This approach to PFAS would be something of a masks-off moment for the administration on public health. While dismissive or hostile toward vaccines, cancer research, epidemiology, and more, the administration at least claims to be interested in limiting chronic disease, boosting fertility, and advancing other health and purity preoccupations under the banner of Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.’s slogan “Make America Healthy Again.” HHS has moved to ban food dyes, and one would assume that RFK Jr. would see PFAS as a similarly ubiquitous threat to personal health—especially since he has previously been a vocal critic of forever chemicals, as well as microplastics.
Yet there’s perhaps a special drama and dissonance in the administration’s PFAS position. PFAS, which get their nickname from their astonishing persistence in the environment and the human body, have been linked to cardiovascular disease, kidney and testicular cancer, type 2 diabetes, childhood obesity, hormonal disruption, and reduced immune system function—you know, chronic disease and bodily fitness–type stuff. There’s some evidence they also disrupt fertility, a fixation of Vice President JD Vance and prolific babymaker Elon Musk. In a particularly grim twist noted previously in this newsletter, research suggests women who’ve borne multiple children may have lower levels of PFAS solely because they pass some of their PFAS load into their children’s bodies during pregnancy. And prenatal and early-childhood PFAS exposure has even been linked to symptoms of ADHD, rates of which the Trump administration claims to find especially troubling. (In a typical move, the administration has also attacked ADHD medication.)
Yet if this recent report is accurate, the Trump administration isn’t just dismantling PFAS regulations at the federal level. It’s trying to prevent states from limiting PFAS too. This tactic, colloquially known as “preemption,” has been a favorite tool of the right in recent years—ironic, perhaps, given conservatives’ self-professed devotion to small government and local sovereignty. Republicans often deploy the tactic to protect corporations’ prerogative to poison people: 20 GOP-dominated states have passed preemption laws that prohibit cities from banning gas hookups.
Taken together, these moves make clear that Trump and Kennedy were never serious about making America healthier. The only people these actions will protect are corporate executives, who will get richer as the country gets sicker.
What I’m Reading
Relentless rain and storms kill at least 24 in South and parts of Midwest
Cities have ordered evacuations as rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in areas from Texas to Ohio. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said it is working with local and federal partners to evaluate storm damages and decide whether they meet the criteria for a major federal disaster declaration. The agency has advised residents to report any damages to their local emergency management offices.
“The rain just won’t stop,” Quire said Sunday. “It’s been nonstop for days and days.”
Read the full report at CBS News.
This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.
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