The US has launched a multimillion dollar five year campaign to measure, study, and seek ways to remove microplastics from the human body.1The $144m (£106m; €122m) Stomp (Systematic Targeting of Microplastics) programme has been launched by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (Arpa-H), which is part of the department.Separately, the US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed adding microplastics,2 as well as pharmaceutical drugs that enter water systems through human waste and improper disposal, to its latest draft of the contaminant candidate list.The list identifies contaminants not regulated by the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act. It helps prioritise research, information gathering, and future regulatory decisions, but inclusion on the list does not itself regulate contaminants.The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said that tackling microplastics was urgent, citing studies that had detected microplastics in placentas and other human tissues. “We...
BMJ published a clinical update in Research Highlights on 14 Apr 2026.
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