After a career in aerospace, he began organizing in earnest in the 1990s, aligning with groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Coalition for Clean Air to oppose port expansion projects.When his sons were old enough, he brought them along to photograph and count oil wells, later folding them into his other projects.He described his father as a man of contrasts.“When it was time to work, he was the most serious, stern, no patience,” Alex Marquez said. “But the minute the job was done, he completely transformed. He was your best friend who brought a roast turkey and a six-pack of beers. He partied and relaxed better than anyone I’ve ever met.”Marquez’s home was always filled with dogs — he jokingly called his lawyers his “legal beagles,” Martinez recalled. He loved reggae music, dancing and was an amateur archaeologist. He kept a collection of colonial maps tracing the migration of the Aztec people, part of what his son called “his love for Native American and Aztec culture.”He founded CFASE with a group of Wilmington residents. After learning about the port’s expansion plans, he hosted an ad hoc meeting at his home. There, residents shared their experiences with industrial pollution in Wilmington.They talked about the refinery explosions in 1969, 1984, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996 and 2001.“Then someone says, ‘Well, I have two kids and they have asthma,’” Jesse Marquez recalled in a media interview in January. “And then someone else says, ‘All three of my kids have asthma — My mom has asthma — I have asthma.’”The group would play a central role in developing the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach’s landmark Clean Air Action Plan and Clean Truck Program, which replaced more than 16,000 diesel rigs with cleaner models.It pushed for zero-emission truck demonstrations, solar power installations, and won millions of dollars for communities for public health and air-quality projects.The coalition helped negotiate a $60-million settlement in the seminal China Shipping terminal case — securing local health grants, truck retrofit funds and the first Port Community Advisory Committee in the U.S. — and later helped establish the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation, which funds air filtration, land use, and job-training initiatives across Wilmington and San Pedro.Marquez’s group also fought off proposals for liquefied natural gas terminals, oil tank farms and hydrogen power plants.Since 2005, diesel emissions at the Port of Los Angeles have plummeted by 90%.Now Alex Marquez finds himself suddenly in charge of the nonprofit his father built.He’s been learning to manage the group’s finances, fix its monitoring equipment and reconnect with its network of allies.“It’s literally been a crash course in how to run a nonprofit,” he said. “But we’re keeping it alive.”In Wilmington, residents point to visible symbols of Marquez’s work: the waterfront park, the electrified port terminals and the health surveys that documented decades of illness.“He left us too early, but a movement that was just budding when he started decades ago has now blossomed into national and even international networks,” Martinez wrote in a tribute to Marquez.Marquez is survived by his sons Alex Marquez, Danilo Marquez, Radu Iliescu and, the many who knew him say, the environmental justice movement writ large.

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James Watson, Co-Discoverer of DNA's Double Helix, Dead at 97

(Reuters) -James D. Watson, the brilliant but controversial American biologist whose 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of...

