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Staff working on childhood lead exposure and cancer clusters fired from CDC

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Thursday, April 3, 2025

Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those who were fired from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a now former employee told The Hill. The entire permanent staff of the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was cut, according to one person who was among the approximately 200 fired from the division. This division works on issues such as asthma and air pollution, climate change and health, childhood lead poisoning and cancer clusters.  The former employee noted that these divisions do crucial work to protect public health, pointing out, for example, that it helped discover lead contamination in applesauce pouches that were popular with kids.  The person also noted that the division also had staffers who would be able to help respond in case there was a nuclear event such as an attack or nuclear plant meltdown. "Within this division, we house all the experts who do things like chemical, radiological or nuclear response activities. So for example, if there were a nuclear detonation within the United States, or a dirty bomb, our division would be the one who would lead that response,” they said. “Those people were targeted as well. There are no survivors." The person said that the division may still have contractors, but that there’s no staff for them to work with.  However, the current director of the Center for Environmental Health, Ari Bernstein, said in an internal email that the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice had been “slated to be eliminated in its entirety,” E&E News reported.  The workers who were let go include epidemiologists, scientists and administrators who manage grant programs.  Other experts also raised concerns about the impacts of the cuts.  “There was just the wholesale elimination of the division that eliminates, essentially, the program that protects children from lead, from air pollution and asthma, from emergencies like fires,” said Patrick Breysse, the now-retired former director of the National Center for Environmental Health, which houses the environmental health division.  “People are going to suffer from this for decades,” Breysse told The Hill.  The firings come amid broader cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the HHS, which houses it. The Hill has reached out to HHS for comment.  The firings come as the department lets go of around 10,000 additional workers as it seeks to reorganize.  HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the cuts as part of his plan to streamline the agency and “Make America Healthy Again.”  However, critics argue that cutting many of these jobs will actually make the nation less healthy.  “This is not the way we make America healthy again. This is how we make America sick again,” said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Nathaniel Weixel contributed. 

Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those who were fired from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a now former employee told The Hill. The entire permanent staff of the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was cut, according to one person...

Staff members who fought childhood lead exposure and those who worked on cancer clusters were among those who were fired from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a now former employee told The Hill.

The entire permanent staff of the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice was cut, according to one person who was among the approximately 200 fired from the division.

This division works on issues such as asthma and air pollution, climate change and health, childhood lead poisoning and cancer clusters. 

The former employee noted that these divisions do crucial work to protect public health, pointing out, for example, that it helped discover lead contamination in applesauce pouches that were popular with kids. 

The person also noted that the division also had staffers who would be able to help respond in case there was a nuclear event such as an attack or nuclear plant meltdown.

"Within this division, we house all the experts who do things like chemical, radiological or nuclear response activities. So for example, if there were a nuclear detonation within the United States, or a dirty bomb, our division would be the one who would lead that response,” they said. “Those people were targeted as well. There are no survivors."

The person said that the division may still have contractors, but that there’s no staff for them to work with. 

However, the current director of the Center for Environmental Health, Ari Bernstein, said in an internal email that the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice had been “slated to be eliminated in its entirety,” E&E News reported

The workers who were let go include epidemiologists, scientists and administrators who manage grant programs. 

Other experts also raised concerns about the impacts of the cuts. 

“There was just the wholesale elimination of the division that eliminates, essentially, the program that protects children from lead, from air pollution and asthma, from emergencies like fires,” said Patrick Breysse, the now-retired former director of the National Center for Environmental Health, which houses the environmental health division. 

“People are going to suffer from this for decades,” Breysse told The Hill. 

The firings come amid broader cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the HHS, which houses it.

The Hill has reached out to HHS for comment. 

The firings come as the department lets go of around 10,000 additional workers as it seeks to reorganize. 

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the cuts as part of his plan to streamline the agency and “Make America Healthy Again.” 

However, critics argue that cutting many of these jobs will actually make the nation less healthy. 

