“Translocations can persist for years after exposure. Some accumulated damage will be repaired, but not everyone’s repair capacity is the same. Previous studies have suggested that chromosomal breaks can double an adult’s lifetime risk for cancer, though implications for children are unknown,” says first author Manuela A. Orjuela, MD, ScM, assistant professor of clinical environmental health sciences and pediatrics (oncology) at Columbia University Medical Center and a pediatric oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.

The researchers followed 113 children, age 5, who are part of a larger cohort study in New York City. They assessed the children’s exposure to naphthalene; a CDC laboratory measured levels of its metabolites””1- and 2-naphthol””in urine samples. (Metabolites are products of the body’s metabolism, and can serve as a marker for the presence of a chemical.) Researchers also measured CAs in the children’s white blood cells using a technique called fluorescent in situ hybridization. Chromosomal aberrations were present in 30 children; of these, 11 had translocations. With every doubling of levels of 1- and 2-naphthol, translocations are 1.55 and 1.92 times more likely, respectively, to occur.

Napthalene is classified as a possible carcinogen by the International Agency for Cancer Research. Inhalation of vapors is linked to nasal tumors in laboratory animals. It has also been associated with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and blood disorders, including several types of anemia. Studies have shown reactions including acute hemolysis, jaundice and death in infants wrapped in blankets that had been stored with mothballs. German workers exposed to naphthalene were found to have a variety of cancers, including laryngeal, gastric, nasal, and colon cancer.

Napthalene belongs to a class of air pollutants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Prior research at the CCCEH has established a link between prenatal exposure to PAH and increased risk for childhood obesity, IQ deficits, and CAs. The new study is the first to present evidence in humans of CAs, including translocations, associated with exposure to one specific PAH ””naphthalene”” ,during childhood.

To obtain a better sense of the long-term consequences of naphthalene exposure, Dr. Orjuela and other CCCEH investigators are following some of the children in the study as they reach fourth grade. While they expect to see further translocations, they do not expect to see any signs of cancer in the white blood cells. “So far, the translocations seem to be random, and there has been no evidence of the specific translocations that are known to be associated with leukemia. This is entirely expected; leukemia is very rare.” Frederica Perera, DrPH, senior author on the paper, adds that, “The findings provide yet more evidence of the vulnerability of the young child to carcinogenic air pollutants.”

Apart from mothballs, crystalline naphthalene is used as a deodorizer for diaper pails and toilets. It is also used as an intermediate in the manufacture of a wide range of products, including phthalate plasticizers, resins, dyes, pharmaceuticals, insect repellents, and other products. Since naphthalene easily vaporizes, its gas has a variety of other fumigant uses, including use as an insecticidal soil fumigant.

Source: Columbia University Press Release

The chemical manufacturer Syngenta has two weeks to report its own evidence before the ban officially goes into effect. If enacted, France’s Agriculture Ministry stated that the ban will take effect before the start of canola sowing season in late summer. Minister Le Foll reinforced the fact that farmers do not need to rely on this product to protect their crop. “To protect rapeseed [canola] plants, there exist alternatives to coating seeds that are already widely used. If the withdrawal of the authorization (for Cruiser OSR) is confirmed, farmers will therefore have solutions to call on,” Minister Le Foll explained.

The decision to ban the coating of canola seeds with thiamethoxam, commercially labeled Cruiser OSR, is based on a late March study in the journal Science, entitled “A Common Pesticide Decreases Foraging Success and Survival in Honey Bees.” In their study, the researchers used Radio-frequency identification (RFID) to test the hypothesis that a sub-lethal exposure to a neonicotinoid indirectly increases hive death rate through homing failure in foraging honey bees. When exposed to sub-lethal doses of thiamethoxam, at levels present in the environment, honey bees are less likely to return to the hive after foraging than control bees that were tracked with RFID, but not intentionally dosed with pesticides. Higher risks are observed when the homing task is more challenging. The survival rate is even lower when exposed bees are placed in foraging areas with which they are less familiar.

The legal petition in the U.S., crafted in collaboration with environmental groups and beekeepers around the county, points to the fact that EPA has failed to follow its own regulations. EPA granted a conditional, or temporary, registration to clothianidin in 2003 without a required field study establishing that the pesticide would have no “unreasonable adverse effects” on pollinators. Granting conditional registration was contingent upon the subsequent submission of an acceptable field study, but this requirement has not been met. EPA continues to allow the use of clothianidin nine years after acknowledging that it had an insufficient legal basis for initially allowing its use. Additionally, the product labels on pesticides containing clothianidin are inadequate to prevent excessive damage to non-target organisms, which is a second violation of the requirements for using a pesticide and further warrants removing all such mislabeled pesticides from use.

A British study, published in the journal Science at the same time as the French study, “Neonicotinoid Pesticide Reduces Bumble Bee Colony Growth and Queen Production,” examines the impacts of another neonicotiniod pesticide imidacloprid on bumble bee colony health. Researchers exposed colonies of the bumble bees to levels of imidacloprid that are realistic in the natural environment, and then allowed them to develop naturally under field conditions. Treated colonies had a significantly reduced growth rate and suffered an 85% reduction in production of new queens compared to unexposed control colonies. The study is particularly noteworthy because it shows that bumble bees, which are wild pollinators, are suffering similar impacts of pesticide exposure to “managed” honey bees.

A third recent study in published by Harvard University’s School of Public Health in the June 2012 Bulletin of Insectology reinforces the link between the neonicotinoid imidacloprid and CCD even at sub-lethal doses. The Harvard study provides an in situ look into CCD by performing the experiment in the field following normal commercial beekeeping practices. Researchers looked at the effect of feeding High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) to honey bees, a common practice during the winter months. Results show that 94% of the hives had died after exposure to imidacloprid, at levels hypothesized to have been present in HFCS since the introduction of neonicotinoids.

Neonicotinoids are taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through pollen, nectar and gutation droplets from which bees then forage and drink. Several EU countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia, have put restrictions on the use of these toxic substances. beyond Pesticides and other groups are calling on the U.S. to do the same.

Learn more at Beyond Pesticides’ Pollinator Protection webpage.

The videos include such notable presentations as:

“Inventing the Future of Food“ by Gary Hirshberg — Mr. Hirshberg discusses organics, his experience with Stonyfield Farm and future of food. Mr. Hirshberg is chairman and co-founder of Stonyfield Farm, the world’s leading organic yogurt producer, and the author of Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World. Previously, he directed the Rural Education Center, the small organic farming school from which Stonyfield was spawned. Before that, he had served as executive director of The New Alchemy Institute, a research and education center dedicated to organic farming, aquaculture and renewable energy. He has also authored books on wind power and organic gardening. He is a speaker on sustainability, climate change, the profitability of green and socially responsible business, organic agriculture, and sustainable economic development.

“Poisoning of the Bees” by Dave Hackenberg. Mr. Hackenberg is the beekeeper who first discovered the disappearance of honey bees known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and he tells his story here of his fight to save the bees. Mr. Hackenberg believes that pesticides contribute to CCD and that honey bees are a barometer of the environment. He is featured in the film Vanishing of the Bees and various media reports, including this 60 Minutes segment. Mr. Hackenberg founded Hackenberg Apiaries in 1962 as a high school vo-ag project. Today, he and his son operate approximately 3,000 hives of bees in 5 states for pollination and honey. David is a past president of the American Beekeeping Federation, and currently serves as co-chair of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board.

