(Beyond Pesticides, August 11, 2025) With the reintroduction of legislation in July to support organic dairy production, Beyond Pesticides is calling on the public to support small organic farms that are hurting because of feed shortages, increased costs, and low premium to farmers, despite higher prices at the grocery store. Beyond Pesticides has called for an investment in organic as a long-term investment in the public good, given the value that organic brings as a solution to the health, biodiversity, and climate crises. (See previous Daily News, here and here.)

Legislation, the Organic Dairy Assistance, Investment, and Reporting Yields Act (O DAIRY Act), S. 2442, introduced by U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Credit, along with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) will expand federal support for organic dairy farmers by extending emergency assistance to farmers facing losses due to factors like feed shortages and increased costs. The Senators’ legislation also increases investments in the organic dairy industry to ensure resiliency and longevity and works to improve data collection for organic milk production to enhance price accuracy and transparency. Beyond Pesticides is suggesting that the public Tell U.S. Senators to cosponsor the O DAIRY Act, S. 2442. 

Analysts point to the growing market for organic milk, driven by consumer demand, as supported by clinical studies, for hormone-free, antibiotic-free, and non-GMO products, as well as environmentally friendly production methods. Organic milk also provides more omega-3 fatty acids, disease-fighting antioxidants, and essential minerals than non-organic milk.  

In spite of the rising demand for organic milk, organic dairies—particularly the smaller dairies—are not prospering. Small producers have little bargaining power with buyers. In addition, organic dairies have costly overhead, including providing consistent pasture, which is expensive in today’s booming land markets. Organic dairies must maintain production and herd health without resorting to antibiotics, hormones, and other chemicals. As a result, according to Matthew Dillon, co-CEO of the Organic Trade Association, the U.S. has lost 13% of organic dairy producers since 2021. 

The O DAIRY Act will extend emergency assistance to organic dairy farmers facing losses, including any time a farm’s net income decreases by over 10% in any given year, and invest $25 million annually in dairy infrastructure investments, research, and innovation. The legislation also calls for increased organic industry data collection that will be shared with farmers for better planning. Additionally, the bill would direct USDA to study the viability of an organic safety net program, which would provide aid to farmers faster when disasters hit.  

The O DAIRY Act has the broad support of farms, dairy cooperatives, producers, and associations across the country. 

Readers can Tell your U.S. Senators to cosponsor the O DAIRY Act, S. 2442. 

Letter to U.S. Senators [Request to cosponsor]:
Analysts point to the growing market for organic milk, driven by consumer demand, as supported by clinical studies, for hormone-free, antibiotic-free, and non-GMO products, as well as environmentally friendly production methods. Organic milk also provides more omega-3 fatty acids, disease-fighting antioxidants, and essential minerals than non-organic milk.

In spite of the rising demand for organic milk, organic dairies—particularly the smaller dairies—are not prospering. Small producers have little bargaining power with buyers. In addition, organic dairies have costly overhead, including providing consistent pasture, which is expensive in today’s booming land markets. Organic dairies must maintain production and herd health without resorting to antibiotics, hormones, and other chemicals. As a result, according to Matthew Dillon, co-CEO of the Organic Trade Association, the U.S. has lost 13% of organic dairy producers since 2021.

In order to address the problems facing organic dairies, U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Credit, along with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) reintroduced the Organic Dairy Assistance, Investment, and Reporting Yields Act (O DAIRY) Act, S. 2442, legislation to expand federal support for organic dairy farmers by extending emergency assistance to farmers facing losses due to factors like feed shortages and increased costs. The Senators’ legislation also increases investments in the organic dairy industry to ensure resiliency and longevity and works to improve data collection for organic milk production to enhance price accuracy and transparency.  

The O DAIRY Act will extend emergency assistance to organic dairy farmers facing losses, including any time a farm’s net income decreases by over 10% in any given year, and invest $25 million annually in dairy infrastructure investments, research, and innovation. The legislation also calls for increased organic industry data collection that will be shared with farmers for better planning. Additionally, the bill would direct USDA to study the viability of an organic safety net program, which would provide aid to farmers faster when disasters hit. 

The O DAIRY Act has the broad support of farms, dairy cooperatives, producers, and associations across the country. I hope I can count on you to cosponsor S. 2442 and support organic dairy farmers.

Thank you!

Letter to U.S. Senators [Thank you to sponsors]:
Analysts point to the growing market for organic milk, driven by consumer demand, as supported by clinical studies, for hormone-free, antibiotic-free, and non-GMO products, as well as environmentally friendly production methods. Organic milk also provides more omega-3 fatty acids, disease-fighting antioxidants, and essential minerals than non-organic milk.

In spite of the rising demand for organic milk, organic dairies—particularly the smaller dairies—are not prospering. Small producers have little bargaining power with buyers. In addition, organic dairies have costly overhead, including providing consistent pasture, which is expensive in today’s booming land markets. Organic dairies must maintain production and herd health without resorting to antibiotics, hormones, and other chemicals. As a result, according to Matthew Dillon, co-CEO of the Organic Trade Association, the U.S. has lost 13% of organic dairy producers since 2021.

In order to address the problems facing organic dairies, I appreciate your leadership in reintroducing the Organic Dairy Assistance, Investment, and Reporting Yields Act (O DAIRY) Act, S. 2442, legislation to expand federal support for organic dairy farmers by extending emergency assistance to farmers facing losses due to factors like feed shortages and increased costs. This legislation also increases investments in the organic dairy industry to ensure resiliency and longevity and works to improve data collection for organic milk production to enhance price accuracy and transparency.  

The O DAIRY Act will extend emergency assistance to organic dairy farmers facing losses, including any time a farm’s net income decreases by over 10% in any given year, and invest $25 million annually in dairy infrastructure investments, research, and innovation. The legislation also calls for increased organic industry data collection that will be shared with farmers for better planning. Additionally, the bill would direct USDA to study the viability of an organic safety net program, which would provide aid to farmers faster when disasters hit. 

The O DAIRY Act has the broad support of farms, dairy cooperatives, producers, and associations across the country. Thank you once again for your leadership in support of organic dairy farmers.

Thank you!

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

(Beyond Pesticides, August 8, 2025) In a study published in Environmental Pollution, researchers have detected eighty pesticides (35 insecticides, 29 fungicides, and 11 herbicides, and metabolites) in the ambient air of a rural region of Spain (Valencia) between 2007 and 2024. Despite these dramatic findings, the authors conclude that there is “no [observable] cancer risk,” “no inhalation risk for adults,” and only one pesticide concentration (the insecticide chlorpyrifos) showing “a potential risk to toddlers.” However, the authors did not conduct an aggregate risk assessment that would typically consider all routes of exposure to the individual pesticides detected, including through water, food, and landscapes.

Not considered by the authors are the potential effects of pesticide mixtures and full pesticide product formulations (with all potentially toxic ingredients), also a deficiency in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registration of pesticides under federal law. Of concern, as well, are other contaminants in pesticide products, including but not limited to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), heavy metals, plastics (including microplastics), which contribute to chronic diseases and health risks, and adverse effects to ecosystem stability exacerbated by the climate crisis.

Background and Methodology

“This work aims to conduct a further study on the situation of pesticides in ambient air of a rural Mediterranean Region, describing spatial and temporal variations in pesticide uses, as well as a human health risk assessment based on pesticide inhalation exposure,” according to the study authors. They gathered 717 air samples at 12 locations in the rural agricultural region of Valencia, with nine sites considered “rural/agricultural,” two “urban” sites, and one remote site that serves as a control for this experiment. The researchers used three different sampling protocols over the 18-year-long study. Between 2007 and 2016, they used high-volume air samplers to capture particulate phase samples on a daily basis; meanwhile, between 2016 and 2024, they used low-volume samplers to gather particulate and gaseous phase (to account for volatilization) samples on a weekly basis. The third protocol (2008-2009) was supplementary sampling at four stations to capture gaseous phase samples that were previously missing. Since atmospheric pesticide presence can be detected in both the particulate and gaseous phases, the researchers were careful to capture both in their study.

The authors are based at CEAM Foundation (“a research, development and technological innovation center for the improvement of the environment in the Mediterranean area”), Research Institute for Pesticides and Water at Jaume I University, and Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research in the Valencia Region. They “declare[d] that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.” They received funding from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries (Spain), with some of the analytical support being “financed by the European Commission under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Operational Programme of the Valencia Region (2014–2020).”

Discussion and Results

The researchers targeted 120 pesticides in this study, with 80 different insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, acaricides, and metabolites detected:

• 35 insecticides were detected. (Chlorfenvinphos, Abamectin, Chlorpyrifos-methyl, Spinosad, Diphenylamine, Chlorpyrifos-ethyl, Dichlorvos, Methidathion, Hexythiazox, Ethoprophos, Omethoate, Pyriproxyfen, Acetamiprid, Alpha-Endosulfan, Beta-Endosulfan, Bendiocarb, Bifenthrin, Buprofezin, Carbofuran, Cypermethrin, Deltamethrin, Diazinon, Dimethoate, Dioxacarb, Fenazaquin, Fenthion, Fipronil, Flufenoxuron, Imidacloprid, Lambda-cyhalothrin, Malathion, Permethrin, Pirimicarb, Pirimicarb-desmethyl, Propargite, Spirotetramat, Tebufenpyrad, and Thiamethoxam.)
• 29 fungicides were detected. (Azoxystrobin, Benalaxyl-M, Bitertanol, Boscalid, Carbendazim, Chlorothalonil, Cyproconazole, Cyprodinil, Diphenylamine, Fenbuconazole, Fludioxonil, Flusilazole, Folpet, Imazalil, Iprodione, Iprovalicarb, Kresoxim-m, Metalaxyl, Myclobutanil, O-Phenylphenol, Penconazole, Prochloraz, Pyrimethanil, Tebuconazole, Thiabendazole, Triadimefon, Tricyclazole, Triflumizole, and Vinclozolin.)
• 11 herbicides were detected. (Benfluralin, Chlorpropham, Dichlobenil, Diuron, Endothal, Fluazifop, Glyphosate, Propachlor, Propanil, Terbuthylazine, and Trifluralin.)
• 5 additional pesticides and metabolites were detected. (Prohexadione, Terbuthylazine-2-OH, Terbuthylazine-desethyl,  Terbuthylazine-desethyl-2-OH, and Endosulfan-sulphate.)

“The ten most frequently detected pesticides were spirotetramat (83 %), glyphosate (65 %), terbuthylazine-desethyl-2-OH (59 %), metalaxyl (56 %), carbendazim and pyriproxyfen (51 %), omethoate (46 %), spinosad (44 %), terbuthylazine (44 %), and chlorpyrifos-ethyl (43 %),” says the authors. There were significant declines in detectable carbendazim, omethoate, and terbuthylazine, which the authors believe correlate with European Union bans or restrictions.

There are various limitations to this study, including that there was no risk assessment included for subgroups that face disproportionate risks, including pregnant individuals. As mentioned earlier, this study was also not comprehensive in that it did not detect potential contamination or exposure via soil, water (surface or groundwater), dietary intake, and bioaccumulation. That being said, it is significant in that it is considered the first long-term (more than 15 years) regional study of pesticide air monitoring in the Mediterranean.

Previous Research

Pesticide residues are being found in increasingly remote locations across the globe. Documented for the first time, 15 currently used pesticides (CUPs) and four metabolites (breakdown or transformation products—TP) were found in the deep marine atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean. Three legacy (banned) pesticides were also discovered. According to the recent study published in Environmental Pollution, researchers found empirical evidence for pesticide drift over remarkably long distances to remote environments. (See Daily News here.)

People face multiple avenues of pesticide exposure and may be unwittingly subject to multiple exposures even if they do not live or work in agricultural areas/professions. A study published in Environmental Science and Technology found that there are 47 current-use pesticides—products with active ingredients that are currently registered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) —detected in samples of indoor dust, drinking water, and urine from households in Indiana. (See Daily News here.) There are other peer-reviewed studies documenting the presence of pesticide residues in indoor dust samples. A large European study of house dust contaminants, published in Science of the Total Environment, finds more than 1,200 anthropogenic compounds, including numerous organophosphates, the phthalate DEHP, PCBs, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products, in indoor dust samples. Additionally, an Argentine study centered around households with nonagricultural workers found that all dust samples contained mixtures, averaging 19 pesticides per sample and with a maximum of 32 per sample. Twelve pesticides were detected in more than 75 percent of the samples. Imidacloprid, carbaryl, glyphosate, and atrazine were detected in all samples. Seven of the 49 are used as both agricultural and veterinary or household pest compounds. (See Daily News here.)

It is also critical that studies are conducted specifically on pregnant individuals. In a first-of-its-kind series of biomonitoring studies published in Agrochemicals, researchers identified the presence of the herbicides dicamba and 2,4-D in all pregnant participants from both cohorts in 2010-2012 and 2020-2022.  “The overall level of 2,4-D use (kilograms applied in one hundred thousands) in the U.S. was highest in 2010 for wheat, soybeans, and corn. The amount of 2,4-D applied increased the most for soybeans and corn from 2010 to 2020.” The researchers focused on the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, given the increase in dicamba and 2,4-D during the study period for both cohorts (2010-2022). (See Daily News here.) A comprehensive literature review in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety links a heightened risk of spontaneous abortion (SAB) with pesticide exposure. “The strengths of our study include being the first systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the association between exposure to pesticides and the risk of SAB,” the authors say. This novel approach incorporated the analysis of 18 studies, totaling 439,097 pregnant participants, which allowed the researchers to highlight an important public health issue and raise concerns for maternal contact with the harmful chemicals in pesticide products. (See Daily News here.) Ongoing exposure to pesticide residues in indoor and outdoor environments poses broader neurodevelopmental consequences for children. A study in Environment International finds that young children who exhibit higher levels of pesticide metabolites in their urine show more pronounced neurobehavioral problems at the age of ten. (See Daily News here.)

Call to Action

Communities across the nation are speaking out to elected officials about the threat of aerial pesticide spraying to their loved ones. Earlier this year, in 2025, protests were held in various California counties (see Inside Climate News and KSBW8 Action News) over the controversial continued use of the carcinogenic 1,3-Dichloropropene (1,3-D) in spite of its ban in over 40 countries and links to cancer. Communities in Oregon have mobilized for years against the aerial spraying of pesticides into public lands, including Lincoln County, which faced a setback to local control of pesticide use when a court ruled against a pesticide ordinance due to preemption language codified in state law in previous sessions. (See Daily News here.) Protests this year in Iowa and North Dakota were organized as their state legislatures voted on preempting the ability for victims of pesticide exposure to sue manufacturers for misleading labels that fail to warn of health risks. (See Daily News here.)

You can become an advocate too! Consider subscribing to the Action of the Week and Weekly News Update to stay informed on how and when to take action. You can also sign up and become an advocate for the Parks for a Sustainable Future Program.

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

Source: Environmental Pollution

(Beyond Pesticides, August 7, 2025) The novel study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology is the largest investigation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in women to date, finding evidence of heightened risks when exposed to insecticides through data collected from over 400 eligible women in the Agricultural Health Study (AHS). AHS participants include a cohort of thousands of licensed pesticide applicators and their spouses from Iowa and North Carolina, with this particular study as the first to consider the link between pesticide exposure and RA as it affects women’s health.  

“Growing evidence suggests farming and agricultural pesticide use may be associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but few studies have examined specific pesticides and RA among farm women, who may personally use pesticides or be indirectly exposed,” the study authors explain. The findings reveal that organochlorine insecticides that continue to persist in the environment, as well as organophosphate and synthetic pyrethroid pesticides used in public health or residential settings, correlate with RA diagnoses in women. 

As shared in previous Daily News, for the most part organochlorine pesticides, including dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), are no longer used worldwide, but the legacy of their poisoning and contamination persists. These compounds are primarily made up of chlorine atoms, classified as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) due to their toxic longevity in the environment. Although many countries ban most organochlorine compounds, the chemicals remain in soils, water (solid and liquid), and the surrounding air at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. While EPA has ended pesticide registration for virtually all of the original POPs, the United States has not joined over 150 countries in ratifying a 2001 United Nations treaty known as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which requires the elimination of POPs’ production, use, and/or release. 

Of the participants in the current study who report using pesticides, “[p]ersonal use of organochlorine insecticides was associated with incident RA, especially DDT and lindane,” the researchers say. Regarding organophosphate insecticides, a weaker association is seen apart from coumaphos and malathion. For carbamate insecticides, carbofuran use is associated with RA, as is the use of synthetic pyrethroid insecticides like permethrin and fungicides including captan and metalaxyl. Of the women who do not report personal use of pesticides, RA is associated with their spouses’ use of carbaryl, metribuzin, and maneb/mancozeb. Increased risks are also noted for indirect exposure to DDT, toxaphene, coumaphos, captan, metalaxyl, and malathion. 

Rheumatoid arthritis, one of many types of arthritis, is classified as a systemic autoimmune disease that causes joint inflammation and pain. The disease involves both genetic and environmental risk factors, with many factors and triggers still unknown. According to the Arthritis Foundation, 1.5 million people in the U.S. have rheumatoid arthritis, with women three times more likely than men to develop the disease. A study by the Centers for Disease Control‘s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics finds that the percentage of adults with arthritis increases in nonmetropolitan areas when compared to metropolitan areas, highlighting the potential role of agriculture and environmental contaminants. 

Additional research (see here and here) suggests that, “RA may be associated with farming and pesticide use, but less is known about risks for women living on farms and the role of specific pesticides is not well understood.” With women already more likely to develop RA, exposure to environmental contaminants, such as pesticides, exacerbates the risks. 

In the current study, the researchers review 410 cases of RA reported in women within the AHS cohort. The diagnoses were identified by self-reporting and then confirmed through validation, medication, and/or Medicare claims data. “We examined incident RA and personal pesticide use (including overall type, classes, and 32 specific pesticides), considering correlated pesticides and farming tasks, and explored associations with potential indirect exposures through applicator use among women who did not personally apply specific pesticides,” the authors state. 

In assessing farming activities, the study also finds RA is associated with several other chemicals used in chemical-intensive agriculture, including but not limited to cleaning with solvents, grinding feed, applying fertilizers, and planting. “The AHS offers a unique opportunity to investigate RA risk in relation to specific pesticide types,” the researchers note. They continue, “With nearly 10 additional years of follow-up and more than 3-times as many cases than previous AHS reports on RA in spouses, this study of incident RA provides robust evidence that some insecticides may increase RA risk among women.”  

These results add to a growing body of science that suggests both direct and indirect exposure to pesticides can increase the risk of RA in women. (See here and here.) Studies show that pesticides can impact the development of RA through multiple pathways that are both direct (immunotoxic) or indirect (neuroendocrine, microbiome). As the authors state, “Pathogenesis [how the disease develops] of RA includes several pathways by which pesticide immune effects may play a role, including antigen citrullination and presentation, autoantibodies production, dysregulated innate and adaptive immune function, and local and systemic inflammation.” 

Previous research shows that DDT contributes to inflammation and decreases the body’s response to infection, as well as the immunosuppressive effects of malathion and lindane. The triazine herbicide metribuzin also has reported toxicity for endocrine and hepatic effects, in addition to impacts on neurological and immune pathways. 

“Several pesticides associated with RA in this study have been associated with other diseases indicative of immune dysregulation among AHS spouses, including maneb/mancozeb and metalaxyl with hypo- or hyperthyroid diagnoses (mostly autoimmune, i.e., Grave’s or Hashimoto’s disease), and malathion, permethrin/pyrethroids, and metribuzin (asthma),” the researchers report. (See more information on immune system disorders and autoimmune diseases here and here.) 

In finding a greater RA risk in females, this suggests a role of both endogenous (internal) and exogenous (external) hormonal exposures and pathways. Research shows that insecticides, including the organochlorines DDT and lindane and the organophosphates carbofuran and malathion, can impact hormone receptors and affect female reproductive function. Similar findings to the current study, from the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study, also highlight the connection between insecticides and a heightened risk of RA, particularly among post-menopausal women who lived or worked on farms. 

Previous Beyond Pesticides Daily News coverage, titled Exposure to Widely Used Bug Sprays Linked to Rheumatoid Arthritis, shows that exposure to widely used synthetic pyrethroids, present in many mosquito adulticides and household insecticides like RAID, is associated with a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, according to research published in Environmental Science and Pollution Research.  

The same pyrethroid metabolite was later found to be associated with increased osteoarthritis risk among U.S. adults, as shared in the Daily News Popular Pyrethroid Insecticides, Already Linked to Rheumatoid Arthritis, Associated with Osteoarthritis. In detecting levels of harmful compounds within the body, and connecting the high concentrations to diseases like arthritis, this study is one of many whose findings suggest the importance of an organic diet. 

While certain diseases like arthritis have no cure, adopting an organic diet can eliminate exposure to toxic chemicals that increase disease risk. Studies show that switching to an organic diet can reduce pesticide levels in urine within just two weeks, and that organic agricultural practices and maintaining an organic diet reveal evidence of reduced concentrations of metabolites and lower body burden. 

Beyond Pesticides urges farmers to embrace regenerative organic practices and for consumers to support this holistic, systems-based approach to land management by buying organic products (even on a budget!) or growing organic food. Learn more about the health benefits of organic agriculture here, and stay engaged by signing up to receive Action of the Week and Weekly News Updates delivered straight to your inbox here. 

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

Source: 

Parks, C. et al. (2025) Associations of specific pesticides and incident rheumatoid arthritis among female spouses in the Agricultural Health Study, Arthritis & Rheumatology. Available at: https://acrjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/art.43318. 

(Beyond Pesticides, August 6, 2025) A study published in Science of The Total Environment finds that “chronic pesticide exposure alters metabolism and impairs fish growth and health.”

With increasing concern about the long-term consequences of pesticide persistence in ecosystems, the scientific literature continues to expand the body of research findings on adverse effects, including impacts on marine or aquatic ecosystems and organisms. Given the known and growing risks, there is an ongoing movement to move beyond petrochemical-based chemicals for agriculture and land management by adopting policies and programs that advance organic criteria and principles, as outlined in national organic law and practiced by tens of thousands of certified farmers and land managers across the country, and even more at the international level.

Background and Methodology

“The objective of this study was to assess the physiological responses of juvenile P. lineatus exposed to environmentally relevant pesticide mixtures by integrating multiple biological endpoints across sub-individual and organismal levels,” the authors write.

The study was conducted at two sites in the Tibagi River watershed located in Paraná, a southern region in Brazil. There was a reference site (RFS) and an agricultural site (AGS), the former having minimal pesticide contamination and the latter having been managed with pesticides. The test organism for this study was the six-month-old Prochilodus lineatus (a native Neotropical freshwater fish), which is a keystone species known for its contribution “to nutrient cycling, energy flow, and sediment bioturbation [mixing of soil materials by living organisms].” The fish were exposed for 120 days, with sampling conducted at days 5, 15, 30, 60, 90, and 120.

