New research shows the chemicals we use to kill pests, heal our bodies and package our foods are spread throughout the ocean, intermingling with the microorganisms that feed marine life. They’ve reached even the most distant and remote places on the planet.

In a new study, Daniel Petras, a biochemist at UC Riverside — together with 29 researchers from around the world — looked at 2,315 seawater samples collected from estuaries, coastal regions, coral reefs and the open ocean. The samples came from the North Pacific, the Baltic Sea and the coast of South Africa, among other places. For each sample, the researchers used a relatively new technique that allowed them to see every chemical present — not just ones they were looking for or suspected.

What they found was disconcerting: Human-made chemicals were everywhere, even in water hundreds of miles from land.

The study was published Monday in Nature Geoscience.

“This presents a pretty sobering view of just how widespread these chemical pollutants have become in the ocean,” said Douglas McCauley, an associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at UC Santa Barbara. McCauley was not involved in the research.

At the mouths of rivers and along the coasts, the research team found large concentrations of pharmaceuticals such as beta blockers, antidepressants and antibiotics. They also discovered cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as insecticides and pesticides, such as DEET and Atrazine. In some cases, including samples taken near Puerto Rico, signatures for these pollutants constituted nearly 20% of the dissolved organic matter.

As the distance from coasts increased, the number and concentration of industrial chemicals decreased, but did not disappear. The researchers found that even hundreds of miles from North America’s Pacific coastline, or floating through the California current, significant levels of other industrial chemicals — namely ones from petroleum-based plastics — were present in the organic material at levels between 0.5% and 4%.

“This finding provides further evidence that plastic-derived carbon, including micro- and nano-plastics, contributes a substantial portion to the marine carbon pool,” wrote the authors, who took care to account for any plastic materials inadvertently introduced in the laboratory or during collection.

“As an ecologist, what is a bit scary here is trying to wrap my head around what this means for ocean health,” McCauley said. “I think there is going to be a lot we need to learn now about how these chemicals, in the concentrations they are being detected … are affecting ocean species — from plankton to whales.”

He said the open ocean samples upped “the ante on concern about the penetration of pollutants associated with plastics and plastic pollution. We discovered how widespread big pieces of plastic were in the ocean, then micro plastics, then nano plastics. These results highlight the even more invisible risk of chemicals leaking out of plastics and turning some parts of the ocean into a petrochemical soup.”

Petras said the work they did was novel in that it used a method of chemical detection in which the sample is screened not for specific chemicals, but everything in it — a relatively new technology that allows researchers to go beyond targeting the chemicals they suspect might be there.

What’s new, he said, is the technology not only “sees” all the different chemical structures, but identifies them, “so we can give those chemical compounds names, and hypothesize about their origin. I think that this is the first large-scale meta analysis, where we could propose where the different chemicals are coming from. Before that, this kind of analysis was not really possible.”

Researchers looked at 21 publicly available data sets comprising 2,315 samples acquired by three laboratories. Each lab used the same instruments and technologies, allowing Preta’s team to sift through a standardized set of open-source mass spectrometry data to do its own analysis.

Petras said the analysis provides the scientific community with a variety of new questions to ask and test. For instance, how will these industrial pollutants affect or integrate into global carbon cycling?

The carbon cycle is a continuous, biogeochemical exchange of carbon among the atmosphere, oceans, land and geological reservoirs, such as rocks and fossil fuels. The cycle regulates the planet’s temperature and supports life.

“The vast majority of ocean water samples typically consist of metabolites that are made by microbial communities, like the ones that fix carbon through photosynthesis. They release molecules such as sugars and peptides and lipids … they’re elementally important for carbon cycling,” Petras said. Now, because of this research, as well as other studies on microplastics, “we assume that there might also be a substantial contribution of human made molecules in this cycling. But to what degree this might influence microbial communities and global carbon cycling, is largely unknown.”

In the best-case scenario, he said, the microbes simply incorporate, ingest or “breathe” these chemicals in, recycle them, “and then respire them as carbon dioxide.” But it’s possible these chemicals could be altering this system.

“If herbicides or other molecules are there in large amounts, or if they act in synergy with them, they may have certain effects on the microbial communities … and those questions we need to address and experimentally test in the laboratory,” he said.

In the three years since Los Angeles County declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency, mask sales have dwindled, unopened tests have expired in their boxes and people have returned to in-person school, work and socializing.

But for thousands of L.A. County residents living with the complex, chronic condition known as long COVID, the emergency has never ended. And as the virus continues to circulate, more people are being forced to reckon with a life-altering yet often invisible disability whose relative newness offers few answers for the future and few avenues for support.

