Archive for the 'Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)' Category
15
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 15, 2025) With residues of the widely used weed killer glyphosate (Roundupᵀᴹ) in the food supply long documented, scientific attention has turned to the synergistic effects of the weedkiller— a magnified effect greater than the individual chemical effects added together. The authors of an article in World’s Poultry Science Journal write, “The synergistic toxic effects of commercial glyphosate formulations and their bioaccumulation in animal tissues are often overlooked in current safety assessments.” Following up on a previous action, Beyond Pesticides is telling Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the agency must consider the effects of pesticides in the context in which they are used and promote the organic alternative. Glyphosate residues in animal feed, as well as in water and through other exposure routes from food generally and residential areas, pose risks to both animal and human health, as these residues can bioaccumulate. As previously examined by Beyond Pesticides, the effects of pesticides are not limited to the crops to which they are applied. Synergistic effects of multiple chemical exposures are the rule, rather than the exception.  With poultry, the herbicide enters the production system through residues in genetically engineered feed. An earlier article in Scientific Reports concludes that glyphosate’s […]
Posted in Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Glyphosate, Livestock, synergistic effects, Take Action, Uncategorized | No Comments »
12
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 12, 2025) A team of Argentinian researchers conducted a study published in Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology of the combined effects of the herbicide glyphosate and the pyrethroid insecticide cypermethrin. The researchers observed significantly higher apoptosis in cells exposed to the mixtures than to the individual pesticides—a synergistic response. Apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death, is a standard way that tissues handle damaged cells to remove threats to their function. The researchers sought to investigate the cellular toxicity of each chemical, individually and in combination, and assessed whether the effects of the mixture were additive or synergistic. Additive effects occur when two individual chemicals amplify the same sort of response, often because the chemicals have similar structures. Synergism can occur when chemicals have different mechanisms of action but work together to create more powerful effects. Mixtures of pesticides are the least-studied area of research conducted for regulatory purposes. While regulators provide instructions to applicators regarding which pesticides can be applied together and combined in tank mixtures, there is no control over how pesticides travel through the environment once applied, as they flow through the air as spray drift, lodge in soils and water, and are incorporated into […]
Posted in Agriculture, apoptosis, cypermethrin, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Glyphosate, synergistic effects, Uncategorized | No Comments »
10
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 10, 2025) After being criticized by the chemical industry and allied agribusiness and service industry groups on the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) report in May, the strategy document, released yesterday, has tamped down efforts to reform government programs that regulate pesticides. There are no specific recommendations on improving the regulation of pesticides. Rather, the strategy appears to embrace business-as-usual and could even ramp up government efforts to tout the need for pesticides and claims that current regulatory reviews are effective and comprehensive. In a section of the strategy entitled “Increasing Public Awareness and Knowledge,” the document says: “EPA, partnering with food and agricultural stakeholders, will work to ensure that the public has awareness and confidence in EPA’s pesticide robust review procedures and how that relates to the limiting of risk for users and the general public and informs continual improvement.” This is at odds with the earlier MAHA assessment report which identified pesticides as substances of concern that, citing deficiencies in chemical reviews, “may be neglecting potential synergistic effects and cumulative burdens, thereby missing opportunities to translate cumulative risk assessment into the clinical environment in meaningful ways.” While the earlier report, Make Our Children Healthy Again: Assessment, […]
Posted in Agriculture, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), Announcements, Atrazine, Chemical Mixtures, Chemicals, Children, Children/Schools, Chlorpyrifos, Clean Water Act, Corporations, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Farmworkers, Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, Glyphosate, Groundwater, Label Claims, Pesticide Mixtures, Pesticide Regulation, Reflection, synergistic effects, Uncategorized, US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Water, Water Regulation | No Comments »
09