The authors gathered biomarkers on hematological, metabolic, neurological, and histopathological data at the sub-individual level, as well as organism-level endpoints, including growth rates (absolute and specific), somatic indexes on overall nutritional health (Fulton’s Condition and Liver Somatic Index), and behavior (Swimming Endurance Index). More information can be found in the methodology section of the study. The researchers analyzed 22 organochlorine (legacy) and 33 current-use pesticides in the water samples. While the paper does not include a full list of the 55 pesticides in the study, the fungicide carbendazim, the insecticide fipronil, and the insecticide breakdown product endosulfan sulfate are specifically mentioned in terms of significant findings. The data was analyzed through three tools: Two-Way analyses of variance (Two-Way Anova) to test for significance, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Integrated Biomarker Response (IBR) index. PCA is used to better understand patterns among the various biomarkers over the course of the experiment, and the IBR index is used to combine and summarize biomarker responses into one number.

The authors are researchers at the State University of Londrina in Brazil, based in the Physiological Sciences Department. The authors declare “no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.” The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development and funding from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel in support of one of the PhD student co-authors on the study.

Results

The authors successfully answered their hypothesis that “chronic pesticide exposure elicits compensatory and adaptive responses in fish, increasing energetic demands and ultimately compromising growth and swimming performance.”

More specifically, AGS (agricultural site) fish exhibit various metabolic and hematological disruptions, including increased blood glucose, elevated hematocrit (percentage of red blood cells compared to blood volume), and high hemoglobin levels early in the exposure period, which the authors believe is indicative of an acute stress response. AGS fish were found to face transient inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity in the muscle and brain, which the authors suggest could be attributed to neurotoxic pesticide exposure, such as organophosphates.

As mentioned earlier, the authors mention carbendazim, fipronil, and endosulfan sulfate specifically, given that these compounds were detected at higher concentrations at the AGS site than at the RFS (reference or control) site. These active ingredients are linked to altered energy metabolism and growth suppression, with fipronil specifically linked to the inhibition of acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme necessary for nervous system functioning.

In terms of data analysis, IBR scores were higher at the AGS site, which the authors indicate as having greater overall stress and biological disruption. Additionally, the PCA analysis (found in Figures 8 and 9) finds that pesticide exposure was a primary driver for these physiological changes in demonstrating site- and time-dependent clustering of various biomarker responses.

Previous Research

Freshwater organisms and ecosystems are at serious risk of collapse given the cumulative exposure to pesticides, microplastics, and other toxic substances, as documented in the literature. One of the most recent studies to demonstrate this, published in Ecotoxicology, focuses on the impacts of MPs and chlorpyrifos (CPF), a widely used organophosphate insecticide, on cladocerans, a group of microcrustaceans. Chronic exposure shows reduced survival and reproductive output in both cladoceran species in this study. (See Daily News here.) A 2025 study, published in Environmental Pollutants and Bioavailability, assesses the impacts on Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), with subacute and chronic exposure to thiamethoxam, a neonicotinoid insecticide, and finds genotoxicity, oxidative stress (imbalances affecting the body’s detoxification abilities that lead to cell and tissue damage), and changes in tissue structure, among other threats to organ function and overall fish health. (See Daily News here.)

Another study published in Ecotoxicology earlier this year finds that Nile tilapia exposure to the herbicide florpyrauxifen-benzyl (FPX) elicits oxidative stress, with specific genotoxic (damage to genetic material) and hepatotoxic (damage to the liver) effects on nontarget species. (See Daily News here.) At the ecosystem level, a 2025 study in Ecology Letters finds “severe degradation of ecosystem functioning in the form of loss of organic matter consumption and dramatic shifts in primary productivity,” after performing an experiment with “36 naturally established freshwater ecosystems exposed to increasing field-realistic concentrations of the neonicotinoid thiacloprid.” (See Daily News here.)

Communities near agricultural fields are also known to experience elevated exposure to wastewater contaminants, per a recent study published in Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering. (See Daily News here.) In analyzing nonagricultural streams in Germany in a 2025 study published in Water Research, researchers find that pesticide contamination, while lower than levels found in streams directly next to agricultural land, can occur through various routes and threatens biodiversity in essential ecosystems. (See Daily News here.)

Pesticide exposure also induces critical effects on non-freshwater ecosystems. A study in Environmental Science and Technology Letters, funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is the first to find halogenated organic compounds (HOCs) in deep ocean sediment and biota off the coast of California. The test area, known as the Southern California Bight (SCB), is home to historic offshore DDT waste dumping, with part of the SCB designated as a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site. A total of 49 HOCs were detected in the sediment and biota, many of which are DDT-related and not previously screened for. (See Daily News here.) Pesticide exposure has also been detected in the atmosphere of deep ocean ecosystems (see Daily News here) and found to impact coral reef health. (See Daily News here.)

With the climate crisis leading to increased likelihood and severity of extreme weather events such as flooding, research published through the American Chemical Society finds that frequently flooded sites have higher levels of pesticides present due to the pesticides in surface waters contaminating the soil. The study results show that the plant vegetation in the contaminated soil then takes up the pesticides, which bioaccumulate and lead to higher contamination that can further cascade throughout the ecosystem and affect terrestrial food webs. (See Daily News here.)

For further Daily News coverage on the latest peer-reviewed science, consider reviewing the sections dedicated to water, water regulation, and aquatic organisms.

Call to Action

Beyond Pesticides continues to advocate for solutions that address the root causes of the existential threats to biodiversity, public health, and climate change. If we do not move beyond siloed approach to environmental, public health, and climate policies, there is risk of advancing piecemeal solutions that fail to meet this moment of cascading and intersecting crises.

Take action: Tell state legislators to focus on ecosystem protection, not just individual pesticides. You can also tell Congress to ensure that federal agencies affirm U.S. commitment to restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of all the nation’s protected water resources.

Featured Image Credit: dariocrosa from iNaturalist, CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, via Wikimedia Commons.

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

Source: Science of The Total Environment

(Beyond Pesticides, August 5, 2025) A biomonitoring study in Environmental Geochemistry and Health, focused on small-scale farms in Pahang, Malaysia, analyzes levels of essential and toxic elements in hair and nail samples from chemical-intensive and organic farmers. While the results reveal elements that correlate with specific farming practices, common elements to both chemical-intensive and organic farming highlight the role of pesticide drift in off-target contamination, diminishing some of the benefits of organic agriculture. The persistent and pervasive nature of many pesticide products results in exposure patterns, in addition to direct occupational exposure on chemical-intensive conventional farms, that trespass onto organically managed land and threaten health and the environment—raising policy and practice issues needed to safeguard the public.

Cameron Highlands in Malaysia is a region known for intensive pesticide use as well as for its vegetable and flower farming, where both conventional and organic agriculture exist in close proximity. “Despite different agricultural approaches, both groups remain at risk of environmental exposure due to long-term pesticide application in the region,” the authors write. They continue, “While organic farming practices may reduce direct exposure to synthetic agrochemicals, the risk of cross-contamination from surrounding conventional farms remains a concern due to environmental dispersion through soil, water, and air.”

Farmers, farmworkers, and their families across the globe face disproportionate risks from pesticide exposure. (See more here and here.) As previously shared in Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News, Disproportionate Pesticide Hazards to Farmworkers and People of Color Documented. . .Again, there is a long history of documented hazards and government failure to protect farmworkers from pesticide use in agriculture. Farmworkers, some of whom can be pesticide applicators, often live very near the fields and orchards where pesticides are applied. These chemicals are prone to drift and can volatilize (evaporate/disperse), causing nontarget exposure to humans, wildlife, and the environment. (See additional Daily News coverage on farmworkers here.)

Within the current study, the researchers note that an increasing number of farmers in the Cameron Highlands are responding to the growing concerns of adverse health impacts tied to prolonged exposure to the harmful chemicals used in conventional agriculture, with many transitioning to organic farming. “However, despite these efforts to reduce synthetic agrochemical exposure, organic farmers remain susceptible to environmental contamination from neighbouring conventional farms,” the authors write.

The use of petrochemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers in conventional agriculture represents not only a direct occupational exposure route to trace elements for those who apply the chemicals, but it is a source of contamination to those in the surrounding environment. These elements are bioaccumulative, with both acute and chronic health effects.

In the study, hair and nail samples are analyzed for essential metals such as sodium (Na), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), which “are crucial for various physiological functions, including enzymatic reactions, cellular metabolism, and immune regulation, but must remain within optimal ranges to prevent deficiencies or toxicity,” the researchers state. (See research here.)

They continue: “Conversely, toxic metals such as chromium (Cr), arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), lead (Pb) pose significant health risks due to their ability to bioaccumulate and cause neurotoxicity, carcinogenicity, and metabolic disturbances. These elements exhibit distinct toxicokinetic [how a substance moves through the body and relates to its toxic effects] properties; some disrupt essential biochemical pathways, while others contribute to cumulative toxicity with prolonged exposure.” (See studies here and here.)

In using hair and nails as biological samples, this reflects longer-term, cumulative exposure for trace elements, unlike blood or urine, which only account for recent exposure. As the study authors point out, “Hair sequesters trace elements over weeks, while nails, due to their slower growth rate, reflect exposure over several months.”

The participants in the study include vegetable farmers who have lived and worked in the study area for at least 12 months and are between 18 and 60 years of age. The organic farmers, 15 of the 62 total farmers, were also required to have experience in organic agriculture, with no use of synthetic agrochemicals for at least the past year, while the conventional farmers, the remaining 47 participants, reported routine use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.

The results reveal significant differences in trace element concentrations between the farmers of conventional and organic farms. “Overall, conventional farmers exhibited higher median concentrations of most toxic elements compared to organic farmers,” the authors state. Specifically, in the hair samples, chromium levels are significantly higher in conventional farmers, with elevated mercury levels noted as well. Of the essential elements, iron and sodium were both slightly higher in organic farmers, which can be attributed to variations in soil management and fertilizer use. These variations between the two groups suggest a strong link between agrochemical uses and exposure.

Within the nail samples, zinc levels are significantly higher in conventional farmers compared to organic farmers, which shows a link between conventional farming practices and exposure to this element in excess from zinc-enriched products. “For conventional farmers, continuous exposure to zinc through fertilizers, pesticides, and soil contact over time may lead to its accumulation in the body, which is reflected in higher zinc concentrations in nail samples,” the authors explain. Of the toxic elements, the conventional farmers also show higher mean concentrations of chromium, manganese, lead, and mercury in their nails as compared to organic farmers.

“However, the detection of certain trace elements in both groups highlights the impact of shared environmental contamination, driven by historical and ongoing pesticide and fertilizer use in the highlands,” the researchers state. They continue: “[T]oxic elements such as arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), and lead (Pb) did not differ significantly between the two groups, although median levels were slightly higher among conventional farmers… [B]oth groups showed overlapping exposure profiles, potentially due to shared environmental background contamination in this pesticide-intensive highland region.”

The long-standing use of pesticides and fertilizers within the region plays a critical role in exposure to contaminants for all farmers and residents. “Despite having different farming methods, agrochemicals’ historical and ongoing use has contaminated soils and caused environmental interactions that have an impact on both conventional and organic farmers,” the authors conclude.

They continue: “This shared environmental exposure can mask the potential impact of farming practices, leading to similar levels of these toxic elements in both groups… The potential cross-contamination raises concerns about the exposure risk for all farmers in the region and emphasizes the need for improved safety measures, environmental monitoring, and sustainable farming practices.”

The shared contamination in the environment through farmland soils, atmospheric dispersion, and water sources highlights the urgent need to fully transition agriculture to sustainable methods. Previous research suggests “that pesticide drift, contaminated irrigation systems, and soil leaching facilitate the unintended transfer of synthetic agrochemicals and trace elements, undermining the benefits of organic farming.” (See studies here and here.)

Beyond Pesticides has extensively covered the multitude of health and environmental benefits of organic land management practices. These benefits are not only for farmers and farmworkers, but for all consumers, wildlife, and the ecosystems in which they depend upon. Regenerative organic agriculture provides soil health benefits (see Daily News here), as well as mitigates the current crises of climate change and biodiversity (see here and here). These methods result in both more nutritious food and higher crop yields, as shown in scientific literature covered in the Daily News Sixteen Year Field Trial Shows Organic Corn Outcompetes Chemical-Intensive Fields in Kenya.

Additional research, highlighted in Study Demonstrates Health Benefits of Organic Diet Over That Consumed with Toxic Pesticides, shows how adopting a fully organic diet can reduce pesticide levels in urine within just two weeks, “by an average of 98.6%” and facilitate faster DNA damage repair relative to a diet of food grown with chemical-intensive practices. These benefits, however, as documented in the current study, can be overshadowed by the widespread contamination that occurs with chemical-intensive methods.

The findings in this study reinforce the urgent need for a full transition to organic in both agriculture and land management to protect the health of all individuals.  >> Tell Congress To Restore Funding that Protects the Health of Farmers, Farmworkers, and Families.

To stay up-to-date on the latest news and opportunities to lend your voice to the organic solution, sign up now to get Action of the Week and Weekly News Updates delivered right to your inbox! Support Beyond Pesticides’ holistic mission of ending the use of petrochemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers by becoming a member today.

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

Source:

How, V. et al. (2025) Evaluation of trace element in the hair and nail samples of conventional and organic farmers in pesticide-treated highland villages, Environmental Geochemistry and Health. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10653-025-02635-1.

(Beyond Pesticides, August 4, 2025) Comments on EPA proposal to bring back controversial use of herbicide dicamba due by Saturday, September 6, 2025, at 11:59 PM ET. With more than 90 percent of soybeans (also corn and the most common species of cotton) planted in varieties genetically engineered to be herbicide-tolerant, the agrichemical industry and industrial agribusiness are lining up to bring back agricultural spraying of the controversial weed killer dicamba—linked to crop damage associated with the chemical’s drifting off the target farms. The courts in 2020 and 2024 vacated EPA’s registration authorizing “over-the-top” (OTT) spraying of dicamba, leading to these uses being stopped in the 2025 growing season. (See Daily News.)             

Genetically engineered crops, widely adopted in 1996 with Monsanto’s glyphosate-tolerant (Roundup Ready) soybean seeds and plants, have been plagued by weed resistance to the weed killers, movement of genetic material, chemical drift, and health and environmental hazards associated with pesticide exposure. Despite the problems and escalating herbicide use in chemical-dependent no-till (no tillage) agriculture, regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have facilitated the astronomical growth of a genetically engineered food system. The industry makes the environmental argument that less disturbance to soil is better for soil health. However, the purveyors of toxics downplay the adverse effects of the petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, and are silent on the fact that certified organic food production prohibits genetically engineered seeds and plants (as well as synthetic fertilizers) with competitive yields and increased economic returns, while protecting health, biodiversity, and climate.   

The pattern of pesticide dependency, often referred to as the pesticide treadmill, continues with EPA’s latest proposal to allow the return of OTT dicamba uses, after Bayer submitted a new registration request to EPA with claims of a “low-volatility” formulation and proposed product label changes. Bayer, in a statement cited in Progressive Farmer on dicamba’s use in genetically engineered crops, said, ”This technology provides tremendous value to soybean and cotton farmers across the U.S.” Recognizing the continuing problem of target weed resistance to the weed killers, the American Soybean Association is quoted by the news outlet, saying, “Dicamba is a critical crop-protection tool for soybean farmers, particularly in managing herbicide-resistant weeds like Palmer amaranth.” The court decision cites survey data that finds “weed resistance is not being effectively managed,” as required by dicamba’s original registration.

Despite the history of dicamba drift and a history of failed weed resistance management in genetically engineered crops, EPA is now considering three new dicamba registrations that continue use of the chemical in its most drift-prone uses. As a result, Beyond Pesticides is calling on the public to: Tell EPA to ban use of dicamba and other drift-prone herbicides.

Pesticide drift harms people, crops, and wildlife. Although the term “drift” applies to airborne movement off the target site, pesticides may also move as runoff and in soil carried by water or wind. Drift may consist of particles or droplets of pesticide as it is applied or vapors that evaporate and are carried in the air. Farmers and applicators may take steps to avoid drift—including buffer zones, thickening agents, and attention to wind direction—but drift-prone pesticides like dicamba are not adequately controlled by these actions. Those harmed by the drift are generally not those whose crops are sprayed, so the risk-benefit analysis pits farmer against farmer, neighbor against neighbor, with one case involving a murder resulting from a dispute over crop damage. The manufacturers of dicamba-based herbicides—who also sell seeds of crops engineered to tolerate dicamba—benefit from this conflict, as farmers buy the engineered seeds in an effort to defend themselves against drift damage, a strategy encouraged by pesticide manufacturers.

Despite findings of dicamba’s harm and EPA failure to comply with standards, the continued use of the weed killer through the 2024 growing season was effectively authorized in a decision of the U.S. District Court of Arizona, which vacated the EPA’s 2021 authorization of the use of three OTT uses of dicamba-based herbicide products. In response, EPA issued an existing stocks order, with a February 2024 stop sale order and allowances of state-specific end-uses through spring and early summer of 2024. It is this decision that will effectively be overturned by Bayer’s and EPA’s changes to the products’ registrations and labels, despite concerns about the limited effectiveness of the proposed changes.

Now, proposed registrations would allow those uses to continue. The docket on these registrations is open for comment until September 6. (See Beyond Pesticides’ comments from August 2025.)

The proposed labels allow for application preplant, at-planting, preemergent, and post-emergent (in-crop) for broadleaf weeds. There are label restrictions purporting to reduce drift damage, but they are subject to exceptions. For example, there is a downwind buffer of 240 feet—though “downwind” may change during application as well as post-application when vapor drift is likely. The buffer distance may be reduced by reducing the number of passes when applied to fields, presence of a windbreak, or use of directed spray equipment. Additional mitigation measures include prohibiting aerial application and temperature restrictions. The maximum allowed temperature during and following application depends on the concentration of additives to reduce drift and volatilization, but may be as high as 95°F. The new proposed uses, since they increase use of dicamba and subsequent harm from pesticide drift, should be denied for failure to meet the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) requirement of no unreasonable adverse effects on the environment. 

Increasing global temperatures have become an important factor in pesticide exposure, resulting from the volatilization of dicamba and pesticides generally. All dicamba formulations have the potential to volatilize, since dicamba has a high vapor pressure. Increases in air temperature can cause dicamba to turn into a gas even after successful application on target surfaces. Since volatilization increases with an increase in temperature, this exposure route is more and more concerning as temperatures are rising higher each year and the length, intensity, and onset of seasons have changed with the climate crisis. The longer and hotter summers will exacerbate dicamba volatilization; therefore, any proposal that allows dicamba application in late Spring and Summer will lead to more drift—especially for post-emergent and over-the-top applications. 

Although pesticides are by definition harmful, critics say that what makes these adverse effects “unreasonable” is the existence of an alternative—an organic production system—that does not harm human health, other species, or ecosystems and, in addition, helps to mitigate climate change. In this context, these critics argue that EPA’s registration decisions for dicamba and other pesticides must use organic production as a yardstick, denying any use for which organic production is successful. 

Tell EPA to ban use of dicamba and other drift-prone herbicides.

Comment to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Dicamba is a drift-prone herbicide that has proved to be extremely difficult to control by regulation. EPA is now considering three new dicamba registrations that continue use of the chemical in its most drift-prone application uses.

Pesticide drift harms people, crops, and wildlife. The term “drift” applies to airborne movement off the target site—though pesticides may also move as runoff and in soil carried by water or wind. Drift may consist of particles or droplets of pesticide as it is applied or vapors that evaporate and are carried in the air. Farmers and applicators may take steps to avoid drift—including buffer zones, thickening agents, and attention to wind direction—but drift-prone pesticides like dicamba are not adequately controlled by these actions. Those harmed by the drift are generally not those whose crops are sprayed, so the risk-benefit analysis pits farmer against farmer, neighbor against neighbor, even resulting in a murder. 

The manufacturers of dicamba-based herbicides—who also sell seeds of crops engineered to tolerate dicamba—benefit from this conflict, as farmers buy the engineered seeds in an effort to defend themselves against drift damage, a strategy encouraged by pesticide manufacturers.

Despite a finding of dicamba’s harm and EPA’s failure to comply with standards, EPA proposes registrations that would allow those uses to continue.

The proposed labels allow for application preplant, at-planting, preemergent, and post-emergent (in-crop) for broadleaf weeds. There are label restrictions purporting to reduce drift damage, but they are subject to exceptions. For example, there is a downwind buffer of 240 feet—though “downwind” may change during application as well as post-application when vapor drift is likely. The buffer distance may be reduced by reducing the number of passes when applied to fields, presence of a windbreak, or use of directed spray equipment. The maximum allowed temperature during and following application depends on the concentration of additives to reduce drift and volatilization, but may be as high as 95°F. The new proposed uses, since they increase use of dicamba and subsequent harm from pesticide drift, should be denied for failure to meet the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) requirement of no unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.

Although pesticides are by definition harmful, what makes these adverse effects “unreasonable” is the existence of an alternative—an organic production system—that does not harm human health, other species, or ecosystems and, in addition, helps to mitigate climate change. In its registration decisions, EPA must use organic production as a yardstick, denying any use for which organic production is successful. This includes the proposed uses.

Increasing global temperatures also need to be considered. All dicamba formulations have the potential to volatilize since dicamba has a high vapor pressure. Increases in air temperature can cause dicamba to turn into a gas even after successful application on target surfaces. Since volatilization increases as temperatures increase, this is more and more concerning as temperatures are rising higher each year. The length, intensity, and onset of seasons have changed, which can be attributed to climate change. The longer and hotter summers will exacerbate dicamba volatilization; therefore, any proposal that allows dicamba application in late Spring and Summer will lead to more drift—especially for post-emergent and over-the-top applications.

EPA must not approve the proposed expanded use of dicamba and must cancel uses of all drift-prone pesticides.

Thank you.

View this document on Regulations gov [EPA-HQ-OPP-2024-0154-1233]. By submitting a comment, you agree to the terms of participation and privacy notice of Regulations.gov.

*UPDATED and Photo Correction: August 18, 2025. This Daily News has been updated to reflect the comment deadline extension from August 22 to September 6. We have also updated the photo for the piece to reflect EPA’s proposed allowance of ground spraying and prohibition of aerial application, as indicated in the text of the article. As we note in the article, pesticide applications drift through air currents picking up the sprayed chemical, or as a result of volatility off the treated surfaces, and move long distances depending on the weather conditions.*

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

(Beyond Pesticides, August 1, 2025) On June 30, Kyle Kunkler started work as deputy assistant administrator for pesticides in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Mr. Kunkler is an experienced agribusiness lobbyist, having come directly from the American Soybean Association, where he was director of government affairs. He joins Nancy Beck, PhD, herself a migrant from the American Chemistry Council. Not coincidentally, a mere three weeks after Mr. Kunkler’s appointment, EPA opened the floodgates to allow use of the controversial herbicide dicamba to flow unrestricted once again through the nation’s ecosystems. Dicamba has been associated with phytotoxic crop/plant damage (leaf damage, stunted growth, or death) and cancer. Three formulations of the herbicide whose registrations had been vacated via litigation will be reinstated by EPA after a public comment period that expires on August 22 at 11:59 PM EDT.

