(Beyond Pesticides, February 10, 2023) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced, on February 1, new measures to protect 28 endangered salmon species (including steelhead trout) from the use of four pesticides that threaten them and their critical habitats. Those compounds comprise three herbicides — metolachlor, bromoxynil, and prometryn, and one soil fumigant, 1,3-Dichloropropene. The protections, aimed at salmon populations in Washington, Oregon, and California, are meant to reduce impacts from pesticide runoff and spray drift, and to minimize potential “take.” (Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), “take” means, essentially, the unintentional harming or killing of an individual of a protected species — in this case, harm or death from exposures to these toxic pesticide compounds.) Beyond Pesticides and other advocates have for years warned that multiple pesticides are threats to Northwest salmon and other species at risk. This EPA announcement is the second of two, recently, that offer slight redress to the agency’s historical failures to act (see more below).

Indeed, advocates have engaged in multiple litigation efforts over the years to try to force EPA to take action; EarthJustice in 2001 noted some early instances. As Chemical and Engineering News says pointedly, “Environmental groups, which have been suing the EPA for decades to protect endangered species from pesticides, say the new restrictions are long overdue. ‘But there are still more than 1,000 species that don’t have any protection against these four pesticides or hundreds of others that are devastating to imperiled species,’ Lori Ann Burd, environmental health program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, says in a statement. ‘The EPA needs to move quickly to ensure all species are protected from pesticides, before it’s too late.’”

Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) as it relates to pesticide use, EPA is required to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to determine whether a pesticide may adversely affect an ESA listed species (or its critical habitat). If that consultation indicates jeopardy for members of a species or that habitat, EPA must then generate protective regulations to limit use of the pesticide.

In the case of these four pesticides (metalochlor, bromoxynil, 1,3-D [aka telone], prometryn), the final EPA–NMFS finding was that these compounds were “likely to adversely affect” at least one member of the target populations. Although NMFS issued biological opinions in 2021 that “found that registered uses of these pesticides do not jeopardize listed salmon and steelhead species or adversely modify their critical habitats,” those opinions also set out measures to minimize the potential for “take” and any impacts thereof. EPA, sensibly, chose to act on the statutory requirements of ESA for these compounds.

The EPA announcement for the four pesticides describes geographically specific use limitations for them, and lists planned mitigation measures, such as no-spray buffers (between waterways and agricultural fields), retention ponds, and vegetated ditches — all intended to keep the pesticides from migrating into waterways. The new rules also amend labeling requirements (for the pesticides’ containers) that aim to increase education and compliance among applicators, including how to report any related ecological incidents associated with pesticide applications that are observed or experienced.

As Beyond Pesticides lists in its Gateway on Pesticide Hazards (a compendium of information on hundreds of pesticides), these four compounds share several features, chief among which is their toxicity to fish and aquatic organisms. In addition, three of the four are potentially carcinogenic; three likely cause endocrine disruption; all are sensitizers/irritants; three are detected in groundwater (metalochlor, frequently); and Beyond Pesticides rates all but prometryn as toxic.

Agricultural runoff and drift from pesticide applications — the two primary vectors for contamination of Northwest rivers and streams, and the coastal Pacific — are the central targets of the new EPA constraints on the use of the subject pesticides. Beyond Pesticides notes that the drift of pesticides from target application sites — even when applied according to label instructions — can travel significant distances and end up in waterways (as well as on nontarget soils, plants, and organisms). Pacific salmon species are exposed to the compounds in the fresh water ways where they hatch and develop, and to which — after maturing in ocean waters that may also harbor some of these chemical pollutants — they return to reproduce and then die. Not insignificantly for the food web, their decaying carcasses furnish nutrients back to the ecosystem, providing food for other members.

Studies have shown that well more than 100 wildlife species depend on salmon as food, according to the organization, American Rivers. In 2021, it wrote, “Let the salmon disappear, and you threaten the existence of all life up and down the food chain, including people, economies, and the Indigenous cultures that orbit these irreplaceable fish.” Many experts have noted a particular “food chain” threat represented by pesticide impacts on salmon — endangered salmon are the central prey of the iconic orca whales, found from Alaska to Washington to Oregon, and even sometimes off California. Dwindling salmon populations spell trouble for the orcas.

Yet some salmon species have been brought to the edge of extinction for want of effective and timely action on their exposures to a large menu of pesticides. Just last March, EPA finally — after a series of flip-flops and failures on regulating several organophosphate pesticides — released findings that reflected to some extent the risks of malathion, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon, and the need to ramp up protections. A revised EPA–NMFS biological opinion found that use of those compounds is likely to jeopardize some listed species and adversely modify some critical habitats, and recommended protective measures similar to those in the new rules on the subject pesticides.

Yes, this is welcome news. But, these mitigation measures will presumably be enacted under the assumption that they will manage sufficiently the exposures of salmon species to these toxic chemicals. Whether that proves true is, clearly, to be determined. Salmon populations through the coastal West will require critical monitoring in coming years to determine whether the measures are having protective effects; whether that happens also remains to be seen.

Beyond the specifics of these salmon species and these particular synthetic pesticides lies the central issue: EPA continues to allow, and non-organic producers and land managers continue to use aplenty, toxic chemicals that harm people, other organisms, and the environment. This decades-long deluge of the planet with pesticide (and other chemical) compounds represents — apart from the contributions of fossil fuels to the climate crisis — arguably the most extensive experiment ever conducted on Planet Earth. And it happens generally without participants’ knowledge, and virtually never with their permission. By any definition of “valuing life,” this is unconscionable.

Beyond Pesticide Executive Director Jay Feldman notes, “Again, EPA operates with the assumption that these chemicals are needed to achieve pest management goals. But, the agency has not asked the most basic question: is there another way to achieve pest management goals without toxic pesticides? Of course, the answer is ‘yes.’”

The solution is the broad transition to organic agricultural and land management systems that respect, mimic, and cooperate with natural systems. The shift to organic approaches would end the worldwide chemical experiment, and pull land management out of its current, entropic pattern, which is the antithesis of regenerative, organic approaches.

In December 2022, Beyond Pesticides wrote that its “bold goal is to transition off of synthetic, petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers within the next decade, and transition to a society and world committed to organic practices. This will require massive public engagement — and, as Executive Director Jay Feldman says, ‘outrage’ — that we are not moving fast enough to embrace that goal. . . . Everyone — consumers, producers, advocates, legislative and executive government branches, federal and state agencies businesses, and others — has a part to play. We must advance, rapidly, on-the-ground work to make the transition to organic regenerative practices a mainstream expectation” — and a reality.

Please join this effort by becoming a member, signing up for action alerts, supporting this work, and/or organizing at the local or state level to advance organic. Contact us with questions, thoughts, or needs for assistance: [email protected] or 1.202.543.5450.

Source: https://cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/Organophosphate-insecticides-restricted-protect-salmon/100/web/2022/07

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

(Beyond Pesticides, February 9, 2023) Business Insider India reports over 100 infant deaths from pesticide exposure in breast milk. A study by Lucknow’s Queen Mary Hospital links pesticides in breast milk to the death of 111 newborns over the past ten months in the Maharajganj district of northern India. The study is a testament to the effects pesticides can have on the health of individuals, especially vulnerable populations like infants and shows that there is a long way to go before our bodies are void of any bioaccumulated toxic residues. Multiple studies on breast milk throughout the years confirm that toxic chemicals build up in our bodies as breast milk can bioconcentrate or accumulate, a natural phenomenon dubbed chemical “body burden.” Hundreds of chemicals are in blood, urine, breast milk and umbilical cord blood, entering our bodies through diet, personal care product use, and inhalation from air.

Many known pollutants (i.e., heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyl, and pesticides) are chemicals that can move from the mother to the developing fetus at higher exposure rates. Hence, prenatal exposure to these chemicals may increase the prevalence of birth-related health consequences like natal abnormalities and learning/developmental disabilities. Children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of pesticide exposure as their developing bodies cannot adequately combat exposure effects. Moreover, a mother’s pesticide exposure can have a stronger association with health disorders than childhood exposure, and a newborn can still encounter pesticides. Therefore, it is essential to understand how pesticides impact the health and well-being of individuals during critical developmental periods.