“Essential Lessons from Pesticide History” by John Wargo, PhD. Dr. Wargo is the Tweedy-Ordway professor in environmental health and politics at Yale University. He has lectured extensively on the limits and potential of environmental law, with a focus on human health. He has recently written Green Intelligence: Creating Environments that Protect Human Health. The book won the Independent Publishers Award of Gold Medal in the field of “environment, ecology, and nature” for 2010. He compares the history of five serious and global environmental threats to children’s health in the twentieth century: nuclear weapons testing, pesticides, hazardous sites, vehicle particulate emissions, and hormonally active ingredients in plastics.

“Pesticides and Federal Policy” by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). Senator Blumenthal has long advocated for stricter control of pesticides to protect children and as Connecticut’s Attorney General joined with five other Attorneys General (AG) to sue the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to adopt pest management practices that only use pesticides as a last resort. At the time, he said, “HUD is solving one problem with another problem -controlling pests, but poisoning public property and the children and citizens who live in public housing, There are safer and sounder affordable alternatives to these pesticides.” He also joined other AGs in pushing EPA to disclose secret or “inert” ingredients in pesticide products, saying, “The public has a basic right to know what they’re being exposed to so they can make educated decisions on the products allowed into their own homes. That’s especially true when products may be harmful to their health.” In that spirit, earlier this year Senator Blumenthal joined 54 Members of Congress in calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require the labeling of genetically engineered food.

Also included are several workshops such as Local Action to Protect the Environment, Protecting Pollinators, and Genetically Engineered Food. Be sure to visit the full playlist to see the rest of the videos.

According to the Baltimore Sun, the study is an effort to find new ways to combat the disease, which infected 1,600 people in Maryland in 2010. Half of the 185 families that have volunteered for the study will have water sprayed on their lawns to serve as a control group, while the other half will receive the bifenthrin treatment. The 185 families that have signed up so far this year get a $25 gift card, lowered from $40 given to the 440 participants last year.

Last year, while the pesticide reduced the amount of ticks on treated lawns compared to the control group, there was a negligible difference in both the numbers of ticks that volunteers reported on their bodies and the number of Lyme disease cases. State officials have declared that they will not advise residents to use pesticides to combat Lyme disease if this second year of testing shows similar inconclusive results in the number of tick bites and Lyme disease cases between the two groups.

Beyond Pesticides believes that it is wrong to put Maryland families at risk of pesticide exposure, especially since the study proved ineffective in its first year. Beyond Pesticides has spoken directly with state health officials in an effort to relate concerns about this study. “It’s improper to be conducting a human experiment like this,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides.

Bifenthrin is identified as an endocrine disruptor by the European Union in May 2010, and is considered a possible carcinogen by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is a pyrethroid class pesticide, a group of known neurotoxic chemicals. A recent study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives (2007) of infants born to women with agricultural exposure shows a possible impact of bifenthrin on the occurrence of autism spectrum disorders. EPA studies with rodents test subjects have led the organization to classify bifenthrin as a possible carcinogen due to the increase of bladder, kidney, and lung tumors in mice exposed to the substance. Further, EPA studies have associated bifenthrin with developmental/reproductive effects, and an increased risk of ovulatory dysfunction in females. See Beyond Pesticides’ action alert on EPA’s proposal to expand the use of these pesticides.

The CDC website and informed consent form do not elucidate the hazards posed by this pesticide.
It reads, “If a person (including a young child or a pregnant woman) or animal were to swallow breathe or touch the chemical, the individual or animal is not likely to become ill. If the chemical comes into contact with the skin or eyes before it has dried, some individuals may have short term irritation that will likely disappear within 12 hours. There are no studies that indicate bifenthrin exposure risks in humans are increased for children or women who are pregnant. At the beginning of the study, you will receive a bifenthrin product information sheet about how to clean skin, flush eyes, and if you should seek medical attention for yourself or pets in case this occurs.”

Beyond Pesticides has stated that it is misleading for the CDC to claim that there are no studies that indicate exposure risks for humans are increased for children or pregnant women. In fact, it would be highly unethical to conduct such a study. Instead, EPA extrapolates the impact on people based upon data from rodent/animal studies. Volunteers for the study may interpret the CDC’s statements to indicate that the pesticide is safe for people, when in reality it is a potential carcinogen.

Lyme disease is the most prevalent tick-borne disease in the U.S. It is caused by the bacterium Borrelia Burgdorferi that is harbored by several species of ticks, but most significantly the blacklegged tick that is ubiquitous in the northeastern and north central United States. According to Bryan Schwartz, M.D. of John Hopkins University, ticks start their life feeding on smaller hosts, such as small birds and reptiles, but prefer to feed on white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus), a notorious transmitter and reservoir of the bacterium. After molting, adult ticks prefer to feed on larger mammals, such as deer and humans, at which time they may have already picked-up the bacterium. An infected tick transmits the disease by biting and attaching itself to its host. Research suggests that a tick must feed for 24-48 hours before B. Burgdorferi is transmitted to the host. This makes proper education and awareness about Lyme disease prevention incredibly important.

Although Beyond Pesticides commends the state for attempting to address this serious disease, we advocate for the least-toxic method of tick control possible. For more information on non-toxic tick control, see our fact sheet.

Take Action: Contact Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and let them know pesticides controls are not the answer to Lyme Disease!

“The scope of this historic settlement is enormous and its protection of the health of millions of Americans across the country is a huge benefit to the public, the environment, and the taxpayers,” the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer Stephen M. Tillery told the media.

The individual amounts that eligible CWSs will recover will be calculated based on the levels of atrazine and frequency of atrazine contamination measured in the water of impacted CWSs and the population served by each CWS. The 300 CWSs with the highest contamination levels will recover 100 percent of their costs.

Atrazine Settlement Details

”¢ Under the reported settlement, Syngenta will pay $105 million to pay the claims of the nearly 2,000 CWS that have ever experienced atrazine contamination, costs, and attorneys’ fees.
”¢ The settlement resolves the claims of CWSs raised in this lawsuit. It will have no impact on any consumer’s ability to bring an action for personal injury as a result of ingestion of atrazine. It will also not prevent a CWS from bringing a lawsuit in connection with a point-source spill or against a farmer or applicator who used atrazine other than in accordance with the label instructions.
Ӣ Any CWS that does not want to be bound to the terms of the settlement has until August 27, 2012 to exclude itself.
Ӣ Every CWS that has ever found a measurable level of atrazine in its raw or finished water is eligible for payment.
”¢ Each CWS’ share will be determined based on its historical atrazine contamination levels and volume of water filtered.
Ӣ Generally, CWSs that processed more water or frequently had high concentrations of atrazine are eligible for more funds; CWSs that processed less water or whose atrazine contamination was sporadic or limited will get less compensation.
Ӣ All of the $105 million will be distributed. None will revert to Syngenta.
Ӣ Public records sand other data available to the plaintiffs show that approximately 2,000 CWSs have detected atrazine in their water.
Ӣ Syngenta expressly denies any liability for contamination of drinking water by atrazine and any risk to public health from the herbicide.

