pesticides

May 8, 2023

EPA move to allow new pesticide use on food crops worries health advocates

Federal regulators are poised to allow US farmers to start applying a pesticide currently restricted to non-food uses on fields producing an array of food crops in a move that scientists and advocates say could threaten human and ecological health.

Last week, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed decision to allow the first-ever uses of chlormequat chloride on wheat, barley, oats and a hybrid of rye and wheat known as triticale. The agency said the move is aimed at helping farmers limit the bending and breaking of small grains, a condition called lodging, which can impair harvesting and reduce yields. The pesticide acts as a plant growth regulator, controlling plant size by blocking hormones that stimulate growth prior to bloom.

Chlormequat is not currently approved for use on food or animal feed in the United States, though it has been allowed for use on ornamental crops grown in nurseries and greenhouses since 1962.

Farm groups welcomed the EPA action; the pesticide is already used by farmers in other countries on small grain products that are imported to the US. But critics say laboratory research has linked the chemical to problems with reproduction and development, and the EPA should not be putting people and animals at greater risk of exposure.

The crops included in the proposed decision can make up a significant portion of a child’s diet, a fact that makes the EPA’s proposal potentially dangerous for children, according to Phil Landrigan, a professor of public health and epidemiologist at Boston College.

A woman with a shaved head pulls back a curtain in a hospital room.

April 14, 2023

The ravages of cancer and a new fight for prevention

A growing understanding that exposure to certain chemicals in the environment may be a huge contributor to rising cancer rates has led to a new coalition of scientists and advocates working to alert the public and push regulators to protect people from carcinogens.

In her upcoming book, A New War on Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention, award-winning journalist Kristina Marusic profiles the efforts of those working to advance cancer prevention. The book weaves intimate stories from those dealing with cancer, inspiring work from scientists working to understand chemical exposures, and important context about the ways the US deals with cancer and chemical regulation.

The New Lede sat down with Marusic to discuss why preventing environmental exposures is the next big step in the war against cancer.

April 7, 2023

New book details behind-the-scenes drama of Roundup trials

It’s been nearly eight years since the filing of the first US lawsuit alleging that Roundup weed killer and other herbicides made by Monsanto with a chemical called glyphosate can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Fueled by findings from international cancer scientists, the allegations sprawled into nationwide litigation that ultimately included more than 100,000 plaintiffs, and unveiled long-hidden corporate secrets.

After plaintiffs won the first three trials, Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto in 2018 as the first Roundup trial was getting underway, agreed to pay more than $11 billion to try to settle the litigation, and pledged to withdraw Roundup and other glyphosate-based products from the US consumer market. Though most plaintiffs have now settled, many opted out of the settlement, and trials around the US are continuing.

Chadi Nabhan, MD, MBA, a lymphoma specialist formerly with the University of Chicago, has been a key expert witness in many of the plaintiffs’ cases, including those who won the first three trials.

In his new book, Toxic Exposure: The True Story behind the Monsanto Trials and the Search for Justice, Nabhan gives readers a behind-the-scenes look into how he and other experts working for the plaintiffs’ lawyers pieced together a complicated scientific puzzle that convinced jurors of the company’s liability and the link between Roundup and NHL.

The book details what it was like for Nabhan to join the fight against Monsanto, explains how the trials affected his life’s trajectory, and highlights the struggles faced by plaintiffs suffering from cancer. The New Lede sat down with Nabhan to discuss the link between Roundup and NHL, his experiences at the trials, and what he thinks the public should know.

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 16, 2023

Monsanto accused of wrongly excluding non-US citizen from Roundup settlement

By Huanjia Zhang

(This story was originally published in Environmental Health News and is republished here with permission.)

Monsanto Co. and its corporate parent Bayer are facing a federal lawsuit for civil rights violations after they allegedly excluded a farmworker from a Roundup cancer settlement because of her immigration status.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia, plaintiff Elvira Reyes-Hernandez is a migrant farmworker who worked on Virginia tree farms between 2015 and 2018, during which she sprayed the herbicide Roundup regularly.

In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) listed glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Over the years, a wide body of scientific evidence has also pointed to glyphosate exposure as causing an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Reyes-Hernandez was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2019 and subsequently sued Monsanto, claiming that Roundup exposure had a role in causing her cancer.

“Monsanto is very likely making calculated risks based on the characteristics of the people who are using their products,” said Katy Youker, an attorney for Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a co-counsel for the case.

By excluding non-US citizens from the settlement program, she said, Monsanto is effectively putting up a huge barrier for migrant farmworkers — most of whom do not have citizenship but are at the forefront of Roundup exposure — from seeking restitution.

This case could send an encouraging message to migrant and undocumented farmworkers who wish to bring legal action against the company. However, legal experts and farmworker advocates are still pessimistic about the prospect of them coming forward, especially when facing a myriad of hurdles and obstacles.