(Reuters) -James D. Watson, the brilliant but controversial American biologist whose 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of heredity, ushered in the age of genetics and provided the foundation for the biotechnology revolution of the late 20th century, has died at the age of 97.His death was confirmed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, where he worked for many years. The New York Times reported that Watson died this week at a hospice on Long Island.In his later years, Watson's reputation was tarnished by comments on genetics and race that led him to be ostracized by the scientific establishment.Even as a younger man, he was known as much for his writing and for his enfant-terrible persona - including his willingness to use another scientist's data to advance his own career - as for his science.His 1968 memoir, "The Double Helix," was a racy, take-no-prisoners account of how he and British physicist Francis Crick were first to determine the three-dimensional shape of DNA. The achievement won the duo a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine and eventually would lead to genetic engineering, gene therapy and other DNA-based medicine and technology.Crick complained that the book "grossly invaded my privacy" and another colleague, Maurice Wilkins, objected to what he called a "distorted and unfavorable image of scientists" as ambitious schemers willing to deceive colleagues and competitors in order to make a discovery.In addition, Watson and Crick, who did their research at Cambridge University in England, were widely criticized for using raw data collected by X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin to construct their model of DNA - as two intertwined staircases - without fully acknowledging her contribution. As Watson put it in "Double Helix," scientific research feels "the contradictory pulls of ambition and the sense of fair play."In 2007, Watson again caused widespread anger when he told the Times of London that he believed testing indicated the intelligence of Africans was "not really ... the same as ours."Accused of promoting long-discredited racist theories, he was shortly afterwards forced to retire from his post as chancellor of New York's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Although he later apologized, he made similar comments in a 2019 documentary, calling different racial attainment on IQ tests - attributed by most scientists to environmental factors - "genetic."James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago on April 6, 1928, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a zoology degree. He received his doctorate from Indiana University, where he focused on genetics. In 1951, he joined Cambridge's Cavendish Lab, where he met Crick and began the quest for the structural chemistry of DNA.Just waiting to be found, the double helix opened the doors to the genetics revolution. In the structure Crick and Watson proposed, the steps of the winding staircase were made of pairs of chemicals called nucleotides or bases. As they noted at the end of their 1953 paper, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material."That sentence, often called the greatest understatement in the history of biology, meant that the base-and-helix structure provided the mechanism by which genetic information can be precisely copied from one generation to the next. That understanding led to the discovery of genetic engineering and numerous other DNA techniques.Watson and Crick went their separate ways after their DNA research. Watson was only 25 years old then and while he never made another scientific discovery approaching the significance of the double helix, he remained a scientific force."He had to figure out what to do with his life after achieving what he did at such a young age," biologist Mark Ptashne, who met Watson in the 1960s and remained a friend, told Reuters in a 2012 interview. "He figured out how to do things that played to his strength."That strength was playing "the tough Irishman," as Ptashne put it, to become one of the leaders of the U.S. leap to the forefront of molecular biology. Watson joined the biology department at Harvard University in 1956."The existing biology department felt that molecular biology was just a flash in the pan," Harvard biochemist Guido Guidotti related. But when Watson arrived, Guidotti said he immediately told everyone in the biology department – scientists whose research focused on whole organisms and populations, not cells and molecules – "that they were wasting their time and should retire."That earned Watson the decades-long enmity of some of those traditional biologists, but he also attracted young scientists and graduate students who went on to forge the genetics revolution.In 1968 Watson took his institution-building drive to CSHL on Long Island, splitting his time between CSHL and Harvard for eight years. The lab at the time was "just a mosquito-infested backwater," said Ptashne. As director, "Jim turned it into a vibrant, world-class institution."In 1990, Watson was named to lead the Human Genome Project, whose goal was to determine the order of the 3 billion chemical units that constitute humans' full complement of DNA. When the National Institutes of Health, which funded the project, decided to seek patents on some DNA sequences, Watson attacked the NIH director and resigned, arguing that genome knowledge should remain in the public domain.In 2007 he became the second person in the world to have his full genome sequenced. He made the sequence publicly available, arguing that concerns about "genetic privacy" were overwrought but made an exception by saying he did not want to know if he had a gene associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. Watson did have a gene associated with novelty-seeking.His proudest accomplishment, Watson told an interviewer for Discover magazine in 2003, was not discovering the double helix - which "was going to be found in the next year or two" anyway - but his books."My heroes were never scientists," he said. "They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood - you know, good writers."Watson cherished the bad-boy image he presented to the world in "Double Helix," friends said, and he emphasized it in his 2007 book, "Avoid Boring People."Married with two sons, he often disparaged women in public statements and boasted of chasing what he called "popsies." But he personally encouraged many female scientists, including biologist Nancy Hopkins of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."I certainly couldn't have had a career in science without his support, I believe," said Hopkins, long outspoken about anti-woman bias in science. "Jim was hugely supportive of me and other women. It's an odd thing to understand."(Editing by Bill Trott and Rosalba O'Brien)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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How dry cleaning might raise the risk of cancer, and what to do about it

A new study found links between a toxic dry cleaning chemical and liver cancer. Trump officials are reconsidering an EPA plan to phase it out.