Dicamba is manifestly one of the worst ideas the pesticide industry has ever devised, according to many farmers and pesticide safety advocates. Because of resistance to other herbicides, pesticide scientists developed the “[insert pesticide]-ready” concept in which a crop plant is genetically engineered to resist exposure to a herbicide, “Roundup-Ready” seeds being the most obvious example, so that the herbicide can be sprayed liberally on fields to kill all other susceptible plants. Dicamba plus dicamba-ready seeds follow this pattern. The application technique is called “over-the-top” (OTT) because it is sprayed directly above resistant plants to kill target plants around them.

Introduced in 1967, dicamba rapidly showed itself to be associated with extensive crop damage. A 1969 study in Weed Science compared damage to soybeans from 2,4-D, picloram and dicamba. The authors wrote, “[E]xperience with dicamba and picloram indicates that these compounds may have far greater potential for damage to nearby soybean fields. Spray or vapor drift into nearby soybean fields might seriously damage soybeans.” In fact, dicamba is extremely volatile compared to other herbicides like glyphosate and 2,4-D. Because of its propensity to volatilize and drift, EPA registered it initially only for use in late winter or early spring.

In 2016, EPA registered three “less volatile” forms of dicamba when Monsanto marketed genetically engineered soybean and cotton seeds, largely because weeds were by then resistant to glyphosate. But within a year, the damage was staggering. State agriculture departments reported 2,708 official crop injury investigations to EPA. Between 2021 and 2023, that number approached 3,500. In 2017, at least 5 million acres of non-dicamba-resistant soybeans in 24 states were damaged; the next year, 15 million acres were struck. Downwind specialty crops and, actually, anything that was not dicamba-ready soybean or cotton, faltered or failed.

The pesticide industry claimed to have solved the spray drift problem by adding ammonia compounds called amines to their formulations. Amines were supposed to increase solubility and tamp down dicamba’s extreme volatility. Beyond Pesticides reported on a study in 2022 in Environmental Science & Technology that tracked the environmental behavior of the amines used in dicamba, 2,4-D, and glyphosate. As the pesticide application dried, more amines than pesticides entered the atmosphere. Amines in the air oxidize to form the potent carcinogens nitrosamines and nitroamines. Because at least half of glyphosate and 2,4-D and almost 90% of dicamba formulations contain amines, the “solution” to the spray drift problem is yet another example of the endless chain of pesticide-created threats to ecosystem and human health.

And dicamba itself is no Good Witch Glinda. As Beyond Pesticides noted last year, “[T]here is a strong association between dicamba use and increased risk of developing various cancers, including liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and acute myeloid leukemia. In the Gateway on Pesticide Hazards and Safe Pest Management entry for Dicamba, there is a slew of medical studies detailing adverse health and environmental effects, including neurotoxicity, kidney/liver damage, sensitization/irritation, birth/developmental defects, reproductive damage, and respiratory illnesses.” And because dicamba kills nontarget plants, including trees and critical pollinator species, entire ecosystems are at risk.

The initial registrations for the claimed “low-volatility” OTT dicamba products were set to expire in 2018, but EPA granted extensions with some rather complicated and difficult-to-enforce restrictions on application conditions. A group of environmental stakeholders petitioned the Ninth Circuit to review EPA’s action. In June 2020, the court found that EPA violated the Federal Fungicide, Insecticide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) in six ways. The next week EPA canceled all OTT uses of dicamba—for a mere four months. In October, EPA abruptly, and without notice to any adversarial stakeholder, reregistered all three products unconditionally for five years. The Center for Biological Diversity and others sued EPA and Bayer CropScience. In February 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona re-vacated the 2020 registrations for the three “low-volatility” dicamba products. This once again made the sale and use of these products illegal.

Just as with the tobacco industry and innumerable other chemical industry strategies, the companies that had developed dicamba and its resistant seeds—BASF and Monsanto—covered up dicamba’s dirty little secret in their pitches to growers. An Investigate MidWest report in 2020 revealed that Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) knew there would be massive crop kills. Monsanto’s own pre-market tests revealed so much spray drift that Monsanto simply suspended the tests. The company subsequently gave Midwest farmers an offer they could not refuse: either buy Monsanto’s dicamba-ready soybean and cotton seeds, or expect their own crops to die, according to Investigate MidWest.

Dicamba use will inevitably surge if EPA is not stopped from this policy change. But for those hoping to resist its damage, it is getting even easier to detect dicamba spray drift. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a method to detect and measure dicamba’s damage to soybeans at one ten-thousandth of the amount prescribed for application as long as eight days after application. The team used drones fitted with cameras, but are now working on adapting the spectroscopic signature of dicamba to satellite imagery. It will also be applicable to dicamba spray drift injury to any plant cover, from trees to ornamental shrubs and other plants.

Many plants are exquisitely sensitive to dicamba at very low concentrations. There is evidence that even residues left over in spray applicator reservoirs can be enough to harm plants being sprayed with some other pesticide. A 2019 study by scientists at the University of Missouri examined the effects of 2,4-D and dicamba with or without glyphosate on a large set of ornamental, fruit, and nut species. They tested three levels of exposure, or driftable rates, as fractions of the manufacturer’s labeled rates for each of the four chemical formulations. Visual injuries were seen at up to 1/200^th of the manufacturer’s labeled rate for both dicamba and 2,4-D. These did not change the plants’ survival, but likely made them unmarketable. At higher concentrations, there were changes in shoot length and trunk diameter as well as malformed leaves. The most sensitive species to all the herbicides was grapevine—bad news for viniculture everywhere—but apple, peach, elderberry, dogwood, maple, oak, and viburnum were also extremely sensitive to dicamba.

The EPA’s July 23 announcement claims it “has conducted a robust human health risk assessment for these proposed products and has not identified any human health or dietary risks of concern,” nor any “risks of concern for aquatic invertebrates, fish or aquatic plants,” and only “low risk for honeybees and other non-listed bees from the proposed uses of dicamba.” It also includes proposed “mitigation measures,” including a requirement not to apply dicamba at temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit and to maintain a 240-foot downwind buffer. Several comments on EPA’s regulations page note that the temperature requirement will be impossible to conform to because of the unpredictable nature of weather conditions and the importance of applying pesticides at the right time in the crop cycle. Nor will climate change be reducing the number of 95-degree days any time soon. A 240-foot buffer does not appear to be nearly large enough to contain spray drift that can travel up to at least two to three miles.

The saga of dicamba also reflects the current administration’s efforts to deregulate chemicals. It seems unlikely that the agency’s forthcoming registration rationale will be more restrictive than the ones that have already failed it twice, in the district and appeals courts. It appears EPA is going to claim that further instructions to users—such as wearing long-sleeved shirts, long pants, and socks and shoes—will suffice to solve any downsides to dicamba. The agency clearly is choosing winners and losers here: pesticide companies and large soybean and cotton operations are the winners, while farmers of the vast number of vital food crops and ornamental and specialty plants will be left holding their shrinking investments, leaf by wilting leaf. And since the agency has already decided there are no health or environmental risks associated with dicamba, those risks will likely be completely ignored as well.

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, which shares some values and goals with the organic and regenerative agriculture community, is coming into conflict with corporate power both directly and through its influence on lawmakers. President Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has attacked the pesticide industry for years, as Secretary of Health and Human Services and created a Make America Healthy Again Commission. To encourage the administration to adopt more restrictive pesticide regulations, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted a petition to the President, Secretary Kennedy and the commission last April to significantly alter EPA, FDA and USDA rules concerning pesticide residues on foods and to require USDA to subsidize crop insurance for farmers pledging to eliminate use of many pesticides, including glyphosate, atrazine, paraquat and several neonicotinoids, according to a Civil Eats analysis. This prompted pushback in a letter to the commission from 79 U.S. senators from both parties worried that “safe, well-regulated agricultural inputs” —namely, pesticides—would be banned under a MAHA administration. Beyond Pesticides issued the action: Tell HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to revise the memorandum of agreement with EPA on pesticide residues in food and set protective levels.

Mr. Kunkler’s appointment and EPA’s reversal on dicamba indicate that the Trump administration is siding with industry interests. In May, Mr. Kennedy assured the Senate Appropriations Committee that he was not going to “jeopardize” the “business model” represented by corn and glyphosate. Clearly Kennedy’s promises to reform pesticide policy are likely to die on the vine—killed by the spray drift from the pesticide industry.

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

Sources:

EPA Announces Proposed Decision to Approve Registration for New Uses of Dicamba, Outlines New Measures to Protect Human Health, Environment
Environmental Protection Agency July 23, 2025
https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-announces-proposed-decision-approve-registration-new-uses-dicamba-outlines-new

EPA Hires Farm and Pesticide Lobbyist to Oversee Pesticide Regulation
Lisa Held
Civil Eats June 30, 2025
https://civileats.com/2025/06/30/epa-hires-farm-and-pesticide-lobbyist-to-oversee-pesticide-regulation/

Court Strikes Down EPA’s Allowance of Weedkiller Dicamba after Scathing Inspector General Report
Beyond Pesticides, February 13, 2024
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2024/02/court-strikes-down-epas-allowance-of-weedkiller-dicamba-after-scathing-inspector-general-report/

Chemicals Added to Herbicides to Reduce Drift Actually Drift Themselves, Are Significant Air Pollutants
Beyond Pesticides, November 2, 2022
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2022/11/chemicals-added-to-herbicides-to- reduce-drift-actually-drift-themselves-and-represent-significant-source-of-air-pollution/

‘Buy it or else’: Inside Monsanto and BASF’s moves to force dicamba on farmers
Johnathan Hettinger
Investigate Midwest December 4, 2020
https://investigatemidwest.org/2020/12/04/buy-it-or-else-inside-monsanto-and-basfs-moves-to-force-dicamba-on-farmers/

Dicamba: concerns about health risks and crop damage
Carey Gillam
U.S. Right to Know July 23, 2025
https://usrtk.org/pesticides/dicamba/

Scientists warned this weed killer would destroy crops. EPA approved it anyway
Liza Gross
Reveal News November 13, 2018
https://revealnews.org/article/scientists-warned-this-weed-killer-would-destroy-crops-epa-approved-it-anyway/

New research detects dicamba damage from sky
AgriNews July 24, 2025
https://www.agrinews-pubs.com/news/science/2025/07/24/new-research-detects-dicamba-damage-from-sky/

(Beyond Pesticides, July 31, 2025) A study published in Environmental Advances finds that hundreds of honeybee hives across central and northern Italy are contaminated with various pesticides and their metabolites, including glyphosate and fosetyl. 

“There was no significant difference in glyphosate presence between dead/dying and live bees, suggesting chronic exposure rather than acute toxicity. However, higher pesticide concentrations in dead/dying bees indicate potential sublethal effects contributing to colony distress,” according to the authors. This peer-reviewed study builds on the mounting evidence outlined in the literature connecting pesticide residues to nontarget harm to pollinators and other insects and animals that are critical to biodiversity.

Background and Methodology

“The primary objectives of this study were to develop and validate a reliable, sensitive method for analyzing polar pesticides [highly soluble in water] in honeybees and to investigate polar pesticides residue levels in honeybees across northern and central Italy,” say the researchers of this study, who conduct research at the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Lombardy and Emilia Romagna “Bruno Ubertini”, Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Umbria and Marche “Togo Rosati”, and Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Lazio and Tuscany “M. Aleandri.”

314 honeybee samples were gathered voluntarily from local beekeepers in six regions of northern and central Italy—Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Tuscany, Umbria, and Marche. Two sample types—dead or dying bees and live bees from healthy hives—enable a comparison of contamination levels based on bee mortality and sublethal effects. Four pesticides and their associated metabolites are the focus of this study. They include the weed killer glyphosate (its major metabolite/breakdown chemical AMPA [Aminomethylphosphonic acid], N-acetyl-AMPA, and N-acetyl-glyphosate), fosetyl (Phosphonic acid), glufosinate (NAG [N-acetyl-glufosinate] and MPPA [3-Methylphosphonicpropionic acid] and ethephon (HEPA [Ethephon hydroxy]). These pesticides were targeted because they are considered polar pesticides, meaning that they are more challenging to analyze due to their small molecular size and water solubility.

There were two primary analytical tools, LC-MS/MS (Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry) and IC-HRMS (Ion Chromatography-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry), used to address this obstacle. The first tool was used in Umbria, Marche, Lazio, and Tuscany to identify the herbicides glyphosate, ethephon, glufosinate, fosetyl, and their metabolites (AMPA, N-acetyl-AMPA, HEPA, MPPA, NAG). Meanwhile, the second tool was used in Lombardy and Emilia Romagna and can also identify N-acetyl-glyphosate and phosphonic acid. Financial support was provided by the Italian Ministry of Health, but otherwise the authors declared “no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.”

Results and Discussion

The researchers identified eight notable findings in developing their research.

1. Glyphosate was found in 33.4 percent of samples, making it the most frequently detected pesticide in this study;
2. There was no significant distinction between glyphosate residues in dead/dying bees and healthy, live beehives; however, sublethal effects are possible, considering that average concentrations were higher in the former group;
3. Fosetyl contamination was localized to Emilia Romagna and some in Lombardy, with 85 percent of fosetyl-positive samples also containing glyphosate;
4. Glufosinate and ethephon were never detected in the samples;
5. There was co-occurrence of multiple pesticides, including 16 percent of all samples containing both glyphosate and fosetyl;
6. Higher pesticide detection correlated with herbicide-intensive regions;
7. This study validated the dual methodology of LC-MS/MS and IC-HRMS since it was the first large-scale application of these methods in Italy; and,
8. The health of honeybees can be considered an effective bioindicator when it comes to ecological and human health.

For additional information and analysis, please consider reading the Results and Discussion sections.

Previous Research

A recently published study in Royal Society Open Science shows intraspecific differences (between individuals of a species) in wild bumblebees (Bombus vosnesenskii) exposed to glyphosate, a fungicide (tebuconazole), and an insecticide (imidacloprid), with gut microbiome health as a factor. In collecting 175 individuals of this wild, foraging species from an alpine meadow, a valley lake shoreline, and a suburban park and exposing them to a diet with individual pesticides and mixtures, the researchers assess the varying lethal and sublethal effects that can occur with pesticide exposure. (See Daily News here.) A 2024 research article in Biology Letters, published by The Royal Society, finds that the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid disrupts survival and reproductive patterns in Bombus impatiens bumblebees. The study adds to the wide body of science highlighting how exposure to pesticides “can result in immediate mortality or cause long-term detrimental effects on pollinators‘ health, lifespan and reproductive success,” the authors state. (See Daily News here.) A different novel study published in 2025 in Chemosphere built on existing research of pesticide impacts on honeybee fertility. This study identifies impacts on male fertility in a bee species (Osmia bicornis) with exposure to sulfoxaflor, a systemic sulfoximine insecticide with similar mechanisms to neonicotinoids. “For the first time, we demonstrate that short-term chronic, field-realistic exposure to a common pesticide reduced pre-copulatory display (36%) and sounds (27%) [courtship behaviors], increased the number of copulations (+110%) and the mating duration (+166%), while finally reducing sperm quantity (25%) and mating success (43%),” the researchers report. They continue, “Our research raises considerable concern on the impact of field-realistic, low sublethal pesticide levels on the fertility and reproductive success of pollinators.” (See Daily News here.)

Bees are not the only critical wildlife species at elevated risk. A 2025 study following a mass mortality event of approximately 200 monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus plexippus) in Pacific Grove, California, highlights the role of pesticides, synthetic pyrethroids in particular, in causing lethal and sublethal effects to nontarget organisms. The research, published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, detects residues of 15 pesticides and associated metabolites in the bodies of 10 deceased butterflies collected from the January 2024 event that occurred near an overwintering site frequented by monarchs.

“On average, each monarch butterfly contained 7 pesticides,” the authors report. They continue, “Notably, three pyrethroid insecticides—bifenthrin, cypermethrin, and permethrin—were consistently detected at or near each chemical’s lethal dose (LD50).” LC50, or Lethal Concentration 50, values represent the concentrations of chemicals lethal to 50% of a test population. (See Daily News here.)

A 2025 study conducted in rural Pennsylvania and published in Environmental Entomology highlights threats to nontarget organisms from neonicotinoid insecticide exposure. Using nine different species of ground beetles as examples, the study documents sublethal behavioral effects as well as decreased week-long survival. “Based on this current study, neonicotinoid sprays and seed treatments are likely to have acute, sublethal effects on carabid beetles when applied at label-recommended rates,” the study concludes. “While neonicotinoid use is unlikely to cause direct, acute (<24 h) losses to carabid populations, exposure is likely to reduce feeding activity and longer-term (>7 d) carabid survival.” (See Daily News here.)

Call to Action

At the end of this year’s Pollinator Week in June, Beyond Pesticides called on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to meet its obligations under Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA) by facilitating a transition to organic practices, given the unreasonable adverse effects to pollinators associated with pesticide use. If you have not already, you can take this action today! (See Daily News here and Action of the Week here.)

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

Source: Environmental Advances

(Beyond Pesticides, July 30, 2025) The definition of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals” due to their persistence, continues to be debated in regulatory agencies, with many scientists arguing that certain types of chemicals in this vast group are not accurately captured in risk assessments. A wide body of science on the adverse health and environmental effects of PFAS exists, as these synthetic chemicals have become ubiquitous in nature, wildlife, and humans, as demonstrated by biomonitoring studies. Recent research, documented in a literature review in Environmental Science & Technology and additional articles, highlights the importance of a universal, cohesive definition of PFAS that incorporates all fluorinated compounds, including the long carbon chain PFOA (perfluorooactanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid) as well as the ultrashort-chain perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs). In order to protect health and the environment from the ever-increasing threat of both long and short chain PFAS’ adverse effects, including cancer, endocrine-disrupting effects, and immune system damage, a comprehensive definition of the compounds causing harm is critical to adequate protection and regulatory decisions.

The multitude of sources of PFAS and various exposure routes leads to widespread contamination of the environment and organisms. PFAS in agriculture represents a large source, as PFAS can be pesticide active ingredients, used in the plastic containers pesticides are stored in, and as surfactants in pesticide products. Additionally, PFAS are used in many other plastic storage containers and food packaging, personal care products, nonstick cookware, cleaning supplies, treated clothing, firefighting foam, and machinery and equipment used in manufacturing—all of which contaminate food, water, soil, and the air.

A previous Daily News piece, titled “Science on ‘Forever Chemicals’ (PFAS) as Pesticide Ingredients and Contaminants Documented,” shows how and to what extent PFAS can be introduced into pesticide products, and how this impacts health and the environment. The findings are gleaned from public records requests to state and federal agencies in the U. S. and Canada, as well as from publicly accessible databases discussed in the commentary “Forever Pesticides: A Growing Source of PFAS Contamination in the Environment.” According to the authors: “The biggest contributor to PFAS in pesticide products was active ingredients and their degradates [chemical breakdown products]. Nearly a quarter of all U.S. conventional pesticide active ingredients were organofluorines and 14% were PFAS, and for active ingredients approved in the last 10 y[ears], this had increased to 61% organofluorines and 30% PFAS.”

In 2025 alone, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed the registration of four new PFAS active, or fluorinated, ingredients: cyclobutrifluram, isocycloseram, diflufenican, and trifludimoxazin. Beyond Pesticides’ comments to EPA regarding these chemicals, including 20 signatories on the isocycloseram submission, are available here, here, here, and here.

The definition of PFAS used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) encompasses a wide variety of fluorinated compounds (containing the element fluorine) and is “scientifically grounded, unambiguous, and well suited to identify these chemicals,” as described by scientists in a commentary published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. As the researchers describe, excluding certain fluorinated chemical subgroups does not properly represent the scope of PFAS, which they estimate to include millions of theoretical structures, but more practically, several thousand that are actually manufactured.

The OECD chemical definition of PFAS states:

PFASs are defined as fluorinated substances that contain at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom (without any H/Cl/Br/I atom attached to it), i.e., with a few noted exceptions, any chemical with at least a perfluorinated methyl group (−CF3) or a perfluorinated methylene group (−CF2−) is a PFAS.

This definition of PFAS encompasses gases, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals, many of which can degrade to form additional PFAS, such as trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), that regulatory bodies like EPA do not include in their definitions.

In the literature review in Environmental Science & Technology, peer-reviewed scientific evidence points to five ultrashort-chain PFAAs as examples of harmful compounds that are historically overlooked and not included in all definitions of PFAS. The PFAAs, which all contain less than four carbon atoms, include TFA, perfluoropropanoic acid (PFPrA), trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TFMS), perfluoroethanesulfonate (PFEtS), and perfluoropropanesulfonate (PFPrS). Of these, TFA is the smallest perfluoroalkyl acid with only two carbon atoms.

The authors report: “Our data mining and analysis reveal that (1) ultrashort-chain PFAAs are globally distributed in various environments including water bodies, solid matrices, and air, with concentrations usually higher than those of longer-chain compounds; (2) TFA, the most extensively studied ultrashort-chain PFAA, shows a consistent upward trend in concentrations in surface water, rainwater, and air over the past three decades; and (3) ultrashort-chain PFAAs are present in various organisms, including plants, wildlife, and human blood, serum, and urine, with concentrations sometimes similar to those of longer-chain compounds.”

Ultrashort-chain PFAAs are created both intentionally and unintentionally as byproducts through the process of the synthesis of other PFAS and are not captured in all regulatory assessments. Yet, studies extensively document the presence of ultrashort-chain PFAAs in water, soil, air, and dust. One study finds both TFA and PFPrA (perfluoropropionic acid) in ice caps in remote locations, showing the widespread contamination present with these compounds.

Like other PFAS with long chains of carbon atoms, ultrashort-chain PFAAs are very stable due to carbon-fluorine bonds. The shorter-chain compounds, however, have unique properties that create additional threats. With increased hydrophilicity (attraction to water) and enhanced water solubility (ability to dissolve), ultrashort-chain PFAAs within global waterways and the atmosphere are more easily able to circulate and be widely distributed. An additional risk with ultrashort-chain PFAAs contamination in water is that these properties result in ineffective removal by conventional water treatment methods.

A study in Northern California reports that TFA concentrations in surface water increased by an average of 6-fold between 1998 to 2021. Additional research finds ultrashort-chain PFAAs omnipresent in groundwater throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, with TFA as the most detected compound. (See here, here, here, and here.)

Drinking water is also an exposure route for ultrashort-chain PFAAs that threaten human health. Research finds both tap water and bottled water contamination in the U.S. and China. (See studies here, here, here, and here.) A study of dust and drinking water samples from residential homes in Indiana, as well as blood and urine samples of the residents, shows TFA as the predominant PFAS in all of the samples, also noting the concentrations surpass those of longer-chain compounds.

Previous scientific literature indicates PFAS can cross into the placenta and accumulate in the fetus, with a higher potential for short-chain PFAS revealed in recent research. (See here, here, and here.) While some researchers have hypothesized that ultrashort-chain PFAAs have a lower risk of bioaccumulation in animals than compounds with longer chains, studies find evidence that they accumulate within plants, wildlife, and humans at comparable or elevated levels. (See studies here, here, here, and here.) The presence of these compounds in food sources throughout various trophic levels poses a risk to both humans and ecological health.

Proving further evidence of TFA’s prevalence and subsequent health threats, a viewpoint article in ACS ES&T Water highlights additional scientific research. One study identifies several fluorinated pharmaceuticals and pesticides in sewage sludge (biosolids) that transform into TFA, which contributes to the long list of sources for exposure to ultrashort-chain PFAAs.