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 9, 2025) SprayDays California, the pesticide notification and mapping tool run by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), was updated in late August after public backlash (including from farmworkers), which identified inadequate notice of pesticide use to those who work in or live in proximity to agricultural fields. According to a DPR press release from August 28, these changes include attempts to bring down barriers for users so that, in the words of DPR Director Karen Morrison, the department can “provide Californians with access to information and services.” While public health advocates view notification as a step that may allow people to leave a treatment area or take shelter to reduce exposure, groups continue to express concerns about a focus on notification to the exclusion of addressing the root causes of exposure—chemical-intensive agriculture, despite the viability of organic compatible practices and products. The groups criticize the continuous registration of pesticide active ingredients and product formulations without considering widely available practices and nonchemical and nature-based alternatives to pest management. These include regenerative organic principles and practices that draw inspiration from Indigenous land management and agroecological systems that have thrived in coexistence with nature. Recent Updates There are […]
Posted in 1, 3-dichloropropene, 1-3D, Alternatives/Organics, California, Driscoll’s, Environmental Justice, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Farmworkers, Pesticide Drift, State/Local, Uncategorized | No Comments »
08
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 8, 2025) Beyond Pesticides today called on Congress to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to incorporate real world science into its evaluation of pesticide safety calculations by recognizing that daily exposure involves multiple chemicals and synergistic interactions— a magnified effect greater than the individual chemical effects added together. The organization cites numerous scientific studies that call public attention to this issue; that a realistic assessment of the human and environmental harm potentially caused by pesticides cannot be evaluated based on single-chemical, single-species tests. Given the numerous complexities associated with this type of assessment, the group points to organic land management in agriculture and residential areas as a more cost-effective approach, sending this message to Congress: EPA must consider the effects of pesticides in the context in which they are used and with reference to the organic alternative. A recent study, covered by Beyond Pesticides in its Daily News, found that the presence of Varroa mites in combination with the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid increases the risk of bee mortality and disrupts the larval gut microbiome. The study found synergy (a greater combined effect) between Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on honey bees, and imidacloprid. The findings were published last […]
Posted in Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), esfenvalerate, Imidacloprid, Increased Vulnerability to Diseases from Chemical Exposure, Pollinators, synergistic effects, Take Action, Uncategorized | No Comments »
04
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 4, 2025) A review of agricultural neonicotinoid insecticide regulations, published in Pest Management Science, evaluates the varied approaches being taken for bans and exemption-based restrictions in the European Union (EU), Canada, and the United States (U.S.). Despite an ever-growing and overwhelming body of science linking neonicotinoids (neonics) to adverse effects on pollinators and other nontarget species, the regulations fall short in protecting the environment and wildlife. The review, with the history and current status of neonics, lends further support for a full transition to organic agriculture and land management that removes neonicotinoid exposure routes and subsequent health threats. With the application of this widely used class of neurotoxic system insecticides increasing, so too has the concern over the long-term chronic effects on pollinators and other species from exposure. This concern, backed by scientific literature, has “led to increased governmental regulations since the mid-2010s, particularly in agricultural settings,” state the authors from Iowa State University and Washington State University. They continue, “These regulations have varied in terms of approach, geography, and timeline, starting with a ban implemented by the European Union (EU) and evolving into exemption-based regulations across two Canadian provinces and five U.S. states as of this […]
Posted in acetamiprid, Agriculture, Alternatives/Organics, Beneficials, Biodiversity, California, Canada, Clothianidin, dinotefuron, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), European Union, Illinois, Imidacloprid, Minnesota, neonicotinoids, New York, Pollinators, Quebec, Rhode Island, thiacloprid, Thiamethoxam, Vermont | No Comments »
28