Environmental and health advocates have long sought to curb dangerous chemicals used in dry cleaning. Now a new study adds to the evidence of harms, linking a common dry cleaning chemical to liver disease and cancer.Here’s what you need to know about the risks.How dry cleaning worksDespite the name, clothes don’t stay “dry” when dry-cleaned. Instead, garments are loaded into drums and soaked in chemicals that dissolve stains.Before modern cleaning systems were developed, workers would manually move solvent-soaked garments from washer to dryer, creating a direct exposure route and increasing the chances of environmental contamination. Today, cleaners wash and dry everything in the same drum. Clothes are then pressed or steamed.What are the health risks?One of the most widely used dry cleaning chemicals is an industrial solvent called PCE, also known as tetrachloroethylene, perchloroethylene and perc. The Environmental Protection Agency considers PCE a probable human carcinogen, and it has been linked to bladder cancer, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.Follow Climate & environmentLast year, the EPA announced a new rule banning PCE for most uses and giving dry cleaners a 10-year phaseout period. The Trump administration is reconsidering this decision, according to an EPA spokesperson.But a recent study found that exposure to PCE tripled the risk of liver fibrosis, excessive scarring that can lead to liver disease and liver cancer. Researchers found that repeated exposure to PCE, which is detectable in an estimated 7 percent of the U.S. population, increased the likelihood of liver damage.“If you’ve been exposed to PCE, talk to your doctor about it,” said Brian P. Lee, associate professor of medicine at the University of Southern California and the study’s lead author.The study found that higher-income households faced the most risk from PCE exposure because they are more likely to use dry cleaning. People who work in cleaning facilities or live nearby also face an elevated risk due to prolonged exposure. Once the chemical gets into a building or the ground, it’s very difficult to remove. The EPA estimates that roughly 6,000 dry cleaners, mostly small businesses, still use PCE in the United States.Lee said the study adds to the growing list of harms associated with the chemical.Studies have also shown that PCE can linger on clothing after dry cleaning and that it builds up over time after repeated cleanings and can contaminate indoor air as it vaporizes.“We now have decades of studies confirming that these widespread dry cleaning chemicals are exposing people to unacceptable risks of cancer and other serious diseases,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at the advocacy group Earthjustice. “Those harms are entirely avoidable.”Jon Meijer, director of membership at the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute International, a trade association, said the group supports the original rule passed under the Biden administration and explained that those who still use the chemical do so because of financial challenges.“It’s time for a phaseout of perchloroethylene,” Meijer said. “There are so many alternatives out there.”Safer alternativesExperts say there are plenty of alternatives to using harmful dry cleaning chemicals, but some are safer than others.Go dry-clean free: Try purchasing clothes that don’t need to be dry-cleaned. Selecting cotton blazers and other professional attire, for example, can reduce dry cleaning visits, said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group. “The easiest thing is to look for professional staples that don’t need to be dry-cleaned,” Stoiber said.Hand-washing: Some “dry-clean only” garments can be delicately hand-washed in cold water with a gentle detergent specific to the particular fabric you’re using. Hanging delicate clothes to dry after a wash can avoid damage from heated air dryers.Steaming: Steam cleaning can freshen up clothes by removing odors, bacteria and small stains without needing a full wash.Commercial wet cleaning: Commercial wet cleaning relies on biodegradable detergents and water instead of toxic solvents.Liquid carbon dioxide: Experts suggest selecting dry cleaners that use liquid carbon dioxide as a solvent to remove dirt and avoid toxic chemicals.Watch out for greenwashingSome businesses advertise eco-friendly or “green” alternatives to dry cleaning. But experts warn that new chemicals can have their own downsides.Diana Ceballos, an assistant professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, said that dry cleaning technology has improved dramatically and that new solvents and machinery can be more effective than PCE.Still, Cebellos said that there can be a lot of “regrettable substitution” when it comes to alternatives to PCE and that some that are billed as “safe” or “organic” could also be toxic.“Most options are far better,” Cebellos said. “But there’s a lot of greenwashing” out there, so people should ask questions and do “a little bit of research.”

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Emergency Crews Respond to Ammonia Leak at Mississippi Fertilizer Plant

(Reuters) -Emergency teams responded on Wednesday to a chemical leak, possibly caused by an explosion, at a fertilizer plant in Central Mississippi...

(Reuters) -Emergency teams responded on Wednesday to a chemical leak, possibly caused by an explosion, at a fertilizer plant in Central Mississippi, according to Governor Tate Reeves and media reports. No injuries were immediately reported.A tall cloud of orange vapor could be seen rising over the facility in a photo from the scene of the plant posted online by television station WJTV, a CBS News affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi, the state capital.The governor identified the leaking chemical as anhydrous ammonia, a toxic substance that can cause irritation to the eyes and lungs.Fertilizer manufacturer CF Industries said in statement that "all employees and contractors on site at the time of the incident have been safely accounted for, with no injuries reported."It said it had notified government officials of an "incident" that occurred at its Yazoo City Complex at about 4:25 p.m. CT (2225 GMT).Reeves said in a statement posted on social media that state authorities were "actively responding to the anhydrous ammonia leak" at the plant, located about 50 miles (80.5 km) north of Jackson."Initial reports indicate the leak is due to an explosion. At this time, no deaths or injuries have been reported," the governor said.Personnel from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality were among various teams dispatched to the scene, WJTV reported.The governor said residents living along two nearby streets should be evacuated, while other residents in the vicinity were encouraged to shelter in place.(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Costas Pita in Los Angeles and Angela Christy in Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Stephen Coates)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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EPA Proposes Approving Fifth ‘Forever Chemical’ Pesticide