“You’re not just becoming disabled,” said Elle Seibert, 31, who has dealt with debilitating fatigue and cardiac symptoms since 2020. “You’re realizing how easily society at large and people in your life will abandon you when you cannot offer them things.”

Long COVID is an infection-associated chronic condition, a class of illness triggered or worsened by viral, bacterial or parasitic infections. Symptoms typically affect multiple organs or body systems, and cluster around fatigue, cardiovascular problems, cognitive issues and pain.

“What causes long COVID is an abnormal immune system response [plus] dysregulation of the nervous system,” said Dr. Caitlin McAuley, director of the Keck Medicine of USC’s COVID Recovery Clinic, one of two dedicated clinics in the county (the other is at UCLA).

Researchers have also found that long COVID patients are more than twice as likely as people without the condition to have particles of the SARS-CoV-2 virus lingering in their blood — remnants of original infection that could be causing ongoing inflammation.

Though the condition strikes across age, gender, race, vaccination status and patients’ previous levels of health or activity, a few demographic patterns have emerged. Women, people of Hispanic origin, people with severe initial infections and people who have not been vaccinated against the virus appear more likely than other groups to develop long COVID.

Severity of the initial disease can’t perfectly predict the aftermath: debilitating symptoms have set in for people with mild initial infections. Patients arrive at a diagnosis once symptoms have persisted for at least three months and all other explanations have been ruled out.

Lawrence Totress, 51, was busy working full time and volunteering as his church’s office manager when he tested positive for COVID in July 2022.

For two weeks, he had the same fever, shortness of breath, dizziness and fatigue that his friends experienced. But while his fever eventually lifted, frighteningly intense cognitive symptoms descended.

Lawrence Totress, 51, at his apartment in Los Angeles. “It’s not like we’re twiddling our thumbs and trying to get some money. This is a very serious condition,” he said.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

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“I could not find words,” he said recently from his home in South Los Angeles. “I would have phone calls with my supervisor, with my insurance, and I would just cry because I couldn’t even finish the conversation.” At one point, he could not recall the name of the person he’d reported to for the last two years. He scrolled through his phone contacts until he saw “Supervisor” typed below a name.

A trip to the bathroom or the front door left him without energy to return. He cycled through migraines and bouts of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, a common long COVID symptom that sent his heart rate skyrocketing when he stood up.

Through occupational therapy at Keck’s long COVID clinic, he learned skills that have allowed some semblance of independence: hydration, rest, careful management of his time and energy.

Where he once bounced from task to task, he now clears a whole day for a grocery store outing. On a bad day, he may not make it past the produce before he’s hit with fatigue so intense he can’t recall why he’s there.

He can no longer work; bills are still piling up. Like every patient interviewed for this story, his application for long-term disability was denied, despite a thick stack of medical records.

“It’s not like we’re twiddling our thumbs and trying to get some money. This is a very serious condition,” he said. “Take it as it being serious, and allow us to have the resources.”

There is no reliable data for county long COVID cases, nor for the number of people disabled by the condition.

The official county count for total confirmed COVID infections ended in mid-2023 at 3.5 million. Given the World Health Organization’s estimate that 6% of infections result in long COVID, just the first two years of the pandemic may have yielded up to 175,000 long COVID cases, a number that has only grown as the virus has continued to circulate.

In 2023, 15.6% of respondents to a countywide health survey said they had experienced COVID symptoms for at least three months after testing positive. A follow-up county survey currently underway asks more precisely whether respondents have had long COVID symptoms within the last 12 months, said Barbara Ferrer, director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health. Those results will be available later this year.

Ferrer compared the current state of public understanding to the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In both cases, she said, a new virus created a large population of people living with a complex, chronic condition with far-reaching implications for their health, housing and economic security.

“COVID-19 really has had a profound impact in terms of long-lasting symptoms that affect all kinds of different parts of the body, at a much higher rate than we usually see from other viruses,” Ferrer said.

This month, the public health department formed a physician and patient advocate working group that for 12 months will study policies and services that could help long COVID patients, Ferrer said, such as a clearer pathway to disability payments and better education for healthcare providers.

“We still hear stories about people who are saying, you know, my physician dismissed it or misdiagnosed it, or told me to just go home and wait,” Ferrer said.

Patient advocates have lobbied the county Board of Supervisors to establish a similar task force, thus far unsuccessfully.

