EPA will study microplastics, drugs safety in drinking water
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed adding microplastics and pharmaceuticals to its list of drinking water contaminants, which could lead to regulations of those compounds.
“For too long, Americans have vocalized concerns about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Thursday in a statement. “That ends today.”
Additionally, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, an agency within HHS, is launching a $144 million program to measure microplastic levels in humans and work on ways to remove them.
“We’re not going to speculate, we’re going to measure. We’re not going to delay, we are going to move,” Kennedy said at a joint event with Zeldin.
The moves provided a win for Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement, which has cited microplastics as a possible factor in the increase in chronic disease in children.
Some of Kennedy’s MAHA supporters were outraged after President Donald Trump signed an order to protect domestic production of certain herbicides in February.
The EPA’s draft list of drugs that could be classified as water contaminants includes acetaminophen, the key ingredient in Tylenol, painkillers like oxycodone and the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol.
The EPA’s announcement begins a process under which it consults with scientists and opens a public comment period. According to Philip Landrigan, who directs the global and planetary health centers at Boston College, this regulatory process will likely take several years. The HHS microplastic efforts will begin by designing experiments to understand microplastics within the human body.
Concerns have grown about the potential health effects of plastics as evidence has accumulated that microplastics and nanoplastics can be found in multiple human tissues – including the brain, blood, placenta and testicular tissue.
While research is still ongoing, Landrigan said there are two ways microplastics could cause disease, either by disrupting cellular function or acting as a “Trojan horse” to deliver chemicals found in big plastics that can be toxic to the developing brain.
“For all those reasons, microplastics need to be regulated,” said Landrigan, who’s also a pediatrician. But, he added, without controlling plastic production and pollution, “it’s not a very significant action.”
Last year, an Ipsos poll found that 81% of US voters supported reducing the amount of plastic that’s produced, and large majorities supported policies that could reduce the use of single-use plastic products like water bottles, carry out bags and food containers.