[Beyond Pesticides has covered a variety of pregnancy risks from pesticides and other toxic chemicals, including these in just the last three years: pesticides and children’s sleep disorders; prenatal exposures to a multitude of chemicals; insecticides and childhood leukemia; insecticides and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.]

The researchers at Queen Mary Hospital evaluated breast milk samples in 130 women whose infant had died within the past ten months to determine the cause of death. Women were further separated based on diet (i.e., vegetarian and non-vegetarian). Regardless of diet, pesticides are present in maternal breast milk samples. However, non-vegetarian women have three times the number of pesticides in milk samples than vegetarian women. Researchers note, “Different types of pesticides and chemicals are put in green vegetables and crops. Animals are also injected with supplements and chemicals, which have led to pesticide formation in the milk of a woman who eats non-vegetarian food.”

Despite the discrepancy in pesticide concentrations through diet, any amount of pesticide in milk samples poses a severe health risk to newborns. Therefore, researchers attribute the increase in infant mortality to the transfer of pesticides from mother to fetus.

Pesticides’ presence in the body has implications for human health, especially during vulnerable life stages like childhood, puberty, pregnancy, and old age. Pesticide exposure during pregnancy is of specific concern as health effects for all life stages can be long-lasting. Just as nutrients are transferable between mother and fetus, so are chemical contaminants. Thus, the transfer of chemical contaminates from mother to fetus is not a new phenomenon. Studies find pesticide compounds in the mother’s blood can transfer to the fetus via the umbilical cord. A 2021 study finds pregnant women already have over 100 chemicals in blood and umbilical cord samples, including banned POPs. However, 89 percent of these chemical contaminants are from unidentified sources, lack adequate information, or were not previously detectable in humans. Considering the first few weeks of pregnancy are the most vulnerable period of fetal development, exposure to toxicants can have much more severe implications. Moreover, women living near agricultural areas experience higher exposure rates, increasing the risk of neonatal abnormalities like acute lymphoblastic leukemia and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Environmental contaminants like pesticides are ubiquitous in the environment, with 90 percent of Americans having at least one pesticide compound in their body. Many of these chemical compounds remain in soils, water (solid and liquid), and the surrounding air at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. Therefore, individuals still encounter pesticide compounds at varying concentrations, adding to the toxic body burden of those toxic chemicals currently in use.

This study supports the long-known concept regarding the hazards of pesticides for children’s health. Early life exposures during “critical windows of vulnerability” can predict the likelihood or otherwise increase the chances of an individual encountering a range of pernicious diseases. Even before birth, people can carry body burdens inherited from their mothers. Scientists believe a human may host nearly 500 chemicals in various parts of the body, mainly in fatty tissue. Many chemicals break down in the human body, and while some metabolites clear the body, others remain in the body for a lifetime and can increase the risk of certain diseases. Thus, a parent’s exposure to pesticides during these critical periods indicates an increased risk of childhood disease. 

Doctors and pediatricians strongly agree that pregnant mothers should avoid pesticide exposure during critical development periods. Many contaminants are subject to regulatory standards that do not fully evaluate disease implications from exposure. Advocates say that addressing the manufacturing and use of pesticides is essential to mitigate risks from chemical exposure to toxic pesticides. Therefore, advocates urge that policies strengthen pesticide regulations and increase research on the long-term impacts of pesticide exposure. Beyond Pesticides tracks the most recent studies related to pesticide exposure through its Pesticide Induced Diseases Database (PIDD). This database supports the need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the multiple harms of pesticide exposure, see PIDD pages on Body Burdens, Birth/Fetal Effects, Sexual and Reproductive Dysfunction, and other diseases.

One way to reduce human and environmental contamination from pesticides is by buying, growing, and supporting organic. Numerous studies find that levels of pesticide metabolites in urine significantly drop when switching to an all-organic diet. Furthermore, given the wide availability of non-pesticidal alternative strategies, families and agro-industry workers can apply these methods to promote a safe and healthy environment, especially among chemically vulnerable individuals. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture.

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

Source: Business Insider India, Science Direct

(Beyond Pesticides, February 8, 2023) Spraying pesticides around one’s garden negatively impacts local bird populations, according to research published by scientists at the University of Sussex, UK in Science of the Total Environment. Although this reasoning sounds common sense to those versed in the works of Rachel Carson, it underscores the immense importance of carrying on the legacy of her work and continuing to educate the public about the ongoing dangers posed by modern pesticides. As the study authors write, “Overall, our study shows that garden bird abundance and richness is strongly influenced by both extrinsic and intrinsic factors, and suggests that garden management, particularly regarding pesticide use, has a significant effect on bird life.”

Researchers collected data by partnering with the British Trust for Ornithology, which conducts annual citizen-science counts of bird populations in UK gardens. Nearly 24,000 residents participate in the survey, which also includes information about the urbanization level surrounding their gardens, and other habitat characteristics. A group of these volunteers were provided with a questionnaire about their pesticide practices between 2020-2021, recording information on how often the pesticides were applied, as well as the pesticide brand name. After removing incomplete or unusable data, 615 individual gardens were incorporated into the study.

To determine the factors impacting bird populations, researchers created a garden quality index (GQI) and surrounding quality index (SQI). GQI scores included factors such as the type and number of trees, the proportion of the garden planted with flowers, shrubs, vegetables, or allowed to be wild, the quality of shrubs and hedges, and the presence of water features. SQI scores included aspects like the type of nearby habitat (ex. woodland, scrubland, marsh) or nearby water body. To determine impacts to birds, researchers analyzed both bird abundance (total number of birds) and richness (total number of bird species) per recorded bird counts.

In general, bird abundance was found to be highest in rural areas when compared to urban and suburban areas. Gardens that had higher GQI scores also recorded more bird abundance and richness, while SQI appeared to only affect richness.  

Among study participants, 34.1% indicated they applied pesticides, with over 60% of that use being herbicides, followed by molluscicides (slug killing products) around 35%, insecticides at roughly 30% and fungicides at 10%. Pesticide spraying impacted the effect a positive SQI factor had on bird richness. Specifically, “species richness increases with the surrounding quality, both for gardens that do not use pesticides and for gardens that applied pesticides, but this effect is significantly less strong when pesticides are applied,” the study indicates. Scientists zeroed in on three active ingredients: the weed killer glyphosate, the neonicotinoid insecticide acetamiprid, and the synthetic pyrethroid deltamethrin as resulting in the most damaging pesticide impacts to bird species’ richness.

While abundance was not impacted on an overall basis, individual species did show negative relationships with the use of specific pesticides. The house sparrow, for example, although perhaps the most established invasive pest in the United States, is in steep decline in the UK. Results showed that house sparrow abundance declines by 12% in gardens applying any pesticide, but is nearly 25% lower in gardens specifically using glyphosate.

The study authors, including world renowned entomologist Dave Goulson, PhD, say their results support restrictions on pesticide use. “The UK has 22 million gardens, which collectively could be a fantastic refuge for wildlife, but not if they are overly tidy and sprayed with poisons. We just don’t need pesticides in our gardens. Many towns around the world are now pesticide free. We should simply ban the use of these poisons in urban areas, following the example of France,” Dr. Goulson told The Guardian.

As Beyond Pesticides reported in 2022, France enacted sweeping restrictions on both public and private use of toxic pesticides in sensitive landscaped areas. The policy implemented throughout populated areas in France generally tracks with similar restrictions enacted in most Canadian provinces, but only by a very few U.S. cities like South Portland and Portland, ME.

That pesticides are locally harming bird populations should come as no surprise; what is perhaps most concerning to advocates is that over 1 in 3 well-intentioned gardeners regularly applied toxic pesticides that put the birds they undoubtedly appreciate at risk.

In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson in the first chapter writes “A Fable for Tomorrow:”

“There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone? Many people
spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The
few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a
spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins,
catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only
silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.”

