The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Jury finds Roundup caused groundskeeper’s cancer

A California jury found in favor of a man who said his cancer was caused by exposure Roundup, a weed killer. The verdict on Tuesday is further evidence that glyphosate, the herbicide’s active ingredient, is carcinogenic to humans, said Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook.

The jury agreed with evidence presented by the attorneys for Edward Hardeman in Edward Hardeman v. Monsanto Co. that glyphosate was the cause of his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“Today’s verdict reinforces what another jury found last year, and what scientists with the state of California and the World Health Organization have concluded: Glyphosate causes cancer in people,” said Cook.

Trump’s EPA slows down review of toxic chemicals

Under the direction of top political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency, scientists were told to “limit” chemical safety assessments, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO audit was requested by Senator Tom Carper, Del., the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Carper asked the GAO to investigate how the EPA is carrying out the Toxic Substances Control Act and its Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, program.

In June 2018, the office of then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “told IRIS officials that they could not release any IRIS-associated documentation” without formal permission from top political leadership from the chemicals safety division at EPA, according to the GAO investigation. By October, the scientists were informed they must cut back on the number of chemical safety assessments.

EPA’s plan to regulate harmful PFAS chemicals is too little, too late, environmental group says

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a plan Thursday to regulate PFAS chemicals, which includes making a determination by the end of the year about how the harmful chemicals should be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act and listing them as hazardous substances to aid in cleanup efforts.

PFAS, short for perfluoroalky and polyfluoroalkyl, are a group of highly fluorinated chemicals used in nonstick cookware, fire retardants, oil and water repellents, furniture, carpets, waterproof clothes, take out containers, and fire-fighting foam. The chemicals are very persistent in the environment and in the human body – meaning they don’t break down and they can accumulate over time.

EPA’s PFAS management plan would only make the nationwide crisis of pollution from fluorinated compounds worse, according to the Environmental Working Group. It wouldn’t stop the introduction of new PFAS chemicals, end the use of in everyday products, alert Americans to the risk of PFAS pollution, or clean up contaminated drinking water supplies for an estimated 110 million Americans.

Diet drinks can cause increased risk of strokes in older women, study finds

Drinking two or more diet drinks daily was associated with an increase in the risk of having a stroke caused by a blocked artery, especially small arteries, among post-menopausal women, according to research published in Stroke, a journal of the American Heart Association.

While this study identifies an association between diet drinks and stroke, it doesn’t prove cause and effect because it was an observational study based on self-reported information about diet drink consumption, said Yasmin Mossavar-Rahmani, Ph.D., lead author of the study and associate professor of clinical epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

Compared with women who consumed diet drinks less than once a week or not at all, women who consumed two or more artificially sweetened beverages per day were:

Baby boomers suffering through the cold

When the polar vortex hit the Midwest, I felt sorry for people there, shivered, and was thankful for the mild weather we have in the Seattle area.

Now, with a snowstorm hitting here, I’m really shivering. I can’t wait for it to melt and get back to our warmer, gray drizzly days.

Despite the cold weather through most of the nation, baby boomers are continuing to blog. This week’s articles include:

EPA report for 2018 under Trump brags about saving polluters $2 billion, while falsely claiming to protect children’s health

The Environmental Protection Agency’s 2018 list of accomplishments contains policies that make it easier and cheaper for polluters to pollute, while painting a distorted record of protecting children’s health.

In acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler’s Year in Review, topping the list is pushing through “13 major deregulatory actions, almost one a month.” Since the beginning of the Trump administration, according the report, the EPA “has finalized 33 major deregulatory actions, saving Americans almost $2 billion.”

The report needs explanation, said Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook.

Consumer Reports finds unacceptable levels of heavy metals in fruit juice

Fruit juices are known to be high in sugars, but they could also pose another health risk: potentially harmful levels of heavy metals, according to testing conducted by Consumer Reports, a nonprofit advocacy organization.

In its analysis of 45 popular fruit juices sold across the country, Consumer Reports found that nearly half contained unacceptable levels of inorganic arsenic, lead, or cadmium. 

Children, who are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of heavy metals, drink a lot of fruit juice. More than 80 percent of parents of children three and under give their kids juice at least sometimes, according to a recent national Consumer Reports survey. In 74 percent of those cases, kids drink juice once a day or more. Yet, ingesting heavy metals can put kids at risk for lowered IQ, behavioral problems, type-2 diabetes, and cancer, among other health issues, depending on how long they are exposed to these toxins.

USDA’s final rule on GMO foods is lacking

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released a final rule to carry out the mandatory GMO disclosure law passed in 2016. It will allow the genetically engineered ingredients in many foods to remain hidden from consumers.

“No one should be surprised that the most anti-consumer, anti-transparency administration in modern times is denying Americans basic information about what’s in their food and how it’s grown,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group.

The Trump administration has yet again put the interests of pesticide and biotech companies ahead of the interests of American consumers, Faber said.

Baby boomers, the holidays, and thoughts for December

Do you, your partner, or a family member have a birthday in December?

Rebecca Olkowski of Baby Boomster’s birthday was Sunday, and it was a big day in many ways because she turned 65. Olkowski reports as a December baby, she’s used to sharing her birthday with all the holiday traditions that take place during the month. In some ways, it’s fun, Olkowski says, because it’s a festive time of year, but December birthdays always get mixed up with everything else. December babies are used to receiving combo birthday–Christmas–Hanukkah presents. It’s part of the deal, she says.

Olkowski reports, in the Best of Boomer Blogs #577, that boomer bloggers are writing about the holiday topics of how to create new holiday traditions and how to handle grief at the holidays.

Toxic fluorinated chemicals found in cosmetics, study shows

Toxic fluorinated, or PFAS, chemicals were found in high levels in nearly one-third of the cosmetics products tested, according to a study from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.

Some of the PFAS concentrations detected “exceeded” limits that will soon be in place under the European Union’s chemical regulatory program.

PFAS chemicals are linked to cancer, thyroid disease, weakened immunity, and other health problems.