(Beyond Pesticides, May 11, 2010) Even with the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer in recent years, a report released May 6, 2010 by the President’s Cancer Panel finds that the true burden of environmentally-induced cancer is greatly underestimated. The Panel’s report, Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now, concludes that while environmental exposure is not a new front on the war on cancer, the grievous harm from this group of carcinogens has not been addressed adequately by the nation’s cancer program. “There remains a great deal to be done to identify the many existing but unrecognized environmental carcinogens and eliminate those that are known from our daily lives — our workplaces, schools and homes,” said LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., M.D., chair of the Panel. “The increasing number of known or suspected environmental carcinogens compels us to action, even though we may currently lack irrefutable proof of harm,” he added. Beyond Pesticides applauds the chairman’s precautionary approach and encourages President Obama to heed the panel’s call to “use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation’s […]

(Beyond Pesticides, May 7, 2010) Human Rights Watch has released a scathing report entitled “Fields of Peril” on the treatment of child farm workers in the United States. To compile the report, Human Rights Watch interviewed child and young adult farm laborers and parents in all regions of the country, as well as farm managers, and owners, lawyers, doctors, social workers, nurses, and government officials. A previous report entitled “Fingers to the Bone” was released in 2000. Their research shows that conditions have not changed much for the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 child farm workers in the United States. Exposure to pesticides, long hours in extreme weather, the use of heavy machinery, and demanding physical labor makes farm work one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) farm work is the most dangerous work open to children. Yet child farm workers have much less protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) than children in any other industry. According to the report, even the minimal protections established by the FLSA are often ignored by employers. Impoverished farmworkers fearing the loss of their jobs […]

(Beyond Pesticides, April 12, 2010) Environmental, public health, labor and farmworker advocacy organizations from across the country have filed a petition asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to rescind the Bush administration era approval of the highly toxic fumigant pesticide methyl iodide in light of troubling new findings uncovered in California studies. The petition was submitted on the birthday of famed farmworker rights advocate Cesar Chavez, who drew national attention to pesticide misuse on grapes in the 1980s. “In 1988, Cesar Chavez again put his life on the line to draw attention to farmworker rights when he protested the use of pesticides with a 36-day, water-only fast,” said Jeannie Economos, Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project Coordinator at Farmworker Association of Florida. “Over 20 years later, we should not have to be fighting the same battles. Methyl iodide use takes us in the dead wrong direction for workers, public health and the future of agriculture.” The movement to ban methyl iodide follows the legacy of Cesar Chavez: the pesticide poses significant, direct risks to farmworkers, their families and neighboring communities. Methyl iodide is a water contaminant, nervous system poison, thyroid toxicant and is listed on California’s Proposition 65 list […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 25, 2010) To include more grassroots activists and community members in Greening the Community: Green economy, organic environments and healthy people, Beyond Pesticides announced a new $25 “recession rate.” The conference, Beyond Pesticides’ 28th National Pesticide Forum, will be held April 9-10 at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. To take advantage of the reduced registration, register online today. We are also pleased to announce exciting additions to our speaker list including: journalist, author, democracy and environmental activist Harvey Wasserman; ecologist, ecological engineer and 2004 Stockholm Water Prize laureate William Mitsch, PhD; and several others. These speakers join Jeff Moyer, organic farming and gardening expert with the Rodale Institute; Melinda Hemmelgarn, award-winning “Food Sleuth” journalist who encourages people “think beyond their plates”; David Hackenberg, beekeeper who first discovered colony collapse disorder; Canadian organizers who played a key role in the effort that banned cosmetic pesticide use in Ontario in 2009; and, cutting-edge scientists focusing on endocrine disruption, cancer, learning disabilities, and the link between birth defects and season of conception. Harvey Wasserman is a journalist, author, democracy activist and environmental advocate. He is author of a dozen books, including Solartopia! Our Green Powered Earth. Harvey helped […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 10, 2009) Following news that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering a higher uncertainty factor in all pesticide risk determinations, the agency is making available for comment a policy paper entitled “Revised Risk Assessment Methods for Workers, Children of Workers in Agricultural Fields, and Pesticides with No Food Uses.” The paper describes how EPA will assess pesticide risks not governed by Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) amendments to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA). EPA describes its proposal as incluing a more thorough assessment of risks to workers, including farmworkers and farm children, as well as risks posed by pesticides that are not used on food. The agency is asking the public to comment on the new approach and how best to implement the improvements. “Better information and applying these tools will strengthen EPA’s protections for farm workers exposed to these chemicals, and children living in and around the areas of highest possible exposure,” says EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “It’s essential we have the tools to keep everyone, especially vulnerable populations like children, safe from the serious health consequences of pesticide exposure.” EPA licenses or registers pesticides for sale and distribution under the […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 4, 2009) Twenty-five years ago, a toxic cloud of gas from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, enveloped the surrounding city, leaving thousands dead. Anywhere between 50,000 to 90,000 lbs of the chemical methyl isocyanate (MIC) are estimated to have leaked into the air, killing approximately 8,000-10,000 people within the first three days, according to data by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Advocacy groups working with victims say that more than 25,000 have died to date, and more than 120,000 people still suffer from severe health problems as a result of their exposure. According to a Reuters piece on the anniversary of Bhopal, “India’s “death factory” leaves toxic legacy 25 years on,” there are still 40 metric tonnes of chemical waste stored in a warehouse inside the plant that still needs disposal. Dow Chemical, which now owns Union Carbide, denies any responsibility saying it bought the company a decade after Union Carbide had settled its liabilities to the Indian government in 1989 by paying $470 million for the victims. “After the disaster, Union Carbide did this botched site remediation and created a massive landfill,” said Rajan Sharma, a New York-based lawyer demanding that Dow […]

