Health & Fitness

In this short video by Green Science Policy Institute, you'll discover how flame retardants are one of six classes of chemicals found in consumer products that negatively affect your health. While adding chemicals to slow fire ignition may have begun with good intentions, the chemicals are worse than ineffective — they are dangerous.

If they were effective, their strongest supporters would be firefighters. Yet, this population is among the strongest opponents of adding fire retardant chemicals to products. As demonstrated in the video, when treated furniture burns, it releases a greater amount of toxic smoke than untreated furniture.

Fire retardants also create a health burden in everyday use as the chemicals leach from products and land in household dust. Until 2004, the primary chemical was from a family of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) with 209 possible brominated substances.¹

By 2013, octaBDEs used in business equipment made from plastic were voluntarily withdrawn. However, the replacement chemicals, namely organophosphorus compounds, have some of the same health risks and behave similarly in the environment.

UK Is Losing EU Health Protections

Brexit,² the term used to describe the British exit from the European Union, was formalized on January 31, 2020. However, the exit from the economic and political union binding 28 European countries together has been far from smooth.

The BBC reports there are months of negotiations ahead to decide what a future relationship might look like between the U.K. and the remaining countries. George Monbiot, environmentalist and columnist for The Guardian,³ raises concerns that the disruption during the exit is distracting the media and the public from the destruction of public protections that are happening.

His biggest concern is flame retardant chemicals: “Since the 1990s, most of the deaths and injuries inflicted by fires in the U.K. have been caused not from burns, but by inhaling toxic smoke.” He references a recent environmental audit by Parliament:⁴

"Breast Cancer UK suggests the US and UK have the highest levels of flame retardants in human body fluids. Legacy polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are in breast milk in the highest concentrations in women in the US and UK."

Until 2016, Terry Edge⁵ was the U.K.'s leading expert in Furniture and Furnishings Fire Safety regulations. At that time, he blew the whistle⁶ on the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

In 2014, a match test proved 90% of the furniture in the U.K. is ignitable and the number of lives saved are completely unfounded. Edge writes that even if assumptions are correct:⁷

“… it requires around 6 million kgs of flame retardant chemicals to possibly save just one life from fire.

Research published in Chemosphere in December 2017, proves that a treated UK sofa is more dangerous than an untreated EU sofa, because any escape time afforded by flame retardants (and that is far less than the FR industry claims) is greatly outweighed by the huge amounts of toxic smoke, including hydrogen cyanide, that is produced very soon after a UK sofa ignites.”

The Environmental Audit Committee⁸ of the British House of Commons published a report in summer 2019, which began to get media attention before the challenges with Brexit pushed public health concerns to the back burner.

Fire Retardant Exposure Described as ‘Ubiquitous’

Once PBDEs were phased out in the U.S.,⁹ manufacturers began using organophosphate ester flame retardants (OPFRs). Researchers¹⁰ compared OPFRs with PBDEs across a range of properties, including interactions in the environment, indoor levels of the chemicals and evidence of adverse health effects from both.

They found OPFRs are ubiquitous and accumulate in the environment at higher concentration levels than PBDEs. In the review of 100 peer-reviewed studies, scientists found OPFRs are at levels 10 to 100 times higher in the water, air and dust than were PBDEs. In addition, they were also found in nearly every person who participated in the research study.

Data from several studies show the levels were high enough to negatively affect brain development in children and fertility in adults. Scientists expected OPFRs would be less persistent than PBDEs, but predicting their presence is difficult to measure based on the compounds’ physical and chemical properties.

OPFRs have a higher vapor pressure and shorter half-life which led the experts to believe they would travel shorter distances and have a lower concentration. However, they're more soluble in water and persist in an aqueous solution. Measurements throughout the world have found higher levels of OPFRs in areas as remote as the North and South poles, as well as in urban areas.

These measurements have also confirmed OPFRs in locations that could not be explained by a local release. The chemicals are used heavily in the electronics industry and are detected at higher levels indoors. The application of OPFRs was identified by researchers as a “regrettable substitution,” or a replacement that lacked sufficient toxicity testing for a chemical being phased out as a known hazardous material:¹¹

“Regrettable substitution occurs because of the difficulty of changing industrial processes and a lack of toxicological information, causing manufacturers to replace a phased-out chemical with a ‘drop in’ substitute chemical that has a similar structure, function, and potential for harm.”