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 28, 2025) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on August 12, 2025, released a statement, “EPA Announces Action to Protect Endangered Species from Insecticide Methomyl,” in which the agency announced label changes for methomyl, a carbamate insecticide, with mitigation measures that are being criticized as allowing great risks to biodiversity and human health. The label changes, following the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) final biological opinion issued on January 1, 2024, actually establish mitigation measures to be determined by applicators using the Bulletins Live! Two website prior to use. EPA claims that this grower determined action will meet the standards of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by “reduc[ing] runoff and spray drift from treated areas into species’ habitats.” However, the process does not include monitoring and oversight to determine whether the rigorous standards of ESA are being met. The agency says that mitigation tracking is “at the field or farm level,” but it is not required to be submitted to the agency. EPA announced on August 20 that it is holding a 90-minute public webinar on September 16, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET to provide information on the ecological runoff/erosion and spray drift mitigation measures that can […]
Posted in Agriculture, Aquatic Organisms, Biodiversity, Carbamates, Cardiovascular Disease, Drinking Water, Endangered Species Act (ESA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Methomyl, Oxidative Stress, Pesticide Regulation, Water, Wildlife/Endangered Sp. | 1 Comment »
22
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 22, 2025) Legislative language moving through Congress—intended to prevent farmers, consumers, and workers from holding pesticide manufacturers accountable for the harm caused by their toxic products—is being opposed by a broad coalition of farmers, beekeepers, consumers, environmentalists, and workers with the release today of a joint statement opposing a dramatic change in a fundamental legal right. The document, Protect the Right of Farmers, Consumers, and Workers to Hold Pesticide Companies Accountable for Their Harmful Products, is joined by 51 organizations, coalitions, businesses, and leaders representing tens of thousands of members and communities. The legislation at issue is hidden in a provision of the Appropriations bill (Section 453) that has passed through the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and is headed for a vote of the full House in the next couple of weeks, followed by the U.S. Senate. The Appropriations provision is being pushed by chemical companies in the wake of extraordinary jury verdicts against Bayer/Monsanto, amounting to billions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages, for “failure-to-warn” liability claims involving glyphosate (Roundupᵀᴹ) weed killer products. The pesticide has been classified as cancer-causing by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (a part of […]
Posted in Congress, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Failure to Warn, Farmworkers, Federal Agencies, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Label Claims, Litigation, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pesticide Regulation, Preemption, State/Local, Uncategorized, Wyoming | No Comments »
18
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 18, 2025) With pesticide manufacturers pushing to stop cancer victims (and others suffering adverse effects) from suing them under longstanding ”failure to warn law,“ U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) is proposing to uphold this unequivocal right to protection. Senator Booker has introduced the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act (S. 2324) to protect the rights of farmers and consumers to hold pesticide manufacturers responsible for the harm caused by their toxic products. This effort comes in the wake of congressional and state legislative attacks on “failure-to-warn” liability claims that are taking place in response to extraordinary jury verdicts against Bayer/Monsanto for harm caused by glyphosate weed killer products like Roundup.ᵀᴹ 📣 Beyond Pesticides, with allied organizations across the U.S., is asking the public to “Tell your U.S. Senator to co-sponsor S. 2324, the Pesticide Injury Accountability Act.” This bill will amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1972 (FIFRA) to create a federal right of action for anyone who is harmed by a toxic pesticide. Despite growing peer-reviewed scientific evidence linking widely used pesticides to a host of health harms, including cancers, birth defects, endocrine disruption, Parkinson’s disease, and infertility, the chemical industry and its allies in elective office are pushing to deny victims access to […]
Posted in and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), Bayer, Cancer, Chem-China, Congress, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Failure to Warn, Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, Glyphosate, Herbicides, Label Claims, Monsanto, Pesticide Regulation, Preemption, Syngenta, Take Action | No Comments »
13
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 13, 2025) The data on the adverse effects of the insecticide chlorpyrifos, still widely used in food production, continued to accumulate with the latest being a study published in PLOS One that finds perinatal exposure to the chemical in mice can alter sleeping patterns, lead to brain inflammation (particularly in female individuals), and impact gene expression linked to immune response and epigenetic effects. The adverse health effects are greater overall in female mice than male mice, emphasizing the significance of disproportionate impacts across species. Chlorpyrifos has been a threat to human and ecological health for decades, originally as a general-use pesticide for homes, gardens, and agriculture, and then restricted to most nonresidential uses in 2000. Currently, the chemical’s permitted uses include food and feed crops, golf courses, as a non-structural wood treatment, and adult mosquito control for public health (insect-borne diseases) uses only. According to health and environmental advocates, there is a long history of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failure to adequately protect human and environmental health from chlorpyrifos, which is linked to endocrine disruption, reproductive effects, neurotoxicity, brain, kidney, and liver damage, and birth and developmental effects. It took 21 years after negotiating a stop […]
