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For years, I wished someone inside 3M could give me insight into the company’s decision to keep making and selling “forever chemicals” even though they were accumulating in people. Then I met Kris Hansen...
Sharon Lerner
11.2K posts
Sharon Lerner
@fastlerner
Reporter covering the environment @ProPublica. Formerly @TheIntercept. Tips welcome : ) DM for Signal. @fastlerner.bsky.social [email protected]
Brooklyn
Joined September 2009
- Four EPA whistleblowers have come forward to expose corruption in the division that assesses the safety of new chemicals. They told me about the intense pressures they faced to erase evidence of neurological effects, brain damage and cancer
- My latest on a recently approved chemical — an ingredient in boat fuel made from waste plastic — that an EPA document shows has a cancer risk so great that virtually everyone exposed over a lifetime would be expected to get cancer
- “The government could have put mandatory sharing of know-how built into each of its contracts so the technology transfer would have started as soon as these vaccines were in clinical trials” @jamie_love said. “That did not happen" interc.pt/2MjsR49
- Remember those smoke bombs DHS used against protestors? A bunch of environmental groups just sued the federal government over them interc.pt/3dLLcjT
- A story about plastic that broke my heart to research and write interc.pt/2M1zbv2
- personal news! I will be joining @propublica in September, splitting my time between the international health team and the national desk. I am so excited to be joining the amazing reporters there!
- The Heritage Foundation is filing 1000s of FOIAs to out if government workers are using terms like climate equity and voting and gender identity. propublica.org/article/have-g… this just in from me and @AndyKroll
- starting in 2021, I reported on whistleblowers who said they were being pressured to make new chemicals seems safer than they were. Today the EPA IG found they were retaliated against propublica.org/article/epa-sc…
- "I had a blinding, choking feeling. My whole body started shaking. I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t process anything.” My latest on the toxic chemicals DHS used on Portland protesters
- The people living near the Chevron refinery in Pascagoula MS just sued the EPA over its plan to make a plastic-based fuel with a 1-in-4 lifetime cancer risk
- When I began reporting this story, I was focused on the attacks that industry was making on the science around EtO. There was a lot to look at: lobbying and legal action challenging EPAs assessment of the chemical
- I began this story wondering why plastic-based fuels were being included under an EPA program that’s supposed to help fight the climate crisis. It didn't make sense because plastic is not renewable...
