Biden’s unhinged call for regime change in Russia

They were nine words about Russian President Vladimir Putin that shook the world: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

By

 Norman Solomon

 -

March 30, 2022

SOURCENationofChange

Ever since Joe Biden ended his speech in Poland on Saturday night by making one of the most dangerous statements ever uttered by a U.S. president in the nuclear age, efforts to clean up after him have been profuse. Administration officials scurried to assert that Biden didn’t mean what he said. Yet no amount of trying to “walk back” his unhinged comment at the end of his speech in front of Warsaw’s Royal Castle can change the fact that Biden had called for regime change in Russia.

They were nine words about Russian President Vladimir Putin that shook the world: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

With a reckless genie out of the bottle, no amount of damage control from the president’s top underlings could stuff it back in. “We do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Sunday. Such words might plausibly have less than full weight; Blinken was chief of staff at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when, in mid-2002, then-Senator Biden wielded the gavel at crucial hearings that completely stacked the witness deck in support of the subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq, with the explicit goal of regime change.

The USA’s commander in chief, brandishing the power to launch one of the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals, would be out of his mind to consciously announce a goal of dethroning the leader of the world’s other nuclear superpower. Worst case would be that he was blurting out his government’s actual secret goal, which would not speak well of impulse control.

But it’s not much more reassuring to think that the president simply got carried away with his emotions. The day after, that was part of the messaging from Biden’s cleanup detail. “Administration officials and Democratic lawmakers said Sunday the off-the-cuff remark was an emotional response to the president’s interactions in Warsaw with [Ukrainian] refugees,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

However—before the cosmetics began to cover Biden’s unscripted statement—the New York Times provided a quick news analysis under the headline “Biden’s Barbed Remark About Putin: A Slip or a Veiled Threat?” The piece, by seasoned establishment reporters David Sanger and Michael Shear, noted that Biden’s off-script close to his speech came with “his cadence slowing for emphasis.” And they added: “On its face, he appeared to be calling for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to be ousted for his brutal invasion of Ukraine.”

Mainstream journalists have avoided putting a fine point on the likelihood that World War III just got closer thanks to Biden’s words, whether or not they were “a slip” or “a veiled threat.” In fact, it might never be possible to know which it was. But that ambiguity underscores that his slip and/or threat was mind-blowingly irresponsible, endangering the survival of humanity on this planet.

Outrage is the appropriate response. And a special onus is on Democrats in Congress, who should be willing to put humanity above party and condemn Biden’s extreme irresponsibility. But prospects for such condemnation look bleak.

Biden’s impromptu nine words underscore that we must not take anything for granted about his rationality. Russia’s murderous war in Ukraine does not give Biden any valid excuse to make a horrendous situation worse. On the contrary, the U.S. government should be determined to promote and pursue negotiations that could end the killing and find long-term compromise solutions. Biden has now made it even more difficult to pursue diplomacy with Putin.

Activists have a special role to play—by emphatically insisting that members of Congress and the Biden administration must focus on finding solutions that will save Ukrainian lives as well as put a stop to the slide toward military escalation and global nuclear annihilation.

To even hint that the U.S. is seeking regime change in Russia—and to leave the world wondering whether the president is slipping or threatening—is a form of imperial insanity in the nuclear era that we must not tolerate.

“I’m addressing the people in the United States,” former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said during an interview on Democracy Now just one day before Biden’s speech in Poland. “How many times have an attempt by the American government to effect regime change anywhere in the world worked out well? Ask the women of Afghanistan. Ask the people of Iraq. How did that liberal imperialism work out for them? Not very well. Do they really propose to try this out with a nuclear power?”

Overall, in recent weeks, President Biden has jettisoned all but the flimsiest pretenses of seeking a diplomatic solution to end the horrors of the war in Ukraine. Instead, his administration keeps ratcheting up the self-righteous rhetoric while moving the world closer to ultimate catastrophe.

Norman Solomon

Norman Solomon is the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org.

'A Failure': Critics Rebuke Biden for Nuclear Posture Review Update

"It is a tragedy for everyone counting on the president to keep his campaign promise to make deterrence the sole purpose of nuclear weapons."


An unarmed Lockheed Martin Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic is fired from the USS Nebraska off the California coast on March 26, 2008.

