Dingell and McDonald Rivet to co-chair congressional PFAS task force
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) and Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City), will serve as co-chairs of the Bipartisan Congressional PFAS Task Force. | Photos by Andrew Roth and the Michigan Senate
Two Michigan Democrats announced they will serve as co-chairs of the Bipartisan Congressional PFAS Task Force, working to stem the spread of so-called 'forever chemicals' in communities across the nation.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) and Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) will serve as the committee's Democratic co-chairs, alongside Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.) and Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), one of the task force's founding members.
PFAS, a family of chemicals which are heat and oil resistant, are commonly used in products like nonstick cookware, carpeting, waterproof clothing and food packaging. The chemicals break down very slowly and can accumulate in the blood and organs of people and animals. Alongside products manufactured using PFAS, the chemicals can be found in food, drinking water and in the soil and water near waste sites.
Labeled as an emerging contaminant by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, PFAS has been linked to several health conditions including harm to the immune system, increased risks of certain cancers —including prostate, kidney and testicular cancers — decreased fertility, high blood pressure in pregnant women and developmental delays or effects on children.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The state has previously estimated there are more than 11,000 sites within the state contaminated by PFAS, with the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team identifying 300 sites where groundwater has been contaminated by the hazardous chemicals.
'In Michigan we know all too well the urgent, growing threat PFAS pose. It's more important than ever we're taking serious action in Congress to keep PFAS out of our homes, water, and environment, hold polluters accountable, and clean up existing contamination,' Dingell said in a statement.
Over the next two years, the task force's priorities will include:
Advancing comprehensive legislation to end harmful PFAS pollution.
Educating lawmakers and the public on the serious health and environmental consequences of PFAS exposure.
Securing historic federal investments in research, remediation, and prevention.
'Our country needs to address the problems PFAS chemicals create head-on, which is why I'm proud to co-chair the bipartisan Congressional PFAS Task Force with both Republicans and Democrats,' McDonald Rivet said. 'We will work together to raise awareness of the risk of PFAS chemicals and advocate for commonsense solutions for our constituents.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Who are the eight new vaccine advisers appointed by Robert F Kennedy?
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, named eight new vaccine advisers this week to a critical Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) panel after firing all 17 experts who had held the roles. New members of the panel include experts who complained about being sidelined, a high-profile figure who has spread misinformation and medical professionals who appear to have little vaccine expertise. Kennedy made the announcement on social media. 'All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense,' Kennedy said in his announcement. 'They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations.' Formally called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the panel advises the CDC on how vaccines should be distributed. Those recommendations in effect determine the vaccines Americans can access. This week, Kennedy also removed the career officials typically tasked with vetting ACIP members and overseeing the advisory group, according to CBS News. Related: RFK Jr announces new panel of vaccine advisers after firing entire previous team Kennedy is a widely known vaccine skeptic who profited from suing vaccine manufacturers, has taken increasingly dramatic steps to upend US vaccine policy. 'ACIP is widely regarded as the international gold standard for vaccine decision-making,' said Helen Chu, one of the fired advisers, at a press conference with Patty Murray, a Democratic US senator. 'We cannot replace it with a process driven by one person's beliefs. In the absence of an independent, unbiased ACIP, we can no longer trust that safe and effective vaccines will be available to us and the people around us.' Arguably the most high-profile new member, Robert W Malone catapulted to stardom during the Covid-19 pandemic, appearing across rightwing media to criticize the Biden administration while describing himself as the inventor of mRNA technology. Messenger RNA technology powers the most widely used Covid-19 vaccines. While Malone was involved in very early experiments on the technology, researchers have said his role was limited. Malone's star rose quickly after appearing on the Joe Rogan podcast in 2022, where he and Rogan were criticized for spreading misinformation. On the show, Malone promoted the idea that both ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine could be possible treatments for Covid-19, but said research on the drugs was being suppressed. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have not been shown to improve outcomes from Covid-19. 