insecticides

December 15, 2023

“We can’t sit back” – Amid climbing cancer rates, Iowa health officials eye farm chemicals

Faced with a startlingly high cancer rate in the key US farm state of Iowa, public health leaders are taking the politically precarious step of acknowledging that preventing disease necessitates cutting exposure to potentially cancer-causing chemicals, including those used in agriculture.

In a departure from other state cancer prevention programs, which rarely address environmental risk factors for cancer other than radon, a known cause of lung cancer, Iowa is working to better understand and make the case for limiting exposure to pesticides, commercial fertilizer, and animal manure used and generated by Iowa agriculture, among other environmental contaminants.

“These broader array of environmental risk factors are absolutely there for cancer. But they’re not paid attention to in state cancer control plans,” said Molly Jacobs, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts, who is working with Iowa health authorities. “It’s quite unique that Iowa has addressed this as a priority in their plan. I applaud Iowa for taking on this task of thinking much broader and bigger, and changing this paradigm.”

The work to address environmental factors to reduce cancer cases began earlier this year and is being undertaken by the Iowa Cancer Consortium. It’s a 21-year-old, 650-member coalition of public health professionals, researchers, and health providers focused on controlling cancer. The consortium is led by Dr. Mary Charlton, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa College of Public Health who also is research director of the Iowa Cancer Registry, which collects cancer data on Iowa citizens.

The consortium has launched an Environmental Task Force and a five-year plan for cutting public exposure to “environmental carcinogens.”

Farmers, agricultural executives, and state lawmakers have spent decades resisting any changes in farm practices that reduce the use of chemicals and nutrients, saying the inputs are needed to ensure ample food production.

But public health advocates say evidence tying the farm pollutants to disease is too strong to deny.

“We can’t sit back and say, ‘Wow. Somebody may not like this.’” said Kamyar Enshayan, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Education at the University of Northern Iowa. “Knowing what we do know, it’s just prudent that we support practices and systems that require significantly less fertilizer and pesticides.”

November 29, 2023

Pesticides continue to plague bee health, study warns

By Shannon Kelleher

Pesticides sprayed on farmland continue to harm bumblebees in Europe, underscoring a need for more protective regulatory oversight, according to a new study that revealed how bees respond to real-world pesticide exposure at 106 sites across eight countries.

The analysis, part of a project called PoshBee that aims to monitor and improve bee health across Europe, went beyond standard field experiments that measure how bees respond to a single substance in a test environment. Instead, the researchers studied bumblebees in actual farm landscapes – apple and rapeseed fields – treated with multiples pesticides. Bumblebee colonies with greater toxicity from pesticides in their pollen had fewer total cocoons, weighed less altogether, and had fewer new queens, according to the study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Insecticides, including neonicotinoids, pyrethroids, and organophosphates, posed a greater risk to the bees than other types of pesticides.

“This is a very important study,” said Margaret Reeves, a senior scientist at the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America who was not involved in the study. “Pesticides are almost never used in isolation [and] can drift long distances, with those used in close proximity to one another especially likely to interact. Much of this we simply don’t understand because various kinds of mixtures are seldom studied.”

“If pesticides in agricultural fields pose the problems described to bees, just imagine what these pesticides are doing to the millions of field workers in those same fields,” she added.

The findings point to a need to monitor approved pesticides after farmers begin spraying them in the environment, a strategy that could also safeguard species important for pest control and soil quality on farms, said Jessica Knapp, an assistant professor of botany at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland and an author of the study.

“For us, it’s not necessarily that [risk assessment] should become tighter, it’s that it should become more realistic with what these species are actually exposed to in real landscapes,” she said. “Once [pesticides] go through all the regulation, the testing kind of stops, which is obviously nonsensical because we don’t know what is happening in these real environments. That’s where we really want a change.”

The study comes on the heels of the European Parliament’s failure last week to pass the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products Regulation (SUR), proposed legislation that included targets to slash the use and risk of chemical pesticides in the European Union in half by 2030. SUR was rejected because decision makers felt that pesticide reduction wouldn’t be economically viable for farmers, said Knapp, adding that farmers need such protections to ensure healthy landscapes for future generations.

“Countries outside the [European Union] should also take note of these results, as many nations have looser pesticide regulations that may lead to more magnified impacts on wild bees,” said Clara Stuligross, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Riverside who was not involved in the study.

November 21, 2023

EPA internal emails suggest science took back seat to political pressure in pesticide approval

By Johnathan Hettinger

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering a new approval for a pesticide that would be used on Florida oranges and grapefruits despite the fact that agency scientists have repeatedly found the chemical does not meet safety standards designed to protect children’s health, internal agency records show.

EPA emails suggest that persistent pressure from chemical industry lobbyists, politicians and political appointees led the agency’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) to change its position on aldicarb from one that favored public health to one that critics say instead favored the interests of a North Carolina-based company called AgLogic that is seeking to expand sales of the insecticide. The EPA communications were obtained by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and reviewed by The New Lede.

