Content warning: discussions of addiction and suicide
The pandemic took the lives of many battling drug and alcohol addiction to new lows. However, for some, it was the trigger that finally forced them to confront their demons.
The number of over 50s seeking treatment for alcohol and drug addiction in England has increased by 50% since 2020, NHS data reveals. In the previous five years, the increase was only 15%.
Between 2008 and 2012, the rates of people seeking treatment for addiction rose in every age group. After that, rates only continued rising for over 45s – albeit slowly. However, from 2020, the number of over 50s entering treatment skyrocketed – which coincided with the start of the pandemic.
As the graph demonstrates, the leap was most pronounced in the 60–64 age group which jumped nearly 64%. Numbers also increased among 18-24 and 40-49 year-olds, whilst the figures for 25-39 year-olds decreased. The total increase for people over 50 was 50%.
‘Far more over 50s’
Andrew E. (who does not wish to be fully identified), used to spend every day in one room, drinking and using crack cocaine. Now, his life has changed beyond measure thanks to a treatment centre and a 12-step programme.
From London, Andrew is one of over 300,000 people in England who entered treatment for addictions in the year up to 31 March 2024. He is now 58 and has been clean and sober for almost a year.
Before treatment, he saw three people each day: his 81 year-old-stepdad who he lives with, “the guy” who served him in the off-licence at 6am, and his drug dealer. He would wake up in “alcoholic withdrawal”, drink half a bottle of vodka, then spend the day “smoking crack and drinking in one room”.
A man looking out of a window. Picture: Andrik Langfield on Unsplash
Like a growing number of over 50s, one of Andrew’s addictions was crack cocaine. Over the last five years, the number of people aged 50 and over entering treatment centres because of the drug have risen by 140%. Most notably, among the 60-64 age group, the increase was 207%.
‘Please get help’
Andrew had been drinking and using drugs since the age of 15. The pandemic meant that he found himself drinking and using earlier and earlier each day, until eventually “the wheels really came off”. He could no longer see a way out. He said:
I’d lost that delusion that things would ever get better.
This culminated in him attempting to take his own life. Thankfully, he wasn’t successful – but it wasn’t enough for him to get help. He said:
Immediately I got out, I went to the off-licence and went to my drug dealer.
Soon after, he unintentionally overdosed. Then, after another accident a few weeks later he found himself back in A&E. After waiting hours to be seen, he started going into alcohol withdrawal. Eventually, he had to get honest about how ill he was.
Luckily for Andrew, a kind doctor took him into a side room and stitched him up. He apologised for being a “nuisance”. She put her arm around him and said:
Don’t ever say that. Don’t ever say you’re a nuisance. But will you please get help?
At that point, he reached out for help and was given “an amazing key worker” who “fought really hard” to get him a place in rehab. He said:
I think those events were like the universe telling me, Andrew, you’re done with this now.
Andrew stayed at Ark House in Scarborough. It’s a 12-step-based rehab which helps people with all types of addictions.
Now Andrew is living a life filled with purpose and meaning – which is a far cry from his life in active addiction.
Image shows five different sobriety coins from a 12-step programme. Sobriety coins are given out to mark various sobriety milestones and used as a token of celebration. The ones pictured are for 24 hours, one year, three years, four years and five years. Picture: HG.
‘The brakes came off’
Since 2019, the number of people in treatment for alcohol addiction has risen by 42.7%. The biggest increase was among 60–64 year-olds, which saw a 57% increase.
Research suggests that higher levels of stress correlate with higher levels of alcohol consumption. The pandemic created extra stress and exacerbated both existing mental health issues and negative harmful mechanisms, from spending too much time scrolling social media to substance use:
Addiction rates skyrocket in England amidst pandemic.
Every aspect of daily life was affected. Routines, jobs, education, social life, many people’s livelihood, and even their health. All this as well as the fear of the unknown, and it was the perfect environment for addictive behaviours to progress.
Paul, 56, (who does not wish to be fully identified), has worked as a counsellor at Ark House for three years. He noticed that until the pandemic, there were many people that — although alcoholic — were still “functioning”. They had jobs, mortgages, wives, families, and “seemed to be doing alright”. Paul said:
When COVID came, it kind of took the brakes off for them.
The jobs and the family were the brakes, and all of a sudden that routine was taken off them. I think it was the routine that allowed them to function, and once that had gone out, I believe that that was the breakdown.
Image shows Ark House Rehab in Scarborough, from the street. Picture: Ark House.
Andrew Dettman, 70, is also a counsellor at Ark House. He got sober in 1995 through a 12-step programme in Hull. He said:
The pandemic really did accelerate levels of anxiety and depression, which people who end up in a 12-step programme are well aware of.
Research points towards the mental health and well-being of over 50s being far worse than other age groups during the pandemic. This is thought to be due to the increased social isolation, with many older people not having access to the internet or technology such as video calling.
Often, people turn to substances to deal with difficult emotions — like anxiety, depression, or loneliness. Whilst this may help temporarily, it can very quickly become an addictive cycle.
Robin Pollard, head of policy at WithYou — a drug, alcohol, and mental health support charity, said:
… with an ageing population, we’ve also seen more older people in treatment for alcohol, fuelled by isolation during the Covid pandemic, and life changes such as bereavement, retirement and a lack of purpose.
The pandemic made many people’s lives more complicated. Whilst for some, it may have slowed things down — for those in active addiction, the brakes completely came off. Luckily for Andrew E. and many others, places like Ark House were there to help, and he was given a second chance. In his own words:
I’m leading the best life I’ve ever had.
If you are concerned about your drinking or drug use, please visit wearewithyou.org.uk.
Replacing half of meat and seafood production with plant proteins could save 100,000 lives lost from air pollution in Thailand, a new study has found.
Thailand’s annual crop-burning season causes air pollution lethal enough to prematurely kill 34,000 people every year but the solution lies in another agricultural element: plants.
Specifically, plant-based proteins. Agricultural burning is the biggest source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the country, which is one of the main air pollutants. During the December-April season, PM2.5 levels are three times higher than the national acceptable standard.
The problem is maize, which accounts for a majority of the crops burned – and nearly all of this (99.83%) is reserved for animal feed. This, in turn, contributes to Thailand’s thriving meat and seafood industry.
If this sector grows as projected, the number of premature deaths associated with burning residues of maize could reach 361,000 (between 2020 and 2050), according to new analysis from non-profit Madre Brava and sustainable development consultancy Asia Research Engagement (ARE).
Instead, a 50% switch from meat and seafood to plant-based proteins could reverse this trend, preventing 101,000 deaths in this period. This number takes in previous research by the two organisations, which found that such a shift would lower animal production by 28% by 2050.
That study further revealed that doing so would create 1.3 million jobs and $37B in economic value, lower national emissions by 79%, and spare up to 2.17 million hectares of farmland.
The link between meat, the burning season, and pollution
Courtesy: Azote/Stockholm Resilience Centre
The study is based on the planetary boundaries framework, which identifies nine processes critical to the environment’s ability to regulate itself and life on Earth. In 2009, we had crossed three of these boundaries. By 2023, that number jumped to six.
One of these processes concerns aerosols – tiny liquid or solid particles suspended in the air, such as PM2.5. These are small enough to penetrate deep into the respiratory system and enter the bloodstream, causing serious health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, asthma, reduced lung function, and premature death.
Wanarak Saiphankaew, a former lecturer at the Faculty of Science at Chiang Mai University, knows all about this. She has lost both her parents to respiratory diseases, as well as a colleague from the university. None of them were smokers, and the biology expert is convinced that air pollution was conducive to their deaths.
“I have been having problems with my respiratory system, and it is getting worse. I don’t know how much time I will have left in my life,” she said, adding that she is now considering moving away from the northern Thai city. “So I decided to leave my job to do what I want to do.”
Sureerat Treemanka, vice-president of the Chiang Mai Breath Council, said: “People in the north of Thailand bear the brunt of maize burning. Our region has the highest rates of lung cancer in the country and higher premature deaths from air pollution than other regions.”
Animal agriculture dominates PM2.5 production emanating from the food system – this is because livestock production accounts for 80% of farmland and 42% of all human-caused ammonia (a PM2.5 precursor).
“The meat and seafood industry feeds the entire country, including some export markets. The long-term solution should not be an indiscriminate penalty for farmers who burn crops, but should include supporting the shift away from monoculture of maize for animal feed and to more sustainable crops,” said Treemanka.
The Thai government must lead by example with protein diversification
Courtesy: Absolute Plant
Madre Brava and ARE propose protein diversification as a “long-term, systemic solution” that can address the root cause of PM2.5 by reducing the demand for animal feed – and meat.
The groups encourage Thai policymakers to build on the Department of Industrial Promotion’s Reshape the Future scheme, which supports small- and medium-sized plant-based businesses with tech and innovation access.
One way to get consumers excited about more plants is by introducing financial incentives that vegan alternatives cheaper and more accessible. Lawmakers must support farmers transitioning into crop production for plant-based proteins via education, financial assistance, and capacity-building initiatives.
Another step is to lead by example: serving meat-free meals at public events and increasing these options at government institutions (including schools and hospitals) can help generate demand.
“The air pollution that chokes Thailand during the burning season places an unacceptable burden on the health and lives of Thai people. That’s why the government has introduced measures to reduce it,” said Wich Piromsan, Thailand director for Madre Brava.
“But the role played by animal agriculture is largely overlooked. Cutting burning from animal feed production could save hundreds of thousands of lives and help many more lead healthier lives.”
The report also recommends retailers and foodservice players to increase their plant-based offerings. Equally important is the role of Thai meat and seafood producers, which must incorporate protein diversification into their climate plans, and invest in R&D to enhance alternative protein products for both domestic and international markets.
“The quality of the air you breathe should not be dictated by your zip code,” said Piromsan. “With a national shift in protein production, it wouldn’t be.”
On January 15, a group of utility companies wrote a letter to Lee Zeldin, then president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. “We provide the electricity for millions of homes, businesses, and institutions across the U.S., create thousands of good-paying jobs, and drive economic progress and American prosperity,” the letter stated.
After the polite opening, they got right to their main request: “Two matters in particular call for immediate action: (1) regulations on greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) emissions from existing coal-fired and new natural-gas power plants that mandate a carbon capture technology that has not been adequately demonstrated and (2) the unprecedented expansion of the federal regulation of coal combustion residuals (‘CCR’).”
The companies contend that the federal government has overstepped its authority in its enforcement of these two areas of regulation. The letter asked Zeldin to go easy on them — by delivering the regulatory authority back to states and rescinding a 2024 rule that mandated cleanup of coal ash at inactive power plants.
What the power companies call “coal combustion residuals,” and describe as “a natural byproduct of generating electricity with coal … used for beneficial purposes in U.S. construction and manufacturing,” is known more colloquially as coal ash — a toxic mixture of heavy metals like arsenic and mercury, which, because coal plants are usually built near bodies of water, often comes in contact with groundwater when it is buried in an unlined pit. Over the last century and a half of American coal power generation, power companies have dumped coal ash at hundreds of active and inactive power plants across the country.
Zeldin is now the administrator of the EPA, and it appears the power companies are getting their wish. Amid a barrage of press releases that, on March 12, proposed 31 deregulatory actions, were two that seem designed to significantly weaken enforcement of coal ash regulations, environmental attorneys told Grist.
Zeldin called it “the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen.”
In the first, the EPA announced that it will encourage states to take over permitting and enforcement of the coal ash rule. When states are delegated the authority by the EPA to issue their own coal ash disposal permits, they are supposed to adhere to standards at least as stringent as the federal rules, but in some cases state environmental agencies have simply gone rogue and flouted this requirement.
Georgia, which received the authority to issue its own permits for coal ash disposal in 2019, has controversially approved plans at several coal plants for the utility Georgia Power to permanently store millions of tons of coal ash in unlined landfills that are partially submerged in groundwater, despite being notified by EPA that this violates the federal rule. In neighboring Alabama, state regulators sought the same delegated authority that their counterparts in Georgia had been granted, but last year the EPA denied their application because they planned to issue permits to Alabama Power that violated the federal rules in the same manner as Georgia’s.
Alabama’s was the first application for a state-run coal ash program that the EPA has denied; so far, only Georgia, Texas, and Oklahoma have been approved. But new approvals may be coming soon: “EPA will propose a determination on the North Dakota permit program within the next 60 days,” the release said.
The EPA also said it would be “reviewing” a rule it finalized in 2024, under president Joe Biden, that closed a longstanding loophole by extending coal ash regulations to cover so-called “legacy” coal ash ponds at shuttered power plants — which weren’t covered by a landmark 2015 rule that regulated coal ash disposal only at power plants in active use.
The EPA’s review of the 2024 legacy coal ash rule will focus on whether to extend the deadlines for compliance with the rule. Lisa Evans, senior counsel at Earthjustice, said the time frames in the rule as written were already far more lenient than was necessary. “Industry already got major concessions from the Biden EPA to establish deadlines that are far in the future,” she said.
Because coal ash’s peak contamination levels aren’t reached until some 70 years after waste is dumped, longer deadlines can only mean less effective cleanup. “The longer you ignore those sites, the worse the pollution gets,” Evans said.
In the second announcement related to coal ash, the EPA said it will revise a list of its top enforcement priorities that was announced in 2023 and applied to the fiscal years 2024 through 2027. The list of National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives, or NECI, included six “priority areas” for action, one of which was “Protecting Communities from Coal Ash Contamination.”
The EPA now intends to “align” the agency’s enforcement priorities with President Trump’s executive orders. It said this would be accomplished by “immediately” revising the NECI list “to ensure that enforcement does not discriminate based on race and socioeconomic status (as it has under environmental justice initiatives) or shut down energy production and that it focuses on the most pressing health and safety issues.”
No further details were provided regarding what this meant for the agency’s actual enforcement actions. But a fuller picture is found in an internal agency memo, which was sent by Jeffrey Hall, the acting head of the agency’s enforcement and compliance division. The memo, seen by Grist, outlines the ways in which the NECI list was to be updated.
Hall’s memo said that the priorities are under review “to ensure alignment between the NECIs and the Administration’s directives and priorities,” and it laid out a series of directions that applied “in the interim” to all EPA enforcement and compliance actions. These include a blanket directive that “environmental justice considerations shall no longer inform EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance work” and another declaring that “enforcement and compliance assurance actions shall not shut down any stage of energy production (from exploration to distribution) or power generation absent an imminent and substantial threat to human health or an express statutory or regulatory requirement to the contrary.”
With respect to coal ash, the memo argues that the NECI priority list “focuses in large part on perceived noncompliance with current performance standards and monitoring and testing requirements and is motivated largely by environmental justice considerations, which are inconsistent with the President’s Executive Orders and the Administrator’s Initiative.” Accordingly, the memo stipulates that “enforcement and compliance assurance for coal ash at active power plant facilities shall focus on imminent threats to human health.”
Due to the wording of the memo, Evans said in an email that “it would be entirely possible for EPA to justify avoiding any enforcement whatsoever of the coal ash rule under the NECI.”
This would be a dramatic reversal of the heightened enforcement that ramped up under the Biden administration. In 2024 — the first year of the coal ash NECI priority — the EPA conducted 107 compliance assessments of coal ash sites across 18 states. While only 5 enforcement cases (orders or agreements by which EPA requires companies to take certain actions) were filed in that year, Evans said it is likely that EPA will find reason for enforcement action at many of the other sites if the investigations are allowed to proceed.
Evans said the requirement that enforcement only take place in cases of an imminent threat to human health effectively restricts the agency from enforcing aspects of the coal ash rule designed to “prevent ‘imminent threats’ by requiring proper management and monitoring of toxic waste sites before damage and spills occur.”