Already, data show that the U.S. has lost 3 billion birds since the 1970s – 29% of the abundance seen during that decade. This study and its authors have a loud and clear message to all readers to relay to their friends and family: stop the home and garden use of pesticides. The choices we make whether to address a pest through chemical or ecological pest management has a major impact on the health of the wildlife in our immediate area; wildlife that many residents come to know well, and care about, as they watch their comings and goings through their window.

In the absence of meaningful action by U.S. federal or state governments to address rampant pesticide use in a way similar to France or many Canadian provinces, individual localities have filled the gap. However, in most states, this action is limited to restrictions on property owned by the local government, due to regressive, anti-democratic pesticide preemption laws. However, in the few states without these laws, like Maine and Maryland, local community policies that apply to both public and private property are showing immense success. Help fight back against pesticide industry efforts to roll back those victories and support a policy that would allow all communities to address pesticide use in a way that best reflects their resident’s values and unique local environment.

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

Source: The Guardian, Science of the Total Environment

(Beyond Pesticides, February 7, 2023) U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) reintroduced legislation last week to increase protections against exposure to toxic pesticides. The Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act of 2023 (PACTPA), S.269, addresses many of the controversial issues with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), which governs the registration and use of pesticides in the U.S. This major reform legislation tackles some of the documented deficiencies in the regulation of pesticides and removes a number of loopholes in the law. The legislation, introduced with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Brian Schatz (D-HI), also includes a ban on all organophosphate and neonicotinoid insecticides, as well as  the weed killer paraquat, which is known to cause Parkinson’s disease and lung fibrosis. Despite these reform provisions, the legislation does not touch the core of FIFRA’s pesticide registration process and chart a path for the systemic, transformative change that Beyond Pesticides says is essential to meet the existential challenges of current times—devastating health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate crisis.

FIFRA, which is under the jurisdiction of the agriculture committees of Congress, has long been criticized for failing to protect the public and workers because of a host of problems that are viewed as untouchable in Congress: a failed risk assessment and risk mitigation process; lack of pesticide essentiality reviews in light of the availability of nontoxic and organic alternatives; incomplete U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reviews that do not consider a wide range of public health diseases caused by pesticides and synergistic effects from multiple chemical exposures; incomplete ecological assessments and protection of threatened and endangered species; and, disproportionate harm to people of color, those with pre-existing health conditions, and workers with cumulative exposure to pesticides in their workplace, community, and home. Beyond Pesticides is calling for a 10-year phase out of petrochemical pesticides and the national transition to organic land management and pest preventive building management practices.

PACTPA proposes important changes to FIFRA to better protect frontline farmworkers, children and agricultural communities from harmful, potentially lethal, pesticide exposure.

“We work with farmworkers who are afraid to report exposure incidents due to fear of retaliation, and more often pesticide handlers aren’t receiving training on just how dangerous their mixing and spraying jobs are,” said Jeannie Economos, coordinator of the Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project for the Farmworker Association of Florida.

The bill would also ensure that state and local governments retain the authority to implement stronger measures to protect against pesticide exposure, including phase-outs and bans. This is crucial because each year the United States uses over one billion pounds of pesticides — nearly one-fifth of worldwide use.

Once they are approved, pesticides often remain on the market for decades, even when scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows a pesticide is causing harm to people or the environment. Approximately one-third of annual U.S. pesticide use — over 300 million pounds from 85 different pesticides — comes from pesticides that are banned in the European Union.

“This legislation upholds the basic democratic right of communities to adopt safety standards that are more protective than federal or state law,” said Drew Toher, community resource and policy director at Beyond Pesticides.

Specifically, PACTPA would provide some critically-needed improvements to FIFRA to better protect people and the environment, including:

Bans some of the most damaging pesticides scientifically known to cause significant harm to people and the environment:

• Organophosphate insecticides, which are designed to target the neurological system and have been linked to neurodevelopmental damage in children;
• Neonicotinoid insecticides, which have contributed to pollinator collapse around the world (the European Union and Canada have significantly restricted or banned their use to protect pollinators and other wildlife) and have recently been shown to cause developmental defects, heart deformations, and muscle tremors in unborn children;
• Paraquat, which is one of the most acutely toxic herbicides in the world —according to the EPA, just “one sip can kill.” Science has shown that chronic exposure to paraquat increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease by 200% to 600%. It is already banned in 32 countries, including the European Union.

“Science has shown that exposure to paraquat increases risk for Parkinson’s disease,” said Ted Thompson, senior vice president for public policy at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. “In addition to this human toll, allowing this chemical to remain on the market carries with it a serious financial cost to the federal government and American families. The United States is long overdue in banning paraquat, and this bill brings about necessary reform.”

“Keeping paraquat on the market is endangering human health and sending the wrong message to farmers that need support for developing new strategies for weed management,” said Christina Stucker-Gassi, healthy food and farms manager at the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides.

Restores balance to protect ordinary citizens by removing dangerous pesticides from the market by:

• • Creating a petition process to enable individual citizens to petition the EPA to identify dangerous pesticides so that the EPA would no longer be able to indefinitely allow dangerous pesticides to remain on the market;

• • Closing dangerous loopholes that have allowed the EPA to issue emergency exemptions and conditional registrations to use pesticides before they have gone through full health and safety review by the agency;

• • Enabling local communities to enact protective legislation and other policies without being vetoed or preempted by state law;

• • Suspending the use of pesticides deemed unsafe by the E.U. or Canada until they are thoroughly reviewed by the EPA.

    Provides protections for frontline communities that bear the burden of pesticide exposure by:

• • Requiring employers of farmworkers to report all pesticide-caused injuries to the EPA, with strong penalties for failure to report injuries or retaliating against workers;

• • Directing the EPA to review pesticide injury reports and work with the pesticide manufacturers to develop better labeling to prevent future injury;

• • Requiring that all pesticide label instructions be written in Spanish and in any language spoken by more than 500 pesticide applicators.

“America’s farmworkers and children are being sickened by dangerous pesticides, including many banned in other countries,” said J.W. Glass, an EPA policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Sen. Booker’s bill proposes common-sense solutions that target the most harmful pesticides and close egregious loopholes in pesticide law. They’ll ensure people’s health comes before the pesticide industry’s greed.”

“PACTPA represents a tremendous step toward fixing our broken pesticides laws and better protecting people and pollinators from toxic chemicals,” said Jason Davidson, senior food and agriculture campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “Congress must finally address egregious loopholes that have allowed dangerous pesticides to poison our communities and environment.”

In the context of  systemic, transformative change and in order to eliminate this toxic core, Congress must:

• Prohibit the registration and use of pesticides that do not meet these criteria:
  • Necessary to prevent harm to humans and the environment based on an analysis of all alternatives;
  • Cause no harm to humans and the environment; and
  • Protect against the existential crises of biodiversity collapse, runaway climate change, and chronic and acute health threats.
• Require all supporting data to be submitted and examined by the public before registration (including the elimination of conditional registration).
• Deny and cancel all pesticide registrations not supported by studies demonstrating a lack of endocrine-disrupting effects.
• Deny and cancel registrations of all pesticides posing a threat to life in the soil—and hence threatening the climate.
• Deny and cancel registrations of all pesticides posing a threat to any endangered species.

At a time of increasing public health threats, biodiversity collapse, and climate crisis, it is critical to advance legislation that is truly protective of health and the environment. As the widespread success of natural, organic land care practices has shown, toxic pesticides are not needed to maintain agricultural productivity, beautiful landscapes, or quality of life.

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

Source: Senator Booker Press Release; Endorsements; Center for Biological Diversity press release

(Beyond Pesticides, February 6, 2023) During Black History Month, it is of note that on January 10, the Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced funding of approximately $100 million for “projects that advance environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities across the country” through its Environmental Justice Government-to-Government (EJG2G) program. While viewed as assistance for those communities “disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate change,” it is important to recognize that the same communities are also disproportionately impacted by activities that produce pollution and climate change.

Tell EPA, Governors (Mayor in DC), and Congress to support environmental justice by eliminating activities leading to pollution and climate change.