In one 2020 email, for example, an EPA regulatory specialist wrote to AgLogic that while the EPA was not yet able to make a safety finding, the agency has “spent time brainstorming possible solutions”. The emails also show that scientists within the agency felt they had to “defend” their concerns about aldicarb as top agency administrators and lawmakers made expanded approval of the chemical a priority.

“What this shows is just how difficult it is for the agency to say no,” said Nathan Donley, Environmental Health Science Director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “They were going to reject it so many times, and [AgLogic] just said, ‘no, no no.’”

The revelations underscore whistleblower complaints made by EPA scientists in 2021 alleging that they have been routinely pressured for years to minimize or remove scientific evidence of the dangers certain chemicals posed to public health.

A risk to babies’ brains
Aldicarb is considered “extremely hazardous” by the World Health Organization and has been banned in more than 100 countries. It also is banned by the Rotterdam Convention, a global agreement to regulate the world’s most hazardous chemicals.

In the US, the EPA found in 2010 that aldicarb posed unacceptable risks to the developing brains of infants and young children, leading German conglomerate Bayer AG to cancel its registration for sales of aldicarb. At that time, the highest risk for infants and children was found to be when aldicarb was used in citrus. Since then, the EPA has allowed AgLogic a limited approval to sell aldicarb for use on cotton, dry beans, peanuts, soybeans, sugar beets, and sweet potatoes. Those uses have been rare, according to US Geological Survey data.

In recent years AgLogic has been pushing for expanded approval to allow the insecticide to be used by farmers on Florida grapefruits and oranges. The EPA did grant the approval in 2021 in the waning days of the Trump Administration, but that approval was overturned by a federal court in response to litigation brought by opponents. Approval was additionally rejected by Florida regulators who found that the continued use of the pesticide posed “an unacceptable risk to human, animal and environmental health in Florida.”

After a renewed effort by AgLogic, EPA approval for aldicarb use on citrus is now under consideration again.

March 27, 2023

Letter to the EPA: Take action on “Devil’s bargain” pesticides

An Open Letter to: Michael Regan, Administrator; Michal Freedhoff, Assistant Administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention; and Ed Messina, Office of Pesticide Programs Director, Environmental Protection Agency

The environment needs protection from neonicotinoid-coated pesticidal seeds, which are by far the greatest single insecticide application across the country, covering more than 100 million acres. Fundamental ecosystem integrity, plus the welfare of millions of birds and other animals where the coated seeds are planted, are at risk. You can be the difference makers if you seize the opportunity.

You know, as we NGO-types have recited to you in the past through broadly-supported letters and petitions, that a major body of evidence now shows neonic-coated seeds are the Devil’s bargain. While there may be some effective uses, they are mostly used prophylactically with no assessment of need. And yet they do great harm to essential pollinators, beneficial insects, and farmland birds, while contaminating the environment with their toxins.

In Ontario, Canada, when farmers were compelled to prove they needed to use neonic-coated seeds before being allowed by the provincial government, their use declined by a huge margin with no adverse economic effect.

Neonics have largely been banned in Europe since 2015. But, in the US, their excess production as a result of your agency’s leniency is a waste that resulted in the ongoing tragedy in Mead, Nebraska, where AltEn gathered about 80,000 tons of unwanted neonic-coated seeds in order to distill them for ethanol but instead ending up contaminating the environment to the tune of roughly $100 million in total damages. EPA’s uncritical approval of these seeds enabled the Mead disaster.

Of all the environmental threats in the United States, pesticides are conceptually the easiest to prevent because all the approved products out there resulted from registrations by your agency. But I am not asking you to cancel registrations, I am just asking you to take a closer look at EPA’s interpretation and regulatory issues that have allowed the harms of neonic-coated seeds to spin out of control.

March 13, 2023

Scientists warn pesticide impacts may be worse than we thought

In California, regulators have rolled out a plan to eliminate “high-risk” pesticides from agricultural and urban use. In Mexico, officials have announced a ban on the widely used weedkiller glyphosate. And in Canada, regulators have implemented some new pesticide restrictions and are reviewing the potential for others.

The moves, which are also playing out in various forms around the United States, have drawn opposition from chemical and farm industry forces. But supporters say they don’t go far enough to adequately protect human and environmental health.

Three University of British Columbia researchers recently published a paper that summarizes what they say is a growing body of evidence showing that pesticides are having harmful ecological impacts beyond what is already well understood, and that these impacts are not being recognized by current testing and regulations. The authors of the paper looked at dozens of studies to draw their conclusions.

The New Lede had a conversation with lead author Risa Sargent about the team’s findings. Sargent is an associate professor of applied biology within the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. She and colleagues reviewed studies from around the world, finding alarming results.

