Plastics and Health
Featured Speakers and Presentation Materials:
Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP
Topic: Health Effects of Plastic
Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP, is a pediatrician and epidemiologist, and director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College. He leads the Monaco Commission on Plastics and Ocean Pollution and in 2022-23, led the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health, which documents that plastics and associated chemicals harm human health at every stage of the plastic life cycle
Dr. Landrigan spoke about the far-reaching health and environmental consequences of plastic pollution, highlighting its growing impact on vulnerable populations and calling for urgent, systemic action at all levels to reduce production and exposure.
Hilary Ong, MD, FAAP
Topic: Plastic in Healthcare: A Call to Action
Hilary Ong, MD, FAAP, is a physician and assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine at University of California, San Francisco. Her research and academic pursuits include waste reduction and decarbonization in emergency departments. She also co-created a climate health and equity curriculum for the UCSF emergency medicine residency program. She will speak about plastic pollution from healthcare systems and how we can reduce our reliance on single use plastics.
Dr. Ong presented on the urgent need to reduce plastic use in healthcare by highlighting the extensive health harms of plastic pollution—from patient-level exposures to global chemical emissions—and calling for systemic, policy-driven, and clinical actions to address this overlooked environmental and public health crisis.
Matthew Campen, PhD, MSPH
Topic: Neuroplastics: Out of Sight, Into Mind
Matthew Campen, PhD, MSPH is a professor at the University of New Mexico Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences whose interest includes the mechanisms underlying the systemic impacts of microplastics and nanoplastics, an emerging toxicant of global concern. He will discuss his research on how much plastic is in the human body using data from innovative methods for assessing nanoplastics in clinical and pathological specimens.
Dr. Campen presented emerging research on the widespread presence of micro- and nanoplastics in human organs—including the brain, liver, kidney, placenta, and testes—and discussed how their accumulation, particularly in dementia cases, raises urgent questions about their potential health impacts and the need for improved detection and mitigation technologies.
Linda Kahn, PhD, MPH
Topic: Plastics and Human Reproduction: A Life Course Perspective
Linda Kahn, PhD, MPH is an assistant professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Population Health at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. As a life-course epidemiologist, she studies associations of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals during various critical periods with reproductive health outcomes, including fecundity, pregnancy complications, postpartum maternal health, and offspring reproductive development.
Dr. Kahn presented a life course perspective on how exposure to plastic chemicals—including phthalates, bisphenols, and PFAS—disrupts human reproductive development and function from gestation through adulthood, with emerging evidence linking these exposures to infertility, reproductive disorders, and the presence of microplastics in reproductive tissues.
Panel: Plastics, Policy, and Legislation
Johnathan Berard is the Policy Director at Beyond Plastics, with over a decade of public policy and strategic communications experience. As the Rhode Island State Director at Clean Water Action, he conducted the very first trawl for microplastics in Narragansett Bay, wrote Rhode Island’s statewide plastic bag ban, and helped lead the fight against the plastic industry’s attempt to change state law to allow so-called “advanced recycling” facilities to be built in Rhode Island.
Johnathan introduced Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies for packaging, emphasizing the need for strong, enforceable, and inclusive state-level legislation that prioritizes waste reduction, bans toxic packaging chemicals, and rejects industry-led false recycling solutions.
Leah Holloway
Panel: Plastics, Policy, and Legislation
Leah Holloway is a program manager for Plastic Free MKE and Milwukee Riverkeeper, working on plastic waste reduction. She earned a BA in Environmental Science and English from Cornell College and had a 14-year career in environmental education before returning to school to complete her MS in Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Laura Holloway presented the mission and initiatives of Plastic-Free MKE, a community-driven campaign working to eliminate unnecessary plastics in Milwaukee through education, advocacy, and systems change focused on environmental justice and health.