EPA must reverse its historical bias against preventive action to ensure the protection of those disproportionately poisoned by toxic chemicals. While critically important to clean up contaminated communities, EPA must stop the flow of toxic pesticides at the front end because of the disproportionate poisoning effects of use, handling, transportation, and disposal. We live in an age of practices and products that make toxic pesticides unnecessary and their use unconscionable. Yet, EPA insists on the acceptability of harm (which it calls risk), despite its failure to (i) recognize comorbidities and preexisting health conditions, (ii) consider a combination of multiple chemical exposure interactions, and (iii) cite extensive missing health outcomes information (e.g., on endocrine disruption) and a resulting high level of uncertainty.

On the community level addressed by this funding project, EPA could assist communities to transition to organic land management. The EJG2G program must assist communities to manage local parks, playing fields, and greenways without unnecessary toxic pesticides.

 But EPA’s assistance must go beyond funding. EPA’s pesticide registration decisions promote contamination of communities where pesticides are manufactured, stored, used, and disposed of. By ignoring impacts of pesticides on soil health, EPA’s pesticide registration decisions promote the climate crisis. EPA’s pesticide program must incorporate in all of its registration decisions an analysis of impact on the climate crisis, with particular attention to the protection of soil health.

A recent report, Exposed and At Risk: Opportunities to Strengthen Enforcement of Pesticide Regulations for Farmworker Safety, by the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School, in partnership with the nonprofit advocacy group, Farmworker Justice, again highlights the systemic racism of our country’s pesticide policies. Our nation depends on farmworkers, declared “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure sustenance for the nation and world. Yet, the occupational exposure to toxic pesticides by farmworkers is discounted by EPA, while study after study documents the disproportionate level of illness among farmworkers. EPA must eliminate systemic racism in its pesticide program.

Tell EPA, Governors (Mayor in DC), and Congress to support environmental justice by eliminating activities leading to pollution and climate change.

Letter to EPA:

During Black History Month, it is of note that 0n January 10, the Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced funding of approximately $100 million for “projects that advance environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities across the country” through its Environmental Justice Government-to-Government (EJG2G) program. While viewed as assistance for those communities “disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate change,” it is important to recognize that the same communities are also disproportionately impacted by activities that produce pollution and contribute significantly to the climate crisis.

EPA must reverse its historical bias against preventive action to ensure the protection of those disproportionately poisoned by toxic chemicals. While critically important to clean up contaminated communities, EPA must stop the flow of toxic pesticides at the front end because of the disproportionate poisoning effects of use, handling, transportation, and disposal. We live in an age of practices and products that make toxic pesticides unnecessary and their use unconscionable. Yet, EPA insists on the acceptability of harm (which it calls risk), despite its failure to (i) recognize comorbidities and preexisting health conditions, (ii) consider a combination of multiple chemical exposure interactions, and (iii) cite extensive missing health outcomes information (e.g., on endocrine disruption) and a resulting high level of uncertainty.

On the community level addressed by this funding project, EPA could assist communities to transition to organic land care. The EJG2G program must assist communities to manage local parks, playing fields, and greenways without unnecessary toxic pesticides.

 But EPA’s assistance must go beyond funding. EPA’s pesticide registration decisions promote contamination of communities where pesticides are manufactured, stored, used, and disposed of. By ignoring impacts of pesticides on soil health, EPA’s pesticide registration decisions promote climate change. EPA’s pesticide program must incorporate in all its registration decisions an analysis of impact on the climate crisis, with particular attention to the protection of soil health.

A recent report, Exposed and At Risk: Opportunities to Strengthen Enforcement of Pesticide Regulations for Farmworker Safety, by the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School, in partnership with the nonprofit advocacy group, Farmworker Justice, again highlights the systemic racism of our country’s pesticide policies. Our nation depends on farmworkers, declared “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure sustenance for the nation and world. Yet, the occupational exposure to toxic pesticides by farmworkers is discounted by EPA, while study after study documents the disproportionate level of illness among farmworkers. EPA must eliminate systemic racism in its pesticide program.

Please show that EPA is serious about environmental justice by refocusing the pesticide program on eliminating serious consequences of pesticide policy and registration decisions.

Thank you.

Letter to Governor (Mayor of DC):

During Black History Month, it is of note that on January 10, the Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced funding of approximately $100 million for “projects that advance environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities across the country” through its Environmental Justice Government-to-Government (EJG2G) program. While viewed as assistance for those communities “disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate change,” it is important to recognize that the same communities are also disproportionately impacted by activities that produce pollution and contribute significantly to the climate crisis.

It is important to reverse the historical bias against preventive action to ensure the protection of those disproportionately poisoned by toxic chemicals. While critically important to clean up contaminated communities, EPA must stop the flow of toxic pesticides at the front end because of the disproportionate poisoning effects of use, handling, transportation, and disposal. We live in an age of practices and products that make toxic pesticides unnecessary and their use unconscionable. Yet, EPA insists on the acceptability of harm (which it calls risk), despite its failure to (i) recognize comorbidities and preexisting health conditions, (ii) consider a combination of multiple chemical exposure interactions, and (iii) cite extensive missing health outcomes information (e.g., on endocrine disruption) and a resulting high level of uncertainty.

On the community level addressed by this funding project, EPA could assist communities to transition to organic land care. The EJG2G program must assist communities to manage local parks, playing fields, and greenways without unnecessary toxic pesticides. I encourage you to request funding for transitioning to organic land care.

 But EPA’s assistance must go beyond funding. EPA’s pesticide registration decisions promote contamination of communities where pesticides are manufactured, stored, used, and disposed of. By ignoring impacts of pesticides on soil health, EPA’s pesticide registration decisions promote climate change. EPA’s pesticide program should incorporate in all its registration decisions an analysis of impact on the climate crisis, with particular attention to the protection of soil health.

A recent report, Exposed and At Risk: Opportunities to Strengthen Enforcement of Pesticide Regulations for Farmworker Safety, by the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School, in partnership with the nonprofit advocacy group, Farmworker Justice, again highlights the systemic racism of our country’s pesticide policies. Our nation depends on farmworkers, declared “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure sustenance for the nation and world. Yet, the occupational exposure to toxic pesticides by farmworkers is discounted by EPA, while study after study documents the disproportionate level of illness among farmworkers. EPA must eliminate systemic racism in its pesticide program.

Please promote environmental justice in your communities by encouraging the transition to organic land management and purchasing organic food in all public institutions in the state.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Senators and Representative:

During Black History Month, it is of note that on January 10, the Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced funding of approximately $100 million for “projects that advance environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities across the country” through its Environmental Justice Government-to-Government (EJG2G) program. While viewed as assistance for those communities “disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate change,” it is important to recognize that the same communities are also disproportionately impacted by activities that produce pollution and contribute significantly to the climate crisis.

EPA must reverse its historical bias against preventive action to ensure the protection of those disproportionately poisoned by toxic chemicals. While critically important to clean up contaminated communities, EPA must stop the flow of toxic pesticides at the front end because of the disproportionate poisoning effects of use, handling, transportation, and disposal. We live in an age of practices and products that make toxic pesticides unnecessary and their use unconscionable. Yet, EPA insists on the acceptability of harm (which it calls risk), despite its failure to (i) recognize comorbidities and preexisting health conditions, (ii) consider a combination of multiple chemical exposure interactions, and (iii) cite extensive missing health outcomes information (e.g., on endocrine disruption) and a resulting high level of uncertainty.

On the community level addressed by this funding project, EPA could assist communities to transition to organic land care. The EJG2G program could assist communities to manage local parks, playing fields, and greenways without unnecessary toxic pesticides.

But EPA’s assistance must go beyond funding. EPA’s pesticide registration decisions promote contamination of communities where pesticides are manufactured, stored, used, and disposed of. By ignoring impacts of pesticides on soil health, EPA’s pesticide registration decisions promote climate change. EPA’s pesticide program must incorporate in all its registration decisions an analysis of impact on the climate crisis, with particular attention to the protection of soil health.

