A few days before Christmas 2025, I met with my colleagues over pasta and sparkling water to celebrate the year’s end. A senior coworker, dressed in a bubble-gum pink cardigan dotted with cherries, leaned over to me quietly. She asked if I had some time to look at a “weird” proposal coming from our newly merged United States team. “Something to do with health, you’ll understand it more than me, I’m sure.” I arrived home lethargic as the dim grey light of late December seeped into my office nook. I hoped this proposal wouldn’t be too much of a lift before the holidays set in. But there, in my inbox, was an email in bold, orange all-caps. It boasted of proposed work in the *Gulf of America. *Beside that controversial new geographic label was the request that I provide a short statement on the feasibility of human health impact assessments for this project in relation to offshore drilling initiatives. My pasta-filled stomach immediately curdled.…