For instance, Evans said, the directive would prohibit the EPA from requiring a utility to repair a faulty groundwater monitoring system. “Utilities have gamed the system at some plants by designing monitoring systems that intentionally miss detecting leakage from a coal ash dump,” she said, citing a 2022 report by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project that alleged a widespread practice among power companies of manipulating monitoring data to downplay the extent of contamination.
Power companies are supposed to dig wells to assess the groundwater quality at coal ash dumps, and in order to gauge their contamination level they compare it to what should be uncontaminated water samples nearby. But the 2022 report documented examples like coal plants in Texas, Indiana, and Florida where the EPA found that the “background” wells used for the purpose of providing baseline samples of water quality were dug in contaminated areas near the coal ash dump. The report also documented the practice of “intrawell” monitoring, or simply analyzing the data from each well in isolation, in order to assess changes in contamination levels over time, rather than contrasted with uncontaminated wells. This method doesn’t work unless the wells aren’t contaminated to begin with, and is prohibited by EPA guidelines — but the report found it was in use at 108 coal plants nationwide.
These practices could essentially be given a free pass under the new enforcement guidance. “While these are very significant violations (because contamination is not discovered and cleanup not triggered), they may not rise to an ‘imminent threat,’ especially if there are no data revealing toxic releases,” Evans said.
The section of the memo dealing with coal ash also stipulated that “any order or other enforcement action that would unduly burden or significantly disrupt power generation” requires “advance approval” from the assistant administrator of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance — the politically appointed position temporarily being held by Hall.
The memo justifies this requirement on the basis of the Trump administration’s stated intention of “unleashing American energy.” But to Nick Torrey, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, it has little to do with energy production — and more to do with utilities’ bottom line.
“There’s nothing about cleaning up coal ash that affects power generation; those are two separate activities,” Torrey noted. “So what it sounds like is they’re prioritizing polluters’ interests over people’s drinking water.”
Wadi Gaza is the estuary of Nahal Besor, a stream mentioned in the Bible. It flows west from Hebron in the West Bank, through Israeli territory and on through Gaza into the Mediterranean Sea. Today, after 18 months of war, Wadi Gaza is characterized by “pollution from debris, wastewater, corpses, ammunition, and explosives,” in the words of Nada Majdalani, the Palestinian director of EcoPeace Middle East.
Nevertheless, spring is still the migration season in Israel and Palestine. This region forms a narrow land bridge joining Europe, Asia, and Africa, marking one of the world’s busiest flight paths for an estimated 500 million birds. Many of them — flamingos, herons, storks, cranes — land in Wadi Gaza, one of the few natural preserves in the Gaza Strip, which grew into one of the most densely populated areas in the world over the last two decades because of Israeli restrictions.
Birds seen in the Gaza valley in 2022. Migration season in Israel and Palestine can draw millions of bird, many landing near the Wadi Gaza.
Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
This is the driest region in the world for the number of people it supports, and water scarcity is getting worse because it’s also warming around twice as fast as the global average. Eighty percent of Israel’s drinking water comes from ocean desalination. In Gaza, seawater intrusion has contaminated once-abundant underground reservoirs because of overpumping. While Israel and other powers in the region continue to practice resource hoarding and ecological destruction, there is also a small, stubborn movement of transboundary environmentalist peacebuilders, who have persisted throughout the current war.
Organizations like EcoPeace, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, and A Land For All — all three with shared Palestinian and Israeli leadership — have been working collectively for decades toward a vision that centers fair, shared stewardship of natural resources and sustainable development as the basis of lasting peace. And they persevere even now, after Israel violated a several-week ceasefire in March with another round of bombings, killings, and cutting off of aid to Gaza, and when the prevailing political messaging, according to Arava’s Barak Talmor, “has gotten so polarized that cultivating empathy or sympathy between the sides is increasingly challenging.”
Water-based environmental and health risks travel across borders, just like Nahal Besor. Yasmeen Abu Fraiha, an Israeli citizen and doctor of Palestinian descent, advises A Land For All, a political group that advocates for a two-state confederation. She was working at a hospital in southern Israel in the first few months of the war. There, she treated Israeli soldiers suffering from dysentery and rare fungal infections attributable to drinking the water in Gaza. “In Israel and Palestine, what we see is that our lives are so intertwined with each other,” she said. “The health of Palestinians affects the health of Israelis and vice versa. And the best example is water.”
A 2024 map showing proximity of water infrastructure to damage sites in Gaza
Elaine Donderer / Arava Institute for Environmental Studies
This fact can sometimes force compromise. The environmental nonprofit EcoPeace Middle East was able to leverage the health-water connection to bring modern wastewater treatment to Gaza before the war. EcoPeace had Israeli beaches tested just north of Gaza, and found e.coli contamination in the sand. A technician at the lab also tipped them off that untreated solid waste from Gaza was clogging and shutting down an Israeli desalination facility.
“[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu himself quoted one of our reports in a statement in 2014, saying that if the sewage crisis of Gaza threatens Israel’s water security, we have to deal with it,” said Gidon Bromberg, EcoPeace’s Israeli co-founder and co-director. Four plants ultimately opened in Gaza by 2022, enabling Gazans and Israelis alike to more safely swim in the ocean; they sustained severe damage during the war.
Even after the October 7 attack of Hamas on Israel, Bromberg said, they were able to invoke the same principle of shared health destiny after Israel shut off the three water pipes supplying Gaza’s highest-quality drinking water. EcoPeace got leading Israeli public health experts to sign a letter saying, “You’re going to see lots of disease, and it’s not going to just stop in Gaza.”
“That was very effective,” he said. “It broadens the zero-sum thinking into an understanding that this is lose-lose.”
Within the first week, one drinking water pipeline was reopened, and eventually all three. (More recently, in March 2025, Israel cut power to two of Gaza’s desalination plants, once again imposing water scarcity as a weapon; EcoPeace is responding by lobbying the government).
Gidon Bromberg of EcoPeace Middle East in his office in Tel Aviv. As environmentalists, he said, “We’re all coming from a technical position where we strongly understand that borders are man-made.”
Anya Kamentz / Grist
The environmental situation today in Gaza is worse than ever. The war has left an estimated 40 million tons of rubble and 900,000 tons of toxic waste from demolished buildings in Gaza, according to a recent report from the Arava Institute; not to mention, once again, a growing amount of raw sewage. The World Health Organization warns that infectious disease, arising from water scarcity, could kill more Gazan people than Israeli bombs, and researchers are concerned about new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that thrive where soap and water washing is scarce.
Barak Talmor is the project manager of Arava Institute’s Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza project, one attempt to respond to these conditions. The educational and research institute, in its first foray into direct humanitarian aid, raised money and convened a coalition to bring some of the off-grid sustainable technologies developed there and elsewhere into Gaza. These include Laguna, a solar-powered water treatment unit the size of a large dumpster that uses algae to filter sewage; WaterGen, machines that pull potable water out of the air; off-grid desalination units, and a biodigester that turns sewage gas into cooking gas. These were designated to supply a refugee camp in Khan Younis and a hospital. But approval took months, and the donated equipment is currently sitting in warehouses and at the border thanks to yet another stop on aid. “If I have any gray hair, it’s from the past year,” Talmor said.
Despite these harsh realities, members of EcoPeace, Arava, and A Land For All say that their shared commitment to sustainability has enabled them to keep cross-border relationships strong. This is itself a challenge when any hint of “normalization” or Israeli-Palestinian dialogue is denigrated by what Bromberg calls “spoilers” on both sides.
Abdullah Khateeb is part of a new generation of Palestinian environmentalist peacebuilders, and he said it’s a lonely path, especially since the war. “I cannot tell my family that I’m meeting Israelis. I cannot tell the Israeli people that my community wants to throw you to the sea. It’s kind of living two lives, basically, and you have to hide it perfectly in order to survive.”
Khateeb had never left the West Bank three years ago when he was accepted for a semester at Arava Institute, studying environmental science in the south of Israel alongside fellow Palestinians, Israeli, and Jordanian students. He said he applied solely to get past the checkpoints and see a little more of the world. “I didn’t care about the environment, about peace, about anything like that. Arava attracted me with the free food, the swimming pool. And once I was there, miracles happened.”
Khateeb, by chance, recognized one of his Israeli classmates. She had once been a soldier guarding his village. Through the Arava Institute’s moderated weekly dialogue sessions, they listened to each others’ experiences and forged a friendship. Now, he’s traveled to Northern Ireland and to England to engage in dialogue alongside Israeli peace activists. And after earning degrees in civil and water engineering, he now interns with Laguna, which has two of its off-grid sewage treatment units installed in the West Bank. He’s working on better methods for converting the solids into cooking gas.
“Water apartheid” is visible here in the West Bank in the storage tanks seen only on Palestinian roofs; they are forced to purchase drinking water, while nearby Israelis in illegal settlements copiously irrigate their crops. For Khateeb, “Peacebuilding is not only about dialogue. It’s also political, financial, educational, and technological. That’s why I work on water and environment. It offers opportunities. Everyone likes new innovations.”
Bromberg, an attorney, founded EcoPeace alongside Jordanian, Egyptian, and Palestinian environmentalists in the mid-1990s. Back then, their plan was to team up to prevent rapid overdevelopment that was expected in the wake of the Oslo Accords bringing peace and with it, increased tourism to the region. Needless to say, that did not come to pass, and EcoPeace’s mission pivoted from pursuing environmentalism post-peace, to modeling peace through environmentalism. (The Egyptians pulled out in the late 1990s under pressure from President Hosni Mubarak).
As environmentalists, he said, “We’re all coming from a technical position where we strongly understand that borders are man-made. We have to look at watersheds and water basins. There, borders just get in the way.” During the second Intifada in the early 2000s, they launched the Good Water Neighbors project. Ultimately, 28 communities on either side of rivers and streams in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and Jordan, cooperated in campaigns to preserve the bodies of water that both divided and united them.
After October 7, Bromberg and his counterparts in Jordan and Palestine made a pact to talk every day, to combat the misinformation that was inundating all sides. “We had staff in all of our offices lose family members in the war. One of our Ramallah staff lost 100 members of his extended family.” he said. They also lost a colleague in Gaza, a consultant. “It’s been a nightmare.”
One that has recently resumed. “Every day you open your eyes, and you wonder whether you’re on the right track or not,” said Nada Majdalani, the Palestinian director of EcoPeace. “But then we confront ourselves with — if this is not the way to do it, then what else? We don’t accept the status quo. And we need to bring out a different narrative to each other. What we all really want for us and for our children in the future is peace and stability.”
What keeps her going, she said, are the thousands of students, teachers, young professionals, and other stakeholders that are “walking the path” alongside them.
Their educational programs are more popular than ever. And all three EcoPeace directors were in Washington, DC in a March meeting with the State Department and members of Congress about sustainable development plans for a railway, expanded renewable energy, and a new Gaza port.
“We share the understanding that this war will end and we all have a responsibility to ensure we stop the suffering,” said Bromberg.
While she doesn’t like many of the statements of the Trump administration in relation to Gaza, Majdalani said, “The important part is not to shut down the opportunity for communication. But try to find an opening where we can actually put on the table ideas which bring interest to all parties.”
A groundbreaking new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Montreal confirms what many experts have long suspected: what you eat today has a major impact on how well you age. The 30-year study, which analyzed the diets of more than 105,000 adults, found that those who prioritized plant-based foods, with a moderate intake of healthy animal-based foods and limited ultra-processed foods, were significantly more likely to reach age 70 free of major chronic diseases while maintaining cognitive, physical, and mental health.
Canva
“Studies have previously investigated dietary patterns in the context of specific diseases or how long people live,” said Frank Hu, Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology and chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School. “Ours takes a multifaceted view, asking, how does diet impact people’s ability to live independently and enjoy a good quality of life as they age?”
The best diets for longevity
To better understand the connection between diet and aging, researchers analyzed eight well-established dietary patterns. The Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) was developed to prevent chronic disease and emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, and healthy fats while limiting red meat, refined grains, and sugar.
The Alternative Mediterranean Diet (aMED) follows the Mediterranean model, prioritizing olive oil, nuts, whole grains, and moderate fish intake. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet is known for lowering blood pressure and focuses on fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy.
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The Mediterranean-DASH Diet for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) is a hybrid of the Mediterranean and DASH diets, specifically designed to support brain health. The Healthful Plant-Based Diet Index (hPDI) emphasizes whole plant foods while avoiding processed plant-based junk foods.
The Planetary Health Diet Index (PHDI) takes both environmental and human health into account by focusing on plant-based foods while minimizing animal products. Additionally, the Empirically Inflammatory Dietary Pattern (EDIP) and Empirical Dietary Index for Hyperinsulinemia (EDIH) assess how diet influences inflammation and insulin resistance, respectively.
Each of these diets prioritizes plant-based whole foods but with different emphases; some allow for moderate amounts of animal-based foods, while others, like the PHDI and hPDI, lean almost entirely plant-based. Across the board, higher adherence to any of these diets correlated with better health outcomes.
The downside of ultra-processed foods
The study also reinforced what many health experts have been warning about for years: ultra-processed foods are the enemy of longevity. Highly processed products—including processed meats, sugary drinks, and artificial additives—were linked to a lower likelihood of healthy aging.
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“Our findings suggest that dietary patterns rich in plant-based foods, with moderate inclusion of healthy animal-based foods, may promote overall healthy aging and help shape future dietary guidelines,” said Marta Guasch-Ferré, associate professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Copenhagen and adjunct associate professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School.
The key to aging well? More plants, less processed food
Among all the diets analyzed, the AHEI diet had the strongest correlation with longevity. Participants in the highest quintile of the AHEI score were 86 percent more likely to reach age 70 in good health and had a 2.2 times higher chance of aging healthfully to 75 than those with the lowest scores.
Unsplash
If you want to increase your odds of aging well, incorporating more plant-based foods into your diet is a good place to start. That could mean swapping out processed snacks for whole foods, adding more fiber-rich grains to your meals, or adopting a more Mediterranean-style eating pattern.
Anne-Julie Tessier, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of Montreal and a researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute, summed up the takeaway of the study: “Our findings also show that there is no one-size-fits-all diet. Healthy diets can be adapted to fit individual needs and preferences.”
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
Butter has been a dietary staple for thousands of years. Historians believe humans have been making this animal fat-based spread since the Neolithic period, also known as the New Stone Age. Today, butter consumption is higher than ever—research shows that between 2000 and 2022, butter consumption in the US increased by 45 percent. But while butter is one of our oldest foods, consuming it in excess may have negative health effects.
A new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has suggested that swapping butter for plant-based oils, including many of the heavily demonized-on-social-media seed oils, like canola and soybean, could reduce the risk of death by 16 percent. High butter consumption, however, was linked with a 15 percent higher risk of mortality.
The findings directly contradict the strong narrative around fats that has emerged on social media in the last few years and heightened considerably in the last few months.
Pexels
A quick search for “butter” and “health” on TikTok brings up several videos from influencers, with thousands of views, pedaling the message that animal fat is a “superfood” and we should all be eating more of it. A similar search for seed oils brings up plenty of content encouraging users to stay away due to their alleged inflammatory effect on the body. You can read more on the theories behind seed oil conspiracies here.
But the science says differently. Research suggests that, while butter does contain some nutrients, it is also high in saturated fat, which increases levels of LDL cholesterol in the body. High LDL cholesterol is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease—the leading cause of death in the US and around the world.
“For some reason that is not clear to me, a myth has been floating around the internet that butter is a healthy fat, but there is no good evidence to support this,” Walter Willett, MD, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told CNN.
