EDF Health

Hurricanes Coming: Protecting Black and Brown Neighborhoods from a “Triple Whammy”

By Elena Craft, PhD / Published: June 17, 2020

Elena Craft, Ph.D., is Senior Director of Climate and Health

This is the first in a series of Global Clean Air blogs on COVID-19 and air pollution. EDF scientists will share data about pollution levels during quarantine from a local and global perspective, and provide recommendations for governments and companies to Rebuild Better.

A black man who lived most of his 88 years in Pleasantville was one of the first Houstonians to die from COVID-19.

James C. Campbell, Source: ABC13.com Houston

His name was James C. Campbell. He raised a family in one of the first neighborhoods in the city planned for black Houstonians, Pleasantville, which has been surrounded in the years since it was founded by congested interstates, salvage yards, metal recyclers, and a sprawling brewery where heavy trucks come and go day and night. Pleasantville residents still share stories about where they were when chemicals in warehouses exploded in the 1990s and forced them to flee their neighborhood for safety.

Just days after Campbell’s funeral in early April, as the coronavirus started to spread across Texas, UT Health researchers mapped neighborhoods across Houston like Pleasantville where residents suffering from underlying health conditions and from years of exposure to air pollution were at increased risk from the worst impacts of a COVID infection. The intention was clear: Data could help local government leaders decide how, and where, to marshal resources to protect the health of those who needed it most.

Disasters do not impact neighborhoods equally, data like that show. It’s clear during the coronavirus pandemic, just as it was clear during past disasters like Hurricane Harvey. In 2017, for example, in the first, and worst days of the storm, 93 percent of all known toxic emissions in all of Harris County were released within a four-mile radius of the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood Manchester — an area that includes Pleasantville — even though it makes up less than 5 percent of the county geographically.

Read More »

Posted in Air pollution, Extreme weather / Tagged , , , , | Comments are closed

FDA scientists push back on an industry-funded analysis about bioaccumulation and toxicity of short-chain PFAS

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: April 1, 2020

Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, Ph.D., Consultant

Note to readers: As we all grapple with the grave global health challenge from COVID19, we want to acknowledge the essential services that professionals at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and in the food production, processing and retail industries provide in continuing to deliver food. In the meantime, we are continuing to work towards improved health protections – including reducing chemicals in food. We’ll plan to keep sharing developments that may be useful to you. In the meantime, please stay safe and healthy.

Last year, we reported on a sophisticated analysis performed by FDA’s scientists showing that 5:3 acid, a breakdown product of a short-chain PFAS known as 6:2 fluorotelomer (6:2 FTOH) was slow to be eliminated by the body. The authors concluded that the metabolite was an important biomarker for assessment of long-term exposure to 6:2 FTOH and showed potential bioaccumulative (aka biopersistence[1]) properties. The chemical 6:2 FTOH is a common starting substance in the manufacture of many PFAS polymers, including those used to greaseproof paper and paperboard. As a result, it is a major impurity in, and degradation product of, these polymers.

We are now reporting on two recent publications by the same group of FDA scientists (Kabadi et al.[2] and Rice et al.)[3] in which they not only confirmed their initial findings but also produced new evidence on the behavior of short-chain PFAS when they enter the body. The new evidence highlights:

  • Bioaccumulation: 6:2 FTOH is transformed by the body into several metabolites; one of them, called 5:3 acid, bioaccumulates, and the bioaccumulation is greater with lower exposure to 6:2 FTOH.
  • Toxicity: The toxicity of 6:2 FTOH is concerning and its risk to human health may have been significantly underestimated previously. Data on perfluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA), the industry’s proposed reference chemical for the short-chain PFAS class are not appropriate for assessing the potential health effects of 6:2 FTOH.

The FDA’s scientists reached these important conclusions after reviewing “recently received additional data on 6:2 FTOH and 5:3 acid” and more than a dozen reports on oral toxicity studies that “had been conducted and submitted by industry in support for food contact uses” of short-chain PFAS in addition to a study by the National Toxicology Program. They also called out flaws in industry-funded analyses that reached different conclusions.

Read More »

Posted in FDA, Health policy, Industry influence, PFAS / Tagged , | Comments are closed

Think PFAS in food packaging are safe simply because FDA accepted their use? Think again.

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: November 13, 2019

Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, Ph.D., Consultant

[pullquote]

PFAS manufacturers’ claims that the agency demands scientific data, including toxicity and exposure, and conducts a rigorous review before allowing the use of the chemicals in contact with food are not accurate.

[/pullquote]Per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS)—recently dubbed “forever chemicals”—have received a large amount of national attention, mostly due to contamination of drinking water affecting millions of Americans. Since June 2019, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its testing results from three studies, questions have arisen about food as a source of PFAS exposure. The main routes by which PFAS enter the food supply are environmental contamination—such as from nearby chemical manufacturing facilities, airports or Department of Defense operations—and from food packaging and processing equipment.

With greater attention on PFAS in food, we’ve noticed several misleading PFAS manufacturers’ talking points asserting that FDA review and acceptance is required for any PFAS to be used in contact with food, and that, due to this review, PFAS that go through this process are safe. However, their claims that the agency demands scientific data, including toxicity and exposure, and conducts a rigorous review before allowing the use of the chemicals in contact with food are not accurate.