“This is not the way we make America healthy again. This is how we make America sick again,” said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Nathaniel Weixel contributed. 

Read the full story here.
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Even Wealthy Americans Die Younger Than Europeans

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, April 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Death comes for everyone, be they rich or poor.But no amount of...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, April 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Death comes for everyone, be they rich or poor.But no amount of money will help Americans live longer than Europeans, a new study says.Even the richest Americans face shorter lifespans compared to well-heeled Europeans, according to results published April 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine.And in some cases, wealthy Americans have survival rates on par with poor Europeans living in western nations like Germany, France and the Netherlands, researchers said."The findings are a stark reminder that even the wealthiest Americans are not shielded from the systemic issues in the U.S. contributing to lower life expectancy, such as economic inequality or risk factors like stress, diet or environmental hazards,” senior researcher Irene Papanicolas, director of the Center for Health System Sustainability at the Brown University, said in a news release.“If we want to improve health in the U.S., we need to better understand the underlying factors that contribute to these differences — particularly amongst similar socioeconomic groups — and why they translate to different health outcomes across nations,” she added.For the study, researchers compared health data from the U.S. against different parts of Europe among people ages 50 to 85. Starting in 2010, the team tracked people to see how long they lived.Results showed that across every wealth level, death rates are higher in the U.S. than in Europe.Across the globe, wealthy people tend to live longer. The wealthiest 25% had a death rate 40% lower than those in the poorest 25%.But people in Western Europe died at rates about 40% lower than Americans, Southern Europeans at rates about 30% lower, and Eastern Europeans at rates 13% to 20% lower, results show.The wealthiest Americans had shorter lifespans on average than the wealthiest Europeans, and in some cases even fared worse than poorer Europeans, researchers found.Meanwhile, the poorest Americans “appeared to have the lowest survival among all wealth groups in the study sample,” researchers wrote.These findings indicate that a weaker social net, more complex health care system, and even lifestyle factors like smoking and diet are trimming years off the lives of Americans across all wealth groups, researchers said.“Fixing health outcomes is not just a challenge for the most vulnerable — even those in the top quartile of wealth are affected,” lead researcher Sara Machado, a research scientist at Brown’s Center for Health System Sustainability, said in a news release.In fact, the study found a “survivor effect” in the U.S. that is creating an illusion of decreasing wealth inequality as people age. In actuality, the gap between rich and poor continues to expand.Poorer Americans in worse health are more likely to die earlier, leaving behind a population that appears healthier and wealthier. It looks like wealth inequality declines among seniors, but this is partly due to the early deaths of the poorest people.“While wealth inequality narrows after 65 across the U.S. and Europe, in the U.S. it narrows because the poorest Americans die sooner and in greater proportion,” Papanicolas said.The study indicates that for all the talk of American exceptionalism, the U.S. could learn a lot about better, healthier living from Europe, researchers said.“If you look at other countries, there are better outcomes, and that means we can learn from them and improve," Machado said. “It’s not necessarily about spending more — it’s about addressing the factors we’re overlooking, which could deliver far greater benefits than we realize.”SOURCE: Brown University, news release, April 2, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Microplastics Linked To High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Stroke

