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(This program is no longer available for online streaming.) A sequel to one of the most popular NOVAs of all time, &quot;Miracle of Life,&quot; this Emmy Award-winning program tracks human development from embryo to newborn using the extraordinary microimagery of Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson.

Trace human development from embryo to newborn through the stunning microimagery of photographer Lennart Nilsson.

Life's Greatest Miracle

US & Territories

Water. Turn on the faucet and it’s always there. Without it we perish. But how safe is our tap water? In this special report narrated by Joe Morton, NOVA investigates what happened in Flint, Michigan, when local officials changed the city’s water source to save money, but overlooked a critical treatment process. As the water pipes corroded, lead leached into the system, exposing the community—including thousands of children—to dangerous levels of poison. NOVA uncovers the science behind this manmade disaster— from the intricacies of water chemistry to the biology of lead poisoning to the misuse of science itself. NOVA follows ordinary citizens and independent scientists who exposed the danger lurking in Flint’s water and confronted those who turned a blind eye. And discover the disturbing truth that reaches far beyond Flint—water systems across the country are similarly vulnerable. How can we protect ourselves from poisoned water? (Premiered May 31, 2017)

What exactly went wrong in Flint—and what does it mean for the rest of the country?

Poisoned Water

Whether they make you fat, fart, or freak out, microbes play a central role in your life. Right beneath your nose—on your face, in your gut, and everywhere in between—trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi are so abundant in your body, they outnumber your human cells. But these aren’t just nasty hitch-hikers. Many are crucial to your survival. Evidence suggests that a diverse microbiome can keep you healthy and, conversely, a damaged one could kill you. NOVA Wonders peers into this microscopic world to discover the fascinating, bizarre, and downright surprising secrets of the human microbiome, including the world’s largest stool bank, which transforms raw stool into life-saving poop pills.

Discover how a world of microbes living in and on you can make you sick-and keep you healthy.

What's Living in You?

Koch Foundation

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The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on many aspects of life—and reproductive health and family planning are no exception. Initial lockdowns brought predictions of a baby boom, the idea that couples being stuck at home with nothing to do would lead to more pregnancy.But soon, with widespread stress, social isolation, and financial instability—and disruptions in <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/ivf-covid-pandemic-infertility/">assisted fertility services like IVF</a>— came predictions of a “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/us/baby-boom-coronavirus-demographics/index.html">baby bust</a>.” And sure enough, from nine to eleven months after pandemic lockdowns began, the U.S. saw an 8% decline in births over the previous year. Some other high-income countries, including <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/lockdown-bambino-bust-9-months-italian-births-fall-22-percent-2021-02-05/">Italy</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/05/asia/japan-birth-rate-2020-intl-hnk/index.html">Japan</a>, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/france-births-covid-lockdown/2021/02/10/285385ae-656c-11eb-bab8-707f8769d785_story.html">France</a>, also experienced sudden pandemic-related drops in birth rates.But there’s a flip side to this story. The United Nations Population Fund <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/resources/impact-covid-19-family-planning-what-we-know-one-year-pandemic">released data</a> in March showing that an estimated 12 million women in 115 low- and middle-income countries have experienced contraceptive service disruptions, leading to 1.4 million unintended pregnancies during the pandemic.
 