Atrazine is used to control broadleaf weeds and annual grasses in crops, golf courses, and residential lawns. It is used extensively for broadleaf weed control in corn. The herbicide does not cling to soil particles, but washes into surface water or leaches into groundwater, and then finds its way into municipal drinking water. It is the most commonly detected pesticide in rivers, streams and wells, with an estimated 76.4 million pounds of atrazine applied in the U.S. annually. It has been linked to a myriad of environmental concerns and health problems in humans, including disruption of hormone activity, birth defects, and cancer, as well as effects on human reproductive systems, as we have noted.

Atrazine is also a major threat to wildlife. It harms the immune, hormone, and reproductive systems of aquatic animals. Fish and amphibians exposed to atrazine can exhibit hermaphrodism. Male frogs exposed to atrazine concentrations within federal standards can become so completely female that they can mate and lay viable eggs.

In March, U.S. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) reintroduced legislation to ban atrazine, HR 4318. “No one should ever have to worry if the water they drink is making them sick or affecting fertility,” said Rep. Ellison. “Germany and Italy banned atrazine use in 1991 and EU health officials banned its use in 2003. Yet, almost 10 years later the United States is still using it. We need to remove toxins like atrazine from our waterways.”

In 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a petition to ban atrazine. Beyond Pesticides submitted comments last year in support of this petition in which we outline in detail the numerous reasons that this chemical is harmful and unnecessary. Read our full comments here.

According to reports on the settlement, Syngenta is neither accepting contamination responsiblity nor acknowledging hazards associated with its product.

Source: Korein Tillery

The article reported that Dr. Denison had spoken with EPA officials who told him that they do not expect any regulations for engineered nanoscale pesticides or chemicals to be approved by OMB. OMB is a powerful agency within the Executive Office of the President of the United States which exercises final authority for approving all significant regulatory actions initiated by Cabinet departments. “My understanding is that there is a view in some circles in the White House that they do not want to stigmatize nanomaterials nor stifle the technology even by requiring the reporting of information that EPA needs to make judgments as to whether there are risks,” Dr. Denison said.

EPA published a proposed rule in June 2011, citing existing authority under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) that would allow the agency to obtain information on engineered nanoscale pesticide ingredients. In the proposal, EPA said it would prefer to collect information under Section 6(a)(2) of FIFRA, which requires registrants to inform the agency of additional information related to “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment,” because it is “the most efficient and expedient administrative approach.”

The Chemical Regulation Reporter article cited Mr. Hanson from the Center for Food Safety as saying that OMB will not approve EPA’s preferred approach. It quoted Mr. Hanson as saying that, “I am of the opinion that OMB has basically told the EPA, ‘Don’t bother’”‰” with a final rule. Mr. Hanson further stated that EPA may move forward with an alternative approach of asking registrants to submit data voluntarily on nanoscale ingredients, but that voluntary data requests are unlikely to be successful because registrants are not under any legal obligation to respond.

EPA has already granted a conditional registration to a pesticide product containing nanosilver as a new active ingredient. The antimicrobial pesticide product, HeiQ AGS-20, a silver-based product for use as a preservative for textiles to help control odors, is being granted registration despite a long list of outstanding studies that have yet to be submitted and reviewed by EPA. As a testament to EPA’s flawed registration process, the agency will now require additional data on the product after it has entered the marketplace to confirm its assumption that the product will not cause ”˜unreasonable adverse effects tp human health or the environment,’ the general standard for registration under the FIFRA.

The article also reported that a separate proposed rule from EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), which was developed to obtain information on engineered nanoscale chemicals, is stalled at OMB. In 2009, EPA said it would be developing regulations for engineered nanoscale chemicals because industry had failed to provide information voluntarily. Based on EPA’s authority under the Toxic substance Control Act, OPPT submitted its regulatory proposal to OMB on Nov. 22, 2010. That proposed rule has neither been approved nor withdrawn, and OMB has remained publicly silent on its position on the rulemaking.

The two proposed rules purportedly being held up at OMB are separate from rulemaking actions applicable to the use of nanoparticles used in sunscreens, cosmetics, and drugs. A coalition of six consumer safety groups filed suit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on December 21, 2011, citing FDA’s chronic failure to regulate nanomaterials used in these products. The lawsuit demands that FDA respond to a May 2006 petition that the coalition filed calling for regulatory actions, including nano-specific product labeling, health and safety testing, and an analysis of the environmental impacts of nanomaterials in products regulated by FDA. After years of no federal regulatory oversight, FDA in April 2012 issued two draft guidance documents addressing the use of nanotechnology by the food and cosmetics industries. The documents “encourage” safety assessments for cosmetic products containing nanomaterials, including the need for modification or development of new methods for standardized safety tests. The new guidelines for the first time show the FDA believes nanomaterials deserve greater scrutiny

Source: Chemical Regulation Reporter

Since 2006, beekeepers in North America and Europe have lost about one-third of their managed bee colonies each year due to “colony collapse disorder.” While the exact cause is unknown, researchers believe pesticides have contributed to this decline. One group of crop pesticides, called “neonicotinoids,” has received particular attention from beekeepers and researchers. Neonicotinoids, including clothianidin and thiamethoxam, in addition to imidacloprid, are highly toxic to a range of insects, including honey bees and other pollinators. They are taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through pollen, nectar and gutation droplets from which bees forage and drink. They are particularly dangerous because, in addition to being acutely toxic in high doses, they also result in serious sublethal effects when insects are exposed to chronic low doses, as they are through pollen and water droplets laced with the chemical as well as dust that is released into the air when treated seeds that have been coated with the chemicals are planted. Previous research has shown that these effects cause significant problems for the health of individual honey bees as well as the overall health of honey bee colonies, including disruptions in mobility, navigation, feeding behavior, foraging activity, memory and learning, and overall hive activity.

The UCSD biologists focused this particular study on imidaclprid, which has been banned for use in certain crops in some European countries and is being increasingly scrutinized in the United States. “In 2006, it was the sixth most commonly used pesticide in California and is sold for agricultural and home garden use,” said James Nieh, PhD, a professor of biology at UCSD who headed the research project with graduate student Daren Eiri, the first author of the study. “It is known to affect bee learning and memory.”

The two biologists found in their experiments that honey bees treated with a small, single dose of imidacloprid, comparable to what they would receive in nectar, became “picky eaters.” “In other words, the bees preferred to only feed on sweeter nectar and refused nectars of lower sweetness that they would normally feed on and that would have provided important sustenance for the colony,” said Mr. Eiri. “In addition, bees typically recruit their nestmates to good food with waggle dances, and we discovered that the treated bees also danced less.”

The two researchers point out that honey bees that prefer only very sweet foods can dramatically reduce the amount of resources brought back to the colony. Further reductions in their food stores can occur when bees no longer communicate to their kin the location of the food source. “Exposure to amounts of pesticide formerly considered safe may negatively affect the health of honey bee colonies,” said Dr. Nieh.

To test how the preference of sugary sources changed due to imidacloprid, the scientists individually harnessed the bees so only their heads could move. By stimulating the bees’ antennae with sugar water, the researchers were able to determine at what concentrations the sugar water was rewarding enough to feed on. Using an ascending range of sugar water from 0 to 50 percent, the researchers touched the antennae of each bee to see if it extended its mouthparts. Bees treated with imidacloprid are less willing to feed on low concentrations of sugar water than those that were not treated. A video showing the experiments can be found on UCSD’s YouTube page:

The biologists also observed how the pesticide affected the bees’ communication system. Bees communicate to each other the location of a food source by performing waggle dances. The number of waggle dances performed indicates the attractiveness of the reward and corresponds to the number of nestmates recruited to good food. “Remarkably, bees that fed on the pesticide reduced the number of their waggle dances between fourfold and tenfold,” said Mr. Eiri. “And in some cases, the affected bees stopped dancing completely.”

