--- title: "Trump Admin Cancels Programs to Protect Children From Toxic Chemicals" description: "Leaked EPA emails reveal an intention to cancel thousands of grants for environmental research in rural areas." date: "2025-04-27" modified: "2025-04-27" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-children-toxic-chemicals" categories: - "Science & Energy" tags: - "chemicals" - "doge" - "EPA" - "the digest" - "trump" --- # Trump Admin Cancels Programs to Protect Children From Toxic Chemicals ![Leaked EPA emails reveal an intention to cancel thousands of grants for environmental research in rural areas.]() *\Image: Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty\* In the latest sweeping move against government spending, the Trump administration has decided it's time for kids fend for themselves. Leaked emails from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [published by the ]()*[New York Times]()* reveal an intention to cancel thousands of grants for environmental research. Among the research areas affected: hazards affecting rural kids. This includes exposure to noxious pesticides, wildfire smoke, and forever chemicals [released by industrial polluters](). Forever chemicals, also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are a broad classification for [thousands of chemicals]() that take a very long time to break down. PFAS are widely used in consumer and industrial products, and are found all throughout the world — from [the bottom of the ocean]() to the [icy waters of the Arctic](). Troublingly, it's estimated that [97 percent of Americans]() have some level of forever chemicals in their blood. Many PFAS are carcinogenic in nature, and have been linked to numerous types of [cancer](), including [childhood leukemia](). People in rural and low-income areas are particularly susceptible to forever chemicals, which leach out from [pesticides used in agriculture](), as [byproducts of industrial production](), and in [small-town water systems]() that have long been overlooked by state and federal EPA testing. Many of these communities likewise face limited access to [quality health care](), making rural environmental research all the more critical for uncovering — and ideally, helping prevent — the effects of corporate waste. Unfortunately, the federal government under Trump is being rapidly stripped of its ability to wage that battle. Recently, [*The Lever* reported]() that the EPA's public tool for tracking chemical disasters and high-risk chemical facilities had been taken offline. That's set to have a major impact on communities throughout the US, as massive chemical accidents are all but guaranteed to occur. Between January 2021 and October 2023, for example, the US petrochemical industry logged 825 [hazardous chemical incidents](), officially impacting at least 291 communities and likely many more from chemical runoff and downwind exposure. That move follows after two major chemical industry lobbyists [implored Trump]() to give them broad exemptions on the amount of toxins they're allowed to spew into the environment. Taken together, the moves paint a pretty obvious picture: it's a good time to be in the toxic chemical business — and a bad time for the rest of us. **More on toxic chemicals:** [*We Talked to the Inventors of the "Tamagotchi" Vape That Dies If You Stop Puffing*]() ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()