Most Common Thyroid Cancer Linked to Flame Retardants

The most common and aggressive type of thyroid cancer is papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Researchers have found there's a link between exposure to flame retardants in the home and the development of PTC.

In one study¹² researchers set out to test whether higher exposure was associated with a higher risk of PTC. They enrolled patients at Duke Cancer Institute and evaluated the correlation between flame retardants found in household dust and PTC. What they found suggested exposure in the home was associated with both a higher risk and increased severity of the disease.

A commentary in Nature stressed the importance of analyzing the effects flame retardants have as chemical mixtures, as this is the “most physiologically relevant situation given the reality of current exposures to multiple chemicals.”¹³ The commentary continued:

"… exposure to flame retardants is strongly associated with thyroid hormone-related neurodevelopmental disorders in the United States …" and "Many flame retardants have chemical structures similar to those of thyroid hormones and have been implicated in dysfunction of thyroid hormone homeostasis, such as altered thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels and iodine transport."

The information that flame-retardant chemicals are dangerous, disrupt the hormone system and are linked to the development of cancer is well-established and accepted by everyone except the chemical industry. You’ll find more information on this topic in my previous article, “Thyroid Cancer Rates Are Skyrocketing From Flame Retardants.”

Half of Firefighters Believe Cancer Larger Risk Than Fire

Firefighters are charged with entering a burning building to save lives and to limit property damage. But the danger becomes greater when burning flame retardant chemicals create toxic fumes.

San Francisco has the largest percentage of female firefighters on their force, making up 16% of the entire force. In 2018, 15% of the women ages 40 to 50 had “been diagnosed with breast cancer, which is six times the national average.”

In the last 10 years, more than 250 men and women in the San Francisco Fire Department have died from some form of cancer. The fire department believes this increase is the result of the burning of synthetic materials that is exposing firefighters to dangerous fumes. In addition, Jeanine Nicholson, Deputy Chief of administration for the San Francisco Fire Department, said to NBC News:¹⁴

"Cancer is a concern for the San Francisco Fire Department as well as the fire service nationwide. But in San Francisco, we have seen and we do have numbers of elevated cancer rates for male and female firefighters. And we have a lot of flame retardants in furniture that are toxic and are toxic to you and your family as well as to firefighters.

So you'll have these flame retardants in your bloodstream just as we do. We just have it in higher rates. I always think of it as there's a cancer sniper out there in the fire service. And it's not when. It's not if. It's who's gonna be next? What woman in the San Francisco Fire Department is gonna get breast cancer next?"

Chronic exposure places firefighters at greater risk for all cancers. The leaders of two statewide surveys of 1,300 active firefighters in Ohio found that about half believed cancer was their greatest occupational risk, up from 5% surveyed 10 years before.¹⁵

Cities and states are taking steps to protect the men and women who protect their citizens, but the movement is slow. In 2019, Massachusetts failed to pass a bill banning flame retardants despite a push from lawmakers and pediatricians.¹⁶ The legislator who originally carried the bill to ban the retardants died of brain cancer at 66, himself a firefighter.

In Minnesota,¹⁷ the story was different as the governor signed a bill into law in May 2019 that would ban certain flame-retardant chemicals. As of January 2019, San Francisco banned the sale of flame-retardant furniture¹⁸ and in March that same year, an ordinance was passed in Anchorage, Alaska, with a unanimous vote prohibiting specific products with flame retardant chemicals.¹⁹

While the movement is slowly making its way through the U.S., it is important to remember that the ban is on new sales, which means anything sold before the ban will still be a potential health hazard in your home.