A recent report, Exposed and At Risk: Opportunities to Strengthen Enforcement of Pesticide Regulations for Farmworker Safety, by the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School, in partnership with the nonprofit advocacy group, Farmworker Justice, again highlights the systemic racism of our country’s pesticide policies. Our nation depends on farmworkers, declared “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure sustenance for the nation and world. Yet, the occupational exposure to toxic pesticides by farmworkers is discounted by EPA, while study after study documents the disproportionate level of illness among farmworkers. EPA must eliminate systemic racism in its pesticide program.

Please ensure that EPA is serious about environmental justice by refocusing the pesticide program on eliminating serious consequences of pesticide policy and registration decisions.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, February 3, 2023) On January 26, California’s Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA), Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR), and Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) announced a new “roadmap” for sustainable pest management (SPM). The plan is promoted by the agencies as an accelerator of the state’s commitment to transitioning away from “high-risk pesticides” and toward “adoption of safer, sustainable pest control practices,” and to eliminating “priority [high-risk] pesticides” by 2050. Although Sustainable Pest Management: A Roadmap for California obviously recognizes the state (and federal) failure of current pesticide policies and land management practices to restrict pesticides sufficiently, advocates say that even this plan does not “meet the moment.” Its relative ambition (compared to what most states are doing), still does not, according to those advancing transformative change, adequately address the current existential health, biodiversity, and climate crises.  With these crises being especially urgent, advocates identify meaningful change as the adoption of approaches predicated on ensuring healthy soil biology. This calls for the deployment of a plan for the wholesale transition to organic systems that eliminate all materials/inputs that are harmful to soil health, ecosystems, natural resources, and the health of humans and all living organisms.

The California roadmap was developed by a team of 33 people — 25 members of the Sustainable Pest Management Work Group and eight comprising the Urban Subgroup. The designation of the Urban Subgroup was a wise move, according to Beyond Pesticides, because although public perception is that “pesticides” are related to agriculture — and certainly agriculture is the central focus of much discussion about pesticides — the reality is that pesticide use in urban areas is real and not insignificant. In fact, studies have documented that the poundage of pesticide use per acre is often higher in nonagricultural areas, such as golf courses and lawns. These urban uses happen in residences, businesses, and institutions, and have been evidenced through studies that focus on wastewater, surface waters, and stormwater.

The plan defines SPM as an “evolution” of the IPM (Integrated Pest Management) concept — defined by the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UCIPM) as an ecosystem-based strategy that focuses on long-term prevention of pests or their damage, using strategies such as habitat manipulation, biological controls, resistant plant varieties, and modified horticultural practices. But UCIPM goes on to add, “Pesticides are used only after monitoring indicates they are needed according to established guidelines, and treatments are made with the goal of removing only the target organism. Pest control materials are selected and applied in a manner that minimizes risks to human health, beneficial and nontarget organisms, and the environment.”

Beyond Pesticides has been critical of IPM as it has generally been executed in agriculture because IPM has largely failed to achieve the goals of its original conceit — significant reduction of synthetic pesticide use. Researchers on IPM have noted that over the decades since the inception of the IPM concept some 60 years ago, deployment of strategies has focused far more on reducing negative environmental impacts than on using ecological processes to replace chemical pesticides — an approach that would advance sustainability. Other factors mitigating against the original ideal have included: poor education of practitioners on the concept, multiple and competing definitions of IPM, lack of understanding of ecological concepts that were to underlie IPM, inadequate research and funding, and agrochemical industry lobbying against IPM programs.

The roadmap document describes SPM as a “a process of continual improvement that integrates an array of practices and products aimed at creating healthy, resilient ecosystems, farms, communities, cities, landscapes, homes, and gardens. SPM examines the interconnectedness of pest pressures, ecosystem health, and human wellbeing.” It identifies its goals as (1) eliminating the use of Priority Pesticides by transitioning to sustainable pest management practices, and (2) adopting SPM as the de facto pest management system in California, all by 2050. Beyond Pesticides considers 2050 far, far too late in the game for meaningful changes in the faces of the above-referenced crises.

Those Priority Pesticides are defined as “pesticide products, active ingredients, and groups of related products within the context of specific product uses or pest/location use combinations that have been deemed to be of greatest concern and warrant heightened attention, planning, and support to expedite their replacement and eventual elimination. The criteria for classifying pesticides as ‘Priority Pesticides’ includes . . . hazard and risk classifications, availability of effective alternative products or practices, and special consideration of pest management situations that potentially cause severe or widespread adverse impacts.”

The keystone actions the plan sets out are these:

• prioritize prevention of pest problems: prevent the establishment of new invasive pest species, and proactively eliminate pest-conducive conditions both in agricultural and urban settings
• coordinate state-level leadership: create an accountable and connected leadership structure to champion SPM in the field, effectively embed SPM principles across agencies, and improve coordination
• invest in building SPM knowledge through research and outreach, for both agricultural and urban sectors: invest in SPM-focused research and outreach so that all pest management practitioners have equal and adequate access to the support and resources necessary to develop and implement their own SPM system
• enhance health and environmental monitoring and data collection: expand and fully fund health and environmental monitoring infrastructure, data collection, and interpretation
• improve the state’s pesticide registration and continuous evaluation processes, and bring alternative products to market: create mechanisms to improve DPR’s registration review process and to prioritize and expedite safer, more sustainable alternative products to high-risk pesticides, and improve processes for evaluating currently registered pesticides

Those actions all sound great . . . until that last one, according to Beyond Pesticides. Improving a pesticide registration process is, in the view of Beyond Pesticides, somewhat akin to the storied rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic as it sinks. As Executive Director Jay Feldman commented, “We are no longer in a period of environmental and health challenges, associated with chemical-intensive agriculture and land management, that permits us simply to ‘minimize reliance on the use of toxic pesticides.’ We must eliminate all petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers in the context of agricultural systems.”

He continued, “An example of good intentions gone awry is that the SPM document contains the word ‘fertilizer’ exactly once, and then only in reference to consolidation in the chemical input (synthetic pesticide and fertilizer) sector. And ‘soil fertility’ is mentioned just once — in a sidebar on expanding non-pesticidal methods. An SPM program that is a genuinely holistic response to multiple crises — health, climate, and biodiversity — must proscribe the currently ubiquitous use of synthetic fertilizers, as well as pesticides, in dominant, chemically intensive land management systems.” Use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers represents the antithesis of sound efforts to build biologically healthy soil — the basis of any truly sustainable agricultural pest management system.

To its credit, the SPM plan includes important aspects of a truly sustainable approach. It asserts (p. 16), “In agricultural settings, SPM is rooted in an agroecological approach that considers the whole farm as well as the wider landscape in which it sits. . . . The practices and products together aim to build healthy, pest-resilient agroecosystems that reduce the need for external inputs. Agricultural SPM takes a systems approach to pest prevention and management, while considering environmental health, social equity, and economic viability each step of the way. Therefore, SPM facilitates, where possible, an enhancement of the following co-benefits:

• improving soil health, water quality, use efficiency, and supply; air quality; and biodiversity
• advancing climate mitigation and adaptation
• increasing nutrient density in crops while maintaining yields
• improving land management practices
• improving farmer and farmworker working conditions
• increasing community health and well-being”

The roadmap also includes proposed robust efforts to bring alternative (presumably, non–synthetic chemical) pest control products to market. But the plan continues to rest on an underlying assumption that “pesticides are here to stay,” at least in the short and medium term. The SPM document includes a section on “SPM and Pesticides” (see p. 79) that asserts, “There will no doubt be times when all other pest management options have been exhausted, and still a significant pest pressure remains. . . . In these cases, pesticides may still be employed, so long as the intention is to apply these products in a targeted way, as needed in order to eradicate the pest(s) and continue with a holistic, integrated pest management approach that aims to build overall system health. Pesticides and pesticide-related uses include but are not limited to a. fumigants, b. repellents, c. use of seeds that have been treated with pesticides, d. antibiotics, e. herbicides, f. fungicides, g. insecticides.” That is a very large “escape hatch” to a pesticide path of least resistance for producers.

