Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode

Do you ever feel a sense of personal responsibility for plastic pollution? That reaction is no accident - it’s the result of a decades-long public relations strategy designed to shift blame away from the industries driving the problem.In today’s episode Ken talks with award-winning environmental journalist and author Beth Gardiner. Her new book, “Plastic Inc. The Secret History and Shocking Future of Big Oil’s Biggest Bet,” reveals why Big Oil is responsible for the global plastic pollution problem.

Beth traces the full arc of the oil and plastic industry’s political strategy as well as the origins of plastic recycling as a PR opportunity rather than an environmental solution.

Against the backdrop of weakening environmental safeguards and shifting regulatory priorities, the episode asks a pressing question: how do we hold some of the most powerful industries on the planet accountable for a crisis they helped create?

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

Buy Beth Gardiner’s book

Beth Gardiner’s website

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

@kencookspodcast

www.ewg.org

@environmentalworkinggroup

There is an ongoing lawsuit between the American Academy of Pediatrics v. Robert F Kennedy Jr., head of HHS. The lead attorney of the lawsuit challenging the HHS vaccine policy changes is Ken’s guest today.

Richard H Hughes VI is a professor at George Washington University Law School as well as a partner at Epstein Becker Green. In addition to the American Academy of Pediatrics, Hughes’ law firm also represents the American College of Physicians and the American Public Health Association.

Richard breaks down the legal framework behind the lawsuit against Kennedy, including the effort to dismantle and remake the ACIP advisory committee, the broader implications for federal vaccine policy, and the growing erosion of public trust in pediatricians, vaccines, and public health institutions.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

Find the court docket for the case American Academy of Pediatrics v. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. here 

And Judge Brian Murphy’s ruling here that opens with an adaptation of a famous quote from the late astronomer and scientist Carl Sagan:  “Science, like law, is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge…nevertheless, science is still the best we have.”

Richard Hughes, Professorial Lecturer in Law

New York Times: Kennedy, in His Own Words: Flu, Diabetes, Autism and More



Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

@kencookspodcast

www.ewg.org

@environmentalworkinggroup

Two major battles over pesticide policy are unfolding at the federal level, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. 

The dispute: Can states protect their citizens from pesticide harms beyond what federal law requires, or will that authority be stripped away? These are the urgent questions that a pending Supreme Court case and a fight over the farm bill could play major roles in answering.

The chemical at the center of all of this? Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and the keystone product of the Bayer-Monsanto corporation. Critics of the controversial weedkiller link it to a number of health harms through exposure. 

To help unravel the legal docket, Ken is joined by Chuck Benbrook, Ph. D. He has worked on pesticide issues in roles during the Carter administration, for Congress and with the National Academy of Sciences, and has served as an expert witness in many of the cases he and Ken discuss. 

Benbrook is urging the Supreme Court to preserve the right of states to hold pesticide companies accountable when federal regulators fall short.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

Why HHRA’s Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court in Opposition to Preemption?

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

 

@kencookspodcast

 

www.ewg.org

 

@environmentalworkinggroup

This Earth Day, we're not celebrating progress; we're sounding the alarm. In today’s episode, Ken sits down with Dr. Phil Landrigan and Dr. Adam Gaffney, co-authors of a landmark article in the New England Journal of Medicine that breaks down how the Trump administration’s sweeping environmental rollbacks are threatening the health of every American.

Dr. Landrigan is no stranger to these fights. As a young Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doctor in the 1970s, his groundbreaking research on lead poisoning in children helped drive lead out of gasoline and paint. This victory reduced childhood lead poisoning by 95% and raised the IQ of an entire generation.

Dr. Gaffney, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Harvard Medical School, has spent his career fighting to protect his patients’ lungs – and now the very protections that keep those lungs healthy are being dismantled one regulation at a time.

Together, the doctors share with Ken all the vital rules that the administration is undoing, who will suffer most, and what it will cost the public in health harms and lives lost – from weakened air quality standards and gutted climate policy, to the quiet destruction of the scientific institutions that keep Americans safe.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

New England Journal of Medicine: The Dismantling of Environmental Protections: A Grave Threat to America’s Health

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

@kencookspodcast

www.ewg.org

@environmentalworkinggroup

What does it look like to stand on principle when everyone around you is playing it safe? In today’s episode, Ken sits down with Rina Shah, a political commentator, GOP strategist, geopolitical risk advisor and one of the most recognized Republican voices on national television.

As a former senior Capitol Hill advisor and two-time presidential campaign chief spokesperson, Shah spent years appearing on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and nearly every major network covering politics and global affairs. But long before the television appearances and the op-eds, she was the daughter of a Ugandan refugee family that lost everything under the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin. That experience shaped everything about how she sees leadership, power and democracy.

Shah shares her family's remarkable story of survival, why she recognized the echoes of authoritarianism in President Donald Trump long before most were willing to say it out loud, and what it cost her to become the first elected Republican delegate to publicly challenge Trump’s nomination in 2016. A decade later, she's still a Republican, still speaking out, and still refusing to let the party she loves be defined by fear and silence.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

Rina Shah’s Instagram

Renew Democracy Initiative

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

@kencookspodcast

www.ewg.org

@environmentalworkinggroup