In Connecticut, a condo had lead in its drinking water at levels more than double what the federal government deems acceptable. At a church in North Carolina, the water was contaminated with extremely high levels of potentially toxic PFAS chemicals. The water flowing into a Texas home had both—and concerning amounts of arsenic, too. All three were among locations that had water tested as part of a nine-month investigation into the country’s drinking water. More:

• How Safe Is Our Drinking Water?  –  Consumer Reports
• How to Test and Treat Your Drinking Water  –  Consumer Reports
• More Than 25 Million Americans Drink From the Worst Water Systems  –  Consumer Reports

• Threats on tap - Widespread violations highlight need for investment in water infrastructure and protections (Report) –  NRDC
• Perfluorinated Compounds in the Cape Fear Drainage Basin in North Carolina (Research article)
• PFAS Exposure Study:  PFAS in the Haw River and Pittsboro  –  Duke University Nicholas School of the Environment

• Immunotoxicity of perfluorinated alkylates: calculation of benchmark doses based on serum concentrations in children (Research article)
• A cross-sectional study of well water arsenic and child IQ in Maine schoolchildren (Research article)

• EWG Proposes PFAS Standards That Fully Protect Children’s Health  –  EWG
• After Decades of Debate, EPA Releases New Arsenic-in-Tap-Water Standard; NRDC Welcomes Progress, Calls for Lower Standard in Near Future  –  NRDC
• NRDC Sues EPA Over Rules Allowing Another Generation of Children to Drink Tainted Water From Lead Pipes  –  NRDC

A new study by Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Health Sciences researchers found correlations between increased expressions of autistic-like behaviors in pre-school aged children to gestational exposure to select environmental toxicants, including metals, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), phthalates, and bisphenol-A (BPA). More:

• Maternal exposure to chemicals linked to autistic-like behaviours in children  –  Medical Express
• Prenatal phthalate exposure associated with autistic traits in young boys  –  Medical Express
• Gestational Exposure to Toxicants and Autistic Behaviors using Bayesian Quantile Regression (Research abstract)

The United States is home to nearly 2,000 active landfills. Each day, these enormous piles of garbage can leach well over 2 million liters of liquid per site into the soil, contaminating local water with potentially toxic substances. More:

• Scientists Ranked The Most Dangerous And Toxic Pollutants in US Landfills  –  ScienceAlert

• Occurrence and ecological potential of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in groundwater and reservoirs in the vicinity of municipal landfills in China (Research article)
• An integrative method for identification and prioritization of constituents of concern in produced water from onshore oil and gas extraction (Research article)

• Potential for enhanced phytoremediation of landfills using biosolids – a review (Research article)

Researchers from Germany, Malaysia, and the United States published the results of a systematic review estimating the number of unintentional pesticide poisonings and fatalities globally. The conclusion was startling: An estimated 44 percent of farmers, farmworkers, and pesticide applicators experience at least one incident of acute pesticide poisoning on the job every year, and 11,000 die annually from accidental pesticide poisoning. More:

• New Study Shows the Growing Risks of Pesticide Poisonings  –  Civil Eats
• The global distribution of acute unintentional pesticide poisoning: estimations based on a systematic review (Research article)

• Change to Federal Rule Could Expose More Farmworkers to Pesticides  –  Civil Eats
• Trump’s Legacy, Damaged Brains  –  The New York Times

• What the ‘Insect Apocalypse’ Has to Do With the Food We Eat  –  Civil Eats
• Worldwide pesticide usage and its impacts on ecosystem (Research article)

Researchers used data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxicity Forecaster, or ToxCast, to assess the health hazards of the most common chemicals added to food, as well as the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, which can migrate to food from packaging. More:

• Study: Preservative Used in Pop-Tarts and Hundreds of Popular Foods May Harm the Immune System  –  Environmental Working Group
• Investigating Molecular Mechanisms of Immunotoxicity and the Utility of ToxCast for Immunotoxicity Screening of Chemicals Added to Food (Research article)
• List of Processed Foods With The Preservative TBHQ  –  Environmental Working Group

• Many Fast Food Wrappers Still Coated in PFCs, Kin to Carcinogenic Teflon Chemical  –  Environmental Working Group

• PFAS Chemicals Harm the Immune System, Decrease Response to Vaccines, New EWG Review Finds  –  Environmental Working Group
• Severity of COVID-19 at elevated exposure to perfluorinated alkylates (Research article)

• Food additive may influence how well flu vaccines work  –  Michigan State University
• Research links TBHQ to allergies  –  Food Business News

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued a warning after PFAS chemicals were found in rainbow smelt collected in 2019 from Lake Superior near the Apostle Islands. Adults should not eat more than one 8-ounce serving of Lake Superior smelt per month, and children shouldn’t eat more than one 4-ounce serving per month, the state says. More:

• Michigan warns of PFAS levels in Lake Superior rainbow smelt  –  mlive.com
• New Smelt Consumption Advisory for Lake Superior  –  Wisconsin DNR
• Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in edible fish species from Charleston Harbor and tributaries, South Carolina, United States: Exposure and risk assessment (Research article)

