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forever chemicals
Infant Death Rate 3 Times Higher Near PFAS-Contaminated Sites in New Hampshire: Study
One scientist said the new research "provides rare causal evidence" and "not just a correlation" of the dangers posed by forever chemicals to infants.
Dec 09, 2025
Infants born to mothers who drank water from wells downstream of sites contaminated by so-called "forever chemicals" in New Hampshire suffered nearly three times the baseline death rate, more premature births, and lower birth weights, a study published Monday revealed.
Researchers at the University of Arizona tracked 11,539 births occurring within 3.1 miles of sites in the New England state known to be contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—commonly called forever chemicals because they do not biodegrade and accumulate in the human body. They found a 191% increase in first-year deaths among infants born to "mothers receiving water that had flowed beneath a PFAS-contaminated site, as opposed to comparable mothers receiving water that had flowed toward a PFAS-contaminated site."
Mothers in the study zone also experienced a 20% increase in preterm births and a 43% higher incidence of low birth weight. Out of every 100,000 births, this equates to 611 additional deaths by age 1, as well as 2,639 extra underweight births and 1,475 additional preterm births.
Extrapolating to the 48 contiguous US states and the District of Columbia, the study's authors also found that "PFAS contamination imposes annual social costs of approximately $8 billion."
"These health costs are substantially larger than current outside estimates of the cost of removing PFAS from the public water supply," the publication states.
As study authors Derek Lemoine, Ashley Langer, and Bo Guo noted:
PFAS from contaminated sites slowly migrate down through soil into groundwater, where they move downstream with the groundwater’s flow. This created a simple but powerful contrast: Pregnant women whose homes received water from wells that were downstream, in groundwater terms, from the PFAS source were likely to have been exposed to PFAS from the contaminated site, but those who received water from wells that were upstream of those sites should not have been exposed.
Previous research has shown the link between PFAS exposure and reduced birth weight, as well as changes in fetal and newborn metabolism.
Forever chemicals are used in a broad range of products, from nonstick cookware to waterproof clothing and firefighting foam. Bills to limit PFAS have died in Congress under intense lobbying from the chemical industry, which has long known—and tried to conceal—the health and environmental dangers of forever chemicals.
More than 95% of people in the United States have PFAS in their blood, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Around 172 million Americans are believed to consume PFAS in their drinking water.
Forever chemicals have been linked to cancers of the kidneys and testicles, low infant weight, suppressed immune function, and other adverse health effects.
Responding to the new research, Duke University associate research professor in environmental sciences Kate Hoffman told the Washington Post that the study "provides rare causal evidence" and "not just a correlation" of the dangers posed by forever chemicals to infants.
While experts say the study demonstrates the importance of more robust federal regulation of PFAS, the Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking to lift current limits that protect drinking water from four types of forever chemicals.
“This is a betrayal of public health at the highest level," Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook said earlier this year in response to the Trump administration's efforts to roll back PFAS protections. "The EPA is caving to chemical industry lobbyists and pressure by the water utilities, and in doing so, it’s sentencing millions of Americans to drink contaminated water for years to come.”
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Trump's MAHA Report Reads Like a Big Ag Wish List
Making Americans healthy will require confronting the very corporate polluters who got us in this mess—not capitulating to more of their demands.
Sep 13, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” ploy is more sinister than we have been led to believe. More than disingenuous lip service to a legitimately concerned—and powerful—voting bloc, Trump’s MAHA is a dangerous smokescreen designed to consolidate power with the corporations responsible for harming us all. The release of the White House MAHA Commission strategy report this week put this on full display.
The report, written by a commission chaired by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is designed to convey the Trump administration’s priorities on food and childhood chronic disease. In truth, its deregulatory proposals read like an agriculture industry wish list—Big Ag corporations and trade groups were among the few voices of support.
Making Americans healthy will require confronting the very corporate polluters who got us in this mess—not capitulating to more of their demands. Trump is doing just the opposite, letting some of the nation’s biggest corporations off the hook: pesticide manufacturers, livestock producers, and big chemical companies.
The MAHA Commission report is most notable for what it lacks, including any recommendations to regulate toxic pesticides. An abundance of research links these ubiquitous agricultural chemicals to everything from cancers and Parkinson’s disease, to birth defects and developmental disorders.
