What is happening now.

Still happening: in July 2025 the Justice Department said there was no client list and nothing more would be released. Public outrage pushed Congress to pass a law in November 2025 ordering the files released. Most of the men around him have never been questioned in court.

What’s next: Congress ordered the files released in November 2025. What is still being held back, and who is named in it, is still being fought over.

Still happening: in 2024 the Supreme Court threw out a deal that would have shielded the Sacklers from lawsuits. In 2025 they agreed to pay up to $7.4 billion over 15 years, without admitting wrongdoing, and keep most of their fortune. Opioid prescriptions are down, but the addiction they started moved to heroin and fentanyl.

What’s next: The Sackler and Purdue settlement pays out over 15 years. Purdue is to be turned into a new company that keeps selling opioids.

What it does: Red 3 caused thyroid tumors in rats. A 2021 California review of the science found synthetic food dyes can cause hyperactivity and attention problems in some children.

Still happening: Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1 and Blue 2 are still allowed in American food. In Europe the same dyes carry a warning label that they may affect activity and attention in children, so many of the same brands use plant colors there.

Red 3 got two more years in food and three in medicine after the ban, so companies could use up stock and reformulate. In 2025 the government asked companies to drop the other petroleum dyes by the end of 2026. It is a request, with no law behind it.

What’s next: Red Dye 3 has to be out of food by January 15, 2027, and out of medicine by January 18, 2028. The other petroleum dyes are only asked to be gone by the end of 2026, with no law forcing it.

What it does: microplastics have been found in blood, lungs, placentas and testicles. A 2024 study found people with plastic in the plaque of their neck arteries were about four times as likely to have a heart attack, stroke or die within three years.

Still happening: plastic production is set to keep rising, and heating food in plastic sheds far more particles. Bottled water carries hundreds of thousands of plastic bits per liter.

What’s next: World talks on a global plastics treaty broke down in August 2025 without a deal.

What it does: PFAS are linked to kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, weaker vaccine response in children and lower birth weight.

Still happening: thousands of PFAS chemicals are still in use, in rain jackets, carpets, food wrappers, cosmetics and firefighting foam. The 2024 drinking water limits give utilities until 2029, and in 2025 the EPA moved to delay and roll some back.

What’s next: Water systems were given until 2029 to meet the first PFAS limits. In May 2025 the EPA said it would push two of them to 2031 and drop the limits on four others.

What it does: at high levels, fluoride is linked to lower IQ in children and to marks on teeth called fluorosis. About 4 in 10 American teens have some fluorosis.

Still happening: most American cities still add it. Most of Western Europe does not add fluoride to water.

What’s next: Utah and Florida stopped fluoridating public water in 2025. Other states have bills to do the same.

Still happening: teen depression and anxiety rose sharply after 2012. Feeds are still designed to keep kids scrolling, and in 2025 Reuters reported Meta’s rules had allowed its AI chatbots to have romantic conversations with children.

What’s next: Australia banned social media accounts for children under 16, starting December 2025. America has no law like it.

What it does: lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury damage the developing brain. There is no safe level of lead for a child.

Still happening: the FDA’s 2025 lead limits are guidance, which companies are not legally required to follow. There are still no final limits for arsenic, cadmium or mercury in baby food.

What’s next: Since January 2025, California requires baby food makers to test for toxic metals and publish the results. The rest of the country does not.

Still happening: most new cars are connected to the internet and collect location, speed and sometimes in-cabin data. Data brokers still buy and sell it, and police can buy location data without a warrant.

Still happening: hospital prices are still hidden until the bill comes. A federal rule to keep medical debt off credit reports was struck down by a court in 2025.

What’s next: The Congressional Budget Office estimates the 2025 budget law will leave about 10 million more Americans without health insurance by 2034.

Still happening: genetic data is not covered by medical privacy law when you give it to a company. Life, disability and long-term care insurers can still use genetic information.

What’s next: In July 2025 the 23andMe data was bought for $305 million by a nonprofit started by the company’s founder. Customers were told they could delete their data.

Still happening: the FAA let Boeing inspect much of its own work for years. Families of the dead are still fighting for a trial.

What it does: diets high in ultra-processed food are linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and early death. One in three American children is now overweight or obese.

Still happening: food companies are allowed to declare their own additives safe, through a loophole called GRAS, without telling the FDA. School lunches are still built around processed food.

What’s next: In 2025 the government said it would look at closing the GRAS loophole that lets companies declare their own additives safe. Nothing has been closed yet.

Still happening: the federal minimum wage has not moved since 2009. A full-time worker earning it makes about $15,000 a year.

Still happening: health care is the most hacked industry in America, and a few giant companies now sit in the middle of most of it.

Still happening: food plants are inspected by government staff stretched thin, and repeat violations rarely shut a plant down.

Still happening: data brokers still collect and sell Americans’ personal information with no federal law to stop them.

Still happening: the FDA started its own testing after the study. There is still no required test for metals in tampons.

Still happening: overdose deaths fell in 2024 but still killed about 80,000 Americans. Fake pills sold on social media keep killing teenagers who think they are buying a Percocet or Xanax.

Still happening: Section 702 still lets intelligence agencies collect communications that include Americans without a warrant. Congress renewed it in 2024. Agencies also buy Americans’ data from brokers, which needs no warrant at all.

Still happening: in 2023 and 2024 investigators found children, many of them migrants, working in meat plants, car-part factories and on night cleaning crews. Several states have moved to loosen child labor laws.

What it does: vinyl chloride is a known human carcinogen linked to liver cancer.

