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Exposures to pesticides and other chemicals, ultra-processed foods and over-prescription of medications are among the factors contributing to an epidemic of chronic disease in America’s children, according to a government report issued Thursday by the Trump administration’s controversial “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Commission.

The 68-page assessment calls for a “transformation” of US food, health and “scientific systems” as a means to address what the report calls the “sickest generation in American history in terms of chronic disease”.

The report blames complacency in scientific and medical institutions, corrupted federal and state policies guided “more by corporate profit than the public interest,” and US food and agricultural systems that have “embraced ultra-processed ingredients and synthetic chemicals.” The report specifically calls out corporate influence over research, regulators and lawmakers as factors contributing to the problems.

Residents of a Michigan community whose drinking water was polluted with toxic chemicals from a long-shuttered paper mill continue to have high levels of the compounds in their bodies, even years after the community switched to alternate water supplies, according to a new study.

A team led by researchers from Michigan State University (MSU) measured levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in blood samples taken from people living in the area of Parchment, Michigan, coming up with data the researchers said underscores how difficult it is to purge PFAS from the bodies of people exposed to them.

Farm groups were cheering moves announced this week by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that will alter endangered species protections to allow for easier use of certain pesticides in agriculture.

Echoing the industry applause, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins thanked the EPA for “unleashing regulatory burdens” on farmers and ranchers through its new strategy for insecticide use, changes that include reducing buffer zones designed to protect threatened species from the toxic chemicals used to kill crop pests.

The EPA unveiled its “final Insecticide Strategy” document Tuesday, described by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in a statement as “another example of how protecting our environment and safeguarding our economy can go hand in hand.”

Billed as a type of food system that works in harmony with nature, “regenerative” agriculture is gaining popularity in US farm country, garnering praise in books and films and as one of the goals of the Make America Healthy Again movement associated with new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Proponents of regenerative farming say the practice can mitigate harmful climate change, reduce water pollution, and make foods more nutritious as farmers focus on improving the health of soil, water, and ecosystems.

A growing number of farms and ranches around the US are achieving certification to let consumers know their grains, beef, eggs and other products are regeneratively grown. Internationally, the regenerative agriculture market has been forecast to see double-digit growth between 2023 and 2030.

But all that momentum comes with a dirty dark side, according to a new report that highlights  what is becoming an increasingly contentious debate over the merits of regenerative agriculture.

esieged by thousands of lawsuits alleging that its paraquat weedkiller causes Parkinson’s disease, Syngenta has entered into an agreement aimed at settling large swaths of those claims.

The company and lead counsel for thousands of plaintiffs have “entered into a signed Letter Agreement intended to resolve” the litigation, an April 14 court filing states. 

The lawyers for the plaintiffs confirmed the settlement but declined to answer questions about the details.

“Public details of the settlement will be available for counsel and their clients once the process is finalized,” a team of plaintiffs’ lawyers said in a statement. 

Millions of people across the United States could be drinking water contaminated with dangerous levels of substances created when utilities disinfect water tainted with animal manure and other pollutants, according to a report released Thursday.

An analysis of testing results from community water systems in 49 states found that nearly 6,000 such systems serving 122 million people recorded an unsafe level of chemicals known as trihalomethanes at least once during testing from 2019 to 2023.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) broke the law when it purged government websites of climate-related information and disabled access to key datasets, making it hard for farmers to access information on climate adaptation strategies and financial assistance, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by a coalition of advocacy groups.

The “vital resources” were stripped from various USDA websites on Jan.30, shortly after President Donald Trump took office, erasing public access to information about climate-smart agriculture, forest conservation, climate change adaptation, investment in clean energy projects and other “essential information about USDA programs and policies,” the lawsuit alleges.

The case against the agency was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group.

The plaintiffs allege that the USDA broke the law by not providing legally required notice before removing the webpages, violating the Freedom of Information Act, and by not giving “reasoned decision-making” to the harm caused to farmers and others by the removal of the information.

The USDA did not respond to a request for comment, instead referring questions to the US Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

A US company that was secretly profiling hundreds of food and environmental health advocates in a private web portal has halted the operations in the face of widespread backlash after its actions were exposed by The New Lede in collaboration with Lighthouse Reports and other media partners.

The St. Louis, Mo-based company, v-Fluence, is shuttering the service, which it called a  “stakeholder wiki”, that featured personal details about more than 500 environmental advocates, scientists, politicians and others seen as opponents of pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops. Among those targeted was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s controversial pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

The profiles often provided derogatory information about the industry opponents and included home addresses and phone numbers and details about family members, including children.

The profiles were provided to members of an invite-only web portal where v-Fluence also offered a range of other information to its roster of more than 1,000 members. The membership included staffers of US regulatory and policy agencies, executives from the world’s largest agrochemical companies and their lobbyists, academics and others. 

The profiling was part of an effort to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports. Lighthouse collaborated with The New Lede, The Guardian, Le Monde, Africa Uncensored, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other international media partners on the September 2024 publication of the investigation.

News of the profiling and the private web portal sparked outrage and threats of litigation by some of the people and organizations profiled.

London research professor Michael Antoniou, who was profiled on the portal with derogatory information about his personal life and family members, said he fears the actions to take down the profiles may be “too little too late.”

Children are suffering and dying from diseases that emerging scientific research has linked to chemical exposures, findings that require urgent revamping of laws around the world, according to a new paper published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Authored by more than 20 leading public health researchers, including one from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and another from the United Nations, the paper lays out “a large body of evidence” linking multiple childhood diseases to synthetic chemicals and recommends a series of aggressive actions to try to better protect children.

The paper is a “call to arms” to forge an “actual commitment to the health of our children”, said Linda Birnbaum, a former director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a co-author of the paper.

People diagnosed with infertility and certain cancers may have to blame the very air they breathe, according to a new report that adds to evidence that tiny plastic particles in air pollution and other environmental sources could be causing these and other diseases and illnesses.

Researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) said they reviewed approximately 3,000 studies in determining that exposure to microplastics – plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters – may be causing a host of health problems in people, including colon cancer; chronic pulmonary inflammation, which can increase the risk of lung cancer; and infertility issues in both men and women.

The paper was published Wednesday in the Environmental Science & Technology journal.

“We urge regulatory agencies and policy leaders to consider the growing evidence of health harms from microplastics, including colon and lung cancer,” study lead author Nicholas Chartres said in a statement. Chartres, formerly with the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, is now with the University of Sydney.  

The study expands on a 2023 collaboration between the research team and other experts aimed at informing state lawmakers. 

Microplastics are increasingly drawing concerns from public and environmental health scientists as evidence builds showing they’ve become essentially ubiquitous, found in air, water, food, and within human tissues. One recent study that has not been peer reviewed found particularly concerning accumulation of microplastics in brain samples.