Additionally, the proposed SPM action, Improve California’s Pesticide Registration and Continuous Evaluation (p. 19), begins with a focus on a transition to lower-risk chemicals — which presumably include perhaps less-risky, but nonetheless, synthetic compounds for which there is insufficient evaluation by the state or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The roadmap asserts, “DPR must . . . improve its processes for evaluating currently registered pesticides.”

But if the historical record offers any instruction, this would be, at best, a long-term process, and would be fought against aggressively by the agrochemical industry. A plan that would respond to the urgency of the moment would forward the principles of organic, regenerative, agroecological approaches, rather than the SPM approach of tweaking a broken pesticide regulatory system in which chemicals are not adequately evaluated for efficacy or essentiality. A public comment period on the roadmap document is open until March 13; comments can be sent to [email protected].

It should be noted that reform of California’s pesticide registration system (as well as the national EPA registration system) would appropriately require an analysis of nontoxic alternatives. Yet, to address the current crises, reform must also — given the limitations of the current state of pesticide risk assessment, which fails to integrate the range of vulnerabilities in the human population, data gaps, untested health outcomes, exposures to pesticide mixtures and potential synergistic effects, and a range of other complexities that go unaddressed through testing protocols — require adoption of the Precautionary Principle, with its built-in protective ethos.

Beyond Pesticides asserts that there is an urgent imperative to re-create agricultural policy and practices on the scaffolding of organic systems, as defined in the 1990 U.S. Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA). Organic is a framework with a ban on synthetic fertilizers and a National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances that is required to be established and updated on a five-year cycle with a cradle-to-grave analysis of allowed substances. This system should be continually improved, and expanded to become the dominant approach to agricultural and other land management in the U.S.

Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman concludes, “Decades ago, I would have said that the SPM plan was a good start. But with today’s realities, I would have to call this a false start that does not embrace the true changes that are required for our times and the crises we face. Now is the time to transform our approach to agricultural and nonagricultural land management. We can stop using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers; we need a plan — based on precautionary, organic, and regenerative principles — to move us forward to that goal, and we need it ASAP.”

Sources: https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/sustainable_pest_management_roadmap/spm_roadmap.pdf and https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/sustainable_pest_management_roadmap/spm_executive_summary_web.pdf

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

(Beyond Pesticides, February 1, 2023) Honey bee declines in the United States are “primarily related” to pesticide exposure, parasitic mites, and extreme weather conditions, research published by Penn State scientists have determined. Publishing the results in Scientific Reports, the researchers aim to provide a national overview of the range of factors harming bee colonies. “Some previous studies have explored several potential stressors related to colony loss in a detailed way but are limited to narrow, regional areas,” said study co-author Luca Insolia, PhD. “The one study that we know of at the national level in the United States explored only a single potential stressor. For this study, we integrated many large datasets at different spatial and temporal resolutions and used new, sophisticated statistical methods to assess several potential stressors associated with colony collapse across the U.S.” The results reinforce calls from bee health advocates in the U.S. and around the world: eliminate toxic pesticide use, the lowest hanging fruit contributing to pollinator declines.

In order to create a more comprehensive national overview, geographers, entomologists, and statisticians all participated in the study, reviewing publicly available data on colony health, land use, weather, and other environmental factors over a five-year period from 2015-2021. “In order to analyze the data all together, we had to come up with a technique to match the resolution of the various data sources,” said Martina Calovi, PhD corresponding author of the study, and researcher at Penn State. “We could have just taken an average of all the weather measurements we had within a state, but that boils all the information we have into one number and loses a lot of information, especially about any extreme values. In addition to averaging weather data, we used an ‘upscaling’ technique to summarize the data in several different ways, which allowed us to retain more information, including about the frequency of extreme temperature and precipitation events.”

Results show spacio-temporal trends that are perhaps unsurprising to many beekeepers, but could help inform better beekeeping practices. For instance, colony losses from mites are found to be highest in the first quarter of the year, and then increase again during the third and fourth quarter in all regions of the country except the southeast. This generally follows the life cycle of Varroa destructor, which beekeepers aim to manage to low levels in the fall; failure to adequately manage fall mite populations increases risk of failure throughout the winter.

To better determine the primary factors resulting in colony declines, researchers consider a range of features, including weather related information, land use, climatic regions, years and quarters, as well as several stressors, such as mites, other pests and parasites, diseases, and pesticides. These factors are then weighted for their impact on colony loss to determine the primary contributing factors.

Factors like the year or time of year played a smaller role than researchers expected. “Our results highlight the role of parasitic mites, pesticide exposure, extreme weather events, and overwintering in bee colony collapse. We hope that they will help inform improved beekeeping practices and direct future data collection efforts that allow us to understand the problem at finer and finer resolutions,” said Francesca Chiaromonte, PhD, coauthor and professor of statistics at Penn State.  

This is the latest study to begin to separate out the contributing factors to colony collapse at larger spatial levels. Research published by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists earlier this month found somewhat similar results when reviewing the factors owing to the decline of the western bumblebee, finding climate change and pesticides to be the primary culprit.  

While the Varroa destructor is a serious, ongoing honey bee pest, it is important to emphasize that varroa levels themselves, and a colony’s fitness against their attack is a function not only of mite management but pesticide use in a surrounding region. Research published in Scientific Reports finds that realistic exposure to systemic neonicotinoid pesticides that bees are likely to encounter in the wild impairs the ability of honey bees to groom mites off their bodies, likewise increasing risk of viral infection.

A broad transformation of the food system is necessary to change the course of pollinator health. This includes not only eliminating the use of pesticides to prevent their direct and indirect harm to pollinator populations, but also the elimination of fossil fuels that contribute to extreme weather and the further spread of pests and diseases. These considerations should be part and parcel of every pesticide registered in the U.S., yet the federal government continues to ignore these positive policy proposals. Help bring greater attention to the need to take climate change seriously in the context of pesticide registrations sending a letter to EPA, USDA, and Congress today.

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

Source:Scientific Reports, PSU press release

(Beyond Pesticides, February 1, 2023) A study published in Environment International concurs with previous reports that agricultural pesticide treatment can contaminate nearby residential areas, resulting in indoor chemical exposure via concentrations of insecticide active ingredients in house dust.

Pesticide contamination in homes has ties to higher levels of pesticide residue in both human and pet bodies. Some pesticides, like organochlorine compounds, have poor elimination from the body, leading to accumulation over a lifetime. Pesticide exposure can heighten risks of various cancers (i.e., prostate, hepatic, liver, etc.), mental health problems (i.e., depression), respiratory illnesses (asthma), endocrine disruption, and many other pesticide-induced diseases. Extensive pesticide use can predispose human pathogenic to antibiotic resistance, bolstering bacterial virulence. Studies like this are concerning as it reveals that individuals do not have to be in close contact (e.g., chemical manufacturers, farmworker, gardener, custodian, etc.) with pesticides for risky, health-harming exposures to occur.

Despite stricter regulations and technological changes beginning to decrease air pollution from cars and other vehicles, scientists are finding that the use of pesticides and other household chemicals represents an increasing proportion of U.S. smog-forming air pollution. Personal care products, cleaning agents, perfumes, paints, printing ink, and pesticides warrant greater attention from regulators for their ability to form toxic fumes that can eventually make their way indoors. Additionally, this research underscores the critical need for homeowners, farmers, and other chemical manufacturers to shift away from chemical use as a line of defense against further indoor air pollution to safeguard children’s health.

The study notes, “Our findings demonstrated the utility of GIS-based metrics for quantifying potential exposure to fugitive insecticide emissions from cultivated agriculture but indicated that associations with measured levels of insecticides in homes varies depending on buffer size (i.e., defined proximity) and the time elapsed between application and house dust collection.”

