Must-read recap: The New Lede's top stories

A new fight for cancer prevention; the solar geoengineering debate; plastic threatens manatees; EPA proposes ethylene oxide limit; banned carcinogen in household objects.

The ravages of cancer and a new fight for prevention

About 600,000 people in the U.S. die of cancer each year, according to the National Cancer Institute. And rates of many types of cancer, including colon, breast, kidney, and thyroid cancer, are rising — especially among people under 50 years of age.

As President Biden resurrects his Cancer Moonshot program, aiming to cut the cancer death rate by 25%, a growing understanding that exposure to certain chemicals in the environment may also contribute to rising cancer rates has led to a new coalition of scientists and advocates working to alert the public and push regulators to protect people from carcinogens.

In her upcoming book, A New War on Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention,  journalist Kristina Marusic profiles the efforts of those working to advance cancer prevention. The book weaves intimate stories from those dealing with cancer, inspiring work from scientists working to understand chemical exposures, and important context about the ways the US deals with cancer and chemical regulation.

The New Lede sat down with Marusic to discuss why preventing environmental exposures is the next big step in the war against cancer.

Q: What inspired you to highlight the role of environmental exposures in causing cancer in your book?

A: My younger sister was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was in her early 20s. And that made a big impression on me, as you can imagine. She’s doing well now and is healthy, but that was very scary and surprising, and it got me thinking about what might have caused her cancer. Half of all American men and one in three women are expected to get some type of cancer diagnosis in their lifetimes, so most Americans have had an intimate brush with cancer like that, either for themselves or a loved one.

I’m a journalist, and while I was writing a story on cancer and air pollution a few years ago, I learned that some types of cancer have been steadily climbing since we started tracking cancer rates back in the 1970s. I interviewed one researcher, Dr. Phil Landrigan, who pointed out that these increases are happening too fast to be caused by genetic changes, and they can’t be entirely explained by just having better diagnostic tools. The only other option is that the problem is in the environment. And I found that to be especially alarming.

This is a good time to talk about this issue because I do think we’re seeing a growing consensus within the scientific community about the need for further research on the ways that chemical exposures are impacting our cancer risk. And there’s an urgent need to incorporate this science into our regulations and communicate what the research community is finding to regulators. (Read the rest of the Q&A.)

Amid efforts to cool the planet, solar geoengineering draws heated debate

Luke Iseman got tired of waiting for the world to stop climate change so he decided to try it himself. The founder of a controversial two-person startup called Make Sunsets has begun launching balloons filled with sulfur dioxide high into the sky with the intention of imitating the effects of volcanic eruptions. The molecules are meant to act like little mirrors, cooling the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space before it reaches the Earth’s lower atmosphere.

Iseman’s venture into the relatively new arena known as solar geoengineering is drawing its own heat in the form of criticism from scientists amid an intensifying debate over whether the world should explore once-unthinkable measures some say might buy time to address climate change.

The window to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in order to prevent dramatically more severe global impacts is closing fast. Earth is on track to hit that threshold “in the first half of the 2030s,” according to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last month.

Many scientists oppose geoengineering strategies, defined as interventions in the earth’s oceans, soils and atmosphere that reduce climate impacts such as extreme temperatures, variability in water availability, and the severity of storm systems. Solar engineering specifically focuses on masking the effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gases, although it isn’t a permanent fix since it doesn’t actually get rid of these gases.

Critics say further tinkering with Earth’s climate using new technologies could have dire unintended consequences such as acid rain and health problems, as well as rapid global temperature rises if such interventions were stopped without fixing the problem at its root. Some fear that investing research into such drastic avenues could create illusions of a cheap fix at a moment when there is no time to spare.

Even those in favor of studying solar geoengineering say they still have no idea if it should actually ever be used –the research is too early and the risks and effectiveness of such strategies are not well understood.

But Iseman, who has a history of launching startups and holds an economics degree from the Wharton Business School, says it’s past time to begin deploying and scaling up the untested technology. (Read the rest of the story.)

More evidence of plastics harm to Florida manatees

The manatees found along Florida’s Gulf Coast already face numerous threats to their survival: Boat strikes, red tide, harmful algal blooms, and a loss of the sea grass beds that provide their main food source have taken a toll on the gentle herbivores.

A new study adds to evidence showing that manatees are facing another serious threat: Plastics.