'Malone has a well-documented history of promoting conspiracy theories,' said Dr Jeffrey D Klausner, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at the University of Southern California, who recently told the New York Times he was in touch with Kennedy about his appointments. Kulldorff is a former Harvard professor of biostatistics and an infectious disease epidemiologist originally from Sweden. He said in an essay for the rightwing publication City Journal that he was fired because he refused to be vaccinated in line with the school policy. Like Malone, he rose to prominence during the pandemic as a 'Covid contrarian' who criticized the scientific consensus – views he said alienated him from his peers in the scientific community. He voiced his opposition to Covid-19 vaccine mandates and, in his essay, complained of being ignored by media and shadow-banned from Twitter. Kulldorff co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for limited closures instead of pandemic lockdowns before vaccines were available. The document became a touchstone for the American political right. Before the pandemic, Kulldorff studied vaccine safety and infectious disease, including co-authoring papers with members of CDC staff, such as on the Vaccine Safety Datalink. He was a member of the CDC's Covid Vaccine Safety Working Group in 2020, but said later he was fired because he disagreed with the agency's decision to pause Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine and with Covid-19 vaccine mandates. He served on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) drug safety and risk management advisory committee around the same time. He has since enjoyed support from people already within the administration, including the Great Barrington Declaration co-author Dr Jay Bhattacharya, current head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Dr Vinay Prasad, head of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which handles vaccines. Meissner is a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He previously held advisory roles at the FDA and CDC, including ACIP from 2008-2012. In 2021, Meissner co-wrote an editorial with Dr Marty Makary, now the head of the FDA, which criticized mask mandates for children. In April, he was listed as an external adviser to ACIP on the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) committee. Notably, Meissner is listed in a new conflicts of interest tool launched by the health department in March. Kennedy had criticized the fired ACIP members as 'plagued with persistent conflicts of interest'. 'He's a card-carrying infectious disease person who knows the burden of these diseases, and he knows the risk and the benefit,' Dr Kathryn Edwards told CBS News. Edwards previously served as chair of the FDA's vaccine advisory panel. Pebsworth is a nurse and the former consumer representative on the FDA's vaccine advisory committee. She is also the Pacific regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses, according to Kennedy's announcement. In 2020, Pebsworth spoke at the public comment portion of an FDA advisory panel meeting on Covid-19 vaccines. There, she identified herself as the volunteer research director for the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), 'and the mother of a child injured by his 15-month well-baby shots in 1998'. The NVIC is widely viewed as an anti-vaccine advocacy organization 'whose founder Barbara Lou Fisher must be considered a key figure of the anti-vaccine movement', according to an article from 2023 on how to counter anti-vaccine misinformation. Levi is a professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management who Kennedy described as an 'expert in healthcare analytics, risk management and vaccine safety'. In 2021, he opposed Covid-19 booster shot approval during the public comment portion of an FDA advisory committee hearing. In 2022, he wrote an article calling for EMS calls to be incorporated into vaccine safety data, arguing that cardiovascular side-effects could be undercounted – an article that later required correction. The potential effects of Covid-19 vaccines on heart health have been a focal point of right-leaning criticism. Last month, Levi was criticized for publishing a pre-print paper – a paper without peer review – that he co-authored with Dr Joseph Ladapo, the Florida surgeon general, a vaccine skeptic. The paper alleged that people who took the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine were more likely to die than those who received the Moderna vaccine. Kennedy described Ross as 'a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, with a career spanning clinical medicine, research, and public health policy'. However, as first reported by CBS News, Ross's name does not appear in faculty directories for either school. A spokesperson for George Washington University told the outlet that Ross did work as a clinical professor, but 'has not held a faculty appointment … since 2017'. A spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University described Ross as 'an affiliate faculty member' at a regional hospital system in the Capitol region. He is also listed as a partner at Havencrest Capital Management, as a board member of 'multiple private healthcare companies'. Hibbeln is a California-based psychiatrist who previously served as acting chief for the section of nutritional neurosciences at the NIH. He describes himself as an expert on omega-3, a fatty acid found in seafood. He also serves on the advisory council of a non-profit that advocates for Americans to eat more seafood. He practices at Barton Health, a hospital system in Lake Tahoe, California. His work influenced US public health guidelines on fish consumption during pregnancy. Pagano is an emergency medicine physician from Los Angeles 'with over 40 years of clinical experience', and a 'strong advocate for evidence-based medicine', according to Kennedy.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Key RFK Jr advisers stand to profit from a new federal health initiative