In May, Kennedy’s team identified concerns about children’s exposure to pesticides. The backlash from food and farm industry groups was swift. The administration consequently hosted a parade of industry groups including CropLife America, Walmart, and Coca-Cola. In fact, Kennedy testified in a recent Senate hearing that he had entertained 140 farm interest groups since May.
In keeping with White House promises to industry lobbyists, the MAHA strategy report lacks any mention of concern for pesticide exposure, parrots pesticide industry talking points, and pulls punches on pesticide regulation. It even promotes the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pesticide review process as robust and sufficient, which couldn’t be further from the truth. This review process has routinely been proven vulnerable to corporate influence.
This report is yet another step in Trump’s dangerous deregulatory agenda that will make America very, very sick.
This unwillingness to tackle toxic pesticides goes directly against the demands of voters and Kennedy’s own promises: Fully 71% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans support increasing restrictions on the use of pesticides in agriculture.
Meanwhile, Trump’s congressional allies are plotting with pesticide corporations to hamper EPA's ability to better regulate these toxic chemicals and shield pesticide manufacturers from health related lawsuits.
Food & Water Watch research catalogues the multimillion dollar push to pass Cancer Gag Acts in statehouses and Congress. Bayer has spent over $11 billion settling more than 100,000 cancer lawsuits related to its Roundup pesticide, whose key ingredient glyphosate the World Health Organization defines as a probable carcinogen. The federal Cancer Gag Act, expected to be reintroduced this fall as the “Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act,” is reportedly a House Farm Bill priority; House Republicans included related language in a July appropriations vote to prevent EPA from improving pesticide warning labels.
In another capitulation to industry, the MAHA strategy report also fails to address factory farms’ public health impacts. America has become a factory farming nation, with these industrial animal warehouses pockmarking rural communities from coast to coast. These facilities are often sited right next to homes and schools, releasing a cocktail of dangerous air pollution, including particulate matter, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide. These pollutants are linked to asthma and respiratory disease that gravely impact children’s health.
HHS agencies like the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have the authority to study this pollution and recommend enforceable exposure limits for hazardous air emissions. This would help force factory farms to clean up their act and protect communities from dangerous health impacts. Any report serious about improving children's health must embrace these reforms.
Factory farms are also known drinking water polluters. Food & Water Watch analysis finds that factory farms produce a whopping 941 billion pounds of untreated waste annually. Much of it finds its way into the water we drink, carrying pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, E. coli bacteria, nitrates, and more into drinking water. These pollutants are linked to everything from cancers to antibiotic resistance. Faced with industry pressure, the MAHA report recommends weakening EPA’s already lax regulation of factory farm waste. Congressional Republicans have also introduced dangerous legislation to further deregulate the sector.
In yet another giveaway, the MAHA strategy report fails to adequately address the crisis that Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) contamination is wreaking on our health. These lab-made “forever chemicals,” found in drinking water nationwide, are linked to a large range of health problems including various cancers, altered hormone levels, decreased birth weights, digestive inflammation, and reduced vaccine response.
A full 97% of US residents have PFAS in their blood. Even still, the report makes only a passing mention of this rampant health concern, while simultaneously disregarding the Trump administration’s plan to gut recently-established common-sense PFAS drinking water safety rules. Food & Water Watch research tracks the tens of millions of dollars chemical corporations have spent on a campaign to conceal the health concerns of these forever chemicals—a concealment in which it appears the MAHA Commission is complicit.
The MAHA strategy report is, at best, a reckless industry giveaway. But a close reading belies the truth: This report is yet another step in Trump’s dangerous deregulatory agenda that will make America very, very sick. Trump’s budget cuts, which have gutted food safety oversight and closed food safety labs, stand in stark contrast to the few report takeaways where we agree. Take food chemicals and ultra processed foods for example.
Food & Water Watch has repeatedly called for overhaul of the federal Generally Recognized as Safe Loophole (GRAS) loophole—this report is right to endorse that reform. For years, food companies have self policed which chemicals make it into the food we eat, through this Food and Drug Administration (FDA) loophole. Today, hundreds if not thousands of chemicals are in our food because of this lack of oversight.
Food chemicals like titanium dioxide, potassium bromate, certain food dyes, and meat curing agents are part of a long list of chemicals that advocacy groups have been watching for years enter our food system. Critically, many of these chemicals are banned in other countries, yet still exist today on America’s grocery shelves.