 
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 As access to contraception has increased globally, rates of unintended pregnancy <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/report/unmet-need-for-contraception-in-developing-countries">have decreased</a>. But these statistics have long varied across the globe, even before the pandemic. Women in the poorest countries are nearly three times more likely to experience an unintended pregnancy than women in the wealthiest countries, with the vast majority of unintended pregnancies in developing regions occurring among women using no contraception or a traditional method of prevention. Misinformation, cultural barriers, low levels of female autonomy, differences in fertility preferences between partners, and stigma played a role in who can access modern contraception. But this new data focuses on changes seen one year after many countries began implementing coronavirus-related lockdown measures, which have caused a host of complications along contraceptive supply chains and exacerbated existing issues within countries’ healthcare systems.“Pregnancies don’t stop for pandemics, or any crisis,” said UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem in a <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/pcm/node/26354">press release</a>. “The devastating impact that COVID-19 has had on the lives of millions of women and girls in the past year underscores just how vital it is to ensure the continuity of reproductive health services.&quot;The concept of a pregnancy’s “unintendedness” has been debated, but <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2003/03/measurement-and-meaning-unintended-pregnancy#:~:text=Women%20who%20carry%20an%20unwanted,a%20mistimed%20pregnancy%20to%20term">its current definition</a> is a pregnancy that is either mistimed—occurring earlier than desired—or unwanted—occurring when no children, or no more children, were desired.The U.N.’s findings emerge at a time when global rates of both unintended pregnancy and total fertility (the average number of children per woman) have been declining steadily. The <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2020/new-estimates-show-worldwide-decrease-unintended-pregnancies">annual rate</a> of unintended pregnancies per 1,000 women decreased from 79 in 1990-1994 to 64 in 2015-2019. By 2017, the global fertility rate was 2.4—<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521">nearly half of what it was in 1950</a>. And in June, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/health/us-births-decline-pandemic-cdc-study-wellness/index.html">CNN reported</a> that the annual number of births in the U.S. dropped by 4% in 2020—the lowest U.S. birth rate since 1973, according to the CDC.So what exactly is behind the U.N.’s findings of increasing unintended pregnancies? Are contraceptive service disruptions to blame, and what’s the scope of the issue?More than two-thirds of the world has experienced some form of lockdown in the past year, resulting in health care facility closures, unavailability of medical staff, unemployment, and loss of individuals’ health insurance. People in low- and middle-income countries and marginalized groups around the world have been hit hardest.At the start of the pandemic, already fragile global contraceptive supply chains became more and more precarious. Malaysia’s Karex Bhd, the world’s largest condom producer (which makes one in every five condoms globally) <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-malaysia-karex/condom-shortage-looms-after-coronavirus-lockdown-shuts-worlds-top-producer-idUKKBN21E1OJ?edition-redirect=uk">closed for a week in March of 2020</a>, equivalent to a shortfall of 100 million condoms. Around the same time, India (one of world’s leading manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals and inexpensive drugs) <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india/global-supplier-india-curbs-drug-exports-as-coronavirus-fears-grow-idUSKBN20Q0ZZ">curtailed the export</a> of any product containing progesterone, a key ingredient in many contraceptives. Substituting identical products is not always an option, as countries need to register drugs before importing them—a process that can take anywhere from six months to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/coronavirus-pandemic-sex-health-condoms-reproductive-health/612298/">several years</a>. And in the U.S., <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/report/early-impacts-covid-19-pandemic-findings-2020-guttmacher-survey-reproductive-health">one in three women</a> reported that they had had to delay or cancel a visit to a health care provider for sexual and reproductive care, or had had trouble getting their birth control because of the pandemic.“All these kinds of things that you know people rely on to be able to access their contraceptive methods—all of that has been disrupted, and once you have disruptions in contraceptive continuity, that&#x27;s when you can potentially have an unintended pregnancy,” says Bethany Everett, a professor of sociology at the University of Utah and expert in sexual and reproductive health outcomes among queer and cisgender women in the U.S.One country that has seen a major pandemic “baby boom” is the Philippines. A recent <a href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1416998/covid-19-makes-youth-vulnerable-to-abuse-reproductive-health-dangers">study found</a> that the country had a 42% increase in unplanned pregnancies in 2020 alone. More than 80% of Filipino citizens identify as Catholic, and the Roman Catholic Church already opposed contraceptive use before COVID-19 hit. This pushback—and the inaccessibility of reproductive health services it can create—is now being exacerbated by pandemic-induced economic and social challenges.“It&#x27;s often about equitable health and marginalized women,” says Erlidia Llamas-Clark, a practicing OB-GYN and professor at the University of the Philippines. Filipino patients are sometimes billed by hospitals for their own personal protective equipment (PPE) as well as that of their entire surgical team if they have an operation, Llamas-Clark explains. (Government hospitals are supposed to provide PPE, but it hasn’t always been readily available or completely free—especially at the height of the pandemic, she says.)Marginalized women are again at a disadvantage when it comes to access to contraceptives: “In terms of reproductive health options, we are not talking about the sector of women who are going to be able to buy these pills over the counter, because if you are educated, you have money,” she says. “You have access.” <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/04/issue-brief-covid-19-and-ending-violence-against-women-and-girls#view">Research also shows</a> that reports of intimate partner violence have increased during the pandemic, creating what Everett describes as a “perfect storm” for certain groups of women.Unintended pregnancies have also been linked to certain adverse health outcomes in women and children, with some studies suggesting that an unintended pregnancy may correlate with maternal complications like <a href="https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-020-2848-8">preeclampsia or hemorrhaging</a>, and higher odds of poor infant outcomes like<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20012348/"> low birth weight and preterm birth</a>. And postpartum depression could be more common among women who have experienced an unintended pregnancy, and may disproportionately affect <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3701312/">racial, ethnic,</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26977978/">sexual minority</a> groups, some U.S.-based studies show.
 