Plant-based oils, on the other hand, are much higher in unsaturated fats like omega 3 and omega 6, which are associated with heart health. Of all the oils studied, the researchers found that olive, canola, and soybean came out the best.
“We need both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids; soybean and canola oil have both,” Willett said. “Corn and sunflower oil have very little omega-3 fatty content; these can be part of a mix of different oils, but should not be relied upon as a sole source of plant oil.”
The health benefits of plant-based oils
According to the new study, swapping just 10 grams of butter with a plant-based oil was linked with a 17 percent reduced risk of total mortality and cancer-related deaths.
“Seventeen percent is quite a big change, especially when you look at the public health perspective. Imagine how many deaths we can reduce in the general population,” said study co-author Yu Zhang, PhD.
He added: “We are not suggesting that people should avoid butter entirely, but we are recommending that even a small reduction in butter in replacement for plant-based oils in a daily diet could lead to very substantial, long-term health benefits.”
Willet also explained that while beef tallow wasn’t included in the study, which was conducted using 33 years’ worth of data from more than 220,000 people, the researchers expected that it would have a similar impact to butter on health. Like butter, beef tallow has risen in popularity on social media recently, assisted by growing interest in carnivore diets.
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In general, carnivore diets have been linked with a high risk of kidney stones, gout, and osteoporosis. “In a strict carnivore diet whereby no plant foods are allowed, the body is stripped of any opportunity to have phytonutrients that protect us from cancer and many chronic diseases,” Angel Luk, RD recently explained to VegNews. “These phytonutrients are exclusively found in plants.” Raw carnivore diets, which involve eating uncooked meats, are also rising in popularity, and these also present a risk of parasites, foodborne illness, and nutritional deficiencies.
The new Harvard Health study supports a growing body of research that associates plant-based oils with better health outcomes. In 2023, for example, one study presented at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual Nutrition meeting suggested that consuming just half a tablespoon of olive oil every day could reduce a person’s dementia risk by 28 percent.
“Our study reinforces dietary guidelines recommending vegetable oils such as olive oil and suggests that these recommendations not only support heart health but potentially brain health as well,” lead researcher Anne-Julie Tessier, RD, PhD said in a statement at the time. Olive oil has also been linked with a reduced risk of stroke and heart disease, and improved digestive health, too.
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
In December 1984, Bhopal witnessed a harrowing industrial disaster with the leak of methyl isocyanate gas from Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) which has left a legacy of hazardous waste. Rishabh Mehta discusses the complicated policy solutions enacted following this tragedy and delineates a way forward.
In December 1984, Bhopal witnessed one of the most harrowing industrial disasters in history. The leak of methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant claimed thousands of lives overnight and left a horror of health and environmental crises. Four decades later, the disaster’s toxic legacy lingers as hazardous waste contaminates the soil and groundwater.
As Pandora’s box unleashed its evils upon the world, so too does Bhopal’s toxic legacy, which remains an enduring reminder of human hubris and the cost of negligence. But unlike Pandora’s tale, hope cannot be our sole salvation, rather accountability and action must guide us forward.
On January 1 2025, the Indian government transported 337 metric tonnes of toxic waste from the UCIL site in Bhopal to Pithampur, Indore, for incineration. While touted as a major step in addressing the environmental aftermath, this decision has re-ignited debates over its effectiveness, safety, and timing. Questions about the adequacy of policy responses and long-term solutions remain unresolved. This article critically examines the policy decisions shaping this waste transfer and its implications for environmental justice and public health.
A legacy of neglect
The Bhopal disaster’s immediate aftermath saw the enactment of the “Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act” and a $470 million settlement with Union Carbide in 1989. However, these measures proved insufficient in addressing the magnitude of the crisis. Successive governments formed task forces and commissioned studies to assess contamination, yet substantive remediation efforts remained elusive. As confirmed by multiple studies, groundwater contamination in 42 nearby areas contains carcinogenic chemicals exceeding safe limits by 50 times. The lack of effective policies to mitigate such contamination has left affected communities vulnerable, perpetuating environmental and public health risks.
Unfortunately, the bureaucratic response to the disaster has been marred by delays and avoidance of corporate accountability. Union Carbide’s now parent company, Dow Chemicals, has consistently distanced itself from responsibility, leaving the burden of remediation on the Indian government. This has resulted in taxpayers shouldering the costs of waste disposal, which many argue should have been funded by the corporation responsible for the tragedy.
The toxic waste transfer: a policy necessity or greenwashing?
The recent transfer of 337 metric tonnes of pre-stored toxic waste to Pithampur has been carried out to comply with judicial mandates under the directives of the Supreme Court and the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Alok Pratap Singh (Deceased) In Rem vs the Union Of India. However, critics argue that the operation carried out covertly at midnight, focuses on less harmful waste stored since 2005, while larger issues like groundwater contamination and toxic residues at the factory site remain unaddressed.
Over the years, various locations, including Ankleshwar in Gujarat and Taloja in Maharashtra, were considered for incinerating the waste. However, public protests and concerns about technical inadequacies derailed these plans. Even Pithampur, designated as the current disposal site, has faced scrutiny. Trial runs in 2015 reportedly resulted in toxic emissions, raising fears about long-term exposure to harmful by-products such as dioxins and furans. These chemicals, known for their long-term health impacts, have raised concerns among environmental experts and local communities. Activists have called the move a “slow-motion Bhopal” in the making and warned of the potential for secondary environmental disasters in Pithampur.
The timing of the transfer, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the tragedy, has led many to view it as a public relations exercise. A 2010 government-commissioned study highlighted that over 11 lakh tonnes of contaminated soil and other toxic substances remain untreated at the UCIL premises. Activists have questioned the rationale behind incinerating 337 tonnes that had already been securely stored when the broader environmental crisis remains unsolved. According to a technical presentation by the Ministry of Environment & Forests on the incineration of Union Carbide’s hazardous waste, the process is expected to generate 900 tonnes of residue. The recent decision to incinerate the waste at Indore is a 180-degree pivot from the state government’s previous stance, as officials from the state had opposed incineration in multiple official meetings.
The communication surrounding the risks of incineration at Pithampur has raised concerns about transparency. Limited engagement with local communities has led to apprehension, as residents worry about potential health impacts such as respiratory issues. Several petitions have highlighted these concerns, reflecting the need for a more inclusive approach to policymaking, incorporating community voices and comprehensively addressing their apprehensions.
Alternatives and the way forward
The current approach to disposing of Bhopal’s toxic waste has faced significant criticism, highlighting the need for more robust, globally aligned solutions. One viable alternative is secure containment. Hazardous materials can be stored in stainless steel drums with advanced sealing technology to prevent leakage. This method is widely used in nuclear waste management, where containment over decades ensures minimal environmental impact. For instance, the US Department of Energy uses this technique to manage nuclear waste at the Hanford Site, reducing risks to surrounding communities.
Another critical alternative is deploying closed-loop incineration technology, significantly reducing emissions and toxic residues. Germany, known for its stringent environmental standards, employs such technologies in facilities like Remondis, ensuring waste is incinerated with minimal harm to air quality. India could collaborate with countries like Germany to adopt or import such advanced systems.
A more sustainable approach involves enforcing corporate accountability. Companies responsible for hazardous waste should fund its disposal or repatriate it to countries with the infrastructure to handle such materials safely. A notable precedent is Unilever’s mercury waste, which was repatriated to the USA for safe disposal after contamination at a thermometer factory in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu. This aligns with the “polluter pays” principle, a cornerstone of environmental jurisprudence globally.
By adopting these alternatives, India can move beyond temporary fixes and implement sustainable solutions prioritising public health, environmental integrity, and global best practices.
The midnight waste transfer from Bhopal to Pithampur epitomises the dangers of greenwashing in environmental policy. While the recent waste transfer is presented as progress, it fails to address contamination and corporate accountability. India must adopt a comprehensive approach grounded in global best practices and prioritise community engagement to resolve this toxic legacy. Only then can the lessons of Bhopal truly inform a sustainable and just environmental policy framework.
All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the Department of Sociology, LSE Human Rights, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
This coverage is made possible through a partnership betweenGrist and WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan region.
Reverend Brian Sauder had good news in January for 58 faith-based organizations across the Midwest. His Chicago environmental nonprofit, Faith in Place. would be giving each of them a grant to fund tree planting in low-income communities and create urban forestry jobs to maintain them. Those additional trees would help mitigate the effects of climate change and air pollution.
But the good news didn’t last long.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed his “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, which abruptly froze the distribution of funds from the Biden administration’s sweeping climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. The move has left critical initiatives in limbo, including urban and community forestry programs like Sauder’s Faith in Place.
“To have to call up those grant awardees and say to them: ‘Hey, you need to stop work on this. We can’t reimburse you. There’s a lot of uncertainty right now.’ [It] was absolutely devastating,” said Sauder, whose organization has already had to lay off five employees as a result of the federal freeze.
The Inflation Reduction Act had pledged $1.5 billion to plant more trees in cities and ensure their survival, too. The funding, roughly 40 times what the federal government typically had spent on urban forestry, promised to transform the urban environment across the country. Nonprofits and local governments staffed up to administer the historic level of funding and made big promises to low-income and minority communities to help “green” their neighborhoods. Now, organizations like Faith in Place, still unable to access federal funds, are facing the financial fallout.
“We’re a microcosm of what’s happening all across the country with these uncertainties and the government not keeping its commitment to these contracts,” Sauder said.
In response, Faith in Place has signed onto a lawsuit spearheaded by Earthjustice, a nonprofit that litigates national environmental issues. The suit seeks to compel the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which distributes the funds, to honor its financial commitments.
“The President cannot come in and say: ‘We’re not doing that, we’re not following the law that Congress legislated.’ That’s a violation of separation of powers,” said Jill Tauber, vice president of litigation for climate and energy at Earthjustice.
Reverand Brian Sauder is the founder of Faith in Place, an environmental nonprofit based in Chicago. The Trump administration has frozen funds he had promised to nearly 60 faith-based programs so they could increase the tree canopy in their communities.
Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco / Grist
The legal challenge comes as federal judges have ordered the government to release the Inflation Reduction Act funds already appropriated by Congress, but the USDA has yet to do so. To date, the freeze has stalled hundreds of urban forestry projects nationwide, including one to improve Portland’s shrinking tree canopy, an initiative to restore the more than 200,000 trees lost in New Orleans in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and plans to redress the longstanding disparity in tree coverage across Chicago’s majority Black and Latino communities on the city’s South and West sides.
In a statement the USDA said it was in the process of reviewing all grants and while it had authorized certain “mission critical” services to resume, it could not provide information on individual grants.
A 20 minute drive west of the city’s downtown sits the historic Stone Temple Baptist Churchi, once a local touchpoint of the civil rights movement, hosting rallies and speakers like Reverend. Martin Luther King Jr.. Federal money was supposed to cover the cost of planting fruit trees in its community garden, providing the majority Black community with seasonal access to pears, peaches, apples and plums.
“The goal was to get the trees in the ground this spring,” Sauder said. But that’s not happening amidst the funding uncertainty.
As cities like Chicago grapple with rising global temperatures, improving the urban canopy — the layer of collective tree cover in a city — isn’t just about beautifying the neighborhood. Trees help reduce air pollution and are increasingly among the most cost effective ways to mitigate the impacts of climate change, according to Vivek Shandas, who researches climate change at Portland State University and is a member of the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council.
“Trees are there very quietly, providing essential ecosystem services,” Shandas said. “Every single day, they’re cleaning the air, they’re cooling the neighborhoods, they’re absorbing the rainwater, and they’re doing all of these things for absolutely free.”
The problem: Chicago’s urban tree canopy is unevenly distributed across the city — often favoring whiter, weather neighborhoods — and it’s also shrinking due to disease and urban development. The city’s canopy cover dropped from 19 percent to 16 percent between 2010 and 2020, according to a report from The Morton Arboretum, a public garden and center for tree research in suburban Chicago.
The funding freeze has also halted plans to plant trees statewide.
The Trump administration paused nearly $14 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding promised to the state of Illinois for projects that included hazard tree removal and pruning, tree plantings, tree inventories, and other work related to tree canopy management in Illinois communities.
“It’s really upsetting that the government’s not keeping their end of the bargain,” Sauder said. “We’ve kept our commitment, and they aren’t keeping their commitment to us.”
Editor’s note: Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
The UK government is being urged to update its Eatwell Guide in line with the Eat-Lancet Planetary Health Diet, with a plant-forward system predicted to save the NHS over £50M every year.
As novel food regulation advances rapidly in the UK, its government is now being called upon to make a policy shift towards plant-based consumption, which activists argue could bring huge cost savings for public systems and the public itself.
In a policy briefing helmed by NGO Feedback Global, experts outline how the Labour government could deliver its promised reform of the £5B it spends on public procurement of food and catering services every year.
In its pre-election manifesto, the party outlined set a target to make half of all food purchased across the public sector to be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards.
“We strongly recommend baseline standards for all food procurement rooted in healthy sustainable diets, which are required to reduce emissions and can significantly improve health outcomes,” the briefing states, explaining that if school and hospital meals adopt a plant-forward approach, taxpayers and the National Health Service (NHS) would stand to save millions of pounds every year.
The briefing is supported by 25 health and climate organisations, including the Food Foundation, Plant-Based Health Professionals UK, Compassion in World Farming, Fairtrade Foundation, and The Vegan Society.
“Currently, high-emissions meat and dairy [are] the default meal options, often making it difficult to choose anything else – our schools and hospitals can make healthy sustainable meals more abundant, without taking away any freedom of choice,” said Martin Bowman, senior campaigns manager at Feedback Global.
“The Labour government has a huge opportunity to save the NHS money, boost the nation’s health and reach its climate targets by serving up more healthy sustainable meals in schools and hospitals,” he added.
The NHS could save £55M in annual costs through vegan approach
The groups say the UK Eatwell Guide and the related Scottish Eatwell Guide “urgently need updating”, in line with the Eat-Lancet Commission’s Planetary Health Diet. The Eatwell Guide currently recommends eating five fruits and vegetables a day, dairy and dairy alternatives low in fat and sugar, whole grains instead of refined, plant proteins like beans and pulses, two portions of “sustainably sourced” fish a week, and less red and processed meat.
But they need to go further, as dietary guidelines in countries like Germany, Austria, Finland and Norway have done in recent months. The Planetary Health Diet says at least 50% of consumption should come from fruits and vegetables, over a third from whole grains, plant proteins and plant oils, and just 3.6% from dairy products and meat and seafood.
Aligning the UK’s consumption patterns to this would save the cash-strapped NHS a lot of money, both from public procurement and improved health outcomes. And there is public support for this – 35% of Brits say they’d back a transition to a 100% vegan menu at NHS hospitals.
The briefing took the example of New York City’s Health + Hospitals scheme for plant-based meals, which made vegan food the default option in all 11 public hospitals in the city – 55% of patients chose the plant-based option, saving 59 cents per dish. Since the NHS serves 199 million meals a year, replicating this would result in £55M in potential savings.
Additionally, an Oxford University study found that reducing per capita meat consumption to two to three servings each week could prevent 45,000 premature deaths and reduce NHS costs by £1.2B a year.
These findings align with other research, which has found that a ‘plant-based by default’ approach could save the NHS £74M annually, with significant household savings too if patients are supported in making dietary shifts. Similar research by the Office of Health Economics estimated that if England were to adopt a completely plant-based diet, the NHS would see a net benefit of up to £18.8B a year.
The report urges the government to embed sustainability into the Eatwell Guide. Following the Eat-Lancet Planetary Health Diet (at least 50% of which is comprised of fruits and vegetables, over a third from whole grains, plant proteins and plant oils, and just 3.6% from dairy products and meat and seafood) could lower dietary emissions in affluent nations by 61%.
