Chemicals

by

Trump Dream Team 2025 – 2028

Donald J. Trump, 45th & 47th President of the United States

Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United State from 2017 to 2021. He won the 2024 election as the nominee of the Republican Party and is now the president-elect of the United States. He is scheduled to begin his second term on January 20, 2025, as the nation’s 47th president and will be the second president in American history to serve nonconsecutive terms, with Grover Cleveland being the first.

• Mission to Make America Great Again (MAGA)

JD Vance, Vice President

James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman;[a] August 2, 1984) is an American politician, attorney, author, and former United States Marine who is the vice president-elect of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he has served since 2023 as the junior United States senator from Ohio. He was Donald Trump‘s running mate in the 2024 presidential election.

Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff

Susan Wiles (née Summerall; born May 14, 1957) is an American political consultant who served as co-chair of Donald Trump‘s 2024 presidential campaign, having previously worked on his 2016 campaign, as well as Ronald Reagan‘s 1980 campaign. She was chosen by president-elect Trump to serve as the 32nd White House chief of staff in the second Trump administration, set to begin in January 2025. She will be the first woman to hold the position.

Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff

Stephen Miller (born August 23, 1985)[1] is an American political advisor who served as a senior advisor for policy and White House director of speechwriting to President Donald Trump.[2]  He was previously the communications director for then-Senator Jeff Sessions. He was also a press secretary for U.S. representatives Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg.

Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary

Karoline Claire Leavitt (born August 24, 1997)[1] is an American political aide currently serving as the national press secretary for Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.[2] She previously served as an assistant press secretary and presidential writer during the first Donald Trump administrationas well as a spokesperson for MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump Super PAC. In 2022, she ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in New Hampshire’s 1st district, becoming the second member of Generation Z to win a congressional primary. She lost the general election to incumbent Chris Pappas.[3] On November 15, 2024, president-elect Donald Trump chose Leavitt as his White House press secretary to succeed Karine Jean-Pierre.[4] She will be the youngest press secretary in United States history.[5]:

Russell Vought, White House Budget Office

Russell Thurlow Vought (born March 26, 1976), or Russ Vought is an American former government official who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021. He was previously deputy director of the OMB for part of 2018, and acting director from 2019 to 2020.

Sebastian Gorka & Alex Wong, Senior National Security Staff

Sebastian Lukács Gorka (Hungarian: Gorka Sebestyén Lukács; born October 22, 1970)[2] is a British-Hungarian-American media host and commentator, currently affiliated with Salem Radio Network and NewsMax TV, and a former United States government official. He served in the first Trump administration as a Deputy Assistant to the President for seven months, from January until August 2017.[3][4][5][6]

Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense

Peter Brian Hegseth (/ˈhɛɡsɛθ/; born June 6, 1980) is an American television presenter, author, and former Army National Guard officer who has been announced as the forthcoming nominee for United States Secretary of Defense in Donald Trump‘s second cabinet. A political commentator for Fox News since 2014 and weekend co-host of Fox & Friends from 2017 to 2024, he was previously the executive director of Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America.

Doug Collins, Secretary of Veteran’s Administration (VA)

Paul Douglas Collins (born July 28, 1951) is an American basketballexecutive, former player, coach and television analyst in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played in the NBA from 1973 to 1981 for the Philadelphia 76ers, earning four NBA All-Star selections. He then became an NBA coach in 1986, and had stints coaching the Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Washington Wizards and Philadelphia 76ers. Collins also served as an analyst for various NBA-related broadcast shows.[1] He is a recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award. In April 2024, Collins was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2024 by the Contributors Committee.[2]

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State

Marco Antonio Rubio (/ˈruːbioʊ/; born May 28, 1971) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the senior United States senator from Florida, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives from 2006 to 2008. Rubio sought the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2016, winning the presidential primaries in Minnesota, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security

Kristi Lynn Noem (/noʊm/ NOHM;[1] née Arnold; born November 30, 1971) is an American politician who has served since 2019 as the 33rd governor of South Dakota. A member of the Republican Party, she was the U.S. representative for South Dakota’s at-large congressional district from 2011 to 2019, and a member of the South Dakota House of Representatives for the 6th district from 2007 to 2011.

Tom Homan, Border Czar

Thomas Douglas Homan[1] is an American former police officer, immigration official, and political commentator who served during the Obama administration, and will have served in both Trump administrations. He served as acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from January 30, 2017, to June 29, 2018.[2] Homan advocates deportation of illegal immigrants and opposes sanctuary city policies. Within the government, he was among the most strident proponents of separating children from their parents as a means of deterring illegal entry into the country.[3] After 2018, he began contributing to Fox News as a commentator.[4] In November 2024, Trump announced that Homan will serve as “border czar” during his second presidency.[5]

Pam Bondi, Attorney General, Department of Justice (DOJ)

Pamela Jo Bondi[1] (born November 17, 1965) is an American attorney, lobbyist, and politician. A member of the Republican Party, she served as Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019, the first woman elected to the office. In 2020, Bondi was one of President Donald Trump‘s defense lawyers during his first impeachment trial. By 2024, she led the legal arm of the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. On November 21, 2024, president-elect Trump announced she would be nominated for United States attorney general after previous nominee Matt Gaetz withdrew.

John Ratcliffe, Director of the CIA

John Lee Ratcliffe[5] (born October 20, 1965) is an American politician and attorney who served as the director of national intelligence from 2020 to 2021. He previously served as the U.S. representative for Texas‘s 4th districtfrom 2015 to 2020. During his time in Congress, Ratcliffe was regarded as one of the most conservative members.[6][7] Ratcliffe also served as mayor of Heath, Texas, from 2004 to 2012 and acting United States attorney for the Eastern District of Texas from May 2007 to April 2008.

President Donald Trump announced on July 28, 2019, that he intended to nominate Ratcliffe to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence.[8][9] Ratcliffe withdrew after Republican senators raised concerns about him, former intelligence officials said he might politicize intelligence, and media revealed Ratcliffe’s embellishments regarding his prosecutorial experience in terrorism and immigration cases.[10][11][12][13]

Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI)

Tulsi Gabbard (/ˈtʌlsi ˈɡæbərd/ TUL-see GAB-ərd; born April 12, 1981) is an American politician and military officer serving as a Lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve[2][3] since 2021, having previously served in Hawaii Army National Guard from 2003 to 2020.[3][4] In November 2024, President-electTrump selected Gabbard for the position of Director of national intelligence in his second term, starting January 2025.[2][5] A former Congresswoman, Gabbard served as U.S. Representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. She was the first Samoan-American member of Congress.[6] She was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.[7][8] She left the Democratic Party in 2022 to become an independent. In 2024, she joined the Republican Party.[9][10][11]

• Author For Love of Country

Mike Waltz, National Security Advisor

Michael George Glen Waltz (born January 31, 1974) is an American politician and a colonel in the United States Army serving as the U.S. representative for Florida’s 6th congressional district. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 2018 and succeeded Ron DeSantis, who went on to be elected the 46th governor of Florida in 2018. On November 12, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced he will appoint Waltz to serve as his national security advisor.

• Author of Hard Truths: Think & Lead Like A Green Beret

Kash Patal, Director of the FBI

Kashyap Pramod Vino “Kash” Patel (born February 25, 1980)[1] is an American attorney and former government official. He served as a U.S. National Security Council official, senior advisor to the acting Director of National Intelligence, and chief of staff to the acting United States secretary of defense during the Trump presidency.[2][3][4] A member of the Republican Party, Patel previously worked as a senior aide to congressman Devin Nuneswhen he chaired the House Intelligence Committee.[5] He was previously a federal public defender, a federal prosecutor working on national security cases, and a legal liaison to the United States Armed Forces.[6]

• Does Christopher Wray Has To Resign First?