March 2, 2023

California pushes ahead with its new pesticide-reduction plan

By Pam Strayer and Carey Gillam

Amid mounting evidence of the risks some synthetic pesticides pose to human and environmental health, California regulators this week were pushing ahead with a recently announced “roadmap” aimed at transitioning the state to more sustainable options for managing weeds and insects,

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), in partnership with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), held two public webinars on Thursday seeking to explain the details of the plan – and bolster support for it – as the state nears the March 13 close of the public comment period on the proposal.

State officials announced the plan in January, saying the goal is to eliminate the use of “high-risk pesticides” by 2050 to “better protect the health of our communities and environment, while supporting agriculture, food systems and community well-being.”

That message was underscored in Thursday’s event: “The evolving science about risks and impacts from certain pesticide uses on our health and our environment, which too commonly impacts communities already overburdened by other environmental hazards, point to the importance of accelerating this system-wide shift,” Clare Mendelsohn deputy secretary for public policy at California Environmental Protection Agency, said in the evening webinar.

State officials say the Sustainable Pest Management (SPM) plan is visionary and will significantly overhaul harmful agricultural practices in the state, helping protect farmworkers and others put at risk through exposure to pesticides known to be harmful to human health.

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross has said that once implemented, the recommendations would “ensure an abundant and healthful food supply, protect our natural resources, and create healthy, resilient communities.”

But some say the plan falls short in many respects, and that faster and more aggressive actions are needed to protect and enhance soil health, adapt to climate change, and protect human health.

September 30, 2022

New study sees link between pesticide and arthritis

By Grace van Deelen

Exposure to a commonly used pesticide could put people at higher risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, according to a new study.

The findings, published last week in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research, looked at potential links between the disease and a class of chemicals known as pyrethroids, which are found in many commercial products used to control insects, including household bug killers, pet sprays and shampoos.

Using data collected as part of a long-term study of US residents called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the research team said they looked at levels of pyrethroids found in urine samples of the more than 4,000 study participants and analyzed how the exposure correlated with incidences of the disease.

The research team, which was led by scientists from Anhui Medical University in Hefei, China, concluded that levels of pyrethroid indicators in the urine of those who had self-reported a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis were “significantly higher” than those who had not reported the diagnosis.

September 26, 2022

High levels of toxic PFAS found in pesticides used in farming

By Shannon Kelleher

Widely used pesticides contain concerning levels of toxic “forever chemicals” called PFAS, adding to concerns about the human health risks posed by pesticides that are used in growing food, according to a study published last week.

The study found a type of PFAS called PFOS at levels hundreds of thousands of times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers safe in 6 out of 10 insecticides tested, including malathion, one of the most commonly applied insecticides in the world.

PFOS was found at levels ranging from 3,920,000 to 19,200,000 parts-per-trillion (ppt), far higher than the EPA’s health advisory for PFOS in drinking water, which is set at 0.02 ppt. PFOS is no longer manufactured in the US and has been linked to cancer, as well as problems with the liver, thyroid, and immune system.

PFAS chemicals, including PFOS, were also found in soil samples, corn kernels, string beans, and peanuts that had been sprayed with pesticides at a government research laboratory in Lubbock, Texas, where the study was conducted.

“The level of PFAS absorption by plants detected in this study suggests that this exposure pathway poses a major threat to the safety of our food supply,” Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the government watchdog group PEER, wrote in a Sept. 26 letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

“For this reason, it is quite possible that PFAS in our food is a bigger PFAS exposure pathway than water. This threat is not merely to the safety of U.S. agriculture but of the world’s food supply, as these pesticides are widely applied in other countries,” Whitehouse wrote in the letter.

September 15, 2022

Pesticides plague Californians of color, new study shows

by Shannon Kelleher

Carmen Obeso was pulling weeds at a strawberry field in Ventura County, California when she smelled something strange. Not far from where she stood, she spotted a machine spraying pesticides. With watering eyes and a sickened stomach, Obeso, a Latina farmworker, reported the incident to her crew leader. After insisting on treatment, she was permitted to visit an on-site health care clinic, where she says a doctor reassured her that she had not been exposed to anything harmful.

Obeso was interviewed by the county agricultural commissioner that same day and was asked if she felt droplets on her skin. She said she had not, since she could not feel the pesticide spray through her long sleeves, hat and face covering. Obeso says that because she said this, her case was never escalated further, and the company expected her back at work the following Monday.

But Obeso didn’t feel better by the next week, nor in the weeks that followed. Her eyes kept watering and began to feel grainy. She knew something was wrong, but the on-site physician still insisted she was fine. Finally, Obeso went to see a different doctor, who confirmed that her eyes had been damaged.

patrick-peul-a-farmer-spraying-pesticides-on-his-field

May 25, 2022

Farm groups ramp up battle to keep using banned pesticide to grow food

By Anthony Lacey and Carey Gillam

A powerful contingent of agricultural and produce grower groups this week filed the latest salvo in a years-long battle over the pesticide chlorpyrifos, seeking to reverse a new rule banning the chemical from use in U.S. food production.