Researchers collected carpet-dust samples from 598 California homes to measure the concentration of nine insecticides: carbaryl, chlorpyrifos, cypermethrin, diazinon, permethrin, azinphos-methyl, cyfluthrin, malathion, and phosmet. To compare the buffer zone between residential and agricultural areas, researched using the California Pesticide Use Reporting (CPUR) database, researchers estimated pesticide use within the buffer zone of agricultural and residential areas (buffer zone radii = 0.5 to 4 km[kilometer]). During the 30-, 60-, 180-, and 365-day periods, researchers evaluate the relationship between the density of pesticide use and the presence of pesticide dust concentration. Chlorpyrifos applications within one km to four km buffer results in one to two times higher dust concentrations during the 60 and 365-day metric, while carbaryl uses within two to four km of homes 3- to 7-times higher dust concentrations during day 60. For 60-day metrics, diazinon concentrations are two times higher for household dust within the two km buffer and within four km on windy days. Cyfluthrin, phosmet, and azinphos-methyl applications within 4 km have 2-, 6-, and 3-fold higher odds of detection in household dust, respectively.

Although chemical dependency in agriculture is contributing to air pollution, measurements drastically underestimate the impact on air pollution. For instance, nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution, usually associated with energy and combustion, is a significant contributor to air pollution through the use of fertilizer on crop fields. Additionally, structural fumigants like sulfuryl fluoride, used for insect (i.e., termites, bedbugs, cockroaches, etc.) fumigation treatments, increases greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while further increasing air pollution. Pesticides can drift from treatment sites to non-target areas like residential areas, indirectly exposing humans, animals, and plants to varying concentrations of chemicals. Scientific studies find significant pesticide residues inside homes due to drift through the air and chemicals tracked in, where they contaminate air, dust, surfaces, and carpets. Although higher levels of pesticides in dust samples taken from homes close to agricultural activities demonstrates these chemicals drift and carry indoors, general pesticide uses in and around the home can also allow chemicals to remain indoors.

Additionally, regular household chemical use (e.g., disinfectants, insect repellants, rodent repellants) can exacerbate the levels of chemical toxins in indoor air, further decreasing quality. Household pesticide use over the last decade has generally shifted away from the use of older organophosphate chemistries to the use of synthetic pyrethroid insecticides. But this switch has not resulted in safer exposures; a growing body of literature is finding that synthetic pyrethroids can cause a range of adverse health impacts, particularly in children. Pesticide exposure at a young age can have far-reaching effects. In addition to motor skills and learning development, young boys exposed to synthetic pyrethroids are more likely to experience early onset of puberty.

Chronic inhalation of agriculture-related dust in occupational areas and in residential areas increases the incidence of airway inflammatory diseases, including asthma, chronic bronchitis, and COPD. The particulates in dust play a part in disease development, in addition to various microbiota that may be part of a dusty agricultural environment. Pesticide exposures can alter the gut microbiome, which mediates a significant portion of human immune response. Alterations in microbial composition and mechanism processes involved in respiratory pathologies disrupt the human microbiome (known as dysbiosis), exacerbating diseases like asthma and other respiratory diseases. Currently, there is a lack of treatment that can reverse respiratory diseases arising from chronic agricultural dust exposures in and outside the home. The study concludes, “Our findings suggest inclusion of wind enhanced prediction for some, but not all insecticides studied. Taken together, our results imply that GIS-based exposure metrics used in epidemiologic studies should be tailored to the fate and transport characteristics of each insecticide.”

Current laws do not adequately protect local residents from toxic pesticide exposure from farms, mosquito control operations, and other sources of chemical exposure. Oftentimes, it can be difficult for individuals to obtain basic information about the pesticides sprayed near their homes and schools their children attend. As a respiratory pandemic continues to spread (COVID-19), it is critical that individuals avoid environmental factors that weaken individual immune systems, if possible. While personal protective measures are important, residents throughout the U.S. are encouraged to engage with their elected officials to rein in toxic pesticide use in their community. Through collective action, we can stop the regular use of hazardous, lung-harming pesticides in homes, on farms, and in mosquito management. Reach out to Beyond Pesticides at [email protected] or 202-543-5450 for assistance with your local advocacy efforts.

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

Source: Environment International

(Beyond Pesticides, January 31, 2023) Glyphosate exposure induces oxidative stress in the body, a key biomarker known to heighten an individual’s risk of cancer, according to research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by a team of scientists from the National Institutes of Health. The findings, which tracked study participants’ past use of glyphosate and exposure levels through urine, are particularly concerning in light of recent data showing that four out of five (81.6%) U.S. residents have detectable levels of glyphosate in their bodies. Despite these concerning data, evidence of widespread exposure to a carcinogen has so far failed to sway regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, necessitating meaningful change by elected officials to reform pesticide regulation.

Scientists began with the determination from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that there is epidemiological evidence associating glyphosate with blood cancers like non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and strong evidence of carcinogenicity in laboratory animal research brought on by genotoxicity (DNA damage) and oxidative stress. “Oxidative stress occurs when the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and other free radicals exceeds the body’s antioxidant defense mechanisms, causing damage to DNA, proteins, and lipids,” the study explains. This process can occur naturally through age, but also because of exposure to external stressors like pesticides and other chemicals. Oxidative stress is likewise known to be associated with the development of blood cancers.

To better understand the risk borne by farmers, applicators, and the general public, researchers studied a cohort of individuals enrolled in the Biomarkers of Exposure and Effect in Agriculture (BEEA) study, part of the long-running U.S. Agricultural Health Study, which tracks how agricultural, lifestyle, and genetic factors affect the health of farming communities. A total of 369 BEEA participants took part, and four subgroups were established, determined by their reported glyphosate use. The first group included farmers that had used glyphosate within the week before urine collection; the second included farmers with the highest reported lifetime exposure to glyphosate, but had not used the chemical within the last week; the third included farmer controls with little to no occupational glyphosate use; and the fourth group included non-farming controls with no home or garden use of glyphosate within the last week. The urine of each of these groups were collected and tested for the presence of oxidative stress biomarkers. Variables such as age, lifestyle, and other pesticide use were incorporated and adjusted for.

Farmers using glyphosate within the prior week had the highest urinary glyphosate levels, with rates falling from lifetime exposed farmers, to farming and nonfarming controls. Concentrations of oxidative stress biomarkers rose alongside increasing urinary glyphosate levels. Oxidative stress levels were elevated among farmers with recent and high lifetime use of glyphosate.

Researchers note that a single previous study of Greek farmers found similar results with the biomarker 8-OHdG, showing those that recently sprayed glyphosate with the highest concentrations. “Given that 8-OHdG reflects oxidative stress-induced DNA damage, our findings for 8-OHdG also support the genotoxic potential of glyphosate in humans and strengthen existing evidence from studies that have reported associations between glyphosate exposure and increased DNA damage, assessed as DNA strand breaks or micronucleus formation,” the study explains.

While recent exposure appears to display the greatest evidence of oxidative stress, the study did find evidence that long-term exposure is likewise associated with this dangerous process, which can lead to the development of cancer. This adds considerable weight to the arguments put forth by the individuals suing Bayer over their cancer diagnosis, as the aggrieved cite long-term use as part of their legal challenge.  

In addition to blood cancer, there is evidence that glyphosate may prime breast cells for the development of cancer when combined with other oxidative stressors. “Showing that glyphosate can trigger tumor growth, when combined with another frequently observed risk, is an important missing link when it comes to determining what causes cancer,” Sophie Lelièvre, PhD, professor of cancer pharmacology in Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine indicated.

Beyond cancers, glyphosate-induced oxidative stress has also been implicated as the reason why high exposure to the chemical is associated with shorter pregnancy length and pre-term births.  

Despite glyphosate being nearly ubiquitous in the environment, the best way to lower levels and reduce risk of oxidative stress brought on by glyphosate exposure is to go organic. Multiple studies have shown that switching to an organic diet will reduce one’s urinary concentration of glyphosate and other toxic pesticides. Evidence shows that even eating a healthy, Mediterranean diet falls short on health benefits unless the food is organic and devoid of toxic synthetic pesticide sprays.

While individuals can go organic, we must collectively address the systems that perpetuate the use of glyphosate, and harm the farmers and farmworkers that grow our food, as well as the individuals who may casually purchase and apply toxic pesticides to their yard and garden without consideration. Glyphosate, and other toxic pesticides like it, have viable alternatives that can readily replace their use on both farms and landscapes. Help build the political will to take action by urging the Biden Administration, EPA, and Congress to adopt a new direction on pesticide regulation that challenges the so called “benefits” of pesticides, protects workers and children, and safeguards pollinators and broader biodiversity.

