EHN Originals

“Your hair is frizzy; it’s just different than ours.” Those words replayed in my head as the California coast was a blur in the distance. We were driving back from one of the last beach days in undergrad when the topic of hair came up. At that moment, it felt like all the hours of…

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Eighteen kinds of soft contact lenses have detectable levels of organic fluorine, an indicator of the group of chemicals known as PFAS, according to a new report from Mamavation. Partnering with EHN.org, the environmental wellness blog and community had the contact lenses tested by a U.S.-Environmental-Protection-Agency-certified lab and found levels of organic fluorine ranging from…

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“Tu pelo es muy encrespado, simplemente es distinto al nuestro”. Esas palabras se repetían en mi cabeza mientras la costa californiana se desdibujaba a lo lejos. Estábamos regresando de uno de los últimos paseos universitarios a la playa cuando surgió el tema del pelo. En ese momento, sentí que las horas de esfuerzo – específicamente…

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Calls for rail reform after the East Palestine train derailment overlook a more fundamental policy issue: The need for stronger regulations on the hazardous materials that infuse our products and saturate our lives. More than 80,000 chemicals are registered for commercial use with the U.S. government. Tens of thousands of these have never been assessed…

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BPA is about to disappear from European burger wrappers, soft drink bottles, canned food liners and all other food packaging. A proposal being considered by European regulators finds that current BPA exposure limits vastly underestimate the harm the plastic additive causes to human health. The revised rules say the new exposure threshold should be 20,000…

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Kevin Patterson joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss uranium exposure science, and his own family’s personal experience with the toxic metal. Patterson, a PhD student in Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, also talks about what healthy, respectful partnerships between researchers and tribal communities look…

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Frustrated that the pounds keep flooding back after losing weight on a diet? PFAS, pervasive environmental contaminants known as “forever chemicals,” could play a role, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Obesity. The study took a novel approach to a frustrating conundrum many adults have experienced at some point: Pounds that…

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Mientras mi avión giraba y se dirigía al aeropuerto internacional de Bombay, una escena sobrecogedora se desplegaba a través de la pequeña ventanilla ovalada. Un mar de chozas cubiertas de toldos azules se extendía hasta el límite del aeropuerto, como si el frágil muro del aeropuerto estuviera conteniendo un tsunami de asentamientos informales cercanos. La…

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As my plane banked and headed toward the international airport in Mumbai, a staggering scene unfolded before me through my small oval window. A sea of blue-tarp-covered shacks extended to the airport boundary, as if the fragile airport wall was holding back a tsunami of nearby informal settlements. The ubiquitous blue waterproof tarp, a symbol…

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Recent reporting on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed rules that would restrict or ban an array of toxic chemicals used in industrial manufacturing presented the regulation as a ‘tough choice’ for a White House seeking to balance its economic agenda and public health. The “public health vs economic growth” framing is unhelpful and…

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