Reduce Your Exposure to Flame Retardants

Fire retardant chemicals are also found in drinking water and local bodies of water. It is important to reduce your exposure. Consider the options discussed in “Fire Retardant Chemicals Are Contaminating Drinking Water Across the U.S.” and those listed below:

• When purchasing items, ask if there is an option without flame retardants
• Avoid upholstered furniture with a TB117 label
• To reduce your exposure, clean and dust with a damp cloth to trap the dust, use a vacuum with a HEPA filter and wash your hands, especially before eating
• Avoid purchasing foam carpet padding unless you’re sure it doesn't contain flame retardants

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Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors; that is, they block the enzyme in your liver responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase). According to Drugs.com, more than 35 million Americans are on a statin drug, making it one of the most commonly prescribed medicines in the U.S.¹

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data suggest 47.6% of seniors over the age of 75 are on a statin drug.² Lipitor — which is just one of several brand name statin drugs — is the most profitable drug in the history of medicine.^3,4

Collectively, statins have earned over $1 trillion since they were introduced.⁵ This, despite their being off patent. There is simply no doubt that selling them is big business with major financial incentives to distort the truth to continue their sales.

Statin recommendations have become fairly complex, as they’re recommended for various age groups under different circumstances, and whether they’re used as primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), or secondary prevention. Guidelines also vary slightly depending on the organization providing the recommendation and the country you’re in.⁶

In the U.S., the two guidelines available are from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF),⁷ and the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association.^8,9 The USPSTF guidelines recommend using a statin for the primary prevention of CVD when a patient:¹⁰

• Is between the age of 40 to 75
• Has one or more CVD risk factors (dyslipidemia, diabetes, hypertension or smoking)
• Has a calculated 10-year risk of a cardiovascular event of 10% or greater

In secondary prevention of CVD, statins are “a mainstay,” according to the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.¹¹ Secondary prevention means the drug is used to prevent a recurrence of a heart attack or stroke in patients who have already had one.

Regulators' Role Questioned

A February 2020 analysis¹² in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine (paywall) brings up the fact that while the use of statins in primary prevention of CVD “has been controversial” and there’s ongoing debate as to “whether the benefits outweigh the harms,” drug regulators around the world — which have approved statins for the prevention of CVD — have stayed out of the debate. Should they? The analysis goes on to note:

“Our aim was to navigate the decision-making processes of European drug regulators and ultimately request the data upon which statins were approved. Our findings revealed a system of fragmented regulation in which many countries licensed statins but did not analyze the data themselves.

There is no easily accessible archive containing information about the licensing approval of statins or a central location for holding the trial data. This is an unsustainable model and serves neither the general public, nor researchers.”

Have We Been Misled by the Evidence?

In her 2018 peer-reviewed narrative review,¹³ “Statin Wars: Have We Been Misled About the Evidence?” published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Maryanne Demasi, Ph.D., a former medical science major turned investigative health reporter, delves into some of these ongoing controversies.

“A bitter dispute has erupted among doctors over suggestions that statins should be prescribed to millions of healthy people at low risk of heart disease. There are concerns that the benefits have been exaggerated and the risks have been underplayed.

Also, the raw data on the efficacy and safety of statins are being kept secret and have not been subjected to scrutiny by other scientists. This lack of transparency has led to an erosion of public confidence.

Doctors and patients are being misled about the true benefits and harms of statins, and it is now a matter of urgency that the raw data from the clinical trials are released,” Demasi writes.¹⁴

While Demasi’s paper is behind a paywall, she reviews her arguments in the featured video above. Among them is the fact that the “statin empire” is built on prescribing these drugs to people who really don’t need them and are likely to suffer side effects without getting any benefits.

For example, some have recommended statins should be given to everyone over the age of 50, regardless of their cholesterol level. Others have suggested screening and dosing young children.

Even more outrageous suggestions over the past few years include statin “’condiments’ in burger outlets to counter the negative effects of a fast food meal,’” and adding statins to the municipal water supply.

Simple Tricks, Big Payoffs

Medical professionals are now largely divided into two camps, one saying statins are lifesaving and safe enough for everyone, and the other saying they’re largely unnecessary and harmful to boot. How did such a divide arise, when all have access to the same research and data?

Demasi suggests that in order to understand how health professionals can be so divided on this issue, you have to follow the money. The cost of developing and getting market approval for a new drug exceeds $2.5 billion. “A more effective way to fast-track company profits is to broaden the use of an existing drug,” Demasi says, and this is precisely what happened with statins.