Scientists have detected 109 chemicals in a study of pregnant women, including 55 chemicals never before reported in people and 42 "mystery chemicals," whose sources and uses are unknown. The chemicals most likely come from consumer products or other industrial sources. They were found both in the blood of pregnant women, as well as their newborn children, suggesting they are traveling through the mother's placenta. More:

• Study finds evidence of 55 new chemicals in people  –  Phys.org
• Study finds 56 suspect chemicals in average pregnant woman  –  Medical Press
• Toxic Matters: Protecting our families from toxic substances (Brochure)  –  University of California San Francisco
• Suspect screening, prioritization and confirmation of environmental chemicals in maternal-newborn pairs from San Francisco (Research article)

It was a blazing-hot morning in October 2019 on the old Ho Chi Minh Trail, an intricate web of truck roads and secret paths that wove its way across the densely forested and mountainous border between Vietnam and Laos. Susan Hammond, Jacquelyn Chagnon and Niphaphone Sengthong forded a rocky stream along the trail and came to a village of about 400 people called Labeng-Khok, once the site of a logistics base inside Laos used by the North Vietnamese Army to infiltrate troops into the South. In one of the bamboo-and-thatch stilt houses, the ladder to the living quarters was made from metal tubes that formerly held American cluster bombs. More:

• The Victims of Agent Orange the U.S. Has Never Acknowledged  –  The New York Times
• Stockholm Convention National Implementation Plans (NIPs)  (see Lao PDR's initial NIP document) –  Stockholm Convention

A new study has made a significant advance in the field by identifying how environmental information is transmitted by non-DNA molecules in the sperm. It is a discovery that advances scientific understanding of the heredity of paternal life experiences and potentially opens new avenues for studying disease transmission and prevention. More:

• Discovery identifies non-DNA mechanism involved in transmitting paternal experience to offspring  –  Phys.org
• Sperm from older rats passes on fewer active genes to offspring because of epigenetic changes  –  Phys.org
• Histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation in sperm is transmitted to the embryo and associated with diet-induced phenotypes in the offspring (Research article)

The whole spectrum of reproductive problems in males are increasing by about 1 percent per year in Western countries. This “1 percent effect” includes the rates of declining sperm counts, decreasing testosterone levels and increasing rates of testicular cancer, as well as a rise in the prevalence of erectile dysfunction. On the female side of the equation, miscarriage rates are also increasing by about 1 percent per year in the U.S. More:

• Reproductive Problems in Both Men and Women Are Rising at an Alarming Rate  –  Scientific American
• Endocrine Disruptors  –  US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

• Trends in Risk of Pregnancy Loss Among US Women, 1990-2011 (Research article)
• Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis (Research article)
• Temporal trends in testosterone levels and treatment in older men (Research article)
• Age at First Presentation for Erectile Dysfunction: Analysis of Changes over a 12-yr Period (Research article)

• Male Reproductive Disorders and Fertility Trends: Influences of Environment and Genetic Susceptibility (Research article)
• First trimester phthalate exposure and anogenital distance in newborns (Research article)
• Shorter Anogenital Distance Predicts Poorer Semen Quality in Young Men in Rochester, New York (Research article)

• Metabolism Disrupting Chemicals and Metabolic Disorders (Research article)
• Endocrine disruption and obesity: A current review on environmental obesogens (Research article)

There’s a looming solution to all of humanity’s problems — by 2045 most men may no longer be able to reproduce because of the impact of hormone-altering chemicals. That's according to Shanna Swan, a leading scholar of reproductive health. Four years ago, she calculated that the sperm count of the average man in Western countries had fallen by 59 percent from 1973 to 2011— making international headlines of a looming “spermageddon.” More:

• No more babies? The hormone-altering chemicals threatening human procreation  –  POLITICO
• Spermageddon- Why the human race could be infertile in 50 years  –  The Telegraph
• Temporal trends in sperm count- a systematic review and meta-regression analysis (Research article)

• Public health impact of chemicals: knowns and unknowns  –  WHO
• Plastic food packaging chemicals & human health  –  Plastics in the Spotlight Project
• Center for the Study & Treatment of Hypospadias  –  UCSF Department of Urology
• Germline and reproductive tract effects intensify in male mice with successive generations of estrogenic exposure (Research article)
• Decrease in Anogenital Distance among Male Infants with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure (Research article)

When Californians learned that the waters off Santa Catalina Island once served as a dumping ground for thousands of barrels of DDT waste, the ocean science community jumped into action. A crew was swiftly assembled, shipping lanes cleared, the gears set in motion for a deep-sea expedition aboard the Sally Ride, one of the most technologically advanced research vessels in the country. More:

• Deep-sea ‘Roombas’ will comb ocean floor for DDT waste barrels near Catalina  –  Los Angeles Times
• How the waters off Catalina became a DDT dumping ground (Report)  –  Los Angeles Times
• Ocean Dumping of Containerized DDT Waste Was a Sloppy Process (Research article)