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, April 1, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Microplastics appear to be contributing to chronic diseases in...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTUESDAY, April 1, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Microplastics appear to be contributing to chronic diseases in shoreline areas of the United States, a new study suggests.High blood pressure, diabetes and stroke rates are higher in coastal or lakefront areas with greater concentrations of microplastics in the environment, researchers reported at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology (ACC).The results also suggested a dose relationship, where higher concentrations of microplastics pollution are associated with more chronic disease, researchers said.“This study provides initial evidence that microplastics exposure has an impact on cardiovascular health, especially chronic, noncommunicable conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke," lead investigator Sai Rahul Ponnana, a research data scientist at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, said in a news release.Microplastics are tiny plastic particles as small as 1 nanometer; by comparison, a strand of human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide.These particles are released as larger pieces of plastic break down, and can come from food and beverage packaging, consumer products and building materials, researchers said in background notes.People can be exposed to microplastics in the water they drink, the food they eat and the air they breathe.For this study, researchers linked U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on chronic illness rates with federal data on microplastics concentrations in the sediment along coastal and lakeshore areas in 555 census tracts. The data ran from 2015 to 2019.Microplastics ranked among the top risk factors associated with chronic illness, researchers found. They considered 154 factors, including income, employment rate and air pollution."When we included 154 different socioeconomic and environmental features in our analysis, we didn't expect microplastics to rank in the top 10 for predicting chronic noncommunicable disease prevalence,” Ponnana said.However, researchers noted that the study does not prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between microplastics and chronic illness. More studies are needed to prove a concrete link and rule out other possible explanations.More research is also needed to determine the amount of exposure to microplastics that would have an impact on a person’s health, researchers added.In the meantime, people can help minimize microplastics exposure by reducing how much plastic they throw away."The environment plays a very important role in our health, especially cardiovascular health," Ponnana said. "As a result, taking care of our environment means taking care of ourselves."The findings were presented Monday at the ACC’s meeting in Chicago. Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more on microplastics.SOURCE: American College of Cardiology, news release, March 25, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Why the health risks from air pollution could be worse than we thought

A new study found elevated and previously overlooked health risks for communities living near industrial polluters.

Many people who live near heavy industry are routinely exposed to dozens of different pollutants, which can result in a multitude of health problems.Traditionally, environmental regulators have assessed the risks of chemical exposure on an individual basis. But that approach has led to underestimates of the total health risks faced by vulnerable populations, according to a new study.Now researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a new method for measuring the cumulative effects on human health of multiple toxic air pollutants. Their findings were published last week in Environmental Health Perspectives.Regulators typically measure community risk by looking at the primary health effects of individual chemicals, an approach that often fails to address their combined risks, said Keeve Nachman, the study’s senior author.Residents in disadvantaged communities are exposed to a toxic stew of chemicals daily, and they “don’t just breathe one at a time, [they] breathe all the chemicals in the air at once,” said Peter DeCarlo, another of the study’s authors.Follow Climate & environment“Very little has happened to protect these people. And one of the major reasons for that is that current approaches have not done a good job showing they’re in harm’s way,” Nachman said.“When we regulate chemicals, we pretend that we’re only exposed to one chemical at a time,” Nachman continued. “If we have each chemical and we only think about the most sensitive effect, but we ignore the fact that it could potentially cause all these other effects to different parts of the body, we are missing protecting people from the collective mixture of chemicals that act together.”Nachman, DeCarlo and their colleagues set out to more accurately account for the total burden of breathing multiple toxic air pollutants.The study assessed the risks faced by communities in southeastern Pennsylvania living near petrochemical facilities using a mobile laboratory to measure 32 hazardous air pollutants, including vinyl chloride, formaldehyde and benzene. The researchers developed real-time profiles of the pollution concentrations in the air and translated them into estimates of what people are actually breathing.Using these estimates and a database of the chemicals’ toxic effects on various organs, the researchers created projections of the long-term cumulative health impacts of the pollution.By looking past the immediate health effects of chemicals and measuring what happens as concentrations increase, negative health outcomes can be detected in other parts of the body, Nachman said.For example, while EPA risk assessments consider only the respiratory effects of formaldehyde, the study found potential health impacts in 10 other organ systems, including neurological, developmental and reproductive harms.The cumulative risk study appears at a fraught moment for environmental regulation. Although the Biden administration in November released a draft framework for monitoring the cumulative impact of chemical exposure, the Trump administration has announced plans to roll back dozens of Biden administration environmental rules and is considering shutting down the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.A spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, said in an email that the Johns Hopkins research “may provide some useful information” but that “further assessment, replication and validation will be needed” of the methods and substances assessed in the study.“ACC continues to support the development of scientifically robust data, methods and approaches to underpin cumulative risk assessments,” the spokesperson added.The EPA did not provide an immediate comment while it reviewed the study.Jen Duggan, the executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, said communities often face higher health impacts than the EPA estimates due to their exposure to dangerous chemicals from multiple sources.“The authors of this paper powerfully demonstrate how EPA has repeatedly underestimated the true health risks for people living in the shadow of industrial polluters,” Duggan said.