 (Photo: Ronald Gutridge/U.S Navy/Flickr/cc)



BRETT WILKINS

COMMON DREAMS

March 30, 2022

Nonproliferation advocates on Wednesday expressed disappointment after the Biden administration released a summary of its latest Nuclear Posture Review, which fails to depart from decades of dangerous U.S. first use policy.

"We live in a new era and sticking to the status quo is not going to make us safer. We have to get rid of nuclear weapons."

"This Nuclear Posture Review is a failure. It nudges the needle back to the Obama administration but does almost nothing to reduce the continuing risks of nuclear war," Stephen Young, the senior Washington representative for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said in a statement.

While President Joe Biden—a longtime advocate of adopting a no first use (NFU) policy—promised reform while on the 2020 campaign trail and in office, he has largely continued his predecessors' policies, including initial use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear foes.

"If media reports are true, President Biden has missed a historic opportunity to reduce the role of... nuclear weapons in U.S. military strategy," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement last week. "Retaining a warfighting role for U.S. nuclear weapons is a triumph for the trillion-dollar defense industry, but it is a tragedy for everyone counting on the president to keep his campaign promise to make deterrence the sole purpose of nuclear weapons."

Young of UCS asserted that "the U.S. faces two choices: spending $1 trillion rebuilding our entire nuclear arsenal and continuing Cold War-era policies that make nuclear war easier to start, or deciding it is time to change, and beginning to move posture and policy back from the brink."

"This NPR chooses the first path," he added. "If maintained, it will mean decades more of nuclear brinkmanship and clear nuclear risk. The chances of catastrophic failure are higher than ever."

The United States waged the only nuclear war in human history. Since then, it has devised various plans for the first use of nuclear weapons, and has repeatedly threatened first-strike nuclear war—including against conventionally armed foes—in various conflicts and crises.

An extreme U.S. first-strike policy proposal was drafted during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Called "Furtherance," it initially called for a full-scale nuclear attack on both the Soviet Union and China in the event that the president was killed or disappeared during an attack on the United States, even if it was accidental or carried out with conventional weapons.

In the post-Cold War era, the U.S. embraced the first use doctrine—even against non-nuclear states and actors—as part of a broader plan to ensure that no geostrategic rivals emerged. This so-called "Wolfowitz Doctrine" profoundly influenced the militant policy of the neoconservative George W. Bush administration, whose first-strike doctrine was continued by Bush's successors with relatively minor adjustments.

Related Content

'Dangerous': Experts Slam Biden for Keeping First-Use Nuclear Strike on the Table

Of the world's nine nuclear powers, only China has unconditionally pledged never to use nuclear weapons first. India has an NFU policy with exceptions for chemical or biological attack.

Last week, Russia—whose invasion of Ukraine has been frustrated by fierce resistance—alarmed the world by declaring it could use nuclear weapons even if no enemy used them first. The Kremlin has since walked back its threat.

"Many have argued it would take a nuclear crisis to break the stranglehold that Cold War hawks have held on nuclear policy," said UCS' Young. "Right now, in Ukraine, we are witnessing just such a crisis: A nuclear-armed aggressor, empowered by its arsenal, acts with impunity. Nuclear weapons no longer 'keep the peace,' they enable war."

"We live in a new era and sticking to the status quo is not going to make us safer," he added. "We have to get rid of nuclear weapons. It won't be quick or easy. But everything we do should be directed toward that end, or we risk facing the end of humanity as we know it."

Nonproliferation advocates have long urged U.S. administrations to adopt an NFU policy. Last year, Markey and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) reintroduced the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, which would prohibit the presidents from launching a nuclear first strike without a congressional declaration of war.

"President Biden and our allies have shown remarkable restraint in the face of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin's saber-rattling, to avoid escalating a conventional war into an unfathomable nuclear one," Markey said last week.

"Congress must now step up and lead by passing my Restricting the First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act," he continued. "Our constitution gives Congress, not the president, the exclusive power to declare war. And there is no war like a nuclear war."

Markey added that "no president—especially under duress in the fog of war—should have the power to unilaterally and unconstitutionally order the end of millions of lives by firing the first shot in a nuclear war."

