States Expected To See More ‘Anti-Science’ Bills This Year

IRA FLATOW: Hi. I’m Ira Flatow, and you’re listening to Science Friday. State legislatures are coming back into session. And as they convene, lawmakers across the country are likely to encounter anti-science bills. That’s legislation that seeks to remove protections around public health issues like vaccines, milk safety, fluoride. An investigation found that last year, more than 420 anti-science bills were introduced across the country.

So what can we expect for this upcoming legislative year? Joining me now is Laura Ungar, science and medical reporter for the Associated Press, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Welcome to Science Friday.

LAURA UNGAR: Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.

IRA FLATOW: Let’s talk about this. Hard to believe more than 420 anti-science bills? What qualifies as anti-science bill?

LAURA UNGAR: So we looked at three areas, as you mentioned, vaccines, milk safety, and fluoride. The reason we chose looking at those areas is because they go against scientifically proven health measures. Like for example, experts say that global vaccine efforts have saved more than 150 million lives since the mid-’70s. Cavities have declined dramatically since fluoridation began, and milk pasteurization has saved millions from foodborne illness. So that’s why we chose those to look at.

IRA FLATOW: Can you give me an example of what these bills look like?

LAURA UNGAR: The vast majority actually were anti-vaccine bills. And we had certain methodology that we used to determine what we meant by that– so for example, bills that made it easier to get a vaccine exemption or placed additional regulatory burdens or red tape around vaccination, banned certain types of vaccines, such as COVID-19 vaccines or mRNA vaccines. But there were all sorts. They tried to regulate vaccines in many ways, and some were actually very extreme. Like for example, there’s one that called mRNA vaccines– weapons of mass destruction, for example.

IRA FLATOW: Hmm. That is. That is pretty extreme. And out of these hundreds of bills, roughly how many actually got passed?

LAURA UNGAR: So we only know through when the story ran in the fall. So at that point, it was about 30 had either been enacted or adopted in 12 states at that point. And these states included, among others, Texas, Florida, North Dakota, Alabama, Montana, and Arkansas.

IRA FLATOW: And who’s pushing these bills?

LAURA UNGAR: There were several groups that were pushing these bills. And so most of the bills that were enacted were supported by at least one of four national groups, and these are groups that have some sort of connection to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary. And these groups were MAHA Action, Stand for Health Freedom, the National Vaccine Information Center, and the Weston A. Price Foundation. And these groups also oppose dozens of science-driven bills, as well as supporting the, yeah, anti-science bills.

IRA FLATOW: Do you think these groups have always wanted to push laws like this for a long time, and now finally feel like they have an in, due to RFK Jr. and Trump?

LAURA UNGAR: Well, certainly some of them have longstanding relationships with Kennedy. And it is a well-organized effort to do this. And there’s a clear strategy to change policies ultimately at the national level.

IRA FLATOW: Do you find that one part of the country was pushing more bills than another part?

LAURA UNGAR: Certainly there were states that stood out with a lot of these bills. Florida was one, Texas another one. So yeah, but they were really across the board and in red and blue states. As far as being introduced, really, a lot of states had these bills.

IRA FLATOW: Yeah. And as you say, there are more anti-vax legislation than any other anti-science topic.

LAURA UNGAR: Yes, exactly. So at least 350 were anti-vaccine of the more than 420.

IRA FLATOW: That is amazing. Well, it’s a new year. We’re entering new legislative sessions. What will you be keeping your eye on?

LAURA UNGAR: Well, certainly we’re continuing to look at these same areas. So we will just keep our eyes on what bills are coming out. And there are some that have already been introduced this year. So for example, in Kentucky, where I am based, there was a bill introduced this month to make water fluoridation programs optional.

And then in Indiana, next state over from where I am, there’s a bill to require the health department to establish a state version of the adverse event reporting system for vaccines, kind of like the federal one, except on a state level. So those are just a couple. But certainly the themes are the same.