The groups also present potential benefits to farmers from serving organic produce in public settings, citing six local projects that have increased vegetable and pulse production whilst paying a premium to growers.
How the UK government can transform the food system
Courtesy: Department of Health and Social Care
So, how can the UK actually implement any of this? Among the briefing’s recommendations are the creation of a binding target to lower average emissions per meal to help meet national climate targets, ensuring that a plant-based meal is always available, and prioritising whole foods like legumes, nuts, and whole grains.
Further, the UK must scrap its School Food Standards, which currently make it compulsory for schools to serve meat at least three days a week. Removing this would give schools more freedom to adopt a “less but better” approach to meat, set limits on harmful foods like red and processed meat, and ensure at least two portions of vegetables or pulses in each meal.
“Plant-based proteins should be given their own food category rather than being merged with animal protein as is currently the case,” the groups say. “Plant-based alternatives to milk, enriched with calcium, should also be made available on every school day at a time during school hours, as is currently the case for animal milk.”
“Every day, we spend millions of pounds of the public’s money on food. This should be going in the pockets of sustainable farmers, and to creating a healthy environment and healthy people,” said Ruth Westcott, campaign manager at Sustain. “The government has committed to buying local and sustainable food for the public sector and we urge them to lose no time in making good on this promise by introducing the achievable and proven standards set out in this briefing.”
The report is the latest in a growing list of efforts asking the UK to decarbonise via its food system. The Plant-Based Food Alliance – which includes Alpro, Oatly, Quorn, and more – has urged Keir Starmer’s administration to create a plant-based action plan (as Denmark has done).
Food industry leaders recently came together to produce a net-zero transition plan for the country’s food system, highlighting the need for a 20% reduction in meat consumption by 2050 in order to achieve said goals. And the UK Climate Change Committee has noted that meat intake needs to fall by 35% by 2050, with a steeper 40% decline in red meat consumption, if it is to meet its net-zero target.
Brazil’s current pesticide legislation currently mandates a minimum safety distance of 90 metres during chemical applications to reduce exposure risks. This regulation aims to safeguard both human health and the environment from the harmful effects of pesticides.
However, a new proposal – bill 1833/2023 – seeks to significantly reduce this buffer zone, allowing just 25 metres for large properties. For small and medium-sized properties, there would be no mandatory safety distance at all. This would enable pesticide applications without any protective distance around traditional communities, rivers, or conservation areas, raising serious concerns about the potential dangers to public health and ecosystems.
Brazil’s pesticide law: opening the door to catastrophic consequences
This drastic reduction raises alarming concerns among experts, as it could lead to increased contamination risks for ecosystems and nearby communities, amplifying the threats to public health and the environment.
If passed, the proposal would allow farmers to apply pesticides dangerously close to small properties, putting surrounding communities at risk and potentially resulting in severe health repercussions.
The existing regulations in the state of Mato Grosso, which govern the use, production, storage, trade, application, transportation, and monitoring of pesticides, play a crucial role in protecting water resources, soil quality, animals, and the region’s most vulnerable populations – especially small family farmers and residents living near agricultural areas.
A weakening of these protections would open the door to catastrophic environmental degradation and irreversible harm to public health. As one of the world’s largest pesticide users, Brazil – and particularly Mato Grosso – cannot afford to take such a dangerous step backward.
Pesticide exposure causing ‘extinctions, mutations, and anomalies’
Several studies have demonstrated that pesticide exposure significantly affects the health of the Brazilian population across all age groups and genders. Health consequences include central nervous system damage, cancer, poisoning, birth defects, and disruptions to the endocrine system.
A study published in the journal Acta Amazônica by scientists Lucas Ferrante and Philip Fearnside stresses the importance of maintaining a safety distance of at least 300 meters between pesticide areas and sensitive locations, such as conservation areas, water sources, and rural communities. This recommendation is based on findings that negative effects, including local extinctions, genetic mutations, and deformities in wildlife, were observed more than 250 meters from treated areas, as shown in various studies across Brazil.
Ferrante said:
Bill 1833/2023 represents a threat to Mato Grosso’s own agriculture by allowing the application of pesticides without respecting adequate safety zones.
We conducted measurements in the pesticide application area without a safe distance and observed extinctions, mutations, and anomalies. These effects extended at least 250 metres, indicating that a minimum safe distance of 300 metres is necessary.
Pesticide companies know…
The impact of pesticides on wildlife is not only a concern for researchers but is also acknowledged by the industry. Syngenta, on its official website, admits that pesticides contribute to the decline of pollinators, noting that:
75% of crops intended for human consumption depend on bees” and that “they are the most important pollinators on the planet. In addition to allowing plants to reproduce, pollination also increases crop productivity levels and results in the production of better-quality fruits and a greater number of seeds.
Syngenta points out that “the disappearance of bees and other pollinators could eliminate crops such as melon, watermelon, and passion fruit”, highlighting that the decline of pollinators due to pesticide use in sensitive areas directly threatens agricultural productivity and food security.
Approximately 80% of the pesticides approved in Brazil are banned in at least three countries within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of the European community.
On average, each Brazilian consumes seven litres of pesticides annually, a staggering figure tied to the 70,000 cases of both acute and chronic poisoning reported across the country. This alarming statistic is highlighted in a dossier compiled by the Brazilian Association of Public Health (ABRASCO).
A ‘severe regression in environmental and public health protection’
The proposed bill 1833/2023 not only dismisses solid scientific evidence but also endangers the sustainability of agriculture in Mato Grosso and puts public health at risk by amplifying the potential for widespread pesticide contamination.
Ferrante warned about the risks associated with this new bill, stressing the potential implications it may have:
The approval of bill 1833/2023 marks a severe regression in environmental and public health protection, sanctioning pesticide use at alarmingly close distances to vulnerable areas such as rural communities, water sources, and ecosystems. This reckless decision not only endangers local biodiversity but also jeopardises global food security.
Nations that import Brazilian commodities, like soy and other pesticide-reliant agricultural products, must urgently reevaluate these imports. The dilution of environmental safeguards amplifies the risk of chemical contamination and breaches international food safety standards.
Dr. Lucas Ferrante, a renowned Brazilian scientist and advocate for sustainable trade, has been at the forefront of international discussions, raising these pressing concerns to ensure that Brazil aligns with global standards for trade and environmental stewardship.
Brazil’s current pesticide legislation currently mandates a minimum safety distance of 90 metres during chemical applications to reduce exposure risks. This regulation aims to safeguard both human health and the environment from the harmful effects of pesticides.
However, a new proposal – bill 1833/2023 – seeks to significantly reduce this buffer zone, allowing just 25 metres for large properties. For small and medium-sized properties, there would be no mandatory safety distance at all. This would enable pesticide applications without any protective distance around traditional communities, rivers, or conservation areas, raising serious concerns about the potential dangers to public health and ecosystems.
Brazil’s pesticide law: opening the door to catastrophic consequences
This drastic reduction raises alarming concerns among experts, as it could lead to increased contamination risks for ecosystems and nearby communities, amplifying the threats to public health and the environment.
If passed, the proposal would allow farmers to apply pesticides dangerously close to small properties, putting surrounding communities at risk and potentially resulting in severe health repercussions.
The existing regulations in the state of Mato Grosso, which govern the use, production, storage, trade, application, transportation, and monitoring of pesticides, play a crucial role in protecting water resources, soil quality, animals, and the region’s most vulnerable populations – especially small family farmers and residents living near agricultural areas.
A weakening of these protections would open the door to catastrophic environmental degradation and irreversible harm to public health. As one of the world’s largest pesticide users, Brazil – and particularly Mato Grosso – cannot afford to take such a dangerous step backward.
Pesticide exposure causing ‘extinctions, mutations, and anomalies’
Several studies have demonstrated that pesticide exposure significantly affects the health of the Brazilian population across all age groups and genders. Health consequences include central nervous system damage, cancer, poisoning, birth defects, and disruptions to the endocrine system.
A study published in the journal Acta Amazônica by scientists Lucas Ferrante and Philip Fearnside stresses the importance of maintaining a safety distance of at least 300 meters between pesticide areas and sensitive locations, such as conservation areas, water sources, and rural communities. This recommendation is based on findings that negative effects, including local extinctions, genetic mutations, and deformities in wildlife, were observed more than 250 meters from treated areas, as shown in various studies across Brazil.
Ferrante said:
Bill 1833/2023 represents a threat to Mato Grosso’s own agriculture by allowing the application of pesticides without respecting adequate safety zones.
We conducted measurements in the pesticide application area without a safe distance and observed extinctions, mutations, and anomalies. These effects extended at least 250 metres, indicating that a minimum safe distance of 300 metres is necessary.
Pesticide companies know…
The impact of pesticides on wildlife is not only a concern for researchers but is also acknowledged by the industry. Syngenta, on its official website, admits that pesticides contribute to the decline of pollinators, noting that:
75% of crops intended for human consumption depend on bees” and that “they are the most important pollinators on the planet. In addition to allowing plants to reproduce, pollination also increases crop productivity levels and results in the production of better-quality fruits and a greater number of seeds.
Syngenta points out that “the disappearance of bees and other pollinators could eliminate crops such as melon, watermelon, and passion fruit”, highlighting that the decline of pollinators due to pesticide use in sensitive areas directly threatens agricultural productivity and food security.
Approximately 80% of the pesticides approved in Brazil are banned in at least three countries within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of the European community.
On average, each Brazilian consumes seven litres of pesticides annually, a staggering figure tied to the 70,000 cases of both acute and chronic poisoning reported across the country. This alarming statistic is highlighted in a dossier compiled by the Brazilian Association of Public Health (ABRASCO).
A ‘severe regression in environmental and public health protection’
The proposed bill 1833/2023 not only dismisses solid scientific evidence but also endangers the sustainability of agriculture in Mato Grosso and puts public health at risk by amplifying the potential for widespread pesticide contamination.
Ferrante warned about the risks associated with this new bill, stressing the potential implications it may have:
The approval of bill 1833/2023 marks a severe regression in environmental and public health protection, sanctioning pesticide use at alarmingly close distances to vulnerable areas such as rural communities, water sources, and ecosystems. This reckless decision not only endangers local biodiversity but also jeopardises global food security.
Nations that import Brazilian commodities, like soy and other pesticide-reliant agricultural products, must urgently reevaluate these imports. The dilution of environmental safeguards amplifies the risk of chemical contamination and breaches international food safety standards.
Dr. Lucas Ferrante, a renowned Brazilian scientist and advocate for sustainable trade, has been at the forefront of international discussions, raising these pressing concerns to ensure that Brazil aligns with global standards for trade and environmental stewardship.
For people managing conditions like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, the right diet could be a life-saver—literally. New research presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session (ACC.25) highlights how a plant-based diet can significantly lower the risk of death for those with cardiometabolic disorders. Another study from the same conference finds that lifestyle factors impact women’s heart health more severely than men’s. Together, these findings paint a compelling picture: diet could be an especially powerful tool for women at risk of cardiovascular disease.
Why cardiometabolic disorders are a growing concern
Cardiometabolic disorders—an umbrella term for conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease—are on the rise. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.9 billion adults worldwide are overweight, with over 650 million classified as obese. Meanwhile, the International Diabetes Federation reports that 537 million people are living with diabetes, a number expected to climb to 643 million by 2030. Since these conditions dramatically increase the likelihood of heart disease and early death, finding solutions is more urgent than ever.
Pexels
The case for a plant-based diet
Research has long suggested that plant-based diets rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, and nuts support better heart health. Now, a study presented at the ACC.25 confirms that for those with cardiometabolic disorders, a well-balanced plant-based diet is even more critical.
“Among populations with cardiometabolic disorders, higher adherence to a healthful plant-based diet was significantly associated with a lower risk of total, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality,” said Zhangling Chen, MD, PhD, of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University in Changsha, China.
“More intake of healthy plant-based foods, less intake of unhealthy plant-based foods, and less intake of animal-based foods are all important.”
The study analyzed data from nearly 78,000 people with cardiometabolic disorders across the UK, US, and China. Researchers found that those who closely followed a healthy plant-based diet had a 17 to 24-percent lower risk of death from any cause, cardiovascular disease, or cancer. By contrast, participants who consumed more refined grains, sugar-sweetened beverages, and animal-based foods saw their risk of death increase by 28 to 36 percent.
How heart disease risk differs for women
While heart disease is often associated with men, the second study presented at ACC.25 suggests that lifestyle factors affect women’s heart health even more than men’s. Researchers analyzed data from over 175,000 Canadian adults with no prior history of heart disease, classifying them into three groups based on their overall health risk factors.
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“We found that women tend to have better health than men, but the impact on outcomes is different,” said Maneesh Sud, MD, PhD, an assistant professor at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. “The combination of these factors has a bigger impact in women than it does in men.”
Women with poor health profiles had nearly five times the risk of heart disease compared to those with ideal health. For men, that risk increased by just 2.5 times. Even those in the intermediate category, who had a mix of positive and negative health factors, saw greater risks if they were women.
The combined findings of these two studies suggest that diet is more than just a preventive measure—it’s a critical tool for those most at risk. Since women experience more severe consequences from poor lifestyle choices, making dietary changes could be particularly impactful.
A plant-based diet offers benefits that directly counteract key cardiovascular risks. Lower blood pressure is one of the most significant advantages, as plant-based foods are rich in potassium and low in sodium, which helps regulate blood pressure levels. Better cholesterol levels are another key factor, as diets high in fiber and healthy fats from sources like nuts and seeds can help lower LDL cholesterol. Improved blood sugar control is another major benefit, with whole grains and legumes providing steady energy without spiking blood sugar, which is essential for those with diabetes. Plant-based diets are also rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals that help reduce inflammation, a known contributor to heart disease.
For women, who face heightened cardiovascular risks, adopting a plant-forward approach may offer protection beyond what traditional heart disease prevention strategies provide.
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
Slovenian whole-cut meat analogue maker Juicy Marbles has released Pork-ish, the second product in its Meaty Meat lineup, its cheapest offering ever.
Building on its new Meaty Meat range, Juicy Marbles has released a whole-cut pork analogue that boasts a Nutri-Score A rating and high protein and fibre content.
Available on the company’s website, it’s said to be the “first whole cut of pork in the plant-based category”, and is a follow-up to Lamb-ish, which was launched last month as the first offering in the Meaty Meat lineup. They are precursors to the brand’s retail launch in the US.
Both products are 26% cheaper than Juicy Marbles’s most accessible cut of plant-based meat yet, priced at $10 per 180g pack. While the whole-cut aspect would speak to consumers looking for better-tasting meat alternatives, it’s also keying into demand for more nutritious products, with 36g of protein per serving.
‘Deliberately ambiguous’ product to take on tofu
Courtesy: Juicy Marbles
Founded in 2019 by Luka Sinček, Maj Hrovat, Tilen Travnik and Vladimir Mićković, Juicy Marbles began with whole-cut beef steaks made using patent-pending ‘reverse grinder’ tech that mimics the muscle texture and marbling of conventional steak.
It layers plant protein fibres on top of each other to replicate animal tissue, helped by deposits of hardened sunflower oil. The effort aims to solve two of plant-based meat’s biggest pain points: taste and texture. A recent survey saw meat-eaters describe vegan alternatives as juicy 62% less often than conventional meat, while only 30% like the average meat-free product.
Notably, that research did not include whole cuts like the ones offered by Juicy Marbles. With the Meaty Meat range, it is hoping to build on the hype created by its initial products (such as a whole-cut lion, a thick-cut filet, and bone-in ribs).