Scott Bessent, Secretary of Treasury

Scott Kenneth Homer Bessent (/ˈbɛsənt/ BEH-sənt; born August 1962) is an American hedge fund manager. He was a partner at Soros Fund Management and the founder of Key Square Group, a global macro investment firm.[1][2] Bessent has been a major fundraiser and donor for Donald Trump. He was an economic advisor for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. In November 2024, President-elect Trump named Bessent his nominee for Secretary of the Treasury.[3]

• Is Bessent Compromised By Association with Soros & Rockefellers?
• Scott Bessent, who will lead the Treasury Department, previously worked at George Soros Fund Management from 1991 to 2000, and then again as Chief Investment Officer from 2011 to 2015. During this period, he made a significant bet against the British pound, contributing to Soros’ famous “breaking of the Bank of England” and earning billions for the firm. The London office was led by Peter Soros, George Soros’ nephew, who has been named by Epstein’s former butler, Alfred Rodriguez, as having been involved in Epstein’s s*x trafficking activities. Bessent is also on the Board of Trustees at Rockefeller University, alongside prominent figures in the globalist establishment. ~ Shadow of Era

Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce

Howard William Lutnick (/ˈlʌtnɪk/; born July 14, 1961[1]) is an American businessman, who succeeded Bernard Gerald Cantor as the head of Cantor Fitzgerald. Lutnick is the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Group. After losing 658 employees, including his brother, in the September 11 attacks, Lutnick also survived the subsequent collapse of the towers on the ground, and has since become known for his charity efforts through the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, which helps to aid families of victims of the attacks and natural disasters. He was a fundraiser for Donald Trump’s 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns, as well as a vocal proponent of Trump’s proposal to implement broad tariffs. In November 2024, President-elect Trump announced that he intended to nominate Lutnick as secretary of commerce. He was also co-founder of DOGE.

To Be Determined, Administrator of the SBA

Image Here…

Wikipedia:

Brendon Carr, Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

Brendan Thomas Carr (born January 5, 1979) is an American lawyer who has served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) since 2017.[7] Appointed to the position by Donald Trump, Carr previously served as the agency’s general counsel and as an aide to FCC commissioner Ajit Pai. In private practice, Carr formerly worked as a telecommunications attorney at Wiley Rein.[8]

Carr supports changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Actand opposes net neutrality protections.[9][10] Carr is noted for his support for banning TikTok on national security grounds.[11][12] He is an opponent of content moderation on digital platforms, saying he would seek to “dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights.”[13][14] He authored a chapter in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, the blueprint document of Heritage Foundation‘s Project 2025, which outlines proposed policies for a future Donald Trump administration. In office, Carr has been noted for being unusually vocal about public policy issues for a regulatory appointee, accusing House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff of overseeing a “secret and partisan surveillance machine”.[15]

• Restore Net Neutrality & Equalize the Internet Playing Field

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor

Lori Michelle Chávez-DeRemer (/ˈtʃɑːvɛzdəˈriːmər/; born April 7, 1968)[1] is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Oregon’s 5th congressional district since 2023.[2] A member of the Republican Party, Chavez-DeRemer served as mayor of Happy Valley, Oregon, from 2011 to 2019. She is the first Republican woman to represent Oregon in the House. Additionally, she is one of the first two Hispanic women (alongside Andrea Salinas) elected to the United States Congressfrom Oregon. Chavez-DeRemer served one term in the House before being defeated in 2024 by Democrat Janelle Bynum. On November 22, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Chavez-DeRemer as his. Secretary of Labor.[3]

Scott Turner, Secretary of Housing & Urban Development

Eric Scott Turner (born February 26, 1972) is an American businessman, motivational speaker, politician, and former professional football player, who previously served as the executive director of the White HouseOpportunity and Revitalization Council.[1]Turner formerly served as a Texas state representative for the 33rd District, which includes part of Collin County and all of Rockwall County. Before entering politics, Turner was an American football cornerbackwho played in the National Football League(NFL) for nine seasons. In November 2024, Trump announced his intention to name Turner as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in his second administration.[2]

Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of Health & Human Services

Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954), also known by his initials RFK Jr., is an American politician, environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist whom President-elect Donald Trump has nominated to serve as United States secretary of health and human services.[1] Kennedy is the chairman and founder of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group and proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.[2][3] He was on the ballot in some states as an independentcandidate in the 2024 United States presidential election.[4] A member of the Kennedy family, he is a son of United States Attorney General and senator Robert F. Kennedy, and a nephew of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and senator Ted Kennedy.

• Mission to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA)

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)

Mehmet Cengiz Öz[a] (/məˈmɛt ˈdʒɛŋɡɪz ɒz/meh-MET JENG-gihz oz; Turkish: [mehˈmetdʒeɲˈɟiz øz]; born June 11, 1960),[2] also known as Dr. Oz (/ɒz/), is a Turkish-American television personality, physician, author, professor emeritus of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University,[3] and former political candidate.[4]

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, Ph.D., Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya (born 1968) is an American professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University. He is the director of Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. His research focuses on the economics of health care.[2][3][4] In 2021, Bhattacharya was opposed to lockdowns and mask mandates as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[5][6] With Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta, he was a co-author in 2020 of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated lifting COVID-19restrictions on lower-risk groups to develop herd immunity through widespread infection, while promoting the fringe notion that vulnerable people could be simultaneously protected from the virus.[7][8][9] The declaration was criticized as being unethical and infeasible by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization.[10]

• Co-Author of The Great Barrington Declaration

Dr. Dave Weldon, Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

David Joseph Weldon (born August 31, 1953) is an American politician and physician. He was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Florida’s 15th congressional district, and was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination in Florida’s 2012 U.S. Senate race. In November 2024, Donald Trump named Weldon as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.[1]

• Mission to Restoring Truth & Transparency

Marty Makary MD, MPH, Commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA)

Martin Adel Makary (/məˈkæri/) is a British-American surgeon, professor, author, and medical commentator. He practices surgical oncology and gastrointestinal laparoscopic surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, is Mark Ravitch Chair in Gastrointestinal Surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and teaches public health policy as Professor of Surgery and Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  Makary is an advocate for disruptive innovationin medicine and physician-led initiatives, such as The Surgical Checklist, which he developed at Johns Hopkins and which was later popularized in Atul Gawande’s best-selling book The Checklist Manifesto.[1] \

Makary was named one of the most influential people in healthcare by HealthLeader magazine in 2013.[2]In 2018, Makary was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.[3] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Makary was an early advocate for universal masking to control the pandemic and recommended vaccines for adults.[4] However, he was an outspoken opponent of broad COVID-19 vaccine mandates and, in late 2021 and early 2022, non-pharmaceutical interventions meant to reduce transmission in schools and universities.[5][6] In November 2024, President-Elect Donald Trump announced Makary would be his nominee to head the FDA as the commissioner of Food and Drugs.[7]

• Mission to Examine the Causes of Chronic Illness
• “The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the COVID pandemic has been the United States government … Public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people.” ~ Marty Makary, MD, MPH
• Author of Blind Spots

Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, US Surgeon General

Janette Nesheiwat (born 25 August 1980) is an American physician who is the nominee for United States surgeon general.[2] Nesheiwat has served as an assistant medical director of CityMD[3] and is currently a medical contributor on Fox News.[4]

• Getting Flak for Her Previous Vaccine/COVID Positions. ~ Dr. Simone Gold
• Trump’s pick for Surgeon General, Janette Nesheiwat, praised Facebook for censoring anti-vaccine information & accounts like mine and RFK’s specifically, adding that she will “hope and pray” other social media companies do the same. Pick someone else. ~ Elizabeth Health Nut News

Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior

Douglas James Burgum (/bɜːrɡəm/ BUR-gəm;[1] born August 1, 1956) is an American businessman and politician serving since 2016 as the 33rd governor of North Dakota.[2][3] He is among the richest politicians in the United States and has an estimated net worth of at least $1.1 billion. He is a member of the Republican Party.[4] Burgum was born and raised in Arthur, North Dakota.

After graduating from North Dakota State University in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in university studies and earning an MBA from Stanford University two years later,[5]he mortgaged inherited farmland in 1983 to invest in Great Plains Software in Fargo. Becoming its president in 1984, he took the company public in 1997. Burgum sold the company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001. While working at Microsoft, he managed Microsoft Business Solutions. He has served as board chairman for Australian software company Atlassian and SuccessFactors.

Burgum is the founder of Kilbourne Group, a Fargo-based real-estate development firm, and also is the co-founder of Arthur Ventures, a software venture capital group. Burgum won the 2016 North Dakota gubernatorial election in a landslide. He was reelected by a wide margin in 2020.[6] In June 2023, Burgum launched a campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He ended his candidacy in early December 2023,[7]and became an advisor on the Trump campaign‘s energy policy.[8] On November 14, 2024, President-elect Trump announced his intention to nominate Burgum as the United States Secretary of the Interior.[9]

Kelly Loeffler, Secretary of Agriculture

Kelly Lynn Loeffler (/ˈlɛflər/ LEF-lər; born November 27, 1970) is an American businesswoman and politician who served as a United States senator from Georgia from 2020 to 2021. Loeffler was chief executive officer(CEO) of Bakkt, a subsidiary of commodity and financial service provider Intercontinental Exchange, of which her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is CEO. She is a former co-owner of the Atlanta Dream of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).[1] 

Loeffler is a member of the Republican Party. Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, appointed Loeffler to the U.S. Senate in December 2019 after Senator Johnny Isakson resigned for health reasons. Loeffler ran in the 2020 Georgia U.S. Senate special election, seeking to hold the seat until January 2023. She finished second in the November 3 election, advancing to a runoff with DemocratRaphael Warnock held on January 5, 2021, where she lost.[2] That same day, her fellow Georgia senator David Perdue also lost his bid for re-election.