(Beyond Pesticides, December 1, 2009) A new study published in the November 2009 issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, adds rhinitis, the inflammation of the mucous lining of the nose, to the long list of ailments linked to pesticide exposure. “Rhinitis associated with pesticide exposure among commercial pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study,” examined data from 2,245 Iowa commercial pesticide applicators and evaluated the association between rhinitis and 34 pesticides used in the past year. Seventy-four percent of commercial pesticide applicators in the study reported at least one episode of rhinitis in the past year (current rhinitis), compared with about 20-30% of the general population. Pesticide exposure and rhinitis were assessed at enrollment using two self-administered questionnaires. The first, completed at enrollment, obtained detailed information on use of pesticides on the market at the time of enrolment as well as smoking history, current agricultural activity and demographics. The second questionnaire, sent one month later, more detailed information on the pesticides, as well as medical history, including rhinitis, conjunctivitis, sinusitis and asthma. Respondents reported using 16 herbicides, 11 insecticides, five fungicides and two fumigants in the past year. Five of the pesticides were significantly positively associated with current rhinitis: the […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 24, 2009) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering expanding to all pesticides the use of what is typically referred to as the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) safety factor (the allowable margin of error or the uncertainty factor in risk determinations), which is currently only applied to the agency’s pesticide evaluations for infants and children. Under the plan the increased uncertainty factor will be applied to other sensitive populations, including farmworkers. Beyond Pesticides learned of the plan through communications with the agency over the past several months. EPA officials told Beyond Pesticides that, under the Obama Administration leadership, the agency would like to apply an equal standard to all people living in the U.S. Beyond Pesticides called on the Obama Administration to protect farmworkers and their children in the Transforming Pesticide Policy document sent after the 2008 election to President Obama’s transition team and top agency officials. Applying an additional uncertainty factor in risk assessments affecting infants and children and a reassessment of all existing pesticide tolerances were touted as the centerpieces of FQPA, which passed and amended the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the federal pesticide law, in 1996. The legislation gained momentum […]

(Beyond Pesticides, November 16, 2009) Paraguayan authorities are being urged to step up their efforts to provide protection and health care to an indigenous community after toxic pesticides were used to intimidate them when they resisted being evicted from their ancestral lands. According to Amnesty International, on November 6, over 50 men apparently representing Brazilian soy farmers claiming ownership of the land arrived in the Itakyry district of eastern Paraguay to try and remove the indigenous community by force. The Indigenous Peoples resisted, using bows and arrows. Later that day, an airplane arrived and sprayed pesticides directly above their homes. Despite local authorities promising to send ambulances to assist people suffering complaints such as vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and fainting following the spraying, it took several hours for them to receive any health treatment. Over 200 people were affected, and at least seven people were taken to the hospital. According to observers, a troubling precedent had been set earlier in the week when the Human Rights Commission of the Paraguayan Senate, the same body that recently thwarted attempts to return traditional land to another indigenous community, the Yakye Axa, was used as a platform to promote the eviction. The eviction order […]