The range is positioned as a “new kind of kitchen staple” to rival tofu as a go-to option for home cooks. The company suggests that, like tofu, the products have a “deliberately ambiguous shape”. The Meaty Meat lineup can be sliced, chunked, shredded or cooked whole to add juiciness and up to 2.5 times more protein than tofu to any dish.
“Mimicking real cuts too closely can limit their perceived versatility in the kitchen. That’s why we went deliberately ambiguous with Meaty Meat’s shape. We wanted to give our customers more freedom while shifting the perception of plant-based whole cuts in general,” said Sinček.
“By focusing only on what people love most about Marbles: meaty texture and flavour, and nothing else – we hope we can give people permission to experiment with whole cuts in all kinds of recipes.”
Juicy Marbles looks for a cleaner label
Courtesy: Juicy Marbles
The new range is also reflective of Juicy Marbles’s commitment to shifting its portfolio to a cleaner-label recipe, called Marble 3.0.
Pork-ish has a base of water and soy protein, natural flavours, and sunflower oil, with small amounts of pea protein isolate, red beet juice, yeast extract, salt, apple extract, and vitamins and minerals. It has a complete amino acid profile, 11g of fibre (nearly 40% of the daily recommended value) per slab, and is fortified with iron, zinc, selenium, and B vitamins.
“We’ve always been frustrated by how light plant-based ‘alternatives’ can be on essential nutrients, like protein, iron, and B12. Beyond taste and texture, people want nutritionally sensible food that helps them reach their daily nutrition goals and that they can cook for their families with confidence,” said Maj Hrovat, who is the R&D chief.
“If we want plant-based meats to be a viable alternative, they have to get close to matching the nutritional profile of meat – with a sensible ingredients list. Marble 3.0 is our cleanest, most nutritious recipe yet, and will be our standard going forward.”
According to the company, the Lamb-ish product was sold out in 24 hours in the US, and the newest innovation is “quickly flying off the shelves”. It now plans a retail release in the EU and the UK too, alongside a supermarket rollout stateside.
Juicy Marbles is one of several companies working on whole-cut meat analogues, which experts say offer a more attractive gateway into plant-based eating for omnivores. These firms include Chunk Foods, Prime Roots, Redefine Meat, Project Eaden, Meati Foods, and Planted.
The exacerbating effects of climate change could wreak havoc on human gut health, especially in middle- and low-income countries, according to a new study.
For example, in 2024, Google searches for ‘gut health’ and ‘microbiome’ hiked by 35% and 31%, respectively. Awareness about fibre consumption also took centre stage, with 64% of Americans and 70% of Brits looking to increase their consumption of the nutrient.
This has coincided with a plethora of new research about what impacts the gut microbiome, and how to best keep it healthy. One new study by Michigan State University posits that climate change could worsen things for gut health, primarily by altering food quantity and quality and environmental microbiota.
“Climate-change-induced variability in food supply, shifts in elemental and macromolecular composition of plant and animal food, the proliferation of enteric pathogens, and the direct effects of high temperatures on gut physiology might alter gut microbiota in undesirable ways, increasing the health burden of climate change,” wrote study author Elena Litchman.
How climate change could impact gut health
Courtesy: The Lancet Planetary Health
The research, published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, stated that high temperatures, extreme weather events, and increased pest outbreaks can significantly decrease – or even decimate – various crop supplies, which can make famine and undernourishment more prevalent. This, in turn, would lead to extreme caloric restriction, impacting human health and gut microbiota.
Rising emissions and temperatures can reduce the nutritional quality of crops, and subsequently lower nutrient concentration and increase carbon-to-nitrogen ratios, which makes food less digestible. Current projections show that over 100 million people might become protein-deficient by 2050. “The combined effects of multiple stressors, such as high temperature and droughts, might cause further declines in protein, micronutrient, and macronutrient content in food plants,” wrote Litchman.
Heat stress can also induce complex changes in the gut, including a change in microbiota composition, higher oxygen levels, and overproduction of stress hormones – this could make people more susceptible to harmful organisms.
The body’s gastrointestinal lining becomes more permeable under heat stress, making it easier for toxins and pathogens in the digestive tract to enter the bloodstream. These changes can further disrupt important digestive and immune functions.
Moreover, changes in the consumption of meat, dairy and plants will play a role too. Overall diet diversity might be affected by changing climate and agricultural practices.
“Plant and animal varieties susceptible to climate change might be replaced by more resistant species with different nutritional qualities, either due to natural or artificial selection,” the study explained.
Low- and middle-income face the brunt of the impact
Courtesy: The Lancet Planetary Health
Litchman suggested that one implication of climate change would be a diminished ability of the body to absorb vital nutrients, and this is a problem greatly exacerbated when nutritious food is in short supply. Concerns over food security loom large in climate discourse – the global population is set to approach 10 billion by 2050, but hunger has increased consecutively for three years now.
Like the climate crisis, food security disproportionally impacts low- and middle-income countries. These nations may have fewer means to counteract food shortages, which could worsen the implications for gut health among these populations.
“The effects of food shortages and starvation can be especially severe in children in low-income countries, with malnutrition changing the gut microbiota composition,” said Litchman. “Malnutrition might be resistant to treatment, with dysbiotic gut microbial communities persisting despite interventions.”
Moreover, high temperature stress can affect the physiology of breastfeeding for both mothers and infants. Infant gut microbiome can be significantly altered here, with these changes especially relevant for populations in low- and middle-income countries with a high prevalence of breastfeeding, widening the health inequities under climate change.
The research found that selecting more climate-resilient varieties of crops could help mitigate climate change and food insecurity, as well as regulate the gut microbiome “However, if new varieties are selected to primarily maintain yield in novel climatic conditions, they might not necessarily have the same nutritional quality, thus changing dietary nutrient uptake, with potential effects on gut microbiota,” it stated.
Again, countries and communities with low purchasing power may not be able to acquire or adopt climate-resilient varieties, further widening the gap between low-income and affluent countries.
“Promoting food diversity to improve nutrition would benefit multiple aspects of human health, including the composition and functioning of gut microbiomes,” Litchman said. “Increasing diet and ecosystem diversity can improve food security globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries, and reduce the hidden hunger effect.”
Additionally, achieving high-quality sanitation is crucial for nations that already have a high enteric pathogen burden. “Effective mitigation and adaptation strategies would not be equally available across regions, countries, and communities,” the study highlighted. “However, efforts should still be made to eliminate or minimise inequities at different scales.”
A series of actions on Thursday led by women from Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST, in Portuguese) increased the pressure on the Lula government (Workers’ Party) to push agrarian reform policies forward.
The mobilization occurred in 24 Brazilian states where there are MST activities and was part of the Landless Women’s Day of Struggle,previous to the MST’s Red April, massive actions to demand agrarian reform in the country. Landless families occupied areas in the states of Bahia and Ceará that did not comply with the social function provided for in the Brazilian Constitution.
Always at the forefront of food trends, Chilean food tech startup NotCo has unveiled a GLP Booster that uses food as a natural Ozempic alternative.
Today, nearly three-quarters of Americans aged 20 and above are overweight and obese, while one in five children and adolescents are obese.
The rise in diet-related diseases has changed how US consumers view food, with many Americans becoming more conscious of what they’re putting in their bodies and has led to an explosive growth in usage of GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, with projections putting the number of users between 10 to 70 million by 2028.
These weight-loss drugs are set to boost America’s GDP by 1% by that year and command a $105B market by the end of the decade. But their efficacy comes with several side effects and caveats.
According to one survey, a net 30% of people who quit a GLP-1 medication actually eat more calories than they did before they began the course, leading to what has been termed the ‘Ozempic rebound’. Essentially, it refers to the body weight people gain after they stop injecting these drugs – one study found that Ozempic users regained two-thirds of their weight one year after quitting.
So while weight-loss drugs may have transformed the food system – companies from Nestlé to Coca-Cola have launched product lines that (explicitly or otherwise) support GLP-1 users – innovative food companies are also offering products that can help deal with the after-effects of GLP-1, or act as a natural alternative.
NotCo’s botanical powder takes on Ozempic’s side effects
Courtesy: NotCo
This is the promise of the new GLP Booster by NotCo, the AI-driven food tech company best known for its plant-based products and collaboration with Kraft Heinz.
The Chilean startup has been diversifying from its CPG focus to offer AI technologies to businesses all over the world, and as part of this tech-forward strategy, it’s targeting the GLP-1 boom with a food-based precursor to the weight-loss drugs.
The botanical powder, as the New York Post describes it, can be added to any food to help you feel satiated and eat less, replicating – to some extent – the effects of Ozempic and the like.
These drugs work by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone naturally found in the body. This incretin hormone is naturally released in the gut after eating food, and can be boosted by fermented foods and dietary fibre. This helps regulate blood sugar, makes you feel satiated, and manages weight.
“By mimicking the body’s endogenous GLP-1, these drugs suppress appetite, slow gastric emptying, and influence reward mechanisms in the brain. Bottom line, they work,” Matias Muchnick, co-founder and CEO of NotCo, explained in a social media post.
“GLP-1 isn’t just about hunger. It’s a metabolic regulator that affects insulin signalling, digestion, and muscle retention. While these drugs reduce caloric intake, they don’t distinguish between fat loss and muscle loss – a critical factor for long-term metabolic health.”
According to the company, this is why it created its GLP Booster, a powder that uses natural ingredients to stimulate GLP-1 production in the body, just as a high-fibre meal would. It also blocks the enzymes that break the hormone down, keeping it active for a longer time.
NotCo says it will appeal to people apprehensive about these drugs’ side effects – which include gastrointestinal issues such as nausea, and vomiting, and mental health problems like anxiety and irritability, among others – as well as the Ozempic rebound.
GLP Booster set to launch this year
Courtesy: Africa Images via Canva
Muchnick is adamant that the company isn’t trying to replace Ozempic, describing the GLP Booster as “not a drug” or “synthetic agonist”, but “a new category of food-driven metabolic enhancement”.
“We’re working to complement this shift by developing a GLP-1 precursor, this booster aims to assist those who may experience weight rebound after discontinuing GLP-1 drugs. Additionally, for individuals who cannot access these medications, our solution offers a natural alternative that – while not comparable in effect – provides meaningful benefits,” he explained.
The NotCo CEO told the New York Post that the GLP Booster will be sold as a powdered blend that people can add to their pasta or smoothies, and as an ingredient to food manufacturers who can incorporate it into packaged snacks, shakes, and ready meals. It plans to launch the product this year, and has developed additional products that contain it, such as chocolate-covered almonds.
“Integrating this into food ensures that nutrition evolves alongside pharmacology, helping people potentially regulate appetite while preserving muscle mass and metabolic function,” Muchnik wrote on LinkedIn. “The conversation about GLP-1 drugs has been focused on hunger. It’s time to shift the conversation to metabolic resilience.”
NotCo isn’t the only entity making GLP-1 supplements and alternatives – even with AI. Scientists at Spain’s Catholic University of Murcia have discovered two plant extracts that can potentially be used to make GLP-1 agonist pills, while California’s One Bio recently raised $27M for its tech that extracts invisible and tasteless fibres from plants for use in GLP-1-friendly foods (among other products).
Other companies are using fibre-packed food and beverages to take on Ozempic, such as the supplements from Supergut, the prebiotic sodas from Olipop and Poppi, or the GLP-1-supportive smoothies from Daily Harvest and Smoothie King.
Consumption of non-dairy alternatives witnessed a dip at the start of the year, while conventional products like whole milk enjoyed growing sales.
Whether it’s the US or Europe, dairy seems to be having a renaissance, and that too at the expense of better-for-the-planet alternatives like oat, almond or soy milk.
In the UK, while conventional dairy sales increased by 6% in January, plant-based analogues only saw a 1% hike – and the latter category suffered with volume declines in nearly all subgroups. Vegan cheese was particularly poor-performing, with retail spending down by 26% and volumes falling by 31%, according to NielsenIQ data cited by the state-backed Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).
Across Europe, less than one in five people (18%) avoid animal products. And moving forward, only a quarter would like to phase out meat and dairy, while 12% would like to increase their consumption of these products.
Meanwhile in the US, sales of dairy milk grew by 2% in 2024, with whole milk intake up by 3%. In contrast, the country saw a 6% decline in plant-based milk consumption.
So why is this happening? And does this spell disaster for plant-based dairy?
Why is everyone drinking cow’s milk again?
Courtesy: Chef’s Pencil
The AHDB ascribed the decline of plant-based milk to the “declining engagement in Veganuary” – its research with YouGov showed that only 6% of the British population participated in the month-long challenge this year, and nearly a third of them didn’t complete it. Of those who did, two in five said they weren’t planning to continue being vegan post-January.
One of the biggest reasons ascribed to the shift in dairy trends is ultra-processing. The future of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) has unfairly attacked plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, as experts warn of separating the amount of processing from a product’s actual nutritional qualities.
Since many plant-based milk alternatives are considered processed – thanks to the addition of emulsifiers, oils, sweeteners, or stabilisers – they often come under fire in the UPF debate. Research firm Mintel has suggested that Brits have a “strong” perception that many alt-dairy products are “highly processed”.
Across the Atlantic, “health-conscious and science-sceptical Americans” are avoiding UPFs too – as the New York Times puts it – with the backlash fuelled by new health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. Meanwhile, the rise of raw milk has compounded this shift, driven by an 18% hike in sales in 2024. This comes despite warnings from a host of government agencies – including the FDA, the USDA, and the CDC – against the health risks it poses, especially avian flu, salmonella, and E. coli.
Courtesy: Jonel Aleccia/AP
The raw milk craze has been exacerbated by RFK Jr and a suite of ‘wellness’ influencers on social media, who have incorrectly purported claims that raw milk is safer than pasteurised milk, and embarked on cleanses from plant-based milk by consuming nothing but raw milk for a week (or even more).
For many consumers, plant-based milk just doesn’t help them score their macros, despite many products – including soy and pea milks – containing equivalent amounts of protein.
Finally – and perhaps most pertinently – non-dairy products are cost-prohibitive at a time when inflation is biting people harder than ever. Cow’s milk prices are already approaching the record they set in 2022 in the US, while plant-based alternatives remain twice as expensive. At a time when Americans are spending 15% more than they were for the same goods in 2022, this is likely driving the shift away from vegan products, which don’t benefit from government subsidies the same way dairy does.
Plant-based milk isn’t going anywhere
Courtesy: Táche
Despite all this, plant-based milk still feels like it’s here to stay. For one, the sales data shows they’re not suffering everywhere. In the UK, supermarket sales of these products were up by 0.9% – slower than whole milk (1.2%), but in contrast with declines in semi-skimmed (2.4%) and skimmed milk (0.7%), according to Kantar data cited by the Guardian.
In the US, too, sales for shelf-stable coconut milk, soy milk, and multi-ingredient blends increased by 28%, 0.7% and 10%, respectively, as per SPINS and MULO data reported by FoodNavigator. In 2023, non-dairy alternatives made up 41% of all milk sales in the natural channel, and 15% overall.
Plant-based milk also accounts for 41% of all vegan sales in Europe’s biggest markets, reaching €2.2B in 2023. In Germany, Spain, and the UK, more than 35% of households buy these products. And stateside, 44% of homes purchased them that year, and they liked them so much, eight in 10 came back for more.
Additionally, one in five Americans who purchase vegan alternatives put cow’s milk in their shopping carts, a figure that rises to 23% for yoghurt and 30% for cheese. It’s a sign of their popularity – it’s not just vegans who drink dairy-free milk.
Courtesy: Starbucks
This is because many prefer their taste over dairy, while many others are lactose-intolerant. This is why we’re seeing companies like Starbucks and Dunkin’ facing lawsuits for charging extra for non-dairy milk. These efforts have been successful – both companies have dropped the surcharge, alongside a host of other coffee chains. If that isn’t a marker of plant-based milk’s potential, we’re not sure what is.