Another study assesses TFA formation from “plant protection products” (PPP), another name for pesticides, across Europe, the U.S., and China. The results find that any PPPs that contain trifluoromethyl groups can lead to substantial TFA emissions. The study also finds higher levels of TFA from groundwater monitoring data that correlate with agricultural areas.

Daily News coverage of pesticide contamination in waterways highlights the most recent report on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in which PFAS are recognized as a contaminant of concern. The report notes, “Within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, PFAS were detected in every smallmouth bass plasma sample amongst four varying land use locations (agriculture versus developed land).” This adds to the growing body of research identifying the deleterious effects of PFAS on ecosystems and individual species, including humans.

The Daily News also points out that despite the evidence and EPA’s own admission of PFAS’s toxicities, the number of products containing PFAS is burgeoning out of control to replace banned organochlorines, such as DDT and methoxychlor. In 2020, fluorinated agrochemicals comprised about nine percent of the pesticide market, and have now reached almost 70 percent of newly-approved pesticides, according to a 2025 review in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

A guest editorial piece in Archives of Toxicology also references the upward trend in PFAS contamination, including ultrashort-chain PFAS (US-PFAS) like TFA. The authors conclude that: “[R]egulatory agencies should unify in the classification of US-PFAS within the broader category of PFAS. The current omission of TFA and TFMS [trifluoromethanesulfonic acid] from the EPA PFAS definition contributes to different regulatory strategies between Europe and the United States and hinders a unified and standardized approach to this global growing problem.”

The authors of the ACS ES&T Water viewpoint piece agree, saying: “As the scientific community grapples with the challenges posed by TFA and other ultra-short-chain PFAS, there is a growing consensus on the need for more comprehensive research and regulatory action… The emerging concerns surrounding TFA and other ultra-short-chain PFAS call for a reevaluation of our approach to chemical regulation and environmental protection.”

The persistence and pervasiveness of these compounds are public health and environmental threats that cannot be ignored. “As we continue to unravel the complex environmental fate and potential health impacts of TFA, it is crucial that we adopt a precautionary approach, prioritizing research into safer alternatives,” the researchers summarize.

With EPA’s failure to perform its statutory duties to adequately protect the health of the environment and all organisms within it, as extensively covered by Beyond Pesticides, the call to truly safeguard ecosystems and public health with the elimination of pesticides, including all PFAS, takes on a greater urgency. As noted in a previous Action of the Week, instead of creating a complicated workaround that will not address the urgent health, biodiversity, and climate crises, EPA must cancel registrations of pesticides that harm endangered species, and all organisms including humans, and facilitate a widescale conversion to organic practices.

The holistic, systems-based organic solution for land management and agriculture offers numerous health and environmental benefits. Learn more about how to take action and have your voice heard on governmental efforts that are harmful to the environment and public and worker health, increase overall pesticide use, and undermine the advancement of organic, sustainable, and regenerative practices and policies here.

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

Source:

Jagani, R. et al. (2025) Trifluoroacetic Acid: An Ultra-Short PFAS with Emerging Environmental and Public Health Concerns, ACS ES&T Water. Available at: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsestwater.5c00599.

Maerten, A. et al. (2025) Tiny molecules, big concerns: ultrashort-chain PFAS on the regulatory radar, Archives of Toxicology. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00204-025-04126-9.

Sigmund, G. et al. (2025) Scientists’ Statement on the Chemical Definition of PFASs, Environmental Science & Technology Letters. Available at: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.5c00478.

Zhi, Y. et al. (2024) Environmental Occurrence and Biotic Concentrations of Ultrashort-Chain Perfluoroalkyl Acids: Overlooked Global Organofluorine Contaminants, Environmental Science & Technology. Available at: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c04453.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 29, 2025) Are neurological diseases increasing around the world? Yes and no, according to a report published by The Lancet in 2024 on the global burden of nervous system diseases between 1990 and 2021. About 3 billion—a third of the world’s people—suffer from some nervous system condition. These diseases cause 11 million deaths and 443 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which are a measure of the years lost to illness, disability, or early death. Neurological disorders are now the world’s largest source of disability.

The Lancet report does not include an analysis of the role of pesticides in the burden of neurological disease worldwide, although environmental health research continues to expand the evidence that pesticide exposure is a major contributor to that burden. The Lancet report indicates that DALYs from Parkinson’s disease have increased by 10 percent, and autism spectrum disorder and dementia by 2 percent each. Multiple sclerosis has declined by 11 percent, according to the report. Importantly, most of the improvement has come from medical interventions, not prevention—in other words, people are living longer with the diseases rather than avoiding them altogether. But this is not true globally: The burden of disease, and particularly premature death, rests most heavily on the developing world, where medical interventions are much more scarce. A focus on prevention would be a more equitable approach to the problem. See Beyond Pesticides’ deep archive of the evidence on pesticides and neurological diseases in Pesticide-Induced Diseases: Brain and Nervous System Disorders section. Our Gateway on Pesticide Hazards is also invaluable for information about specific pesticides and their adverse health effects.

The Lancet’s big picture does not demonstrate that the burden of pesticide-induced neurological disease is declining. Such a decline seems a logical impossibility, given that more and more people are chronically exposed to more and more pesticides, and more and more research is establishing both population-level and mechanistic evidence of pesticides’ influence on disease induction and outcome, including neurological disorders.

A recent review by Chinese researchers demonstrates that there is no category of pesticide—not herbicides, not fungicides, not insecticides—that does not contribute to neurological dysfunction. The authors recite numerous examples: the herbicide glyphosate affects both cognitive and motor functions. The fungicides tebuconazole and azoxystrobin are associated with neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. Organophosphate insecticides lead to sensory disruption, emotional disturbances, and neurodevelopmental problems. Several “natural” chemicals, including rotenone and the plant growth regulators gibberellic acid and indole-3-butyric acid, affect the expression of some neurologically relevant enzymes. One research group found that the insect repellent DEET applied to rats’ skin killed their neurons.

The review examines studies showing pesticides’ neurological damage relevant to long-term exposures, rather than the usual acute exposures that form the outdated regulatory toxicological approach to pesticide hazards and risks. The studies considered encompass pre-clinical research, including in vivo studies involving both humans and animals—as well as in vitro experiments with molecular processes common to both, along with results from clinical and epidemiological studies.

In all, the authors include 47 preclinical and 40 clinical reports involving about 30 pesticides, singly and in combination, including all the major groups. Their analysis shows that the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which pesticides cause neurotoxicity are many and varied. For example, glyphosate produces high levels of inflammatory cytokines in the brains of mice. Rotenone likely disrupts the blood-brain barrier and causes neurons to commit suicide in rodents and aquatic organisms. The organophosphate insecticide chlorpyrifos and the herbicide atrazine affect neurons in the hippocampus region of the brain, which is important to memory. Deltamethrin, a pyrethroid insecticide, likewise affects the hippocampus by preventing new neurons from forming and distressing neurons’ endoplasmic reticulum (cells’ internal transportation and structural system). The fungicide tebuconazole disturbs the gut-brain axis, affecting learning and memory. The organophosphate malathion produces neuroinflammation, cognitive deficits, and amyloid beta deposition in neurons reminiscent of Alzheimer’s disease. Virtually every neonicotinoid insecticide affects the vital neurotransmitter acetylcholine’s functioning. The review’s recitation of pesticides associated with Parkinson’s disease and dementias is too long to mention here.

It is important to note that many of the pesticides included in the review are no longer registered for use in the United States and other countries (e.g., endosulfan, DDT, carbofuran, maneb), but this is cold comfort, because most of these are so persistent that they continue to expose millions of people long after their discontinuance. This is a problem in indoor environments where organochlorine insecticides like carbofuran and DDT were used in the past. Many old pesticides still linger in soils as well.

But it is also clear that newer pesticides present gross risks to humans and ecosystems. Pesticide use has doubled globally since 1990, according to an analysis by the Food and Agriculture Organization, with the greatest jump—from about a million tons in 1990 to about 2.75 million tons in 2023—in herbicides.

One set of pesticides has received very little attention until recently, when evidence has emerged that these chemicals do indeed have neurological effects: gibberellic acid and indole-3-butyric acid, both derived from natural plant growth regulators. These substances are not technically classed as pesticides, but they remain as residues on plant products.

The review authors cite studies showing that their effects on plants are very different from their effects on animals. Gibberellic acid has been given a pass by EPA since its registration review in 1995. It induces cell division in plants, but a pair of studies found that prenatal exposure to gibberellic acid in rats produces oxidative stress during the development of the cerebellum when the brain requires high amounts of oxygen but has few defense mechanisms against reactive oxygen species. Indole-3-butyric acid exerts effects on the brain through the gut-brain axis and has been shown to affect the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is also targeted by organophosphate and carbamate pesticides. EPA considers Indole-3-butyric acid to be essentially nontoxic. In addition, there is some evidence that some indole compounds may actually be protective against dementia, so this is an area in need of much more research.

What this review indicates is that, despite The Lancet’s assessment that the global burden of many neurological diseases is static or declining, there is a serious undertow in the wave of progress in the form of burgeoning pesticide usage. For example, Parkinson’s disease is undoubtedly on the increase worldwide, but the 2024 Lancet report on neurological diseases conflicts with an earlier Lancet report specific to Parkinson’s from 2018. The latter report notes that Parkinson’s is the primary reason for the jump in neurological diseases. The 2024 Lancet report said there was a 10 percent increase in the incidence of Parkinson’s between 1990 and 2021. But the 2018 Parkinson’s report stated DALYs increased from 2.5 million in 1990 to 6.1 million in 2016—a jump of 21 percent. More recent work shows even worse acceleration: according to a 2025 review in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, DALYs from Parkinson’s have increased 85 percent since 2000, and deaths have jumped by more than 100 percent. And environmental toxicants, particularly pesticides associated with food, are very strongly implicated in these increases, as detailed in a 2024 review of environmental toxins and Parkinson’s in Science of the Total Environment.

Beyond Pesticides has accumulated overwhelming evidence from scientific studies that Parkinson’s and the other neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficits, memory and cognition disorders, and more, are strongly linked to pesticide exposures. While there is no question that therapeutic and palliative practices can reduce some of the suffering victims endure, the more obvious and prudent course would be to work on prevention. Eliminating pesticides from all forms of agriculture, public lands, gardening, municipal landscapes, and the like would go further to protect public health than simply trying to treat the symptoms once a disease has taken hold. Organic and regenerative practices are the key.

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

Sources:
Neurotoxic risks of long-term environmental exposure to pesticides: a review
Yumeng Leng et al
Chemico-Biological Interactions, 5 September 2025
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000927972500256X

Global, regional, and national burden of disorders affecting the nervous system, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021
GBD 2021 Nervous System Disorders Collaborators
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1474-4422%2824%2900038-3

Global, regional, and national burden of Parkinson’s disease, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
GBD 2016 Parkinson’s Disease Collaborators
The Lancet Neurology 2018
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6191528/

Pesticide-Induced Diseases: Brain and Nervous System Disorders
Beyond Pesticides
https://www.beyondpesticides.org/resources/pesticide-induced-diseases-database/brain-and-nervous-system-disorders

(Beyond Pesticides, July 28, 2025) As the problem of antimicrobial-resistant infections continues to escalate to pandemic proportions, Beyond Pesticides is again calling on Congress and the federal government to urgently start to eliminate the use of pesticides that contribute to antibiotic resistance. While data accumulates on antimicrobial resistance, including Daily News reporting of yet another study in June in Environmental Geochemistry and Health, the 79^th United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on antimicrobial resistance (September 2024) points to  nearly five million deaths in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant microbial infections and $1 trillion in annual health care costs per year by 2050 globally.

According to the UN’s political declaration, “[G]lobally, antimicrobial resistance could result in US$ 1 trillion of additional health-care costs per year by 2050 and US$ 1 trillion to 3.4 trillion of gross domestic product losses per year by 2030, and that treating drug-resistant bacterial infections alone could cost up to US$ 412 billion annually, coupled with workforce participation and productivity losses of US$ 443 billion, with antimicrobial resistance predicted to cause an 11 per cent decline in livestock production in low-income countries by 2050.” These findings grow out of “[G]eneral Assembly resolution 78/269, to review progress on global, regional and national efforts to tackle antimicrobial resistance, to identify gaps and invest in sustainable solutions to strengthen and accelerate multisectoral progress at all levels, through a One Health approach, with a view to scaling up the global effort to build a healthier world based on equity and leaving no one behind. . .” (More background can be found in Daily News.)

All causes of resistance are now on the table for action, given the health implications of ineffective treatments for bacterial and fungal diseases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “More than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur in the U.S. each year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result. When Clostridioides difficile—a bacterium that is not typically resistant but can cause deadly diarrhea is associated with antibiotic use—is added to these, the U.S. toll of all the threats in the report exceeds three million infections and 48,000 deaths.” According to a 2021 article in Current Research in Microbial Sciences, “Antibiotic resistance in agriculture: Perspectives on upcoming strategies to overcome upsurge in resistance,” the leading consumers of antibiotics in developed countries are U.S. consumers. So, the U.S. population may have the most to lose from antibiotic resistance.

As a result, Beyond Pesticides is asking that: EPA must not register pesticides, and Congress must not allow their registration, unless they have been demonstrated not to contribute to antimicrobial resistance and must cancel the registration of those that do.

By 2050, various sources other than the UN estimate that antibiotic resistance could increase global health care costs by $1 trillion to $100 trillion. While the world slowly realizes the urgent need to counter antibiotic resistance, the role of pesticides in generating it has received less political and public attention. But there is no doubt that pesticides are strongly implicated. In fact, the resistance of microbes to antibiotics is no different from the well-documented resistance of insects and plants to pesticides.

When antimicrobial or antibiotic pesticides are sprayed on a crop, they induce antibiotic resistance in bacteria that are present by killing susceptible bacteria—which may or may not be pathogenic—and allowing resistant bacteria to proliferate. Those resistant bacteria move off the site on produce, workers’ clothing, and the wind. Prevention of chemical drift is therefore inadequate to protect against the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The now well-known phenomenon of horizontal gene transfer (movement of genes in bacteria from one bacterial species to another) means that antibiotic resistance genes in those (possibly harmless) bacteria can move to bacteria that cause disease in plants or humans.

A 2022 study “elaborate[s] [on] the mechanism underlying the effects of pesticides on bacterial antibiotic resistance acquisition as well as the propagation of antimicrobial resistance. Pesticide stress enhanced the acquisition of antibiotic resistance in bacteria via various mechanisms, including the activation of efflux pumps (removing substances from cells), inhibition of outer membrane pores for resistance to antibiotics, and gene mutation induction.” Furthermore, the study found, “Pesticides promoted the conjugation transfer of ARGs [antibiotic resistance genes] by increasing cell membrane permeability and increased the proportion of bacterial mobile gene elements, which facilitate the spread of ARGs.”

The presence of both pesticides and antibiotics in water bodies—lakes, rivers, and oceans—and especially those receiving both agricultural runoff and hospital waste—multiplies the risk of antimicrobial resistance. Further, the waters of the world are largely connected, from snow zones to oceans, so that in many cases what enters one body of water affects everything downstream.

The antibiotic streptomycin has been banned for agricultural use on crops in many countries, and after the Ninth Circuit’s December 2023 decision vacating the 2021 registration amendments for streptomycin because of the Agency’s failure to comply with the Endangered Species Act, it is no longer registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Oxytetracycline hydrochloride is registered for use on tree crops. Kasugamycin is also registered by EPA. Oxolinic acid and gentamicin are registered as antimicrobials in other countries. All of these have therapeutic uses in humans.

In addition to use on crops, antimicrobials used to manage synthetic turf for bacteria, mold, and fungus raise serious health issues and represent a threat that does not exist in organic land management. A builder of sports facilities, American Athletic, states, “Beyond surface cleaning, the artificial turf should be sanitized weekly or monthly to protect the players’ and coaches’ health. This disinfection requires special solvents, cleansers, and anti-microbial products to remove invisible particles and bacterial growth. You should strive to sanitize the field after every game and throughout the school day if it’s used for physical education classes.”

Finally, two facts lead to the conclusion that focusing on materials sold as antibiotics or antimicrobials is too shortsighted. First, science shows that the use of any antibiotics anywhere can increase antibiotic resistance everywhere. Second, many pesticides not intended to kill microbes—such as the herbicides glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba—also induce antibiotic resistance in deadly human pathogens. These two facts lead to the conclusion that we must stop broadcasting pesticides in the environment and applying them to food. The crisis in antibiotic resistance, which creates a threat of another pandemic, is ignored in the registration of pesticides. The antibiotic impacts of pesticides cited above were discovered only after the pesticides had been disseminated in the environment for decades.

Letter to U.S. Congress
Antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world. Globally, about five million people died in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant microbial infections. We cannot afford to ignore any cause of resistance, given the health implications of ineffective treatments for bacterial and fungal diseases. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “More than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur in the U.S. each year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result. When Clostridioides difficile—a bacterium that is not typically resistant but can cause deadly diarrhea is associated with antibiotic use—is added to these, the U.S. toll of all the threats in the report exceeds 3 million infections and 48,000 deaths.”

When antimicrobial pesticides are sprayed on a crop, they induce resistance in bacteria that are present by killing susceptible bacteria—which may or may not be pathogenic—allowing resistant bacteria to proliferate. The resistant bacteria move off the site on crops, workers, and the wind. Prevention of chemical drift is thus inadequate to protect against the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The fact of horizontal gene transfer means that antibiotic resistance genes in those (possibly harmless) bacteria can move to pathogens.

In addition, pesticides produce enhanced antibiotic resistance in bacteria by activating efflux pumps (removing substances from cells), inhibiting outer membrane pores for resistance to antibiotics, promoting gene mutation, and increasing conjugation transfer of antibiotic resistance genes through increased cell membrane permeability and a greater proportion of bacterial mobile gene elements.

In addition to crops, antimicrobials are used to manage synthetic turf. A builder of sports facilities, American Athletic, states, “Beyond surface cleaning, the artificial turf should be sanitized weekly or monthly to protect the players’ and coaches’ health. This disinfection requires special solvents, cleansers, and antimicrobial products to remove invisible particles and bacterial growth. You should strive to sanitize the field after every game and throughout the school day if it’s used for physical education classes.”

Finally, focusing on materials sold as antibiotics or antimicrobials is too shortsighted. First, science shows that the use of any antibiotics anywhere can increase antibiotic resistance everywhere. Second, many pesticides not intended to kill microbes—such as the herbicides glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba—also induce antibiotic resistance in deadly human pathogens. Thus, we must stop broadcasting pesticides in the environment. The crisis in antibiotic resistance, which creates a threat of another pandemic, is ignored in the registration of pesticides. The antibiotic impacts of pesticides cited above were discovered only after the pesticides had been disseminated in the environment for decades.

EPA must not register pesticides unless they have been demonstrated not to contribute to antibiotic resistance and must cancel the registration of those that do.

Thank you.

Letter to EPA
Antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world. Globally, about five million people died in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant microbial infections. We cannot afford to ignore any cause of resistance, given the health implications of ineffective treatments for bacterial and fungal diseases. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “More than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur in the U.S. each year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result. When Clostridioides difficile—a bacterium that is not typically resistant but can cause deadly diarrhea is associated with antibiotic use—is added to these, the U.S. toll of all the threats in the report exceeds 3 million infections and 48,000 deaths.”

When antimicrobial pesticides are sprayed on a crop, they induce resistance in bacteria that are present by killing susceptible bacteria—which may or may not be pathogenic—allowing resistant bacteria to proliferate. The resistant bacteria move off the site on crops, workers, and the wind. Prevention of chemical drift is thus inadequate to protect against the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The fact of horizontal gene transfer means that antibiotic resistance genes in those (possibly harmless) bacteria can move to pathogens.

In addition, pesticides produce enhanced antibiotic resistance in bacteria by activating efflux pumps (removing substances from cells), inhibiting outer membrane pores for resistance to antibiotics, promoting gene mutation, and increasing conjugation transfer of antibiotic resistance genes through increased cell membrane permeability and a greater proportion of bacterial mobile gene elements.

In addition to crops, antimicrobials are used to manage synthetic turf. A builder of sports facilities, American Athletic, states, “Beyond surface cleaning, the artificial turf should be sanitized weekly or monthly to protect the players’ and coaches’ health. This disinfection requires special solvents, cleansers, and antimicrobial products to remove invisible particles and bacterial growth. You should strive to sanitize the field after every game and throughout the school day if it’s used for physical education classes.”

Finally, focusing on materials sold as antibiotics or antimicrobials is too shortsighted. First, science shows that the use of any antibiotics anywhere can increase antibiotic resistance everywhere. Second, many pesticides not intended to kill microbes—such as the herbicides glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba—also induce antibiotic resistance in deadly human pathogens. Thus, we must stop broadcasting pesticides in the environment. The crisis in antibiotic resistance, which creates a threat of another pandemic, is ignored in the registration of pesticides. The antibiotic impacts of pesticides cited above were discovered only after the pesticides had been disseminated in the environment for decades.

EPA must not register pesticides unless they have been demonstrated not to contribute to antibiotic resistance and must cancel the registration of those that do.

Thank you.

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

(Beyond Pesticides, July 25, 2025) The scientific literature shows that microplastics (MPs) and pesticides, both ubiquitous throughout the environment, have synergistic effects that threaten aquatic organisms. This means the combined toxicity of the two substances is greater than the sum of two individual exposures. The most recent study to demonstrate this, published in Ecotoxicology, focuses on the impacts of MPs and chlorpyrifos (CPF), a widely used organophosphate insecticide, on cladocerans, a group of microcrustaceans.

As Beyond Pesticides has previously reported, microplastics are found in all environments and threaten not only human health but all wildlife in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The universal distribution of plastics means that they cannot be avoided. Humans and other organisms take up plastics in the form of microparticles and nanoparticles by inhalation, ingestion, and skin contact every day. Microplastics are about the width of a human hair; nanoplastics are much smaller, about twice the width of a DNA strand. Larger pieces of plastic are ground down to these tiny sizes by weathering, temperature, biological processes, and chemical conditions. (See additional Daily News coverage on the health and environmental hazards of plastics here, here, and here.)

The authors of the current study, in exposing two cladocerans, Ceriodaphnia cornuta (daphnids or water fleas) and Echinisca triserialis (tardigrades or water bears), to MP and CPF both singularly and in combination, are able to assess the short-term (acute) and long-term (chronic) effects for nontarget aquatic organisms and the ecological risks they face from environmental contaminants. As a result, no mortality is observed to MP only treatments while MPs preconditioned with CPF (MP^CPF) show acute effects. Chronic exposure also shows reduced survival and reproductive output in both cladoceran species, with C. cornuta as more vulnerable than E. triserialis.

The researchers state: “A significant delay in age at first reproduction and shorter generation time were observed in the presence of MP^CPF, suggesting MP-mediated enhanced toxicity of CPF, wherein CPF could have accumulated onto the MP surface, thus, intensifying its toxicity. The enhanced toxicity of organic pollutants by MPs in aquatic environments especially in pelagic [open water] organisms is a matter of concern.”