(Beyond Pesticides, October 27, 2009) U.S. District Judge Paul Huck (Miami) has said a multimillion dollar judgment against U.S. food giant Dole and the Dow Chemical Company cannot be enforced because, “[T]he judgment was rendered under a system which does not provide impartial tribunal or procedures compatible with the requirements of due process of law, and the rendering court did not have jurisdiction over Defendants.” A trial court in Chinandega, Nicaragua, had awarded the money in 2005 to 150 Nicaraguan citizens who believe they were injured by exposure to the pesticide dibromochloropropoane, or DBCP, when they worked on Dole banana plantations between 1970 and 1982. This actiion was taken despite findings in the U.S. that DBCP causes sterility and regulatory action to remove it from the market. The trial court awarded Plaintiffs approximately $97 million under “Special Law 364,” enacted by the Nicaraguan legislature in 2000 specifically to handle DBCP claims. The average award was approximately $647,000 per plaintiff. According to the Nicaraguan trial court, these sums were awarded to compensate plaintiffs for DBCP-induced infertility and its accompanying adverse psychological effects. In similar cases in the past, the companies have refused to pay. Dow Chemical has called such judgments “unenforceable” […]

(Beyond Pesticides, September 1, 2009) On August 26, 2009, Bayer CropScience announced plans to reduce by 80 percent the storage of methyl isocyanate (MIC), the chemical used in pesticide production that caused the explosion in Bhopal, India and Institute, West Virgina. Two workers were killed in August 2008 when the chemical, an intermediate chemical used in the production of aldicarb, carbaryl, carbofuran, methomyl and other carbamate pesticides, exploded at a Bayer facility in Institute, WV. Thousands died in a Bhopal in 1984. Advocates point out that even if Bayer follows through with its 80% reduction promise, it would still allow up to 50,000 pounds of MIC to be stored on site. This would be similar to the amount of the chemical present in the 1984 Union Carbide (now owned by Dow Chemical) explosion in Bhopal, India. Last summer, when a pesticide tank exploded in West Virginia, comparisons between the site’s potential risk and the Bhopal disaster, in which an explosion and leak killed thousands, were drawn. Currently, the U.S. plant has the capacity to store more up to 40,000 pounds of MIC above ground and 200,000 pounds below ground. Bayer says it will eliminate all above ground storage. Bayer Cropscience […]

(Beyond Pesticides, August 7, 2009) A recent study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives has added to evidence that certain pesticides significantly increase one’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD). Researchers found that rural residents who drank private well water within 500 meters of fields sprayed with certain pesticides had an increased – up to 90 percent – risk of developing PD, and those with Parkinson’s “were more likely to have consumed private well water, and had consumed it on average 4.3 years longer.” The study evaluated more than 700 people, including carefully chosen controls, in Fresno, Kent, and Tulare counties. 17 percent reported drinking private well water between 1974 and 1999. Researchers focused on wells’ proximity to agricultural fields sprayed with pesticides, since private wells are not regulated, and many are shallow enough to be contaminated by pesticides seeping into groundwater. Researchers looked at 26 pesticides and six in particular, “selected for their potential to pollute groundwater or because they are of interest for PD, and to which at least 10% of our population were exposed.” Those are: diazinon, chlorpyrifos, propargite, paraquat, dimethoate, and methomyl. Propargite exposure was most closely correlated with incidence of PD, with a 90 […]

