The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is launching a drinking water quality study to look for traces of abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol for the first time.
Anti-abortion activists, attorneys general, and lawmakers have been lobbying for the agency to carry the study for years.
Researchers at the agency will collect water samples “from several locations in different metropolitan areas” and test them for thousands of drugs, pesticides and synthetic chemicals, including mifepristone, misoprostol, and multiple types of “forever chemicals,” according to a description of the study.
It kinda sucks that something like this is being done for an anti-abortion agenda rather than interest in keeping our water clean and safe to drink.
“I think what’s concerning here is that there’s already a culture of criminalization around abortion, especially since Dobbs [v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization], and the potential to use this as justification for further surveillance could create more fear for abortion seekers, for providers at a time when folks are already being criminalized and for their pregnancy outcomes, including abortion,” Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser for the Guttmacher Institute, told The Hill.
Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told the outlet mifepristone is not one of the known contaminants on the EPA’s list to regulate.
Time to fix up that ol’ outhouse out back. Yep.
this is just fucking vile.
that’d be like using the surveillance state to screen for immigrants instead of pedophiles. oh wait a hot second…
This place fucking sucks. I sick of it. Mentally and physically.
No amount of hate is too much to hold against these people.
What about all the forever chemicals of… (Insert numerous chemicals that when you can measure it it’s already 1000x the amount it should be)?
The DOW Chemical company already donated $50k to Trump to get EPA off their pfas contaminations of the environment.
people refuse to accept that the epstein class exists despite their priorities written into law like this.
LOL… but not bacteria and viruses.
I want that dysentery! Put it all in my mouth!
That sounds like the kind of study we would all want.
I don’t understand how checking for prescription medication and forever chemicals in drinking water is controversial…
Because they’re doing it with the understanding and the wish to find them not to clean up the water but to ban any related to abortions.
It’s a study to see if prescription drugs and forever chemicals are in drinking water.
I would like to know if prescription drugs and forever chemicals are in drinking water.
I do not care if the people who advocated for testing for particular prescription drugs are anti abortion. It is good to know if prescription drugs and forever chemicals are in drinking water.
I do. This fda is biased and that matters.
It’s a good thing they’re planning to do a scientific study then, that methodology claims to be able to root out bias.
I mean define scientific study via rfk’s hhs.
It’s the same as before rfk. It’s the same people by and large as before rfk.
Surely you can’t be suggesting a department which could conduct perfectly reasonable research before is suddenly unable to do so now?
How can a study on the presence of thousands of different prescription drugs and other chemicals in drinking water be bad in your eyes?
No it’s not.
Sorta. Capable, possibly. Willing, not at all.
The study itself, mm sorta here nor there. What they do with the results is the issue.
The group has been advocating for the Trump administration to restrict access to the drug. It has alleged that as women increasingly use the abortion pills at home to terminate pregnancies, flushing the expelled tissue, traces of the pill make their way to water supply, contaminating it. The group conducted its own testing in three U.S. cities. It further has claimed that the drug is also contaminating tap water and threatening human fertility.
While water contamination from all pharmaceuticals is a growing concern, there is no evidence that abortion pills are harming the water supply or are harmful to people.
“I think what’s concerning here is that there’s already a culture of criminalization around abortion, especially since Dobbs [v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization], and the potential to use this as justification for further surveillance could create more fear for abortion seekers, for providers at a time when folks are already being criminalized and for their pregnancy outcomes, including abortion,” Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser for the Guttmacher Institute, told The Hill.
This is another way to target women who have abortions. I consider that pretty controversial for a government to do.
I will not claim to be a medical professional, but testing to see if prescription drugs are in the drinking water supply seems like a good thing.
If the anti abortion people call for testing drinking water for prescription drugs and none are found then that’s that. If traces are found then that deserves scrutiny and possible remediation.
Did you read the article?
Did you read the username?
Yes. An anti abortion group which has advocated for testing drinking water for the presence of birth control drugs was quoted. It’s something they’ve been advocating for for a long time. Many years ago it was considered a kooky conspiracy talking point.
The article describes the study as testing for thousands of chemicals. The article lists two birth control drugs among them.
It would be good to know if those chemicals are in drinking water.
While water contamination from all pharmaceuticals is a growing concern, there is no evidence that abortion pills are harming the water supply or are harmful to people.
Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told the outlet mifepristone is not one of the known contaminants on the EPA’s list to regulate.
“There are major water contaminants that need to be regulated, and testing for those things can be good as long as regulation happens. And then on the other hand, if we’re wasting time on a witch hunt for… those things like mifepristone, then that’s time and resources we take away from regulating and studying things that that are actually a problem,” Donley said.
A careful reader will notice that in those quotes no one is saying there isn’t presence or contamination, only that it’s nothing to worry about, is not harmful to people and isn’t on the official list of stuff the epa looks out for.
I genuinely don’t see the big deal. Crazy people have been right about stuff before. You figure out if they’re right by investigating that stuff rather than dismissing it out of hand. Including the crazy people claims in the big water study looking for a thousand other things is a good way to save money on lab costs.
It’s a dangerous precedent to allow these kinds of decisions to be driven by anti-abortion and anti-women’s rights activists.
Oh I just noticed your username. Sigh.
I would urge you not to judge people by their username or your preconceived notions of them, famous Hanna-Barbara character.
I really thought you were trolling with that comment and that name combination.
I get plenty of people being snarky about my username and it doesn’t bother me.
I guess wearing a clown nose and makeup and engaging earnestly and honestly with people could be seen as a form of trolling.
I also get a lot of snark about my perfectly normal username. It was the only available one in my price range.
The perfectly normal username of “TrollAccount69”? Yeah, ok.
Please don’t make fun of my username. I’m a serious poster, this is a serious post.
The most serious poster of us all, I’m sure.
