Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.u.

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith-Rogers.

Today, the EPA's regulation of pesticides and other toxic chemicals.

I speak with Rachel Frazen, a reporter who

covers energy and environment at the Hill, about the EPA's recent approval of two pesticides

containing PFAS and the backlash among some environmental and health groups. We also talk about

how the EPA is generally approaching regulation today and the rollbacks and some strengthening

of the

previous administration's priorities. Let's listen. Rachel Frazen, welcome back to public health on call.

How are you? Hi, I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me. So would you tell us a little bit

about your background and your work? Sure. So I am the Hills Energy and Environment Reporter, so that is covering a wide range of issues from gasoline prices to toxic chemicals to public lands and national parks.

Really, anything that falls under energy or environment, I personally take a specific interest in sort of the toxics and chemical side of things. I am also one of the

authors of a book on the topic specifically about forever chemicals. That book is poisoning the well,

how forever chemicals contaminated America. So today we're going to talk about the EPA and approval

of some new pesticides. But let's back up a little bit first and let's talk about how,

you know, what is the EPA's influence and role in approving pesticides? How does that work?

Yeah. So the EPA has jurisdiction to approve or reject pesticides and pesticide uses. And to do

that, they go through a process. They evaluate, you know, any evidence of harms or toxicity that may be present in a chemical.

They go through studies put forward by the chemical maker.

...