It’s hard to believe Trump is serious about GRAS reform, when he’s busy gutting the very agency that would carry it out. His elimination of 3,500 FDA staff will leave the agency hamstrung, unable to implement even the few positive aspects of the MAHA strategy report.
Ultimately, the White House’s MAHA strategy will only deepen America’s industrial agriculture-driven health crisis. Any administration serious about public health must strictly regulate the corporations putting our food and water supplies at risk. Instead, Trump appears poised to do the very opposite.
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Trump EPA Seeks to Reverse Rules Protecting Drinking Water From Carcinogenic 'Forever Chemicals'
One environmental attorney said that the EPA proposal "prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies' bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
Sep 12, 2025
Public health and environment defenders on Friday condemned the Trump administration's announcement that it will no longer uphold Environmental Protection Agency rules that protect people from unsafe levels of so-called "forever chemicals" in the nation's drinking water.
In addition to no longer defending rules meant to protect people from dangerous quantities of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—called forever chemicals because they do not biodegrade and accumulate in the human body—the EPA is asking a federal court to toss out current limits that protect drinking water from four types of PFAS: PFNA, PFHxS, GenX, and PFBS.
The EPA first announced its intent to roll back limits on the four chemicals in May, while vowing to retain maximum limits for two other types of PFAS. The agency said the move is meant to “provide regulatory flexibility and holistically address these contaminants in drinking water.”
However, critics accuse the EPA and Administrator Lee Zeldin—a former Republican congressman from New York with an abysmal 14% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters—of trying to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act's robust anti-backsliding provision, which bars the EPA from rolling back any established drinking water standard.
"In essence, EPA is asking the court to do what EPA itself is not allowed to do," Earthjustice said in a statement.
"Administrator Zeldin promised to protect the American people from PFAS-contaminated drinking water, but he’s doing the opposite,” Earthjustice attorney Katherine O'Brien alleged. “Zeldin’s plan to delay and roll back the first national limits on these forever chemicals prioritizes chemical industry profits and utility companies’ bottom line over the health of children and families across the country."
Jared Thompson, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said that "the EPA’s request to jettison rules intended to keep drinking water safe from toxic PFAS forever chemicals is an attempted end run around the protections that Congress placed in the Safe Drinking Water Act."
"It is also alarming, given what we know about the health harms caused by exposure to these chemicals," Thompson added. "No one wants to drink PFAS. We will continue to defend these commonsense, lawfully enacted standards in court."
PFAS have myriad uses, from nonstick cookware to waterproof clothing to firefighting foam. Increasing use of forever chemicals has resulted in the detection of PFAS in the blood of nearly every person in the United States and around the world.
Approximately half of the U.S. population is drinking PFAS-contaminated water, “including as many as 105 million whose water violates the new standards,” according to the NRDC, which added that “the EPA has known for decades that PFAS endangers human health, including kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, and harm to the nervous and reproductive systems.”
Betsy Southerland, a former director of the Office of Science and Technology in the EPA's Office of Water, said in a statement Friday:
The impact of these chemicals is clear. We know that this is significant for pregnant women who are drinking water contaminated with PFAS, because it can cause low birth weight in children. We know children have developmental effects from being exposed to it. We know there’s an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease and cancer with these chemicals.
Two of the four chemicals targeted in this motion are the ones that we expect to be the most prevalent, and only increasing contamination in the future. With this rollback, those standards would be gone.
Responding to Thursday's developments, Environmental Advocates NY director of clean water Rob Hayes said that "the EPA’s announcement is a big win for corporate polluters and an enormous loss for New York families."
"Administrator Zeldin wants to strip clean water protections away from millions of New Yorkers, leaving them at risk of exposure to toxic PFAS chemicals every time they turn on the tap," he added. "New Yorkers will pay the price of this disastrous plan through medical bills—and deaths—tied to kidney cancer, thyroid disease, and other harmful illnesses linked to PFAS."
While Trump administration officials including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have claimed they want to "make America healthy again" by ending PFAS use, the EPA is apparently moving in the opposite direction. Between April and June of this year, the agency sought approval of four new pesticides considered PFAS under a definition backed by experts.
“What we’re seeing right now is the new generation of pesticides, and it’s genuinely frightening,” Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Civil Eats earlier this week. “At a time when most industries are transitioning away from PFAS, the pesticide industry is doubling down. They’re firmly in the business of selling PFAS.”
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