Back in Europe, many coffee chains already don’t charge extra for plant-based milk (yes, Starbucks included), and now, retailers are joining in the act, making their own-label non-dairy products the same price or cheaper than cow-derived ones.
To keep up with shifting consumer preferences anyway, some brands are coming up with innovations that speak to their demands – this is key, given that a third of Americans still haven’t found a non-dairy product that meets all of their needs.
Sproud and Ripple Foods are positioning pea milk as the protein-packed alternative of the moment, while Bam, Niúke Foods and Whole Moon are highlighting their amino acid and “complete protein” credentials. Minor Figures has just unveiled a new muscle-supporting Hyper Oat milk, while PKN has launched a Zero-edition pecan milk to cater to consumers looking for clean-label options.
The plant-based category has always been ripe for innovation, and it has made its name by disrupting established, resource-intensive industries. A little raw milk is unlikely to stop that.
A new study confirms what urban residents and advocates have known for decades: that America’s urban highways are barriers to social connection.
The research, published this month in the journal PNAS, quantifies for the first time how highways have disrupted neighborhoods across the 50 biggest U.S. cities. Every single city studied showed less social connectivity between neighborhoods where highways are present.
“Nobody could put a number on the disruption, and now we can give a score to every single highway segment,” says Luca Aiello, a professor at the IT University of Copenhagen and the study’s lead author.
The Canary has reported on disability and mental health since its founding – particularly in relation to how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) handles these issues. As such, we can confidently state that there is no real difference in how the previous Tory governments viewed disabled people and how the current Labour Party government does. This means that conditions are still worsening for society’s most vulnerable people, with Labour continuing the squeeze on their living conditions.
One of the areas where you are, we understand, gonna try and claw back money, [is people who’ve] been signed off because of mental health problems. Now in the last few days, it’s interesting, the prominent neurologist, Suzanne O’Sullivan, has said there’s overdiagnosis of mental health problems.
Firstly, let’s point out the language used here – particularly the ‘clawed back’ part. This is the way you speak about someone who has stolen money and are refusing to give it up; not people with mental health problems who are simply trying to exist in the bleak reality of modern Britain.
The other thing to note is that O’Sullivan has indeed published a book in which she makes a case that we are over-diagnosing health conditions. As the Week reported, other medical professionals have other opinions, but Kuenssberg doesn’t make that clear.
The book from O’Sullivan is new, so we’ll have to wait to see how it holds up to criticism, but as of right now it’s worth understanding that the broader media has happily accepted her central argument, because it’s very much in line with pre-existing health narratives:
It’s no secret why the establishment hate the idea of workers being ‘on the sick’ in the hellish late-stage capitalist world we live in – a system which requires low-paid disposable workers to function (it’s also no surprise that poor mental health has increased alongside income inequality and job insecurity). And believe us when we say that books and studies which go against mainstream narratives rarely receive the same attention.
Leading questions
Kuenssberg finished her DWP-related question to Streeting as follows:
Your colleague, Liz Kendall, when she was here, talked about the problems of self diagnosis when people feel that they might have a condition. Do you believe, as a health secretary, that too many people are being treated as sick and incapable of work for essentially struggling with what are quite normal feelings.
This technique – in which you present an answer and ask if the guest wishes to accept it – is what’s known as a ‘leading question’, and it betrays Kuenssberg’s own thoughts on the matter. These people aren’t mentally unwell; they’re simply having normal feelings – the sort of ‘normal feelings’ people must have when their horrible lives become increasingly precarious – but that’s just progress, I’m afraid.
Streeting also betrayed his feelings by accepting Kuenssberg’s answer entirely:
Well, I want to follow the evidence, and I I agree with that point about overdiagnosis.
But, here’s the other thing. I mean, mental, well-being, illness, it’s a spectrum. Right? And…
Kuenssberg interjected at this point to reaffirm that he believed that there was “overdiagnosis”, even though he’d literally just done that. She isn’t simply a attack dog for continuity Conservatism; she’s an XL Bully on bathsalts.
Callous and cruel
Streeting continued:
I think there’s definitely there’s an overdiagnosis, but also there are too many people being written off.
And to your point about treatment, there’s too many people who just aren’t getting the support they need. So if you can get that support to people much earlier, then you can help people to either stay in work or to get back to work, and that’s why we’re recruiting eight and a half thousand more mental health staff to make sure we can get the waiting list down, and also starting early. So making sure we’ve got mental health support in every primary and secondary school in the country so we can give people that those that resilience and those coping skills.
Labour wanting to recruit more mental health staff is a good thing. From direct experience, the Canaryand its writers can confirm that the mental health support offered currently is basically non-existent, and that even that which does exist is often more about ticking boxes than providing support.
As such, it’s not unrealistic to think that increasing actual mental health support could genuinely help people and reduce the number of people who require long-term support.
The doctor knows best
But there are two problems still:
As far as we can tell, Labour’s plans to reduce the number of people claiming DWP PIP aren’t reliant on this mental health support actually working. Their plan seems to be to change the eligibility requirements to drop people out of PIP, which almost certainly isn’t going to help people with mental health problems – especially as we’re probably years away from this team of mental health support staff being in place.
Labour is talking out of both sides of its mouth on this issue. On the one hand, they’re claiming they think people are suffering mental health issues, but the issue is that these issues are being prolonged by a lack of access to health. They’re also claiming that DWP claimants are “taking the mickey” – i.e. they’re pretending to be unwell to claim the pitiful entitlements that exist in this country. The first point they’re making is to try and appease sick and disabled people (and rebel MPs); the second point is the one they’re pitching to the media, as is made clear by Kuenssberg’s next intervention:
But you do believe there’s a problem with overdiagnosis. What then would your message then be to medical professionals watching this?
Yes, what message should medical professionals take from Wes Streeting and Laura Kuenssberg – two people who know fuck all about medicine?
We’d say this would be like doctors advising Streeting and Kuenssberg on how to do their jobs, but let’s be honest – it would be hard to provide advice which made them worse.
The new nasty party hits the DWP again
As you’d expect, the Streeting interview is going down poorly:
Streeting’s a fucking rotten, Bought & paid for MP, who’s taken over £300k in dodgy Donations from private healthcare firms since he’s been in Office. Public information Laura wouldn’t Dream of bringing up, because she’s politically aligned with the state & paid handsomely for it https://t.co/7rui1oMUXW
He's a doctor now then ? No, he's been sent out to tout cutting peoples money to force vulnerable people into work they cant do.
— Jen Wood – est optimum simpliciter (@unojen_wood) March 16, 2025
STOP CALLING PIP A BENEFIT FFS !!!
It's an entitlement, that we all pay towards, to help our sick and disabled brothers and sisters support themselves, or to support us when we we fall sick or become disabled.#bbclaurak
One X user made a point that agrees with the need for more mental health professionals:
Overdiagnosis of mental health problems? How many people are assessed by a psychiatrist or psychologist? Hardly any!! GPs aren't qualified to diagnose mental health conditions but the reality is that they are the only medical professionals people have access to. #bbclaurak
Again, though, it’s worth pointing out that if increasing the number of mental health workers will reduce the people who need DWP PIP, why make it harder to qualify for PIP? We’re also eager to find out how many of Streeting’s “mental health staff” will be qualified medical professionals and not just social security hatchet men who complete an eight-week course on counselling.
It’s also worth noting that not everyone in the media is as callous as Kuenssberg (although Susanna Reid does seem to implicitly accept that some cuts are necessary):
Susanna Reid on how the Labour govt has gone out of its way to deliberately cause stress and anxiety to some of the most vulnerable people in our society #bbclaurakpic.twitter.com/pD9SENvvKH
Susanna Reid: "If it looks like [Starmer] is using cuts to welfare to pay for war I'm not sure that's going to be popular at all" #bbclaurakpic.twitter.com/InkUbfPgVH
This may be true for a rewarding career with great benefits, but for many in 2025 ‘work’ means stagnating wages, increased job insecurity, and an overriding sense that things are only going to get worse.
Saturday 15 March marks Long Covid Awareness Day, a critical opportunity to raise awareness of the ongoing and often debilitating effects of Long Covid, which continues to impact millions of individuals across the UK. As the pandemic’s long-term consequences remain stark, communities and advocacy groups across the country are coming together to raise their voices in solidarity and demand urgent action from the government.
This year’s awareness day is marked by a series of coordinated campaigns, focusing on increasing government commitment to funding crucial research and support services.
Despite mounting evidence of the environmental impact of methane emissions, the world’s largest supermarkets are failing to take responsibility for their role in the crisis.
Methane emissions in the food retailer supply chain
A new report by Changing Markets Foundation and NGO Mighty Earth reveals that 20 major retailers – including Carrefour, Lidl, Tesco, Walmart, and Ahold Delhaize – are ignoring the need to track or reduce the methane emissions linked to their supply chains:
Scorecard assessed the 20 largest food retailers in Europe and the US to evaluate their progress towards reducing methane emissions. Graph: Changing Markets Foundation and Mighty Earth.
With meat and dairy responsible for at least a third of their total emissions, this alarming failure raises serious questions about their commitment to sustainability and climate action.
The findings expose a troubling lack of transparency, as none of these industry giants publicly report their methane emissions, despite methane being 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the short term.
As global efforts intensify to curb greenhouse gases, the failure of these companies to acknowledge and address their methane footprint puts them under increasing scrutiny. With pressure mounting from regulators, investors, and consumers, these retailers must move beyond greenwashing and take concrete steps to slash emissions before it’s too late.
Gemma Hoskins, global methane lead at Mighty Earth, said:
Food retailers are ignoring the methane problem hidden in the meat and dairy aisles and risk losing consumer trust. Methane is a superheater greenhouse gas responsible for about a quarter of the heating the planet has already experienced. But it’s short-lived, so rapid cuts would be a win for climate and nature.
Retailers are uniquely positioned to urgently drive down agricultural methane emissions in their supply chains. That starts with being honest about the impact of the products they sell and working harder and faster to reduce that impact.
Meat and dairy: lack of transparency on methane emissions
The report reveals that over 90% of European food retailers’ emissions come from their supply chains, with meat and dairy accounting for nearly half. Yet, none of the retailers analysed disclose methane emissions or the footprint of the meat and dairy products they sell.
Food retailers also fail to commit to deforestation-free supply chains for key commodities like beef, soy, and palm oil, despite the 2025 EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) deadline. Livestock farming is a leading driver of the Amazon’s destruction, responsible for 88% of deforestation.
While fossil fuel companies face intense scrutiny, the climate impact of the meat and dairy industry remains largely neglected. Rapidly cutting methane emissions by transforming this sector – alongside phasing out fossil fuels – could be a game changer in the fight against climate disaster.
Methane alert: supermarkets’ ‘complete lack of action’
As a greenhouse gas, methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, responsible for 25% of global heating. Though it remains in the atmosphere for a shorter time than CO₂, it is far more effective at trapping heat, earning its reputation as a ‘super-heater’.
Animal agriculture is a major contributor, responsible for 16.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 32% of human-caused methane emissions – largely from a byproduct of livestock digestion process (burps) called enteric fermentation, and manure. Each year, 83 billion land animals are slaughtered for meat production, further driving these emissions.
Changing Markets Foundation and Mighty Earth are calling on food retailers to take responsibility by publicly reporting their emissions, setting science-based climate targets, and reducing methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030, in line with the Global Methane Pledge adopted at COP26. With their vast influence over supply chains and consumer choices, food retailers must lead the shift toward a sustainable food system, rather than placing the burden on consumers.
As key players in the global food industry, major food retailers have the power – and the duty – to pressure dominant meat and dairy producers, including JBS, Tyson, and Cargill, to adopt more transparency and sustainable practices, and cut methane emissions at the source.
Maddy Haughton-Boakes, senior campaigner at the Changing Markets Foundation, said:
Methane emissions are a major blind spot of supermarkets. Our scorecard reveals a complete lack of action, with the most powerful players in the food supply chains completely ignoring their government’s commitments to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. This must change urgently.
Some retailers acknowledge the problem and have taken small steps, but none are treating it with the urgency it demands – there are no real leaders here. Cutting methane this decade is our emergency brake on runaway global heating, yet retailers are barely pressing it. The companies that dominate our food system must step up now and take real action to slash their methane emissions.
Health impact: antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Excessive meat consumption is a major threat to both the planet and human health. It drives greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and destroys ecosystems rich in biodiversity. But the dangers don’t stop there – scientific studies reveal that high intake of red and processed meat significantly increases the risk of ischaemic heart disease, pneumonia, diabetes, colon polyps, and diverticular disease.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has found compelling evidence that processed meat directly contributes to colorectal cancer, a finding further reinforced by research from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS).
Adding to these dangers, the meat industry’s rampant use of antibiotics in livestock farming has accelerated the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a looming public health catastrophe.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) results in higher mortality rates, prolonged illness, the spread of epidemics, and an overwhelming strain on global healthcare systems.
A call for companies to step up
Changing Markets Foundation and Mighty Earth are urging food retailers to urgently develop climate plans to reduce methane from meat and dairy sources, adopt public transparency in climate reporting and disclose methane emissions, and set a target for methane reductions.
The pressure is mounting for food retailers to confront the methane problem head-on. As consumers become more aware of the environmental and health implications of their food choices, the demand for transparency and accountability will only grow.
Food retailers can no longer afford to ignore the environmental cost of the products they sell. By taking quick and decisive action to reduce methane emissions, they not only have the chance to be at the forefront of the sustainable food movement but also to regain consumer trust and position themselves as true leaders in the fight against climate change.
With the urgency of the climate crisis at an all-time high, it is crucial that these companies step up to the challenge. If they fail to address methane emissions now, they risk locking in further damage to the planet, compromising both our future, our health, and their role in the global economy.
The latest research from the Young Lives project, conducted by the University of Oxford, reveals alarming trends affecting young people in some of the poorest regions of the Global South. The study tracks the lives of 12,000 children across Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam since 2002, aiming to inform policies that enhance the well-being of the youth growing up in poverty.
The most recent data, focusing on participants aged 22 to 29, highlights the compounded effects of multiple crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and ongoing conflicts.
Young Lives project: people being ruined by capitalism
The Young Lives project indicates that while progress had been made over the first two decades of the study, the impact of the pandemic has starkly reversed some gains. Key issues include rising poverty levels, increased food shortages, and significant disruptions in education.
Dr. Marta Favara, the director of Young Lives, noted the growing resilience among young people as many are returning to education and work post-pandemic. However, the effects of the pandemic and other crises are still having a profound impact, particularly on household food security.
Dr. Favara stated:
A clear example of this is increasing food insecurity, with many more young people now living in food insecure households than we expected to see. This is almost certainly the result of the pandemic and other shocks, including conflict, drought and floods.
Significant health and educational concerns were also highlighted in the findings.
Health and education under threat
Malnutrition remains a persistent problem, with Ethiopia reporting that 23% of young people are underweight. In sharp contrast, Peru faces challenges with rising obesity rates among its youth, with over 40% classified as overweight or obese. India experiences a dual burden, with 24% of young people underweight and 21% overweight, both scenarios posing serious health risks, including non-communicable diseases.
Mental health issues among the youth have surged, particularly in conflict-affected areas. A significant percentage of young individuals in Ethiopia reported experiencing anxiety, with 60% indicating moderate to severe stress levels.
Dr. Favara pointed out the potential long-term implications of these mental health issues, which are often overlooked in many parts of the world, noting:
Mental health issues are also of great concern, particularly given the incredibly low level of investment in mental health care.