And you’re also seeing a lot of changes at the national level, as well, with, for example, new federal regulations around childhood vaccines, cutting the number of universally recommended vaccines to 11. At this time last year, it was 18. So you can see some of these themes happening both at the federal and the state level.

IRA FLATOW: Laura, is there any way to judge the human cost of these bills?

LAURA UNGAR: Yes. So the sentiment behind these bills, the rising anti-science sentiment is already taking a toll. One of the families we talked to for this story lost their eight-year-old son to a vaccine-preventable disease last year. He had been vaccinated, but unfortunately his parents said it didn’t protect him because other kids, other adults need to be vaccinated as well for it to work. And there are many parts of the country where, at least for a particular disease, there is not the herd immunity that you need to keep a whole community safe.

IRA FLATOW: That is so sad to hear. Since there are so many, are there ways for people to keep an eye on the legislation in their states if they’re concerned about this, maybe a website or something?

LAURA UNGAR: Anyone can go into a legislative website for their state and look at the bills that have been introduced and should be able to follow them along that way.

IRA FLATOW: Well, I want to thank you for taking time to be with us today. This is certainly interesting stuff.

LAURA UNGAR: Oh, you’re welcome.

IRA FLATOW: We’ll keep an eye on it with you. Laura Ungar, science and medical reporter for AP, based in Louisville, Kentucky. We have to take a break. And when we come back, we’ll take a look at a case study of an anti-science bill which makes it harder for residents in Louisiana to hold industry accountable. Stay with us.

Now we’re going to pivot to a complex case study. A Louisiana law sets the bar high for community groups collecting scientific data. It may sound pro-science. Rigorous data is good, of course, but it prevents coalitions of citizens from being able to use data they collect about environmental toxins to enforce regulation. Here’s Flora with the rest of the story.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Joining me now to talk through this story is Elise Plunk, environmental reporter at the Louisiana Illuminator. And she’s based in Baton Rouge. Elise, welcome to Science Friday.

ELISE PLUNK: Hey, yeah, happy to be here.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Why are citizens collecting data in Louisiana? What are they monitoring? What are they looking for?

ELISE PLUNK: So Louisiana has a really long legacy of people living really close by to industry, whether that’s liquefied natural gas, like along the Coast of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, or refining facilities, anything throughout the region along the Mississippi River. So living in really close proximity to these places, air pollution and water pollution are concerns that very directly impact the people living nearby. So in an effort to inform themselves and inform community members about how exactly industry is impacting water they drink, the air they breathe, different groups across Louisiana are trying to organize and monitor the quality of air and water in different community science-oriented research and monitoring projects.

FLORA LICHTMAN: And why do these folks feel like they need to take this data collection into their own hands? Presumably there are agencies for this.

ELISE PLUNK: Yes, there is a agency in Louisiana called the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. They have the main role in deploying different devices that can check for different components in the air that would impact health. But community groups in Louisiana really want to push for more active monitoring within their localities.

They have a lot of issues with air quality permits being routinely violated, routinely exceeded the amounts of pollutants that industries are able to put into the air. They go above those limits fairly often, especially in Cameron Parish. The liquefied natural gas export terminals down there routinely violate air pollution permits. And there’s a couple of different analyzes and studies that go into that that I’ve cited in my reporting.

FLORA LICHTMAN: You interviewed Alyssa Portaro, who’s a community organizer in Cameron Parish, and you were on a boat with her. We have a clip from that. Let’s hear it.

ALYSSA PORTARO: This is– community science is something that came up over the last year talking with fishermen, where we’re like, these agencies aren’t doing anything to figure out what’s going on. What can we do?

ELISE PLUNK: Yeah the wind was whipping that day on the boat.

[LAUGHTER]

FLORA LICHTMAN: We can hear it. It’s like we were right there.

ELISE PLUNK: Yeah, definitely. I was working on a story about some sediment spills into bodies of water in Cameron Parish from some construction on a liquefied natural gas export facility. And Alyssa, several of the fishermen I spoke with and went out with on that trip were concerned that it was affecting oyster harvesting and shrimp in the area where they fish and collect oysters and have their livelihoods. So I was working on that story.