Background

Cladocerans play an important role in the aquatic food web, helping to transfer carbon and nutrients from lower to higher trophic levels. In documenting impacts to cladoceran species, this represents threats to other aquatic organisms and overall biodiversity. “Ingestion of MP particles or the epiplastic substances by these organisms could be the entry point in the food chain that not only affects the population dynamics of C. cornuta and E. triserialis but also other aquatic organisms,” the authors warn.

MP in bodies of water come from various sources including wastewater effluents. “Studies have shown that wastewater treatment plants discharge around 160–300 million MP per day into aquatic habitats,” the researchers note. MPs that are smaller than 2 mm can be easily ingested by cladocerans and other zooplankton.

“Various aquatic organisms such as zooplankton, corals, fish, and marine mammals have been reported to ingest MP directly and/or indirectly leading to the transfer of MP across trophic levels,” the authors share. (See research here and here.) They continue: “The average size range of MP overlaps with the body size of planktonic organisms, and remains suspended in the water column for a long duration. They are easily mistaken with natural food particles, and hence particulate and filter-feeding zooplankton are more likely to ingest MP-preconditioned with dissolved organic contaminants. Thus, MP have the potential to impact a wide range of aquatic organisms including zooplankton.” (See studies here, here, and here.)

These MPs, based on their hydrophobicity (tendency to repel water) and higher surface area, can easily adsorb (adhere to the surface) pesticide molecules. The adsorption of pesticides on MP surfaces is extensively covered in scientific literature, such as with the insecticides malathion and carbofuran and the fungicide carbendazim. (See research here, here, and here.)

For the present study, CPF was chosen as the pesticide to analyze, as it is “representative of a highly occurring group of pollutants in the aquatic environment, such as organophosphate pesticides, which have been included in various monitoring programs.” Studies show CPF in surface and ground water, as well as larger bodies of water, that then impacts aquatic community structure and ecosystem processing. (See here, here, and here.) Previous research also shows CPF can be sorbed onto plastic surfaces. (See Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News coverage on chlorpyrifos here.)

“Thus, understanding the combined effects of MP and insecticides on aquatic organisms such as zooplankton is vital for thorough environmental evaluation and effective environmental management of aquatic ecosystems,” the researchers note. They continue, “In the natural environment, MP co-exists with organic pollutants, and the present study explores the response of the combined effects of MP and insecticide, CPF on pelagic [open water] and littoral [shallow water] cladoceran species.”

Study Methodology and Results

The two cladocerans utilized in this study represent species throughout the water column that are important in aquatic food chains. C. cornuta prefers open-water habitats while E. triserialis is typically found in shallower water and is known for its adaptability to various environmental conditions. “Furthermore, these species are the preferred diet of planktivorous fish, playing pivotal roles in transferring carbon through freshwater food webs, and serving as reliable indicators of aquatic ecosystem health,” the authors write.

To test the effects of exposure to MP and CPF individually and in combination in the two species, polyethylene plastics were crushed and ground, and CPF stock solutions were prepared. Between the control and test groups, the organisms were assessed for mortality and reproductive impacts both acutely (48 hours) and chronically (until the last organism perished).

As the researchers note: “The environmentally relevant concentrations of CPF and MP do not incur instant mortality; rather, they are more likely to affect the physiology, behavior, and survival patterns of the exposed organisms. The physiological responses of an organism, which determine survival and ability to contribute to the next generation, are ecologically more relevant parameters.”

The acute tests for both species reveal concentration-dependent mortality patterns for MPs preconditioned with CPF, but “the absence of mortality in the MP alone treatment condition, in either species at all the concentrations in acute test, suggests that MP alone does not have any toxic effect on the organisms in the short term.” More importantly, within the chronic tests, increased toxicity is observed when MPs are combined with CPF. Decreases in survivorship and reproduction rates, as well as a delay in reproduction, are noted, with higher sensitivity in C. cornuta than E. triserialis.

“These results indicate the synergistic effect of MP by accumulating CPF on the surface of MP at higher concentrations, suggesting that filter-feeding zooplankton may be more susceptible to the effects of MP^CPF compared to the presence of either MP or the insecticide alone in the aquatic environment,” the authors conclude.

In explanation of the sensitivity variations between the two species, the researchers say: “This difference in susceptibility can be attributed to a variety of factors, including their distinct habitat preference, behavior, and respective positions in the food chain. Ceriodaphnia cornuta, a pelagic species, may have greater exposure to contaminants in the water column, making them more susceptible to the effects of CPF and MP. The presence of C. cornuta in the surface and water column enhances the chances of encounter with floating MP, and their filter-feeding mechanism exposes them to higher quantities of MP and associated CPF, as MP has a larger surface area compared to larger plastic particles.” (See scientific literature here, here, and here.)

Previous Research

In Daily News, titled Microplastics Interact with Pesticides, Exacerbating Environmental Health Threats, Studies Find, Beyond Pesticides shares the findings of a literature review of over 90 scientific articles in Agriculture that document how MPs increase the bioavailability, persistence, and toxicity of pesticides used in agriculture. These interactions between MPs and pesticides enhance the threat of pesticide exposure to nontarget organisms, threaten biodiversity, and perpetuate the cycle of toxic chemical use.

Additional research, cited in the Ecotoxicology study, shows:

• Chronic exposure to polyethene MP impacts the growth and reproduction of both the freshwater amphipod Hyalella azteca and Ceriodaphnia dubia.
• Daphnia magna, with chronic exposure to polyethene MP, experience alterations in food uptake rate and immobilization.
• “MP-mediated effects increase with increasing exposure duration and concentration and have been reported to incur mortality through entanglement and blockage of the digestive tract in aquatic organisms.” (See here, here, and here.)
• Previous studies highlight MPs as vectors of toxic compounds in aquatic food chains. (See here and here.)
• “Recent studies have reported the joint toxic effects of CPF and MP on aquatic organisms, such as the fish Oncorhynchus mykiss and copepod Acartia tonsa.”
• “Similarly, previous studies on the effects of MP and CPF showed reduced feeding efficiency, fecundity, and survivorship when Acartia tonsa were exposed to CPF-loaded MP.”
• A study shows bioaccumulation of CPF in the muscles and tissue of Dicentrarchus labrax transferred through MP.
• “Studies have also reported the adverse effects of conditioned MP with pesticides, such as endocrine perturbation, hepatic damage, oxidative stress induction, and enzymatic activity modifications leading to early-life mortality in mussels and sea urchin embryos.” (See here, here, and here.)

A Holistic Solution

Organic agriculture negates microplastic–pesticide interactions that influence aquatic food webs, overall biodiversity, and environmental health. In adopting organic methods for land management, a holistic solution protects the health of all ecosystems and the organisms within them. Organic agriculture embodies an ecological approach to farming that does not rely on or permit toxic pesticides, chemical fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, antibiotics, sewage sludge, or irradiation. The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) works to continuously improve upon these standards and acts as a lifeline from the government to the organic community as it considers input from the public regarding organic integrity. In this context, Beyond Pesticides has urged the NOSB (see here and here) to phase out the use of plastic in its certification production systems and in the packaging of organic food, as well as protect organic production by denying the petition to allow synthetic “compostable materials.”

Visit Keeping Organic Strong to learn more about the 2025 NOSB meeting from earlier this spring. Reference our previous actions (here and here) regarding plastics in farming, water, and food, and stay informed on other opportunities to engage by signing up to receive our Action of the Week and Weekly News Update emails.

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

Source:

Rajan, K., Yadav, D. and Kumar, R. (2025) Microplastic contamination worsens the ecotoxicity of chlorpyrifos to cladoceran Ceriodaphnia cornuta (Sars, 1885) and Echinisca triserialis (Brady, 1886), Ecotoxicology. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10646-025-02909-5.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 24, 2025) In a sixteen-year field trial based in Central Kenya, researchers have found higher crop yield stability in low-input organic systems with previously degraded soil than in high-input organic and nonorganic agricultural systems.

One of the agrichemical industry-fed arguments against organic production is the false belief that, if all agricultural production went organic, then it would lead to a crisis of food security. Proponents of transitioning to organic continually push back, given the steady flow of evidence, backed by decades-long field trials, that organic can compete—and even outcompete—conventional systems after a transitional period.

Background and Methodology

This long-term field trial, published this year in European Journal of Agronomy, was conducted at two sites in Central Kenya—Chuka (lower soil fertility) and Kandara (higher soil fertility)—between 2007 and 2022.  Both Chuka and Kandara share bimodal rainfall (two wet seasons split up with distinct dry seasons) and consist of two growing seasons in a given calendar year. There were six crop rotation cycles for the maize, which included various legumes, vegetables, and root crops depending on the input level and farming system.

The experimental design was a randomized complete block design in agricultural plots, with the fields split up into four farming systems: organic high input (Org-High), conventional high input (Conv-High), organic low input (Org-Low), and conventional low input (Conv-Low). High versus low inputs refer to the quantity and types of soil inputs, mulch, irrigation, and pest management tools (pesticides). Mulch was only applied in organic systems. Organic systems were fed natural forms of soil supplements (i.e., compost) and rain-fed, while conventional systems were sprayed with synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and supplemented with irrigation. Using statistical analysis tools, the researchers measured plant growth through the height and stem diameter of ten randomly selected plants across all plots; for yield, the crop was harvested from the center of each plot to ensure robust data results.

The researchers of this study are based at Switzerland-based Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, Kenya. The authors declared that “they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.” Funding for this research was provided by Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development, the Coop Sustainability Fund, the Liechtenstein Development Service (LED), and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Discussion and Results

“Based on the findings of our study, organic farming systems have the potential to achieve yields that match or exceed those of conventional farming systems, particularly in the long term when given adequate time for soil adaptation and improvement in soil fertility,” the authors write in the conclusion of their study.

Some additional key findings from this field trial include:

• Organic systems show steady improvement in fertility over time, with Org-High yields matching Conv-High yields, especially in less fertile soils in the Kandara site;
• At Kandara, Org-Low had the most stable yields out of the four farming systems; and
• Low-input systems have more consistent crop yields across all seasons of the trial, with authors noting this to be a particular feature of organically managed systems.

Previous Research and Actions

There is increasing evidence that organically managed crop production systems are more sustainable than chemical-intensive fields, or those that operate under the model of pesticide reduction, in terms of biodiversity, public health, and climate mitigation.

The Rodale Institute, Ohio State University, and Tennessee State University determined in a recent study based on field trials that organic grain cropping systems contain higher concentrations of total nitrogen and soil organic carbon, exceeding those found in conventional, chemical-intensive systems. (See Daily News here.) This study is an extension of the Rodale Institute’s Farming System Trial (FST), a 40-year-long field study published in 2020 with the overarching goal of “[a]ddress[ing] the barriers to the adoption of organic farming by farmers across the country.” The FST finds:

• Organic systems achieve 3–6 times the profit of conventional production;
• Yields for the organic approach are competitive with those of conventional systems (after a five-year transition period);
• Organic yields during stressful drought periods are 40% higher than conventional yields;
• Organic systems leach no toxic compounds into nearby waterways (unlike pesticide-intensive conventional farming;
• Organic systems use 45% less energy than conventional; and
• Organic systems emit 40% less carbon into the atmosphere.

For more information and background on Rodale Institute, please consider reading the Daily News announcing the findings of the FST, Longest Field Trials Show Organic Practices Yield Higher Returns than Chemical-Intensive Agriculture.

The production of organic bananas in the Caribbean nation of Martinique was determined to outcompete chemical-intensive counterparts in terms of microbial decomposition, according to research by the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development. “Macrofaunal decomposition was increased more (55%) than microbial decomposition (20%), indicating that organic farming removes a constraint of conventional farming, especially affecting macrofauna,” the researchers say. (See Daily News here.) A literature review published in Ecosystem Services by researchers at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and Rodale Institute European Regenerative Organic Center drew similar conclusions on the ecological and soil health benefits of regenerative organic agriculture (ROAg). In comparison to chemical-intensive farming, ROAg increases soil organic content by 22 percent, soil total nitrogen by 28 percent, and soil microbial biomass carbon by 133 percent, according to the research. (See Daily News here.) In terms of another popularly consumed crop, certified organic coffee producers in Peru have been found to have a lower carbon footprint than transitional organic coffee farmers, based on “cradle to gate” analysis of ten farms in an organic coffee collaborative in the Cajamarca region. (See Daily News here.)

There are successful alternatives developed for crops previously deemed to be economically infeasible to grow in organic systems, including cotton and hops (for beer). The Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) earned the 2024 Innovators Award from The Better Cotton Initiative (Better Cotton) for its leadership in developing capacity and expansion of organic standards and practices in the Pakistani cotton sector, according to a press release by Better Cotton. Given that the Pakistan Credit Rating Agency attributes approximately 69% of total domestic agricultural pesticide use to cotton, it is understandable why the government is looking to address pesticide-free alternatives. (See Daily News here.) Developing robust statutory language through Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) includes “continuous improvement,” based on public and producer input working as intended. Listening to the facts, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) passed a recommendation to remove hops from 7 CFR § 205.606 (Nonorganically produced agricultural products allowed as ingredients in or on processed products labeled as “organic”) under OFPA. This gave breweries time to transition organic labeled beer to organically grown hops without breaking existing production contracts with nonorganic growers. (See Daily News here.)

Kenya, like many Global South nations across the globe, is reckoning with the legacy of Green Revolution-style policies and approaches to land management, leading some political momentum toward organic and tougher regulations on pesticides more broadly. According to reporting by The Kenya Times in late June, the Pest Control Products Board (PCPB) moved forward to ban 77 pesticide products, and restricted the use of 202 other products, not approved for use in the European Union, Canada, and the United States, citing public health risks. These pesticide active ingredients, including Acephate, Chlorothalonil, Diuron, and Thiacloprid, were deemed by the PCPB to impose “unacceptable risks” to human and ecological health. Earlier this year, “[T]he Kenya Court of Appeal blocked the Kenyan government from importing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the country[,]” according to a press release by Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)—an alliance of organizations and movements across the continent advocating for agroecology and food sovereignty. (See Daily News here.)

Call to Action for Organic

It is time to contact our elected officials to demand structural changes to food and land management systems, including the incentive structures in place that perpetuate the chemical-intensive status quo. You can take action here by telling Congress to urgently transition away from petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer use and call for an across-the-board shift to organic regenerative land management systems.

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

Source: European Journal of Agronomy, The Kenya Times

(Beyond Pesticides, July 23, 2025) Attention turns to the U.S. Senate on legislation that (i) shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by those harmed from pesticide product use, (ii) limits states’ authority to regulate pesticides, and (iii) prevents EPA from regulating PFAS—after passage in the House Appropriations Committee on July 22. The Senate Appropriations Committee meets tomorrow, July 24, to vote on language that has not yet been released to the public. Efforts by Democrats failed to strike sections 453, the shield provision, and 507, the PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) language, from the FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill. The same provisions could show up in the Senate Appropriations Bill.

Beyond Pesticides is: Asking U.S. Senators to help stop Appropriations Bill provisions that strip farmers and consumers from suing for pesticide harm, ensuring that language in House Appropriations Bill, Sections 453 and 507, not be included in the Senate bill. *If  Senator is on the Appropriations Committee, the letter submitted will automatically adjust the language by recognizing their Committee membership.

The Need for Court Action in the Face of EPA Dismantling
With the massive dismantling of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs by the current administration, the appropriations bill provision limits court oversight, which in many cases serves as a backstop for public health and environmental protections. The language would in the future prohibit cases like those filed by victims of glyphosate (Roundup), who have won large jury verdicts and compensation. The language removes the incentive for chemical manufacturers, under threat of accountability for compensatory and punitive damages, to develop safer products or remove products altogether. Therefore, it slows the critically necessary shift to less- and non-toxic land and building management practices to protect health and the environment. Legislative history added to the bill in the committee will do little to ensure to ensure a fully functioning EPA and court redress.

Immunity from lawsuits on chemical companies’ failure to warn about their products’ hazards.
With Bayer/Monsanto leading the charge, the chemical industry has successfully lobbied for a weak federal pesticide law (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) and then try to hide behind the law when sued for damages, telling the courts that their products are in compliance with pesticide registration standards and therefore they are not liable for harm. Juries have ruled that chemical manufacturers failed to provide adequate warning through their product labeling, given the independent peer-reviewed science, including what the company knew or should have known, and a clinical assessment of the harm caused to the plaintiff. However, under the legislation before the Appropriations Committee, the only permitted EPA-approved label language must be consistent with a human health assessment or carcinogenicity classification previously approved by EPA—freezing in place EPA’s position on a pesticide for possibly decades, and eliminating the ability to hold chemical manufacturers accountable for damages.  [The bill language is found here. Search on Section 453.]

Prohibits EPA from restricting PFAS. 
In addition, the bill removes funding for eliminating hazards associated with PFAS chemicals. Section 507 of the bill says, “None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to finalize, implement, administer, or enforce the draft risk assessment titled ‘Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment for Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS)’ published by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Federal Register on January 15, 2025 (90 Fed. Reg. 3859).”

Stay tuned for a vote on the House Floor soon after members return from the current summer recess.
The underlying problem with Section 453 is the vesting of all power in EPA over the label, without exception—prohibiting language (which includes packaging) that is “inconsistent with or in any respect different from the conclusion” that EPA derives from its health assessments. While not explicit, the language will release companies from liability for their “failure to warn,” allowing them to point to a law that prevents them from seeking label disclosures that go beyond EPA findings. Additionally, it would preclude states like California from requiring a cancer warning label, which it currently does.  

Strangely, under this language, EPA itself could not update its label—even when the manufacturer requests a change on a more restrictive label. “None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to issue or adopt any guidance or any policy, take any regulatory action…” without conducting an entirely new assessment—which takes “no less than four years, and sometimes over 12,” according to EPA. Meanwhile, the courts have historically held that a company can always ask EPA to update the label to reflect risks (like non-Hodgkin lymphoma with Roundup).  If the agency chose to act, this statutory language would prevent label changes without a long process—if at all. Therefore, responsibility for misbranding would fall to EPA, which would shield chemical companies from paying out damage claims—a goal of the pesticides industry since its failed attempts at Supreme Court review to reverse jury verdicts in the Bayer/Monsanto cases and earlier in Dow v. Bates, a case where farmers sued the company for crop damage associated with the use of their product. 

Although future interpretations of the language are unclear, the law is clear now, so opening the door to new interpretations with new language threatens the rights of victims.
__________

Here are the facts: 

**This is not about one product—it is about the future of 16,000 chemicals. 
From household weed killers to restricted-use agricultural pesticides, this legislation would apply across the board. It gives companies a free pass, even when they conceal risks or fail to warn about dangers—as long as their label was once approved by EPA. 

**The EPA does not independently test these products — it relies on their manufacturers. 
Federal law allows pesticide manufacturers to submit their own safety studies. The EPA does not conduct its own testing and relies heavily on industry submitted studies. And when companies manipulate or withhold critical data—as they’ve done in the past—this bill would still protect them. Immunity rewards companies for hiding the ball. 

**This legislation eliminates accountability—even when companies break the rules. 
It would override state protections, block juries from hearing the facts, and tie the hands of farmers and families when harm is caused. Illnesses linked to these pesticides include cancer, Parkinson’s disease, infertility, and developmental harm to children. If this becomes law, even when companies act unreasonably or deceptively, foreign chemical companies couldn’t be held responsible. 

**It gives total immunity to Chinese military-controlled pesticide giants. 
ChemChina—a state-owned company the Pentagon identifies as a Chinese military entity—owns Syngenta, which sells paraquat and hundreds of other EPA regulated pesticides in the U.S., some of them banned in China. If this bill passes, American families could be barred from suing a Chinese military-controlled company for harm caused by its dangerous products. Why would Congress protect China instead of American farmers and families? 

**It protects companies that destroy farmers’ crops—even when they lied to get EPA approval. 
If this bill passes, nothing will stop a foreign chemical from pushing a new product they know is likely to drift or damage nearby fields. It could downplay the risks to the EPA, get a label approved, and leave neighboring farmers with scorched crops, lost yields, and no legal recourse. Even when livelihoods are wiped out, immunity means farmers would be stuck with the costs—not the companies who caused the damage. 

That is the danger here: once pesticide companies know they cannot be held accountable, cutting corners and lying to regulators will become the business strategy. And it is U.S. farmers and families who will pay the price.

Section 507 of the bill removes funding for eliminating hazards associated with PFAS (aka “forever chemicals”).
_____________

U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee

⬇️ Please see the members of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee listed below with their website link if you would also like to call! 

Republican members:

• Senator Susan Collins (Republican – Maine) Official Website » Chair; Majority 

• Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican – Kentucky) Official Website » 

• Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican – Alaska) Official Website » 

• Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican – South Carolina) Official Website » 

• Senator Jerry Moran (Republican – Kansas) Official Website » 

• Senator John Hoeven (Republican – North Dakota) Official Website » 

• Senator John Boozman (Republican – Arkansas) Official Website » 

• Senator Shelley Moore Capito (Republican – West Virginia) Official Website » 

• Senator John Kennedy (Republican – Louisiana) Official Website » 

• Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (Republican – Mississippi) Official Website » 

• Senator Bill Hagerty (Republican – Tennessee) Official Website » 

• Senator Katie Britt (Republican – Alabama) Official Website » 

• Senator Markwayne Mullin (Republican – Oklahoma) Official Website » 

• Senator Deb Fischer (Republican – Nebraska) Official Website » 

• Senator Mike Rounds (Republican – South Dakota) Official Website » 

Democratic members:

• Senator Patty Murray (Democrat – Washington) Official Website » Vice Chair; Minority 

• Senator Richard Durbin (Democrat – Illinois) Official Website » 

• Senator Jack Reed (Democrat – Rhode Island) Official Website » 

• Senator Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat – New Hampshire) Official Website » 

• Senator Jeff Merkley (Democrat – Oregon) Official Website » 

• Senator Christopher Coons (Democrat – Delaware) Official Website » 

• Senator Brian Schatz (Democrat – Hawaii) Official Website » 

• Senator Tammy Baldwin (Democrat – Wisconsin) Official Website » 

• Senator Chris Murphy (Democrat – Connecticut) Official Website » 

• Senator Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Democrat – Maryland) Official Website » 

• Senator Martin Heinrich (Democrat – New Mexico) Official Website » 

• Senator Gary Peters (Democrat – Michigan) Official Website » 

• Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat – New York) Official Website » 

• Senator Jon Ossoff (Democrat – Georgia) Official Website » 

Letter to U.S. Senators not on the Appropriations Committee:

Please voice your opposition to any language in the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill that (i) shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by farmers and consumers harmed from pesticide product use, (ii) limits states’ authority to regulate pesticides, and (iii) prevents EPA from regulating PFAS (“forever chemicals”). The Senate Appropriations Committee meets tomorrow, July 24, to vote on language that has not yet been released to the public at 9:30 AM ET.

It is a basic right of people who have been harmed in the marketplace to seek compensatory and punitive damages. This has played a critical role in establishing accountability when people suffer adverse effects from pesticide exposure. Language in the House Appropriations Bill, Section 453, would grant pesticide companies sweeping legal immunity, and Section 507 would restrict EPA from issuing protections from PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). These sections should not be included in the Senate Appropriations Bill.

