10
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 10, 2025) [Beyond Pesticides grieves for those tragically harmed by the Los Angeles fires.] As the new year begins with the bleak and devastating reminder brought on by the Los Angeles fires, the nation and world are reminded once again that dramatic land management changes are necessary to address the erratic weather conditions contributing to the force and effect of the fires and the length of the fire season. This is only the most recent reminder, as Beyond Pesticides and many organizations call for an urgent end to land management practices and inputs that rely on the production and use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, which contribute to the global climate crisis. Often incorrectly referred to as natural disasters, environmental disasters, including fires, floods, and severe weather events, are brought on or exacerbated by widespread reliance on disruptive chemicals, which played a role in a delayed start to the southern California rainy season, hurricane-force winds, and low humidity levels—all elevated by climate change. As organic is increasingly understood to be a climate solution, OrganicClimateNet last year launched an aggressive effort to build the base of organic farmers in the . . .
Posted in Alternatives/Organics, Congress, Fertilizer, International, National Organic Standards Board/National Organic Program, NOSB National Organic Standards Board, Regenerative, Uncategorized, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) by: Beyond Pesticides
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09
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 9, 2025) In a Frontiers in Public Health review article, researchers report on the wide body of science connecting adverse effects to female reproductive system, such as infertility, with exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). The authors call these effects a significant concern for public health, as there has been growing evidence of EDCs with risk factors for decreased fertility.  Infertility “affects a substantial proportion of the world’s population with approximately one in six people affected,†the researchers note. They continue: “Over the last 70 years, global fertility has been constantly in decline due to behavioral and societal changes… [E]merging evidence has shown that infertility incidence is linked to exposure to environmental factors such as tobacco, alcohol, and a wide range of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) including pesticides (chlorpyrifos, glyphosate, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane [DDT] and methoxychlor), phthalates, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), dioxins, and bisphenols.â€Â In this review, over 100 studies are summarized to showcase the link between EDC exposure and reproductive effects in women, including infertility and related diseases such as endometriosis, premature ovarian insufficiency (POI), and endocrine axis dysregulation. The studies included investigating the “mechanisms by which EDCs cause ovarian aging, folliculogenesis, decrease of oocyte quality, . . .
Posted in Atrazine, Children, Chlorpyrifos, DDT, endometriosis, Endosulfan, Glyphosate, Infertility, Reproductive Health, Women's Health by: Beyond Pesticides
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08
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 8, 2024) On the brink of the second Trump administration, a legal victory just last month overturned a rule issued under the first Trump administration to “practically eliminate oversight of novel GE technology and instead let industry self-regulate,†as characterized by the Center for Food Safety (CFS). CFS served as counsel in the case for the plaintiffs, led by the National Family Farm Coalition. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California decision, responding to the lawsuit filed in 2021 on behalf of farm and environmental groups, remanded the case back to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) with instructions to follow. “This is a critical victory on behalf of farmers, the planet, and scientific integrity,” says George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, also a plaintiff in the case. Mr. Kimbrell continued, “USDA tried to hand over its job to Monsanto and the pesticide industry and the Court held that capitulation contrary to both law and science.” It remains to be seen whether the incoming Trump administration will appeal this court decision. Unpacking The Center for Food Safety Litigation This legal battle began . . .
Posted in Contamination, Federal Agencies, Genetic Engineering, Labeling, Litigation, Monsanto, Plant Incorporated Protectants, Uncategorized, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) by: Beyond Pesticides
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07
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 7, 2025) A report, released in December 2024 from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), confronts the problem of “siloing†environmental elements—food, health, water, biodiversity and climate change—when they instead intersect at a nexus from which each element affects all the others. The problem is essentially that all the elements are part of the same crisis, yet actions to address issues within each—and, importantly, to resist addressing them—are dealt with in isolation. A proper perspective, gleaned from the report, is to view each element from the center where all parts meet, thus addressing the issues in coordination. According to the IPBES report, “[F]ragmented governance of biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change with different institutions and actors often working on disconnected and siloed policy agendas, resulting in conflicting objectives and duplication of efforts.†The IPBES is an independent body analogous to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) but structured similarly and in close contact with the United Nations (UN). The new report comes at the behest of IPBES’s 147 member countries—75 percent of the UN’s membership—to address the interconnections among the five global crises. The report strongly . . .