By simply revising the definition of “high cholesterol,” which was done in 2000 and again in 2004, millions of people became eligible for statin treatment, without any evidence whatsoever that it would actually benefit them.

As it turns out, eight of the nine members on the U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program panel responsible for these revisions had “direct ties to statin manufacturers,” Demasi says, and that public revelation sowed the first seed of suspicion in many people’s minds.

Skepticism ratcheted up even more when, in 2013, the American College of Cardiology and AHA revised their statin guideline to include a CVD risk calculation rather than a single cholesterol number. U.S. patients with a 7.5% risk of developing CVD in the next 10 years were now put on a statin. (In the U.K., the percentage used was a more reasonable 20%.)

This resulted in another 12.8 million Americans being put on statin treatment even though they didn’t have any real risk factors for CVD. Worse, a majority of these were older people without heart disease — the very population that stand to gain the least from these medications.

What’s worse, 4 of 5 calculators were eventually found to overestimate the risk of CVD, some by as much as 115%, which means the rate of overprescription was even greater than previously suspected.

Industry Bias

While simple revisions of the definitions of high cholesterol and CVD risk massively augmented the statin market, industry-funded studies have further fueled the overprescription trend. As noted by Demasi, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan cut funding to the National Institutes of Health, private industry moved in to sponsor their own clinical trials.

The vast majority of statin trials are funded by the manufacturers, and research has repeatedly found that funding plays a major role in research outcomes. It’s not surprising then that most statin studies overestimate drug benefits and underestimate risks.

Demasi quotes Dr. Peter Gøtzsche, a Danish physician-researcher who in 1993 co-founded the Cochrane Collaboration and later launched the Nordic Cochrane Centre:

“When drug industry sponsored trials cannot be examined and questioned by independent researchers, science ceases to exist and it becomes nothing more than marketing.”

“The very nature of science is its contestability,” Demasi notes. “We need to be able to challenge and rechallenge scientific results to ensure they’re reproducible and legitimate.” However, there’s been a “cloud of secrecy” around clinical statin trials, Demasi says, as the raw data on side effects have never been released to the public, nor other scientists.

The data are being held by the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists (CTT) Collaboration at CTSU Oxford, headed by Rory Collins, which periodically publishes meta-analyses of the otherwise inaccessible data. While the CTT claims to be an independent organization, it has received more than £260 million from statin makers.

Inevitably, its conclusions end up promoting wider use of statins, and no independent review is possible to contest or confirm the CTT Collaboration’s conclusions.

Tricks Used to Minimize Harms in Clinical Trials

As explained by Demasi, there are many ways in which researchers can influence the outcome of a drug trial. One is by designing the study in such a way that it minimizes the chances of finding harm. The example she gives in her lecture is the Heart Protection Study.

Before the trial got started, all participants were given a statin drug for six weeks. By the end of that run-in period, 36% of the participants had dropped out due to side effects or lack of compliance. Once they had this “freshly culled” population, where those suffering side effects had already been eliminated, that’s when the trial actually started.

Now, patients were divided into statin and placebo groups. But since everyone had already taken a statin before the trial began, the side effects found in the statin and placebo groups by the end of the trial were relatively similar.

In short, this strategy grossly underestimates the percentage of the population that will experience side effects, and this “may explain why the rate of side effects in statin trials is wildly different from the rate of side effects seen in real-world observations,” Demasi says.

Deception Through Statistics

Public opinion can also be influenced by exaggerating statistics. A common statistic used to promote statins is that they lower your risk of heart attack by about 36%.¹⁵ This statistic is derived from a 2008 study¹⁶ in the European Heart Journal. One of the authors on this study is Rory Collins, who heads up the CTT Collaboration.

Table 4 in this study shows the rate of heart attack in the placebo group was 3.1% while the statin group’s rate was 2% — a 36% reduction in relative risk. However, the absolute risk reduction — the actual difference between the two groups, i.e., 3.1% minus 2% — is only 1.1%, which really isn’t very impressive.

In other words, in the real world, if you take a statin, your chance of a heart attack is only 1.1% lower than if you’re not taking it. At the end of the day, what really matters is what your risk of death is the absolute risk. The study, however, only stresses the relative risk (36%), not the absolute risk (1.1%).