Beth Nishida, 64, at Creekside Park in Walnut. She retired from special education administration due to the ongoing effects of a 2022 infection.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

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“The goal really, in my opinion, should be how do we fix it, not just how do we count it,” said Beth Nishida, 64, of Walnut, who retired from special education administration due to the ongoing effects of a 2022 infection. “I know [long COVID] is new, but it’s not as new as it was. At some point, we have to start learning things and implementing them.”

The outlook at the federal level is grim. Last year, the Trump administration closed the Office for Long COVID Research and Practice and canceled grants for long COVID research.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson told the magazine Science.

Yet new COVID infections are producing new long COVID patients. People who were healthy and active just a few months ago are still arriving at USC’s clinic with cardiovascular and cognitive problems that have upended their lives.

“There has been a societal move to go past COVID as if it’s not around anymore — but it definitely is,” McAuley said. “If it’s not on people’s radar, it’s never going to be addressed. And people will bounce in and out of the ER, and they will potentially have a degree of disability [to] the point where they just lose their job, and no one really is addressing it.”

The Trump administration on Friday moved to roll back Biden-era limits on emissions of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing chemical often used in the sterilization of medical devices.

The Environmental Protection Agency said repealing the rules, which fall under the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, would “safeguard the supply of essential medical equipment” — saving approximately $630 million for companies over 20 years. California is home to about a dozen such facilities.

The government said the pollution is an inevitable part of protecting people from “lethal or significantly debilitating infections that would result without properly sterilized medical equipment,” arguing that the technology does not readily exist to meet the more stringent rules.

“The Trump EPA is committed to ensuring life-saving medical devices remain available for the critical care of America’s children, elderly, and all patients without unnecessary exposure to communities,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.

Supporters of the Biden rule reject that argument and say companies could have complied using existing technology and that the public was not at risk of losing sterilized equipment.

An estimated 50% of sterile medical devices in the U.S. are treated with ethylene oxide, or EtO, particularly those that can’t be cleaned using steam or radiation. The colorless gas is also used to make chemicals found in products such as antifreeze, detergents, plastics and adhesives.

EtO poses health risks. Short-term exposure by inhalation can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue respiratory irritation and other adverse health effects, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Longer-term exposure increases the risk of cancers of the white blood cells, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as well as breast cancer. A now-deleted page from the EPA’s website stated, “EtO is a human carcinogen. It causes cancer in humans.”

Friday’s proposal specifically targets updated rules for EtO emissions that were passed by the Biden administration in 2024 following pressure from environmental justice groups, particularly those in Louisiana’s heavily industrialized “Cancer Alley.” The change sought to reduce the amount of EtO released from commercial sterilizers by 90% and lessen the hazards for nearby communities.

The tighter rules were in part based on EPA’s own scientific study that found it to be 60 times more carcinogenic than previously thought, which the agency now says should be reassessed.

If finalized, the plan would give facilities a choice between installing continuous real-time monitoring systems for EtO emissions or complying with modified pollution control requirements at facilities that emit more than 10 tons a year, the EPA said.

The proposal follows other moves by the Trump administration to rescind regulations it says are burdensome and costly for industries, such as those governing emissions from coal power plants. Last month, the EPA repealed the endangerment finding, which affirmed the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions and underpinned the agency’s ability to regulate those emissions from vehicles.

The action around ethylene oxide would affect about 90 commercial sterilization facilities owned and operated by approximately 50 companies. Three California companies applied for and received presidential exemptions for their EtO emissions in July.

They are located in Ontario and Vernon and operated by the company Sterigenics, which provides industrial sterilization technology for medical devices and other commercial products.

In January, a coalition of environmental and community groups challenged the EtO exemptions in federal court. The lawsuit from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council argues that technology exists for facilities to comply with the tighter Biden-era standards without raising costs, and many facilities are already using it.

“EPA’s 2024 rule was an important and overdue step to reduce toxic ethylene oxide pollution and protect communities,” said Irena Como, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, in a statement Friday. “Repealing this rule that is proven to significantly lower pollution exposure and cancer risks will subject even more people who work, live, and send their children to schools located near these facilities to harm that is entirely preventable.”

Sterilization and chemical industry groups support the plan.

“The EPA rule concerning ethylene oxide use in commercial sterilizers threatens to severely restrict access to vital medical products nationwide,” the American Chemistry Council said in a statement. “We commend the EPA for their commitment to reevaluating these policies.”

The EPA will hold a 45-day comment period about the proposal after it is published in the federal register. A final decision is expected sometime this year.