EPA Punts Microplastics Monitoring as Scientists Warn of Health Impacts

More stuff the Trump regime doesn't want you to know

By Mike Ludwig

This article was originally published by Truthout

If you’ve ever looked at a disposable bottle of water with suspicion before tossing it into a bin, you’re far from alone. On August 8, leading scientists across globe published an editorial in The Lancet warning there is “strong evidence” that plastics harm human health and natural ecosystems at every stage of production and consumption — from fracking for the fossil fuels used to make plastics, to the microplastics leaching into our bodies and the environment. Plastic waste is projected to triple by 2060 if governments fail to act.

Much of that harm is traced back to more than 16,000 chemicals used in plastic production. Hazardous plastic chemicals include known carcinogens, neurotoxicants, and endocrine disruptors such as phthalates, bisphenols, brominated flame retardants, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of highly persistence chemicals linked to a range of health harms, according to The Lancet.

Defined as pieces of plastic less than five millimeters in size, microplastics break down into even smaller nanoplastics that are invisible to the naked eye and notoriously efficient at carrying harmful chemicals into the internal organs of humans and animals. Microplastics also do not go away over time, and their release into the environment could double globally by 2040 unless current levels of pollution are reduced.

According to The Lancet, “microplastics and nanoplastics are everywhere,” from the depths of the ocean to the Arctic, in Himalayan glaciers, and in the air, food, and drinking water people consume daily. Most recently, studies have found microplastics in human lungs and fecal matter, suggesting exposure through inhalation and food, as well as in blood, carotid arteries, hearts, brains, livers, ovaries, and testes, in addition to placentas attached to fetuses.

Alarmingly, drinking water is one of top pathways of exposure to microplastics, and research suggests that tap water in United States has the some of the highest concentrations in the world. 

Pharma Giants Reap Record $300 Billion in Revenue Under Trump

Millions of Americans Ration Medications

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

The world’s ten largest pharmaceutical giants reaped around $300 billion in combined global revenue during the first half of 2026 as millions of people in the US—the country with the highest drug prices in the world—stretched, skipped, or rationed doses to afford their medications, despite Donald Trump’s lofty pledges to slash costs.

An analysis released Thursday by the advocacy group Protect Our Care estimates that Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, AbbVie, Merck, Pfizer, and other pharma behemoths collectively reported $298 billion in revenue in the first half of the year—a $24 billion increase compared to 2025—and distributed $63 billion in benefits to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends.

Flock is just the latest example of using surveillance to stalk women

But it’s only the symptom of a larger problem.

Jasmine Mithani, Technology Reporter

This story was originally reported by Jasmine Mithani of The 19th. Meet Jasmine and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Flock Safety claims over 5,000 law enforcement agencies use its license plate readers to help locate missing persons, catch thieves and identify suspicious vehicles. The company is most known for its camera network, which extracts data about cars from photographs and allows operators to search for vehicles by description or license plate number.

But there’s been another persistent, unsanctioned use: officers stalking women.

At least 50 law enforcement officers have been accused or charged with the misuse of Flock or similar tools, and over half of the incidents involve surveillance related to romantic partners, per a recent investigation by The Washington Post. The reports include officers of all genders, but many cases involve a uniformed man stalking a civilian woman — or the people close to her. Forty-six of the cases tallied by The Post involved Flock equipment.

Flock is under fire as stories roll out about how its surveillance network has been used to find a woman who self-managed an abortion, share data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and search for people based on race. The San Francisco Standard found at least 39 Flock contracts have been cancelled in 2026 so far, and community activists across the country continue to push for jurisdictions to ditch more.

But the problem is not only one company. Two law enforcement agencies in Colorado cut ties with Flock, only to shift contracts to Axon, another automatic license plate reader (APLR) vendor. The heart of the matter, advocates say, is this: New surveillance technologies are always appropriated to inflict intimate partner violence. Experts say systems like smart cameras and automated license plate readers are sold to the public as ways to increase safety, but there are few, if any, guardrails to prevent them from becoming tools of domestic violence. 

Losing a great lady and fine human being

 

And then, there's this

Ultimate fix

How to vote in Charlestown

How volunteers and researchers at URI work together to better understand our environment

Become a citizen scientist

By Jessica Minker, Rhode Island Current

Across Rhode Island, volunteers are helping scientists answer big environmental questions, from tracking water quality in local ponds and streams to uncovering the secret lives of bobcats. These “community scientists” collect or analyze data that supports scientific research. 

They include Veronica Berounsky and Elise Torello, whose time and commitment helped researchers at the University of Rhode Island better understand our state’s unique environments.

Get involved

Learn more about these citizen science projects at these links

• About Watershed Watch
• Volunteer With Watershed Watch
• Explore Watershed Watch’s 2026 data dashboard
• Explore Narrow River’s water quality data dashboard since 1992
• About the Rhode Island Bobcat Project
• Bobcat Reporting Form

The Ancient Mediterranean Diet Wasn’t What You Think

It wasn't as defined as it is today

By Konstantine Panegyres, University of Western Australia

This terracotta depiction of a baker sitting in front of an oven dates from the early 5th century BCE. Credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

For Roman emperor Julian (332–363 CE), bread occupied a central place at the table. He described it as the food that “among us is thought to be the most nourishing.”