Educational outcomes show some improvement, with more young people completing secondary education, and a notable shift towards higher education.
However, barriers persist, particularly in Ethiopia, where nearly three-quarters of 22-year-olds have not completed upper secondary school. In India, while secondary school completion rates have increased, young women from disadvantaged backgrounds remain underrepresented in higher education.
A similar pattern emerges in Peru, where socio-economic inequalities hinder access to university for poorer students.’
Young Lives project paints a damning picture
In terms of employment, the Young Lives project reveals troubling statistics about the quality of jobs that young people are obtaining. Most work in low-paid, poor-quality jobs often lacking any formal contracts, and dissatisfaction rates are high, with nearly half indicating they are unhappy in their work situations.
In Ethiopia, the number of young people not engaged in education, employment, or training has more than doubled over the past seven years, raising concerns about the future of many young lives.
Dr. Favara remarked on the complex interplay of education and employment:
More education does not necessarily translate into better jobs, leaving many young people struggling to meet their aspirations for a better life.
The ongoing challenges faced by these young people highlight the persistent inequalities shaped by the countries’ socio-economic contexts and the impact of global pressures such as climate crisis.
Of course, the real problem is the Global North’s persistent drive for corporate capitalism, which has inequality baked into it, along with a neo-colonialist approach to the Global South with extractivist policies that do nothing for the populations in these countries.
The researchers stress the urgency for policy change to tackle these disparities as the world moves towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Targeted support for disadvantaged groups is critical, according to Dr. Favara, in order to strengthen resilience against such external shocks and to empower youths to realise their potential in the face of these ongoing crises.
Figures obtained by Medical Negligence Assist found that, since 2019, NHS trusts have had to pay out over £1 billion compensation to patients who have lodged claims following a surgery error.
Medical negligence solicitor for JF Law, Gareth Lloyd, said:
The chances of a patient suffering a surgical error are remote, yet every operation carries with it a number of risks, and if something goes wrong, there can be lifelong consequences.
Surgical errors are unexpected mistakes or accidents that occur during procedures and they are classed as ‘never events’ as they are errors that should not have happened in surgery.
These errors can have significant physical, emotional and financial consequences for patients as they may require additional treatment and suffer even more pain.
A person affected by a surgery error can often make a surgical negligence claim against the NHS, where NHS Resolution will pay for their compensation.
This is a government scheme paid for by NHS Trusts that acts as an insurance policy and pays for NHS negligence claims.
NHS claims for surgery errors
From 2019 to 2024, 11,405 claims regarding surgical errors were lodged against NHS Trusts, 8,400 of which were settled.
Medical Negligence Assist obtained figures on how much NHS Trusts have paid out to successful surgical error claims since 2019.
Over the past five years, the trusts have paid out a total of £1,065,961,731 with the highest amount coming in 2021/22 standing at £263,511,399.
Common errors can include foreign objects left in the body, such as surgical instruments and cleaning materials, as well as ‘wrong site surgery’, where patients can be put at a greater risk of infection and additional scarring.
Every year, 12,000 medicolegal claims are brought against the NHS in England at a cost of £8 billion – 6.7% of the England budget. In 1,000 of these claims, the primary speciality is general surgery.
Based on figures gathered from NHS Resolution, the trusts with the highest compensation costs since 2019 have been revealed.
University Hospitals Birmingham had the highest compensation costs at over £44m, with Barts Health NHS Trust following with costs of over £34m.
General surgery is not the only type of surgery in which errors can occur.
Tracking the mistakes
NHS Resolution also tracks claims for neuro, oral and maxillofacial, orthopaedic, plastic, and vascular surgeries.
NHS Resolution also disclosed the most frequent causes of surgery errors, as well as the injuries that resulted from them.
The most common causes for surgical error claims were failures/delays for treatment, which was lodged 1,999 times, and the most common surgery error injury was unnecessary pain, seeing 1,990 claims submitted.
Speaking to Medical Negligence Assist, Gareth Lloyd said:
Although they appear on the surface to be straightforward cases, surgical errors are much more complex than that and can cover a number of situations and outcomes.
For example, an operation to remove your gallbladder carries with it risks of damage to the bile duct, blood vessels, bowel and intestines. If one of these complications happens during the operation, nine times out of ten, there is no case, however, that doesn’t mean that there is no case at all, it just makes it more difficult to prove.
I once had a case involving a patient undergoing a gallbladder removal, and during the operation, one of the veins in his abdomen was damaged, which is a known risk and therefore wasn’t seen as a surgical error.
However, when I got the medical records, it transpired that the performing surgeon had completely severed the client’s hepatic artery, which isn’t a known complication, hence a successful case.
Medical Negligence Assist offers support to patients who may have suffered from a surgical error and can see if they have grounds to submit a claim.
They operate a 24-hour helpline and claim online form, which you can access on their website.
Engine idling: where’s the enforcement of the ban?
Engine idling, leaving a vehicle’s engine running while stationary, is already prohibited in Scotland because it releases toxic exhaust fumes that are harmful to human health and the environment. Yet despite over 1,000 complaints of idling from members of the public since 2019, there has been a systemic failure to enforce the ban, according to data uncovered by theEnvironmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) andAsthma + Lung UK.
There is extensive evidence linking vehicle emissions to diseases including lung cancer and asthma. Children, older people, pregnant women, and people with existing health conditions are particularly vulnerable and exposed to toxic exhaust fumes at idling hotspots such as schools, hospitals, and bus stops.
Studies have found that in comparison to idling, switching the engine off significantly cuts pollution, even when stopping for only 30 seconds. Yet the current enforcement regime is failing to deter engine idling – Scottish government guidance discourages local authorities from issuing fines, which can only be issued as a last resort if drivers refuse to switch off engines.
The current fine of £20 has not kept pace with inflation, remaining at the same rate as when it was introduced more than twenty years ago.
Three measures are needed
Now a growing coalition, including conveners of transport and environment committees in Scotland’s four largest local authorities, health professionals, children’s, parents, and teachers groups, and environmental and public health charities, has written to the cabinet secretary for transport demanding action.
The coalition is proposing three measures to enforce the ban: increase the level of fines to act as a meaningful deterrent; improve the government’s guidance to extend enforcement powers; and enforce local authority monitoring and reporting requirements.
Shivali Fifield, Chief Officer at ERCS, said:
In 2024, the government stated its vision for Scotland to have the cleanest air in Europe – if they are serious about delivering on that ambition, then effective enforcement of the laws we already have to cut air pollution is an obvious place to start.
Engine idling exposes us to toxic exhaust fumes every single day, and like smoking in restaurants, is a habit that should be condemned to the dustbin of history. Yet despite public outrage, it continues unabated – with a toothless enforcement regime that does nothing to deter offenders.
There is a straightforward solution to solve this scandal – empowering local authorities to enforce the ban that already exists in law
Cllr Angus Millar, transport convener at Glasgow City Council said:
While engine idling remains a significant issue throughout our cities and towns, the limitations of Scotland’s current enforcement guidance means Councils are unable to provide an effective and lasting deterrent to this behaviour. Enforcement can currently only take place in very limited circumstances, and in the very few cases where penalties are issued these are at a historically low level set decades ago.
It’s clear that in order to seriously tackle the problem of idling, education and awareness-raising around health and environmental impacts need to be coupled with more robust and updated enforcement powers for local authorities, and Glasgow City Council looks forward to engaging with partners on seeking improvements to the enforcement regime.
Engine idling has to stop
Gareth Brown, Chair of Healthy Air Scotland and Policy & Public Affairs Officer (Scotland) for Asthma + Lung UK, said:
Poor air quality contributes to up to 2,700 premature deaths each year in Scotland. It creates new lung conditions, worsens existing ones leading to an increase in hospitalisations and is linked to lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and stunted lung growth in children. People want to see more action to tackle this problem. Our annual polling of 1000 Scots, shows time and time again that people want more to be done about idling outside schools in particular.
Exhaust emissions from cars contain dangerous toxins such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. It is vitally important that we protect the lungs and health of our children, no one should be forced to breathe in harmful pollutants. Many people mistakenly believe that stopping a car engine, only to restart it a minute or two later, causes more pollution than idling. It doesn’t.
Mike Corbett, Scotland National Official at NASUWT teachers’ union, said:
Vehicle pollution can have a long-lasting impact on the health of children and young people. But drivers, local authorities and the Scottish Government can all play their part in reducing the harms caused.
Drivers can ensure they switch off their vehicles while waiting outside schools and the Scottish Government can empower local authorities to enact and enforce laws on vehicle idling to act as a deterrent.
Communities would all benefit from cleaner air and an improved environment at little inconvenience to drivers.
Europe’s health progress is stagnating, and in some areas, even reversing, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report published in late February assessing everything from infections and chronic diseases to life expectancy.
While the report notes a decline in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and cancer, these conditions still pose a significant threat, responsible for one in six deaths among people under 70 in Europe, as well as 90% of all deaths. As WHO Europe regional director, Dr. Hans Kluge, has warned, the region must address chronic disease’s root causes, citing tobacco as a major risk factor. Indeed, the WHO reports cautions that the continent’s smoking rates stubbornly high at 25%, with Europe set to miss this year’s 30% reduction target.
Despite the gravity of the situation, the European Commission remains curiously silent on the tobacco industry, whose noxious lobbying influence has long shielded cigarettes from stricter oversight despite their widely-known cancer and CVD links – particularly concerning regulation to tackle the bloc’s rising illicit tobacco trade. In advancing its public health agenda, the EU executive must implement WHO-aligned policies that reflect the uniquely dire public health and social menace that tobacco represents.
Europe’s avoidable health crisis
Published every three years, the WHO report has crucially reminded that CVD and cancer are the twin pillars of Europe’s public health crisis, together accounting for roughly two-thirds of the continent’s premature deaths. In Eastern Europe, the early death risk from CVD is nearly five times higher than in Western Europe, with cancer presenting a similarly stark contrast. While wealthier Western nations see more cancer cases but improving survival rates, the lower incidence in the East masks a harsher reality, where patients face significantly higher mortality.
In the EU, a citizen faces a cancer diagnosis every nine seconds, representing 2.7 million people in 2022 alone. That same year, the disease claimed 1.3 million lives, making cancer Europe’s second cause of death after CVD. Tobacco remains the most lethal risk factor – accounting for over a quarter of all cancer-related deaths, with lung cancer at the forefront. The numbers are staggering, and yet, largely preventable. Tobacco consumption claims nearly 700,000 lives annually across Europe, costing the EU an estimated €97.7 billion – a near-even split between direct healthcare expenses and indirect costs such as lost productivity.
Four years after the launch of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, progress has been tangible but uneven. While notable strides have been made to alleviate the continent’s disease burden, many commitments vital to dealing a meaningful blow to cancer in Europe have gone unmet. With the European Commission’s Country Cancer 2025 reports revealing a 24% spike in cancer prevalence and persistent cancer inequalities across the bloc, Brussels needs to deliver decisive action to turn the tide.
Big Tobacco lobbyists obstructing progress
As Dr Wendy Yared of the European Cancer Leagues (ECL) recently noted, revising the EU tobacco legislation framework represents a vital measure within Brussels’ policy arsenal to tackle cancer, rightly stressing that these efforts must “not be delayed any further.” Indeed, the Big Tobacco lobby has successfully watered down or stalled key policy initiatives in recent years.
Last year, a coalition of MEPs, public health experts, and tobacco control advocates – including the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group and the Smoke-Free Partnership (SFP) – released a White Paper exposing the EU’s ongoing failure to shield its health policies from Big Tobacco’s influence. As the White Paper’s contributors, such as SFP Director Lilia Olefir, have long warned, the EU tobacco lobby has spent years obstructing the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and Tobacco Taxation Directive (TTD) revisions.
Delayed for over two years now, the Commission has yet to explain its failure to turn policy ambition into concrete public health legislation that protects its citizens from tobacco. Meanwhile, Big Tobacco has intensified its stalling tactics, investing millions in lobbying to undermine the TPD-TTD revision process, which would likely impose higher taxes and an independent tobacco traceability system – measures vital for public health but harmful to the industry’s profit margins.
EU tobacco traceability reflecting systemic failures
This latest lobbying offensive echoes Big Tobacco’s successful efforts to weaken the last TPD update in 2014, when the industry successfully pushed for the removal of an independent, WHO FCTC Protocol-compliant track-and-trace system initially proposed to combat Europe’s illicit tobacco trade. In the ensuing decade, Big Tobacco has benefitted from a far weaker framework operated by longstanding industry-linked entities, with Swiss firms Inexto and Dentsu Tracking, as well as France’s Atos and its four subsidiaries representing nearly half of all primary repositories, and former sister company, Worldline, also involved.
Inexto’s and Dentsu’s connections to the tobacco industry are especially troubling, as the ‘descendants,’ via respective acquisitions, of Codentify – the Philip Morris International-developed traceability system long derided by leading health experts as a blatant industry attempt to control traceability efforts and ensure regulation plays to its commercial advantage. In addition to the technology, Inexto equally inherited former Philip Morris International executives – including Codentify’s creators.
Beyond Inexto’s WHO-violating financial ties to the tobacco industry, Dentsu’s involvement has drawn particular scrutiny from MEPs and NGOs, especially after revelations that Jan Hoffman, a former European Commission official, now holds an executive role at Dentsu, raising serious conflict-of-interest concerns regarding what MEPs identified as the opaque tender process that awarded the company the contract. (Dentsu insists that Hoffman did not have any improper influence over the tender award).
Mirroring its EU controversies, Dentsu Tracking’s recently exposed scandal in Brazil represents the final nail in the coffin of its tobacco industry independence, with the company’s General Manager – a former Philip Morris International executive – recorded promoting the Big Tobacco giant’s interests concerning Brazil’s traceability system.
Time to take a stand
With industry allies like Inexto and Dentsu at the helm of the EU system, illicit tobacco trade in Europe continues to rise, padding Big Tobacco’s pockets while draining billions in EU excise tax revenue – funds that could support essential preventative healthcare initiatives.
This tobacco traceability scandal is symptomatic of a deeper flaw within the EU’s institutions: lofty promises repeatedly undermined by failure to enact concrete, protective measures. With the long-delayed TPD revision in sight, the new Commission has the once-in-a-generation opportunity to redress the wrongs of the past and implement an independent, WHO-aligned tobacco traceability system.
The WHO’s concerning findings in its latest Europe report offer a timely reminder that the continent cannot afford complacency amid an escalating public health crisis. Moving forward, the EU executive must not allow lobbyists pressure to further delay and dilute its public health agenda. The choice is clear: act decisively to safeguard millions of EU citizens or allow commercial interests to undermine the continent’s anti-cancer agenda – the time for half-measures has passed.
Replacing less than a tablespoon of butter with plant-based oils can lower the risk of premature death from cancer and other causes by 17%, shows a new study.
Even small dietary changes towards plant-based food can render big health benefits, according to a new study by researchers at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Mass General Brigham, and the Broad Institute.
Published in the Jama Internal Medicine journal, their analysis found that swapping a small amount of butter – 10g per day – with plant-based fats like soybean, canola or olive oil could lower the risk of premature death from all causes by 17%.
“That is a pretty huge effect on health,” noted lead author Yu Zhang. “Higher butter intake was associated with increased deaths from all causes and cancer, while higher intake of plant-based oils was associated with lower deaths from all causes, cancer and cardiovascular disease.”
The results were presented at the American Heart Association’s (AHA) EPI/Lifestyle Scientific Session (March 6-9), with the authors stating that while there has been a lot of research on the links of saturated fat to mortality, few studies have homed in on their primary food sources.