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.

March 1, 2023

California researchers link popular weedkiller to health problems in young adults

By Carey Gillam

Children exposed to a weedkiller commonly used in farming, as well as on residential yards and school playgrounds, appear to be at increased risk for liver inflammation and metabolic disorders in young adulthood and more serious diseases later in life, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The research, which was conducted by several California scientists and health researchers, including from the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, is the latest of many studies linking glyphosate herbicide to human health problems.

Glyphosate is better known as the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup products as well as scores of other weedkilling brands sold around the world. The chemical is considered the most widely used herbicide in history, and residues are commonly present in food and water, as well as in human urine.

Monsanto and Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto in 2018, maintain that Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides are safe when used as directed, and say the weight of scientific evidence demonstrates that safety. But more than 100,000 people in the US have alleged exposure to the weedkiller caused them to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Many independent scientific studies have linked glyphosate to cancers as well as liver disease, endocrine disruption and other health problems.

In the new study, researchers tracked 480 “mother-and-child duos” who live in the Salinas Valley of California, a key agricultural area, analyzing levels of glyphosate weed killer used in the area and levels of the weedkiller present in the urine of the mothers while they were pregnant and in the children as they grew. They also took into account levels of a degradation product of glyphosate known as AMPA in the urine of the study subjects. The researchers then assessed the liver and metabolic health of the children at the age of 18.

They concluded that higher levels of glyphosate residue and AMPA in urine in childhood and adolescence were associated with higher risk of liver inflammation and metabolic disorders in young adulthood. In addition, they found that agricultural use of glyphosate near participants’ homes from birth and up through age five was associated with metabolic disorders at age 18. Metabolic disorders in youth can lead to heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and liver disease later in life.

Both metabolic problems and liver disorders are increasing among children and young adults, according to the study.

February 9, 2023

Biden misses the point on cancer fight

In President Biden’s state of the union address Tuesday night, he pledged his devotion to a fierce “fight against cancer,” invoking a heart-tugging story of baby “Ava,” who began battling kidney cancer at the age of 1.

Biden spoke of a reignited “Cancer Moonshot” search for a cure for cancers that are impacting far too many lives, and of measures to cut healthcare costs to make treating cancer more affordable. He outlined an ambitious goal to cut cancer death rates by at least 50% in the next 25 years, and to “turn more cancers from death sentences to treatable diseases, provide more support for patients and their families.”

But nowhere in his lengthy prime-time address did Biden speak of working to rein in the vast, virtually unchecked, flood of environmental chemical contaminants that scientists say cause cancer.

A new book scheduled for release in May written by journalist Kristina Marusic lays out in stark terms how already-staggeringly highly rates of cancer are sure to continue to climb if we don’t slash our exposure to the chemicals known to cause cancer.

The harsh statistics are detailed by Phil Landrigan, director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College, in the introduction to Marusic’s A New War on Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention.

Landrigan writes: “From 1975 to to 2019, the number of new cancer cases per 100,000 Americans—the incidence rate—increased for multiple cancers. Incidence of multiple myeloma rose by 46%, incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 76%, and incidence of testicular cancer by 70%. In the same years, incidence of childhood leukemia increased by 35% and incidence of childhood brain cancer by 33%. These increases are far too rapid to be of genetic origin. They cannot be explained by better diagnosis.”

February 6, 2023

Bill to strengthen pesticide protections offers farm bill “wish list”

By Shannon Kelleher

Advocates are cheering US Senator Cory Booker’s recent move to reintroduce a bill that would strengthen legal protections against dangerous pesticides used in agriculture. However, the bill may face a steep uphill journey towards being signed into law.

The measure, titled “Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act of 2023” (PACTPA) would ban several widely used pesticides that have been linked through scientific research to a number of human and environmental health problems.

“We’d like to see the Senate and House agriculture committees look at this as a wish list,” said Christina Stucker-Gassi, a program manager at the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides. “They have the budget, they have the authority to look at that wish list and advance on some of [these issues] within the [2023] Farm Bill process,” she said, referring to a package of legislation passed every five years that could be one channel for moving PACPTA priorities forward.

PACPTA would especially benefit children, farmworkers, and rural communities, who suffer disproportionately from exposure to these toxic chemicals, according to Stucker-Gassi. The bill would help enable local communities to enact their own protective legislation against harmful pesticides and would put in place strict rules requiring employers of farmworkers to report pesticide-related injuries.

“It’s high time that farmworkers are included within the farm bill in substantial ways,” said Stucker-Gassi.

Booker initially introduced the bill in 2021 but it failed to gain traction amid strong resistance from powerful farm lobbying groups and the agrochemical industry, which reaps billions of dollars in revenues from pesticide sales.