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

Communities wrestle with pricey PFAS cleanups; paraquat and the deliberate production of ignorance; almost nobody on Earth is safe from air pollution.

Communities wrestle with pricey PFAS clean-up efforts

On a recent wintry day, Deborah Brown walked along the edge of Lake Washington in Newburgh, New York, and pointed to a sign warning people not to fish because the waters are known to be contaminated with toxic chemicals.

“You wouldn’t want to eat the fish you catch,” Brown, a member of the Newburgh Clean Water Project, told a visitor.

Newburgh is one of many communities around the United States – indeed, around the world – now grappling with the knowledge that their landscapes and lives have come under threat from a class of chemicals known as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that are being found throughout the environment.

Scientists have linked PFAS exposure to various health problems, including cancer, congenital disabilities, and liver disease. PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down easily and accumulate over time. Studies have estimated PFAS to be present in the blood of an estimated 97% of Americans and in hundreds of species of wildlife around the globe.

Last year, the Biden administration announced plans to “research, restrict, and remediate harmful PFAS,” and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has rolled out an array of strategies, including sharply lowering the allowable levels of certain types of PFAS in drinking water. The action is expected to trigger billions of dollars in spending on clean-up efforts across the country. 

But for impacted communities, eradicating PFAS contamination – if that is even possible – can’t come fast enough.

In Newburgh, a city of about 28,000 residents approximately 60 miles north of New York City, the efforts to clean up PFAS in Lake Washington have illuminated an array of obstacles, including the multi-million-dollar price tags attached to high-technology remediation tactics, disputes over which clean-up strategies are most effective, and how fast work should proceed. (Read the rest of the story.)

Guest Column: Paraquat and the deliberate production of ignorance

(Editor’s note: This column cites revelations co-published by The New Lede and The Guardian.)

Nearly 60 years ago, a chemical company found that skin exposure to very high doses of its weedkiller paraquat caused “weakness and incoordination” in rabbits. Large amounts of the herbicide, which is used on corn, cotton, and vineyards, caused some mice and rats in its labs to develop a stiff gait or tremors. A decade later, an autopsy of a farm worker exposed to paraquat showed “degenerative change” in the “cells of the substantia nigra,” a pathological hallmark of Parkinson’s disease.   

Rather than remove this dangerous chemical from the market or develop a safer alternative, the company doubled down on its “blockbuster” product and sought to expand its use. Along the way, the company appeared to use techniques to underestimate the toxic effects of the chemical, hide the results of its own research from regulatory authorities, and discredit the research of an academic investigator and prevent her from serving on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advisory panel. 

The company’s alleged efforts seem to have worked brilliantly. Despite numerous animal and epidemiological studies linking the environmental toxicant to Parkinson’s disease, paraquat’s use in the United States from 2013 to 2018 more than doubled. As pesticides can contaminate drinking water and pollute the air their harmful effects are not limited to farmers but extend (at least) to other rural residents who also have a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. Because of its health risks, over 30 countries—including China—have banned paraquat. Yet in 2021 the EPA reauthorized its use even though its own website says, “One Sip Can Kill.” 

The actions that the manufacturer of paraquat has been accused of taking are just the latest example of agnotology. Agnotology, coined by the linguist Iain Boal in 1992, is the deliberate production of ignorance often for commercial gain. The doubt can be created by inaccurate or misleading scientific data, disinformation, document destruction, and secrecy and suppression. As opposed to the ignorance that a child may have as a “native state” that can be filled with education, the ignorance induced by agnotology is “made, maintained, and manipulated.”

According to the historian Robert Proctor, the classic example of this ignorance creation is the tobacco industry’s long campaign (“Doubt is our product”) to mask the health risks of smoking. The industry simultaneously feigned its own ignorance, affirmed the absence of definitive proof, and created doubt within the public at large. The result was millions of avoidable deaths, enormous economic costs borne by individuals and societies, and immeasurable personal suffering.

The makers of paraquat apparently have done the same. Knowledge of the toxic effects of paraquat is alleged to have been hidden for decades, and a credible academic researcher appears to have been prevented from highlighting the weedkiller’s true risks. All the while, the manufacturer continues to maintain that paraquat does not cause Parkinson’s disease. Actions like these should be recognized for what they are: attacks on science, attacks on scientists, and attacks on the health of the public. (Read the rest of the guest column.)

Almost nobody on Earth is safe from air pollution, study says

Nearly the entire global population is regularly exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution, according to a study published this week.

Researchers at Monash University in Australia analyzed air pollution data from across the globe between 2000 and 2019 to estimate global daily exposure to PM 2.5, a type of air pollution made up of inhalable particles 2.5 micrometers or smaller. The particles can enter the bloodstream through the lungs and contribute to an array of health problems, including premature death, asthma, and heart disease.

The team found that between 2000-2019, only 0.18% of the world’s land area and only 0.001% of the world’s population — about 78,000 people — had annual PM 2.5 exposure lower than the 2021 air pollution guidelines set by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO’s guidelines recommend that a person’s annual exposure to PM2.5 should not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic meter.

“Almost no one is safe from air pollution,” said Yuming Guo, an author on the study and a professor of environmental health at Monash University. “All people might face serious air pollution.”

The new findings come as the United States and countries around the world are wrestling with how to regulate harmful air pollution, which was estimated to cause almost 7 million premature deaths in 2019,  according to one study. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed lowering its standards for annual exposure to PM2.5 from the current standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter to between 9 and 10 micrograms per cubic meter, a measurement it said reflects “the latest health data and scientific evidence.”

The EPA estimates that setting the PM2.5 standard at a level of 9 micrograms per cubic meter could prevent up to 4,200 premature deaths per year. But many scientists say the proposal doesn’t go far enough to protect public health.

The researchers on the new study had expected to find some parts of the globe to have very clean air, and were surprised when their analysis showed that nearly everywhere on earth experiences high levels of air pollution at some points during the year, Guo said. (Read the rest of the story.)