by Jill Erzen
Dr. Leo Trasande, one of the nation’s leading experts on environmental health and toxic exposures, warned this week that plastics pose “a multidimensional and urgent threat to human health,” with children facing some of the greatest risks.
Speaking on “The Secretary Kennedy Podcast,” Trasande — a pediatrician, professor at New York University and director of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Division of Environmental Pediatrics — described mounting evidence linking chemicals in plastics to developmental, hormonal, metabolic, reproductive and neurological harm.
“The impacts run from cradle to grave and womb to tomb,” he said.
The discussion comes as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launches STOMP — Systematic Targeting Of MicroPlastics. The $144 million initiative aims to measure, study and eventually remove microplastics and nanoplastics from the human body.
The program will develop standardized testing methods, map how plastics accumulate in organs, rank plastics by biological harm and pursue future removal technologies.
Trasande said the growing concern extends beyond visible plastic waste to microscopic and chemical exposures embedded throughout modern life.
“We know that there are 16,000 chemicals — synthetic chemicals — that are in plastic,” Trasande said. “We don’t know anything about 10,000 of them.”
Among the chemicals with the strongest evidence of harm are bisphenols used in plastics, phthalates found in food packaging and personal care products, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — also known as “forever chemicals” — used in nonstick and stain-resistant products.
Trasande said the evidence is “extremely strong” that many of these chemicals disrupt hormones, which in turn regulate metabolism, reproduction, growth and brain development.
‘A silent epidemic of kids with lower IQs in the U.S.’
As a pediatrician, Trasande repeatedly emphasized that children are uniquely vulnerable.
“Pound for pound, they eat more food, drink more water, breathe more air, so they’re uniquely susceptible,” he said. “Their organ systems are also just being primed. And so if you disrupt that, there are lifelong and permanent consequences.”
He pointed to evidence linking phthalate exposure during pregnancy to roughly 50,000 premature births in the U.S. each year, along with impaired brain development and poorer educational outcomes.
Trasande warned that some of the most damaging effects may be subtle and population-wide, rather than immediately obvious in individual children. Even small disruptions to thyroid hormones during pregnancy are associated with cognitive deficits, autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), he said.
“What you see is a silent epidemic of kids with lower IQs in the U.S.,” Trasande said. “Just to put this in context for the audience, a kid loses an IQ point, mom doesn’t notice, pediatrician doesn’t notice.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compared the issue to the impact of lead exposure on the national average IQ before leaded gasoline was phased out in the 1980s.
“You could lose five IQ points across an entire population; nobody would notice,” Kennedy said, recalling a conversation with an epidemiologist. “But you’re crippling that society.”
Trasande said the emerging evidence on plastics points to a similar kind of public-health crisis.
“Plastics is like a lead moment,” he said.
‘A proverbial tablespoon of plastic in the human brain’
Trasande also stressed that plastics were long assumed to be chemically inert. But scientists now know many compounds leach into food, water and, ultimately, human tissue.
PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” are especially concerning because the body struggles to eliminate them. Trasande explained that “your kidney doesn’t really know what to do,” causing the organ to expel the chemicals, which are then reabsorbed into the bloodstream.
He warned that the number of PFAS compounds continues to grow.
Kennedy said manufacturers often modify existing compounds after restrictions are imposed. This forces regulators to spend years proving those replacement chemicals cause similar harms.
“The chemical industry is very adept,” Trasande said.
Trasande also described evidence of substantial microplastic accumulation in the brain, arguing that the exact amount matters less than the fact that the material is present at all.
“A proverbial tablespoon of plastic in the human brain,” Trasande said. “If it’s a teaspoon or a tablespoon, it almost doesn’t matter. I think the point is that it’s there, and there in substantial quantities.”
‘Prevention is the cure’
Food packaging and food-contact materials are likely the largest source of exposure, Trasande said. However, chemicals also enter the body through cosmetics, synthetic clothing, thermal paper receipts and household products.
- Many exposures can be reduced through practical changes, he said. These include efforts to:
- Minimize the use of canned foods.
Avoid heating plastic food and drink containers. Putting plastic containers in the microwave or dishwasher “is just inviting at a molecular level, at an invisible level, these chemicals or micro-nanoplastics to leach into food,” Trasande said.
Drink less bottled water. “Buying that plastic water bottle and assuming it’s free of toxic chemicals is maybe a bit foolish to assume,” he said.
- Reduce contact with thermal paper receipts, which “are, unfortunately, a significant source of bisphenol exposure.”
- Choose stainless-steel or glass containers.
- Cook with cast-iron or stainless-steel cookware.
- Avoid cosmetics and personal care products [including toothbrushes and dental floss?] that contain phthalates or vague “fragrance” ingredients. Absorption through the skin “bypasses the liver. So the first time around the body, it can have an even more significant effect,” according to Trasande.
Even short-term reductions in exposure can measurably change hormone levels within weeks and may lower long-term disease risk, Trasande said. “Prevention is the cure.”
‘Americans deserve clear answers about how microplastics … affect their health’
The new STOMP initiative through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) aims to answer some of the biggest unresolved scientific questions, particularly around microplastics and nanoplastics.
Trasande said the effort could “break a lot of ground” because researchers still don’t fully understand how these particles behave inside the human body.
Under the program’s first phase, researchers will study how microplastics move through the body and will develop a gold-standard clinical test to quantify the individual plastic burden, according to an April press release.
The program will also create a risk-stratification system to rank plastic materials by biological harm so scientists, policymakers and industry can identify which forms of microplastics pose the greatest risks and should be addressed first.
A second phase will focus on targeted removal strategies.
“Americans deserve clear answers about how microplastics in their bodies affect their health,” Kennedy said when announcing the initiative in April.
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