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For Immediate Release

Wednesday March 30, 2022, 2:18pm EDT

Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)

Contact

Kyle Ann Sebastian, ksebastian@ucsusa.org

PRESS RELEASE

Biden's Nuclear Posture Review a Failure

Statement by Stephen Young, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

WASHINGTON -

Yesterday the Biden administration released a fact sheet on the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a day after briefing Congress on the classified version of the document. The publicly available unclassified NPR, which lays out Biden’s views on U.S. nuclear weapons policy, may not be available for some weeks. As described by officials who have provided briefings on it, the NPR can only be seen as a disappointment, a far cry from the sensible goals Biden set out over his long career in public service. 

Below is a statement from Stephen Young, senior Washington representative for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

“This Nuclear Posture Review is a failure. It nudges the needle back to the Obama administration but does almost nothing to reduce the continuing risks of nuclear war. 

“The U.S. faces two choices: Spending $1 trillion rebuilding our entire nuclear arsenal and continuing Cold War-era policies that make nuclear war easier to start, or deciding it is time to change, and beginning to move posture and policy back from the brink. 

“This NPR chooses the first path. If maintained, it will mean decades more of nuclear brinkmanship and clear nuclear risk. The chances of catastrophic failure are higher than ever. 

“Many have argued it would take a nuclear crisis to break the stranglehold that Cold War hawks have held on nuclear policy. Right now, in Ukraine, we are witnessing just such a crisis: A nuclear-armed aggressor, empowered by its arsenal, acts with impunity. Nuclear weapons no longer ‘keep the peace,’ they enable war. We live in a new era and sticking to the status quo is not going to make us safer. 

“We have to get rid of nuclear weapons. It won't be quick or easy. But everything we do should be directed toward that end, or we risk facing the end of humanity as we know it.” 

###

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.

Majority of Americans Fear Nuclear Weapons Use After Russia's Ukraine Invasion

Nearly nine in 10 people in a new poll said they fear the U.S. could be drawn into Putin's war in Ukraine, and 75% said they are worried the U.S. will be targeted in a nuclear attack.

Anti-nuclear weapons activists from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament stage a die-in protest on May 3, 2019 in London. 

(Photo: WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

JULIA CONLEY

COMMON DREAMS

March 28, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has left Americans on edge, according to a recent poll which found a majority of people in the U.S. are worried that the war has made the impending use of nuclear weapons more likely.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents told the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that the invasion has increased the likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used anywhere in the world.

Eighty-five percent of people surveyed said they were concerned that the U.S. could be drawn into the conflict, including 47% of people who said they were "extremely or very concerned" about this scenario, which would amount to a conflict between the two countries with the world's largest nuclear stockpiles.

"Whenever you have nuclear-armed nations getting closer to conflict, there's always a risk of nuclear escalation."

Putin raised alarm when he placed his country's nuclear weapons on high alert days after invading Ukraine. In the U.S., President Joe Biden last week unnerved international observers when he appeared to call for the Russian president's removal from power.

"Whenever you have nuclear-armed nations getting closer to conflict, there's always a risk of nuclear escalation," Tara Drozdenko, director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the AP.

Weeks before Putin's invasion, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that its "Doomsday Clock," established in 1947 after the U.S. bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II, remains at "100 seconds to midnight" for the third year in a row—a status attributed in part to U.S. and Russian nuclear modernization efforts.

"For many years, we and others have warned that the most likely way nuclear weapons might be used is through an unwanted or unintended escalation from a conventional conflict," said the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists earlier this month as Russian forces battered Ukrainian cities and more than 3.7 million people fled the country. "Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought this nightmare scenario to life, with Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening to elevate nuclear alert levels and even first use of nuclear weapons if NATO steps in to help Ukraine. This is what 100 seconds to midnight looks like."

Eighty-seven percent of respondents to the AP poll said they were at least "somewhat concerned" that Putin could use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and 75% were concerned that the U.S. could be targeted.

Since the invasion, anti-war and arms control groups have intensified calls for Biden to commit to a no "first-use" policy, affirming that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is only a deterrent and will never be used in an offensive strike.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week, however, that the president has abandoned his campaign pledge to establish an official policy to that effect.

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Climate change increasing pandemics

Now is the time to address climate change for the health of society.

By

 Jane Marsh

 -

March 23, 2022

SOURCENationofChange

Pandemics and endemics have emerged and reemerged throughout the centuries, with humans finding ways to survive and adapt. COVID-19 has swept through nations worldwide in recent years, causing high mortality rates and health and socioeconomic distress.