Researchers from Eckerd College conducted a study examining the remains of 26 dead manatees from Tampa Bay, Florida, over a 28-month period and found more than 73% of the animals had plastic particles or microplastics in their gastrointestinal systems and 76% of the manatees had some form of plastic in their digestive tracts.

Study co-author Shannon Gowans said the microplastic exposure appears to be coming from concentrations of pollutants in sea grass beds where manatees graze.

“We couldn’t actually look through all of their gut contents so we only sub-sampled a small amount.  So, while we found 76% had some plastics there’s a good chance that a lot more had plastics,” Gowans said.

The study found monofilament fishing line was the most common type of plastic in the animals.

A much larger report, published in 2020, found that 99% of 700 Florida manatees studied had swallowed some type of plastic, which can obstruct digestion or damage intestines, leading to starvation and death. The report included an example of a dead manatee whose stomach and colon were found filled plastic items, including a plastic bag, straw, string, and fishing line. (Read the rest of the story.)

EPA proposes limits on cancer-causing gas used to sterilize medical equipment

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday proposed new standards to protect workers and communities from exposure to ethylene oxide, a toxic gas used to sterilize medical equipment and some spices. The agency estimates the new health protections could cut commercial facilities’ emissions of the colorless cancer-causing gas by 80% per year.

EPA will require the 86 commercial sterilizer facilities across the US to install pollution controls within 18 months of the agency issuing a final rule.

“EPA estimates that these reductions would lead to reduced ethylene oxide related risks at all of the communities located near the sterilizers to levels below the Clean Air Act benchmark for elevated cancer risk,” said Tomas Carbonell, the deputy assistant administrator for stationary sources at the EPA Office of Air and Radiation, in a press briefing.

The proposed restrictions come less than a week after the EPA announced another proposed rule that it says would lead to a 63% reduction in ethylene oxide emissions nationwide compared to 2020.

Ethylene oxide has been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and breast cancer, among other cancers. A lifetime of exposure to the toxic chemical at concentrations found near sterilizers can boost a person’s risk for developing cancer to above the federal threshold of 100-in-a-million, according to a 2022 EPA analysis, although the gas has been linked to cancer for decades. The agency has also identified 23 ethylene oxide sterilizer facilities that pose high cancer risks to communities.

Two types of facilities that emit ethylene oxide disproportionately pollute communities of color, low-income communities, and non-English speaking communities, according to a report published in February by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Hundreds of legal claims have been filed across the US by people who have suffered health effects from exposure to ethylene oxide pollution. Last year, an Illinois resident diagnosed with breast cancer after living near a sterilizer facility for decades was awarded $363 million, although a second resident with cancer did not win her lawsuit against the company. (Read the rest of the story.)

Banned carcinogen found in 88% of household objects, says new study

Banned chemicals that potentially cause cancer in humans have been discovered in a wide array of household products, according to a study published today in the journal Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts.

Short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) are a group of chemicals that are used in metalworking and the production of PVC, plastics, rubbers, and other materials. They are persistent chemicals, meaning they don’t degrade in the environment and accumulate in animals. Chlorinated paraffins have been detected in various wildlife and in human milk and blood. 

The new study shows that SCCPs are still widely present in household goods despite bans on the chemicals, indicating the need for more regulatory action. Researchers found SCCPs in 84 of 96 household goods tested in Canada. All the household goods were purchased at least one year after Canada’s 2013 prohibition of the chemicals went into effect, suggesting that chemical regulation against SCCPs has not been entirely effective.

“We found [SCCPs] in almost everything, which was very surprising to us,” said Steven Kutarna, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto and the lead author of the paper.

The 2017 Stockholm Convention listed SCCPs under their Annex A, which urges the elimination of the chemicals. SCCPs were largely prohibited in Canada in 2013 and in the US in 2012.

More than a million tons of chlorinated paraffins are still produced each year. Even in countries like Canada, where the chemicals have been prohibited, SCCPs have been detected in dust, prompting researchers to look for an indoor source of the chemicals. 

Peng and his team collected 96 indoor products, including electronics, plastic toys, personal care products, and furniture, from Toronto stores and homes. They found SCCPs in 88% of the products, with the highest concentration of the chemicals found in the outer plastic coatings of two electronic devices. (Read the rest of the story.)