"Everywhere is blacked out," photographer Taiwo Aina-Adeokun told CG via Zoom about the smoky conditions she observed in kitchen settings — spaces to which her identity as a female photojournalist helped gain her access, she said. "At the fish smoking area, her eyes were always watery."
"Pollution and climate shifts make the regular stressors more extreme and add new stressors," Jamie DeWitt, a study co-author and Director of the Pacific Northwest Center for Translational Environmental Health Research at Oregon State University, told CG.
"We're excited about this," Ravi Thadhani, study lead author and Chief Medical Officer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, told Scientific American.
"Burden was estimated to be disproportionate in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa," the co-authors wrote in their report. "Implementing regulatory measures to limit exposure to phthalates as a class could help reduce the global [preterm birth] burden."
Researcher Sherri Mason told National Public Radio that the move to monitor substances like microplastics in drinking water is "an important first step." Earthjustice attorney Katherine O'Brien told the outlet the effort is "a distraction."
"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.
"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.
"While it's too early to conclude anything from this data — like that microplastics are involved in prostate cancer development — nevertheless, I think it is still scary that they're in so many prostates," study lead author Stacy Loeb told the Urology Times.
Some groups have raised concerns that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, may be used in the cooling process and later flushed into wastewater systems. Exposure to some "forever chemicals" has been linked with serious conditions, including certain reproductive health issues.
"We did not directly address this through these separate papers," study lead author David Luglio told CG, "but it is also important to understand if and how these wildfire and heat effects on autism development combine, especially given that they will likely co-occur in the future."
ProPublica said in late February that the agency shared it "has stopped distributing" gear containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances following the outlet's early-February reporting that the agency knew for years its pants contained potentially harmful "forever chemicals."
"Women and girls bear disproportionate health and safety risks, including physical burns, contact with contaminated waste, and exposure to toxic emissions from plastic combustion," Chizoba Obianuju Oranu, a researcher at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, told CG.