On March 21, 2012, commercial beekeepers and environmental organizations filed an emergency legal petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend use of clothianidin, another neonicotinoid pesticide which affects bees, urging the agency to adopt safeguards. The legal petition, supported by over one million citizen petition signatures, targets the pesticide for its harmful impacts on honey bees. The petition points to the fact that EPA failed to follow its own regulations. EPA granted a conditional, or temporary, registration to clothianidin in 2003 without a required field study establishing that the pesticide would have no “unreasonable adverse effects” on pollinators. Granting conditional registration was contingent upon the subsequent submission of an acceptable field study, but this requirement has not been met. EPA continues to allow the use of clothianidin nine years after acknowledging that it had an insufficient legal basis for initially allowing its use. Additionally, the product labels on pesticides containing clothianidin are inadequate to prevent excessive damage to non-target organisms, which is a second violation of the requirements for using a pesticide and further warrants removing all such misbranded pesticides from use.

For more information on how pesticides affect pollinators and what you can do to help, see Beyond Pesticides’ pollinators program page.

Source: UCSD press release

The study was conducted over the course of four weeks using several 300-gallon tanks that were filled with water to mimic pond conditions. Using EPA calculations of how much chemical the farmer would use and how much would be expected to runoff into nearby bodies of water, they dosed the tanks with chlorothalonil. Though some species were able to recover from the chemical assault, researchers found that the ecosystem was fundamentally changed.

“In addition, to reducing biodiversity and altering ecosystem functions, chlorothalonil reduced the decomposition of waste, an important service that freshwater ecosystems provide to humans,” said Dr. McMahon.

“Interest in the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functions stems at least partly from the concern that anthropogenically-driven declines in biodiversity will reduce or alter the benefits offered by ecosystems,” Dr. Rohr said. “Surprisingly, however, this is one of the first studies to actually manipulate an anthropogenic factor and link it to changes in ecosystem functions mediated by declines in biodiversity.”

Chlorothalonil is a widely used golf course and food crop broad-spectrum fungicide, which was originally registered in 1966. It is registered for use against plant diseases such as powdery mildew, early and late blight and various rots and molds. Previous studies have found high concentrations of chlorathalonil in bee hives. Large concentrations have also been discovered in high altitudes, where polluted air from farm land often gets pushed, which helps to shed light on shrinking amphibian populations at high altitudes.

The researchers point out that this study emphasizes the need to re-evaluate the safety of chlorothalonil and hope that this work will encourage further research on effects of anthropogenic factors on ecosystem functions in systems with complex food webs.

Though probably well-intentioned —Dr. Mateo has already invested $6 million of her family’s money and $12 million in grants from nonprofits, on research, creating educational programs about hygiene, and donating paint to more than 8,000 homes in Latin America and Africa””the product puts the people it is supposed to protect from disease at risk for other health problems. Organophosphate insecticides have been linked to a host of neurodevelopmental problems, especially in children. Because these OPs are endocrine disruptors, exposure to the paint could cause damage, even at the extremely low levels touted by its manufacturer. Both chlorpyrifos and diazinon have been linked to reproductive and developmental effects and organ damage. Pyriproxyfen exposure causes kidney and liver damage as well. Furthermore there could be a synergistic effect among the pesticides in the paint or other chemicals in the home.

With the indoor use of organophosphates decreasing globally because of health concerns, one must question the decision to include these outdated pesticides in new products. Studies have shown that exposure to organophosphate compounds cause hyperactivity and cognitive deficits in animals. A study published in Pediatrics found that exposure to organophosphates in developing children might have effects on neural systems and could contribute to ADHD behaviors, such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Researchers discovered that for children with a 10-fold increase in the concentration of the most common phosphate metabolites measured in their urine, the odds of ADHD increases by more than half compared to those without detectable levels. A recent study found that exposure of pregnant women to organophosphate pesticides may affect both length of pregnancy and birth weight. Women with higher levels of organophosphates were found to have pregnancies that were 3 to 4 days shorter and babies that were about â…“ pound lighter on average than women with lower levels of pesticides. Just this spring, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences linked prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos to brain abnormalities.

According to Business Week, various formulations of the paint are already approved for use in 15 countries, including China, Germany, and Spain. Dr. Mateo is seeking approval in the U.S. and a recommendation from the World Health Organization. Inesfly plans to move its manufacturing of the paint from a Spanish facility to Ghana to cut costs and make the paint cheaper. They hope the pesticide paint will be the same price as traditional paint. Inesfly also believes that its combination of three insecticides will help combat pesticide resistance.

Beyond Pesticides recently reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) has recently advocated for multiple toxic pesticides to combat mosquito resistance to insecticides that is showing up in sub-Saharan African. Insecticide resistance, according to the WHO report, is already rampant in 64 malaria-ridden countries and may result in as many as 26 million more cases of malaria a year, which could end up costing between $30 and $60 million annually for tests and medication. Mosquitoes in sub-Saharan African countries are becoming resistant to pyrethroid insecticides, which are used extensively for household spraying and treating bed nets, as well as to the organochloride compound DDT -which is still used in many parts of the world to control mosquitoes. Rather than reducing the reliance on these products, WHO is recommending rotating classes of pesticides used to spray inside homes and developing a new non-pyrethroid insecticide to treat bed nets.

Beyond Pesticides advocates fighting malaria without poisoning future generations of children in malaria hot spots. “We should be advocating for a just world where we no longer treat poverty and development with poisonous band-aids, but join together to address the root causes of insect-borne disease, because the chemical-dependent alternatives are ultimately deadly for everyone,” says Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides.

“Farmers want to be good stewards and neighbors by purchasing seeds and growing corn that supports healthy honey bees and successful beekeepers,” said Doug Voss, a Minnesota corn farmer who also keeps beehives. We have a genuine concern with the majority of corn produced having properties that can negatively impact honeybees.”

At least 94% of the nation’s 92 million acres of corn will be treated with one of two neonicotinoids, both manufactured by Bayer. This area is greater than the total size of the state of Minnesota, Nebraska, or both Dakotas. In addition, these are among the largest honey producing states in the country, housing some of the nation’s largest pollination services businesses. On average, USDA reports that beekeepers have been losing over 30% of their honey bee colonies each year since 2006.

“Honey bees are caught in the crossfire,” said Steve Ellis, owner of Old Mill Honey Co. and the subject of the recent NBC Nightly News piece. “Honey bees, like mine, are subjected to increasingly toxic load of pesticides in corn fields. It’s time to rethink the use of neonicotinoids and provide farmers with better options that allow all of us to prosper.”

