Could Childhood Stress Lead to Adult Diseases?

UCLA Study Reveals Startling Links

By University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

A new study led by UCLA Health found that a person’s sex and their unique experiences of childhood trauma can have specific consequences for their biological health and risk of developing 20 major diseases later in life.

Although a large body of research has shown that childhood adversity can have long-lasting impacts on a person’s biology and health, there has been little research looking into how different types of stressors affect specific biological functions and health risks.

Detailed Study Findings on Stress Impacts

The new findings, published today (September 17) in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, not only revealed that these early stressors can cause specific health impacts, but that these impacts also systematically differed for male and females. The findings are believed to represent one of the most comprehensive analyses of the biological and clinical consequences of adverse childhood experiences, said the study’s senior author, Dr. George Slavich, director of the Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research at UCLA.

3,600+ Chemicals From Food Packaging Found in Human Bodies

Safer materials needed

Birgit Geueke, 

Lindsey V. Parkinson, 

Ksenia J. Groh, 

Christopher D. Kassotis, 

Maricel V. Maffini, 

Olwenn V. Martin, 

Lisa Zimmermann, 

Martin Scheringer & 

Jane Muncke 

A recent study published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology explores the widespread human exposure to food contact chemicals (FCCs). The research identifies which chemicals used in food packaging and other materials that come into contact with food have been detected in human samples, including urine, blood, and breast milk.

Additionally, the study underscores significant gaps in biomonitoring and toxicity data. The findings are accessible through the FCChumon database, an interactive tool created by researchers from the Food Packaging Forum in collaboration with colleagues from four academic institutions.

No, immigrants aren’t eating dogs and cats – but Trump’s claim is part of an ugly history of myths about immigrant foodways

Immigrants eating pets has long been a racist trope

Adrienne Bitar, Cornell University

When Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said during the presidential debate on Sept. 10, 2024, that Haitian immigrants are eating pets, food historians like me were not surprised at the slur. Trump’s lie followed a long American history of peddling ugly rumors about immigrants stealing and eating pets.

Dietary rules that unite and define American cuisine can so easily be perverted to use disgust to divide Americans. In the U.S., cow is food and dog is friend. Chicken is food. Cat is companion. The sharp lines between the animals Americans eat, love, protect and exterminate help write the dietary rules that define American norms.

What we eat, what we don’t and with whom we break bread are just some of the food rules that unite and define Americans. Think of how turkey – or tofurkey – unites Americans behind the Thanksgiving ritual. Bottled water. Ice. Ballpark hot dogs. Airplane pretzels. Movie theater popcorn.

Food can also establish group identity apart from the mainstream. Think of the many factions of vegan, vegetarian, paleo, grain-free and carnivore dieters who use food to express a political position. Also, of course, religious dietary proscriptions have worried scholars for centuries so that Jews, Muslims and Christians may never share a meal.

There is no evidence that Haitians are stealing and eating pet cats and dogs. There is evidence, however, that racists have long twisted dietary rules to divide people and dehumanize immigrants. Trump told a lie to draw a line between Americans and others who allegedly eat the animals Americans love.

A sign at a popular hot dog restaurant in Chicago
reads ‘Immigrants eat our dogs,’ on Sept. 12, 2024,
two days after the presidential debate. 
Scott Olson/Getty Images

The legend of delicious pets

The myth of eating pets traces back to old legends in Europe, Australia and the United States that “immigrants are stealing our cats and dogs for their dinner tables or to serve in ethnic restaurants,” writes the folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand.

Two of the most common food-based legends center on “Oriental restaurants serving dog (or cat) meat, and legends about Asian immigrants in the United States capturing and cooking people’s pets,” Brunvard writes.

By 1883, the legend was so well-established that the Chinese-American journalist Wong Chin Foo offered US$500 to anybody in New York for proof that Chinese people were eating cats or rats. No proof was found, but that didn’t stop the racist jokes or urban legends.

Is Trump a loony?

Priorities, continued

Why do we tolerate children having to undergo this?

By Matt Davies

Quarter-million to clean up Green Hill Pond

Construction Grant Award for Green Hill Pond Watershed

Town of South Kingstown

Friends of Green Hill Pond

Town staff actively seeks opportunities to treat water quality in our environmentally sensitive water bodies.  In recent years, staff has been focused on the Green Hill Pond watershed. 

Last month, the Town was awarded a $250,000 grant from Restore America’s Estuaries (RAE) under the Southeast New England Program (SNEP) Watershed Implementation Grants (SWIG24) to install water quality structures within the Green Hill Pond watershed.  