However, as scientists scramble to understand the origins of the coronavirus and how new strains form over time, the question remains whether climate change will increase the likelihood of future pandemics and the spread of pathogens.

The emergence of new diseases

Climate change has become a contentious and politicized topic worldwide. A portion of the population believes the world faces little impact from climate change, while others remain adamant the risks are a grave concern.

According to a Pew Research Center study that surveyed people from 14 countries, 7 in 10 people believe climate change is the biggest threat we’re facing. Another 69% of those surveyed felt infectious diseases are the biggest threat. But do climate change and infectious diseases go hand in hand?

Climate change creates the right conditions for a virus’s development and survival and influences the way it circulates. When weather events and rising temperatures alter ecosystems, the health effects are significant.

For example, the African Rift Valley fever (RVF) is closely associated with increased rainfall and has led to explosive transmission rates from animals to humans. Meanwhile, warmer weather drives higher cases of bluetongue, hantavirus, and Lyme disease.

This emergence of climate-related disease will put epicenters at risk of economic and environmental despair. The wide range of vector-borne pathogens carries dire consequences for clean water and food accessibility, leading to 700,000 deaths from parasites, bacteria, or viruses each year.

The impact of climate on transmission

When we consider zoological diseases, it’s apparent that climate has played a role in rapid transmission and spillover. A spillover event occurs when a virus can overcome specific barriers to spread more easily from species to species.

For example, mosquitoes use temperature-sensing receptors on their antennae to detect heat and latch onto their prey. As the planet warms, dangerous mosquito populations will migrate northwards, infecting more people.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the dengue epidemic affected nine countries before 1970. Today, 129 countries have local mosquito populations that carry dengue, with 4.2 million cases reported in 2019.

Climate change creates the perfect conditions for pests to populate, as well. An increase in pests can cause severe allergies and respiratory diseases. With the rapid reproduction of pests, ticks, fleas, and mosquitoes in hotter environments, more humans and animals face more significant infection risks.

Tropical regions have a much higher transmissibility and spillover risk than others due to having the largest animal diversity globally that carries vector-borne pathogens. Because food markets are common in these areas, a significant spread of disease will likely occur between animals and humans.

The future of pandemics

While scientists have yet to figure out if climate change has directly influenced the spread of the coronavirus, several factors should be considered for future pandemics.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), agricultural expansion accounted for 33-40% of tropical deforestation between 2000 and 2010. Additionally, nearly 198 million acres of the world’s forests have been lost since 1990.

The degradation of habitats has led to animal migrations, putting humans at a higher risk of contact with germs. Large livestock farms are also a source of spillover from animals to humans. By decreasing the demand for meat and promoting sustainable farming, society can lessen the emergence of infectious diseases.

A recent study also suggests people were more likely to die from COVID-19 if they lived in a poorer area with heavy air pollution. If air pollution influences higher mortality in vulnerable people with less access to health care, then more significant air pollution mitigation is required to assist these populations during future pandemics.

COVID-19: Not the first or the last

Scientists have learned a lot about the novel coronavirus over the last two years. However, as climate change impacts the emergence and spread of new diseases, the human race needs to be prepared for future pandemics. Now is the time to address climate change for the health of society

Jane Marsh

Jane Marsh is an environmental and sustainability writer. You can keep up with her work on her site Environment.co.

Two years in, we need to learn the lessons of this pandemic

America’s pre-existing condition when the pandemic hit is not a “normal” we should return to.

By

 Domenica Ghanem

 -

March 28, 2022

SOURCEOtherWords

Two years ago I was panicking, making hundreds of phone calls to postpone my wedding that was a few days away. It was March 2020.

A global pandemic had reached the United States and changed each of our lives in ways we never imagined. Millions of Americans would lose jobs, friends, family, and even their lives to COVID-19, while billionaires would see record increases in their wealth.

While the country ground to a halt, and I googled whether an imam would perform our marriage over Zoom, there was a glimmer of hope at the back of my mind. Surely, I thought, an event so monumental — one that laid bare every inequity of our economic system — would call for a change of equal measure.

There was a swell of recognition that working people were essential. Affordable child care — and well paid providers — were revealed as the backbone of a functioning economy. Free health care suddenly seemed like a great idea.