 
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 While “unintendeness” may help estimate the gravity of an unmet need for contraception, Everett, Lindberg and other experts have questioned its ability to fully encapsulate the complexity of <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2003/03/measurement-and-meaning-unintended-pregnancy#:~:text=Women%20who%20carry%20an%20unwanted,a%20mistimed%20pregnancy%20to%20term">women’s experiences</a>, motivations, and desires. Unintendedness centers fertility reduction; the conversation should be about promoting autonomy, some researchers argue.“How does the healthcare system not meet the needs of women at risk of unintended pregnancy?” asks Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute. “We need to think about making the system more equitable—not just changing individual women’s behaviors.&quot;Everett also cautions against labelling all unintended pregnancies as detrimental. “It’s important for people to be able to make decisions about their bodies and their families that best suit them and their current family, whatever that looks like,” she explains. “For some people, an unplanned pregnancy is a happy accident and for other people it can really be devastating financially or relationship-wise.”Kelsey Holt, a social and behavioral scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, has been researching “person-centered care,” a framework that puts patients’ needs and desires first. She’s one of many researchers globally who have been racing to develop creative technologies to improve women’s reproductive health in the wake of the pandemic.Holt has been working to develop a new way to measure reproductive autonomy beyond unintendedness of a pregnancy. She’s also collaborating with teams in Sub-Saharan Africa to identify person-centered approaches to roll out a contraceptive called Sayana Press. A self-delivered injection, Sayana Press uses a needle smaller than those of other injectable contraceptives and can be administered at home. “In the context of the pandemic, there&#x27;s been a lot more excitement and push towards making this method available because it doesn&#x27;t require people to come back [to a clinic] as frequently,” Holt says. “It&#x27;s person-controlled.”Lindberg agrees that the movement toward reproductive justice, an idea she points out originated from <a href="https://www.sistersong.net/reproductive-justice">the work of Black scholars and activists</a>, is where the future lies. From technologies like Sayana Press and the creation of ride-hailing apps that deliver contraceptives, to the growth of telemedicine, there have been many promising solutions from around the world giving women the freedom of choice. “The genie is out of the bottle,” especially with regard to telemedicine, Lindberg says.For Lindberg, listening to family providers that have innovated and shared resources with each other has been a source of hope during the pandemic. “The community of practice and of wanting to make sure that the needs of those who need contraception are met,” she says, “has truly been inspiring.”
 

 
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Pregnant woman touching her baby bump looking at ultrasound picture. Image credit: Visnja Sesum Images, Shutterstock

Millions of people have experienced contraceptive service disruptions because of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.N. found.

Covid-19 leads to global rise in unplanned pregnancy

NOVA takes a tasty look at insect foods that could benefit our health and our warming planet.
From crunchy cricket chips to nutty black soldier fly grubs, &quot;Edible Insects&quot; leaps across cultural and culinary boundaries to explore the insect food industry and how it could benefit our health and our warming planet. From Thailand to Texas, cricket farmers are showing how the tiny critters stack up as an environmentally friendly alternative to beef protein. In fact, as one of the show’s many gastro-surprises reveals, insects make animal protein vastly more efficiently than cows and, pound for pound, deliver far better nutritional value than the finest steak. Unappealing as an insect milkshake might sound, it may promote the growth of healthy gut bacteria that could help prevent inflammation and cancer. But what about the “ick” factor? NOVA invites a panel of volunteers to sample an invitingly prepared tasting menu of roasted crickets, ants, mealworms, and chipotle-flavored grasshoppers prepared by a New York chef, and, not surprisingly, some of the diners have trouble concealing their squeamishness. Yet all the evidence adds up to the idea that our aversion to insects is mostly a matter of attitude and cultural conditioning. So will your kitchen table soon host its very own savory insect feast? (Premieres Wednesday, October 20 at 9 pm on PBS)

NOVA takes a tasty look at insect foods that could benefit our health and our warming planet.

Edible Insects

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 As we return to in-person learning in schools across the country, the realities of the pandemic are as complicated as ever. With the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/29/us/delta-100000-covid-patients.html">Delta variant surging</a>, many educators are asking: How can I protect myself and my students? What do I do if any of us are exposed to the virus? What will we do if we have to return to virtual learning? Public health officials have provided guidance on how<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html"> to bring kids back to the classroom safely</a>, and though vaccines are available for children over 12, the transition to the classroom has still been a challenge—one made worse by <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/addressing-vaccine-misinformation.html">misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines</a> and face masks.
 

 
 <a href="https://newslit.org/educators/resources/how-to-know-what-to-trust/">Misinformation</a> is incorrect information that&#x27;s spread without intent to deceive but is inaccurate nonetheless. However, <a href="https://newslit.org/updates/distinguishing-among-news-opinion-and-propaganda/">disinformation</a> is inaccurate information deliberately created and disseminated with malicious intent. The difference comes down to a matter of intent and who is sharing this information and why, according to the News Literacy Project.
 

 
 Scientific information does not exist in a vacuum of peer-reviewed journals and textbooks. It is shared through news articles, advertisements, and social media platforms by sources that possess differing intentions and levels of expertise. This media can be a powerful resource for teaching material, but it can also confuse students who may not possess the skills to analyze the sources.Over the summer, your students might have come across misinformation surrounding the pandemic, both online and among family and friends. It is important to prepare them to be critical consumers of science content because misinformation is not just distracting, it’s dangerous.
 

 
 
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 <figcaption>Without a foundation in science literacy, students might overestimate the validity of scientific statements they read online, or be unable to distinguish between evidence-based statements and opinion. Image Credit: Allison Shelley, EDUimages, CC BY-NC 2.0<div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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 Analyzing science media helps prepare students to critically engage with scientific issues by empowering them with strategies to evaluate claims they encounter online. Without a foundation in science media literacy,<a href="https://ed.stanford.edu/news/national-study-high-school-students-digital-skills-paints-worrying-portrait-stanford"> students might overestimate the validity of scientific statements</a> or be unable to distinguish between evidence-based statements and opinion.NOVA is committed to providing educators with STEM resources that make learning as engaging as possible during an unprecedented time in which back-to-school is anything but back to normal. Whether students are curious about how vaccines work with the immune system or want a deeper understanding of how trust in science and medicine is built, we have put together a collection of resources to help students develop science media literacy skills!
 