When Perdue’s term ended on January 3, 2021, Loeffler ascended to be the senior senator from Georgia, a position she held for just under three weeks until Warnock was sworn in. Loeffler aligned with President Donald Trump in her time in the Senate, touting a “100 percent Trump voting record” during her campaigns.[3][4] After the November 2020 election, Loeffler and Perdue claimed without evidence that there had been unspecified failures in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and called for the resignation of Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who rejected the accusations.

She later supported a lawsuit by Trump allies seeking to overturn the election results,[5] and also announced her intention to object to the certification of the Electoral College results in Congress.[6] After the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Loeffler announced that she would withdraw her objection to the certification of the electoral votes and later voted to certify. Loeffler was chosen by president-elect Trump to co-chair his inaugural committee in his upcoming second presidency, along with Steve Witkoff.

Brooke Rollins, Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Brooke Leslie Rollins (born April 10, 1972)[1]is an American attorney who is the president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute. She previously served as the acting director of the United States Domestic Policy Councilunder President Donald Trump. Prior to assuming that role, Rollins oversaw the White House Office of American Innovation. Rollins was president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based fossil fuels and school voucher supporting think tank, from 2003 through 2018.[2] During her tenure at TPPF, the think tank grew from having a staff of 3 to a staff of 100.[3] Rollins previously served as deputy general counsel, ethics advisor, and policy director to Texas Governor Rick Perry.[4] She is an advocate of criminal justice reform.[5] On November 23, 2024, President-elect Trump selected Rollins to be secretary of agriculture.[6]

Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Lee Michael Zeldin (born January 30, 1980) is an American attorney, politician, and officer in the United States Army Reserve. A member of the Republican Party, he represented New York’s 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2023. He represented the eastern two-thirds of Suffolk County, including most of Smithtown, all of Brookhaven, Riverhead, Southold, Southampton, East Hampton, Shelter Island, and a small part of Islip. From 2011 to 2014, Zeldin served as a member of the New York State Senate from the 3rd Senate district. During Donald Trump‘s presidency, Zeldin was a Trump ally.

He prominently defended Trump during his first impeachment hearingsconcerning the Trump–Ukraine scandal. In April 2021, Zeldin announced his candidacy for governor of New York in 2022.[1] He defeated three challengers in the Republican primary, becoming the nominee of the Republican Party and the Conservative Party. Zeldin lost the election to incumbent governor Kathy Hochulwhile receiving the highest percentage of the vote for a Republican gubernatorial nominee since 2002 and the highest raw vote total for a Republican gubernatorial nominee since 1970.[2] In November 2024, CNN reported that Zeldin was Trump’s nominee for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.[3]

Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy (DOE)

Christopher Allen Wright[1] (born 1965) is an American businessman who is the CEO of Liberty Energy, North America’s second largest hydraulic fracturing company. He is the presumptive nominee for United States Secretary of Energy under Donald Trump‘s second presidency. He is a board member of Oklo Inc., a nuclear technology company, and EMX Royalty, a royalty payment company for mineral rights and mining rights.[2]

Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation

Sean Patrick Duffy (born October 3, 1971) is an American politician, prosecutor, lobbyist, and reality television personality who is currently a co-host of The Bottom Line on Fox Business, as well as a contributor on Fox News. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the U.S. representative for Wisconsin’s 7th congressional district from 2011 to 2019. After resigning from Congress, he became a lobbyist.[1] He first gained fame as a cast member on The Real World: Boston, 1998’s Road Rules: All Stars and 2002’s Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons, before going on to serve as district attorney of Ashland County, Wisconsin. In November 2024, Donald Trump named Duffy as his nominee for Secretary of Transportationin his second presidency.[2]

Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education

Linda Marie McMahon (/məkˈmæn/; née Edwards; born October 4, 1948) is an American politician, business executive and retired professional wrestler. She was the 25th administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019. McMahon has been nominated to lead the Department of Education under the second Trump administration.

McMahon, along with her husband, Vince McMahon, founded sports entertainment company Titan Sports, Inc. (later World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.) where she worked as the president and later CEO from 1980 to 2009. During this time, the company grew from a regional business in the northeast to a large multinational corporation. Among other things, she initiated the company’s civic programs, Get R.E.A.L. and SmackDown! Your Vote. She made occasional on-screen performances, most notably in a feud with her husband that culminated at WrestleMania X-Seven.

On April 15, she was named chairwoman of America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC. On November 19, 2024, McMahon was nominated by Donald Trump to serve as Secretary of Education.[2]

Vivek Ramaswamy, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy (/vɪˈveɪkrɑːməˈswɑːmiː/;[1][2] vih-VAYK rah-mə-SWAH-mee; born August 9, 1985) is an American entrepreneur. He founded Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical company, in 2014. In February 2023, Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination in the 2024 United States presidential election. He suspended his campaign in January 2024, after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses and endorsed Trump.[3] On November 12, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Ramaswamy and businessman Elon Musk had been tasked to lead the newly proposed Department of Government Efficiency.[4] Ramaswamy was born in Cincinnati to Indian immigrant parents. He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in biology and later earned a degree from Yale Law School. Ramaswamy worked as an investment partner at a hedge fund before founding Roivant Sciences. He also co-founded an investment firm, Strive Asset Management. Ramaswamy sees the United States in the middle of a national identity crisis precipitated by what he calls “new secular religions like COVID-ism, climate-ism, and gender ideology”.[5] He is also a critic of environmental, social, and corporate governance initiatives (ESG).[6]In January 2024, Forbes estimated Ramaswamy’s net worth at more than $960 million; his wealth comes from biotechand financial businesses.[7][8]

• Mission to Dismantle the Regulatory State & Cut Wasteful Spending

Elon Musk, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Elon Reeve Musk FRS (/ˈiːlɒn/; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. His other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. In November 2024, United States president-elect Donald Trumpappointed Musk as the co-chair of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the second Trump administration. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of November 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$304 billion.[2]

Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and briefly attended the University of Pretoria before immigrating to Canada at the age of 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen’s University at Kingston in Canada. Musk later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania and received bachelor’s degreesin economics and physics. He moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University, but never enrolled in classes, and with his brother Kimbal co-founded the online city guidesoftware company Zip2. The startup was acquired by Compaq for $307 million in 1999. That same year, Musk co-founded X.com, a direct bank. X.com merged with Confinity in 2000 to form PayPal. In 2002, Musk acquired US citizenship, and that October eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion. Using $100 million of the money he made from the sale of PayPal, Musk founded SpaceX, a spaceflight services company, in 2002. 

In 2004, Musk was an early investor in electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, Inc. (later Tesla, Inc.), providing most of the initial financing and assuming the position of the company’s chairman. He later became the product architect and, in 2008, the CEO. In 2006, Musk helped create SolarCity, a solar energy company that was acquired by Tesla in 2016 and became Tesla Energy. In 2013, he proposed a hyperloop high-speed vactrain transportation system. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI, a nonprofit artificial intelligenceresearch company. The following year Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology company developing brain–computer interfaces, and The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company.

In early 2024, Musk became active in American politics as a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump, becoming Trump’s second-largest individual donor in October 2024. In November 2024, Trump announced that he had chosen Musk along with Vivek Ramaswamyto co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new advisory board which aims to improve government efficiency through measures such as slashing “excess regulations” and cutting “wasteful expenditures”.