Posted in Brain Effects, Chlorpyrifos, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Epigenetic, Immunotoxicity, Litigation, Sleep Disorders, Uncategorized | No Comments »
04
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 4, 2025) Comments on EPA proposal to bring back controversial use of herbicide dicamba due by Saturday, September 6, 2025, at 11:59 PM ET. With more than 90 percent of soybeans (also corn and the most common species of cotton) planted in varieties genetically engineered to be herbicide-tolerant, the agrichemical industry and industrial agribusiness are lining up to bring back agricultural spraying of the controversial weed killer dicamba—linked to crop damage associated with the chemical’s drifting off the target farms. The courts in 2020 and 2024 vacated EPA’s registration authorizing “over-the-top” (OTT) spraying of dicamba, leading to these uses being stopped in the 2025 growing season. (See Daily News.)             Genetically engineered crops, widely adopted in 1996 with Monsanto’s glyphosate-tolerant (Roundup Ready) soybean seeds and plants, have been plagued by weed resistance to the weed killers, movement of genetic material, chemical drift, and health and environmental hazards associated with pesticide exposure. Despite the problems and escalating herbicide use in chemical-dependent no-till (no tillage) agriculture, regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have facilitated the astronomical growth of a genetically engineered food system. The industry makes the environmental argument that less […]
Posted in Agriculture, Bayer, Dicamba, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Genetic Engineering, Glyphosate, Monsanto, Pesticide Drift, Seeds, Take Action, Uncategorized, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) | 7 Comments »
01
Aug
(Beyond Pesticides, August 1, 2025) On June 30, Kyle Kunkler started work as deputy assistant administrator for pesticides in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Mr. Kunkler is an experienced agribusiness lobbyist, having come directly from the American Soybean Association, where he was director of government affairs. He joins Nancy Beck, PhD, herself a migrant from the American Chemistry Council. Not coincidentally, a mere three weeks after Mr. Kunkler’s appointment, EPA opened the floodgates to allow use of the controversial herbicide dicamba to flow unrestricted once again through the nation’s ecosystems. Dicamba has been associated with phytotoxic crop/plant damage (leaf damage, stunted growth, or death) and cancer. Three formulations of the herbicide whose registrations had been vacated via litigation will be reinstated by EPA after a public comment period that expires on August 22 at 11:59 PM EDT. Dicamba is manifestly one of the worst ideas the pesticide industry has ever devised, according to many farmers and pesticide safety advocates. Because of resistance to other herbicides, pesticide scientists developed the “[insert pesticide]-ready” concept in which a crop plant is genetically engineered to resist exposure to a herbicide, “Roundup-Ready” seeds being the most obvious example, so […]
Posted in 2,4-D, Agriculture, amines, Cancer, Dicamba, Drift, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Glyphosate, Herbicides, nitrosamines, Pesticide Regulation, Uncategorized | No Comments »
31
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 31, 2025) A study published in Environmental Advances finds that hundreds of honeybee hives across central and northern Italy are contaminated with various pesticides and their metabolites, including glyphosate and fosetyl. “There was no significant difference in glyphosate presence between dead/dying and live bees, suggesting chronic exposure rather than acute toxicity. However, higher pesticide concentrations in dead/dying bees indicate potential sublethal effects contributing to colony distress,” according to the authors. This peer-reviewed study builds on the mounting evidence outlined in the literature connecting pesticide residues to nontarget harm to pollinators and other insects and animals that are critical to biodiversity. Background and Methodology “The primary objectives of this study were to develop and validate a reliable, sensitive method for analyzing polar pesticides [highly soluble in water] in honeybees and to investigate polar pesticides residue levels in honeybees across northern and central Italy,” say the researchers of this study, who conduct research at the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Lombardy and Emilia Romagna “Bruno Ubertini”, Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Umbria and Marche “Togo Rosati”, and Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Lazio and Tuscany “M. Aleandri.” 314 honeybee samples were gathered voluntarily from local beekeepers in six regions of northern and […]
