"We need to get mercury and other heavy metal emissions down to zero or as close as we can get to," Skye Wheeler, a Senior Researcher in the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, told CG via email.
In late February, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would do away with requirements established as a part of the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. The regulations aimed to reduce mercury emissions in order to limit the build-up of mercury and other heavy metals in the environment, plants, and animals.
This includes fish eaten by people, including during pregnancy, when health experts strongly caution that mercury exposure should be reduced out of concern for fetal development.
Mercury is a neurotoxin, and exposure to the naturally occurring element may negatively affect the brain and nervous system development of fetuses and young children. Regulations previously set increased monitoring and reporting requirements for power plants and limited the use of a form of coal, called lignite, which contains higher levels of mercury.
In a press release last month, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said, "The Biden-Harris administration’s anti-coal regulations sought to regulate out of existence this vital sector of our energy economy." Zeldin, whose efforts have been a part of changes under the Trump administration to sustain the coal industry, went on to suggest that the previously established restrictions would have threatened the American energy supply. He also suggested that undoing them posed no health threat.
But in a recent post, Skye Wheeler, a Senior Researcher in the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, flagged the EPA's deregulation as "an important loss" and "a setback for maternal and child health." In a follow-up with CG, Wheeler characterized the heavy metal as "one of the worst toxins in the entire world."
"Pregnant people, including the fetus and small children, are incredibly vulnerable to neurological and other harms from mercury," Wheeler told CG via email.
She also noted that removing industry restrictions from coal-fired power plants "puts the burden" of managing the health concern "on the pregnant person."
"It’s important that pregnant people get advice and facts about mercury and fish, but that can’t be the end of the public health story," Wheeler said. "We need to get mercury and other heavy metal emissions down to zero or as close as we can get to."
"[Promoting] the use of clean energy sources that do not burn coal," which is "a major source of mercury," is among the recommendations of the World Health Organization to help reduce the spread of the toxin worldwide.
Asked if U.S. regulatory rollbacks could end up impacting populations elsewhere, Wheeler told CG, "Yes, air pollution doesn’t stay in the U.S." She went on to note, however, that pollution generated in other countries also posed risks, including those from mining.
Environmental news outlet Mongabay covered a 2025 report from the International Pollutants Elimination Network, for example, that showed that "Indigenous women of childbearing age from Nicaragua’s Waspam municipality have been exposed to toxic levels of mercury" associated with small-scale gold mining in the region.
Some researchers are currently investigating whether pregnancy may, to a certain degree, help people eliminate toxins like mercury from their bodies as a kind of protective mechanism. Meanwhile, the medical community still widely warns pregnant people to avoid consuming larger quantities of fish known to contain higher levels of the heavy metal.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called it a "riskier choice" to consume "fish that contain high amounts of mercury," which include shark, swordfish, and king mackerel. The Food and Drug Administration has said "it is important to limit mercury in the diets of those who are pregnant or breastfeeding and children," while noting that consuming recommended amounts of fish known to contain lower mercury levels can contribute to a healthy diet and support children's brain development.
"Cesar's actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people," Dolores Huerta wrote in her statement. "We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever."
"It’s hard to imagine the people I met who rely on U.S. drugs for their survival suddenly cut off," New York Times reporter Stephanie Nolen wrote of her recent trip to the northwest region of Zambia in a comment online.
"Participants consistently described chest binding during extreme heat as physically exhausting and, at times, unsafe," researchers Arnav Singh Rana and Sahil Jamal Siddiqui told CG via email, also noting methods for mitigating discomfort and protecting well-being.
"I would say that with just a massive amount of those chemicals in a short period, probably preterm birth would be greatly increased," researcher Marsha Wills-Karp told CG about some of the potential impacts of pollution from burning oil reserves. She also recommended steps to mitigate exposure.