 
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 <h3 data-block-key="vdzav">Why Misinformation Matters: from the Coronavirus to the Capitol Riots</h3>
 

 
 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vqNxR43IGHk" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

 
 In the new digital series, Misinformation Nation, NOVA producer Alex Clark traces misinformation on mask-wearing from internet circles to social media influencers, and back to the CDC. Use this resource to help students identify evidence-based science in media, define misinformation and disinformation, and develop critical thinking skills as they analyze the events and media rhetoric surrounding the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic from multiple perspectives.
 

 
 <h3 data-block-key="00mm8">Fact or CAP? How to Deal With Clickbait</h3>
 

 
 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OZM1c7EHVNI" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

 
 Teach students how to fact check like GBH journalists Alex Clark and Arun Rath using the CAP test! Use this Misinformation Nation resource to help students verify information by checking the source, analyzing the evidence, and processing the purpose. It can also help students identify inaccurate or misleading science and discuss the problematic nature of clickbait.
 

 
 <h3 data-block-key="00mm8">COVID Vaccines &amp; Variants: What will it take to get out of this pandemic?</h3>
 

 
 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5lacEwwB0g4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

 
 With the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus, including Delta, COVID-19​​ continues to spread rapidly across much of the world. In most U.S. states, a surge in cases is reigniting conversations about the country’s response to the pandemic. In this NOVA Now podcast episode, Dr. Alok Patel speaks with a leading epidemiologist and a specialist in infectious diseases to gain perspective on pressing concerns, from vaccine effectiveness and boosters to vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and inequity at a national and global scale. Use this resource to help students identify credible sources, understand the difference between efficacy and effectiveness, and get up to speed on the latest information about vaccines.
 

 
 <h3 data-block-key="35t3e">Sciencing Out: Building Trust in Science and Medicine</h3>
 

 
 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ftLFaJGzTqw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

 
 Trust can be a delicate matter—especially when it’s related to science and medicine. And when scientific or medical trust is built successfully, outcomes can be life-changing. In the digital series, Sciencing Out, introduce your students to two women science communicators—one historical and one contemporary—to explore how their remarkable work is inspiring future generations of scientists. Use this resource to showcase how public trust in science is built, gained, and kept.
 

 
 <h3 data-block-key="tjisa">Vaccines—Calling the Shots</h3>
 

 
 
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 NOVA&#x27;s Vaccines—Calling the Shots takes viewers around the world to track epidemics, explore the science behind vaccinations, hear from parents wrestling with vaccine-related questions, and shed light on the risks of opting out. This video is one of four (along with “<a href="https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvvs-sci-spox/the-smallpox-vaccine/">The Smallpox Vaccine</a>,” “<a href="https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvvs-sci-herdimmune/herd-immunity/">Herd Immunity</a>,” and “<a href="https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvvs-sci-autism/autism-vaccines/">Autism &amp; Vaccines</a>”) that discuss the history and effects of vaccination. Use these videos to educate students about how the body detects and fights viruses, how vaccines prepare the body to detect future infections, and the impact of vaccination at personal and societal levels.
 

 
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A teacher pointing out an image on a student's iPad

Science educators can use science media as an informal pathway to explore science concepts beyond textbooks. Image Credit: Allison Shelley, EDUimages, CC BY-NC 2.0

Prepare students to make informed judgements about the science media they encounter, both online and at home.