As noted in the review,¹⁷ “How Statistical Deception Created the Appearance That Statins Are Safe and Effective in Primary and Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease,” it’s very easy to confuse and mislead people with relative risks. You can learn more about absolute and relative risk in my 2015 interview with David Diamond, Ph.D., who co-wrote that paper.

Silencing Dissenters and Fear-Based PR

Yet another strategy used to mislead people is to create the illusion of “consensus” by silencing dissenters, discrediting critics and/or censoring differing views.

In her lecture, Demasi quotes Collins of the CTT Collaboration saying that “those who questioned statin side effects were ‘far worse’ and had probably ‘killed more people’ than ‘the paper on the MMR vaccine” … “Accusing you of murdering people is an effective way [to] discredit you,” she says.

Demasi also highlights the case of a French cardiologist who questioned the value of statins in his book. It received widespread attention in the French press, until critics started saying the book and resulting press coverage posed a danger to public health.

One report blamed the book for causing a 50% increase in statin discontinuation, which was predicted would lead to the death of 10,000 people. On this particular occasion, however, researchers analyzed the number of actual deaths based on national statistics, and found the actual death toll decreased in the year following the release of the book.

The authors, Demasi says, noted that it was “’not evidence-based to claim that statin discontinuation increases mortality,’ and that in the future, scientists should assess ‘real effects of statin discontinuation rather than making dubious extrapolations and calculations.’”

Trillion-Dollar Business Based on Flimsy Evidence

Statins, originally introduced three decades ago as secondary prevention for those with established CVD and patients with congenital and familial hyperlipidemias, have now vastly expanded thanks to the strategies summarized above.

Tens if not hundreds of millions of people are now on these drugs, without any scientific evidence to show they will actually benefit from them. As noted in the EBM analysis, “Statins for Primary Prevention: What Is the Regulator’s Role?”:¹⁸

“The central clinical controversy has been a fierce debate over whether their benefits in primary prevention outweigh their harms … The largest known statin usage survey conducted in the USA found that 75% of new statin users discontinued their therapy by the end of the first year, with 62% of them saying it was because of the side effects.

Regardless of what level of prevention statin prescription is aimed at, the proposed widening of the population to over 75s de facto includes people with multiple pathologies, whether symptomatic or not, and bypasses the distinction between primary and secondary prevention …

The CTT Collaboration estimates the frequency of myopathy is quite rare, at five cases per 10,000 statin users over five years. But others have contended that the CTT Collaboration’s work ‘simply does not match clinical experience’ … [Muscle-related adverse events] reportedly occur with a frequency of … as many as 20% of patients in clinical practice.”

Regulators Have a Duty to Create Transparency

Considering the discrepancy in reported side effects between statin trials, clinical practice and statin usage surveys, what responsibility do regulators have?

According to “Statins for Primary Prevention: What Is the Regulator’s Role?”¹⁹ regulators have a responsibility to “engage and publicly articulate their position on the controversy and make the evidence base underlying those judgments available to third parties for independent scrutiny,” none of which has been done to date. The paper adds:

“Regulators holding clinical trial data, particularly for public health drugs, should make these data available in searchable format with curated and dedicated web-based resource. If national regulators are not resourced for this, pooling or centralizing resources may be necessary.

The isolation of regulators from the realities of prescribing medications based on incomplete or distorted information is not enshrined in law but is a product of a subculture in which commercial confidentiality is more important than people. This also needs to change.”

Do Your Homework Before Taking a Statin

There’s a lot of evidence to suggest drug company-sponsored statin research and its PR cannot be trusted, and that few of the millions of people currently taking these drugs actually benefit from them.

Some of the research questioning the veracity of oft-cited statin trials is reviewed in “Statins’ Flawed Studies and Flawed Advertising” and “Statins Shown to Extend Life by Mere Days.”

To learn more about the potential harms of statins, see “Statins Double Diabetes Rates,” “Statins Trigger Brain Changes With Devastating Effects,” and “5 Great Reasons You Should Not Take Statins.”