• Mission to Dismantle the Regulatory State & Cut Wasteful Spending

AMERICA FIRST AGENDA BY EXECUTIVE ORDER

  • Restore Border Security & Immigration Including Mass Deportation of Illegal Aliens
  • Declare War on Drug Cartels (Including Big Pharma & Global Actors)
  • Declare War on Child Trafficking & Establish Death Penalty for Convicted Human Traffickers
  • Halt Federal Funds for Any State or Local Government Defying Federal Immigration Law (End Sanctuary Cities)
  • Halt Federal Funds for Inappropriate Curricula Including Critical Race Theory, DEI, Transgender & Anti-American Political Content Taught in Schools
  • End Mutilation of Youth Through Gender Transitions; Cease Funding Any Sex & Gender Transition
  • Halt Federal Funding for Any Abortion Procedure or Organ Harvesting of New-Born Infants
  • Private Right of Action for Victims to Sue Doctors; Civil Rights Violations; Cease Funding to School Districts
  • End Electric Vehicle Mandates; Making Them Voluntary Not Mandatory
  • Restore Fundamental Protection of Free Speech & All Constitutional Rights; Prohibit Any Future Collusion Between Government & Private Sector to Deprive Citizens of Rights
  • Dismantle Needless Bureaucracy & Regulations
  • Dismantle or Overhaul All Weaponized Government Agencies Via Schedule F (Firing Incompetent or Corrupt Staff By Executive Order)
  • Clean Out All Corrupt Actors in National Security, Defense & Intelligence Apparatus

ESTABLISHING NEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS & LEGISLATION

  • Founding Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)with Mission to Dismantle the Regulatory State & Cut Wasteful Spending)
  • Restore Economic Prosperity for All
  • Restore Energy Independence By All Means Necessary Including Fracking, Drilling & Green Energy
  • Restore Tax Incentives for Small Businesses
  • Cap Credit Card Rates at 10%
  • Founding The American Academy (Full Spectrum of Human Knowledge for Free Online; Bachelor’s Degree Available)
  • Department of Education Appoints New Accreditors for All Colleges/Universities to Qualify for Federal Funding (Restore Meritocracy in Our Educational Institutions)
  • Eliminate the Federal Income Tax & Replace with Tariffs On Imports
  • Allow IRS Deduction Up to $10k Towards Homeschooling Per Child
  • Become #1 Energy Producer in the World & Restore Energy Independence
  • Repeal of the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act
  • Restore FAIR Act for Equal Time in Broadcasting
  • Revoke Licenses & Funding for Propaganda Media (Including NPR)
  • Reintroduce 28th Amendment with Required That All Laws Applied Equally to Citizens & Congress
  • Propose ? Amendment for Term-Limits on Elected Officials in Congress
  • Restore Net Neutrality To Equalize the Internet Playing Field Once Again
  • Restore Restricted Regulations for GMO’s in Food & Medicine: https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/6417/conservationists-and-farmers-sue-over-trump-administration-removal-of-most-genetically-engineered-organism-regulation
  • Restore Accountability in the Judicial System & Fire Judicial Activists Who Violate Their Oath of Allegiance to the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights
  • Review US Supreme Court’s Citizens United Ruling Which Removed Limits to Corporate Funding/Lobbyists Thereby Corrupting Election Officials

Sources: X.com & Wikipedia

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Bayer to Pull Glyphosate Products, Including Roundup, From U.S. Home and Garden Market | AgWeb, EcoWatch & Waking Times

By Olivia Rosane

Bayer will no longer sell glyphosate-containing products to U.S. home gardeners, the company announced on Thursday.

The move comes as the company currently faces around 30,000 legal claims from customers who believe use of these products — including the flagship Roundup — caused them to develop cancer, as AgWeb reported.

“Bayer’s decision to end U.S. residential sale of Roundup is a historic victory for public health and the environment,” Center for Food Safety executive director Andrew Kimbrell said in a statement. “As agricultural, large-scale use of this toxic pesticide continues, our farmworkers remain at risk. It’s time for EPA to act and ban glyphosate for all uses.”

Glyphosate is a controversial ingredient because it has been linked to the development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, as Cure noted. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that it was “probably carcinogenic to humans,” in 2015. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under former President Donald Trump ruled that the chemical did not pose any risk to human health, the Biden Administration later admitted that the review was flawed and needed to be redone, as Common Dreams reported. Still, it refused to take it off the market in the meantime. 

Bayer’s decision comes in response to the many lawsuits related to glyphosate that it inherited when it acquired Monsanto in 2018. Juries sided with the plaintiffs in three highly-watched trials before Bayer settled around 95,000 cases in 2020 to the tune of $10 billion. That settlement, which was one of the largest in U.S. history, allowed Bayer to continue to sell Roundup without any warnings. However, the company still faces further litigation, and said it decided to pull the product from residential use in order to prevent more. More than 90 percent of recent claims come from the residential home and garden market, AgWeb reported.

“This move is being made exclusively to manage litigation risk and not because of any safety concerns,” the company said when it announced its decision. 

The products will be replaced with different active ingredients beginning in 2023, following reviews by the EPA and state regulatory bodies. January 2023 was the earliest the change could reasonably be implemented, Bayer Crop Science Division president Liam Condon told AgWeb.

“This is from a regulatory and logistical point of view (of what’s) possible,” Condon said during a conference call with investors, as AgWeb reported.

Source: AgWeb, Ecowatch & Waking Times

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How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades | Rolling Stone

Screen Shot 2020-03-07 at 8.45.41 PMBy Tim Dickenson

Every human on Earth is ingesting nearly 2,000 particles of plastic a week. These tiny pieces enter our unwitting bodies from tap water, food, and even the air, according to an alarming academic study sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, dosing us with five grams of plastics, many cut with chemicals linked to cancers, hormone disruption, and developmental delays. Since the paper’s publication last year, Sen. Tom Udall, a plain-spoken New Mexico Democrat with a fondness for white cowboy hats and turquoise bolo ties, has been trumpeting the risk: “We are consuming a credit card’s worth of plastic each week,” Udall says. At events with constituents, he will brandish a Visa from his wallet and declare, “You’re eating this, folks!”

With new legislation, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020, Udall is attempting to marshal Washington into a confrontation with the plastics industry, and to force companies that profit from plastics to take accountability for the waste they create. Unveiled in February, the bill would ban many single-use plastics and force corporations to finance “end of life” programs to keep plastic out of the environment. “We’re going back to that principle,” the senator tells Rolling Stone. “The polluter pays.”

The battle pits Udall and his allies in Congress against some of the most powerful corporate interests on the planet, including the oil majors and chemical giants that produce the building blocks for our modern plastic world — think Exxon, Dow, and Shell — and consumer giants like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Unilever that package their products in the stuff. Big Plastic isn’t a single entity. It’s more like a corporate supergroup: Big Oilmeets Big Soda — with a puff of Big Tobacco, responsible for trillions of plastic cigarette butts in the environment every year. And it combines the lobbying and public-relations might of all three.

Americans have occasionally crusaded against “problem plastics” — scapegoating packing peanuts, grocery bags, or drinking straws for the sins of our unsustainable consumer economy. We’ve been slow to recognize that we’re actually in the midst of a plastic pandemic. Over the past 70 years, we’ve gotten hooked on disposable goods and packaging — as plastics became the lifeblood of an American culture of speed, convenience, and disposability that’s conquered the globe. Plastic contains our hot coffee and frozen dinners. It is the material of childhood, from Pampers to Playmobil to PlayStation 4. It cloaks our e-commerce purchases and is woven into our sneakers, fast fashion, and business fleece. Humans are now using a million plastic bottles a minute, and 500 billion plastic bags a year — including those we use to bag up our plastic-laden trash.

But the world’s plastic waste is not so easily contained. Massive quantities of this forever material are spilling into the oceans — the equivalent of a dump-truck load every minute. Plastic is also fouling our mountains, our farmland, and spiraling into an unmitigatable environmental disaster. John Hocevar is a marine biologist who leads the Oceans Campaign for Greenpeace, and spearheaded the group’s response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Increasingly, his work has centered on plastics. “This is a much bigger problem than ‘just’ an ocean issue, or even a pollution issue,” he says. “We’ve found plastic everywhere we’ve ever looked. It’s in the Arctic and the Antarctic and in the middle of the Pacific. It’s in the Pyrenees and in the Rockies. It’s settling out of the air. It’s raining down on us.”

Source: Rolling Stone

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The liberal media only cares about GMOs when they involve wildlife, not human children | Pesticides News/Natural News


There’s a wild conspiracy theory being perpetuated by the Trump-hating mainstream media right now that claims the president is reversing an Obama-era ban on the use of pesticides and GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) in national wildlife refuges. But an in-depth Natural Newsinvestigation has revealed that this claim is just more fake news, as Obama never actually banned either of these poisons from nationally-owned land.

In fact, a 2014 memo issued by Obama about the types of chemicals and agricultural inputs that are allowed on federal land is almost identical to the one recently issued by Trump – meaning there’s been virtually no change in the policy for at least the past four years. But this isn’t what the liberal media is now reporting as it tries to claim that Trump is “destroying the environment” – which is just the latest psy-op to rile up the public against the president.

All during the Obama years, Natural News was at the forefront of reporting on such issues, seeing as how monitoring GMOs and chemical pesticides and herbicides is our forte. If you go back in our archives and search for these topics, you’ll see that Obama was hardly a friend of the environment, nor was he at all concerned about damaging toxins and fake food crops invading federal land.

