By Johnathan Hettinger and Carey Gillam
Against the backdrop of a fierce battle between the United States and Mexico over the safety of certain farming products, newly obtained government communications provide fresh evidence of how powerful corporate interests often drive US officials to meddle in foreign affairs.
By Dana Drugmand
Monsanto and General Electric (GE) engaged in a “criminal corporate action” through a secret 1972 deal that allowed the companies to keep profiting from the sale and use of dangerous PCBs despite knowing the toxins were harmful, according to a lawsuit filed by a small Massachusetts town awash in PCB contamination.
By Sara June Jo-Saebo
Few books about America’s industrial agriculture system and food industry uncover the billionaires behind its biggest corporations. But a new book by Austin Frerick, a former tax economist at the US Treasury Department and current Fellow at Yale University’s Thurman Arnold Project, reveals the amassed fortunes of Big Ag’s most powerful families. Barons: Money, Power, and Corruption of America’s Food Industry exposes these ill-gotten gains and a cadre of complicit government players who made it all possible.
By Carey Gillam
Chemical pollution tied to fossil fuel operations is not only driving harmful climate change but is also posing dire risks to human health at levels that require aggressive private and public efforts to limit exposures, warns a new analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.
By Lucy Sharratt
A Presidential decree has banned the use of genetically modified (GM) corn for food in Mexico. But the governments of the United States and Canada are using the US-Canada-Mexico trade agreement (USMCA) to challenge Mexico’s actions.
By Keith Schneider
Amid increasing scrutiny of a potential link between Iowa farm chemicals and cancer, a new report is generating controversy as it blames rising cancer rates not on the toxins used widely throughout the state, but on something else entirely: binge alcohol consumption.
By Johnathan Hettinger
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not properly reviewed the safety of a popular flea and tick collar that has been linked to more than 3,000 pet deaths, according to the agency’s top watchdog.
A new analysis of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding for “climate-smart” conservation practices argues that several are unlikely to actually have climate benefits and one may even increase harmful emissions, though government officials say the analysis is deeply flawed and based on “incorrect assumptions.”
By Carey Gillam
The US is earmarking more than $1 billion to help clean up long-standing hazardous waste sites jeopardizing the health of communities around the country, a move that will impact 110 sites around the country, officials said on Tuesday.
By Bill Walker
Ten years ago, Californians threw away an estimated 157,000 tons of plastic bags, about 8 pounds for each person in the state. To stem the tide of polyethylene piling up in landfills, polluting parks and beaches, and imperiling wildlife, that year California enacted the nation’s first statewide ban on single-use plastic grocery bags.
EWG
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