Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode

Tens of thousands of people got sick this summer from a foodborne illness outbreak that was preventable. In today’s episode, Ken speaks with Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, about the cyclospora outbreak sweeping the U.S.  The outbreak is a direct symptom of years of underinvestment and recent cuts to public health infrastructure by the Trump administration. From the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ shrinking FoodNet surveillance program to the thousands of Food and Drug Administration and Health and Human Services staff lost to layoffs and early retirements, Sarah lays out how the systems meant to catch contamination early have been dismantled.  It’s happening under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his unfulfilled Make America Healthy Again promises on food chemicals and a food safety loophole, synthetic dyes and defining "ultra-processed food. And it begs the question: Why are the people who promised to fix the food system are the ones gutting the agencies built to protect it?   For a deeper dive into today’s discussion: CSPI's synthetic dyes commitments tracker The Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic memo on the FRESH ActPolitico’s: USDA cyclospora research projects shelved amid funding cuts and relocations Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week. @kencookspodcast www.ewg.org @environmentalworkinggroup

"Ask where the landfill is, and you'll find where the Black people live." That's what Vernice Miller-Travis' grandmother told her. Vernice Miller-Travis helped write the report that first proved, with data, what Black communities had always known: Hazardous waste sites are not randomly distributed; they're concentrated in communities of color.  She has spent decades building the environmental justice movement, co-founding WE ACT for Environmental Justice, leading environmental justice grantmaking at the Ford Foundation, and founding the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Environmental Justice Initiative.  Miller-Travis, who is Ken’s guest today,  now serves as executive vice president for environmental and social justice at Metropolitan Group, working with communities and institutions on the racial and economic conflicts that persist in our environment due to regulatory inaction.  For a deeper dive into today’s discussion: https://www.metgroup.com/ Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week. @kencookspodcast www.ewg.org @environmentalworkinggroup

Dr. Georges Benjamin is the CEO of the American Public Health Association, with 25 years at the helm of one of the most respected public health institutions in the U.S. And he’s Ken’s guest today. At the beginning of 2025, Benjamin made an appearance on Ken’s livestream during Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's Senate confirmation hearing to be health secretary. At the time, Benjamin warned what could happen with RFK Jr. as the national head of public health. Fast forward to today, America faces its worst measles outbreak in 35 years, with over 2,300 cases and counting. Taylor Farms, already potentially linked to a deadly E. coli outbreak, is at the center of a massive Cyclospora outbreak tied to contaminated lettuce sickening thousands. Benjamin unpacks how we got here, what RFK Jr. gets wrong, why Make America Health Again was never going to get the support it needed from Republicans and why gutting public health infrastructure has consequences. For a deeper dive into today’s discussion: https://www.apha.org Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week. @kencookspodcast www.ewg.org @environmentalworkinggroup

Everyday we rely on governmental regulatory systems and animal testing to tell us if the chemicals we’re exposed to will or won’t hurt us. But what if AI could help us get more ethical and more accurate answers and avoid animal testing altogether?  In today’s episode, Ken is joined by Dr. Thomas Hartung, Ph.D, a professor at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose work spans the fields of environmental health, engineering, molecular microbiology, and immunology. Hartung’s team are developing cutting edge tools in the world of toxicology: AI and human stem cell models that help us understand our genetic reactions to chemicals and, ultimately, make our lives safer.  Hartung argues that AI has the power to analyze vast data sets of untested or undertested chemicals, “cocktail” combinations, and even different exposure rates and frequencies. All these variations can give us a much more nuanced understanding of the chemicals that permeate our lives, potentially reshaping how chemicals are assessed and regulated. For a deeper dive into today’s discussion: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/faculty/2308/thomas-hartung https://caat.publichealth.jhu.edu/ https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1119989 Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week. @kencookspodcast www.ewg.org @environmentalworkinggroup

Menopause affects every woman who lives to midlife, and yet it is understudied and undertreated – a research gap that many attribute to medical bias. In today’s episode, Ken is joined by Dr. Lauren Petrick, an environmental health scientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she leads the Petrick Lab. She recently published a study, “Impact of Environmental Exposures on Menopausal Symptoms,” that synthesizes evidence from studies linking everyday chemical exposures – like phthalates, phenols, heavy metals, air pollution, and pesticides – to a wide range of menopausal symptoms. These symptoms range from hot flashes and mood changes to sleep disruption and beyond. As a midlife woman, Petrick brings a personal lens to her research, which suggests that the phthalates in your plastic containers, the fragrances in your personal care products, and the air quality in your neighborhood may all be connected to the symptoms women experience during perimenopause and menopause. She argues that perimenopause and menopause are a critical “window of susceptibility” to environmental exposures - much like pregnancy and puberty. For a deeper dive into today’s discussion: Dr. Petrick’s study: Environmental Exposures on Menopausal Symptoms Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week. @kencookspodcast www.ewg.org @environmentalworkinggroup