Neonicotinoids, including clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam, are highly toxic to a range of insects, including honey bees and other pollinators. They are taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through pollen, nectar and gutation droplets from which bees forage and drink. They are particularly dangerous because, in addition to being acutely toxic in high doses, they also result in serious sublethal effects when insects are exposed to chronic low doses, as they are through pollen and water droplets laced with the chemical as well as dust that is released into the air when treated seeds that have been coated with the chemicals are planted. These effects cause significant problems for the health of individual honey bees as well as the overall health of honey bee colonies, including disruptions in mobility, navigation, feeding behavior, foraging activity, memory and learning, and overall hive activity.

Seeds treated with these insecticides are sticky and do not readily come out of common corn planting machines; so farmers often use talcum powder to help the seeds move more easily through the machine and into the ground. The talcum powder, mixed with the loose pesticide, creates a powerful pesticide dust that can directly coat and kill bees flying over freshly sown fields, and travel on wind to contaminate nearby untreated fields, creating even greater potential exposure for bees.

“We know that these insecticides are highly toxic to bees; we found them in each sample of dead and dying bees,” said Christian Krupke, PhD, associate professor of entomology at Purdue University and author of several recent bee studies. Dr. Krupke said, “Whatever was on the seed was being exhausted into the environment. This material is so concentrated that even small amounts landing on flowering plants around a field can kill foragers or be transported to the hive in contaminated pollen. This might be why we found these insecticides in pollen that the bees had collected and brought back to their hives.”

Despite their best intentions, even those involved in such efforts as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s (IATP) Working Landscapes Certificate program, farmers have struggled to find alternatives to neonicotinoid treated seeds. As conventional growers began to transition away from pesticide and herbicide treatments, they discovered that sourcing corn seed that was not treated with neonicotinoids was the most difficult challenge of all.

“Corn farmers engaged in Working Landscapes are concerned about pollinators, and are becoming increasingly aware of the impacts of neonicotinoids on bee populations, said Jim Kleinschmit, Rural Communities Program Director at IATP. “The problem is that there isn’t much supply of bee-friendly seeds. The fact is, you just can’t find high-yield, untreated corn seed anymore because of seed industry consolidation.”

On March 21, 2012, commercial beekeepers and environmental organizations filed an emergency legal petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend use of clothianidin, urging the agency to adopt safeguards. The legal petition, supported by over one million citizen petition signatures, targets the pesticide for its harmful impacts on honey bees. The petition points to the fact that EPA failed to follow its own regulations. EPA granted a conditional, or temporary, registration to clothianidin in 2003 without a required field study establishing that the pesticide would have no “unreasonable adverse effects” on pollinators. Granting conditional registration was contingent upon the subsequent submission of an acceptable field study, but this requirement has not been met. EPA continues to allow the use of clothianidin nine years after acknowledging that it had an insufficient legal basis for initially allowing its use. Additionally, the product labels on pesticides containing clothianidin are inadequate to prevent excessive damage to non-target organisms, which is a second violation of the requirements for using a pesticide and further warrants removing all such misbranded pesticides from use.

Learn more about the science, legal petition, and what you can do to help pollinators on Beyond Pesticides’ Protecting Pollinators program page.

Source: Pesticide Action Network North America

Mosquitoes in sub-Saharan African countries are becoming resistant to pyrethroid insecticides, which are used extensively for household spraying and treating bed nets, as well as to the organochloride compound DDT -which is still used in many parts of the world to control mosquitoes. In Somalia, Sudan and Turkey, resistance has spread to carbamates and organophosphates in addition to pyrethroids and organochloride pesticides. Rather than reducing the reliance on these products, WHO is recommending rotating classes of pesticides used to spray inside homes and developing a new non-pyrethroid insecticide to treat bed nets. Implementation for these suggestions are estimated to cost around $200 million, which is in addition to the $6 billion that the WHO requested last year for existing malaria-control programs.

According to Pesticide Action Network (PAN) , control programs to fight malaria have so far been based on three different interventions: a) the use of bed nets, b) spraying insecticides – including DDT — indoors and c) medical treatment of malaria victims and pregnant women. Though there has been a 25% overall drop in the mortality rate of malaria since 2000, a reliance on chemical programs to combat a pest problem is not a sustainable approach, because the predicable consequence of repeated pesticide use results in resistance

Malaria is both preventable and curable, and the global community must build on the success of those countries that have successfully controlled it. From Mexico to Vietnam to Kenya, the most successful programs are those that rely on community participation and full commitment of the national government to combat the disease. Improved health care infrastructure along with environmental management, widespread use of bed nets and other community-specific solutions are key to success.

PAN Germany and PAN Africa began a pilot program in Senegal in 2011 to implement an ecological and community-based system to control Malaria, which takes into account the type and number of vectors and parasites, identifies existing resistance, analyzes the local epidemiology and ecosystem, and takes into account the economic and social situation.

Beyond Pesticides advocates fighting malaria without poisoning future generations of children in malaria hot spots. “We should be advocating for a just world where we no longer treat poverty and development with poisonous band-aids, but join together to address the root causes of insect-borne disease, because the chemical-dependent alternatives are ultimately deadly for everyone,” says Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides.

Source: Nature

As the country commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act this year, the Potomac is emblematic of what is at stake for rivers nationwide. American Rivers launched a national call to action, giving citizens the opportunity to contact members of Congress and speak up for clean water. The report, “America’s Most Endangered Rivers,” notes that urban development is funneling tons of polluted rainwater to the river, that chemical fertilizer and manure from farms make matters worse, and that wastewater overflowing from sewers, along with pharmaceuticals flushed down toilets, contribute to dead zones in which marine life dies and might cause intersex fish.

Beyond Pesticides notes that the U.S. Geological Society (USGS) has even found low level pesticide residues in drinking waters. The report placed the Potomac atop nine other rivers nationwide, including the Green River, the largest feeder to the Colorado River, the Chattahoochee River, which runs by Atlanta, and the Missouri River.

“This year’s Most Endangered Rivers list underscores how important clean water is to our drinking water, health, and economy,” said Bob Irvin, President of American Rivers. “If Congress slashes clean water protections, more Americans will get sick and communities and businesses will suffer. We simply cannot afford to go back to a time when the Potomac and rivers nationwide were too polluted and dangerous to use.”

Attempts to protect U.S. waterways from chemical contamination, including contamination from pesticides, have recently been attacked by industry groups and Congress. The bill H.R. 872, “Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2011,” seeks to revoke EPA’s authority to require permits for pesticide discharges into waterways and passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, an attempt to reverse a 2009 federal court order instructing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require permits under the Clean Water Act for pesticide discharges. (See All Daily News coverage) Soon after H.R. 872 was passed, the Republican-controlled chamber passed the “Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011,” H.R. 2018. This act would prevent EPA from stepping in to enforce clean water standards when it deemed that a state agency was not effectively enforcing the law. It would also prevent EPA from refining its existing water standards to reflect the latest science without first getting approval from a state agency. Thus far, there have been a staggering 125 pieces of legislation that will reduce environmental protection including 50 bills targeting EPA, 16 to dismantle the Clean Water Act, 31 against actions that can prevent pollution, and 22 to defund or repeal clean energy initiatives.

Recently this year, the “Preserve the Waters of the United States Act” (S. 2245, H.R. 4965) was introduced in the House and Senate to prevent the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers’ attempts to finalize guidance, “Guidance Regarding Identification of Waters Protected by the Clean Water Act” that would extend federal protections to more of the nation’s waterways, including small streams and wetlands. According to EPA and the Army Corps, under this proposed guidance the number of waters identified as protected by the Clean Water Act will increase compared to current practice, and this improvement will aid in protecting the nation’s public health and aquatic resources. Industry and their supporters in Congress are campaigning to prevent federal authorities from restoring and protecting small streams and wetlands.

