ABORTION OPPONENTS CELEBRATE — EPA is launching a study that will test drinking water for chemicals, pesticides and drugs — including pills used to induce abortions — and activists opposed to abortion are counting it as a victory. Many anti-abortion activists who’ve spent years trying to use environmental regulations to curb access to the drugs, POLITICO’s Miranda Willson, Alice Miranda Ollstein and Ariel Wittenberg report. Study details: EPA researchers will collect water samples “from several locations in different metropolitan areas” and test them for abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol and more than 1,400 other drugs, pesticides and synthetic chemicals, according to an overview of the study and its methodology. The test will only show whether a particular medication or chemical is present in the water, not its concentration or whether it poses a risk to human, animal or plant life. And its results may not lead to additional regulation. The agency will also test for hormones such as testosterone and progesterone, as well as contraceptive medications like levonorgestrel, used in certain hormonal birth control pills and the morning-after pill. Even so: Abortion opponents who have been lobbying the agency to require utilities around the country to monitor for the drugs — a step they believe would pave the way for restrictions on their sale — called the announcement of the study “a tremendous victory.” “We’re finally being heard,” Kristi Hamrick, the head of policy for the group Students for Life of America, said in an interview. “Mifepristone in the water, with its ability to block the fertility and reproduction of human beings and endangered species, is an issue that we deserve to know more about.” Betsy Southerland, a former career scientist in the EPA’s Office of Water who left during the first Trump administration, said she is worried about anti-abortion groups using the new EPA test to advance their agenda. “I am deeply concerned that if there is any detectable level of mifepristone or its metabolites, the anti-abortion groups will scream that we are unknowingly aborting fetuses by drinking public tap water and so mifepristone needs to be taken off the market,” she said. OFFICIAL’S LEGAL HISTORY — A Trump administration official in charge of overseeing HHS political appointees was previously involved in a legal case involving the 2021 death of a University of New Hampshire student, POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman reports. William Boothby was sued in late 2023 after a college student was found dead following an altercation at a fraternity house, according to court records obtained by POLITICO. In early 2025, Boothby was removed as a defendant after an out-of-court settlement. Boothby joined the Department of Health and Human Services as deputy White House liaison on Jan. 20, 2025, shortly before his removal as a defendant, according to two people familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity to avoid retaliation. The Trump administration promoted Boothby to be White House liaison to HHS in July last year, and Boothby now manages nearly 300 political appointees at the Health Department and numerous subagencies. Details: The case centered on University of New Hampshire sophomore Vincenzo “Vinny” Lirosi, who, after a night of drinking, had an altercation with several members of a fraternity — including Boothby — and was later found dead in a wooded area. An autopsy ruled Lirosi’s death “accidental” due to drowning and acute intoxication, with Lirosi having a blood alcohol level of 0.215. No one faced criminal charges. In late 2023, Lirosi’s mother, Robin Lirosi, filed a wrongful death suit against Boothby, the Sigma Chi chapter at UNH and several other members of the fraternity and people associated with the fraternity house, as well as the bar where Lirosi had been drinking before the incident. In the suit, she blamed them for her son’s death since no one from the fraternity “took any steps to ensure his safety.” Lirosi’s mother and the other defendants subsequently settled, and the case is no longer active. Robin Lirosi and her lawyers didn’t respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Boothby declined to comment, as did Sigma Chi’s UNH chapter. Boothby referred a request for comment to HHS. “Every member of the Department remains focused on carrying out Secretary [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s] priorities and delivering on President [Donald] Trump’s pledge to Make America Healthy Again,” HHS said in a statement.
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