Posted in Chemical Mixtures, Chemicals, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), glufosinate, Glyphosate, International, Persistence, Poisoning, Pollinators, Uncategorized | No Comments »
29
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 29, 2025) Are neurological diseases increasing around the world? Yes and no, according to a report published by The Lancet in 2024 on the global burden of nervous system diseases between 1990 and 2021. About 3 billion—a third of the world’s people—suffer from some nervous system condition. These diseases cause 11 million deaths and 443 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which are a measure of the years lost to illness, disability, or early death. Neurological disorders are now the world’s largest source of disability. The Lancet report does not include an analysis of the role of pesticides in the burden of neurological disease worldwide, although environmental health research continues to expand the evidence that pesticide exposure is a major contributor to that burden. The Lancet report indicates that DALYs from Parkinson’s disease have increased by 10 percent, and autism spectrum disorder and dementia by 2 percent each. Multiple sclerosis has declined by 11 percent, according to the report. Importantly, most of the improvement has come from medical interventions, not prevention—in other words, people are living longer with the diseases rather than avoiding them altogether. But this is not true globally: The burden of disease, and particularly premature death, […]
Posted in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Nervous System Effects | No Comments »
28
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 28, 2025) As the problem of antimicrobial-resistant infections continues to escalate to pandemic proportions, Beyond Pesticides is again calling on Congress and the federal government to urgently start to eliminate the use of pesticides that contribute to antibiotic resistance. While data accumulates on antimicrobial resistance, including Daily News reporting of yet another study in June in Environmental Geochemistry and Health, the 79th United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on antimicrobial resistance (September 2024) points to  nearly five million deaths in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant microbial infections and $1 trillion in annual health care costs per year by 2050 globally. According to the UN’s political declaration, “[G]lobally, antimicrobial resistance could result in US$ 1 trillion of additional health-care costs per year by 2050 and US$ 1 trillion to 3.4 trillion of gross domestic product losses per year by 2030, and that treating drug-resistant bacterial infections alone could cost up to US$ 412 billion annually, coupled with workforce participation and productivity losses of US$ 443 billion, with antimicrobial resistance predicted to cause an 11 per cent decline in livestock production in low-income countries by 2050.” These findings grow out of “[G]eneral Assembly resolution 78/269, to review progress on global, regional and […]
Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotic Resistance, Antimicrobial, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Pesticide Regulation, Take Action, Uncategorized, United Nations | No Comments »
23
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 23, 2025) Attention turns to the U.S. Senate on legislation that (i) shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by those harmed from pesticide product use, (ii) limits states’ authority to regulate pesticides, and (iii) prevents EPA from regulating PFAS—after passage in the House Appropriations Committee on July 22. The Senate Appropriations Committee meets tomorrow, July 24, to vote on language that has not yet been released to the public. Efforts by Democrats failed to strike sections 453, the shield provision, and 507, the PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) language, from the FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill. The same provisions could show up in the Senate Appropriations Bill. Beyond Pesticides is: Asking U.S. Senators to help stop Appropriations Bill provisions that strip farmers and consumers from suing for pesticide harm, ensuring that language in House Appropriations Bill, Sections 453 and 507, not be included in the Senate bill. *If Senator is on the Appropriations Committee, the letter submitted will automatically adjust the language by recognizing their Committee membership. The Need for Court Action in the Face of EPA Dismantling With the massive dismantling of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs by the current administration, the appropriations bill provision limits court oversight, […]
Posted in Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Failure to Warn, Litigation, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, PFAS, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
23