The design work and permitting for the structures has been ongoing for more than two years with much of the funding coming from SNEP and the Narragansett Bay Estuaries Program (NBEP).  

Our partner, Friends of Green Hill Pond, have been very supportive and have contributed financially to help with the required matching funds.  The survey, engineering and permit oversight was performed by Woodard & Curran.  

What’s in your protein powders?

Testing finds PFAS, phthalates, heavy metals and other toxics in popular brands.

EHN Editors

Ten out of eleven popular protein powders recently tested have levels of toxic lead that would trigger a health warning in California, according to a new report from Mamavation.

And that’s just the start of the problems.

Partnering with EHN.org, the environmental wellness blog and community had 11 chocolate-flavored protein powders tested by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-certified lab. The testing included more than 40 PFAS types, more than 500 pesticides, lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury. While no products contained detectable mercury or arsenic, the testing found some protein powders contained cadmium, glyphosate, PFAS and phthalates.

Only one of the products, Paleovalley 100% Grassfed Bone Broth Protein (chocolate flavor), tested free of all the contaminants tested.

The testing found:

• 10 products had levels of lead that would require a warning in California under Prop. 65, the state’s law alerting consumers to harmful pollutants.
• Two products had levels of cadmium that would require a Prop. 65 warning.
• One product contained the pesticide glyphosate, despite being labeled organic.
• Six products contained PFAS chemicals.
• Seven products contained phthalates.

R.I. voters almost evenly split on whether to hold a constitutional convention, new poll finds

Unions, civil rights, civil liberties groups oppose. Far-right, business group support Question 1

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Voters appear split on a ballot question asking if the state should hold a constitutional convention, according to a new poll released just after a new digital ad campaign launched urging them to reject it.

A coalition urging Rhode Islanders to vote no on Question 1 posted its first ad on YouTube on Sept. 20 in a $30,000 digital ad blitz running up to the Nov. 5 election meant to showcase the potential danger a 

A MassINC Polling Group survey, conducted for Rhode Island Current, found that 36% of likely voters say they would vote for a constitutional convention; 33% would reject the ballot measure while 32% were undecided on which way they’ll go during the Nov. 5 general election. The poll has a margin of error of 3.9%. 

Results mostly mirror a poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released Sept. 19, which found 39% of respondents say they plan to approve a convention, while 28% plan to reject it.

“It’s really evenly split,” Richard Parr, senior research director for MassINC, said in an interview Monday. “This really shows how up in the air people are about this.”

The poll, made possible through a grant from the Knight Elections Hub, surveyed 800 likely Rhode Island voters through telephone interviews and text messages between Sept. 12 and 18. 

Though a plurality of voters in both polls have indicated their support for the convention, the large chunk of undecided voters suggests many people may not fully understand what the ballot question entails.

Rhode Island’s convention question goes on the ballot in years ending in the number four, but voters rejected ballot questions seeking to convene one in 1994, 2004 and 2014. The Rhode Island General Assembly may also propose constitutional amendments during any election year. 

Should a majority of Rhode Islanders want to move ahead with a convention, the state would have to set up a special election to select 75 convention delegates to represent each district in the House of Representatives. Delegates would then gather, debate, negotiate and approve a set of amendments that would appear on the ballot for the 2026 general election.

The last convention in 1986 led to the establishment of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, restoration of felons voting rights, and clarification of Rhode Islanders’ rights to the shoreline but also produced a “right to life” amendment that was ultimately defeated at the ballot box.

“What tends to happen at the end of the day, people who feel uninformed tend to default to a no,” Parr said. “It might be different in a constitutional convention, but given that the numbers are so close — I suspect a lot of people will skip the question.”

MassINC’s survey results reflect the ongoing debate surrounding Question 1, with proponents touting a constitutional convention as a way to reform Rhode Island’s government and opponents warning it could strip back civil liberties.

Of the pro-convention voters polled by MassINC, 82% said that the world has changed much since the last convention in 1986 and that it’s time for an update. A little more than 42% said it was necessary because “the legislature can’t be depended on to enact important changes.” 

MassINC’s poll allowed those surveyed to select multiple options on why they would support or oppose a constitutional convention, which is why response rates go beyond 100%.

Of those who said they opposed the ballot measure in the MassINC poll, 63% said they were concerned about out-of-state special interest groups influencing changes to the state’s constitution. Such a concern has been trumpeted by the Rhode Island Citizens for Responsible Government, a coalition of 37 labor and civil liberties organizations behind the ad campaign featuring social media and video ads highlighting “the threat that a Constitutional Convention will pose to civil rights,” according to its announcement Friday.