As a new administration took over, some short term changes in the American Rescue Plan kept people from falling off a steep cliff.

Vaccines were distributed freely and efficiently. Americans got bigger stimulus checks, while workers who lost jobs got more generous unemployment insurance. Families with kids started getting monthly direct payments through the expanded Child Tax Credit.

But when it came time to pass the more transformative, longer term changes we needed, the lessons of the past two years weren’t enough for some politicians.

The Build Back Better Act would have reset the terms for how child care, housing, and income support operate in our country. It would have extended the Child Tax Credit, created green jobs, and much more.

But every one of the 263 Republicans in the House and Senate — plus Senate Democrat Joe Manchin — opposed it. For this, they were rewarded handsomely by corporate lobbyists. Oil giant Exxon, for example, donated $65,000 to Manchin’s campaign and bragged about their access to the senator, who also owns stock in the company.

A good deal for Manchin. Not so much for the many Americans who can’t fill up their tank for less than $100. We were so close to living in a country where higher gas prices, or an extra few dollars for ground beef, didn’t mean someone going to bed without dinner.

Companies that monopolize these necessities deserve the blame for a lot of inflation, including the rising cost of gas and food. But they’re also to blame for the fact that they don’t pay their workers enough to meet those costs.

Big corporations artificially raise the price of diapers, while also lobbying against extending the Child Tax Credit for people who buy them. The credit has since expired, throwing millions of kids back into poverty.

Banks are benefiting from the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates while also refusing Black people mortgage loans to buy a house and build up generational wealth.

Two years later, I can enjoy the photos from the in-person wedding I was finally able to have after my family and friends could get vaccinated. I’m grateful for that semblance of normalcy. But some things shouldn’t go back to the status quo.

We can’t fall back into a system where small unexpected expenses put entire families in poverty. We should be able to pay our bills and save some for the future, too. While that might sound “normal,” it’s been many decades since that’s been the reality for the average American.

But that doesn’t mean nothing at all has changed. As we grapple with another year of COVID-19, it’s time we flex the power that comes with being essential and fight for a new economy that favors people, not just corporations.

Domenica Ghanem

Domenica Ghanem is a communications consultant on political and social justice campaigns. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

Toxic chemicals in food packaging weaken our immune system response to COVID-19—when will Congress ban them?

A new federal bill would advance public and environmental health by banning toxic chemicals from food packaging.

By

 Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner

 -

March 23, 2022

SOURCENationofChange

While so many Americans have taken all necessary precautions to keep themselves and those around them safe from COVID-19 and prevent severe illness if they do get sick with the virus, there are plenty of other factors in Americans’ daily lives that are beyond their control that may actually worsen the effects of the novel coronavirus and especially result in the vulnerable population being more susceptible to the virus despite their best efforts to get vaccinated and boosted and ensure they are masked up and are socially distanced from others.

Chemicals commonly found in consumer products have been proven to harm human health, yet they still remain legal stateside. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which negatively affect human hormones, can exacerbate COVID-19 in particularly vulnerable individuals, yet these EDCs can be hard to avoid for any American consumer. “Certain underlying chronic conditions associated with exposures to… [endocrine-disrupting] chemicals (EDCs) are exacerbating the effects of COVID-19 in vulnerable populations,” confirmed the Collaborative on Health and the Environment.

PFAS (short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances), which are frequently found in food packaging and mass-manufactured goods, like cosmetics, are an EDC.

According to a June 2020 article in the Intercept, “Studies have shown that in both adults and children higher levels of certain PFAS chemicals were associated with weaker responses to vaccines. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the CDC, recognized this evidence in an announcement it recently posted to its website on the ‘potential intersection between PFAS exposure and COVID-19.’”

“PFAS chemicals are a family of chemicals that are widely used in industrial and consumer product applications, and commonly used to make water-, grease- and stain-repellent coatings,” explains David Andrews, PhD, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit public health advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. “PFAS chemicals are very stable and impervious to breakdown, giving them what is often considered to be a performance advantage in many products. This apparent advantage of chemical and physical stability is what has led to widespread global contamination [by PFAS] and [has provided them with] their ability to cause human health harm.”