But as we were on the boat, they were conducting this research, where they would put microphones into the water and listen on headphones and note different levels of sound that would come from the readings on the instruments. And I didn’t know what they were doing. So I asked, what’s going on here? And Alyssa helped explain to me that they were concerned that noise levels from industry nearby was affecting the migration patterns of shrimp. But they didn’t exactly know how to prove this without having researchers investigate and determine why shrimp migrations weren’t happening as far into the estuary as they had used to and why fishermen weren’t catching as big of hauls of shrimp.

FLORA LICHTMAN: You have this community who is trying to collect data on environmental pollution. Tell us about the 2024 state law that puts a wrench into that.

ELISE PLUNK: In Louisiana, this is known as the CAMRA Law. The Community Air Monitoring Reliability Act. So it was passed in the Louisiana state legislature in 2024. And it makes the use of data for regulatory enforcement, meaning if a community member gathered data from an air monitor and it showed higher pollution levels than the nearby industry’s air pollution permit allowed for, it would not be able to enforce regulatory action against that industry unless it was an EPA-certified monitor, the kind of gold standard of air quality monitors.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Hmm, which are, I’m sure, expensive.

ELISE PLUNK: Yes, very much so. They can run upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars, very sensitive equipment and very accurate equipment because of that, but something out of reach for a lot of these grassroots groups that are trying to monitor their air just within their own communities.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Right. It makes it almost impossible for these community science groups to gather data that could then be used to enforce the law, it sounds like.

ELISE PLUNK: Yes. Yeah.

LAURA UNGER: So it feels like there’s some complexity here, like we want environmental data to be rigorous, right? But we also want people to be able to hold industries accountable if there’s pollution. How are the people that you have talked to thinking about this? How are you thinking about this tension?

ELISE PLUNK: Yeah, it’s definitely something that I’ve gone back and forth over in a way, trying to figure out how to cover this because of course, robust, reliable data is the backbone of all of this. We want numbers we can count on and things that we can support ourselves with in a scientific manner when it comes to pollution monitoring. But I have spoken with several former EPA officials, scientists who work directly with these types of monitors. And I’ve asked, all right, so the gold standard monitors that are required for regulatory change, how different are they from the more common monitors that are more affordable that these community groups are using?

So the consensus is that the gold standard is the gold standard for a reason. It’s very accurate and the information you would ultimately want to have. But these other air monitors that groups are using have reliable data as well. So especially like in Cameron Parish, in particular, the habitat recovery project’s air monitor is funded by an EPA grant that was given out to help grassroots groups like this afford monitors for their air quality. So it seems to be that there’s a mismatch when it comes to the EPA has funded grants to buy these specific monitors, but different laws enacted are restricting their use. So there’s a misstep somewhere in here.

FLORA LICHTMAN: That’s interesting. Does this extend beyond Louisiana? Are there other places where laws like this are being passed or already exist?

ELISE PLUNK: Yes. So in Kentucky in the 2025 legislative session, I believe in March– it’s a little different in Louisiana because we have Mardi Gras. But I believe in March there was a law passed not quite as restrictive as Louisiana’s, but restricting the type of equipment you can use in order to enforce regulatory change for ambient air quality, pollution monitoring, that sort of thing. In Ohio and West Virginia, several times there has been verbiage inserted into legislation trying to do a similar thing, but nothing has passed out of the legislature so far.

FLORA LICHTMAN: It’s interesting. So there’s a little bit of a trend, it sounds like.

ELISE PLUNK: Yeah, there’s definitely state legislation popping up very similar to Louisiana’s law.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Hmm. Elise Plunk, environmental reporter for the Louisiana Illuminator, based in Baton Rouge. Thanks, Elise.

ELISE PLUNK: Yeah, thank you so much.

FLORA LICHTMAN: This podcast was produced by Kathleen Davis. And we love hearing from you, and you can reach us 24/7 on our listener line, 877-4SC-IFRI. We’ll see you next time. I’m Flora Lichtman.

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