The ad, produced by East Greenwich-based Checkmate Consulting Group, features an auctioneer selling Rhode Island’s Constitution before a room of wealthy bidders smoking cigars and pouring champagne. It’s actually the same ad the coalition aired in the leadup to the 2014 election — just with updated citations.

Checkmate co-founder Brad Dufault told Rhode Island Current Monday that footage was re-used in order to save on production costs, which will instead go toward voter education.

“The threats that a constitutional convention poses have not changed all that much since 2014. Reproductive rights, women’s health and family planning, LGBTQ+ rights, worker rights, and more may all come under attack from big-money special interests, as we’ve seen in other states and as is highlighted in our ads,” he said.

“A Constitutional Convention will jeopardize our democratic process and can potentially sway outcomes away from the will of the people and towards narrow ideological agendas,” coalition chairperson Vimala Phongsavanh, senior external affairs director for Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, said in a statement

Coalition members have been especially vocal about the potential for the convention to strip away the state’s protections on reproductive rights — something 45% of those polled also cited in their opposition to the ballot measure.

About 8% of convention proponents polled by MassINC said “civil liberties and abortion rights should have some restrictions.” 

Opponents of a convention have also cited high costs as a reason to reject Question 1 — something 15% of respondents cited in the poll. Cost estimates for the convention range between $2.6 million and $4.6 million, which includes an estimated $1.3 million toward a special election to select the 75 convention delegates.

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Rhode Island Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. Follow Rhode Island Current on Facebook and X.

Hold GOP Officials Accountable for Illegal Voter Intimidation

Zero tolerance for Republican voter intimidation

By Sonali Kolhatkar

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Rhode Island Republican Party recently sent out a recruiting e-mail for volunteers to act as their "ELECTION INTEGRITY OFFICE." Vigilantes by another name. Voter intimidation is a crime in Rhode Island. Be sure to document and report any incidents you experience or witness.  - Will Collette

A Florida resident named Isaac Menasche received a home visit this September from a police officer asking whether he’d signed a petition for a ballot measure.

The petition, which Menasche had indeed signed, was for a November initiative overturning a strict abortion ban that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed last year. Now the governor is attempting to discredit those signatures using state-funded cops. According to the Tampa Bay Times, state law enforcement officers have visited the homes of other signers as well.

DeSantis created an elections police unit in 2022 to investigate so-called election crimes. By that August, he’d arrested 20 “elections criminals” for allegedly voting improperly in the 2020 election.

A majority of those arrested — some at gunpoint — were Black. Most had been formerly incarcerated and thought they were eligible to vote, since Floridians had overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure restoring their voting rights. But DeSantis and his GOP allies in the state legislature used every maneuver they could to thwart that popular decision.

Lies, big and small

You choose

This Year’s Green Bond Gets Greener, with Funds for Farmland Preservation and Open Space Investments

Vote YES for Question 4, the "Green Bond"

Key role played by Rep. Megan Cotter

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

The general election season is in full swing, and on Friday state officials and environmental groups launched their campaign in support of this year’s Green Bond.

A regular feature on the ballot, the Green Bond authorizes the state to borrow money for environment-related projects such as climate resiliency, open space and farmland preservation, and outdoor recreation. 

If approved by the electorate in November, this year’s bond would give $53 million to various programs under the aegis of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

Here is the breakdown for this year’s Green Bond:

$15 million to the Port of Davisville in North Kingstown, for “continued growth and modernization of Rhode Island’s only public port.” Money from the bond will be used to finance new berthing space, additional access roads, security upgrades and cargo area improvements. While not strictly an environmental priority, state officials emphasized the port’s importance for offshore wind projects.

$10 million to be administered by the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank for its Municipal Resilience Program. The money would be used to fund matching grants up to 75% to support the state’s municipalities in their efforts to improve resiliency, identify high-risk dangers, and strengthen public safety with regard to increased flooding and storms.

$5 million for forest and habitat restoration at state management areas. Funding may go toward dead tree removal, tree planting, invasive species removal, and other projects to improve forest health and wildlife habitats.

$5 million for brownfield remediation. Money would go toward matching grants to remediate former industrial and other polluted sites around the state. According to DEM data, Rhode Island has awarded funds to 77 different projects in 17 different municipalities via the department’s brownfields remediation fund. The projects to date have cleaned up nearly 344 acres of contaminated land.

$5 million for local recreation. One of DEM’s most popular matching grant programs, municipalities can apply for grants to build or improve already existing recreational areas, including parks, playgrounds, athletic areas, and other recreational facilities.