November 5, 2025 – In line with its plan to continue pesticide approvals despite the government shutdown, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced this week that it will register a new weedkiller for use in corn, soybean, wheat, and canola fields. The herbicide, epyrifenacil, is the fifth pesticide set to be approved by the agency within the last few months that fits into the group of chemicals called PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), based on a commonly used definition. And the agency is moving fast. The first pesticide was proposed for registration in April; that pesticide, called cyclobutrifluram, was finalized today. PFAS are linked to a wide range of health harms and are commonly called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily and they accumulate in soil and water. In 2023, however, the EPA officially adopted a narrower definition. With the proposed approval of epyrifenacil, the agency for the first time has waded into the debate over which pesticides are PFAS and whether concerns voiced over other recent registrations of similar pesticides are warranted. In its announcement, the agency noted that epyrifenacil “contains a fluorinated carbon” and directed the public to a new website where it lays out its position on pesticides that contain fluorinated carbons. Whether those chemicals fit the definition of PFAS doesn’t matter, the agency argues, because under the law, the EPA evaluates the risks of each chemical individually. “Regardless of whether a chemical meets a specific structural definition or is part of a category or class of chemicals, the Agency utilizes a comprehensive assessment process under [the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act] to evaluate the potential risks of pesticide use,” it said. “This robust, chemical-specific process considers both hazard and exposure in determining whether the pesticide under review may pose risk to human health or the environment.” Epyrifenacil was developed by Japan-based Sumitomo Chemical, which owns Valent U.S.A. in the U.S. It’s one of a new class of herbicides designed to help farmers kill weeds that have developed resistance to popular chemicals like glyphosate. It’s also specifically designed for farmers to spray on cover crops and in no-till systems to prep fields for planting. The pesticide industry has lobbied in recent years to get the EPA to approve new chemicals to address what it calls an “innovation backlog.” Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that an “office run by chemical lobbyists” is whitewashing what is already known about the risks of PFAS. “Not only did the pesticide industry get a proposed approval of its dangerous new product,” he said, “but it also got a shiny new government website parroting its misleading talking points.” (Link to this post.) The post EPA Proposes Approving Fifth ‘Forever Chemical’ Pesticide appeared first on Civil Eats.

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An exploration of what happens when whole communities get exposed to toxins: Naled sprayed on Miami residents to fight Zika virus, Agent Orange sprayed on the Vietcong, and release of GMO mosquitoes in Brazil with pyriproxyfen added to drinking water to fight dengue. What are the results for nature and humanity? We meet Agent Orange survivors at Vietnamese detoxification and rehabilitation centers, parents of babies born with microcephaly from Zika virus, and Florida residents dealing with efforts to kill mosquitoes carrying Zika virus. Perspectives of doctors, scientists, and politicians are balanced with voices of ordinary citizens and victims to explore concerns about the potential impact on current and future generations.

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Since the 1950s deadly nuclear fallout has threatened millions of Americans from nuclear fallout carried east in the atmosphere across the United States, from the Nevada Test Site. “928 The Threat Continues...” tells the story of massive contamination from concentrated nuclear fallout that rained down during heavy storms, on communities and major cities for 40 years. Hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and deaths were the result. The Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Energy knew the truth, but covered it up. Multiple generations may still face the long-term affects. Through current interviews with scientific experts and surviving victims across the country, plus footage from historic interviews with victims, whistle-blower scientists and journalists, we tell the devastating story of those affected by the deadly radioactive fallout. In Act 3, obscure government videos from US government websites reveal that the threat of cancer death to Americans from Nevada Test Site contamination continues even today! NTS has been renamed, the Nevada National Security Site or NNSS. Presidential administrations from Harry Truman to the present day have kept the highly contaminated former Nevada Test Site operating. Donald Trump while in office ordered the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to start testing newly designed battlefield nuclear weapons at the NNSS despite the existence of The Non-Proliferation Treaty – 1970. Not withstanding the treaty, the extremely reckless aboveground testing area at the NNSS called Big Explosives Experimental Facility or B.E.E.F. tests non-nuclear bombs that send tons of highly contaminated nuclear dirt 10,000 feet into the atmosphere where the winds carry it east. It needs to be stopped now! The film asks viewers to inform their congressman and vote.

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Personal care product use during pregnancy, lactation may increase exposure to ‘forever chemicals’: Study

Related News

Jesse Marquez, tireless defender of L.A. port communities, dies at 74

James Watson, Co-Discoverer of DNA's Double Helix, Dead at 97

How dry cleaning might raise the risk of cancer, and what to do about it

Emergency Crews Respond to Ammonia Leak at Mississippi Fertilizer Plant

EPA Proposes Approving Fifth ‘Forever Chemical’ Pesticide

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We Trees

Bag It

Sprayed

928 The Threat Continues...

Lead in the Land

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Personal care product use during pregnancy, lactation may increase exposure to ‘forever chemicals’: Study

Related News

Jesse Marquez, tireless defender of L.A. port communities, dies at 74

James Watson, Co-Discoverer of DNA's Double Helix, Dead at 97

How dry cleaning might raise the risk of cancer, and what to do about it

Emergency Crews Respond to Ammonia Leak at Mississippi Fertilizer Plant

EPA Proposes Approving Fifth ‘Forever Chemical’ Pesticide

Suggested Viewing

We Trees

Bag It

Sprayed

928 The Threat Continues...

Lead in the Land

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future