Because it was Obama engaging in this sleight-of-hand – remember, it was Obama who lied on the campaign trail about banning the very same GMOs that he ultimately allowed in wildlife refuges – the mainstream media was nowhere to be found in condemning him. But now that Trump is basically affirming this Obama-era policy with no changes, the liberal liars would have us all believe that Trump “hates the environment” and is “destroying the planet.”

“The latest assault comes from a wave of extremely deceptive, misleading stories that now claim the Trump administration has reversed an Obama-era regulatory decision that banned the use of neonics and GMOs on national wildlife refuge lands,” says Mike Adams, the Health Ranger.

“They claim the memo completely reverses the Obama-era pesticide ban. But a factual reading of the two memos (one from 2014, one from 2018) shows this interpretation to be highly inaccurate, if not deliberately deceptive.”

You can read the two memos side by side and see for yourself the deception by visiting this link.

The fake media harms us all

What’s stunningly hypocritical about those criticizing the president over the fake news it made up about him is that it’s suddenly popular to oppose the deadly chemical poisons that independent media outlets like Natural News have been warning about for years. We’ve faced plenty of criticism, mockery, and abuse for simply warning about the dangers of GMOs and crop chemicals, both of which are harming children by the millions, not to mention the environment.

However, now that Trump is at the helm continuing this status quo, liberal news outlets are going nuts pretending like they care about these same issues – the exception being that they only seem to care about the wildlife refuges, and not about children. It’s just another sick ploy by these psychopaths to target Trump when, in fact, they couldn’t care less about either planet or children.

While we’re in full agreement that Trump needs to stop this chemical assault on our planet and our children, the truth of the matter is that nothing has changed under his presidency, despite what the fake media is claiming. GMOs and crop chemicals are still being used just as they always were, and still need to be fought against, regardless of who the sitting president might be.

Source: Pesticides News/Natural News

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Scientists warn of toxic chemical cocktail sprayed on food | GM Watch


As the number of chemicals applied to vegetables sold in supermarkets goes up 17-fold, experts say pesticides must be phased out of food production. Report by Claire Robinson

The number of chemicals applied to vegetables sold in supermarkets has increased by up to 17-fold over 40 years, according to data presented at a conference organized by the Epidemiology and Public Health Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in London on 20 November, which I attended on behalf of GMWatch.

Just as disturbing as the data on our escalating exposure to toxic pesticide mixtures was the evidence presented at the conference that the regulatory system for pesticides is failing.

Scientists explained that while the system tests the single active ingredients in pesticides, it fails to test the many accompanying chemicals (adjuvants) used in pesticide formulations to enhance the effectiveness of the active ingredients. It also fails to test the combined effects of the formulations of chemicals used in commercial pesticides, let alone the cocktail effect of being exposed to multiple pesticides, as most farmers, rural residents and consumers are.

Indeed, as one scientist pointed out, there are simply too many potential combinations of chemicals to test and regulate. Nor, we heard, does the regulatory system test low, realistic doses of these chemicals that may give rise to endocrine (hormone) disruption, which can in turn lead to serious illnesses that are increasing in the population.

Because of these facts, there is simply no way of ensuring the safe use of pesticides in agriculture.

Chemical cocktails increasing

Figures released for the first time at the conference showed that the number of toxic chemicals applied to onions, leeks, wheat and potatoes has been steadily increasing since the 1960s.

This is despite industry data showing that the volume of pesticides applied to supermarket vegetables has halved since the 1990s.

The number of pesticides applied to onions and leeks has risen 17-fold from 1.8 in 1966 to 32.6 in 2015, the data showed.

In 1974, fewer than two chemicals were applied to the average wheat crop, but this rose more than 10-fold to 20.7 in 2014. Potatoes are now sprayed with five times more chemicals than in 1975, with the number rising from 5.3 to 30.8 in 2014.

The figures were compiled by the data firm Fera Science and were only made public after the Soil Association, which certifies organic food in the UK, paid for them to be released. While Fera did not measure actual residues present in the produce, the fact that so many pesticides were applied to the growing crops suggests that at least some residues would be found if they were looked for.

Anne_Marie_Vinggaard

The conference followed the publication of an article in the journal Science by Prof Ian Boyd, chief scientific advisor to the UK government’s department of agriculture (DEFRA). Prof Boyd wrote that the assumption by regulators around the world that it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes is false.

Scientist Prof Anne Marie Vinggaard of the National Food Institute in Denmark warned that chemicals that have no effect in isolation can have a pronounced toxic effect when found in mixtures. In real life we are exposed not to one chemical at a time but to mixtures. In addition, commercial pesticide formulations, many of which are endocrine disruptors, are themselves mixtures of active ingredients and adjuvants. “We are exposed to a lot of chemicals acting together,” said Prof Vinggaard. “We must take account of this cocktail effect.”

But pesticide regulations fail to do so.

Carlo Leifert

Pesticides linked to low sperm quality

Prof Carlo Leifert, director of the Centre for Organics Research at Southern Cross University in Australia, cited research showing higher sperm counts and density in men working for the Danish organic farming association and a separate US study showing that high levels of dietary pesticide exposure were linked to low sperm quality in men.

Prof Leifert’s presentation came soon after the publication of a study implicating pesticide-treated foods in fertility problems in women. In the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Harvard researchers followed 325 women at an infertility clinic and found that women who regularly ate pesticide-treated fruits and vegetables had lower success rates getting pregnant with IVF, while women who ate organic food had reduced risk of pregnancy loss and increased fertility.

Eat organic to minimize exposure

Dr Michael Antoniou

Dr Michael Antoniou, head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King’s College London, told the Royal Society of Medicine conference that the adjuvants in commercial pesticide formulations can be toxic in their own right and in some cases more toxic than the declared active ingredients. Yet only the active ingredients are tested and assessed for long-term health effects in the regulatory process.

Dr Antoniou also said that research on hormone-disrupting chemicals, including pesticides, shows that very low realistic doses can be more toxic than higher doses. As pesticides are not tested for low dose effects for regulatory purposes, these effects can be missed by regulatory agencies, leading to a situation in which the public can be exposed to hormone-disrupting levels of these chemicals. This is a matter of concern because hormone disruption is implicated in a large number of diseases that are becoming increasingly widespread, such as hormone-related cancers, obesity, and diabetes.

Dr Antoniou said that regulators around the world have been slow to keep up with the scientific knowledge of harm from low doses of endocrine disrupting chemicals. These effects are not controversial in the scientific community and yet the EU has still not decided how to define endocrine disruptive chemicals, let alone how to regulate them.

Dr Antoniou described his research showing that long term exposure to very low doses of Roundup herbicide far below regulatory permitted levels caused non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in rats. NAFLD has now reached epidemic proportions in the US and Europe, with around 25% of the population suffering from it.

Dr Antoniou told the audience, which included doctors who treat chemically damaged people, “As a precaution, you should minimise your exposure to pesticides. The only way to guarantee that is by eating organically.”

Industry perspectives

Sarah Mukherjee

Occasions like this are often interesting from the point of view of finding out the industry line on the scientific and public relations challenges it is facing, and this event was no exception. One such line was offered by Sarah Mukherjee, CEO of the Crop Protection Association (CPA). Mukherjee is a former BBC journalist who began her presentation by stating that she had no scientific background. Her presentation consisted of emotive stories of her deprived childhood, with the implication that organic food is a luxury that only the affluent can afford and that pesticides were needed to ensure an affordable food supply for all. She did not address any of the scientific points presented by the earlier speakers. In fact, she was not present for those sessions and only arrived later in the day.

The tone and content of her presentation did not sit well with the detailed information on the proven effects of low-dose pesticides provided by the scientist speakers in the morning sessions. It was remarkable for its failure to offer any evidence at all to back up Mukherjee’s premise that we are better off with pesticides.

Glyphosate and cancer

Mukherjee’s closest brush with science was an attempt to exonerate glyphosate herbicides from suspicion of carcinogenicity by quoting the latest updated findings from the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) in the US. These found no link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer. Mukherjee used these findings as a stick to beat IARC, the World Health Organization cancer agency that upset the pesticide industry by concluding that glyphosate was a probable carcinogen.

But what Mukherjee failed to mention was that the study update did find a link between glyphosate and another type of cancer, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) – a link that the researchers said should be followed up with further research. She also did not mention a fact pointed out by the scientist Dr Jennifer Sass – that while the link did not reach statistical significance at the 95% confidence level (a 95% certainty that the findings are not by chance but point to a real effect of glyphosate), at the 90% confidence level it would have been significant. As Sass commented, “With a deadly form of cancer like AML, pesticide applicators, farmers, and other highly exposed people may want to take protective measures, even if studies are only 90% confident in the link to AML cancer.”