Posted in Agriculture, Alternatives/Organics, Biodiversity, International, Parks, Parks for a Sustainable Future, Pollinators, Uncategorized, Water, Wildlife/Endangered Sp. by: Beyond Pesticides
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06
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 6, 2025) With the incoming U.S. president promising the “most aggressive regulatory reduction†ever seen in the country’s history, attention shifts to local and state governments’ responsibility to protect health and the environment. While the reliance on local governments to fill the gaps left by deficient federal action is not new, the U.S. system of federalism has historically and constitutionally required a sharing of powers from local to state to federal, with a reliance on agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a basic level of protections. While the role of local and state governments has been critical to ensuring environmental and public health protection when scientific findings have shown federal action to be inadequate, the new administration has outlined a course that suggests an increasingly important role for local and state governments. As Beyond Pesticides has reported, “Mr. Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax,†has targeted “every one†of Mr. Biden’s policies designed to transition the United States away from fossil fuels,†according to The New York Times. This is happening as the country and world face serious catastrophic threats of ongoing and escalating health, . . .
Posted in Alternatives/Organics, Climate, Fertilizer, Lawns/Landscapes, Parks, Parks for a Sustainable Future, Pesticide Regulation, Take Action, Uncategorized by: Beyond Pesticides
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03
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 3, 2025) Pesticides that are sprayed and become airborne significantly disrupt ecological balances and affect nontarget species that are crucial for maintaining biodiversity, according to an article in Environmental Pollution. In this review of studies throughout countries in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, among others, researchers from Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Poland reinforce the science about pesticides’ direct effect on species and the cascading effects of pesticide drift through various trophic levels within food webs that lead to overall devasting population effects. This study “addresses the interconnectedness of these impacts and illustrates the complex threats that pesticide drift poses to biodiversity across multiple ecosystems,†the researchers state. They continue: “Impacts include reduced reproductive rates, changes in growth, development, and/or behavior, modification of diversity or community organization, disruption of food webs, and declines of important species. Pesticides disrupt the delicate balance between species that define a functioning ecosystem. Impacts can be local, transnational, or even continental.†Pesticide drift threatens beneficial species and subsequently the entire agricultural system. The process of pesticide drift, “in which up to 25% of applied pesticides are carried by air currents, can transport . . .
Posted in 2,4-D, Alternatives/Organics, Beneficials, Biodiversity, Dicamba, Drift, Ecosystem Services, Glyphosate, Pesticide Drift, Pollinators, soil health, Soil microbiome by: Beyond Pesticides
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02
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 2, 2025) Adding to the body of scientific literature on the fast escalating antibiotic resistance crisis is a study published by Chinese scientists in Environmental Science & Technology, which shows that antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in soils move up through trophic levels via predation. Gut microbiomes of soil fauna have been found to be reservoirs of ARGs. How this process operates in soils is vital, because what happens in soil microbes does not stay there. If bacteria altered in soils move up trophic levels, ARGs may strengthen the multicellular agricultural pests the industry is trying to kill—insects, fungi, plants—not to mention bringing their libraries of resistant genes into the microbiomes of vertebrates, including humans. Antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon, but human activity has greatly increased its presence in ecosystems the world over, including in one of the ecological niches of greatest concern to the future of food and human health: soils. Soils are complexes of mineral and organic substrates populated by billions of microorganisms and tiny animals. They are rapidly being degraded by conventional agriculture, forestry, and land management practices generally—more than a third of the world’s agricultural land has . . .
Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotic, Antibiotic Resistance, Biodiversity, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Resistance, Soil microbiome, Uncategorized by: Beyond Pesticides
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24
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 24, 2024 – January 1, 2025) We wish you a healthy and happy holiday season! The health and environmental challenges that we face as families and communities across the nation and worldwide require us to stay engaged. The stark reality of the challenges ahead energizes us at Beyond Pesticides to strengthen our program—now, more than ever!  And, we trust that you, like us, want to push forward for a livable future. In this context, please see our annual report and summary on the important work that we are doing, and please consider a contribution to Beyond Pesticides during this holiday season. While the threats of health, biodiversity, and climate crises grow exponentially, the solutions we have advocated for decades are now within reach. We know how to produce food and manage land without petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, as organic food is widely available. Beautiful parks, playing fields, and schoolyards do not require toxic chemical use. At the same time, the regulatory system underperforms, as existential health and environmental problems escalate.  And, we know that individual steps that we take to stay healthy, as important as they are, cannot . . .
Posted in Alternatives/Organics, Announcements, Biodiversity, Children, Climate, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Events, Holidays, Parks, Parks for a Sustainable Future, Pollinators, Reflection, Seasonal, Uncategorized, Year in Review by: Beyond Pesticides
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23
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 23, 2024) As the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) proposes to list the Monarch butterfly as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, a look at the factors contributing to the butterfly’s catastrophic decline includes a stunning failure of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation of pesticides to protect biodiversity and the ecosystems necessary to its survival. While there are many factors affecting the survival of Monarchs, EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) has allowed pesticide use to continue unabated, with only rhetorical attention to the problem. Meanwhile, the science shows a range of pesticide effects associated with insecticides and herbicides. A study published in PLOS One in June identifies insecticides as the primary driver in butterfly’s decline, as EPA points, almost exclusively to herbicide use and the destruction of Monarchs’ food source, milkweed habitat. While two or several factors can be true at the same time, EPA has failed to consider the confluence of factors, including the impacts of climate, as rising temperatures are exacerbated by the production and use of petrochemical pesticides. FWS is stepping in at a critical time with looming biodiversity collapse . . .
Posted in Agriculture, Biodiversity, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), Pollinators, Take Action, Uncategorized by: Beyond Pesticides
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20
Dec
Image: Art Page submission from Carol Moyer, “Monarch Butterfly Sideways with Closed Wings.“ (Beyond Pesticides, December 20, 2024) On December 12, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) opened a public comment period on its proposal to list the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) as a threatened species and to designate critical habitats for the species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Under the proposal, the designated habitats would span approximately 4,395 acres throughout overwintering sites in coastal California. The public comment period will be open until March 12, 2025. These suggested protections call attention to the role of chemical-intensive agriculture in affecting populations of pollinators and other beneficial organisms. George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, shares in a press release that the “monarch listing decision is a landmark victory 10 years in the making. It is also a damning precedent, revealing the driving role of pesticides and industrial agriculture in the ongoing extinction crisis… But the job isn’t done: Monarchs still face an onslaught of pesticides. The Service must do what science and the law require and promptly finalize protection for monarchs.†In the docket, FWS states, . . .
Posted in Beneficials, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Ecosystem Services, Endangered Species Act (ESA), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), Habitat Protection, Pollinators, Wildlife/Endangered Sp. by: Beyond Pesticides
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19
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 19, 2024) As The New York Times reported last month, the government in South Africa declared a national emergency—23 children died and nearly 900 people were sickened from pesticide poisoning in Johannesburg’s Soweto township. The illnesses and fatalities have been traced to small amounts of highly neurotoxic pesticides, including the insecticides terbufos and aldicarb, found in local food items. These chemicals, described by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as “street pesticides,†are being increasingly used (legally and illegally) for pest infestations in the townships and informal settlements of South Africa’s poorest communities, where poverty and inadequate waste collection exacerbates the pest management challenges. Without formal electricity, running water, or municipal garbage collection, many residents rely on highly toxic pesticides for pest infestations in their homes and makeshift markets, resulting in food inadvertently being contaminated with pesticides. The announcement highlights the dangers of allowing these highly toxic agricultural chemicals to be used in farming, with tragic consequences for vulnerable communities when they are diverted for use in urban settings. This tragic situation also draws attention to the elevated threat that pesticides pose when stringent enforcement mechanisms are not in place to ensure . . .