That emphasis reflected everyday eating across much of the ancient Mediterranean. Bread and other foods made from cereals formed the foundation of many diets, supplemented by pulses, oil, wine, and whatever seasonal produce was available.

The result looked quite different from the modern idea of the “Mediterranean diet,” with its familiar emphasis on vegetables, olive oil, and grilled fish.

Bread may have been indispensable in Julian’s Roman world, but not everyone considered it desirable. Ethiopians who relied on meat and milk regarded bread as poor food with little nutritional value.

They wondered how Mediterranean peoples could survive on a “diet of dung.”

Federal Judge Blocks Trump and RFK Effort to Get More Teens Pregnant

Judge tells Trump and Bobby Jr. to leave teenage girls alone

Julia Conley for Common Dreams

The Teen Pregnancy Prevention program, first authorized through bipartisan legislation in 2009, has been credited with helping to dramatically reduce the number of American teenagers who have experienced unwanted pregnancies in the past decade and a half, dropping by more than 65% over 16 years, according to one congressional report.

Despite the best efforts of Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a federal judge’s ruling on Wednesday sent the message that the push to reduce teen pregnancy in the US will continue, with the administration’s limits on the program’s federal grants paused.

Judge Christopher Cooper of the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction in the case of Hennepin County, Minnesota v. US Department of Health and Human Services, in which officials joined King County in Washington state, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) in challenging HHS’s changes to the program’s grant policy. The plaintiffs were represented by Public Citizen and Democracy Forward.

The changes, said Cooper, were “likely arbitrary and capricious.”

US government is pushing to gain unprecedented access to your medical records – as data protections are weakening

Bobby Jr. wants your health records

Jennifer D. Oliva, Indiana University

You might assume that what you tell a doctor stays between you, your physician and perhaps your insurer. But the reality is more complicated.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the federal privacy law that governs health information and is commonly known as HIPAA, is narrower than its reputation suggests. It regulates hospitals, physicians, insurers and their business associates, but not the health data you generate everywhere else: not the period-tracking application on your phone, the internet search you ran about a diagnosis, the DNA you mailed to a genealogy company or the wearable that counts your heartbeats.

Even the records HIPAA does cover can be shared, sold or handed to the government in ways that might surprise you.

This gap in protection matters more than ever because the U.S. government is pushing hard to gather health data domestically and abroad. This is happening even as a growing body of research shows that the safeguard which these efforts to collect data lean on – anonymizing data by removing identifying information to make it difficult to trace back to an individual – is far weaker than officials claim.

As a professor of law at Indiana University, I study health information privacy and medical data regulation, which includes tracing how sensitive health information moves among clinics, government agencies and law enforcement. As a co-investigator on a federally funded study about opioid prescribing, I rely on health data in my own research. I appreciate its value for science, and I also see the danger of collecting it without meaningful safeguards.

He knows all

Meanwhile at the White House...

All perfectly normal

"I don't need no stinking security clearance..."

...just to change diapers..."

"...or write the boss little notes."

Wednesday protest in Hope Valley

Burning Questions Confront Wildland Firefighters in Maine and Across New England

Can't count on the feds

By Sydney Cromwell

New England’s dense populations amid vast forests
mean that even a small, localized wildfire can threaten
homes or lives. Credit: Maine Forest Service

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Wildfires in New England rarely make national news. The spotlight is more often on the catastrophic fires of Western states, but the Northeast’s fire season has been quietly heating up.

In 2025, severe drought quadrupled Maine’s late summer fire activity. In 2024, another drought quintupled Connecticut’s fall wildfires, and one firefighter died while controlling a blaze. It was also Massachusetts’ most active fall fire season in 40 years. 

It can and does happen here. 2024 wildfire

Across the border, Nova Scotia saw its largest wildfires in recorded history in 2023, and more than 10 million acres burned in Quebec, creating a smoky haze that spread thousands of miles southward. Canadian wildfires created haze on the East Coast again this July.

“We think that the Northeast is an important place to have on the map when we’re talking about fire, and we often get ignored,” said Erin Lane, the director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northeast Climate Hub.

As forest managers and firefighters stretch their resources to respond to wildfires in a changing climate, they’re also dealing with new uncertainties from the Trump administration’s plans to radically alter the Forest Service and the new Wildland Fire Service. 

Study ties COVID vaccine conspiracy theories to distrust of government, mainstream media

If you've been wondering "What's wrong with these people?"

Meghan Holohan

As soon as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout began early in the pandemic, conspiracy theories about them started swirling. Some people claimed that the vaccines contained microchips, while others were suspicious about the intentions of the government or pharmaceutical companies. 

Researchers surveyed people in Japan about their beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories to understand who adheres to such ideas. The findings were published last week in Scientific Reports.

“When people think about conspiracy beliefs, attention often focuses on highly extreme claims,” lead author Hitoshi Yamamoto, PhD, of Rissho University in Tokyo, said in a university press release. “However, our findings suggest that more common forms of conspiracy-related thinking are associated with the persistent distrust of social institutions and the mainstream media.”