Here are the facts:

**This is not about one product—it is about the future of 16,000 chemicals. From household weed killers to restricted-use agricultural pesticides, this legislation would apply across the board. It gives companies a free pass, even when they conceal risks or fail to warn about dangers—as long as their label was once approved by EPA.

**The EPA does not independently test these products — it relies on their manufacturers. Federal law allows pesticide manufacturers to submit their own safety studies. The EPA does not conduct its own testing and relies heavily on industry submitted studies. And when companies manipulate or withhold critical data—as they’ve done in the past—this bill would still protect them. Immunity rewards companies for hiding the ball.

**This legislation eliminates accountability—even when companies break the rules. It would override state protections, block juries from hearing the facts, and tie the hands of farmers and families when harm is caused. Illnesses linked to these pesticides include cancer, Parkinson’s disease, infertility, and developmental harm to children. If this becomes law, even when companies act unreasonably or deceptively, foreign chemical companies couldn’t be held responsible.

**It gives total immunity to Chinese military-controlled pesticide giants. ChemChina—a state-owned company the Pentagon identifies as a Chinese military entity—owns Syngenta, which sells paraquat and hundreds of other EPA regulated pesticides in the U.S., some of them banned in China. If this bill passes, American families could be barred from suing a Chinese military-controlled company for harm caused by its dangerous products. Why would Congress protect China instead of American farmers and families?

**It protects companies that destroy farmers’ crops—even when they lied to get EPA approval. If this bill passes, nothing will stop a foreign chemical from pushing a new product they know is likely to drift or damage nearby fields. It could downplay the risks to the EPA, get a label approved, and leave neighboring farmers with scorched crops, lost yields, and no legal recourse. Even when livelihoods are wiped out, immunity means farmers would be stuck with the costs—not the companies who caused the damage.

That is the danger here: once pesticide companies know they cannot be held accountable, cutting corners and lying to regulators will become the business strategy. And it is U.S. farmers and families who will pay the price.

Section 507 of the bill removes funding for eliminating hazards associated with PFAS (aka “forever chemicals”).

Please insist that sections 453 and 507 in the House Appropriations Bill not be included in the Senate bill.

Thank you!

Letter to U.S. Senators on the Appropriations Committee:

Please voice your opposition to any language in the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill that (i) shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by farmers and consumers harmed from pesticide product use, (ii) limits states’ authority to regulate pesticides, and (iii) prevents EPA from regulating PFAS (“forever chemicals”). As you are probably aware, the Senate Appropriations Committee meets tomorrow, July 24, to vote on language that has not yet been released to the public at 9:30 AM ET.

It is a basic right of people who have been harmed in the marketplace to seek compensatory and punitive damages. This has played a critical role in establishing accountability when people suffer adverse effects from pesticide exposure. Language in the House Appropriations Bill, Section 453, would grant pesticide companies sweeping legal immunity, and Section 507 would restrict EPA from issuing protections from PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). These sections should not be included in the Senate Appropriations Bill.

Here are the facts:

**This is not about one product—it is about the future of 16,000 chemicals. From household weed killers to restricted-use agricultural pesticides, this legislation would apply across the board. It gives companies a free pass, even when they conceal risks or fail to warn about dangers—as long as their label was once approved by EPA.

**The EPA does not independently test these products — it relies on their manufacturers. Federal law allows pesticide manufacturers to submit their own safety studies. The EPA does not conduct its own testing and relies heavily on industry-submitted studies. And when companies manipulate or withhold critical data—as they’ve done in the past—this bill would still protect them. Immunity rewards companies for hiding the ball.

**This legislation eliminates accountability—even when companies break the rules. It would override state protections, block juries from hearing the facts, and tie the hands of farmers and families when harm is caused. Illnesses linked to these pesticides include cancer, Parkinson’s disease, infertility, and developmental harm to children. If this becomes law, even when companies act unreasonably or deceptively, foreign chemical companies couldn’t be held responsible.

**It gives total immunity to Chinese military-controlled pesticide giants. ChemChina—a state-owned company the Pentagon identifies as a Chinese military entity—owns Syngenta, which sells paraquat and hundreds of other EPA-regulated pesticides in the U.S., some of them banned in China. If this bill passes, American families could be barred from suing a Chinese military-controlled company for harm caused by its dangerous products. Why would Congress protect China instead of American farmers and families?

**It protects companies that destroy farmers’ crops—even when they lied to get EPA approval. If this bill passes, nothing will stop a foreign chemical from pushing a new product they know is likely to drift or damage nearby fields. It could downplay the risks to the EPA, get a label approved, and leave neighboring farmers with scorched crops, lost yields, and no legal recourse. Even when livelihoods are wiped out, immunity means farmers would be stuck with the costs—not the companies who caused the damage.

That is the danger here: once pesticide companies know they cannot be held accountable, cutting corners and lying to regulators will become the business strategy. And it is U.S. farmers and families who will pay the price.

Section 507 of the bill removes funding for eliminating hazards associated with PFAS (aka “forever chemicals”).

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, please insist that sections 453 and 507 in the House Appropriations Bill not be included in the Senate bill.

Thank you!

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

(Beyond Pesticides, July 23, 2025) The pesticide manufacturer Syngenta has settled several lawsuits in federal courts in Pennsylvania and Illinois in recent months and is seeking a global settlement with over 6,000 litigants in order to avoid nationwide trials linking their weed killer paraquat to Parkinson’s Disease, according to reporting by The New Lede and The Guardian, respectively. Internal Syngenta documents released by these news outlets in a report dubbed The Paraquat Papers indicate that the company was aware of scientific evidence linking paraquat to Parkinson’s and attempted to quash research efforts to disclose the evidence.  

These lawsuits were filed on behalf of former farmers and agricultural workers who went on to be diagnosed with neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s Disease, after using paraquat-based herbicide products for long periods of time. This litigation comes at a time when pesticide manufacturers across the board are facing increased scrutiny and subsequent financial repercussions. Simultaneously, their allies in Congress are revamping their efforts to shield chemical manufacturers from “failure to warn” lawsuits and establish federal preemption of local state governments’ ability to regulate pesticides more stringently than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Many of the paraquat lawsuits in federal courts, known as multidistrict litigation (MDL), are being overseen by a federal court in Illinois as of June 2025, while several other federal and state cases are proceeding separately, according to The Guardian. The law firm Miller and Zois, LLC, which maintains the website Lawsuit Information Center, reports the filing of a new lawsuit in Delaware on June 25, 2025, against Syngenta and Chevron for prolonged paraquat exposure linked to Parkinson’s.

Connection to Bayer Litigation, Failure-to-Warn Claims

The public’s ability to sue chemical companies for their “failure to warn” has enshrined in the legal system the ability to hold corporations accountable for the harm that their products cause under weak regulatory standards that they lobbied to create. Bayer has lost almost all of the lawsuits filed against it for compensatory and punitive damages associated with the plaintiffs’ charge that its products caused them harm. The U.S. Supreme Court twice rebuffed the company’s plea to have its appeal heard, as reported by Beyond Pesticides and news outlets. Its legal strategy, pursued through the entire court system, has failed to fend off ongoing litigation for harm associated with its glyphosate-based products (Roundup). As Bayer’s website has touted in a five-point strategy to mitigate the company’s financial “risks” from future litigation, “A favorable ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on the federal preemption question could largely end the Roundup litigation.”

The main question here is whether state-based “failure-to-warn” claims are preempted by federal law since EPA concluded glyphosate does not cause cancer and approved the Roundup™ label without a warning. Bayer is vigorously pursuing a judicial decision or the adoption of legislation at the federal or state level that preempts, or takes away, plaintiffs’ right to sue the company when they are harmed by the company’s products. For the third time in recent memory, Bayer submitted yet another petition for SCOTUS on April 4, 2025, to “limit legal claims” on Roundup weed killer linkages to cancer, according to reporting by Reuters. The pesticide manufacturer has signaled optimism that the nation’s highest court will move in a different direction, given that there is now a Federal Court Circuit split with the latest decision in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Schaffner v. Monsanto. As reported in Progressive Farmer in early May, twelve national agricultural groups filed an amicus brief in support of Bayer’s petition. These groups represent the interests of industrial agriculture, including American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, American Sugarbeet Growers Association, Cherry Marketing Institute, Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, International Fresh Produce Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Corn Growers Association, National Cotton Council of America, National Sorghum Producers, North American Blueberry Council and Western Growers. Legal issues continue to mount for the pesticide manufacturer as the Western District of Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a $611 million judgment against Bayer, as reported by Missouri Independent on May 28.

There were several other significant developments in 2024, including the Oregon Court of Appeals decision on July 10, ruling that FIFRA does not preempt pesticide exposure victims’ claims in state court against pesticide manufacturers, based on reporting from The New Lede. An Appellate court overturned a 2022 local court ruling and remanded the case (for a retrial) in part because the judge had failed to consider the expert witness testimony of Chuck Benbrook, PhD, a scientist specializing in agricultural economics with over 40 peer-reviewed articles, reports, and book chapters on pesticide regulation and risk assessment. (See Daily News here.)  

Bayer is not giving up on the current U.S. Supreme Court in seeking to overturn current law, as established by previous court decisions, including Bates v Dow (2005). However, that strategy is not succeeding, at least not yet. The string of Bayer losses includes adjudication decision on February 5, 2024, when the decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals came down in favor of the plaintiff in Carson v. Monsanto on Bayer’s claim that FIFRA preempts a “failure-to-warn” claim. (See Daily News here for further analysis.)

Bayer has doubled down on the safety of its weed killer, even though investors are sounding the alarm, and as the company announced that it could pull Roundup from the U.S. market due to ongoing legal risks. With this, Bayer has taken its campaign to the states to strip away people’s (including farmers’) ability to hold corporations accountable through a common law duty to provide warning about the hazards associated with their pesticide products. Most recently, SCOTUS asked the Solicitor General’s office (U.S. Justice Department) “for its views on whether the justices should take up the appeal,” according to Reuters coverage. There are more than 67,000 pending cases in state and federal courts alleging Bayer failed to warn customers of Roundup products’ link to various cancers, including failure to warn through their advertising materials. In May 2025, the Missouri Independent reported that a federal court of appeals (Western District of Missouri Court of Appeals) upheld the decision of a 2023 case in Cole County, Missouri, awarding a $611 million judgment to three cancer victims.

For an in-depth history and related developments for Bayer-Monsanto litigation, see this tracker developed by the Lawsuit Information Center. 

Call to Action

The U.S. House of Representatives is taking up legislation, already passed by the Interior and Environment Subcommittee on July 15 and by the House Appropriations Committee on July 22, that provides total pesticide company immunity from “failure to warn” lawsuits filed by farmers and consumers who faced hazards, but were not warned. Beyond Pesticides and groups nationwide have called for Section 453 of the Appropriations Bill to be removed. The legislation also blocks states from requiring label warning language with information on product harm beyond EPA-approved language.

See Beyond Pesticides’ action, which asks all members of the U.S. House of Representatives to remove Sections 453 and 507 from the final bill and uphold the basic right to sue for companies’ failure to warn. 

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

Source: The New Lede and The Guardian

(Beyond Pesticides, July 22, 2025) A study published in May by Nature Reviews Endocrinology warns that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs)—substances that lead to disruption of the endocrine system in an organism—are driving a rapid rise in female reproductive disorders. While EDCs encompass many different forms of chemicals, such as plastic additives, cigarette smoke, and paracetamol, pesticides are among the most common EDCs. The review pays special attention to pesticide classes such as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and organochlorines to evaluate how they derail ovarian development, puberty timing, and hormonal balance across the entire female lifespan. Many pesticides are fluorinated, and therefore classified as PFAS. 

Background 

Pesticides represent one of the largest sources of EDC exposure. Many persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are resistant to degradation and are capable of bioaccumulating in the food chain, which leads to these harmful chemicals being found in human adipose tissue. The study notes that these chemicals have also been detected in human blood, breast milk, follicular fluid, and other biological samples, explaining their prevalent presence in the human body. The review emphasizes that humans are exposed to a mixture of EDCs across their lifespan, yet current U.S. regulatory strategies do not fully account for combined lifetime exposure effects, especially during developmentally sensitive periods. 

Methodology  

To perform this literature review, the study’s team synthesizes epidemiological studies, animal experiments, and mechanistic investigations to map how EDCs interfere with multiple stages of female reproduction, from fetal development in the womb, to regulating puberty during young adulthood, and premature menopause in adulthood. The review pays special attention to organochlorine pesticides and PFAS-based herbicides that mimic or block sex hormones or alter neuroendocrine brain circuits controlling puberty timing. 

How Women Encounter Pesticide EDCs Throughout Life 

Exposure to EDC pesticides begins in utero, when chemicals such as PFAS and phthalates are able to cross the placenta and interfere with the development of the fetus. This exposure continues throughout one’s lifetime with EDCs being found in breast milk, “contaminated food and water, inhalation of polluted air, dermal absorption from personal care products and household items,” as the study mentions. In adulthood, pesticide exposure is often occupational, especially for women farmworkers. Lifelong exposure contributes to the cumulative toxic burden that disrupts reproductive health over time. 

Lifelong Biological Impact of Pesticides EDCs 

In the study, researchers document trends of earlier breast development, infertility, surging polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) prevalence (up to 20 percent in some regions), and menopause arriving as much as four years sooner in women exposed to EDCs. The study also notes that exposure to EDCs can affect women throughout different stages of their life. The following infographic explains the impact of EDCs and PFAS on the reproductive health of women during different Life Stages:  

Image Created By Beyond Pesticides

Taken together, these findings underscore how pesticide-driven endocrine disruption is not limited to one life stage, but instead poses a cumulative, lifelong threat to women’s reproductive health 

Key Findings and Statistics from the Study 

• Women with the highest combined exposure to pesticides and phthalates experience menopause 1.9–3.8 years sooner, indicating EDCs lead to shorter reproductive lifespans. 

• EDCs are found in many biological fluids, such as breast milk, follicular fluid, and urine, indicating widespread contamination and prevalence of EDCs through multiple exposure routes. 

• Girls are entering breast development, beginning puberty, and attaining menarche earlier. The study notes earlier puberty is linked to an “increased risk of polycystic ovarian syndrome, obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus and hormone-dependent cancers in female individuals.” 

• EDCs are linked to rising prevalence of PCOS 

Call to Action  

This study adds to the growing body of evidence that makes clear EDCs must be regulated for public safety. Regulatory frameworks must move towards the adoption of approaches that account for cumulative effects, which are critical in real-world exposure scenarios, especially when tracking pesticide exposure throughout one’s lifetime. 

Additionally, PFAS chemicals must be explicitly included in the conversation about EDCs. While PFAS are currently regulated in a different class of chemicals than EDCs, they share many of the same harmful hormone-interfering properties, according to the study. In fact, the review specifically flags PFAS chemicals as “endocrine-active chemicals in urgent need of re-classification.”  

A meaningful solution to reducing lifelong exposure to endocrine-disrupting pesticides lies in the transition to organic land management practices. Organic farming and turf management prohibit the use of many EDCs and PFAS, which are among the key disruptors identified in the review as harmful to reproductive health. This shift also prevents long-term contamination of soil and water, reducing bioaccumulation of these toxicants in the food chain, and helping consumers and farmers exposed to these toxic chemicals daily.  

Helpful Information 

For more information on what endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are and how they impact public health, see Beyond Pesticides’ informational brochure on EDCs. To explore research linking pesticide exposure to reproductive health issues such as infertility, early puberty, and PCOS, visit Beyond Pesticides’ Reproductive Health Database. 

For recent coverage on EDC-related advocacy and the push to ban harmful petrochemical pesticides like the weed killer paraquat, read the November 12, 2024, Daily News article. You can also learn more by reviewing the sessions from the 2024 National Forum Series. 

To stay engaged and help advance pesticide reform, visit our women’s health-focused Action of the Week, or support this work directly here.  

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

Source: Parent, AS., Damdimopoulou, P., Johansson, H.K.L. et al. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals and female reproductive health: a growing concern. Nat Rev Endocrinol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-025-01131-x 

(Beyond Pesticides, July 21, 2025) Beyond Pesticides is asking every member of the U.S. Representatives to voice their opposition in advance of a vote as early as Tuesday, July 22 on a provision before the House Appropriations Committee—in the Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill—that shields pesticide companies from lawsuits by those harmed from pesticide product use and limits states’ authority to regulate pesticides. This is a fight to protect farmers’ and consumers’ right to sue pesticide manufacturers for misbranding products and their failure to warn product users. The language before the Committee is in Section 453 of the bill passed last week by the subcommittee on a straight party-line vote, with Republicans supporting the bill language. Beyond Pesticides is also asking Congress members to remove section 507, which prohibits EPA action on PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), including fluorinated pesticides. 

Update from July 21, 2025, at 4 PM: ⏰ Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1) moved forward with amendments to strike sections 453 and 507 of the FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill, which is a provision that provides immunity for pesticide manufacturers from farmer and consumer lawsuits seeking compensation from product harm.

Update from July 23, 2025, at 10 AM: The FY26 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill passed out of the Appropriations Committee with sections 453 and 507 included, via a voice vote. The Action has been updated to reflect a general call to the entire U.S. House of Representatives to oppose this language—stay tuned for updates!

Creates immunity from lawsuits on chemical companies’ failure to warn about their products’ hazards.
Pushed by Bayer/Monsanto and the chemical industry, the bill provides total pesticide immunity from lawsuits that challenge chemical manufacturers who withhold information on the harm that their products can cause. Chemical companies have successfully lobbied for a weak federal pesticide law and then try to hide behind the law when sued for damages, telling the courts that their products are in compliance with pesticide registration standards and therefore they are not liable for harm. Meanwhile, under current law, juries have found that Bayer/Monsanto, in the case of glyphosate (Roundup), failed to provide adequate warning through their product labeling, given the independent peer-reviewed science, including what the company knew or should have known, and a clinical assessment of the harm caused to the plaintiff. However, under the legislation before the Appropriations Committee, the only permitted EPA-approved label language must be consistent with a human health assessment or carcinogenicity classification previously approved by EPA—freezing in place EPA’s position on a pesticide for possibly decades, and eliminating the ability to hold chemical manufacturers accountable for damages. This language would in the future prohibit cases like those filed by victims of glyphosate (Roundup), who have won large jury verdicts and compensation. The provision would also prevent states from requiring label warnings and standards more stringent than the federal government. [The bill language is found here. Search on Section 453.]

Prohibits EPA from restricting PFAS. 
In addition, the bill removes funding for eliminating hazards associated with PFAS chemicals. Section 507 of the bill says, “None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to finalize, implement, administer, or enforce the draft risk assessment titled ‘Draft Sewage Sludge Risk Assessment for Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS)’ published by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Federal Register on January 15, 2025 (90 Fed. Reg. 3859).”

Act now: Full Committee Markup—when the committee can make changes to the bill, including removing provisions of the bill—could happen as early as Tuesday, July 22). 

Beyond Pesticides is asking the public to: Ask their member of the U.S. House of Representatives for help in stopping this dangerous legislation by urging them to contact members of the committee. Ask that the language in Sections 453 and 507 be removed from the bill. *If your elected representative is on the Appropriations Committee, the letter you submit will automatically adjust the language by recognizing their Committee membership.

The underlying problem with Section 453 is the vesting of all power in EPA over the label, without exception—prohibiting language (which includes packaging) that is “inconsistent with or in any respect different from the conclusion” that EPA derives from its health assessments. While not explicit, the language will release companies from liability for their “failure to warn,” allowing them to point to a law that prevents them from seeking label disclosures that go beyond EPA findings. Additionally, it would preclude states like California from requiring a cancer warning, which it currently does.  

Strangely, under this language, EPA itself could not update its label—even when the manufacturer requests a change on a more restrictive label. “None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used to issue or adopt any guidance or any policy, take any regulatory action…” without conducting an entirely new assessment—which takes “no less than four years, and sometimes over 12,” according to EPA. Meanwhile, the courts have historically held that a company can always ask EPA to update the label to reflect risks (like non-Hodgkin lymphoma with Roundup).  If the agency chose to act, this statutory language would prevent label changes without a long process—if at all. Therefore, responsibility for misbranding would fall to EPA, which would shield chemical companies from paying out damage claims—a goal of the pesticides industry since its failed attempts at Supreme Court review to reverse jury verdicts in the Bayer/Monsanto cases and earlier in Dow v. Bates, a case where farmers sued the company for crop damage associated with the use of their product. 

Although future interpretations of the language are unclear, the law is clear now, so opening the door to new interpretations with new language threatens the rights of victims. The language also removes the incentive for chemical manufacturers, under threat of accountability for compensatory and punitive damages, to develop safer products or remove products altogether. Therefore, it slows the critically necessary shift to less- and non-toxic land and building management practices to protect health and the environment. 

Ask your member of the U.S. House of Representatives for help in stopping this dangerous legislation by urging them to contact members of the Appropriations Committee. Ask that the language in Sections 453 and 507 be removed from the bill. *If your elected representative is on the Appropriations Committee, the letter you submit will automatically adjust the language by recognizing their Committee membership.

Letter to Congress
Please voice your opposition in advance of a vote as early as Tuesday, July 22 to a provision before the House Appropriations Committee in the Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill—which strips farmers and consumers of the right to sue chemical manufacturers when they fail to disclose the harm that their products cause and blocking states from providing information on product harm beyond EPA approved language. This is a basic right of people who have been harmed in the marketplace and has played a critical role in establishing accountability when people suffer adverse effects from pesticide exposure. This federal legislation would grant pesticide companies sweeping legal immunity—not only for the weed killer Roundup (glyphosate), but for over 16,000 pesticide products regulated by the EPA. In addition, please seek to remove section 507, which prohibits EPA action on PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), including fluorinated pesticides. 

Here are the facts: 

**This isn’t about one product—it’s about the future of 16,000 chemicals. 
From household weed killers to restricted-use agricultural pesticides, this legislation would apply across the board. It gives companies a free pass, even when they conceal risks or fail to warn about dangers—as long as their label was once approved by EPA. 

**The EPA doesn’t independently test these products — it relies on their manufacturers. 
Federal law allows pesticide manufacturers to submit their own safety studies. The EPA does not conduct its own testing and relies heavily on industry submitted studies. And when companies manipulate or withhold critical data—as they’ve done in the past—this bill would still protect them. Immunity rewards companies for hiding the ball. 

**This legislation eliminates accountability—even when companies break the rules. 
It would override state protections, block juries from hearing the facts, and tie the hands of farmers and families when harm is caused. Illnesses linked to these pesticides include cancer, Parkinson’s disease, infertility, and developmental harm to children. If this becomes law, even when companies act unreasonably or deceptively, foreign chemical companies couldn’t be held responsible. 

**It gives total immunity to Chinese military-controlled pesticide giants. 
ChemChina—a state-owned company the Pentagon identifies as a Chinese military entity—owns Syngenta, which sells paraquat and hundreds of other EPA regulated pesticides in the U.S., some of them banned in China. If this bill passes, American families could be barred from suing a Chinese military-controlled company for harm caused by its dangerous products. Why would Congress protect China instead of American farmers and families? 

