Read the full article by Sharon Udasin (The Hill)
“Nearly half of American prisons are located downstream from water sources that are likely contaminated with cancer-linked ‘forever chemicals,’ a new study has found.
Due to insufficient water quality testing in and around such sites, officials have only found that 5 percent of U.S. carceral institutions are situated in watersheds that definitively contain these toxic compounds, according to the study, published in the American Journal of Public Health. But tens of thousands of people are incarcerated at those facilities — and presumptive sources of exposure were found near many more sites.
When it comes to toxins like forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, incarcerated populations are of particular concern because they have minimal ability to reduce their exposures and are therefore especially vulnerable to acute health effects, the researchers stressed.
‘If you think of the incarcerated population as a city spread out over this vast archipelago of carceral facilities, it would be the fifth largest city in the country,’ senior author Nicholas Shapiro, a medical anthropologist the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement.” …