Before the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972, the Potomac and other notable rivers in the U.S. were cesspools of sewage and industrial pollution. The Clean Water Act affords the Potomac and other rivers across the country some protections from indiscriminate pollution from industrial and agricultural sources so that waterways are cleaner and safer for drinking, boating, and fishing. However, according to the USGS, over 50 percent of waterways in the U.S. are contaminated with pesticides and other pollutants that exceed federal standards. A University of Maryland report card has given the river, and by extension the Chesapeake Bay, a “D” grade for water quality for the past two years. Five million people in the DC region depend on the Potomac for drinking water.

Sources: American Rivers Press Release, Washington Post

Dow’s GE corn is modified to be tolerant to 2,4-D, which is contaminated with dioxin and linked to cancer, birth defects, and more. The company is introducing the new GE corn variety because weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup, the previous chemical of choice for herbicide-tolerant plants. However, solving herbicide resistance with a new, more toxic chemical is like using gasoline to put out a fire. It will cause even more damage to health and the environment, and in a few years, the pesticide industry will be marketing their next “solution” to the growing resistance problem. Dow states that 2,4-D is increasingly important for chemical farmers because of the presence of weeds that have developed resistance to glyphosate, as a result of the widespread use of Monsanto’s genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant crops. When Monsanto introduced glyphosate, it was touted as a safer and less toxic alternative to herbicides like 2,4-D, which has been extensively linked to cancer and other health problems.

In addition to 2,4-D corn, Monsanto has been partnering with BASF on dicamba and glyphosate-tolerant crop varieties since 2009 with a focus on soybeans. Dicamba is a neurotoxic chlorinated benzoic acid herbicide and recognized eye irritant, moderately persistent in the environment and highly mobile in both soil and water. Chronic exposure is linked to reproductive and developmental effects. The Ottawa Citizen reports that Monsanto would like to roll out its dicamba-tolerant soybean in 2014 and Dow hopes to have its 2,4-D-tolerant soybeans on the market by 2015.

Genetic engineering has grown drastically in the U.S. in the past two decades —from seven percent of soybean acres and only one percent of corn acres in 1996 to 94 percent of soybean and 88 percent of corn acres in 2011. In recent years, USDA has been on a fast-track to deregulate GE crops, leaving leery consumers and organic farmers behind to fend for themselves.

The best way to avoid genetically engineered foods in the marketplace is to choose organic. Under organic certification standards, genetically modified organisms and their byproducts are prohibited from being used. Unlike chemical-intensive agriculture and genetically engineered food, researchers continue to discover the environmental and health benefits of eating and growing organic food. There are numerous health benefits to eating organic, besides a reduction in pesticide exposure.

For more information on the failure of genetically engineered food, read “Genetically Engineered Food Failed promises and hazardous outcomes,” from the Summer 2011 issue of Pesticides and You, or go to our Genetic Engineering web page.

“The poll shows nearly two-thirds of Vancouverites know pesticides are linked to childhood cancer,” said Canadian Association for Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) Executive Director Gideon Forman. “Among people with kids, support for a pesticide ban is at 76 per cent,” said Mr. Forman. “Candidates who endorse a strong provincial pesticide ban will be very popular with families.”

It’s believed to be the first time in British Columbia that the legislation has had such a high level of endorsement from supporters of all three parties. The poll results coincide with the announcement that a network of BC environmental and health organizations has launched a non-partisan voter education project to make pesticides a campaign issue in the Port Moody-Coquitlam by-election. Groups, including Greenpeace, Sierra Club BC and Wildsight, are partnering on the voter education with the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE). The project includes a website — IVote4SafeLawns.ca — which helps voters send a pesticide ban message to all candidates.

During the past decade, over 150 municipalities and several Canadian provinces, including Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, have banned the use of “cosmetic” lawn care pesticides because of health and environmental concerns. The bans have had the support of the Canadian medical community, including the Canadian Cancer Society and the Ontario College of Family Physicians.

Across the U.S. many communities, school districts, and state policies are now following a systems approach that is designed to put a series of preventive steps in place that will solve pest (weed and insect) problems. The systems approach is based on three basic concepts: (i) natural, organic product where use is governed by soil testing, (ii) an understanding that the soil biomass plays a critical role in soil fertility and turf grass health, and (iii) specific and sound cultural practices. Communities that have recently taken steps to ban or limit pesticide use include the states of Connecticut and New York, Ohio’s Cuyahoga County, Cape Cod, over 30 communities in New Jersey, and Chicago’s City Parks.

Eliminating toxic pesticides is important in lawn and landscape management, considering that of the 30 most commonly used lawn pesticides: 14 are probable or possible carcinogens, 13 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 15 with neurotoxicity, 26 with liver or kidney damage, and 27 are sensitizers and/or irritants. The most popular and widely used lawn chemical 2,4-D, which kills broad leaf weeds like dandelions, is an endocrine disruptor with predicted human health risks ranging from changes in estrogen and testosterone levels, thyroid problems, prostate cancer and reproductive abnormalities. 2,4-D has also been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Other lawn chemicals like glyphosate (RoundUp) have also been linked to serious adverse chronic effects in humans. Imidacloprid, another pesticide growing in popularity, has been implicated in bee toxicity and the recent Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) phenomena.

Beautiful landscapes do not require toxic pesticides. Beyond Pesticides’ Lawns and Landscapes webpage provides information on pesticide hazards and information on organic management strategies. The site also provides an online training, Organic Land Care Basic Training for Municipal Officials and Transitioning Landscapers, to assist in going pesticide-free. With the training, landscapers can learn the practical steps to transitioning to a natural program. Or, you can order Pesticide Free Zone yard signs to display to your neighbors. For assistance in proposing a policy to your city council (or its equivalent), contact Beyond Pesticides at [email protected].

Sources: Canadian Cancer Society Press Release, Times Colonist

The “Take the Flour Back” campaign is protesting the outdoor field trials of a new strain of GM wheat which has the potential to contaminate surrounding fields and spread GM material to others areas off-site. Campaigners say controlled indoor trials should be done instead before the crop is planted outdoors. The trial at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, Herts in South East England is evaluating the efficacy of wheat modified to deter aphids, an insect pest. Rothamsted Research insists this minimizes crop losses due to aphid attack and the fungal infections and viruses that can follow in their wake, and reduces the need for chemical spraying against aphids. Rothamsted agricultural research establishment is set to conduct open air trials of wheat to be planted in spring 2012 and 2013.

The wheat has been engineered to include genes for antibiotic-resistance and an artificial gene ”˜most similar to a cow.’ The wheat is designed to produce a pheromone called E-beta-farnesene that is normally emitted by aphids when they feel threatened, repelling the insects. E-beta-farnesene itself is produced naturally by a number of plants, including peppermint and potatoes. The other gene in question -a promoter gene, which switches on other genes- is a synthetic variant of one found in many organisms, including wheat itself. However, Rothamsted researchers explained that they chose a variant closer to the cow version than the wheat one in order to prevent other genes in the wheat from recognizing its activity and regulating it.

