U.S. launches $144 million STOMP program to study microplastics in the body

The federal government just put the plastic shed from your favorite nylon shell, fleece hoodie and stretch knit into the public-health spotlight. Through ARPA-H, HHS launched STOMP, a $144 million program built to measure microplastics and nanoplastics in the human body and figure out how to remove them.

That matters for fashion because synthetic textiles shed microplastic fibers every time they are washed and worn, which makes clothing part of the pollution stream now under federal scrutiny. HHS said STOMP is meant to create a definitive toolbox for measuring, researching and affordably removing microplastics and nanoplastics from the body, and ARPA-H said the field has been missing the basic instruments needed to do the job.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Americans deserve clearer answers about how microplastics affect health. ARPA-H Director Alicia Jackson was blunter: the field is "working in the dark," and STOMP is meant to "turn on the lights." The program is led by Drs. Ileana Hancu and Shannon Greene, and ARPA-H says it is designed to be fast, affordable and broadly available, not some boutique lab exercise that never leaves the shelf.

The agency has split STOMP into two phases. Phase one will focus on measurement and mechanism for 24 months, including best-in-class lab methods to characterize nano-sized microplastic particles in complex biological tissue and imaging work to track how microplastics move through animal organs and cells. Phase two will turn those methods into affordable, scalable clinical systems and develop ways to remove microplastics from the body. ARPA-H says it anticipates a third technical area on removal after the first phase, and its solicitation set a Solution Summary deadline of May 6, 2026, with a Full Proposal due June 22, 2026.

The health case is getting harder to ignore. ARPA-H says researchers have detected microplastics in lungs, arterial plaques and brain tissue, and it says people worldwide are constantly ingesting and inhaling them. At the same time, ARPA-H says there is still no known, validated way to remove microplastics from the body, which is exactly the kind of gap that tends to pull brands into the frame once regulators and researchers start asking where the fibers come from.

The pressure does not stop at the clinic. On the same day, EPA and HHS announced coordinated microplastics actions, and EPA said microplastics were being added to its draft Sixth Contaminant Candidate List as a priority contaminant group for the first time. For fashion, that is the kind of government move that can ripple outward fast, toward stricter filtration expectations, tougher textile-design standards and more disclosure around synthetics. The era when microfiber shedding could be shrugged off as just laundry dust is clearly ending.