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Discussion of the safety of tap water often only occurs when an immediate threat is identified like the lead crisis in Flint, Michigan,¹ and ongoing Legionella outbreaks.² But the state of U.S. tap water, whether from wells or municipal water systems, is very concerning even when it is not in the news.

Just because tap water looks clear and seems to taste normal does not mean it is safe or pure. It is often brimming with pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, cyanobacteria, disinfection byproducts (DPBs) and fluoride, but few realize these harmful agents are in the water they are drinking.

Results from tests conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) from 2010 to 2015 on 50,000 water utilities in 50 states found 500 different contaminants.³ How many people would drink the tap water if a label disclosed such contaminants?

"Our research shows that the nation’s water supply is under assault from a toxic stew of pollutants," wrote EWG.⁴ The toxins include "fluorinated chemicals called PFAS, lead from old pipes, runoff from farmland that carries millions of tons of pesticides and fertilizer chemicals into rivers and streams," wrote EWG.

Toxins From Algal Blooms in Drinking Water

You may be aware of harmful algal blooms that are caused by manure, sewage and fertilizer runoff. These algae overgrowths can contain toxins like the cyanobacteria microcystis⁵ and the cyanobacteria metabolite BMAA,⁶ yet the toxicity of the blooms can't be determined from the way they look or smell.

Microcystis can cause skin irritations, neurological symptoms and liver and kidney damage in humans and even harm pets.⁷ BMAA is suspected of causing neurological diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).⁸ In the journal PLOS One, researchers studying the effect of BMAA on dolphins wrote:⁹

"Dietary exposure to BMAA is associated with the occurrence of neurofibrillary tangles and β-amyloid plaques in nonhuman primates. The findings of protein-bound BMAA in brain tissues from patients with Alzheimer’s disease has advanced the hypothesis that BMAA may be linked to dementia …

We observed increased numbers of β-amyloid+ plaques and dystrophic neurites in the auditory cortex [of dolphins] compared to the visual cortex and brainstem. The presence of BMAA and neuropathological changes in the stranded dolphin brain may help to further our understanding of cyanotoxin exposure and its potential impact on human health."

Exposure to algal toxins can come from contact with the water or algae, breathing airborne toxins, eating contaminated fish and shellfish¹⁰ and drinking contaminated water.¹¹

Algae overgrowth also has tremendous environmental implications. The density of blue-green algae blocks light and can deplete oxygen in the water, leading to huge dead zones and fish kills. The U.S.'s largest dead zone is located at the mouth of the Mississippi River and measures nearly an astounding 9,000 square miles, equivalent to the size of New Jersey.¹²

Drinking Water Dangers Heightened by Glyphosate

Researchers are now identifying another driver of harmful algal bloom: glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide. Scientists originally did not think that plankton, which include cyanobacteria, could use phosphonates like glyphosate as fuel.

But Bowling Green State University professors R. Michael McKay and George Bullerjahn determined that cyanobacteria do access phosphonates as fuel.¹³ This is what the professors wrote about their findings:¹⁴

"Our research is finding that Roundup is getting into the watershed at peak farming application times, particularly in the spring … It turns out that many cyanobacteria present in Lake Erie have the genes allowing the uptake of phosphonates, and these cyanobacteria can grow using glyphosate and other phosphonates as a sole source of phosphorus."

The professors' findings were buttressed by the subsequent research of Christopher Spiese, an Ohio Northern University chemist. According to Sustainable Pulse:¹⁵

" … Spiese took soil samples all over the Maumee watershed, applied P [phosphorus] to them and then sprayed glyphosate to see how much P was released vs. soil that wasn’t sprayed with glyphosate after 24 hours.

Based on the average two glyphosate applications growers make every year, Spiese estimates that overall, 20-25% of the DRP [dissolved reactive phosphorus] runoff is caused by glyphosate."

Scientists writing in PLOS One also found that glyphosate was used as a fuel by some cyanobacteria species:¹⁶

"We studied the physiological effects of glyphosate on fourteen species representing five major coastal phytoplankton phyla. Group I could utilize glyphosate as sole P [phosphorus]-source to support growth in axenic culture … Glyphosate consistently enhanced growth of Group III …

We conclude that glyphosate could be used as P-source by some species while is toxic to some other species and yet has no effects on others. The observed differential effects suggest that the continued use of glyphosate and increasing concentration of this herbicide in the coastal waters will likely exert significant impact on coastal marine phytoplankton."