Mukherjee also failed to mention that IARC took the AHS’s “no effect” finding from glyphosate into consideration in its assessment of glyphosate, since previous findings from the AHS that were already published at the time of IARC’s review had also found no effect. Other epidemiological studies did find a link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This contradictory evidence is why IARC said there was only “limited” proof of a glyphosate link with cancer from epidemiological studies. However, it classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen on the basis of “sufficient” evidence in controlled laboratory studies on animals. These types of study, unlike epidemiological studies, demonstrate a causal link and are therefore a far stronger form of evidence.

I was not the only audience member to conclude that Mukherjee was seriously out of her depth among a speaker line-up of heavyweight scientists, addressing an audience of scientists, medics, and experts from relevant fields. One scientist told me he was shocked that the CPA chose to send Mukherjee as its representative to such an event: “Couldn’t they find a scientist who was willing to take this on?”

Is organic food elitist?

Mukherjee’s “organic food is elitist” meme did not play well with me. I speak as someone who at one point in my life lived in a partnership in which neither of us had any income or savings and we had to survive off very meagre state benefits. Yet we ate organic 100% of the time. We did it by cooking fresh food from scratch each day (it didn’t take much time), buying via farm box delivery schemes rather than from supermarkets, eating mostly vegetarian, and – obviously – not spending money on luxuries.

On our occasional forays to the supermarket to buy loo rolls and cleaning fluids, we were gobsmacked at the large amounts of money being spent on the weekly shop by families with trolleys full of processed food. Even without getting into discussions about the “externalized” costs of eating pesticide-contaminated food, such as getting sick, we simply could not afford that type of food. So who exactly were the elite in this situation? Certainly not us. This is just one example among many of Mukherjee’s irrational and frankly insulting approach to the vital topic of food security.

Dr Chris Hartfield

Speakers in support of pesticide safety

The other people speaking in support of the safety and benefits of pesticides were Dr Chris Hartfield of the National Farmers Union (NFU) and Dave Bench of the UK government’s Health and Safety Executive.

Mr Bench described the regulatory system for pesticides, which he portrayed as robust and as balancing the risks of pesticides against the benefits to society.

Dr Hartfield showed a long list of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques, in which pesticides are only sprayed as a last resort as and when absolutely necessary. He said that 16,820 farmers in the UK are using these techniques on 4.4 million hectares of land.

Dave BenchHowever, members of the audience were skeptical of this claim. Guy Watson, an organic farmer from Riverford Farm in Devon, said that his conventional farmer neighbour laid out his spraying schedule well in advance of the growing season and that all the pesticides were sprayed in accord with the schedule, whether they were needed or not. He suspected that farmers’ practice of IPM was confined to a paper exercise that was not borne out by the reality in the fields.

Mr Watson’s skepticism about UK farmers’ use of IPM was amply supported by the data presented at the conference showing the increasing numbers of pesticides sprayed on our food.

Some members of the audience who suffered repeated exposures to pesticide spraying because they lived near treated fields agreed that a cavalier attitude to the use of pesticides seemed to be the norm among conventional farmers.

Georgina Downs of the UK Pesticides Campaign, which represents rural residents affected by pesticides sprayed in their localities, commented after the conference: “There was the usual gross misinformation stated by the CPA and the NFU – most importantly their insistence that there is a rigorous regulatory system in place for pesticides. There simply is not, and this lie cannot continue to be peddled.

“The conventional chemical farming system has been an untested, unregulated, and unlawful experiment with human health and the environment that has caused untold damage.”

Is farming without pesticides possible?

Agro-industry lobbyists would have us believe that farmers cannot manage without pesticides. What is more, they claim that even organic farmers regularly spray a vast array of pesticides permitted under organic standards. But this picture is far from the reality. Most organic farmers do not spray because they take other measures to protect their crops, such as rotating crops to prevent attacks from over-wintering pests, using barrier methods against pests, cultivating hedges and plants to attract insects and animals that eat pests, and planting cover crops to suppress weeds.

Peter Melchett

This was confirmed by the final speaker at the conference, Peter Melchett, who has been an organic farmer for 19 years and a conventional farmer before that. He said that since converting to organic he has only had to spray a single field once. The one lapse was due to his mistake in planting two related crops in the same field two years running. A pest over-wintered in the field, only to emerge the following year to devour the new crop. Mr Melchett said he never repeated his mistake – and has never had to spray again.

Take-home message

The take-home message from the non-industry speakers at the conference was that the regulatory system for pesticides has failed and cannot be reformed in a way that renders these chemicals safe. As we’ve seen, the system does not test the adjuvants, or the commercial pesticide formulations, or the chemical cocktails to which we are exposed. Neither does it test low, realistic doses that may give rise to endocrine disruption. Therefore pesticides must be eradicated from food production and farming must be entirely converted to proven-successful organic and agroecological practices.

Source: GM Watch

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The Government Is Covering Up Vaccine Deaths | NewsPunch

Editor’s Note: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is continuing his personal crusade against Big Pharma and Big Government collusion, authoring a hard-hitting article explaining that the government are withholding information from the public about vaccines – and covering up vaccine deaths – in order to protect pharmaceutical companies.

Vaccine scientists and the public health community cautiously and occasionally will admit that vaccines can cause adverse reactions just like “any other medication or biological product.” Although experts are less willing to openly disclose the fact that adverse reactions can and do include death, one has only to look at reports to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to see that mortality is a possible outcome.

From 1990 through 2010, for example, VAERS received 1,881 reports of infant deaths following vaccination, representing 4.8% of the adverse events reported for infants over the 20-year period.

Moreover, analysts acknowledge that VAERS, as a passive surveillance system, is subject to substantial underreporting. A federal government report from 2010 affirms that VAERS captures only about 1% of vaccine adverse reports.

On the international frontier, the public health community—with the World Health Organization (WHO) in the vanguard—previously used a six-category framework to investigate and categorize serious adverse events following immunization (AEFI), including death.

Guided by this tool, public health teams examined temporal criteria and possible alternative explanations to determine whether the relationship of an AEFI to vaccine administration was “very likely/certain,” “probable,” “possible,” “unlikely,” “unrelated,” or “unclassifiable.”

In 2013, the WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety discarded the prior tool, ostensibly because users “sometimes [found it] difficult to differentiate between ‘probable,’ ‘possible,’ and ‘unlikely’ categories.” The WHO enlisted vaccine experts to develop a “simpler” algorithm that would be more readily “applicable” to vaccines. The resulting four-category system now invites public health teams to classify an AEFI as either “consistent,” “inconsistent,” or “indeterminate” with a vaccine-related causal association or as “unclassifiable.”

Despite the patina of logic suggested by the use of an algorithm, “the final outcome of the case investigation depends on the personal judgment of the assessor” [emphasis added], especially (according to the tool’s proponents) when the process “yields answers that are both consistent and inconsistent with a causal association to immunization.”

In a 2017 letter in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, Drs. Jacob Puliyel (an India-based pediatrician and member of India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization) and Anant Phadke (an executive member of the All India Drug Action Network) raise important questions about the revised tool.

They describe an Orwellian Catch-22 situation wherein it is nearly impossible to categorize post-vaccine deaths as vaccine-related. This is because the revised algorithm does not allow users to classify an AEFI as “consistent with causal association with vaccine” unless there is evidence showing that the vaccine caused a statistically significant increase in deaths during Phase III clinical trials.

By definition, however, any vaccine not found to “retain safety” in Phase III trials cannot proceed to Phase IV (licensure and post-marketing surveillance). The result of the algorithm’s convoluted requirements is that any deaths that occur post-licensure become “coincidental” or “unclassifiable.”

Drs. Puliyel and Phadke describe what happened in India when the country’s National AEFI committee assessed 132 serious AEFI cases reported between 2012 and 2016, including 54 infant deaths that followed administration of a pentavalent all-in-one vaccine intended to protect recipients against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type b infections. For babies who survived hospitalization, the committee classified three-fifths (47/78) of the AEFI as causally related to vaccines (with 47% of the incidents viewed as “product-related” and 13% as “error-related”), but they rated nearly all (52/54) of the deaths as either coincidental (54%) or unclassifiable (43%) despite mounting evidence that pentavalent and hexavalent vaccines are increasing the risk of sudden unexpected death in infants.

