Print Friendly and PDF
Getting 'above the fray' with EHN founder Pete Myers

Getting 'above the fray' with EHN founder Pete Myers

Our chief scientist gets a birds' eye view of his home town—and talks "vampire food" and our broken regulatory system

0 min read

Sometimes you just need the 2,500 foot view.


EHN founder and chief scientist Pete Myers recently took a plane ride high above his hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, with Ali Nouri, who runs a Youtube channel called Above the Fray. Nouri—previously a legislative director for former Minnesota Democrat Sen. Al Franken—launched the channel to interview people working at the intersection of policy and science.

Myers hopped aboard the plane to discuss bisphenol-A (BPA), a controversial endocrine disrupting chemical common in plastics, canned food linings and thermal paper receipts. But, as Myers warns, BPA is just the tip of the iceberg.

"If it's on the shelf that does not mean it's been tested," Myers tells Nouri, an adjunct professor at George Washington University, where, when he's not taking interview subjects aloft, he teaches a course on alternative energy. "Only a tiny fraction of chemicals for sale today in consumer products have been seriously tested."

"Why?" Nouri asks.

"Because the regulatory system is operating under ground rules that reflect really ancient knowledge."

Check out their whole ride in the video above, and see all of Nouri's Above the Fray videos here.

About the author(s):

EHN Staff

Articles written and posted by staff at Environmental Health News

Become a donor
Today's top news

Severe flooding increasingly cutting people off from health care

Many more Americans will find themselves regularly cut off from essential services — long before water actually reaches their homes, a recent study predicts.

From our newsroom

Heat, air pollution and climate change … oh my! Was summer 2023 the new normal?

Intense heat waves induced by climate change create favorable conditions for air pollution to worsen. Scientists say this isn’t likely to change unless action is taken.

Calor, aire contaminado y cambio climático…¿Es el verano de 2023 nuestro futuro?

Intensas olas de calor provocadas por el cambio climático, crearon condiciones que empeoraron la contaminación del aire. Los científicos dicen que nada cambiará sin intervenciones.

Opinion: Protecting Indigenous children means protecting water

We need to stop compartmentalizing the environment, family and culture as separate problems.

Tracking down a poison: Getting the lead out of spices in Bangladesh and Georgia

Many low- and middle-income countries lack the resources to tackle lead poisoning. Here’s how two countries did it.