Amid a surge in early onset cancer, the Trump administration has taken more than 500 actions to systematically dismantle protections against carcinogens once in place across the federal government, an October report alleges. The Natural Resources Defense Council report, and comments from current and former officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, bring into focus how myriad changes in federal rules or protocol will dramatically increase the public’s exposure to carcinogens. These are taking effect at a time when some forms of early onset cancer are spiking by about 30% per decade.
Some of the changes have drawn widespread outrage and backlash, including the administration delaying new protections around asbestos, or siding with Bayer in its fight to keep the carcinogenic pesticide glyphosate on the market. But most changes lie in the nuts and bolts of the federal government. These include alterations to important scientific processes that determine the level of risk people face in exposure to carcinogens.
With a few minor adjustments, once-problematic levels of exposure to carcinogens, like formaldehyde, are no longer considered a danger in the federal government’s eyes. Other actions include the elimination of protective regulatory rules, the exploitation of presidential exemptions for polluters, the delay of new regulations already in motion, the elimination of research funding and wide-scale cuts to cancer research staff. The actions amount to a “pro-cancer” agenda, the report states.
NRDC lead author Erik Olson said he was “surprised by the breadth of the whole government effort to undermine all the protections against cancer”. It is not just the EPA, Olson said, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, independent commissions and many other governmental entities. Officials estimate there will be more than 2m US cancer diagnoses this year.
People younger than 50 years old have experienced a nearly 3% increase in colon cancer rates each year from 2013 to 2022. More broadly, rates for 14 types of common cancers have jumped in recent decades, including a 35% increase in childhood leukemia. The situation calls for more protections, but those rules, regulations and scientific processes that are most essential have long been on industry’s hit list, said an employee who declined to use their name for fear of retribution.
Former industry officials are now running the EPA, and it is “horrifying to watch it all play out,” the employee said. This works by assuming any level of exposure to carcinogens presents a risk, and the risk grows as the exposure dose grows. The Trump has started implementing a “threshold” approach in which it determines that some exposures to carcinogens is safe.
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