One of the few health and environmental programs Trump hasn't killed. Yet.
Ross received an invitation to attend the historic
announcement of STOMP:
Systematic Targeting Of MicroPlastics, revealed by the federal Department
of Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection Agency in Washington,
D.C.. The STOMP program, led by program managers Ileana Hancu and Shannon
Greene, aims to find a way to measure microplastics in human organs, understand
which plastics affect the body negatively, and seek methods to remove the
contaminants. The program aims to protect people from plastic contamination and
help lower the potential downstream costs that microplastic-related disease
could otherwise impose on the nation’s health care system.
“Microplastics are in every organ we look at—in ourselves
and in our children. But we don’t know which ones are harmful or how to remove
them,” said Alicia
Jackson, director of HHS’ Advanced Research Projects Agency for
Health (ARPA-H). “Nobody wants unknown particles accumulating in their body.
The field is working in the dark. STOMP is turning on the lights.”
Ross has been shining the light on the extensive dangers of
microplastics for the last five years. She has found that the microscopic
plastic particles infiltrate
all systems of the body, including breaching the blood-brain barrier, which
protects the brain from harmful substances as small as viruses and bacteria. In
a subsequent study, published in the journal Environmental
Research Communications, Ross’ team has found the accumulation of
micro- and nanoplastics in the brain leads to cognitive decline, and can trigger
Alzheimer’s-like behavior in test mice.
“It was riveting to receive an invitation to attend the monumental event, ‘Confronting Microplastics,’ and discuss the STOMP initiative with policymakers and other leading scientists in the field,” Ross said.
“We have been long awaiting federal funding to be directed to understanding the lifecycle of microplastics in the body, and the STOMP initiative will do just that. We need to develop high-throughput, reproducible methods to detect microplastics in the body and identify ways to remove these polymers from our body. My team has been at the forefront of understanding what micro- and nanoplastics are doing to our bodies – we demonstrated that microplastics can enter the brain and that exposure can trigger a decline in brain health akin to dementia, especially in mice carrying the largest known risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease. I look forward to working with ARPA-H, my colleagues here at URI, and other scientists across the nation on this important issue.”
During the first phase of the federal project, researchers
will design experiments to understand microplastics within the human body,
including a clinical test that will quantify individual microplastic burden,
thus making monitoring and intervention possible at scale. While microplastics
accumulation in the human body is a generally shared concern, the extent of
accumulation is not agreed upon because measurement techniques often produce
inconsistent results across labs. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention will serve as an independent validator of these methods, ensuring
the field can trust what it’s measuring.
The second phase will focus on harm assessment and removal
of micro- and nanoplastics. Different microplastics accumulate in different
organs, cross different cellular barriers, and disrupt different biological
pathways. Only by knowing which types cause the most harm, where they
concentrate, and how they move through the body can scientists design safe and
effective interventions. The approaches will draw on pharmaceutical biology and
bioremediation science, run in reverse.
The technologies will enable individuals and health care providers to detect and reduce potentially harmful microplastics, particularly for vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, children, patients with chronic disease, and highly exposed workers, the HHS’ Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health says. With reliable, broadly available testing methods, public health authorities, regulators, and health stakeholders could guide policy, monitor interventions, and address health impacts for decades to come.