$5 million for farmland preservation. A longtime ask by the state’s environmental groups, farmland preservation funding was originally left out of the governor’s original Green Bond proposal in January. Money in this bucket would go toward the budget of the Agricultural Land Preservation Commission (ALPC), which is empowered to contribute money to farmland projects so long as they preserve land as farmland in perpetuity.

$3 million for open space investments. Another popular program by DEM, money in this bucket would go toward protecting open space, whether it is farmland, undeveloped land, or recreational lands.

$3 million for the Newport Cliff Walk, to restore pedestrian access along two sections of the walk that have fallen into the sea in recent years thanks to coastal erosion.

$2 million for coastal resilience for cities and towns, matching grants for public or nonprofit entities to improve the resilience of vulnerable coastal habitats in rivers and floodplains that also improve climate resiliency in the face of rising seas, increased flooding, and storms.

Lawmakers noted the final Green Bond proposal that passed the General Assembly to appear on this year’s ballot is much greener than the one originally proposed by McKee. His original proposal did not include money for farmland preservation, open space acquisition, or forestry and habitat restoration programs, DEM initiatives that have been on almost every ballot for nearly 40 years.

In his prepared remarks at the campaign kickoff, House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, D-Warwick, credited Rep. Megan Cotter, D-Exeter, for reaching across the aisle and lobbying to make the Green Bond greener.

Shekarchi said he supported changes to the bond, once budget officials in May announced the state had an extra $58 million in surplus tax revenue to work with for this fiscal year.

While policymakers stressed the need to campaign for the environmental bond’s passage, recent history has shown that it’s routinely one of the more popular ballot items to appear before voters every two years. On average since 2018 the Green Bond has garnered more than two-thirds or more of the vote share in each election.

The last Green Bond was approved in 2022 with 67% of voters approving the measure. The pandemic-era Green Bond, postponed until early 2021, was approved with 78% of the vote. 2018’s Green Economy and Clean Water Bond passed with similar support.

This year’s kickoff had an extra special guest: an actual farmer. Andrew Morley, who runs Sweet and Salty Farm, a dairy farm in Little Compton, with his wife, said if it wasn’t for the farmland preservation program in Rhode Island, they would likely be living in another state like New York or Connecticut.

Morley and his wife came to the state 15 years ago, taking over a piece of farmland that had already been preserved by the ALPC. Morley said farming in Rhode Island wasn’t impossible, but without farmland preservation funding, it soon would be.

“Farming is the most rewarding work I’ve ever done,” he said. “But it’s also the most challenging.”

The 2024 Green Bond will appear on ballots on Election Day as Question 4, with the rest of the state bond ballot initiatives.

New Research Reveals That Cannabis Can Reverse Brain Aging

Alter, was machst du?*

By University Hospital Bonn

A low-dose, long-term administration of cannabis has been shown to not only reverse aging processes in the brain but also exhibit anti-aging effects. Researchers from University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, in collaboration with a team from Hebrew University in Israel, demonstrated this effect in mice.

The key to this discovery lies in the protein switch mTOR, which influences cognitive performance and metabolic processes throughout the body. These findings have been published in the journal ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science.

Information about the availability or scarcity of resources is of crucial importance for the regulation of metabolism. The so-called metabolome is a complex reaction network that summarizes all metabolic properties of a cell or tissue. In higher organisms, the protein mTOR [Mechanistic Target of Rapamycin] is the central hub for cell growth and metabolism.

Rhode Island Receives $30 Million for Energy-Efficiency Rebates.

How Can You Cash In?

By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff

Rhode Islanders, especially low- and middle-income residents, spend a lot on energy, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said during a visit to the Ocean State on Tuesday afternoon.

The U.S. Department of Energy considers a household energy cost-burdened if it spends 6% or more of its income on energy needs. But in Rhode Island, some of the lowest income earners are spending about 18% of their income on energy, according to Granholm.

“That’s not acceptable, not acceptable, right governor?” she asked Gov. Dan McKee during an event launching the new rebate program at the IBEW Local 99 Union Hall in Cranston.

“Absolutely not,” he replied.

“Okay,” she said. “So, what are we doing about it?”

Granholm explained her visit marked the launch of Rhode Island’s federal Home Energy Rebate program to help low- and middle-income residents pay for energy-efficient home improvements that will lower their energy bills and help reduce carbon emissions.

The Ocean State received $32 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to start the program initially and will receive more funding to expand the rebates to higher income residents in 2025.

Residents making 80% or less of the state median income can qualify for updated electric panels and wiring and some new energy-efficient appliances, including electric stove tops, ranges, ovens, and heat pump clothes dryers.