There is serious doubt that the aphid alarm pheromone as found in this GM crop would even work. Other scientists have raised concerns that if aphids get habituated and insufficient predators are available, this may increase the aphid burden on the wheat and thus potentially increasing the need for pesticides and chemical spraying against aphids.

One activist, Welch farmer Gerald Miles, is leading the calls against “irresponsible” and “negligent” GM crop research. Mr. Miles stated, “The wheat is being injected with genes from a cow, antibiotic genes and peppermint genes in order to detract aphids from the crops. This is totally irresponsible on many levels. Firstly, it is totally negligent to conduct an open air trial where there is a significant risk of cross contamination with other wheat crops in the area and the wider country.”

Last week, the Real Bread Campaign, which is also opposed to GM wheat, delivered a pledge to the government from more than 350 bakers, millers, farmers and consumers not to sell or buy GM wheat. The pledge was accompanied by a letter to Caroline Spelman MP, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, expressing deep concerns about the testing of GM wheat at Rothamsted. ”˜Take the Flour Back’ is organizing a day of protest on May 27th advertising it as a “nice day out in the country, with picnics, music from Seize the Day and a decontamination.”

GM wheat poses high risk of environmental contamination since wheat is a wind pollinated crop. GM wheat, like other GM crops, can cause serious environmental damage, including the development of resistant weeds, contamination of non-GM crops and organic farms and the unknown impacts of human health. Other GM crops, like corn and soy, have already been shown to produce resistant weeds contaminated with GM material due to result of cross-pollination. Resistant insects are also a growing problem. Thus far, much of industry’s promises for GM crops have not come to pass. Instead of decreased pesticide use, herbicide use has soared, mostly due to the onset of weed resistance.
GM crops have faced fierce resistance in Europe. Given the persistent wariness of GM organisms in Europe, biotechnology companies like BASF have stopped developing new products targeting the European market. Research and development on transgenic products aimed solely at the European market, including a mildew resistant high-starch potato and a variety of fungus resistant wheat, have been halted. European farmers have long defended their right to grow non-GMO food. In 2009, farmers, consumers and civil society organizations in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. released a joint statement confirming their collective commitment to stop commercialization of genetically engineered (GE) wheat. The EU has several policies that strongly regulate genetically modified materials from food, including one for honey that states that honey produced though cross-pollination with a GM crop must be authorized as a GM product before being sold. In 2009, Ireland passed a policy banning the cultivation of all GM crops and introduced a voluntary GM-free label for food.

On the contrary, the U.S. has in recent times moved to deregulate GM crops. Most recently, the USDA is considering deregulating GM corn engineered to be tolerant to 2,4-D in order for farmers to control weeds that have become resistant to Roundup. GM crops tolerant to Roundup have proliferated over the last decade and have directly resulted in resistant “super weeds.” Beyond Pesticides and dozens of other organic and environmental organizations wrote comments to USDA, urging the agency to not allow this new strain of GM corn to enter the environment.

The U.S. decision to welcome and deregulate GM crops fails to take into account several scientifically-validated environmental concerns, such as the indiscriminate nature of genetically modified gene flow in crops, a heavy reliance on faulty data, and a high degree of uncertainties in making safety determinations. It also overlooks the problem of herbicide-resistant weeds and insects, as well as the widespread corruption of conventional seed varieties by GM strains, along with documented severe economic injury to farmers and markets. There is also an oversight of possible health consequences from eating GMOs, despite the fact that long-term health effects of consuming GM food are still largely unstudied and unknown.

Fortunately, GM crops are not permitted in organic food production. For more information about why organic is the right choice, see our Organic Food: Eating with a Conscience Guide and visit the Organic Program page. For more information on the failure of genetically engineered food, read “Genetically Engineered Food Failed promises and hazardous outcomes,” from the Summer 2011 issue of Pesticides and You, or go to our Genetic Engineering web page.

Sources: Wales Online , BBC News, and Take the Flour Back

Photo: Take the Flour Back

“The Vermont Legislature deserves tremendous praise for having the courage to stand up to all of the lobbying, the full page ads, and the legal threats of the oil and gas industry,” said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. “This is a shot that will be heard, if not around the world then at least around the country.”

According to a minority staff report released last year by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, more than 650 commonly used fracking products contain chemicals that are “known or possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or listed as hazardous air pollutants.” In its report, The Case for a Ban on Gas Fracking, Food and Water Watch summarizes data by The Endocrine Disruption Exchange showing that 25 percent of fracking chemicals could cause cancer, 37 percent could disrupt the endocrine system, 40 to 50 percent could affect the nervous, immune and cardiovascular systems, and more than 75 percent could affect the sensory organs and respiratory system, likely causing problems such as skin and eye irritation and flu-like symptoms.

Hydraulic fracking operations use biocides because microbes, which are present beneath the surface of the earth, can interfere with the flow of gas in the pipelines. Sandra Steingraber, PhD, an ecolologist and author, recently explained the possible role of these microbes and the use of biocides to the participants of the 30th National Pesticide Forum and in an article published in the Huffington Post, like this:

Carbon-rich geological formations are also living ecosystems. They are the home to relic organisms collectively called “deep life.” Some of these microbes form complex colonies, sending nanowires out into the surrounding rock for purposes of electron transfer. Deep-life organisms are ubiquitous and almost certainly play a role in the Earth’s carbon cycle. They may, in ways we do not yet understand, contribute to climate stability.

Living organisms also interfere with the flow of gas through pipelines. To prevent this biofouling, gas companies send powerful biocides into the shale, killing everything that inhabits it. The use of biocides, among other factors, makes fracking a highly toxic form of energy extraction.

While the basic fracking technology has been in use for decades, only much more recently has the industry developed the capacity to drill at depth horizontally within the rock formation for thousands of additional feet. This new drilling technique has allowed the gas industry to reach large reserves that were previously considered uneconomical, particularly in shale formations. But unlike traditional vertical fracking, horizontal fracking requires massive amounts of water and toxic chemicals. Enormous holding ponds or tanks are also needed to store the chemically contaminated waste water that comes back up the hole after wells have been fractured.

“Fracking has caused enormous problems with underground water contamination and above ground waste disposal —entire streams have been destroyed,” said noted author and environmentalist Bill McKibben. “A ban on this process makes sense, if for no other reason than it will keep the oil industry from pumping lobbying dollars into the state three years hence.”

Mr. McKibben was referring to an alternative proposal initially backed by the House, which would have established a three-year moratorium on fracking.

“Vermonters were able to see through the smokescreen put out by the gas industry,” said VPIRG organizer Leah Marsters. “They understand the threat that fracking poses to public health, as well as our air, land and water,” she added.

Other organizations joining VPIRG in pressing the legislature to act on fracking this year included the Vermont Natural Resources Council, 350 Vermont, the Vermont Sierra Club, and Democracy for America. Representatives of the Catskill Mountainkeepers in New York, and the Natural Resources Defense Council also provided expert testimony before Senator Lyons’ committee this session.

“No one is suggesting that Vermont is likely to be the home of bountiful natural gas supplies,” said Mr. Burns. “But sometimes all it takes is one state to have the courage to lead in order to change the direction of the country. And if you look at how hard the industry fought this, you begin to see that they believe that’s true too.”