• Sea lions are dying from a mysterious cancer: The culprits? Herpes and DDT  –  Los Angeles Times
• Newly Identified DDT-Related Compounds Accumulating in Southern California Bottlenose Dolphins (Research article)

The US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to ban all uses of the wood preservative pentachlorophenol. The decision comes after the sole producer of the chemical in North America announced that it was shutting down its pentachlorophenol business by the end of this year. More:

• The end of pentachlorophenol is near  –  C&EN
• Pentachlorophenol is on its way out as a utility pole preservative. Here’s what might take its place  –  C&EN
• Poison Poles (Report)  –  Beyond Pesticides

• EPA Takes Action to Protect Public Health by Proposing Cancellation of Pentachlorophenol  –  US EPA
• Pentachlorophenol Proposed Interim Registration Review Decision, Case 2505  –  Regulations.gov

The testing done by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) found per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — a class of chemicals tied to a wide range of health concerns, including cancer — in a handful of publicly available herbicides and insecticides. More:

• PFAS in pesticides: 'A problem of epic proportions'  –  E&E News
• PFAS Testing Rinses from Selected Fluorinated and non-Fluorinated HDPE Containers  –  US EPA

“Count Down,” which Shanna Swan wrote with the health and science journalist Stacey Colino, chronicles rising human infertility and warns of dire consequences for our species if this trend doesn’t slow. The reason, Swan explains, may be growing exposure to “endocrine disrupting chemicals” that are found in everything from plastics, flame retardants, electronics, food packaging and pesticides to personal care products and cosmetics. More:

• The Everyday Chemicals That Might Be Leading Us to Our Extinction  –  The New York Times
• Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis (Research article)

In an international study, researchers assessed the chemical compositions of toys and estimated levels of human exposure to the substances, ultimately finding over 100 "Chemicals of Concern" in plastic toy materials that could pose a non-negligible health risk to children. More:

• Huge, Global Study of Plastic Toys Finds Over 100 Substances That May Harm Children  –  Science Alert
• We Have Failed to Regulate Thousands of Potentially Hazardous Chemicals, Warn Scientists  –  Science Alert
• Chemicals of concern in plastic toys (Research article)

Since it was signed 20 years ago, the Stockholm Convention has helped countries throughout the world to carefully manage the use, storage, distribution, and disposal of a particularly dangerous group of hazardous chemicals, the persistent organic pollutants or POPs. More:

• Managing chemicals for a cleaner, healthier planet  –  Global Environment Facility

The need to move away from the decades old, predominant linear mindset of “take, make, waste” towards a more circular one of “reuse, reduce, recycle” is something most of us can agree on. But when discussing and working towards a circular economy, there is one aspect that keeps getting surprisingly overlooked: The presence of hazardous chemicals. More:

• Billions of reasons for phasing out toxic chemicals from products and material flows  –  Chemsec
• What goes around Chemsec (Report)

Since industrialisation, chemicals have been rolled out without sufficient testing, resulting in dire consequences for humans, animals and the environment. Well-known examples include DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). Now in the spotlight: Polymeric FR (PolyFR), a flame retardant for foam building insulation. More:

• How toxic is foam insulation?  –  Cosmos Magazine
• High Production, Low Information: We Need To Know More About Polymeric Flame Retardants (Research article)
• Degradation of the Polymeric Brominated Flame Retardant “Polymeric FR” by Heat and UV Exposure (Research article)

Sperm counts have been dropping; infant boys are developing more genital abnormalities; more girls are experiencing early puberty; and adult women appear to be suffering declining egg quality and more miscarriages. More:

• What Are Sperm Telling Us  –  The New York Times
• What Poisons Are in Your Body?  –  The New York Times

• Dr. Myers on impact of plastic additives on health of future generation  –  (YouTube) - Plastic Health Summit 2019
• Shanna Swan: Prenatal Stress and Phthalates  –  (YouTube) - Life Sciences & Society Program 2015
• Pete Myers: Our failure on fertility  –  EHN
• Decrease in Anogenital Distance among Male Infants with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure (Research article)
• Precocious puberty in girls is increasing and alarming  –  Center for Health Journalism

• Sperm Count in Western Men Has Dropped Over 50 Percent Since 1973, Paper Finds  –  The New York Times
• Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis (Research article)
• A longitudinal study of semen quality among Chinese sperm donor candidates during the past 11 years (Research article)
• Count Down: Hormonal havoc in our midst  –  EHN

• What Otters' Penis Shrinkage Could Mean for Humans  –  Live Science
• Male Frogs May Be Turning Female Thanks to Estrogen in Suburban Waste  –  Newsweek
• Why Are These Male Fish Growing Eggs?  –  National Geographic
• Environmental pollutants and alterations in the reproductive system in wild male mink (Neovison vison) from Sweden (Research article)
• Reduction in Penis Size and Plasma Testosterone Concentrations in Juvenile Alligators Living in a Contaminated Environment (Research article)