Glyphosate's contribution to algal toxins and contaminated drinking water adds to the already known harms of this controversial herbicide.

Other Farming-Related Causes of Contaminated Tap Water

Algal toxins, boosted by glyphosate, are not the only toxins found in tap water because of irresponsible farming practices. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and large-scale monocrop farms contribute to high levels of nitrates found in drinking water. Exposure to nitrates can cause blue baby syndrome, cancer,¹⁷ childhood diabetes mellitus,¹⁸ reproductive problems,¹⁹ disruption of thyroid function and birth defects in humans.²⁰

A recent opinion piece by two professors of public health in the Des Moines Register conveyed the enormity of the nitrate and drinking water problem:²¹

"Largely because of 23 million hogs, Iowa now has a 'Fecal Equivalent Population' of 168 million people … Over-application of manure, too often on frozen ground … increases in Iowa’s stream nitrate loads … our water leads all states in discharged nutrient loads …

Iowa has by far the most CAFOs of any state. We should heed the American Public Health Association’s Governing Council’s call in November 2019 for a national moratorium on new or expanded CAFOs, citing their 'threat to air quality, drinking water and human health' and to 'stop using medically important antibiotics in healthy animals.'"

Seventy percent of the world's water is now monopolized by agriculture. CAFOs and large-scale monocrop farms also deplete aquifers of valuable drinking water.

Other Causes of Contaminated Tap Water

Another group of harmful chemicals in drinking water are PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), which include PFOA (perfluorinated carboxylic acid) and PFOS (Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid). According to the EPA:²²

"PFAS are found in a wide range of consumer products that people use daily such as cookware, pizza boxes and stain repellants. Most people have been exposed to PFAS. Certain PFAS can accumulate and stay in the human body for long periods of time. There is evidence that exposure to PFAS can lead to adverse health outcomes in humans …

Studies indicate that PFOA and PFOS can cause reproductive and developmental, liver and kidney, and immunological effects in laboratory animals. Both chemicals have caused tumors in animals. The most consistent findings are increased cholesterol levels among exposed populations."

PFAS are especially found in drinking water that is near affected landfills, wastewater treatment plants, manufacturers who use PFAS and firefighter training facilities, says the EPA.²³ PFAS have been dubbed "forever chemicals" because they build up in the blood and organs and resist degradation.²⁴

According to Children's Health Defense, PFAS levels in tap water have increased significantly since the late 1980s in the U.S. and "widespread PFAS infiltration of community water supplies and private wells around the world" is now seen, even in remote areas.²⁵ Adverse outcomes from PFASs are most concerning in children and may include:²⁶

Lower birth weight and birth size	Lower IQ and increased risk for learning disorders
Effects on levels of sex hormones and insulin-like growth factor 1, both of which play a critical role in growth and sexual maturation	Increased risk of overweight and obesity
Dysregulated glucose metabolism	Increased risk and severity of liver disease
Lower bone mineral density

More Chemical Dangers in Tap Water

Cyanobacteria, nitrates, lead, fluoride and PFAS are just a few of the chemicals lurking in tap water. Also present are chemicals like carcinogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hexavalent chromium, says research in the journal Heliyon, taking a tremendous toll on U.S. health:²⁷

"Cumulative risk analysis of contaminant occurrence in United States drinking water for the period of 2010–2017 indicates that over 100,000 lifetime cancer cases could be due to carcinogenic chemicals in tap water.

The majority of this risk is due to the presence of arsenic, disinfection byproducts and radioactive contaminants … Overall, national attributable risk due to tap water contaminants is approximately … two orders of magnitude higher than the de minimus cancer risk of one-in-a-million.

Thus, decreasing the levels of chemical contaminants in drinking water represents an important opportunity for protecting public health."

Chemicals that may not be harmful by themselves may interact with other chemicals, hypothesize the authors:²⁸

"[C]ontaminant mixtures may exert their toxicological effects in ways that differ from the simple response additive framework used in the present study. If mixtures of carcinogenic contaminants in water were to elicit a synergistic, or “greater-than-additive” toxicity effect, the overall risk would be greater."