Confront science misinformation in your classroom with NOVA

Learn how they earn the &quot;forever&quot; label.
What makes PFAS chemicals extremely useful — and extremely hard to get rid of — are bonds between carbon and fluorine atoms that are almost impossible to break.
Toxic “Forever Chemicals” Found in Americans&#x27; BloodPublished: August 4, 2021Fred Stone: Why in God&#x27;s green earth would you want to sell something that you know is contaminated?I had one person, honest to God, told me. Well, you know, Freddy, you screwed up. All you had to do is keep your mouth shut.But There is no safe level of contamination.Narrator: Fred Stone&#x27;s dairy farm is contaminated with PFAS, chemicals that have been linked to serious health problems.Stone: As the cows ingest the feed and they drink the water, it gets into the cows themselves and it translates into the milk.Narrator: The presence of these chemicals in the milk caused Stone to lose his dairy license, leaving his third-generation family business in ruins.Stone: I really don&#x27;t know how we&#x27;re going to proceed out of this this disaster. We should be thinking about how we&#x27;re going to retire and how we&#x27;re going to move on. Now we&#x27;re trying to figure out how the hell we&#x27;re going to stay alive.Narrator: PFAS aren’t federally regulated and they’re virtually everywhere — used for their non-stick, water resistant qualities in stain resistant carpet, waterproof clothing, food wrappings, cookware and even makeup. More than 98% of americans have some amount of PFAS in their blood or tissueJessica Ray: PFAS stands for per and pol substances and these are synthetic organic compounds so they are man-made and they originated around the 1930s.’ Studies have shown that they are very acutely toxic.Linda Birnbaum: PFAS are a problem and they are a problem because they are useful chemicals so that they do something that we like. The more we study them, the more we see adverse health impactsNarrator: Two of the most widely-studied PFAS chemicals, PFOA and PFOS have been linked to a slew of health problems like kidney and testicular cancers. And there’s evidence that suggests PFAS can have an effect on the immune system leading some experts to worry about vaccine effectiveness.Philippe Grandjean: Because the PFAS compounds can interfere with the immune system and essentially prevent the production of antibodies, insufficient concentrations and so that we can&#x27;t respond to infectious disease.PFAS can remain in the body for many years and scientists don’t fully understand why that is, but we know they bind to certain proteins in our bodies.Jaime Dewitt: Which means that they can move around, they can go from organ to organ, they can hang out in our blood. They could go to other tissues. And for that reason, we think that&#x27;s why they stick around in our bodies. There also are some hypotheses that when PFAS get to the kidney to be excreted, the kidney doesn&#x27;t get rid of them, it just transports them back into our bodies.Narrator: The reason PFAS don’t degrade in our bodies or the environment has to do with their chemistryChris Higgins: So the carbon fluorine bond is one of the strongest bonds known in chemistry. And when we make these artificially and we released them to the environment, we have to expect that those bonds are not going to degrade relatively easily at all.Narrator: When PFAS contaminate the natural resources that communities depend on, the result can be disastrous.That’s what happened in the city of Newburgh, in New York, where runoff from a nearby military base containing PFOA from firefighting foam made its way into Washington Lake, contaminating the drinking water of nearly 30,000 people.Torrance Harvey: One of our greatest assets in the city of Newburgh has been contaminated, undue to any fault of our own. It makes me angry. It makes me sad. It makes me emotional because it&#x27;s not fair.Since the contamination came to light in 2016, the federal and state governments have spent years trying to remediate the lake.Wayne Vradenburgh: There’s 18 forty-thousand-pound vessels of carbon, granular-activated carbon.Narrator: Activated carbon treatment is a method of filtering PFAS out of water. the chemicals stick to the porous carbon as the water passes through. But removing the PFAS from the drinking water, still leaves them intact.Dewitt: when you filter PFAS out of water, you&#x27;re just taking it from here and putting it here where it&#x27;s either going to be incinerated or landfilled or filtered out and put somewhere else. So that&#x27;s the problem with PFAS. They just get moved around. They don&#x27;t get eliminated, at least with the technologies that we have right now.Higgins: Unless we do something to intervene. They&#x27;ll be present for for decades, if not hundreds or thousands of years to come.Stone: My wife and I actually met showing cows together. And it was all well and good when I was beating her. But when she started beating me, that&#x27;s when we had to get married. So that&#x27;s what I tell people.I grew up here and it&#x27;s it&#x27;s it means everything to my wife and I know the cows, the farm on the whole, the whole nine yards.Narrator: For more than 20 years, starting in the 1980s’, the Stones fertilized their fields with nutrient-rich byproducts provided to them at first from a paper company, and later from a municipal wastewater facility.Stone: And we did everything by the book. And we have the letters to prove it.Narrator: But in 2016, testing revealed the problem.Stone: They found that the fields are contaminated with the PFOA and PFOA. And it was their determination that it came from the sludge spreading that we had done from eighty three.We put in a a water filtration system, we were trying to salvage dairy operation. We ended up slaughtering about two thirds of the herd. There&#x27;s about 40 or so left. And these are all cow families that, again, go way back, you know, 40 or 50 years. These are cows I just can&#x27;t kill. I&#x27;m sorry. I just can&#x27;t kill them. We just we have them here. I don&#x27;t know what the hell we&#x27;re going to do with themNarrator: PFAS Are pervasive on the Stone farm — elevated PFAS levels have been found in members of Stone’s family too. Stone’s own blood contains PFAS levels 20 times higher than the national average.Stone: Those cows, all they want us to do is take care of them. And, but I feel we failed them.

Toxic “Forever Chemicals” are Found in Americans' Blood Hero

Learn how they earn the &quot;forever&quot; label.