(Beyond Pesticides, August 6, 2009) American Bird Conservancy has petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the import of crops containing any residues of 13 pesticides that are banned or restricted for use in the United States. These pesticides are highly toxic to birds, but are commonly used on crops throughout Latin America where many species of U.S. migratory birds spend the winter months. In addition to the environmental risks to birds, several of these chemicals also pose a risk to agricultural workers. “Allowing residues of these hazardous pesticides on imported food gives tacit U.S. approval to foreign countries to use chemicals that are known to be deadly to U.S. migratory birds,” said Dr. Michael Fry, American Bird Conservancy’s Director of Conservation Advocacy. “EPA has an obligation under Executive Order 13186, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Endangered Species Act to ensure that migratory birds are not harmed.” Many Latin American countries that currently use these pesticides export coffee, bananas, citrus crops, and other fruits and vegetables to the United States. Agricultural areas — in particular shade coffee farms — provide valuable habitat for migratory birds, and so pesticide use in these areas can pose a significant […]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 14, 2009) With language to exclude farmworkers from coverage, on July 10, 2009, Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) introduced Senate Amendment 200 to the Affordable Health Choices Act, the health care reform bill being considered in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). According to the advocacy group Farmworker Justice, her amendment would exclude from the definition of “employees” any “temporary or seasonal agricultural workers ”¦ for the purposes of determining the size of an employer.” Agricultural employers of seasonal farmworkers would not be required to participate in the system because they would be considered to be too small. Seasonal farmworkers would be denied health care coverage. “There can be no good explanation for why Senator Hagan thinks it would be a good idea to exclude seasonal farmworkers from access to affordable health care coverage, other than that she is pandering to agricultural employers and upholding the long tradition of excluding some of America’s lowest paid and hardest working employees from the benefits that other workers receive,” said attorney Kate Woomer-Deters of the North Carolina Justice Center. Farmworkers in the U.S. earn an average of $12,500 to $15,000 per year. They work in some of […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 30, 2009) How much do we know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families? In Food, Inc., producer-director Robert Kenner and investigative authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) lift the veil on the U.S. food industry — an industry that has often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihoods of American farmers, the safety of workers, and our own environment. The movie reveals how a handful of corporations control our nation’s food supply. Though the companies try to maintain the myth that our food still comes from farms with red barns and white picket fences, our food is actually raised on massive “factory farms” and processed in mega industrial plants. The animals grow fatter faster and are designed to fit the machines that slaughter them. Tomatoes are bred to be shipped without bruising and to stay edible for months. The system is highly productive, and Americans are spending less on food than ever before. But, the film asks, at what cost? Cattle are given feed that their bodies are not biologically designed to digest, resulting in new strains of E. coli bacteria, which […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 19, 2009) Farmworker unions, support groups, and worker advocacy organizations today asked Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa P. Jackson to stop the pesticide poisoning of farmworker communities and uphold the Obama administration’s commitment to environmental justice. Citing a long EPA history of “inhumane neglect of toxic pesticide effects on farmworker community health,” the groups asked the Administrator to amend a recent May 2009 decision that allows the continued use of hazardous soil fumigant pesticides. The chemicals when used in chemically treated crop production, such as tomatoes, carrots, strawberries and nuts, escape into the environment and drift into communities where the families and children of farmworkers live and play. The letter, signed by 28 groups from across the country, says that the new fumigants policy “continues an outdated EPA approach to pesticide regulation that adopts unrealistic and unenforceable standards as risk mitigation measures, in an age of safer, greener approaches to agricultural pest management.” EPA announced its decision May 27, 2009 to allow continued use of toxic soil fumigants with modified safety measures, falling far short of safety advocate efforts to adopt more stringent use restrictions and chemical bans. The rule was first proposed in July 2008, […]

(Beyond Pesticides, June 8, 2009) A new epidemiological study finds that Parkinson’s disease patients who have been exposed to pesticides through their work show elevated rates of the disease. The researchers find that French farmworkers have nearly double the risk for the disease if exposed to pesticides, with a dose-effect for the number of years of exposure. When they looked at the three major classes of pesticides (insecticides, fungicides and herbicides), they find that the farmworkers who used insecticides had over a two-fold increase in the risk of Parkinson’s disease. A slightly higher risk is found for exposure to organochlorine insecticides. According to the study, these associations are stronger in men with older onset Parkinson’s disease than in those with younger onset Parkinson’s. The study, “Professional Exposure to Pesticides and Parkinson’s Disease,” published in Annals of Neurology, involved individuals affiliated with the French health insurance organization for agricultural workers who were frequently exposed to pesticides in the course of their work. Occupational health physicians constructed a detailed lifetime exposure history to pesticides by interviewing participants, visiting farms, and collecting a large amount of data on pesticide exposure. These included farm size, type of crops, animal breeding, which pesticides were used, […]

(Beyond Pesticides, May 29, 2008) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced May 27, 2009 modified safety measures for soil fumigant pesticides, falling short of safety advocate efforts to adopt more stringent use restrictions and chemical bans. The new regulations follow a July 10, 2008 proposed rule, which resulted from three years of deliberation. Safety advocates said last July that while substantially better than the past, the proposed regulation fell short in protecting people, workers and the environment and from that perspective this weeks regulation is a disappointment. Advocates believe that the country can do better to phase out uses of highly hazardous chemicals that have devastating impact on exposed workers and communities in which they are used, and advance green technologies and organic practices. Fumigants, which are among the most toxic chemicals used in agriculture, are gases or liquids that are injected or dripped into the soil to sterilize a field before planting. Even with plastic tarps on the soil, fumigants escape from the soil and drift through the air into schools, homes, parks and playgrounds. Strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, carrots and potatoes are some of the major crops for which fumigant use is high. The agency says these measures will […]