**It protects companies that destroy farmers’ crops—even when they lied to get EPA approval. 
If this bill passes, nothing will stop a foreign chemical company from pushing a new product they know is likely to drift or damage nearby fields. It could downplay the risks to the EPA, get a label approved, and leave neighboring farmers with scorched crops, lost yields, and no legal recourse. Even when livelihoods are wiped out, immunity means farmers would be stuck with the costs—not the companies who caused the damage. 

That’s the danger here: once pesticide companies know they can’t be held accountable, cutting corners and lying to regulators will become the business strategy. And it’s US farmers and families who will pay the price. 

In addition, Section 507 of the bill removes funding for eliminating hazards associated with PFAS (aka “forever chemicals”).

Please help to remove sections 453 and 507 from the appropriations bill.

Thank you.

__________________

Please see the members of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee listed below with phone numbers if you would also like to call! Members of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee are marked with an asterisk [*]; Rep. Tom Cole and Rep. Rosa DeLauro are ex-officio members.

For more information, please see Beyond Pesticides’ Failure-to-Warn and Pesticide Immunity Bills resource hub!

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

(Beyond Pesticides, July 18, 2025) A study in Royal Society Open Science shows intraspecific differences (between individuals of a species) in wild bumblebees (Bombus vosnesenskii) exposed to an herbicide (glyphosate), a fungicide (tebuconazole), and an insecticide (imidacloprid), with gut microbiome health as a factor. “Wild pollinator declines are increasingly linked to pesticide exposure, yet it is unclear how intraspecific differences contribute to observed variation in sensitivity, and the role gut microbes play in the sensitivity of wild bees is largely unexplored,” the authors explain. “Here, we investigate site-level differences in survival and microbiome structure of a wild bumble bee exposed to multiple pesticides, both individually and in combination.”

In collecting 175 individuals of this wild, foraging species from an alpine meadow, a valley lake shoreline, and a suburban park and exposing them to a diet with individual pesticides and mixtures, the researchers assess the varying lethal and sublethal effects that can occur with pesticide exposure. Between the three sites, the survival differences “emphasize the importance of considering population of origin when studying pesticide toxicity of wild bees” and highlight how pesticide sensitivity not only varies between species but within individuals of the same species with site-specific impacts. (See previous Daily News Literature Review Analyzes Pesticide Sensitivity in Bee Species on a Molecular Level for further analysis.)

“Bumble bees and other wild bees are vital pollinators of crop plants and wildflowers in North America, often outperforming managed species like honey bees,” the authors note. (See studies here and here.) They continue: “Due to their agricultural and ecological importance, bumble bee population declines have gained global attention, which have been linked to a combination of human-induced stressors. Key among these is the widespread use of insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides.” (See studies here, here, and here.)

Pesticide residues are ubiquitous in natural settings, including urban, suburban, and conservation areas. “Moreover, pesticides are rarely observed in isolation and are often detected as combinations of different chemical classes (i.e., insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides) in a complex chemical cocktail,” the researchers say. “Understanding synergistic effects of pesticides on bee health is therefore an active area of study.”

To perform the study, bees were collected from the three sites in northern Nevada and assigned to one of five groups. These groups include experimental sucrose solution diets with the different treatments: herbicide (glyphosate), insecticide (imidacloprid), fungicide (tebuconazole), combination, and control. “These chemicals were selected because they had the highest estimated use for each chemical class (insecticide, herbicide, fungicide) in our region (Washoe County, Nevada),” the authors note. The concentrations also reflect field-realistic exposure for the area.

Bees were monitored for survival throughout the experiment until day 20 or until they died, at which point they were weighed, measured for body size, and dissected to extract DNA from their guts for bacterial abundance evaluations. An evaluation of the gut microbiome provides insights into the indirect effects that chemicals can have on bee health in addition to the direct physiological harm.

As the study states: “The bumble bee gut harbours a simple community of microbial symbionts that aid in digestion, growth, protection against parasites and pathogens, and detoxification. Gut microbes also aid in resilience to pesticides by facilitating expression of cytochrome p450 enzymes involved in detoxification, so disruptions to the microbial community can have consequences for bee survival.” (See studies here, here, here, and here.)

The study results reveal variations in body size at the different sites. “Bees from the alpine site were an average of 8.2% larger than bees from the shoreline site, and an average of 11.2% larger than bees from the suburban site,” the researchers say. “Shoreline bees were only an average of 3.0% larger than our suburban bees.”

This sizing correlates with trends in survival. The average alpine bee survived to day 12.1, the shoreline bee to day 8.1, and the suburban bee to day 7.0. The authors also note: “Here, we also saw evidence of treatment effects. Bees assigned a diet containing the combination of all three chemicals showed marginally shorter survival time than control bees, but this was the only treatment that had an overall impact on survival. However, we did observe a site-by-treatment interaction with the fungicide, herbicide and all chemical treatments.”

The larger bees, mostly noted at the alpine site, also show the presence of more gut bacteria. “We observed site-level differences in community composition and we also observed difference in gut community composition depending on if bees survived longer over the course of the experiment,” the researchers write. They continue: “We found a change in the gut community in bees that survived longer, which is consistent with other studies demonstrating a change in gut bacterial communities over time. We also observed site-level differences in gut community structure wherein our suburban site differed from the other two sites, and post hoc analysis showed this site had fewer gut bacteria. Bees from this site also had the poorest overall survival.”

Previous Beyond Pesticides coverage (see here, here, here, and here) highlights studies that show how pesticide exposure disturbs and shifts the abundance of certain microbes in the bee gut microbiome. These disturbances primarily occur in one of two ways—either by directly harming microbes or indirectly harming the host (bee) and subsequently shifting the microbiome.

In summary, the study authors write: “We found that, regardless of the site, bees showed a marginal reduction in survival when given our chemical combination treatment. Yet, site of origin played a strong role in determining a bee’s survival. We found evidence for a site-by-treatment interaction influencing the day a bee died across all pesticide treatments, except the insecticide group. The microbiome did not differ when bees were exposed to the pesticide treatment, within or across sites. Instead, gut microbiome differences were associated with the presence of conopid parasitoids and body size, both of which varied by site. These findings suggest that site-specific factors influence pesticide sensitivity and should be considered in ecotoxicological studies of wild bees.”

This study demonstrates that bee responses, even within the same species, to pesticides and their mixtures can vary greatly and are dependent on various factors. In testing field-realistic concentrations of common pesticides, the researchers show how intraspecific and site-specific mortality can occur, while also highlighting that “it is essential to note that these chemicals can have serious sub-lethal effects such as impacts to immune response, metabolism, reproduction, cognition, and more.” (See research here and here.)

The authors also comment that “pesticide sensitivity assessments must account for these variables to fully capture population-level patterns. Expanding research to include wild bees will allow for a deeper understanding of ecological complexities and help inform more effective conservation strategies.” Current pesticide risk assessments that analyze effects on bees primarily focus on a limited subset of species and do not provide comprehensive protection of all wild bees. (See Daily News Study of Pesticide Risk in Wild Bee Species Highlights EPA Risk Assessment Inadequacies and Field Study of Bumble Bees Finds Exposure to Chemical Mixtures, High Hazard, Flawed Regulation for more about these regulatory deficiencies.)

“Although there have been efforts to examine pesticide sensitivity in wild species, the degree to which population-level differences influence sensitivity to pesticides is not often considered,” the researchers postulate. They continue: “This is crucial because stressors that influence bee abundance vary across landscapes, and pesticide tolerance interacts with these stressors like parasite load, nutritional status and even temperature. In addition, wild bumblebees can exhibit variation in abundance of gut microbes across landscapes, likely due to variation in these stressors and floral resources. If we want to identify generalizable patterns regarding which populations of wild bees (or their microbiomes) are most vulnerable to disruption by agricultural chemicals, a deeper understanding of factors driving sensitivity across landscapes is thus essential.”

Beyond Pesticides has long documented the failure of risk assessments and regulatory processes that do not properly protect health and the environment. With these deficiencies, the only solution is a systems-based, holistic transition to organic land management that removes the threats of petrochemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. This protects pollinators, such as bumblebees, from harmful chemicals, as well as enhances biodiversity and mitigates the crises of climate change and associated public health implications.

>> As temperatures break records, Congress must act to urgently transition away from petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer use in land management, and support an across the board shift to the organic regenerative solution.

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

Source:

Tatarko, A. et al. (2025) A wild bumble bee shows intraspecific differences in sensitivity to multiple pesticides, Royal Society Open Science. Available at: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.250281.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 17, 2025) The widespread use of pesticides year-after-year, decade-after-decade, has been found to lead to unintended consequences not only for public health but also for broader ecosystem stability and biodiversity. These impacts include potential nontarget harm through adverse developmental and reproductive effects on the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster, the subject of a peer-reviewed study in Royal Society Open Science. The authors, who studied the organochlorine fungicide chlorothalonil, conclude, “Chlorothalonil exposure decreases larval survival, extends developmental duration and reduces fecundity.”

“Even at the lowest tested concentration, chlorothalonil exposure resulted in reduced body weight, ovariole count and egg production compared with non-exposed individuals,” the researchers find. This study builds upon years of scientific research findings and critiques of existing federal pesticide law, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) failure to fully assess the adverse impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem stability during the pesticide registration review process.

Methodology and Background

The goal of this study is to evaluate the health impacts on a nontarget insect species (Drosophila melanogaster) from chronic exposure to chlorothalonil. This specific fungicide was chosen for various reasons, including its wide use across cereals, vegetables, and fruits; evidence linked to adverse health effects on vertebrate and invertebrate species; and the fungicide’s “frequent detection in soil and water bodies near agricultural areas.”

The researchers simulated chronic exposure to reflect residue levels otherwise found on produce available in the market. The experimental design to evaluate adverse developmental and reproductive health impacts includes assays for larval survival, body weight, ovariole count, egg production (fecundity), iron content (ferrozine assay serving as a proxy for male fertility), and feeding. The control group of fruit flies was provided a diet without the fungicide, while the experimental group had the fungicide product (Surefire Chlortan 720 SC) dissolved in water and mixed into the standard diet.

The authors of this study include researchers at Australia-based Macquarie University and France-based PURPAN Engineering School. There are no competing interests declared by the authors. The only funding source for this study is linked to one of the author’s Master of Research scholarships through the International Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship (iMQRES MRES).

Results & Analysis

The authors identify numerous adverse health effects that chlorothalonil imposes on fruit fly developmental and reproductive health, including:

• Significant decline in larval survival as chlorothalonil concentration increases;
• Egg production dropped by 37 percent over the course of the study at the lowest tested dose (5mg/kg) and dropped by over 50% at a dosage of 120 mg/kg;
• Fewer ovarioles (egg-holding structures in the fruit fly body) were developed in exposed female fruit flies;
• Body weight was significantly reduced in exposed female fruit flies, with a positive correlation found between lower body weight and reproductive health;
• Iron content significantly dropped in exposed male fruit flies, with possible implications for male fertility; and
• No significant changes in food intake at the larval stages, suggesting that some reproductive and developmental effects are not directly attributed to reduced feeding.

“These findings emphasize the potential risks chlorothalonil poses to Drosophila and, more widely, insect populations, even at low doses, and underscore the importance of assessing non-target effects in broader ecological contexts, particularly for chemicals widely used in agriculture,” the authors write in the Discussion section of the study.

“We expected the effect to increase far more gradually with higher amounts. But we found that even a very small amount can have a strong negative effect,” Associate Professor Fleur Ponton, PhD, the supervising author of the study, told SciTechDaily.

Previous Research & Advocacy

Despite a growing body of scientific literature, complex ecosystem-wide effects of synthetic pesticides are not considered by EPA. To determine legal pesticide use patterns intended to protect ecosystems (the complex web of organisms in nature), EPA requires a set of tests to measure both acute and chronic effects. An ecological risk assessment (ERA) considers the lethal concentration at which 50% of a population of a given species will die (LC50), and the chronic impacts associated with environmental exposure. However, the ERA process has failed to account for sublethal and persistent exposures, as documented in the scientific literature.

A study published in Conservation Letters in 2024 exposes critical shortcomings in EPA’s ecological risk assessment process for modeling the risks that pesticides pose to bees and other pollinators. After reviewing 252 assays from 49 studies, the authors determined EPA’s reliance on honey bee data from lab studies focused on LD50 does not accurately capture the threats that pesticides pose in the real world to thousands of other bee species with diverse life histories, genetic compositions, and sensitivities to pesticides. Additionally, for both dietary and topical exposures to neonicotinoid insecticides, multiple non-Apis (wild) bee genera like Bombus, Megachile, Melipona, Nannotrigona, and Partamona exhibit significantly higher sensitivities and lower LD50 values compared to Apis (honey bees), in some cases up to six orders of magnitude more sensitive. Looking within just the Apis genus, LD50 values for the same neonicotinoid varied by up to seven orders of magnitude, likely due to factors like genetic diversity, temperature differences, nutrition levels, and other environmental parameters that were not adequately accounted for by the ERA process. The ECOTOX database—an EPA-hosted, publicly available resource with information on adverse effects of single chemical stressors to certain aquatic and terrestrial species—is overwhelmingly populated (79.4%) by acute lethality data from studies lasting just one to five days on the western honey bee. Compounding this issue of incomplete scientific data, the authors identify that chronic, longer-term studies on diverse bee species and real-world conditions are lacking. (See here for Daily News.)

On the issue of registering new active ingredients, EPA registered a new active ingredient in 2020 (Inpyrfluxam) without performing a thorough review of its impacts on biodiversity, as well as threatened and endangered species. After being sued by the Center for Biological Diversity for failure to comply with the Endangered Species Act (ESA), EPA committed to completing draft effects determinations by Fall 2022, but fell short with an incomplete assessment, given the failure to appropriately measure chronic toxicity or test for endocrine disruption. (See here for the Daily News.)

Call to Action

The structural issues in EPA’s ecological risk assessments are not a new phenomenon; Beyond Pesticides has continuously pointed out their deficiencies in evaluating numerous active ingredients and chemicals, including atrazine, fludioxonil, neonicotinoids, carbaryl and methomyl, indaziflam, pyrethroids, paraquat, glyphosate, and wood preservatives.

You can take action today by sending a message to EPA that, in order to meet its obligations under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and ESA, it must facilitate a transition to organic practices; you can also tell Congress to ensure that EPA meets its statutory obligations.

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

Source: Royal Society Open Science

(Beyond Pesticides, July 16, 2025) A study following a mass mortality event of approximately 200 monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus plexippus) in Pacific Grove, California, highlights the role of pesticides, synthetic pyrethroids in particular, in causing lethal and sublethal effects to nontarget organisms. The research, published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, detects residues of 15 pesticides and associated metabolites in the bodies of 10 deceased butterflies collected from the January 2024 event that occurred near an overwintering site frequented by monarchs.

“On average, each monarch butterfly contained 7 pesticides,” the authors report. They continue, “Notably, three pyrethroid insecticides—bifenthrin, cypermethrin, and permethrin—were consistently detected at or near each chemical’s lethal dose (LD50).” LC50, or Lethal Concentration 50, values represent the concentrations of chemicals lethal to 50% of a test population.

To assess pesticide residues within ten of the deceased butterflies, the researchers use liquid and gas chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS and GC-MS/MS) and find “a total of 15 pesticides and associated metabolites in the butterflies, including 8 insecticides (plus 1 associated metabolite), 2 herbicides (plus 2 associated metabolites), and 2 fungicides.”

The study “present[s] evidence that the mortality incident at the Pacific Grove Monarch overwintering site was likely caused by nontarget pesticide poisoning,” the authors state. “These findings demonstrate pesticide contamination in monarch butterflies, including within urban areas, and highlight the risks pesticides, especially insecticides, pose to monarch populations.”

Background

Monarch butterflies are an important pollinator species and encounter pesticides through multiple exposure routes while performing ecosystem services. Eggs, larvae, and adults of the species may directly contact pesticides. Monarchs can also experience dietary exposure when feeding on contaminated host plants or flowers. “Pesticides have been detected in milkweed plants across agricultural, urban, and open areas in California, and throughout other regions of North America, highlighting exposure risks for monarch larvae,” the researchers note. Contaminated soil and water also present a risk. (See research here, here, and here.)

Many studies (see here, here, here, and here) show that pesticide use in private gardens, on turfgrass, and for mosquito and vector control also presents a risk to butterflies. The use of pesticides near overwintering sites, such as the one in the current study, presents a heightened risk to the species as well.

The authors share: “Monarchs aggregated at roosting locations along migratory corridors or overwintering groves may be particularly vulnerable to pesticide exposure events, as a single application could potentially impact hundreds or thousands of individuals. Because these clustering events occur during especially sensitive phases of the migratory cycle, pesticide exposure during these stages could have significant consequences for subsequent generations. Furthermore, monarchs return to the same overwintering locations annually, relying on specific microclimatic conditions for survival, making relocation to avoid pesticide exposure unfeasible.”

Study Methodology and Results

The current study is authored by staff of The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, U.S. Geological Survey, and the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. Approximately 200 monarch butterflies were discovered dead and dying near the large overwintering site, where “[m]any of the moribund butterflies were exhibiting signs of pesticide poisoning.”

The Pacific Grove Monarch Sanctuary is one of approximately 400 overwintering sites along the California coast where monarchs have been documented as visiting for over 100 years. “The site regularly supports up to tens of thousands of butterflies each fall and winter during their reproductive diapause [dormancy],” the researchers say. As an example, in November of 2023 alone, The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation observed approximately 6,600 butterflies overwintering at the site.

As the study describes: “Some of the butterflies were scattered across a turf lawn, while others were grouped in multiple piles parallel to a structural perimeter. Many of the butterflies were already dead, while others were twitching, a symptom commonly observed in response to neurotoxic pesticide poisoning. The dead butterflies’ wings were flipped forward and their abdomens curled, suggesting similar involuntary movements prior to death… Staff and volunteers continued to observe small numbers of butterflies displaying these symptoms on the lawn over the next two weeks.”

This discovery led to the researchers analyzing “pesticide residues in several deceased individuals to assess pesticide exposure and determine whether it may have contributed to the mortality event.” The analyses show residues of 15 pesticides and associated metabolites, with the three neurotoxic pyrethroid insecticides (bifenthrin, cypermethrin, and permethrin) at the highest concentrations across samples. Residues of bifenthrin and cypermethrin are noted in every sample, while permethrin is present in all but two of the samples.

For the three pyrethroid insecticides identified, there is only a published LC50 value for bifenthrin relating specifically to monarchs. In comparing the reported LC50 to the study results, four out of the ten butterflies contained bifenthrin concentrations exceeding this value. For permethrin and cypermethrin, the only comparison that can be made is to other butterfly species. This, however, does not paint an accurate picture of how these chemicals can impact monarchs, as variations in sensitivity between species can be quite drastic.

For permethrin, an LD50 range is established for other adult nymphalid butterflies. The authors state, “In our study, six of the sampled butterflies had concentrations falling within or exceeding this range.” For cypermethrin, there is only an LC50 available for the butterfly pest species of Pieris brassicae, with the study data “indicating that six of the ten monarchs we sampled were exposed to a potentially lethal dose.”

Also of note is that LD50 values represent the dose required to kill 50% of a test population, while some individuals can experience debilitating symptoms, and still die, from lower doses. One study finds that “monarch larvae exposed to bifenthrin at less than half of its lethal dose exhibited severe poisoning symptoms, including bleeding and spasming.” In the current study, eight of the ten monarchs show bifenthrin levels at which such symptoms could occur.

As the researchers point out, there are additional issues in assessing risks to species since “available toxicity values are based on exposure to a single active ingredient, whereas all the sampled monarchs contained residues of multiple pesticides.” Exposure to multiple pesticides can result in additive or synergistic effects, which then enhance toxicity, as has been demonstrated in many studies of pollinator species.

The researchers further note: “The toxicological effects of multiple pyrethroids are likely additive due to their shared mode of action. Interactions between different modes of action groups can lead to synergistic effects, where the combined toxicological effect exceeds the sum of the individual effects. Therefore, it is possible that combined exposure to various pesticides could have enhanced pyrethroids’ toxicities in the sampled monarchs.” (See research here, here, and here.)

History of Monarchs and Pesticides

Adverse impacts to monarch butterflies have been documented since the 1980s, with studies finding populations across North America declining by approximately 80% in the east and 95% in the west. (See studies here and here.) These drastic results have led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to propose listing the monarch as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). The most recent proposal, posted for public comment on December 12, 2024, and covered in the Daily News, also included adding designated critical habitats for the species that would span approximately 4,395 acres throughout overwintering sites in coastal California. The comment period, in which Beyond Pesticides submitted comments, closed on March 12, 2025.

As Beyond Pesticides continues to report, the biodiversity crisis is one of multiple crises that are compounding one another. While human actions are contributing to an ongoing Holocene or sixth mass extinction, the globe is also facing crises in human disease and climate change. Declining monarch populations are symptomatic of the ongoing insect apocalypse, which threatens worldwide ecology and agriculture—and exemplifies the regulatory process that fails to protect biodiversity. (See Daily News here.) 

Preserving biodiversity is imperative for all life and starts by considering all the factors that contribute to the crisis in the first place. Pesticide use is a major cause of declining biodiversity, which is manifested in extinctions, endangered species, and species vulnerable to environmental disturbances—including climate change, habitat fragmentation, and toxic chemicals. As emphasized in the public comments, Beyond Pesticides urges the protection of monarch butterflies as critically necessary—rooted in science and given the foundational role that pollinators play in the ecosystem and the knowledge that their extinction would have cascading negative impacts.

Several studies also show the contamination from pesticides on milkweed plants, which monarch caterpillars rely on as their only food source. (See studies here, here, and here as well as related Daily News coverage here, here, and here.)

The mass mortality event in Pacific Grove is not the first to occur. A 2020 Daily News article reports on a “Monarch Massacre” where hundreds of monarch butterflies were found dead after the Vector Control Department of Cass County, North Dakota, aerially sprayed the county for mosquito control. This case also links the use of synthetic pyrethroids to the deaths of monarchs.

Organic Solution

The more recent mass mortality incident in California adds to the wide body of science that highlights the ongoing risks pesticides pose to monarchs and other pollinator species. The alternative to toxic chemicals that do not threaten health and biodiversity? Organic land management.

The elimination of petrochemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers is the only solution moving forward that can protect species, like the monarch butterfly, from population effects. Mitigation measures have consistently and repeatedly failed. In adopting organic practices, the harmful effects seen with chemical-intensive, conventional methods are prevented, and the health of the environment, including all organisms it supports, is prioritized.

Learn more about the benefits of organic here and here, as well as in the Daily News Biodiversity Threatened by Pesticide Drift, Study Finds; Organic Agriculture Cited as a Holistic Solution and Pesticides and You article, Thinking Holistically When Making Land Management Decisions.