The origin and transmission of BSE to hundreds of thousands of cattle has been widely attributed to using cattle rendered protein produced from the carcasses of scrapie-infected sheep or cattle with a previously unidentified form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy as livestock feed. This widespread practice of feeding substances derived from animals to other animals (even of the same species) was sharply curtailed following the BSE epidemic in the U.S. and Europe, but never fully eliminated. For example, livestock feed regulations in the U.S. continue to allow the feeding of certain mammalian slaughter by-products to calves as well as the inter-species feeding of rendered animal proteins, such as feeding poultry waste and litter to ruminants. USDA also announced that since the discovery of the infected cow, they have identified 10 different feed suppliers that delivered animal feed to the farm. Determining if the cow became sick from feed is an area where investigators are focusing close attention

The producer of an organic livestock operation must provide livestock with a total feed ration composed of agricultural products, including pasture and forage that are organically produced and handled by operations certified to the National Organic Program (NOP). The only exceptions to these requirements are synthetic feed additives and supplements, which have been approved after review by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). For example, synthetic trace minerals and vitamins are allowed as synthetic feed additives in organically managed livestock. The organic livestock feed standards also prohibit the feeding of mammalian or poultry slaughter by-products to mammals or poultry. Additionally, USDA has implemented the comprehensive NOSB recommendation that requires organically managed ruminants to receive a substantial portion of their feed ration from pasture.

BSE, sometimes referred to as “mad cow disease” because of the uncontrollable trembling that cattle suffer in its latter stages, is a chronic degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system. The disease belongs to the group of transmissible brain illnesses which also includes scrapie of sheep and goats and chronic wasting disease of elk and deer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), BSE was first diagnosed in 1986 in Great Britain. Since that time, more than 190,000 cases have been confirmed in the Great Britain alone with tens of thousands more across Europe. The number of cases peaked in 1992, and has declined continuously since that time, with 29 cases worldwide in 2011. The recent case in California, which was detected when the 10-year old cow was tested at a rendering facility, was the fourth ever confirmed in the U.S., following earlier confirmed detections in 2003, 2005, and 2006.

In 1996, a variant of a spongiform encephalopathy known to occur in humans called Creutzfeldt- Jakob Disease (vCJD) was first reported in Europe. CDC subsequently determined that, “There is now strong scientific evidence that the agent responsible for the outbreak of prion disease in cows, BSE, is the same agent responsible for the outbreak of vCJD in humans” and that the consumption of BSE-contaminated beef was responsible for the transmission of the disease. Health authorities in Europe attribute more than 100 human cases of vCJD, which is inevitably fatal, to consumption of BSE-contaminated beef. There are different scientific hypotheses concerning the origins of BSE.

Mark Purdey, a courageous British dairy farmer, advanced an alternative theory that BSE was attributable to the drenching of cattle with certain organophosphate pesticides that entered the animal’s bloodstream to kill parasites. Mr. Purdey was not able to scientifically validate his theory, but he was successful in bringing an end to the drenching requirement that has previously been mandated for all ruminants. Mr. Purdey passed away in 2006.

Source: USDA

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.

“I am so proud of the army of volunteers, many of them mothers and grandmothers, who stood tireless in the rain and cold to gather signatures,” said Pamm Larry, a former midwife, farmer, and longtime Chico resident, who initiated the California Right to Know campaign through her group Label GMOs. “Thousands of volunteers across the state contributed to this victory. The people of California have spoken: we will have the right to know what we’re eating and no one will stop us.”

“This bumper crop of signatures is a testament to the desire of Californians to know what’s really in our food,” said Grant Lundberg, CEO of Lundberg Family Farms and a third generation rice farmer and food processor. “It is a rich harvest of support for the right to know and the right to choose.”

Labeling genetically engineered foods is a wildly popular idea and enjoys nearly unanimous support across the political spectrum. A March 2012 Mellman Group poll found that 9 out of 10 American voters favor labeling for genetically engineered food. “In a country seemingly dominated by partisan polarization on everything from the cause of hurricanes to the state of the economy, it’s hard to find issues, outside of motherhood and apple pie, that can muster over 90 percent support ”¦we found one,” pollster Mark Mellman wrote in a recent article in The Hill newspaper. “Voters express almost unanimous support for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods,” Mr. Mellman wrote.

“The right to know is a fundamental right and a bedrock American value,” said Stacy Malkan, media director of the California Right to Know campaign. “This November, the voters of California will surely vindicate our right to know what’s in the food we eat and feed our children.”

The chorus of Americans demanding that they be allowed the right to know if their food is genetically modified has been growing louder as more GE crops have been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Last month, over a million signatures were submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as part of the Just Label It campaign in support of a petition filed by the Center for Food Safety asking the agency to require labeling of GMO foods.

The proliferation of GE crops, especially among corn, soybean and cotton seed varieties, has had significant adverse economic and environmental effects for American agriculture. Commodity production systems dependent on GE crops drive up the price of land and impede younger and limited resource farmers from getting started or staying in agriculture. GE crops also promote a technological dependency in which farmers must rely upon —and pay the price set by- a shrinking pool of multinational seed and input providers. There is also substantial evidence that the rapid and widespread adoption of GE crops is dramatically accelerating resistance among agricultural pests, while doing little or nothing to reduce the volume of pesticides applied.

The best way to avoid GE foods in the marketplace is by purchasing foods that are certified under the USDA organic certification program. USDA standards prohibit the use of genetic modification in the production and handling of organic food. This prohibition is one of several reasons why shopping for organic is the right choice for consumers. Until federal or state agencies act to implement labeling requirements, American consumers will have no assurance that the conventionally produced foods they purchase and consume do not contain GE ingredients.

For more information on GE food and crops, see Beyond Pesticides’ page on genetic engineering.

Source: CA Right to Know press release

Researchers say that the nanocomposite filling will be able to neutralize residual bacteria that dentists are unable to remove after a dentist drills out a decayed tooth. Though nanotechnology is often heralded for its promising applications, scientists and researchers are becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of regulatory oversight and the potential impacts of these particles on public health and the environment.

In addition to testing in animal teeth, the products will be tested in human volunteers in collaboration with the Federal University of Ceara in Brazil. So far, the products have been laboratory tested using biofilms from saliva of volunteers. In 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took several actions to limit human testing with strict guidelines. Human testing was initially stopped by a moratorium in 1998, but later reintroduced in 2003 by a court ruling on a pesticide industry suit.

A silver nanoparticle consists of many silver atoms or ions clustered together to form a particle 1-100nm in size. Due to their small size, these nanoparticles are able to invade bacteria and other microorganisms and kill them. Just as the size and chemical characteristics of manufactured nanoparticles can give them unique properties, those same new properties —tiny size, vastly increased surface area to volume ratio, high reactivity— can also create unique and unpredictable human health and environmental risks.

A study conducted in 2008 and confirmed by another study in 2009 shows that washing nano-silver textiles releases substantial amounts of the nanosilver into the laundry discharge water, which will ultimately reach natural waterways and potentially poison fish and other aquatic organisms. A study found nanosilver to cause malformations and to be lethal to small fish at various stages of development since they are able to cross the egg membranes and move into the fish embryos. A 2010 study by scientists at Oregon State University and in the European Union highlights the major regulatory and educational issues that they believe should be considered before nanoparticles are used in pesticides.

For more information on nanotechnology, visit Beyond Pesticides’ program page.

Source: University of Maryland News

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.