(Beyond Pesticides, April 21, 2009) According to a new study by the New York City (NYC) Department of Health, Columbia University and the NYC Housing Authority published in the online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives on April 15, 2009, “single visit” integrated pest management (IPM) at the building level (rather than individual rental units) is more successful than regular pesticide applications in managing public housing pests and allergens. The study, “Effectiveness of an Integrated Pest Management Intervention in Controlling Cockroaches, Mice and Allergens in New York City Public Housing,” is available online. The NYC Housing Authority is the largest public housing owner in North America with more than 405,000 low-income residents. The successful implementation of IPM in an institution of this size was thought to offer many potential benefits; pesticide use reduction, improved pest management and reduced pest and allergen burdens in housing populated by largely African American and Latino families with a disproportionately high prevalence of asthma. Following a successful pilot program in public housing, the NYC Department of Health and Housing Authority developed an IPM intervention designed to be simple, low-cost and relatively easily scaled. In buildings participating in the study, Housing Authority IPM teams spent 8-12 person-hours […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 25, 2009) After three years of legal battle, the North Carolina Pesticide Board on February 19, 2009 fined Florida-based Ag-Mart Produce Inc. a substantially lower fine of $3,000 than the originally proposed $185,000, after deciding that it can only prove six of about 200 worker safety accusations that had been levied against the company. This comes less than a month after the unprecedented ruling against Ag-Mart in New Jersey, where the company was ordered to pay penalties of more than $931,000 for misusing pesticides and jeopardizing the health and safety of workers in its New Jersey farm fields and packing houses. The Florida-based company, described as one of the biggest pesticide offenders, has been accused of routinely exposing hundreds of workers to toxic chemicals. Investigators in North Carolina, Florida and New Jersey, the three states where the international company grows its tomatoes, scrutinized the company’s records and charged it with ignoring laws intended to keep workers safe from toxic pesticide residue. The investigators alleged workers were sent into the fields too soon after dangerous chemicals had been sprayed. The case started three years ago when some workers gave birth to babies with severe birth defects. One mother […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 24, 2009) NIEHS staff scientist Freya Kamel, Ph.D., Harvard School of Public Health professor Chensheng (Alex) Lu, Ph.D., and Wake Forest University’s Center for Worker Health director Thomas Arcury, Ph.D. will speak as Science and Health panelists at Bridge to an Organic Future: Opportunities for health and the environment, the 27th National Pesticide Forum, April 3-4 in Carrboro, NC. Freya Kamel, Ph.D. Freya Kamel’s research interests focus on environmental determinants of neurologic dysfunction and disease, in particular, neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Kamel and her colleagues at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) examined the relationship of farm work-related exposures to subclinical neurobehavioral deficits in farmworkers. Deficits in neurobehavioral performance reflecting cognitive and psychomotor function related to the duration of work experience were seen in former as well as current farmworkers, and decreased performance was related to chronic exposure even in the absence of a history of pesticide poisoning. Thus, long-term experience of farm work is associated with measurable deficits in cognitive and psychomotor function. Dr. Kamel participated in work on the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), a large cohort study of licensed pesticide applicators and their spouses in Iowa and […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 9, 2009) Baldemar Velásquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), AFL-CIO, will be speaking at Bridge to an Organic Future, the 27th National Pesticide Forum, April 3-4, 2009 in Carrboro, NC. FLOC, founded by Mr. Velásquez in 1967, is both a social movement and a labor union focusing on migrant workers in the agricultural industry. The FLOC vision emphasizes human rights as the standard and self-determination as the process. The union struggles for full justice for those who have been marginalized and exploited for the benefit of others, and has sought to change the structures of society to enable these people a direct voice in their own conditions. FLOC President Baldemar Velásquez was raised as a migrant farmworker. Since his childhood, he has worked in the fields and orchards of many states from Texas to the Midwest. He suffered the oppression and discrimination of migrant workers, and watched his parents humiliated many times from the injustices they experienced trying to support their family. Finally, after one incident when his father was cheated out of promised wages in front of the family, Baldemar began organizing migrant workers to stand up for their rights. Following the model […]

(Beyond Pesticides, February 5, 2009) Former chief environmental correspondent for The New York Times Philip Shabecoff and freelance journalist Alice Shabecoff will be making a rare public talk at Bridge to an Organic Future, the 27th National Pesticide Forum, April 3-4, 2009 in Carrboro, NC. They will be speaking Friday evening at the conference and signing copies of their new book, Poisoned Profits: The toxic assault on our children, during a reception immediately following their presentation. See registration information below. Based on more than five years of investigative research and reporting, Poisoned Profits reveals the cumulative scientific evidence connecting the massive increase in environmental poisons to the epidemic of disability, disease, and dysfunction among our nation ´s children. The authors conclude that the poisoning of the environment is as grave a threat to the future as any problem confronting our nation. Yet even as individual parents and pediatricians struggle to fight illness, one child at a time, the public remains in the dark about the enormity of this crisis. Why? Because, according to the authors, corporations control the system, molding laws to their liking. The book shines a light on the motives and means of corporate-paid lawyers, “product defense” companies, […]