EPA and HHS will study microplastics and pharmaceuticals in water
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Thursday announced new initiatives to combat microplastics in the human body and in drinking water.
Kennedy said the government would create a new $144 million program called STOMP, for the systematic targeting of microplastics.
“We focus on three questions: what is in the body, what causes the harm and how to eliminate it? » said Kennedy.
Zeldin said the environmental agency would add microplastics and pharmaceuticals to its list of chemicals of concern in drinking water.
“For the first time in the history of the program, EPA is designating both microplastics and pharmaceuticals as priority contaminant groups,” he said.
The two cabinet members sat at a table in front of a crowded room at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., flanked by microplastic researchers including Marcus Ericsson, an environmental scientist and co-founder of the anti-plastic institute Five Gyres, Matthew Campin, a biomedical scientist at the University of New Mexico, and Leo Trasande, a pediatrician and public policy expert at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine and Wagner School of Public Service.
On either side of the table were two large posters that read “Confronting Microplastics” in capital letters.
Zeldin has come under fire from the movement known as MAHA, for Make America Health Again, in recent months over federal plans to ease restrictions on harmful chemicals and approve new pesticides — including two that contain what are internationally recognized as “forever chemicals” linked to serious health risks.
Kennedy, who is the political face of the MAHA movement, has also been criticized for capitulating on issues he once embraced. In February, Trump signed an executive order aimed at increasing production of the herbicide glyphosate, for “national security and defense reasons.”
Kennedy publicly supported the move and said in a social media post that while herbicides and pesticides were “toxic by design” and “put Americans at risk,” the food supply depended on them.
Glyphosate, known commercially as Roundup, has long been a target of the MAHA movement. Produced by Bayer, which acquired the original manufacturer, Monsanto, in 2018, the herbicide has been the subject of tens of thousands of lawsuits, many from users who claim they developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma following exposure.
Anti-plastic advocates applauded Thursday’s announcement.
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has taken an important first step in regulating microplastics in drinking water,” said Judith Enck, the agency’s former regional director and founder of Beyond Plastics, an anti-plastic waste environmental group based in Bennington, Vermont. She urged regulators to “act quickly,” not only to regulate plastic in drinking water, but also to prevent it from entering drinking water.
So does Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs for the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry trade group.
“We support scientific monitoring of microplastics in drinking water and research to better understand potential impacts,” White said in a statement.
Others, however, seemed doubtful.
There are reasons to be concerned about microplastics in drinking water, said Erik Olson, strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, “but the EPA’s actions speak louder than its words. Trump’s EPA is trying to abandon key PFAS standards and said so just two weeks ago. would not provide any new protection against toxins present in drinking water. So which one is it? »
In 2022, California became the first government in the world to require testing for microplastics in drinking water. The state has not yet begun reporting its results.
Blair Robertson, a spokesperson for the State Water Resources Control Board, said regulators are “working on it and being very deliberate in their approach and trying to quantify the impact of microplastics on drinking water.”
A report was expected by 2025, but has not yet been published.
Micro and nanoplastics were found everywhere scientists looked. They have been found in human organs and tissues, such as the brain, liver, placenta and testes. They have also been detected in blood, breast milk and even in meconium, the infant’s first stool. Furthermore, they are widespread throughout the environment: in alpine snow, seabed sediments and drinking water.
On March 31, a coalition of MAHA groups associated with Kennedy Jr. sent a letter to Zeldin asking the Trump administration to suspend permitting for new plastic manufacturing plants and step up monitoring of microplastics in drinking water.
In December, Zeldin told MAHA groups that he would include measures on plastics in the agency’s agenda, after several prominent MAHA groups called for his dismissal. They said he was too close to the chemical companies.