…doctors who “naïvely” accept biased reports on vaccine safety “are losing the trust of the public and in the process…endangering public health.”
The absurdity and negligence inherent in the ultimately subjective WHO checklist have not escaped the attention of others in India and beyond. In a series of comments published in the journal Vaccine in response to the 2013 publication of the revised tool, commenters issued the following scathing remarks:

  • “Even if a healthy child dies within minutes following vaccination and there is no alternate explanation for the AEFI, even then the powers that be could easily declare that death as coincidental and not due to the vaccine, thanks to the new AEFI. This is dangerous ‘science’.”
  • “Amongst the 20 items of their checklist, no less than 15 (75%) are devoted to refute a vaccine-induced causality [emphasis in original]…. After all and as the authors confess with an astonishing ingenuousness, the main point is to ‘maintain public confidence in immunization programs.’”
  • “People understand that there are no true coincidences—only events that have been made to appear to be coincidental by either a genuine lack of understand[ing] of the overall facts leading to the ‘coincidence’ reported or by the deliberate suppression of the facts, including when…AEFIs that result in death are made to ‘disappear.’”
  • “It seems that huge business in [the] vaccine industry is affecting [the] science of vaccines and we are developing various ways to promote the business at the cost of human lives. …Going for a less sensitive tool for safety concerns is not only illogical but risky for the children of the world.”

Unfortunately, many vaccine proponents appear to be more concerned with forestalling “misconceptions” and “erroneous conclusions about cause and effect” than they are about preventing and identifying adverse events following vaccination. The result, as Dr. Puliyel argues, is that doctors who “naïvely” accept biased reports on vaccine safety “are losing the trust of the public and in the process…endangering public health.”

Source: NewsPunch

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Toxic Exposure: Chemicals Are in Our Water, Food, Air and Furniture | UC San Francisco


When her kids were young, Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH, knew more than most people about environmental toxics. After all, she was a senior scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But even she never dreamed, as she rocked her children to sleep at night, that the plastic baby bottles she used to feed them contained toxic chemicals that could leach into the warm milk.

Back then, in the late 1990s, it wasn’t widely known that the chemicals used in plastic sippy cups and baby bottles can potentially disrupt child development by interfering with the hormone system. That, in turn, could alter the functionality of their reproductive systems or increase their risk of disease later in their lives.

“When I had babies, I did many of the things we now tell people not to do,” says Woodruff, who for the past decade has been the director of UC San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE). Also a professor in the University’s Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, she earned her doctorate in 1991 from a joint UCSF-Berkeley program in bioengineering and then completed a postgraduate fellowship at UCSF.

Woodruff’s children have since grown into physically healthy teenagers, but many children are not as lucky. Unregulated chemicals are increasing in use and are prevalent in products Americans use every day. Woodruff is concerned by the concurrent rise in many health conditions, like certain cancers or childhood diseases, and the fact that the environment is likely to play a role in those conditions. What motivates her is the belief that we need to know more about these toxics so we can reduce our exposure to the worst of them and protect ourselves and our children from their harmful effects. (Woodruff points out that the word “toxics” as a noun means any poisonous substances, from either chemical or biological sources, whereas “toxins” are poisons only from biological sources, either plant or animal.)

The PRHE is dedicated to identifying, measuring and preventing exposure to environmental contaminants that affect human reproduction and development. Its work weaves together science, medicine, policy and advocacy.

For example, research over the past 10 years by UCSF scientists and others has showed that bisphenol A (BPA) – an industrial chemical used since the 1950s to harden plastics in baby bottles, toys and other products – is found in the blood of those exposed to items made with BPA and that it can harm the endocrine systems of fetuses and infants. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outlawed BPA in baby products in 2012, and some manufacturers developed BPA-free products. But now scientists believe the chemicals that replaced BPA may be just as harmful.

Furthermore, BPA is only one in a long, long list of chemicals we encounter every day in our homes, schools, workplaces and communities. And scientists have barely scratched the surface of understanding them. Of the thousands and thousands of chemicals registered with the EPA for use by industry, the agency has regulated only a few.

“In the last 50 years, we have seen a dramatic increase in chemical production in the United States,” Woodruff explains. Concurrently, there’s been an increase in the incidence of conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, childhood cancers, diabetes and obesity. “It’s not just genetic drift,” Woodruff maintains.

And we’re all at risk from increasing chemical exposure. The water we run from our taps, the lotion we smear on our skin, the shampoo we rub in our hair, even the dust in our houses is full of synthetic chemicals.

Preventing Exposure in Babies

PRHE experts do more than just measure such trends. They also collaborate with clinical scientists and obstetricians at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG), so their findings directly benefit pregnant patients. “We partner with the clinical scientists,” explains Woodruff, “because they look at treatments for disease, and environment might be a missing factor in the cause and prevention of disease.”

The water we run from our taps, the lotion we smear on our skin, the shampoo we rub in our hair, even the dust in our houses is full of synthetic chemicals.

Though environmental toxics affect us all, there’s a reason PRHE focuses on pregnant women and children, Woodruff adds. Exposure to even tiny amounts of toxic substances during critical developmental stages can have outsize effects. So exposure to toxics is especially detrimental to fetuses, infants and young children, as well as preteens and teenagers.

“If you prevent the problem at the beginning, you get a lifetime of benefits,” says Woodruff.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began measuring human exposure to chemicals in 1976. These so-called “biomonitoring” studies found a range of toxics in subjects’ blood and urine – substances like DDT, BPA, air pollutants, pesticides, dioxins and phthalates. Phthalates, for example, are a class of chemicals known to be endocrine disruptors but widely used as softeners in plastics and as lubricants in personal-care products. Biomonitoring has determined that women of reproductive age evidence higher levels of phthalates than the population at large. One reason, says Woodruff, is that young women use more products like perfume, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner.

Woodruff herself recently led a study in which UCSF researchers collected blood samples from pregnant women at ZSFG. After the women delivered their babies, the researchers collected umbilical cord blood samples – and discovered that almost 80 percent of the chemicals detected in the maternal blood samples had passed through the placenta to the cord blood. It was the most extensive look yet at how the chemicals that pregnant women are exposed to also appear in their babies’ cord blood (and followed an earlier study by Woodruff that marked the first time anyone had counted the number of chemicals in the blood of pregnant women). Published in the Nov. 1, 2016, print edition of Environmental Science and Technology, the study also found that many chemicals were absorbed at greater levels by the fetuses than by the pregnant women.

Now, Woodruff is hard at work on a new grant from the federal Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program. It aims to correlate children’s exposure to toxics with their developmental outcomes from birth to age four.

The good news is that the work done by Woodruff and her team shows a clear impact. Following bans (some permanent and some temporary) on certain phthalates, for example, UCSF researchers measured declines in the urinary concentrations of the permanently banned types in a representative sample of the U.S. population.

Crusader for a Healthy Environment

Woodruff speaks at the Stand Up For Science Teach-InWoodruff’s degree is in engineering, and she notes that in the 1980s, when she was in school, a lot of engineers went into the defense industry. “People talk about joining the military to serve their country,” Woodruff says. “I also wanted to do something positive for society, and I felt joining the EPA was the best way to serve my country.”

She spent 13 years at the federal agency, as a scientist and policy advisor, studying the effects of air pollution on children’s health. The topic interested her, she says, “because children are vulnerable and can’t speak for themselves.” Her analysis of data collected under the Clean Air Act, for example, found that air pollution is linked to infant mortality. She also determined that pregnant African American women had higher exposure to air pollution and more adverse pregnancy outcomes than the population at large.

Nearly 25 years later, her work at UCSF is motivated by the same sense of advocacy and zeal. She joined the PRHE in 2007, shortly after its founding by Linda Giudice, MD, PhD. “What we do,” she says, “is bring the best scientific tools from the varied fields at UCSF to bear on uncovering and better understanding the links between the environment and health and translate that science into prevention by improving public policy.”

While Woodruff has many influential scientific publications to her name, she’s also a sought-after guest for radio interviews and talk shows. She even appeared in a popular 2013 documentary, The Human Experiment, narrated by Sean Penn. In response to questions from the public, she tries to strike a practical note. “You don’t want to freak people out,” she says. “At the same time, people assume if they can buy it, it’s safe. That is just not the case.”

In her own home in Oakland, Woodruff has made slow changes over time. “I got rid of carpet. … The padding can contain toxic chemicals. I waited to buy a couch … too long according to my family,” she laughs. (Couches without flame-retardants didn’t become available in California until after the state changed its flammability standard in 2014, making it possible to sell couches that are flammability-safe but are made without flame-retardant chemicals.) “I still have a couch that probably has flame-retardants, but I am just ignoring it. We eat mostly organic to reduce pesticide exposure. Less is more in personal-care products,” she adds.

Does she make her own shampoo?

“Oh, my God, no,” she answers. “Who has the time? This should not be a burden to people. Systems should be in place so that we can be free of the burden. This is why we need the EPA, and this is where policy comes in.”