Posted in Agriculture, Aldicarb, Bayer, Children, contamination, Death, Environmental Justice, Farmworkers, Food Borne Illness, Imidacloprid, Monsanto, organophosphate, Paraquat, Pesticide Regulation, Pests, Poisoning, Rodenticide, Rodents, terbufos, thiacloprid, Uncategorized, United Nations by: Beyond Pesticides
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18
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 18, 2024) A bombshell investigation conducted by Canada’s National Observer finds that Bayer, which acquired the Monsanto chemical company in 2018, colluded with environmental and public health regulators in Canada to obstruct a proposed neonicotinoid insecticide ban originally introduced in 2018. Advocates were stunned back in 2021 when Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA)—the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—reversed its decision to phase out imidacloprid, clothianidin, and thiamethoxam by 2023. The weaponization of scientific institutions and regulatory processes is commonplace in the U.S. context, with U.S. Right to Know publishing a report earlier this year on the corrupting impact of pesticide manufacturers at the Entomological Society of America 2023 annual meeting. (See Daily News here.) There are numerous Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports signaling EPA corruption and failures, including persisting industry influence in the cancer risk assessment process, inadequate leadership in addressing community harms of a former creosote-treated wood preservative plant turned Superfund site in Pensacola, Florida, and failure to protect the public from endocrine-disrupting chemicals, to name several examples. In a recent press release, the David Suzuki Foundation, alongside numerous medical, legal, and civil society . . .
Posted in acetamiprid, Bayer, Canada, Clothianidin, Health Canada, Imidacloprid, Monsanto, neonicotinoids, Pesticide Regulation, thiacloprid, Thiamethoxam, Uncategorized by: Beyond Pesticides
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17
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 17, 2024) A systematic review of studies on pesticides as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on body weight, published in Biomedicines, evaluates 36 clinical and preclinical studies and links their agricultural use to obesity. The authors, with the lead researchers from the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Catholic University of Valencia San Vincente, Valencia, Spain, assess studies on a range of pesticides, including organophosphates, pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, and others. In addition to concluding that the EDCs promote obesity, they report that the chemicals cause “other anthropometric changes by altering lipid and glucose metabolism, modifying genes, or altering hormone levels such as leptin.†Endocrine disruption and obesity are public health concerns, and there is a wide body of science linking pesticide exposure to these effects (see more here). “Obesity is considered to be a worldwide pandemic that leads to an increase in medical costs and thus becomes a public health problem,†the researchers share. They continue, “[Obesity] is also associated with the increased production of environmental chemicals, also called environmental obesogens, used mainly in agriculture, as disease vector control, helping to prevent harmful effects caused by fungi, bacteria, or even pests, using pesticides, insecticides, . . .
Posted in 2,4-D, acetamiprid, Benomyl, Bifenthrin, Carbamates, Carbendazim, Chlorpyrifos, Clothianidin, cypermethrin, Dicamba, Diuron, Endocrine Disruption, Fenoxycarb, Fipronil, Fungicides, Glyphosate, Imidacloprid, Isoxafutole, Malathion, mancozeb, Maneb, neonicotinoids, Obesity, organophosphate, Permethrin, Synthetic Pyrethroid, Thiamethoxam by: Beyond Pesticides
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16
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 16, 2024) The fact that three-quarters of all U.S. fruits and nuts and one-third of all U.S. vegetables are grown in California means that all U.S. food eaters have a stake in how food is grown there. California is proposing the continued use of the fumigant 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D, also known as Telone), which can cause deadly effects to farmworkers and endocrine disrupting effects to communities of people exposed through nontarget chemical drift from farmland. So, it is with deep concern that Beyond Pesticides is urging the state of California, where the chemical is undergoing review, to ban the toxicant. Endocrine disruption, an adverse effect for which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has never completed a pesticide testing protocol, adversely affects the functioning of glands and hormones and is linked to major life-threatening diseases in most organ systems in the body—contributing to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, early puberty, infertility and other reproductive disorders, and childhood and adult cancers. In a recently released draft regulation, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) will allow highly elevated exposure to 1,3-D, ignoring the scientific literature and . . .