Federal health officials are seeking to launch a 'bold, edgy' public service campaign to warn Americans of the dangers of ultra-processed foods in social media, transit ads, billboards and even text messages. And they potentially stand to profit off the results. Ultra-processed foods are a fixation for the US health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine skeptic who believes the US industrialized food supply is a 'primary culprit' behind many chronic diseases. 'We need to fix our food supply. And that's the number one thing,' Kennedy said at his confirmation hearing. Bringing healthier foods to Americans has proved to be one of the most resonant issues of Kennedy's 'Make America healthy again' (Maha) campaign – and arguably the only one that Democrats and Republicans agree on in principle. Kennedy has spent most of his tenure as health secretary dismantling key components of US vaccine infrastructure, instituting mass firings and defunding chronic disease prevention programs, such as for tobacco use. The secretary has been less successful in reigning in food makers. Food advocates have described voluntary changes between the government and manufacturers 'disappointing'. Kennedy was criticized by congressional Republicans for targeting agricultural pesticides in the 'Maha' report before it was even released – showing the limits of Republicans appetite for regulation, then the report itself was riddled with errors, likely generated by AI. 'The campaign's creative content will turn heads, create viral moments on social media, and – above all else – inspire Americans to take back their health through eating real food,' said a document published by the federal government that described the campaign. The campaign is expected to cost between $10m to $20m, according to documents. Anyone seeking to apply for the award will have a quick turnaround – the deadline is 26 June. 'The purpose of this requirement is to alert Americans to the role of processed foods in fueling the diabetes epidemic and other chronic diseases, inspire people to take personal responsibility for their diets, and drive measurable improvements in diabetes prevention and national health outcomes,' it continued. The new public relations campaign also highlights the Trump administration's unconventional approach to hiring – including its reliance on special government employees. A key adviser to Kennedy, Calley Means, could directly benefit from one of the campaign's stated aims: popularizing 'technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your own health'. Calley Means is a senior Kennedy adviser, and was hired as a special government employee to focus on food policy, according to Bloomberg. He founded a company that helps Americans get such wearable devices reimbursed tax-free through health savings accounts. Casey Means is Calley's sister. She also runs a healthcare start-up, although hers sells wearable devices such as continuous glucose monitors. She is Kennedy's nominee for US surgeon general, and a healthcare entrepreneur whose business sells continuous glucose monitors – one such wearable device. Calley Means's company also works with Casey's company. Due to Calley Means's status as a special employee, he has not been forced to divest from his private business interests – a situation that has already resulted in an ethics complaint. Consumer advocates, such as the non-profit group Public Citizen, had warned such hiring practices could cause conflicts of interest. HHS did not respond to a request for comment about Calley Means's private business interests, or his role in crafting the publicity campaign. Although the publicity campaign focuses on the ultra-processed foods connection to diabetes, at least one high profile nutritionist was queasy about its focus. 'The ultra-processed foods – some of those include breakfast cereals that are ultra-processed because they are fortified with vitamins,' said Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. 'Those are good if they're whole grain breakfast cereals and whole grain breads,' he said. Ultra-processed foods are generally recognized as sodas, salty snacks and frozen meals engineered to be shelf-stable, convenient and inexpensive. Such foods are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes – or insulin resistance. The mechanism by which such foods could increase risk of diabetes is unknown, a problem that extends in part from the 'heterogeneous category' of foods that the ultra-processed category encompasses. The publicity campaign proposal does not venture into defining the category, even as Kennedy has fixated on it 'poisoning the American people'. 'When you say processed foods you don't envision a Coke in your brain, and that's the biggest problem,' said Willett, who added that most public service campaigns are carefully crafted and tested for effectiveness.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Fetterman offers support for Trump decision to bomb Iran
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is offering support for President Trump's decision to bomb Iran, standing out from a number of other Democrats who have criticized the military action. 'As I've long maintained, this was the correct move by @POTUS,' Fetterman wrote in a post on X that linked to a statement from Trump announcing the decision. 'Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities,' Fetterman continued. I'm grateful for and salute the finest military in the world.' Fetterman since Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 has been a vocal supporter of Israel, and has at times criticized his own party over the Middle East. His remarks in the immediate aftermath of the bombing campaign, as a result, are unsurprising. But they stood apart from other Democrats who criticized Trump's decision as unconstitutional. For example, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) criticized Trump for vowing to bring peace to the Middle East but failing, saying he had 'misled the country about his intensions.' 'The risk of war has now dramatically increased, and I pray for the safety of our troops in the region who have been put in harm's way,' Jeffries wrote in a statement. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) both criticized the strikes as unconstitutional. Fetterman, however, tied himself to Trump by retweeting the president's Truth Social message announcing the attacks on the three nuclear sites in Iran. 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,' Trump posted on Truth Social. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