These toxins are pervasive in everyday life, but a PFAS ban for food packaging, proposed in Congress in late 2021, can help limit everyday exposure to the toxins. The Keep Food Containers Safe from PFAS Act is a bipartisan effort, introduced in the Senate by Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and in the House of Representatives by Representative Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Representative Don Young (R-AK). If the bill passes, it is expected to be enacted by January 1, 2024.

A PFAS ban is “long overdue and [is] hopefully the first of many,” says Calloway Cook, president of Illuminate Labs, a dietary supplements company. “It’s unfortunate that many packaged food products in the U.S. contain compounds that are known to be harmful to human health but remain legal to use,” he adds. “The FDA and Congress should review the medical literature on more compounds like PFAS and err on the side of caution, [and look at] banning all compounds that have proven toxicity in animal studies at doses achievable through regular use… The cost to switch to more sustainable alternatives is not much, even with plastics, but most businesses are not focused on long-term environmental effects. It’s absolutely the role of Congress to better regulate the food industry, and I hope the bill banning PFAS is the first of many similar bills.”

Andrews agrees, saying in an EWG press release, “The Keep Food Containers Safe from PFAS Act would quickly cut off a potential major and completely avoidable source of exposure to these forever chemicals.”

PFAS are widely used because they offer a solution to consumer packaging, but what could be used instead? “With hundreds to thousands of PFAS chemicals, it is likely that there will be a significant, if not similar, number of alternative chemicals or alternatives needed to fully replace PFAS,” explains Andrews, emphasizing that where safer alternatives exist, they should be used instead of PFAS as soon as possible. In other cases, alternatives may need to be developed, and should potentially be incentivized. For example, medical devices, which are essential to human health and safety, should absolutely not have toxins in them. But that is unfortunately not the case.

Still, replacing PFAS with non-detrimental alternatives isn’t that simple. “Many of the PFAS being used today are replacements for different PFAS chemicals such as PFOA [perfluorooctanoic acid] and PFOS [perfluorooctane sulfonic acid] that were used decades ago,” Andrews explains. “Many of the regulations phasing out the use of PFAS, such as the Washington state ban of PFAS in food packaging, require an alternative assessment to ensure that the replacements [provided] are safer [than the original options].” This certainly explains why it would be difficult to ban PFAS immediately, even after knowing the health risks involved in using them: they help support consumerism.

The Environmental Protection Agency is currently investigating more than 1,000 completely legal PFAS chemicals, which is worrisome for environmental and human health. Introducing regulations for various industries, such as food packaging, cosmetics and textiles, will help curb the use of PFAS and halt further contamination and sickness related to these chemicals. To check if you live in an area contaminated by PFAS and should take precautions, such as filtering your tap water, the EWG offers an online interactive map as well as expert-sourced tips on avoiding PFAS exposure.

And just as it is not always possible to avoid all sources of COVID-19, avoiding all potential sources of PFAS isn’t always as easy as it may sound. Research by Greenpeace in 2016 found PFAS contaminants in jackets made by environmentally focused brands like the North Face, which plans to phase out PFAS by 2025, and Patagonia, which aims to ensure that 85 percent of its garments are “PFAS-free by the end of 2022”; in 2014, Greenpeace found PFAS in more than 80 articles of clothing, including footwear, that were purchased in 2013. Finding a water-repellent, affordable and PFAS-free raincoat may not be easy, but cutting back on greasy food packed in PFAS-treated containers or wrappers (such as for fast food and microwave popcorn) and preparing food in non-PFAS treated nonstick cookware—a currently available alternative you could try is learning to cook with a cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven, for example—may help. Still, with the proliferation of PFAS use in so many aspects of Americans’ daily lives, the responsibility for substantial change lies most heavily with the government, which has the power to make legislative changes to curb companies’ reliance on PFAS. As it stands, Americans live in a nation where it is very difficult to avoid PFAS exposure and its harms.

“It is imperative that regulations move forward to limit future harm from PFAS chemicals based on what we know about the extreme toxicity and potent risk that these chemicals pose for human health,” says Andrews. “Regulations should be enacted quickly to stop any ongoing industrial discharges and [to] eliminate approval of new PFAS that may pose risks to health or the environment.”

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner

Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner is a writer based in New York. She is a writing fellow at Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute. She’s written for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Glamour, AlterNet, Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, Architectural Digest, Them and other publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Columbia University and is also at work on a forthcoming novel. Follow her on Twitter: @melissabethk.