Posted in 1, 3-dichloropropene, 1-3D, ADHD, Agriculture, Alzheimers's, Cancer, Diabetes, Endocrine Disruption, Obesity, Parkinson's, Telone, Uncategorized by: Beyond Pesticides
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13
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 13, 2024) In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the registration applications of BASF Corporation and Mitsui Chemicals Crop & Life Solutions, Inc. for the use of different formulations of the L-isomer of glufosinate (also known as “L-glufosinate†and “glufosinate-Pâ€) as new active herbicidal ingredients. This decision marks one of the first times that EPA has employed its new Herbicide  Strategy Framework to determine the level of mitigation necessary to protect listed species and critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Glufosinate is an organophosphate, with known neurotoxic, reproductive/developmental effects, toxic to aquatic life, and mobile in soils (see Beyond Pesticides Gateway). Scientists have found that formulated glufosinate is generally more toxic to aquatic and terrestrial animals than the technical grade active ingredient. Manufacturers are introducing newer glufosinate products as alternatives for glyphosate-based herbicides, like Bayer/Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ and dicamba. The Center for Biological Diversity notes in comments submitted to EPA on this decision, “L-glufosinate has the potential to be used on tens of millions acres of land every year given the crops EPA has proposed to register it on. The scale of potential use is far above most new active . . .
Posted in Agriculture, BASF, Chemical Mixtures, Chemicals, Endangered Species Act (ESA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), glufosinate, Herbicides, Lawns/Landscapes, Pesticide Regulation, Uncategorized, Wildlife/Endangered Sp. by: Beyond Pesticides
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12
Dec
(Beyond Pesticides, December 12, 2024) A literature review of 161 articles in Discover Toxicology finds that pesticides with different mechanisms of action cause memory and learning impairments. These effects are noted in nontarget species including humans. Pesticide “[e]xposure during development, as well as chronic environmental and occupational exposure, can contribute to decreased cognitive performance,†the researchers say. With a focus on organophosphate pesticides, synthetic pyrethroids, and neonicotinoid insecticides, the authors highlight neurological impacts. Both learning and memory are crucial for the survival of many species. “Considering the importance of learning and memory for human and non-human animal behavior and the growing association between pesticide exposure and cognitive impairment, the aim of this review was to describe the studies showing the impact of pesticide exposure on memory and learning abilities in nontarget species, providing evidence of the impact of pesticides in central nervous system function,†the researchers state. The 161 articles included in the review were identified through database searches in PubMed/Medline and Scielo. The authors note, “Inclusion criteria for article selection included all articles published in English between 2015 and 2024 containing original studies in animals or humans with single or multiple pesticides exposure.†. . .
Posted in behavioral and cognitive effects, Bifenthrin, Brain Effects, Carbamates, Children, Chlorpyrifos, Clothianidin, Cyfluthrin, cypermethrin, Deltamethrin, Diazinon, Farmworkers, Flumethrin, Glyphosate, Imidacloprid, Learning Disabilities, Malathion, mancozeb, neonicotinoids, organophosphate, Oxidative Stress, Permethrin, Pollinators, pyrethroids, Synthetic Pyrethroid, thiacloprid, Thiamethoxam by: Beyond Pesticides
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