Still happening: about 1.7 million carloads of hazardous material move by rail in the U.S. every year, and trains have grown longer with fewer crew. A Railway Safety Act written after East Palestine stalled in Congress.

What it does: lead in children lowers IQ, causes attention and behavior problems and damages the kidneys. The damage is permanent.

Still happening: in 2023 Benton Harbor, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi, were also left with unsafe water. The 2024 rule to replace every lead pipe gives cities until about 2037.

What’s next: Cities have until about 2037 to replace every lead pipe. Until then, millions keep drinking through them.

Still happening: phone apps, smart TVs, cars and speakers collect data and sell it through data brokers. There is no federal privacy law in the U.S. that stops it.

Still happening: brain-reading devices are spreading into earbuds, headphones and workplace safety gear. Most states have no law on brain data at all.

Still happening: the gap keeps widening. Billionaires borrow against their stock instead of selling it, so their gains are never taxed as income.

What’s next: In July 2025 Congress made the 2017 tax cuts permanent. The Congressional Budget Office found the gains go mostly to the highest earners while the poorest households lose.

Still happening: “buy now, pay later” loans have spread to groceries. Credit card balances hit record highs in 2024.

What it does: hormone-disrupting chemicals are linked to lower sperm counts, lower testosterone, earlier puberty in girls and some cancers.

Still happening: BPA was largely replaced with BPS and BPF, which studies show act in similar ways. Phthalates are still in food packaging, fragrance and vinyl.

What it does: glyphosate is linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Traces of it are found in the urine of most Americans tested.

Still happening: Bayer has pushed for laws that would shield it from future cancer lawsuits. Glyphosate is still sprayed on food crops right before harvest to dry them out.

Still happening: children in foster care are among the most targeted. Traffickers recruit through social media and gaming apps.

Still happening: a language dies roughly every few months. With it go its stories, plant medicine and names for the stars.

Still happening: prices rose about 20 percent from 2020 to 2024. Wages for many families did not keep up.

Still happening: the $35 cap is only for people on Medicare and some plans. The same three companies still control the market, and other drugs, like inhalers and injectables for weight and diabetes, cost Americans many times what they cost in other countries.

What’s next: Since January 2026, Medicare pays lower negotiated prices on ten drugs, including some insulins. Everyone outside Medicare is not covered by it.

What it does: lead lowers IQ, causes behavior and attention problems and raises the risk of heart disease. The damage from childhood exposure is permanent.

Still happening: leaded fuel is still legal for small propeller planes, the biggest source of lead in the air in America. The EPA only moved to end it in 2023, with no deadline.

What’s next: The aviation industry and the FAA have set a goal of ending leaded airplane fuel by the end of 2030. It is a goal, not a ban.

Still happening: the same companies moved into vaping. Juul paid more than $1 billion over marketing to teens. Menthol cigarettes, aimed at Black communities for decades, are still on sale.

What’s next: In January 2025 the government withdrew its plan to ban menthol cigarettes.

Still happening: smart home devices, routers and doorbell cameras collect more about what happens inside homes every year, and police can request it.

Still happening: prisoners still have limited protection when it comes to medical research and consent.

Still happening: Buck v. Bell has never been overturned. Reports of unwanted procedures on women in immigration detention surfaced in 2020.

Still happening: political campaigns still buy voter data from brokers to target ads. There is still no federal privacy law to stop it.

Still happening: many veterans died without ever learning what they were given.

Still happening: the victims sued in U.S. courts. The cases were thrown out on the grounds that the government cannot be sued over it.

Still happening: presidents have sent troops into combat without a declaration of war ever since. Congress has not declared war since 1942.

Still happening: drug companies still run and pay for most of the trials of their own drugs, and the FDA’s drug reviews are largely funded by fees from those companies.

Still happening: the same intelligence agencies and many of the same voices still shape the case for war. No one was ever held responsible for the false claims.

Still happening: drugs and products pulled or restricted in America, from pesticides to medicines, are still sold to poorer countries.

Still happening: the drug war that followed sent hundreds of thousands of Black Americans to prison, while the bigger suppliers were protected.

Still happening: the full list of chemicals sprayed over American cities in those years has never been fully released.

Still happening: the documents show the highest military officers were willing to plan attacks on their own people. Many government records from that era are still classified.

Still happening: radiation exposure from atomic testing is still being paid for. Many people downwind of the tests waited decades for compensation.

Still happening: the men who ran it went on to have careers in medicine and business. Japan still has not fully acknowledged it.

Still happening: Vietnamese children are still born with defects linked to dioxin. Veterans’ children have been fighting for recognition.

Still happening: the files were kept secret for decades. Some of the scientists were honored with awards and buildings in their names.

Still happening: the government kept the tests secret for decades. People in the sprayed cities were never contacted.

Still happening: former intelligence officials work openly as paid commentators on major news channels.

Still happening: most of the records were destroyed, so the full story and the full list of victims will never be known. The CIA has never named everyone it experimented on.

Still happening: the distrust it caused is still measured in Black Americans’ health care today. Researchers have linked the 1972 disclosure to lower life expectancy for Black men.

Still happening: families in several countries only learned decades later that their children’s bodies were taken.

Still happening: the FBI has continued to use informants inside protest and political groups. Its own inspector general has found repeated misuse of surveillance powers on Americans.

Still happening: nutrition gets a few hours of teaching in most American medical schools. Most medical research is funded by drug companies.

Still happening: Western horoscopes still use the seasons instead of the stars. Your sign is probably still not your sign.