Read More »

Posted in FDA, Food, GRAS, PFAS / Tagged , , | Read 1 Response

Without a food safety overhaul for additives, the innovative food craze could spiral out of control

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: October 31, 2019

Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director

[pullquote]

At an FDA-sponsored conference, EDF proposed a new path forward to ensure innovative food ingredients are safe by overhauling how food additives are regulated today.

[/pullquote]Every day brings reports of new ingredients that food innovators around the world have developed to meet consumer demands for a healthier and more sustainable food supply. The innovations range from new ways to extract useful additives from existing sources such as algae to bioengineering to make novel ingredients like sweeteners or proteins that can be grown in a tank instead of on a farm.

At EDF, we encourage innovation that helps communities and the environment thrive, especially in the face of the threats posed by climate change. However, an innovator’s bold claims, especially those involving food safety, must be closely scrutinized before the additive hits the marketplace. Given the potential for harm to consumers, we cannot simply take a company’s assertion of safety at face value – there must be transparency and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must provide an independent review.

Read More »

Posted in FDA, Food, GRAS, Public health / Tagged , | Comments are closed

Air pollution: E-commerce’s sustainability problem that isn’t the cardboard box

By EDF Blogs / Published: July 22, 2019

Aileen Nowlan, Senior Manager, EDF+Business

This post originally appeared on EDF+Business.

With the click of a button, our groceries, clothes, personal care products, household items – just about anything – could arrive on our doorsteps in a neatly packaged cardboard box. It’s convenience, delivered. But at what cost?

What happens behind-the-scenes to get a package delivered to your door is taking a toll on our planet and our health. Freight is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases and a major source of local air pollution. The rise in e-commerce is a growing part of increased pollution and poor air quality.

The truth is, “free shipping” isn’t really free. We’re just paying for it in other ways.

Read More »

Posted in Air pollution, Hyperlocal mapping, Markets and Retail, Public health / Tagged , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

FDA finds surprisingly high levels of PFAS in certain foods – including chocolate cake

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: June 3, 2019

[Update: FDA has published a webpage on PFAS and released the data for the studies discussed in this blog].

Tom Neltner, J.D., Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, Ph.D., Consultant

As reported by the Associated Press today, at a conference last week in Helsinki, Finland, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) presented the results of three studies it conducted of 16 per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in various foods. A friend who attended the conference sent us photos of the poster. The results for samples of meat and chocolate cake purchased by the agency in October 2017 as part of its ongoing Total Diet Study (TDS) jumped out at us as surprisingly high and worth further investigation:

  • 17,640 parts per trillion (ppt) of perfluoro-n-pentanoic acid (PFPeA) in chocolate cake with icing. These levels suggest that the cake was contaminated from the intentional use of the chemical to greaseproof paper that contacted the cake rather than from an environmental source. We cannot find any evidence that FDA ever reviewed the safety of PFPeA as a food contact substance – meaning the manufacturer may have secretly designated it as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). We also found little evidence – good or bad – of the health risks posed by this PFAS. We have reached out to FDA to learn more, but as of this blog posting the agency has not yet responded. This chemical was also found in chocolate milk at 154 ppt.
  • Nearly half (10 of 21) meat samples had quantifiable levels of perfluoroctanesulfonate (PFOS) with concentrations ranging from 134 ppt in a frankfurter to 865 ppt in tilapia. Unlike the chemical in chocolate cake, PFOS has been extensively studied because of widespread environmental contamination, especially around the facilities in Alabama and Minnesota where it was previously produced. It is associated with increased cholesterol, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, and decreased birth weight. While comparisons are complicated, the PFOS levels found in some of these meats were far greater than the 70 ppt health advisory set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for drinking water in May 2016. Two years later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proposed limits that are almost 7 times more protective than EPA’s, partly because more recent studies indicate the chemical may undermine the effectiveness of vaccines. Production of PFOS in the United States reportedly ended in 2002, though it is still made overseas and may have been imported paper. In 2016, FDA removed its approval to greaseproof paper with PFOS.

FDA’s poster also showed testing results from food produced around two PFAS contaminated areas. FDA found most of the 16 PFAS at varying levels measured in produce sold in farmer’s markets downstream of a PFAS production facility in the Eastern U.S. – presumably Chemours’ plant in North Carolina. The highest produce sample had 1,200 ppt and was purchased within 10 miles downstream of the production plant and short-chain PFAS were prevalent.

The other contaminated area was a dairy farm near an air force base in New Mexico. FDA found many of the 16 PFAS in the water and silage used to feed the cows but PFOS was the most prevalent among a few PFAS measured in the milk with levels higher than 5000 ppt. The agency also detected several PFAS in cheese produced by the farm in lower amounts than the milk. Many of the PFAS are likely from aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) used to fight fire and conduct firefighting training at the Air Force base.

Read More »

Posted in FDA, Food, GRAS, PFAS, Public health / Tagged , , | Read 2 Responses