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 23, 2025) The pesticide manufacturer Syngenta has settled several lawsuits in federal courts in Pennsylvania and Illinois in recent months and is seeking a global settlement with over 6,000 litigants in order to avoid nationwide trials linking their weed killer paraquat to Parkinson’s Disease, according to reporting by The New Lede and The Guardian, respectively. Internal Syngenta documents released by these news outlets in a report dubbed The Paraquat Papers indicate that the company was aware of scientific evidence linking paraquat to Parkinson’s and attempted to quash research efforts to disclose the evidence.  These lawsuits were filed on behalf of former farmers and agricultural workers who went on to be diagnosed with neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s Disease, after using paraquat-based herbicide products for long periods of time. This litigation comes at a time when pesticide manufacturers across the board are facing increased scrutiny and subsequent financial repercussions. Simultaneously, their allies in Congress are revamping their efforts to shield chemical manufacturers from “failure to warn” lawsuits and establish federal preemption of local state governments’ ability to regulate pesticides more stringently than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Many of the paraquat lawsuits in federal courts, known as multidistrict […]
Posted in Bayer, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Failure to Warn, Syngenta, U.S. Supreme Court, Uncategorized | No Comments »
21
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 21, 2025) Beyond Pesticides is asking every member of the U.S. Representatives to voice their opposition in advance of a vote as early as Tuesday, July 22 on a provision before the House Appropriations Committee—in the Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill—that shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by those harmed from pesticide product use and limits states’ authority to regulate pesticides. This is a fight to protect farmers’ and consumers’ right to sue pesticide manufacturers for misbranding products and their failure to warn product users. The language before the Committee is in Section 453 of the bill passed last week by the subcommittee on a straight party-line vote, with Republicans supporting the bill language. Beyond Pesticides is also asking Congress members to remove section 507, which prohibits EPA action on PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), including fluorinated pesticides. Update from July 21, 2025, at 4 PM: ⏰ Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1) moved forward with amendments to strike sections 453 and 507 of the FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill, which is a provision that provides immunity for pesticide manufacturers from farmer and consumer lawsuits seeking compensation from product harm. Update from July 23, 2025, at 10 AM: The FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill passed out of […]
Posted in Agriculture, Bayer, Cancer, Chem-China, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Failure to Warn, Glyphosate, Litigation, Monsanto, Parkinson's, Preemption, Take Action, Uncategorized | 12 Comments »
17
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 17, 2025) The widespread use of pesticides year-after-year, decade-after-decade, has been found to lead to unintended consequences not only for public health but also for broader ecosystem stability and biodiversity. These impacts include potential nontarget harm through adverse developmental and reproductive effects on the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, the subject of a peer-reviewed study in Royal Society Open Science. The authors, who studied the organochlorine fungicide chlorothalonil, conclude, “Chlorothalonil exposure decreases larval survival, extends developmental duration and reduces fecundity.” “Even at the lowest tested concentration, chlorothalonil exposure resulted in reduced body weight, ovariole count and egg production compared with non-exposed individuals,” the researchers find. This study builds upon years of scientific research findings and critiques of existing federal pesticide law, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) failure to fully assess the adverse impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem stability during the pesticide registration review process. Methodology and Background The goal of this study is to evaluate the health impacts on a nontarget insect species (Drosophila melanogaster) from chronic exposure to chlorothalonil. This specific fungicide was chosen for various reasons, including its wide use across cereals, vegetables, and fruits; evidence linked to adverse health effects on […]
Posted in Biodiversity, Chlorothalonil, Drift, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Fungicides, Pesticide Drift, Pollinators, Uncategorized | No Comments »
04
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 3-4, 2025) On this Independence Day, Beyond Pesticides calls for holistic solutions that, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence, move the nation to ensure “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The founders of the United States were aware of the existential threat of corruption to democratic institutions. Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, warned in Federalist No. 68 of The Federalist Papers that the presidency could be overtaken by a despotic figure without adequate safeguards. James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, in Federalist No. 10 speaks to the danger that factions—defined as a group of people or entities “… who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community”—impose on the general public, if not checked by safeguards in the country’s political system. The foundational principles in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution have been challenged under the current administration and in the U.S. Congress. Communities are facing a fourfold attack on these principles and the centuries-old promise of the nation: […]