Toxic “Forever Chemicals” Found in Americans' Blood

COVID insidiously impacts a man&#x27;s lungs — giving him reasons to appreciate each breath.
An ornithologist and conservationist shares how the coronavirus pandemic&#x27;s effects on his ability to breathe has echoed the disproportionate effects of climate change on certain communities
How COVID-19 and Climate Change Affect BreathingPublished: August 2, 2021Drew Lanham: As long as I have breath, am able to inhale and exhale, I’m hopeful. There are certain assumptions that we have that our ins and outs, our inhalations and our exhalations, just come to us and the past year has proven otherwise.COVID has impacted so many with illness and killed over 600,000 just in this country alone. That COVID insidiously impacts one’s lungs, creates these sticky-surfaced, clogged, mucus-filled organs that betray us.And so COVID has given us reasons to appreciate each breath. I can remember in the early days of COVID, after hearing about the pathology of the disease, of mucus suffocating people, that each morning when I would wake up, I’d take the deepest breath possible just to make sure that I could.And climate change creating chronic breathing conditions, lung disease, which often visits people of color, children of color much greater than it does white children. That it’s such a big concept: climate change, the Earth warming. As far away as it seems, it’s our next breath.Part of the solution ultimately is more green, to have more tree canopies that breathe. One of the only ways for me to regain that breath is to come out in wildness, where there’s water, where there are woods.We can do that as birders, as birdwatchers, whatever hue we are, to understand these connections. Looking skyward to birds doesn’t mean that you can’t look outward to better. And that’s why places like this are so important because I come out here and I think of birds carrying me beyond everything that was bad, at least for a while. I hear birdsong, this northern mockingbird just in this aria around us, and a red-bellied woodpecker, and I smile. And when I smile, the breath comes more easily. And that’s what I get in these wild spaces—the unlimited lung capacity, the unlimited “me” capacity. Just to be.

How COVID-19 and Climate Change Affect Breathing Hero

COVID insidiously impacts a man&#x27;s lungs — giving him reasons to appreciate each breath.

How COVID-19 and Climate Change Affect Breathing

You’ve been there: An action as simple as giving your child the wrong snack is an injustice worthy of waging war (and in this case, “war” is a tantrum).
Fortunately, hosts Alok Patel and Bethany Van Delft are here to break down why children “break down” and have tantrums—and what you should do to help them through it.Children aren’t able to regulate their responses to “blocked goals,” whatever it is they may desire or the things they want to see happen. Just as you may get upset when a yellow light turns red or you don’t make it to the grocery store before it closes, children may get upset when something they want isn’t given to them or something doesn’t work out as planned.Children also want to have autonomy, Alok explains. When their desires are “blocked” by their most notorious goalie—their parents and caregivers telling them “NO”—children tend to unleash their frustration on them.When a tantrum begins to bubble inside your little one, “You can think about a train running into a tunnel,” Alok says. As the train is approaching the “tantrum tunnel,” as a parent or guardian, you may think about methods to prevent a meltdown. (Once the train gets into the tunnel, it’s meltdown time.) Of course, there’s no tried and true tantrum prevention method. “You just have to wait for [the train] to come out the other side,” Bethany says.When it comes to handling her child’s tantrums, Bethany employs a few different methods depending on what her three-year-old son is experiencing. “If he’s full-blown anger, we let it ride,” she says. Afterward, once he’s calmed down, Bethany talks to him about what happened to make him so upset. Learning what triggers a tantrum can help parents plan for tantrums instead of preventing them, says Bethany.For many young children (but not all), tantrums are “a regular part of [early] childhood,” Alok says. By around five or six years old—thanks to the growth of their prefrontal cortex—many children will have developed more self-regulation skills and will experience fewer tantrums. Fortunately, during this time, you should be able to talk your child through their emotional outbursts with more ease.If your child still has tantrums past six years old and seems irritable and disinterested in other activities, “you should get them evaluated because it could be signs of another medical condition or something else that should be looked at,” Alok says.At the end of the day, being a toddler is hard. Empathize with your little one—because “the struggle is real to them,” Bethany says.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/parentalogic">Subscribe to the YouTube channel</a> and receive alerts when new episodes launch!

Tantrums: Why They Happen and How to Soothe Your Kid Hero

You’ve been there: An action as simple as giving your child the wrong snack is an injustice worthy of waging war (and in this case, “war” is a tantrum).

Tantrums: Why They Happen and How to Soothe Your Kid

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Flor Amaya and <a href="https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/">Mass General Brigham</a> health care workers drove a blue bus into the parking lot of Highland Park in Chelsea, Massachusetts. With this mobile clinic, the team aimed to vaccinate some of the Boston suburb’s younger community members and anyone who has had limited access to the COVID-19 vaccines.“You will find many people from many countries playing soccer at Highland Park on Sunday,” Amaya says. Eastern Europeans, Africans, and Latin Americans—people from countries where soccer is “big”—are known to frequent this field, she says. “That’s part of the reason why we chose that as a location,” says Amaya, who emigrated with her family from El Salvador to Massachusetts when she was nine years old. Now Chelsea’s director of public health, Amaya’s lived in Chelsea ever since.Parallel to the soccer field, the park’s concession stand advertises $3 horchata, popsicles, and the weekend’s vaccination clinic.
 