Other risks present in tap water include the bacterium Legionella, mercury from "silver" fillings, disinfection byproducts like trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs), pharmaceuticals flushed down the toilet and from urine and feces and endocrine-disrupting personal care products.

Water Filtration Infrastructure Is Part of the Problem

When it comes to tap water pollution, glyphosate may do more harm than increase algae-related cyanobacteria. Research indicates the herbicide, which was originally patented as a descaling agent,²⁹ can also chelate the lead out of pipes and transfer it into the water people drink. Old worn-out pipes can also deposit copper into tap water.

Pharmaceutical drugs, including the antibiotics so widely used in CAFOs, are also a tap water risk. It is a misconception that water filtration and treatment plants remove pharmaceutical drugs from tap water, according to a 2011 Harvard Health Letter:³⁰

"Sewage treatment plants are not currently designed to remove pharmaceuticals from water. Nor are the facilities that treat water to make it drinkable … there's really not much question that some pharmaceutical pollution persists and does wind up in the water we drink."

Mary Buzby, director of environmental technology for Merck, agrees:³¹

"There’s no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they’re at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms."

Homes Should Have Water Filtration Systems

Your safest bet against the risk of toxins and contaminants in your tap water is to install a quality water filtration system in your home. There are a variety of options, most of which have both benefits and drawbacks.

Ideally, you want a filtration system that uses a combination of methods to remove contaminants, as this will ensure the removal of the widest variety of unwanted chemicals and substances. Below are a few of the most common filtration options.

With the shocking breadth of chemicals that are now found in tap water, a home filtration system is a wise investment. It’s also important to continue opposition to glyphosate, CAFOs and monocrop farms and products and manufacturers that pollute the environment with PFAS.

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Dietitian Melissa Meier explains how postbiotics could be the next big thing for better gut health. 

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After three days of extensive testing, Alison Izzo discovered she'd only scratched the surface of what the little device strapped to her wrist could really do... 

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The new decade is proving to be a lucky time for vegans, with another major brand announcing a plant-based alternative to their original product. 

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An analysis of publicly available data on infections from the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that causes the respiratory illness COVID-19 yielded an estimate of 5.1 days for the median disease incubation period, according to a new study.

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A new psychological study suggests that children and teens are worried about political issues, though it's unclear that children's and teens' worry is a cause for concern, or that it is interfering with their mental health functioning.

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The brain jiggles when the heart beats, and now, researchers have found a way to use that motion to better study the differences between types of neurons. In a new study, researchers find that by analyzing the changes in the waveforms they record from neurons during a heartbeat, they can more accurately classify the different types of neurons in the human brain.

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While lifestyle choices and genetics go a long way toward predicting longevity, a new study shows that certain community characteristics also play important roles. American communities with more fast food restaurants, a larger share of extraction industry-based jobs, or higher population density have shorter life expectancies, according to researchers.

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Our brains can predict the popularity of online videos, without us even knowing it.

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A new study showed that the humans on teams that included a robot expressing vulnerability communicated more with each other and later reported having a more positive group experience than people teamed with silent robots or with robots that made neutral statements, like reciting the game's score.

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What we learn through our senses drives how knowledge is sorted in our brains, according to new research.

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Researchers have developed a method for predicting circulatory failure in patients in intensive care units -- enabling clinicians to intervene at an early stage. Their approach uses machine learning methods to evaluate an extensive body of patient data.

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The natural coastal defenses provided by mangrove forests reduce annual flooding significantly in critical hotspots around the world. Without mangroves, flood damages would increase by more than $65 billion annually, and 15 million more people would be flooded, according to a new study.

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Climate change and urbanization are set to threaten groundwater drinking water quality, new research shows.

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People who rate themselves as highly knowledgeable about a new infectious disease threat could also be more likely to believe they don't know enough, a new study suggests. In the case of this study, the infectious disease threat was the Zika virus. But the authors of the new study say the results could apply to the recent novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

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An AI analysis of photographs posted on social media revealed a positive association between nature and happiness globally.

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