Posted in Bayer, Biodiversity, Cancer, Chemical Mixtures, Children, Climate Change, Congress, Corporations, Disease/Health Effects, Environmental Justice, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Failure to Warn, Health care, Indigenous People, Label Claims, Monsanto, National Politics, Native Americans, Parks for a Sustainable Future, Pesticide Regulation, Preemption, State/Local, Take Action, Uncategorized, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) | No Comments »
24
Jun
(Beyond Pesticides, June 24, 2025) As changes in the executive branch of the federal government upend expectations among environmental stakeholders, the regulation of food safety in the United States is being revealed as a rickety structure built over a century with unpredictable and sometimes contradictory additions, extensions, remodels, and tear-downs. In the short term, clarity is unavailable, but there have been calls for revision and strengthening of regulatory processes—requiring lawmaker and regulator willingness to incorporate the vast body of evidence that pesticides do far more harm than good, and that organic regenerative agriculture is the surest path to human and ecological health. News reports out of Costa Rica in May brought public attention to drafted legislation to ban pesticides in the country that the World Health Organization (WHO) has defined as “extremely or highly hazardous, or those with evidence of causing cancer, genetic mutations, or affecting reproduction, according to the Globally Harmonized System (GHS).” The headline sparked a relook in this Daily News at the current and historical failure of U.S. policy, which allows cancer-causing pesticides in food production and land management, despite the booming success of a cost-effective and productive, certified organic sector for which petrochemical pesticides are not […]
Posted in Agriculture, Alternatives/Organics, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), Breast Cancer, Cancer, Endocrine Disruption, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Immunotoxicity, multi-generational effects, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Pesticide Mixtures, Pesticide Regulation, synergistic effects, Uncategorized, World Health Organization | No Comments »
23
Jun
(Beyond Pesticides, June 23, 2025) At the close of National Pollinator week, Beyond Pesticides says in an action that all species—and their ecosystem—are threatened by the failure of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to perform its statutory duties under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Under FIFRA, EPA is required to register pesticides only when they pose no “unreasonable risk to man [sic] or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits.” Under ESA, EPA must, like all federal agencies, “seek to conserve endangered species and threatened species and shall utilize their authorities in furtherance of the purposes” of the ESA—which are “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions” through which “the United States has pledged itself as a sovereign state in the international community to conserve to the extent practicable the various species of fish or wildlife and plants facing extinction.” In this context, Beyond Pesticides […]
Posted in Alternatives/Organics, Biodiversity, Birds, Children, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Pesticide Regulation, Pollinators, Take Action, Uncategorized, Wildlife/Endangered Sp. | No Comments »
17
Jun
(Beyond Pesticides, June 17, 2025) Funding cuts in the current budget bill include drastic cuts in research essential to protect farmers, farmworkers, and their families. There are many federal agencies funding research, but among the most important of those funding research affecting farmers, farmworkers, and their families are the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).  >> Tell Congress to restore funding that protects the health of farmers, farmworkers, and their families. EPA funding for the Bioecological Center for Research on Children’s Health (BeRCH) project was cut after almost two years. This project had the potential to address farmworker children’s health. Farmworker children can face many challenges–including poverty, language barriers, inadequate housing, discrimination, fear of family separation, exposure to agricultural chemicals, food insecurity, and migration. BeRCH was designed to identify, understand, and address the cumulative impacts on the health, development, and growth of farmworker children. The project goals were to examine farmworker children’s exposures to environmental toxins (pesticides, heavy metals, particulate matter) and non-chemical psychosocial stressors (poverty, food insecurity, trauma, discrimination, etc). Working in collaboration with the Florida State University (FSU) health clinic in Immokalee, the project would have examined threats, implemented strategies to improve health outcomes for farmworker children, and collaboratively established […]
Posted in Agriculture, Children, Congress, Disease/Health Effects, Environmental Justice, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Farmworkers, Florida, Occupational Health, Pesticide Drift, State/Local, Take Action, Uncategorized, Women's Health | 2 Comments »