 
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 Chelsea is a suburb of Boston “filled with essential workers, hardworking immigrants mostly from Central America,” <a href="https://www.boston25news.com/news/health/boston-doctors-will-volunteer-time-educate-chelsea-residents-about-vaccine/R62YR4V7M5BHJBXDQ4L4XKDIHM/">Boston 25 News reports</a>. About 67% of its residents identify as Hispanic. In 2020, Chelsea had the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/us/coronavirus-chelsea-massachusetts.html">highest COVID-19 infection rate</a> of any town in the state of Massachusetts, with nearly 4,000 cases per 100,000 people.“When you’d ask people how many are living in their home, it wasn’t uncommon for them to say, ‘Oh I have nine people living in my home; there are a couple families in one house’,” says Vivek Naranbhai, a clinical fellow at Dana Farber Cancer Institute who conducted pedestrian PCR testing in Chelsea in 2020.The weekly infection rates have since lowered, with <a href="https://www.chelseama.gov/COVID">64% of the Chelsea population</a> fully vaccinated against the coronavirus as of July 15. But the overall toll of COVID-19 on Chelsea—8,905 total cases among a population of just under 40,000 and 228 reported deaths—reflects the disproportionate way the virus has spread among underserved communities, particularly among <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7011e1.htm">Hispanics and Latinos</a>.Amaya now organizes vaccine clinics, using her perspective as a city resident to better approach her community. Having lived in Chelsea for the last 29 years, Amaya has seen “the different chronic health conditions and lifestyle conditions that frequently plague minorities—ethnic communities—whether it is Latinx [or] African Americans,” she says. “I think a lot of us face similar challenges.”<a href="https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-article/2021/jan/medical-mistrust-among-black-americans">Medical mistrust</a> among African Americans has been documented for more than 30 years, with the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee study serving as the basis for different research surrounding current attitudes toward health care in Black communities. But some cite ongoing <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/23/974059870/stop-blaming-tuskegee-critics-say-its-not-an-excuse-for-current-medical-racism">discrimination</a> and racism from health care providers and the disproportionately high <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29346121/">Black maternal mortality rate</a>—as stronger drivers for medical mistrust today. Though research surrounding medical mistrust in the Latinx community is <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31343969/">not as extensive</a>, healthcare providers, religious leaders, and public health officials in majority Hispanic communities have observed hesitancy among those they serve firsthand.“It seems to be a very gut feeling that people who are resistant to getting the vaccine are experiencing,” Amaya says, “whether it is holding on to ideas of conspiracy theories, whether it is not trusting the government, or not trusting pharmaceutical companies.”
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 Hosffman Ospino, a minister, professor, and chair of the Department of Religious Education at Boston College, has seen the effects of COVID-19 on his parish in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a city 26 miles north of Boston in which <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/lawrencecitymassachusetts">more than 80%</a> of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino. “It’s worrisome,” he says. “We know of a number of parishioners [who] have had the virus, and we know people in [Lawrence] who have died as well.” Because of the long history of mistreatment of people of color under medical care, whether the people Ospino serves hear true stories or myths about it, he says, “there’s a cultural distrust of medicine.”“We’ve been seeing vaccine hesitancy in general with Black and brown communities, says primary care doctor and Medical Director of MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center Dr. Dean Xerras. “We have always had issues around that in communities like Chelsea. I do see this as a long-term issue with education, engagement, and building trust.Building trust with our patients in our communities: that’s going to get us through this,” he says.This need for trust is driving Amaya, Ospino, and Dr. Xerras, and their organizations to both educate and create sensitive public health interventions for the communities most vulnerable to COVID-19.<h3>Barriers to vaccination</h3>Ospino, a Catholic theologian who works as a minister, is helping parishioners understand the nuances of how their religious beliefs intersect with health interests so they can make educated decisions. In December 2020, the Catholic church put out a statement condemning the use of the Johnson &amp; Johnson COVID-19 vaccine due to its use of <a href="https://www.gmp-creativebiolabs.com/per-c6-cell-lines_74.htm">PER.C6 stem cells</a>, a cell line derived from the retinal tissue of an 18-week-old fetus aborted in the Netherlands in 1985. (Dutch laboratory Crucell—which became Janssen Vaccines after being bought by Johnson &amp; Johnson in 2011—developed the cell line, which has been used in flu, tuberculosis, and malaria vaccines.)There is some nuance to the Church’s statement: Because Catholics have a moral obligation to pursue the common good (which is, during a pandemic, to get vaccinated), they can take the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine when no others are available. Still, there could be fear of “cooperating in an abortion” among Catholics nationwide, 38% to 40% of which self-identify as Hispanic. “Many people are confused,” says Ospino, adding that the vaccine “does not imply direct collaboration with abortions.” He says that a lack of Spanish-language resources about the stem cells contributes to a misunderstanding of the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine.
 