Policies for the People

“It’s important for people to realize there are things you can do to lower your exposure to toxic chemicals, but some things you can’t do.”

For example, Woodruff explains, Americans would have had a hard time limiting their exposure to lead before leaded gasoline became illegal in 1996 (though the phaseout started in the mid-1970s). Until then, no amount of personal awareness could protect someone from lead – it was in the air that everyone breathed.

We do not always consider EPA a public health agency, but it is.

Tracy Woodruff, PhD, MPH

Director of UCSF’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE)

She offers another example specific to the PRHE’s efforts. “When California outlawed flame retardants,” she says, “we saw levels decrease by about two-thirds in the blood of pregnant patients at ZSFG. Through these studies, we can evaluate the effectiveness of public policy. It’s clear that when the government acts to reduce exposures to toxic chemicals … we see a positive change. We do not always consider EPA a public health agency, but it is.”

Woodruff and her colleagues also have been working over the last several years to help strengthen the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976. It was well recognized that the law was flawed and allowed thousands of chemicals to be used in the marketplace without testing for safety, she explains. When bipartisan calls to strengthen the law led Congress to amend it in 2016, PRHE experts partnered with obstetricians and gynecologists to provide scientific evidence about the need for improved standards, deadlines and transparency. As rules for the amended TSCA are rolled out over the next two years, “we’ll be right in there to promote the use of science for the public’s health,” says Woodruff.

She’s also bringing environmental toxics to the attention of her UCSF colleagues in other disciplines. “One of the reasons we love being at UCSF is we can learn from people who are doing completely different things,” she says. For example, she is working with researchers who study the placenta, since her 2016 study showed that environmental toxics permeate the placenta. And with developmental biologist Diana Laird, PhD, an associate professor in the Center for Reproductive Sciences, Woodruff is co-leading the Environmental Health Initiative (EHI). The EHI’s goal is to involve researchers from throughout UCSF – from the biological, population and translation sciences – in solving and preventing the environmental burden of disease, starting with ensuring healthy pregnancies.

“The EHI will link faculty across the campus, to add an environmental component to their work,” Woodruff says. “We have already hosted several networking events and symposia with the Research Development Office toward our goal of ‘norming’ the environment within the research community. We want people to be saying, ‘We need to address the environmental consequences to fully solve health issues.’”

“This is about prevention,” she concludes. “People talk about nutrition and social competencies of health. There’s another thing, which is the physical environment. The missing ingredient is toxics in the environment.”

Source: UC San Francisco

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Dangerous chemicals hiding in everyday products | CNN

It was long believed that you could acquire “better living through chemistry.” But that may really not be the case. In a landmark alliance, known as Project TENDR, leaders of various disciplines have come together in a consensus statement to say that many of the chemicals found in everyday products can result in neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and attention-deficit disorders.

“Ten years ago, this consensus wouldn’t have been possible, but the research is abundantly clear,” said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis and co-chairwoman of Project TENDR.

BPA-free plastic alternatives may not be safe as you think

“At some point, we say we know enough to take preventative action,” said Frederica Perera, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University. Perera is also a signatory on the statement.

Last year, the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (PDF) stated that “Widespread exposure to toxic environmental chemicals threatens healthy human reproduction.” Other medical groups such as the Endocrine Society (PDF), the world’s oldest and largest organization devoted to researching hormones, have expressed similar concerns.

But this is the first time that leading scientists, doctors and policy advocates across various disciplines have come together to say that the science on toxic chemicals is clear: They can harm brain development.

Everyday chemicals carry toxic burden

These everyday chemicals, including organophosphates, flame retardants and phthalates, can be found in food, plastics, furniture, food wrap, cookware, cans, carpets, shower curtains, electronics and even shampoo. They are pretty much everywhere around us.

Scientists and researchers are concerned that many of these chemicals may be carcinogenic or wreak havoc with our hormones, our body’s regulating system. But the impact of these chemicals may be most severe on the developing brain, Perera said.

Brain development is the “most complete and most rapid during the first nine months, prenatally,” she said. During that time, neural connections and pathways are being developed.

“Any interference by a physical stress like a toxic chemical or other stressor can disrupt this natural progression that is so very delicate and complex,” explained Perera.

Though the group hopes to come up with regulatory recommendations to reduce this toxic burden, there are some simple things that inpiduals can do to reduce their exposure.

Chemicals to watch for

Organophosphate pesticides

Organophosphate pesticides (PDF) are a class of neurotoxic chemicals used as warfare agentsin the 1930s. However, today, they account for about half of all pesticide use in the United States. And they can make their way onto crops that we use as food sources. Areas that spray pesticides heavily, such as farms, may find higher rates of exposure.

Children exposed to higher levels of these pesticides have been found to have higher rates of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

You can reduce your exposure to them by eating organic and using alternative pest control methods.

Phthalates

These chemicals soften plastics and help scents and chemicals bind together.

Exposure to phthalates has been associated with lower IQ levels.

They can be found in shampoos, conditioners, body sprays, hair sprays, perfumes, colognes, soap, nail polish, shower curtains, medical tubing, IV bags, vinyl flooring and wall coverings, food packaging and coatings on time-release pharmaceuticals.

You can reduce your exposure to phthalates by using unscented lotions and laundry detergents, microwaving food in glass containers rather than plastic, using cleaning supplies without scents, and avoiding air fresheners and plastics labeled as No. 3, No. 6 and No 7.

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers

These chemicals are used as flame retardants, chemicals that can slow the speed of a flame. They can be found in televisions, computers, insulation and foam products, including children’s toys and baby pillows.

Products can shed ethers that can accumulate in dust. Exposure to these ethers have been associated with thyroid issues.

There isn’t a directory that lists which products have these ethers, but consumers may still be able to reduce exposure by looking for products that advertise themselves as free of flame retardant. These chemicals were found in a lot of older foams, so replace products such sofas and pillows that have exposed foam. And use a high-efficiency HEPA filter vacuum to clean up dust.

Air pollutants

Air pollution from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil or gas is usually associated with respiratory issues. However, these pollutants can also include nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde and benzene.

Higher exposure to air pollutants has been associated with lower birth weights, preterm deliveries and congenital heart defects. The World Health Organization (PDF) considers exposure to benzene a major public health concern.

Aside from trying to avoid polluted areas, you can make sure to buy furniture and products that advertise themselves as formaldehyde-free. Try to avoid buying furniture made with particleboard, plywood or pressed wood. Many of these products use glues containing formaldehyde.

Lead

Lead is a naturally occurring metal. It was banned from gasoline in the 1970s but can still be found in older homes that used leaded paint. Lead can also make its way into water, because of corrosion from old water pipes. Lead is also used in a variety of products like industrial paints, car batteries and wheel weights.

Lead exposure has been associated with ADHD, lower IQs and developmental delay.

Infants and toddlers are at greatest risk for lead exposure because they frequently put their hands and toys in their mouths after they may be exposed to lead in dust.

Why lead is so dangerous for children

Find out if you have lead in your water by reaching out to your local water supplier or even getting an at-home test kit from a home improvement store. If your home was built before 1978, test your paint. If the paint is chipping or peeling, it will need to be stripped or covered.

Homeowners may want to consider using a professional who is lead-safe certified to help you. Parents can also talk to your doctor about having your children tested for lead if there is reason for concern.

Mercury

Mercury is a naturally occurring element, but it can also be released into the environment from the burning of coal and oil. Mercury can also be found in some household items such as thermometers, light bulbs and older-model clothes dryers and washing machines. Mercury in the environment can make its way into fish and shellfish. Some fish, such as some kinds of tuna, may have higher concentrations of mercury.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, exposure to mercury in utero may impact memory, attention and cognitive skills.

While you can’t completely eliminate mercury from your environment, you can reduce your exposure to mercury by avoiding fish high in mercury. Try to use mercury-free thermometers. When getting rid of household items with mercury, reach out to your state or local household hazardous waste collection center for advice.

Polychlorinated biphenyls

Between 1929 and 1977, thousands of tons of polychlorinated biphenyls were used worldwide. Production of the chemical in the U.S. was banned by the EPA in 1977, but they can linger (PDF) in the environment for a long time and make their way into the food chain. These chemicals have been used as coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment because they are good insulators.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, polychlorinated biphenyls are associated with cancer in occupational settings and has been associated with issues with motor skills and short term memory in children.

Much like mercury, they have made their way into our food sources, particularly fish and some meat. To avoid polychlorinated biphenyls in your food, the Environmental Defense Fund suggests, before cooking, removing the parts where toxic chemicals are likely to accumulate, such as the skin, fat and internal organs. When cooking, make sure to drain away fat and avoid drippings.

Source: CNN