Plant-based oils can reduce death risks
Courtesy: Africa Images
The researchers analysed 33 years of dietary data of over 220,000 American adults, sourced from three national studies. Every four years, the participants, a majority of whom were women, answered questions about how often they ate certain types of food.
Their consumption of these fats included margarine blends, spreadable butter added to foods, or butter used in baking and frying, as well as plant-based oils in frying, baking, sautéing, and salad dressings.
The study authors used statistics to compare death rates across different dietary intake levels, and found that the participants who ate the most butter had a 15% higher risk of death from all causes compared to those with the lowest butter consumption. Each additional 10g of butter per day was linked to a 12% increased risk of death from cancer.
At the same time, those who ate the highest amount of plant-based oils had a 16% lower risk of premature death, with an extra 10g of intake per day associated with an 11% reduction in death risk from cancer and 6% from cardiovascular disease (the leading cause of death in the US).
“From a public health perspective, this is a substantial number of deaths from cancer or from other chronic diseases that could be prevented,” said corresponding author Daniel Wang.
The study ascribed to the high concentration of saturated fatty acids in butter, which can trigger adipose tissue inflammation, a key pathogenic pathway in the development of various cancers. “Moreover, studies have shown that dietary saturated fats can alter hormonal activity, influencing hormone-sensitive cancers such as breast and prostate cancer,” it stated.
“Higher saturated fat intake, particularly when it replaces unsaturated fat intake or makes that ratio imbalanced, promotes the synthesis of less healthy cholesterol profiles, which can lead to atherosclerosis [the thickening of arteries due to fat and cholesterol buildup],” said Maya Vadiveloo, chair of the AHA’s Lifestyle Nutrition Committee, who was not involved in the study.
Scientists slam ‘butter bros’ and ‘anti-seed-oil brigade’
Courtesy: AI-Generated Image via Canva
“Sometimes when we talk about saturated fat, like butter, we forget that people don’t eat saturated fat, they eat food that contains saturated fat,” said Vadiveloo. “So, in addition to making substitutions for plant-based oils, one way to reduce saturated fat intake is by building a dietary pattern focused on eating vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts and legumes, and only occasionally including sources of saturated fats like processed red meats.”
The AHA’s dietary recommendations suggest limiting saturated fat intake to less than 6% of daily calories, in line with the draft proposals for the upcoming national dietary guidelines in the US. Due to be published later this year, the latter emphasise a shift to a plant-rich diet, with an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, fish and seafood, low- and non-fat dairy, and unsaturated fats.
“These results support current dietary recommendations to replace animal fats like butter with nonhydrogenated vegetable oils that are high in unsaturated fats, especially olive, soy, and canola oil,” the study suggests.
Saturated fats are present in many foods, and mostly come from animal sources, including red meat, beef tallow, butter, and cheese, plus tropical fruits like coconut or palm.
“Social media is currently awash with influencers promoting butter as a health food and claiming that seed oils are deadly. This large-scale, long-term study finds the reverse,” said Sarah Berry, nutritional sciences professor at King’s College London, who was not involved in the study. “In a sane world, this study would give the butter bros and anti-seed-oil brigade pause for thought, but I’m confident that their brand of nutri-nonsense will continue unabated.”
Parveen Yaqoob, professor of nutritional science at the University of Reading, highlighted that “not all vegetable oils are equal”, with monounsaturated oils more beneficial than polyunsaturated fats, according to the research. “Given that there are some plant-based oils that are high in saturates – such as palm oil and coconut oil – it is important to consider them separately,” she said.
“Recent dietary fads have suggested a re-examination of evidence on dietary fat. People who are confused about these conflicting messages about their diet should focus on broader, well-established advice, which can be summarised as: eat more fresh vegetables.”
A new study has raised concerns about the impact of egg consumption on heart health, suggesting that eating cholesterol-rich foods may increase the risk of heart attacks. Cholesterol, which is found exclusively in animal products like eggs, has long been linked to heart disease, but researchers have now found a more direct connection.
The study, which was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, revealed that for every 100 milligrams of cholesterol consumed daily—approximately half of a large egg—the risk of a heart attack increased by 5 percent. This finding has sparked further discussion about the role of dietary cholesterol in cardiovascular health.
Health experts have long debated whether the cholesterol in food contributes significantly to heart disease, but this new research suggests a clear link. While eggs remain a popular breakfast choice for many, this study serves as a reminder of the potential risks of consuming too many cholesterol-heavy foods.
Potential risks of cholesterol
In the US, coronary artery disease (CAD) continues to be the leading cause of death, with heart attacks—also known as myocardial infarctions (MI)—being a major complication. With more than 600,000 new cases of heart attacks each year, it’s no surprise that scientists are continuously studying the factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease.
The large cohort study involving US veterans has further highlighted the potential risks of consuming dietary cholesterol, particularly from sources like eggs and meat, in relation to heart attack risk. The study, which followed 180,156 participants over an average of 3.5 years, discovered that higher dietary cholesterol intake—specifically more than 300 milligrams per day—was associated with a 15-percent increase in the likelihood of having a heart attack.
Cholesterol is known to play a role in the development of atherosclerosis, a condition where plaque builds up in the arteries, leading to complete blockages that can trigger heart attacks.
The study’s findings add to a growing body of research that suggests dietary cholesterol can have a significant impact on heart health. While some studies have shown mixed results, with no clear link between cholesterol intake and cardiovascular disease, this most recent data from veterans supports previous studies that connect high cholesterol consumption with an elevated risk of MI.
Is an egg bad for cholesterol?
For many Americans, conventional chicken eggs are a staple breakfast food, and studies have often debated the role they play in heart health. In the current study, eggs, along with other cholesterol-rich foods like meat, were major contributors to the higher cholesterol intake seen among participants. Though the exact impact of egg consumption on heart attack risk remains a topic of debate, the correlation between high cholesterol intake and heart disease risk cannot be ignored.
Based on their findings, the study’s researchers suggest that heart-healthy diets like the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) and Mediterranean diets—which are low in cholesterol-rich foods and high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins—should be a primary focus to optimize cardiovascular health.
“Additionally, reductions in cholesterol intake, which can be achieved by lowering the intake of meat and eggs, may reduce the risk of incident MI,” the authors said.
Vegan eggs on the rise
In addition to concerns about cholesterol-rich foods and heart attacks, surging egg prices and shortages in the US have opened a significant opportunity for plant-based egg substitutes. Companies like Eat Just are ramping up production, expanding distribution, and planning price cuts to capitalize on rising costs.
In January, sales for Eat Just’s Just Egg product skyrocketed five times compared to the previous year, with availability expanding at major retailers like Whole Foods and Walmart. The company’s plant-based egg, made from mung beans, comes in liquid and folded forms, and has seen sales accelerate, with some stores reporting year-over-year weekly gains of up to 70 percent.
As bird flu decimates egg-laying chickens, egg prices have reached record highs, with the national wholesale price for eggs climbing to $7.34 per dozen. This price hike has reduced the cost advantage previously held by chicken eggs, with a 16-ounce carton of Just Egg retailing at approximately $8—equivalent to 10 eggs.
Tetrick shared a post on social media showcasing empty egg shelves, with the only fully-stocked shelf displaying Just Egg products. “This could be a permanent fixture of our food system,” he remarked, referring to the ongoing egg shortages and high prices driven by bird flu.
Yo Egg
Yo Egg, another plant-based egg company using soy and chickpeas, is also benefitting from the shortage, with CEO Eran Groner noting that restaurants are turning to egg-less eggs as an insurance policy. Groner plans to cut prices by 10 percent, expand distribution, and diversify the product lineup to meet growing demand.
Although vegan eggs currently make up less than $2 billion in annual sales, the plant-based food sector is experiencing an investment boom. With plant-based milk growing steadily and meat alternatives gaining traction, the vegan egg market is the next opportunity in the ongoing shift towards plant-based foods.
This post was originally published on VegNews.com.
Transport for London (TfL) found itself fighting almost 1,000 personal injury claims because of accidents at their stations within a five-year period, according to new data.
Accident At Work Claim UK gathered information from TfL which revealed that there were 13,943 non-fatal injuries suffered in TfL-operated stations from April 2020 to March 2024.
Incidents have been steadily rising since the Covid-impacted 2020/21 financial year, in which 1,408 incidents were recorded.
That rose to 3,432 the year after, and then 4,202 in 2022/23.
In 2023/24, to date the most recent fully completed financial year, TfL customers, workers, and visitors were injured 4,901 times.
TfL hit with legal action – but pay out only 40 times
TfL explained that it was hit with 943 personal injury claims due to train station accidents between April 2020 and the end of 2024.
Like the accidents themselves, claim figures have continued to rise. After 90 cases made against TfL in 2020/21, the transport service was sued 157 times in 2021/22.
Legal action arose on 241 occasions in 2022/23, before another 281 people made their case in 2023/24.
174 personal injury claims have been levied against TfL in the first eight months of the 2024/25 year.
249 claims were due to a slip, trip or fall on the platform, with another 167 suing due to an escalator-related accident.
Jubilee Line users prolifically claimed, with Stratford (40), London Bridge and Waterloo (27 each) all common locations for incidents related to legal action. King’s Cross, with 46 incidents leading to claims, topped the list.
Across the period, only 40 claimants were successful, collecting £2,591,787.92 in compensation between them.
One person took home £2,352,872.78 in damages, while others were awarded as much as £44,000, £33,950 and £30,000.
The remaining claimants received compensation at an average of just under £14,000.
TfL did not confirm how many claims remain ongoing or how many were rejected.
Escalators pose the greatest threat
When broken down by where the incident happened, the data shows that 4,676 people were injured on escalators. The figure is significantly clear of other parts of the station, including stairs (1,762), the platform (1,640) and booking halls (1,310).
A further 1,113 people were hurt due to incidents at the platform/train interface, which is either the gap between the train and the platform or the track when no train is in the station.
Waterloo station’s escalators were the site of 337 accidents, more than any specific location in any station. King’s Cross and London Bridge (298 and 295 accidents respectively) also hosted dangerous escalators.
Baker Street station’s stairs had many more accidents than its counterparts around the city, with 72 incidents logged. The station also had the most platform/train interface accidents, with 50.
Overall, TfL customers were hurt 11,332 times, which works out at close to eight accidents per day. Staff suffered harm on 2,560 occasions in the same period.
Slips, trips and falls accounted for 8,037 counts of non-fatal injury, with another 1,449 noted as ‘passenger/train interface’.
A concerning 889 injuries came as the result of assault, and ‘Safety Critical Failures’, or equipment malfunctions, led to people being harmed 158 times.
370 of the incidents led to what TfL termed ‘serious’ harm.
Accident At Work Claim UK are workplace accident claim experts who offer a 24/7 advice service for people injured in public places.
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and Verite News, a nonprofit news organization with a mission to produce in-depth journalism in underserved communities in the New Orleans area.
Nearly five years after a pipeline spewed poison gas across a Mississippi town, federal regulators appeared ready in recent weeks to institute new safety rules aimed at preventing similar accidents across the U.S.’s fast-growing network of carbon dioxide pipelines.
But the proposed rules, unveiled five days before the end of Joe Biden’s presidency, were quietly derailed during the first weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term.
A federal pipeline safety official not authorized to speak publicly said the proposed rules were “withdrawn” in accordance with a January 20 executive order that freezes all pending regulations and initiates a review process by Trump’s newly appointed agency leaders. Putting the pipeline rules in further doubt is a February 19 executive order aimed at rooting out all regulations that are costly to “private parties” and impede economic development.
Trump’s choice to lead the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, which proposed the rules, is Paul Roberti, an attorney strongly backed by pipeline and energy industry groups. Roberti, who is awaiting Senate confirmation, oversaw PHMSA’s safety enforcement during Trump’s first term, a time marked by fewer citations and smaller fines than the Obama and Biden administrations.
Pipeline safety advocates still hope to push the Trump administration to approve the rules, which they say are critically important for reducing the risks of potentially deadly accidents across a growing number of states.
“It’s not dead yet,” said Paul Blackburn, an energy policy advisor for the Bold Alliance, an environmental group that tracks pipeline development. “It can be brought back by Trump, and I think the Trump administration should be pressured to do that.”
The more than 5,000 miles of CO2 pipelines in the U.S. are primarily used for enhanced oil recovery, a process that injects carbon dioxide into old oil reserves to squeeze out leftover deposits. Much of the current and predicted growth of the CO2 pipeline network is linked to the recent boom in carbon capture technologies, which allow industrial plants to store CO2 underground instead of releasing it into the air.
The CO2 pipeline network could top 66,000 miles — a thirteenfold increase — by 2050, according to a Princeton University-led study.
The Trump administration isn’t as supportive of carbon capture, but industry experts say growth will continue as companies try to meet state-level climate benchmarks.
While proponents say carbon capture will help address climate change, transporting pressurized CO2 comes with dangers, especially for rural stretches of the Midwest and Gulf Coast, where the network is concentrated.
CO2 can cause drowsiness, suffocation and sometimes death. Colorless, odorless, and heavier than air, carbon dioxide can travel undetected and at lethal concentrations over large distances.
The proposed rules would establish the first design, installation, and maintenance requirements for CO2 pipelines. Companies operating pipelines would need to provide training to local police and fire departments on how to respond to CO2 leaks, and emergency communication with the public would need to be improved.
Operators would be required to plan for gas releases that could harm people within 2 miles of a pipeline. The proposed rules show that PHMSA finally recognizes that the threats from CO2 pipelines are different from oil and natural gas pipelines, which can spill, burn, or explode but don’t usually imperil people miles away, said Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit watchdog group.
“These are relatively strong proposals,” he said. “Would these rules make CO2 pipelines completely safe? No. But it would modernize the pipelines.”
PHMSA currently has no specific standards for transporting CO2. Rules governing the CO2 pipeline network haven’t undergone significant review since 1991, according to the trust.
The proposed rules apply “lessons learned” from a 2020 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi, PHMSA officials said in an announcement on January 15.
The rupture in the small community 30 miles northwest of Jackson forced about 200 Satartia residents to evacuate. Emergency responders found people passed out, disoriented, and struggling to breathe. At least 45 people were treated at nearby hospitals.
“I have learned firsthand from affected communities in Mississippi and across America why we need stronger CO2 pipeline safety standards,” then-PHMSA Deputy Administrator Tristan Brown, a Biden appointee, said in a statement on January 15. “These new requirements will be the strongest, most comprehensive standards for carbon dioxide transportation in the world and will set our nation on a safer path as we continue to address climate challenges.”
Accidental releases have occurred from CO2 pipelines 76 times since 2010, according to PHMSA data reviewed by Verite News. Of the more than 67,000 barrels of CO2 released over the past 15 years, the vast majority — about 54,000 barrels — came from pipelines owned by Exxon Mobil subsidiary Denbury Inc.
Denbury operates the 925-mile pipeline network that failed in Satartia and more recently in southwest Louisiana. Last April, a pipeline at a Denbury pump station near the Calcasieu Parish town of Sulphur ruptured, triggering road closures and a shelter-in-place advisory. Some residents reported feeling tired and light-headed, but local authorities reported no serious illnesses.
The pump station and pipeline weren’t equipped with alarms or other methods of alerting nearby residents when accidents occur.
Several Sulphur-area residents said they received no notice of the leak or became aware of it via Facebook posts more than an hour after the gas began to spread.
“There should have been alarms, and the whole community should have been notified,” Roishetta Ozane, a community organizer who lives near the station, told Verite in April. “I don’t trust the system we have at all.”
Unless the proposed rules are enacted, similar or worse accidents are likely, said Kenneth Clarkson, the trust’s communications director.
“In the absence of a rule, blatant regulatory shortfalls will remain, leaving the public fully exposed to the risks of CO2 pipelines,” he said.
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