 
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 And then in mid-April, the use of Johnson &amp; Johnson’s vaccine was paused due to rare but severe blood clots <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0413-JJ-vaccine.html">in six patients</a>. Amaya and her colleagues had been planning a Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine clinic at a church in Chelsea just before the distribution pause. Many people from local congregations had signed up for the clinic, Amaya says, and while she and the faith leaders were planning it, the use of PER.C6 stem cells in developing the vaccine did not come into question.Amaya has noticed some hesitation in her Chelsea community toward the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine. But most people, she says, cite a fear of developing blood clots, not religious conviction. “It’s really hard to override those beliefs,” Amaya says. “We’re trying to figure out what it’s going to take right now to motivate people. We’re trying different modes of vaccine delivery. And for some people, it might just require time.”
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 In Chelsea, where religious leaders and healthcare providers alike are working to improve their community’s health, access to vaccination may be a greater issue than hesitancy and trust. Ospino says of the Catholic church’s recommendations, “most people actually will simply either ignore or somehow look at those issues and not understand them and then move on.”Among undocumented members in his community, Ospino sees fear of the legal system as a vaccination barrier. “In order to register, you have to give your name. Sometimes they ask for your address,” he says. Ospino recalls his own vaccination appointment at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center—a massive event center turned into a large-scale vaccination clinic. “When I went...what’s the first thing I see at the door? The military; the police and the military. So people are saying, ‘No way, I’m not going there!’” he says. “We need safe spaces for the immigrant community, spaces that are not threatening.”<h3>Meeting patients &quot;where they&#x27;re at&quot;</h3>To create these safe spaces, Dr. Xerras believes it’s important to “meet patients where they’re at,” whether that be at churches, apartment buildings, or parks. And the ways the intersection of equity and health care is studied may also need to change, suggests Dr. John Iafrate, a pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Researchers and health care providers, he and Dana Farber Cancer Institute clinical fellow Naranbhai explains, may shy away from creating tailored public health interventions in fear of being patronizing. “Many people don’t do these kinds of studies because they’re afraid to hurt the community or cause more mistrust,” says Dr. Iafrate, who with Naranbhai in 2020 set up a <a href="https://www.boston25news.com/news/health/antibody-testing-how-lessons-learned-chelsea-hotspot-are-shaping-testing-massachusetts/XUPJEBDX35BV7IMKWTBXDV5UQY/">COVID-19 antibody testing site</a> on the street in Chelsea in order to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLQ9Alai5Ps">track the level of infection in the city</a>.Even as outsiders, Dr. Iafrate and Naranbhai were able to “meet a balance” to best serve the population and “tried hard to do it right,” Dr. Iafrate says. Their study included providers that spoke Spanish and represented members of the community, but most importantly, made participants feel safe, they say: The study did not collect information that could make participants feel like they would be tracked later, a key aspect of making a population where some people may have undocumented family members—or be undocumented themselves—feel comfortable.At the vaccination clinics she operates, Amaya pushes to have “people that represent the fabric of the community here in Chelsea,” she says. Her FEMA-supported vaccination clinic, based out of the Chelsea Senior Center, works with the nonprofit volunteer organization Chelsea Black Community to manage lines, registration, and other outdoor operations at the clinic. “We are multilingual, so we have Spanish speakers there to help with the consenting process,” she says. “We understand that a lot of people cannot read or write in their own native language, so we have the staff to verbally ask some of the screening questions and provide that support that people need.”
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 <figcaption>Hoffsman Ospino’s parish in Lawrence, Mass. has teamed up with Greater Lawrence Family Health Center to bring parishioners a walk-up, outdoor vaccine clinic in the church’s parking lot. “We continue to do our best to encourage vaccination and work for the common good,” Ospino said in an email. “It’s the least faith communities should be doing at this time.” Image courtesy of St. Patrick Parish, Lawrence, Mass. <div class="credit"></div></figcaption>
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 Amaya and her team’s community savvy helps the Department of Public Health and Mass General Brigham employ approaches that state government and faith-based organizations might overlook, including Chelsea’s Highland Park vaccination van.As community members start queuing up for their vaccine, Mass General Brigham site contact Damien Leach offers free personal protective equipment care kits and information about vaccination to them. People are very responsive to the <a href="https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/newsroom/articles/mass-general-brigham-delivers-care-kits-vulnerable-populations">care kits</a>, Leach says, because the materials inside make navigating the pandemic—and adhering to state and CDC guidelines—easier. “I’ve had people try to give me $10 bills for these care kits,” he says. “We try to think about what the community needs and give it to them.”Inside the vaccination van, one health care provider draws up doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and Mass General Kraft Center medical director Dr. Priya Sarin Gupta vaccinates patients. She receives a vaccine syringe from the staff member inside the van, and in the blink of an eye, her patient—the first person in line at Highland Park that day—gets his first dose. Behind him, people play basketball, while just a few yards away, a crowd of spectators cheers loudly for their soccer team’s goal.“Could you make sure he knows he has to come back for a second shot?” Dr. Sarin Gupta asks her colleague, Eddie Taborda. Taborda steps out of the van and lets the patient know, in Spanish, to return for a second dose.
 

 
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A man receives a coronavirus vaccine at Mass General Brigham's mobile clinic in Chelsea, Mass. Image credit: Arlo Pérez Esquivel, WGBH

Healthcare providers, religious leaders, and public health officials are coming together in Chelsea, Mass., a predominantly Hispanic community, to inform and vaccinate residents against COVID-19.

Topic: Body & Brain

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