Utah Bans Fluoride In Public Drinking Water

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed the legislation despite widespread opposition from dentists and national health organizations.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, despite widespread opposition from dentists and national health organizations.Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation late Thursday that bars cities and communities from deciding whether to add the mineral to their water systems.Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Utah lawmakers who pushed for a ban said putting fluoride in water was too expensive. Cox, who grew up and raised his own children in a community without fluoridated water, compared it recently to being “medicated” by the government.The ban comes weeks after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has expressed skepticism about water fluoridation, was sworn into office.More than 200 million people in the U.S., or almost two-thirds of the population, receive fluoridated water through community water. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.But some cities across the country have gotten rid of fluoride from their water, and other municipalities are considering doing the same. A few months ago, a federal judge ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to the intellectual development of children.We Don't Work For Billionaires. We Work For You.Big money interests are running the government — and influencing the news you read. While other outlets are retreating behind paywalls and bending the knee to political pressure, HuffPost is proud to be unbought and unfiltered. Will you help us keep it that way? You can even access our stories ad-free.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.Support HuffPostAlready contributed? Log in to hide these messages.The president of the American Dental Association, Brett Kessler, has said the amounts of fluoride added to drinking water are below levels considered problematic.Opponents warn the ban will disproportionately affect low-income residents who may rely on public drinking water having fluoride as their only source of preventative dental care. Low-income families may not be able to afford regular dentist visits or the fluoride tablets some people buy as a supplement in cities without fluoridation.The sponsor of the Utah legislation, Republican Rep. Stephanie Gricius, acknowledged fluoride has benefits, but said it was an issue of “individual choice” to not have it in the water.

Dozens of House Democrats push back on planned EPA research and development cuts

Dozens of House Democrats pushed back on planned Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cuts in a Thursday letter to the agency. “We are particularly concerned by the proposal to eliminate up to 75 percent of employees within EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD),” the letter, from Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and addressed to EPA Administrator...

Dozens of House Democrats pushed back on planned Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cuts in a Thursday letter to the agency. “We are particularly concerned by the proposal to eliminate up to 75 percent of employees within EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD),” the letter, from Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and addressed to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, reads. “Firing nearly 1,200 dedicated ORD public servants across the country would decimate the scientific backbone of EPA which provides independent, objective, and unparallelled research that informs Agency assessments and decision-making,” they added. The letter featured the signatures of over 60 House Democrats including Reps. Nikema Williams (Ga.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Don Beyer (Va.), Joe Neguse (Colo.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.). The Hill reported last week that the EPA was considering the cutting of its science arm and dropping most of the employees of the branch, per documents reviewed by Democratic staff for the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. The termination of the Office of Research and Development as an EPA National Program Office is called for in a plan reviewed by committee staffers. Fifty percent to 70 percent of the 1,540 staffers in the office would be cut under the plan. “While no decisions have been made yet, we are actively listening to employees at all levels to gather ideas on how to better fulfill agency statutory obligations, increase efficiency, and ensure the EPA is as up-to-date and effective as ever,” EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said in a previous statement. In his letter, Landsman said dropping “the majority of ORD employees would be particularly harmful to EPA’s work to address industrial pollution, contaminated air and drinking water, environmental health, and worsening natural disasters.” The Ohio Democrat also questioned the EPA about the reasoning behind the staff cuts in the plan and the way the agency is prepping “to mitigate the loss of scientific expertise, institutional knowledge, and subject matter capacity resulting from this proposed action.” The Hill has reached out to the EPA for comment.

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