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

Source:

Cibotti, S. et al. (2025) Pyrethroid insecticides implicated in mass mortality of monarch butterflies at an overwintering site in California, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/etc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/etojnl/vgaf163/8177160.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 15, 2025) A study published in Environmental Science and Technology finds that there are 47 current-use pesticides—products with active ingredients that are currently registered with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) —detected in samples of indoor dust, drinking water, and urine from households in Indiana. This study builds on existing scientific literature documenting the public health threat of nonoccupational, indoor pesticide exposure. (See previous Daily News here, here, and here.) The study is a reminder that pesticides move into the indoor environment through the air, and on clothing, making exposure more widespread than the assumptions used in regulatory reviews.

Background and Methodology

“In this study, we collected matched samples of indoor dust, drinking water, and urine from 81 households in Indiana, United States, and analyzed these samples for 82 CUPs [current use pesticides], including 48 insecticides, 25 herbicides, and 9 fungicides,” say the authors. They continue: “Of these, 47 CUPs were identified across samples of indoor dust, drinking water, and urine with median total CUP (∑CUP) concentrations of 18 300 ng/g, 101 ng/L, and 2.93 ng/mL, respectively.” The herbicides (13) detected include 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), Alachlor, Atrazine, CIAT (Desethyl-atrazine), Diuron, Metolachlor, Metolachlor OA (Oxanilic acid), OIAT (2-Hydroxy-4-isopropylamino-6-amino-s-triazine), OIET (2-Hydroxyatrazine), Prometon, Simazine, Acetochlor, and Acetochlor OA; the insecticides (20) include neonicotinoids (Acetamiprid, Clothianidin, Dinotefuran, Imidacloprid, Thiacloprid, Thiamethoxam, NDMA [N-desmethyl-acetamiprid], and 6-CNA [6-Chloronicotinic acid]), organophosphates (Diazinon, Ethoprophos, Malathion, IMPY [2-isopropyl-4-methyl-6-hydroxypyrimidine], PNP [p-nitrophenol], and TCPγ [3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol]), pyrethroids (3-PBA [3-Phenoxybenzoic acid], 4-F-3-BA [4-Fluoro-3-phenoxybenzoic acid], and Fenpropathrin), and phenylpyrazoles (Fipronil, Fipronil sulfone, and Desulfinyl fipronil); and the fungicides (9) detected include azoles (Myclobutanil, Propiconazole, Tebuconazole, and Metconazole), strobilurins (Azoxystrobin and Pyraclostrobin), amides (Boscalid and Metalaxyl), and the benzimidazole Carbendazim.

The participants were recruited through the Person-to-Person (P2P) Health Interview study cohort at Indiana University, which was approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board. The dust, drinking water, and urine samples were all collected on the same day for each study participant, with 3 samples per participant amounting to 243 total samples. Samples were gathered between August and December of 2020 and stored at negative 20 degrees Celsius before instrumental analysis. (For more information, see “Instrumental Analysis” subsection on page “B”.)

The authors are researchers based at Emory University, as well as Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement and Early Warning Technology for Urban Environmental Health Risks and College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering at Shenzhen University (China). The authors declared that there is “no competing financial interest” in conducting this study. In the acknowledgements, “[t]he authors thank Indiana University, the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, the Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (KQTD20240729102048052), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22206071), the Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement and Early Warning Technology for Urban Environmental Health Risks (ZDSYS20220606100604008), and High Level of Special Funds (G03050K001) for funding this project.”

Results

“Our results show that indoor dust is a significant exposure pathway for most insecticides and fungicides, while herbicides are mainly consumed through drinking water,” say the authors. “In addition, the toxicity equivalent factor model, incorporated with data retrieved from the ToxCast database, indicated that imidacloprid poses the greatest health risk based on its high exposure levels and toxicity.”

The authors also cite some additional findings of note:

• Thirty-seven CUPs were detected in indoor dust samples;
  • Neonicotinoids and their “breakdown products” were the most abundant group of insecticides found in indoor dust, “contributing more than 70% to the total insecticide concentrations”;
  • “Overall, the median total [neonicotinoid] concentration in indoor dust was 4,100 ng/g [nanograms], approximately 3 orders of magnitude higher than that reported in urban settings;
  • “The most abundant herbicide detected in indoor dust was 2,4-dichorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), which constituted more than 85% of the total herbicide concentrations.” Considering that 2,4-D has a short half-life of one and a half days, the authors believe that this “may indicate a recent application in the vicinity of the sampling area”; and
  • “Azole, strobilurin and amide fungicides were found in all indoor dust samples.”
• Thirty-three CUPs were detected in drinking water samples;
  • “[Organophosphates ] were more frequently detected compared to [neonicotinoids] and found at higher concentrations”;
  • “Sixteen herbicides were found in drinking water samples. Herbicides were the predominant group of CUPs in drinking water samples and contributed 55% to the ∑CUP concentrations”;
  • Atrazine and its breakdown products made up “over 50% of the total herbicide concentrations” accounted for in this study; and
  • Seven fungicides were detected in water samples, with Tebuconazole the only one to be detected in over half of the samples, while the other detected compounds were detected in less than 44% of the samples.
• Nineteen CUPs were detected in urine samples;
  • The most abundant concentrations of pesticides (in decreasing order) in urine came from insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides;
  • The top five highest concentrations of pesticides in urine samples included imidacloprid, dinotefuran, 2,4-D, Metolachlor OA, and 3-PBA;
  • “Herbicides were detected in 93% of urine samples”; and
  • “Individual fungicides were detected in less than 50% of the samples.”

Additional noteworthy points raised by study authors include:

• Insecticides contributed 80% to average CUP concentrations in indoor dust, herbicides made up 55% (“the most abundant group”) of total samples for drinking water, and insecticides also made up the vast majority of concentrations in urine samples (82%);
• The average CUP concentrations in private water wells “were significantly lower” than municipal government-managed water sources, which “may be related to the local municipal water infrastructure”; and
• “The EDIs [estimated daily intake] of individual CUPs were below the tolerable daily intake thresholds established by the U.S. EPA,” which is the risk assessment-based approach for calculating cumulative health risk, despite the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Previous Daily News

Other peer-reviewed studies document the presence of pesticide residues in indoor dust samples. A large European study of house dust contaminants, published in Science of the Total Environment, finds more than 1,200 anthropogenic compounds, including numerous organophosphates, the phthalate DEHP, PCBs, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products, in indoor dust samples. Additionally, an Argentine study centered around households with nonagricultural workers found that all dust samples contained mixtures, averaging 19 pesticides per sample and with a maximum of 32 per sample. Twelve pesticides were detected in more than 75 percent of the samples. Imidacloprid, carbaryl, glyphosate, and atrazine were detected in all samples. Seven of the 49 are used as both agricultural and veterinary or household pest compounds. (See Daily News here.)

The toxicity and pervasiveness of certain pesticides in this study, including the herbicide 2,4-D, have been documented in various reports and studies, as covered in previous Daily News. A study published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2024 was one of the first to indicate a link between exposure to the herbicides 2,4-D and glyphosate to the impairment of behavioral performance (i.e., attention/inhibitory control, memory/learning, language, visuospatial processing, and social perception). (See Daily News here.) 2,4-D has also been found in all pregnant participants of a biomonitoring study published in Agrochemicals in 2024 in the Midwest region of the United States (Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio). “Cases were selected as participants in which any of the following occurred: hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, spontaneous preterm birth, gestational diabetes, stillbirth, or fetal demise < 20 weeks,” according to the researchers. (See Daily News here.)

Similarly, safe drinking water has been a key concern in terms of pesticide residues emerging in groundwater samples, water well samples, and other areas that signal their pervasiveness and potential threat to human health. Approximately four in ten private wells in the state of Wisconsin contain toxic pesticides and pesticide metabolites, according to findings released earlier this year from a 2023 survey, entitled Wisconsin Agricultural Chemicals in Wisconsin Groundwater, conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) in partnership with U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). (See Daily News here.) A report published by University of Connecticut researchers found that 46% of Connecticut waterway samples are contaminated with levels of the neonicotinoid insecticide, imidacloprid—one of the most widely used insecticides in the United States on lawn and golf courses. (See Daily News here.) Studies on imidacloprid have linked the active ingredient to reproductive effects and a potential leacher, a possible contributor to various cancers, kidney/liver damage, and a likely contributor to endocrine disruption and birth and developmental effects. Imidacloprid has been proven toxic to fish and aquatic organisms, as well as bees.

Call to Action

Communities across the nation remain committed to moving beyond chemical dependence to address the issue of pesticide drift into our homes, where our loved ones may be inadvertently exposed to toxic pesticide residues that undermine immune systems and potentially contribute to deadly and chronic diseases. You can take action today (see here) by telling EPA to meet its obligations under federal pesticide and wildlife laws to facilitate a transition to organic practices.

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

Source: Environmental Science and Technology

(Beyond Pesticides, July 14, 2025) With the rise in early onset cancer rates and mortality for breast, pancreatic, and gastric cancers, a wide and growing body of science linking pesticides to cancer, and associations between childhood cancer and pesticides, Beyond Pesticides is urging nationwide efforts to eliminate the use of cancer causing pesticides.

Peter Hopewood, MD, FACS, writing in a bulletin in the American College of Surgeons says, “The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been in the healthcare spotlight since 2019, but the reality is that heart disease and cancer killed more people than COVID-19 in 2020 . . . and were our nation’s leading causes of death for decades before that. Among Americans younger than 85 years of age, cancer remains the leading cause of death.” Dr. Hopewood is convinced that “cancer has been an ongoing pandemic since life expectancy increased during the 20th century.”  

In 1985, Imperial Chemical Industries and the American Cancer Society declared October “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” as part of a campaign to promote mammograms for the early detection of breast cancer. Unfortunately, most of us are all too aware of breast cancer. Detection and treatment of cancers do not solve the problem. A preventive approach is needed, not just awareness. Barbara Brenner, activist and executive director of Breast Cancer Action (BCA) in San Francisco, asks, “There is a value to awareness, but awareness of what, and to what end?” 

Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Disease Database tracks the independent peer- reviewed literature on cancer and other adverse health effects.  One recent study finds that the cancer risk posed by pesticides rivals that of smoking. A recent article in The New Lede documents case studies of cancer diagnoses linked to chemical-intensive agriculture. Current national cancer rates, according to the American Cancer Society, show that two million new cancer cases are projected to occur during 2025 in the U.S. Additional research predicts 618,120 cancer deaths this year as well, highlighting a crisis of great concern. 

Farmers, farmworkers, and their families face disproportionate risks from toxic pesticide exposure. Other socioeconomic factors contribute to disparities in the ability to receive treatment. A frightening indication for the future comes from findings that cancer is striking at an earlier age, causing some to warn of an epidemic of early-onset cancer.  

Beyond the huge personal toll that cancer demands of patients and their families, including survivors, there are enormous financial costs. The personal financial burdens of paying for cancer treatment and hidden costs, including travel, lodging, and loss of income, add to the stress of the disease on both patients and their families. On a larger scale, the National Cancer Institute finds, “National costs for cancer care were estimated to be $190.2 billion in 2015. Assuming constant future costs, we project costs to be $208.9 billion in 2020 (2020 U.S. dollars), an increase of 10 percent that is only due to the aging and growth of the U.S. population. These cost estimates include cancer-attributable costs for medical services and oral prescription drugs.” In addition, according to the Cancer Atlas, “The economic burden of lost productivity due to premature mortality from cancer is greater than cancer treatment and represents most of the total economic burden of cancer.” 

In spite of the huge burden placed on Americans individually and collectively, U.S. policy allows cancer-causing pesticide use even though it is not needed to grow food and manage land. EPA regulates pesticides under the 1947 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), to which Congress added a major revision with the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) in 1996—which repealed the Delaney Clause, which required the banning of chemical additives in food that cause cancer in humans or animals—if a substance was carcinogenic, no level of it would be allowed to be added to processed food. There was no acceptable threshold below w
With the availability of safer alternatives to toxic chemicals in agriculture, parks, homes, and gardens, the allowance of carcinogens and other substances with documented harm to health and the environment is unreasonable. Organic methods are proven to provide numerous health benefits, as well as more nutritious food, that can both protect and enhance biodiversity and mitigate the effects of climate change.  

Beyond Pesticides is urging the public to: Tell EPA and Congress to eliminate cancer-causing pesticides that contribute to the ongoing cancer pandemic. 

Letter to Congress Peter Hopewood, MD, FACS, convinced that “cancer has been an ongoing pandemic since life expectancy increased during the 20th century,” writes in a bulletin in the American College of Surgeons, “The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been in the healthcare spotlight since 2019, but the reality is that heart disease and cancer killed more people than COVID-19 in 2020 . . . and were our nation’s leading causes of death for decades before that. Among Americans younger than 85 years of age, cancer remains the leading cause of death.” 

In 1985, October was declared “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” as part of a campaign to promote mammograms for the early detection of breast cancer. Unfortunately, most of us are all too aware of breast cancer. Detection and treatment of cancers do not solve the problem. We need prevention, not just awareness. 

A large body of science links increased cancer risks with exposure to agricultural chemicals, including petrochemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. One recent study finds that the cancer risk posed by pesticides rivals that of smoking. The American Cancer Society projects two million new cancer cases during 2025 in the U.S. Additional research predicts 618,120 cancer deaths this year as well, highlighting a crisis of great concern.

Farmers, farmworkers, and their families face disproportionate risks from toxic pesticide exposure. Socioeconomic factors contribute to disparities in the ability to receive treatment. A frightening indication for the future comes from findings that cancer is striking at an earlier age, causing some to warn of an epidemic of early-onset cancer. 

Beyond the huge personal toll that cancer demands of patients and their families, including survivors, there are enormous financial costs. The personal financial burdens of paying for cancer treatment and hidden costs—including travel, lodging, and loss of income—add to the stress on both patients and families. On a larger scale, the National Cancer Institute finds, “National costs for cancer care were estimated to be $190.2 billion in 2015. Assuming constant future costs, we project costs to be $208.9 billion in 2020 (2020 U.S. dollars), an increase of 10 percent that is only due to the aging and growth of the U.S. population. These cost estimates include cancer-attributable costs for medical services and oral prescription drugs.” In addition, according to the Cancer Atlas, “The economic burden of lost productivity due to premature mortality from cancer is greater than cancer treatment and represents most of the total economic burden of cancer.”

Despite the huge burden placed on Americans individually and collectively, the use of cancer-causing pesticides is allowed even though it is not needed to grow food and manage land. EPA regulates pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, which allows pesticides to be used only in the absence of unreasonable adverse effects. Although the Food Quality Protection Act repealed the Delaney Clause, which required the banning of chemical additives in food that cause cancer, replacing it with a risk assessment protocol that allows for uncertainty, ignores preexisting health conditions and vulnerabilities, fails to evaluate chemical mixtures and synergistic effects, and establishes levels of “acceptable” harm, the availability of safer alternatives to toxic chemicals in agriculture, parks, homes, and gardens, makes the continued allowance of carcinogens and other substances with documented harm to health and the environment unreasonable.  

Organic methods are proven to provide numerous benefits that can prevent cancer, protect and enhance biodiversity, and mitigate the effects of climate change. Please support legislation that eliminates cancer-causing pesticides and promotes organic agriculture and land management.

Thank you.

For additional context and background, please see Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide Induced Diseases Database [PIDD] resource on cancer, available below! ⬇️

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

(Beyond Pesticides, July 11, 2025) Pesticides and antibiotics are linked inextricably in the looming crisis of human and ecosystem health. Both started out as quasi-miraculous solutions to age-old human problems, yet it has been clear that the failures of each present severe challenges—and that they are synergistic because they trigger the same kinds of defensive mechanisms in their targets: insects, fungi, and weeds on the one hand, and microbes on the other. A review of contamination of waterways in India with pesticides and antibiotics, published in Environmental and Geochemical Health, recounts the many threats that arise when these chemicals mix and how their presence in water makes the problems much worse.   

Globally, about five million people died in 2019 from infections with antibiotic-resistant microbes. By 2050, according to a World Bank estimate, antibiotic resistance could add $1 trillion to global health care costs and subtract $3.4 trillion from annual global gross domestic product. While the world slowly realizes the urgent need to counter antibiotic resistance, the role of pesticides in generating it has received less political and public attention. But there is no doubt that pesticides are strongly implicated. In fact, the resistance of microbes to antibiotics is no different from the well-documented resistance of insects and plants to pesticides.

The presence of both pesticides and antibiotics in water bodies—lakes, rivers, and oceans—and especially those receiving both agricultural runoff and hospital waste—multiplies the risk of antimicrobial resistance. Further, the waters of the world are largely connected, from snow zones to oceans, so that in many cases what enters one body of water affects everything downstream.

India’s experience with pesticides began with the Green Revolution, which spread globally from the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s. DDT and benzene hexachloride (BHC) were introduced in 1948 in India. The first BHC factory was built in 1952, and India subsequently became a major manufacturer of pesticides. It was not until 1971 that a national pesticide regulation was established. The country’s pesticide evolution has since undergone phase transitions similar to those in the United States and Europe—from DDT to organochlorines, organophosphates, carbamates, pyrethroids, and more recently, neonicotinoids. From the 2000s onward, Indian pesticide production has burgeoned, and the country is currently the fourth-largest producer of agrochemicals.

Antibiotic resistance is a classic case of natural selection: Not every organism will be killed by a toxicant, and the survivors reproduce to create a population of resistant individuals. This has been a recognized problem for at least two centuries, but microbial resistance is accelerating as the world becomes more and more saturated with chemicals that trigger natural selection. Pesticides have profound effects on microbes, including in the human gut, and often function as antibiotic,s whether intentionally or not.

Microbes have numerous ways of evading pesticides’ antibiotic properties—efflux pumps, horizontal gene transfer, biofilm formation—and bacteria possessing all these skills are especially good at multi-drug resistance. Efflux pumps allow bacteria to eject foreign and toxic material from their cells.

Horizontal gene transfer and genetic mutations allow bacteria to alter cellular defenses, often through the transmission of plasmids, which are packets of resistance genes and their helper DNA elements. These genes can change membrane permeability, dismantle antibiotics, or change the target of an antibiotic or pesticide. Biofilms protect a wide variety of microorganisms from antibiotics, cleaning agents, and even abrasion. According to the Indian review, biofilms occur frequently in agricultural runoff, sewage systems, and their receiving waters. Bacteria living inside a biofilm can be a thousand times more resistant to antibiotics than those living freely, the authors write, and biofilms often harbor persister cells, which remain dormant when exposed to antibiotics and afterwards revive to regenerate the biofilm. They also make horizontal gene transfer more likely.

These defense mechanisms increase as the selective pressure, whether from pesticides or antibiotics, increases, and in areas where both pesticides and antibiotics are present, the rate at which resistance evolves speeds up. Specific pesticides have been associated with resistance to specific antibiotics. According to the Indian review, glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba help bacteria develop resistance to tetracycline and ampicillin. (See Glyphosate Induces Antibiotic Resistance in Deadly Hospital-Acquired Infection.) Chlorpyrifos increases multidrug-resistant plasmid transfers. The fungicide azoxystrobin causes Pseudomonas aeruginosa to bolster its efflux pump capacity. (See Daily News and Pesticides and You.)

The Indian review analyzes the evidence of antibiotic resistance and pesticides in Indian aquatic ecosystems. According to the authors, numerous aquatic environments in India show signs of being antibiotic resistance nurseries, from the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in the north to the Thamirabarani in the southern Tamil Nadu state. These areas receive heavy amounts of agricultural runoff. Seawater along the coasts harbors Vibrio bacteria—pathogens of cholera and gastroenteritis—that are antibiotic-resistant. India is also a leader in pharmaceutical manufacturing, which contributes significant effluent to surface waters; wastewater treatment facilities receiving such effluent are known antibiotic resistance hotspots. Groundwater in India is likewise polluted; researchers have also found resistant E. coli strains in Assam and Uttar Pradesh in groundwater contaminated with agricultural products.

Aquaculture is emerging as a serious incubator of pesticide-antibiotic induced resistance. A study of finfish aquaculture in Bangladesh found extensive use of many antibiotics and pesticides.

India uses relatively few pesticides, with an application rate of 0.4 kg per hectare, compared to China, which uses 1.83 kg per hectare. It actually manufactures and exports more than it uses internally, according to the review. But, between the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and pesticide and their use internally, much of the country is contaminated. India has gradually increased pesticide regulation, banning the organochlorine compound endosulfan in 2011, which reduced the scourge of pesticide-related suicides significantly. It passed the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act in 2014, and there have been some attempts to incorporate alternative pest management practices, but these are inconsistent and spotty.

Ultimately, there is no avoiding the end-state of pesticide use, which is an increasingly toxic environment populated by those organisms that can survive it, which are uncontrollable by current methods.

As the review authors put it, “The time for half-measures and bureaucratic reluctance is passed; India needs to take immediate action to defend its water resources and public health from this unpredictable yet growing problem.”

As Beyond Pesticides wrote in a Commentary last year, “[W]e must stop broadcasting pesticides in the environment. The crisis in antibiotic resistance, which creates a threat of another pandemic, is ignored in the registration of pesticides. The antibiotic impacts of pesticides…were discovered only after the pesticides had been disseminated in the environment for decades. EPA must not register pesticides unless they have been demonstrated not to contribute to antibiotic resistance and must cancel the registration of those that do.” (See Agricultural Uses of Antibiotics Escalate Bacterial Resistance.)

Beyond Pesticides’ position is that the twin problems of pesticides’ multifarious toxicities and antibiotics’ inevitable uselessness are not categorically distinct, but rather two aspects of the same mistaken assumption—that we can dominate nature by brute force. They can be reversed by switching to organic and regenerative agriculture. Resistance to both pesticides and antibiotics is inevitable, and thinking otherwise is magical thinking.

To take action: Tell EPA to cancel all uses of a pesticide when resistance is discovered or predicted to occur. Tell Congress to ensure that EPA protects public health from deadly antifungal and antibiotic resistance.

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

Sources:

Pesticide‑driven antimicrobial resistance in water bodies: insights on environmental concerns, health implications, and mitigation strategies
Sonkar et al
Environmental and Geochemical Health 2025
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10653-025-02600-y

Local applications but global implications: Can pesticides drive microorganisms to develop antimicrobial resistance?
Ramakrishnan et al
Science of the Total Environment 2018
https://www.academia.edu/85694036/Local_applications_but_global_implications_Can_pesticides_drive_microorganisms_to_develop_antimicrobial_resistance

Commentary: We Can and Must Stop Antibiotic Pesticide Use in the Interest of Public Health Worldwide
Beyond Pesticides, January 8, 2024
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2024/01/commentary-we-can-and-must-stop-antibiotic-pesticide-use/

Amounts of Pesticides Reaching Target Pests: Environmental Impacts and Ethics
David Pimentel
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 1995
https://r.jordan.im/download/environmentalism/pimentel1995.pdf

Mechanism for Escalating Antibiotic Resistance in Agriculture Detailed in Study, as Crisis Grows
Beyond Pesticides, January 2, 2025
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2025/01/mechanism-for-escalating-antibiotic-resistance-in-agriculture-detailed-in-study-as-crisis-grows/

Study Finds Synergistic Convergence of Global Warming, Pesticide Toxicity, and Antibiotic Resistance
Beyond Pesticides, May 1, 2025
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2025/05/study-finds-synergistic-convergence-of-global-warming-pesticide-toxicity-and-antibiotic-resistance/