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

Source: Journal of the National Cancer Institute

(Beyond Pesticides, January 30, 2023) Because antibiotics and fungicides are widely used in agriculture (except organic), they contribute significantly to the increasing efficacy problems with antimicrobial (antibiotic and antifungal medicines) use in health care, contributing to a growing crisis. According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, World Health Organization Director-General, “Antimicrobial resistance undermines modern medicine and puts millions of lives at risk.”  Microorganisms—including bacteria, fungi, and viruses—are notoriously quick to evolve resistance to antimicrobial medicines. We know that selection for resistance is directly related to the frequency and intensity of antimicrobial use, so medical practitioners try to avoid using those medicines unless they are necessary.

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.

Unfortunately, the medical profession lacks complete control over the use of antimicrobials. Many of the same chemicals used in human medicine are also used in agriculture. These may show up in or on treated food, but can also spread antimicrobial resistance through horizontal gene transfer. So, in addition to ingesting antibiotics in our food, the movement of resistant bacteria and fungi in the environment contribute to this escalating crisis.

Oral arguments began last week in a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval of the antibiotic streptomycin as a pesticide on citrus crops. Brought forth by a coalition of farmworker, health, and environmental groups, the lawsuit aims to stop the use of a critical medical treatment for agricultural purposes. Beyond Pesticides executive director Jay Feldman commented on the filing of the lawsuit: “It is past time to take urgent action to transition away from practices in agriculture that are dependent on antibiotics, advance organic farm management, and avoid new deadly pandemics. This lawsuit is an important action to reverse the previous administration’s decision to ignore the science and allow expanded use of an antibiotic in agriculture.”

 Not all antimicrobial pesticides are registered for their antimicrobial action. For example, the herbicides glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba are able to create resistance in Salmonella and E. coli. From another health perspective, antimicrobial pesticides may negatively affect the gut microbiome, which is essential for human nutrition and immune system function. EPA must cease registration of pesticides with antimicrobial effects (or potential antimicrobial effects) in human pathogens or beneficial human microbiota.

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.

Letter to EPA

Because antibiotics and fungicides registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are widely used in agriculture (except organic), they contribute significantly to the increasing efficacy problems with antimicrobial (antibiotic and antifungal medicines) use in health care, contributing to a growing crisis. According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, World Health Organization Director-General, “Antimicrobial resistance undermines modern medicine and puts millions of lives at risk. ”Microorganisms—including bacteria, fungi, and viruses—are notoriously quick to evolve resistance to antimicrobial medicines. We know that selection for resistance is directly related to the frequency and intensity of antimicrobial use, so medical practitioners try to avoid using those medicines unless they are necessary.

Unfortunately, the medical profession lacks complete control over the use of antimicrobials. Many of the same chemicals used in human medicine are also used in agriculture. These may show up in or on treated food, but can also spread antimicrobial resistance through horizontal gene transfer.

Meanwhile, litigation appears to be necessary to focus EPA on its responsibility to protect public health in the face of a growing crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). As you know, oral arguments began last week in a lawsuit challenging the agency’s approval of the antibiotic streptomycin as a pesticide on citrus crops. Brought forth by a coalition of farmworker, health, and environmental groups, the lawsuit aims to stop the use of a critical medical treatment for agricultural purposes. Beyond Pesticides executive director Jay Feldman commented on the filing of the lawsuit: “It is past time to take urgent action to transition away from practices in agriculture that are dependent on antibiotics, advance organic farm management, and avoid new deadly pandemics. This lawsuit is an important action to reverse the previous administration’s decision to ignore the science and allow expanded use of an antibiotic in agriculture.” The good news is that we can grow crops without these chemicals with organic production systems, even in Florida on citrus, where organic citrus production is productive and profitable.

 Not all antimicrobial pesticides are registered for their antimicrobial action, which does not release EPA from its responsibility to assess their contribution to the escalating AMR problem. For example, the herbicides glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba can create resistance in Salmonella and E. coli. From another health perspective, antimicrobial pesticides may negatively affect the gut microbiome, which is essential for human nutrition and immune system function.

EPA must cease registration of pesticides with antimicrobial effects (or potential antimicrobial effects) in human pathogens or beneficial human microbiota. Their continued use and associated hazards are “unreasonable” under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. Please do the right thing and uphold EPA’s responsibility to protect public health.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Senators and Representative

Because antibiotics and fungicides registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are widely used in agriculture (except organic), they contribute significantly to the increasing efficacy problems with antimicrobial (antibiotic and antifungal medicines) use in health care, contributing to a growing crisis. According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, World Health Organization Director-General, “Antimicrobial resistance undermines modern medicine and puts millions of lives at risk. Microorganisms—including bacteria, fungi, and viruses—are notoriously quick to evolve resistance to antimicrobial medicines. We know that selection for resistance is directly related to the frequency and intensity of antimicrobial use, so medical practitioners try to avoid using those medicines unless they are necessary.

Unfortunately, the medical profession lacks complete control over the use of antimicrobials. Many of the same chemicals used in human medicine are also used in agriculture. These may show up in or on treated food, but can also spread antimicrobial resistance through horizontal gene transfer.

Meanwhile, litigation appears to be necessary to focus EPA on its responsibility to protect public health in the face of a growing crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). As you may know, oral arguments began last week in a lawsuit challenging EPA’s approval of the antibiotic streptomycin as a pesticide on citrus crops. Brought forth by a coalition of farmworker, health, and environmental groups, the lawsuit aims to stop the use of a critical medical treatment for agricultural purposes. Beyond Pesticides executive director Jay Feldman commented on the filing of the lawsuit: “It is past time to take urgent action to transition away from practices in agriculture that are dependent on antibiotics, advance organic farm management, and avoid new deadly pandemics. This lawsuit is an important action to reverse the previous administration’s decision to ignore the science and allow expanded use of an antibiotic in agriculture.” The good news is that we can grow crops without these chemicals with organic production systems, even in Florida on citrus, where organic citrus production is productive and profitable.

 Not all antimicrobial pesticides are registered for their antimicrobial action. For example, the herbicides glyphosate, 2,4-D, and dicamba can create resistance in Salmonella and E. coli. From another health perspective, antimicrobial pesticides may negatively affect the gut microbiome, which is essential for human nutrition and immune system function.

Please co-sponsor and support S. 3291 (Strategies To Address Antibiotic Resistance Act or the STAAR Act), which is expected to be reintroduced in the 118^th Congress and will help ensure that antimicrobial resistance is monitored. Additionally, please ensure that EPA cease registration of pesticides with antimicrobial effects (or potential antimicrobial effects) in human pathogens or beneficial human microbiota. Their continued use and associated hazards are “unreasonable” under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 27, 2023) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), announced on January 19 its final rulemaking, the Strengthening Organic Enforcement Rule (SOE). The new requirements aim to strengthen the integrity of the National Organic Program (NOP) through both enhanced oversight and enforcement of existing program regulations, and the introduction of new ones to address occurrences of fraud in organic supply chains. Beyond Pesticides welcomes this important step in increased rigor for the burgeoning organic sector; the organization has long advocated for strong enforcement of the provisions of the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA), the statute that gave rise to the NOP.

It must also be noted that there is a significant difference between the (appropriate) attention being paid to oversight and enforcement in organic, and the long-standing lack of same in regard to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) pesticide regulations, weak as they are. Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman commented, “It is difficult to have a balanced conversation about any weaknesses in organic enforcement — which must be strengthened — without assessing the entire food system. The NOP provides the structure and the requirements for compliance with the OFPA. Not only does this far surpass anything that exists in the chemical-intensive food production sector, but also, advocates, government, and members of the agricultural community work continually to improve it. We must work to ensure that people can trust the USDA organic label, and know that the system is ‘wired’ to ensure its integrity.” To this end, those working in organic, believing in continuous improvement, have indicated that there must be vigilance in oversight and enforcement, as captured by Beyond Pesticides’ coverage of a 2010 USDA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report.

To the point about lack of rigor in the regulation and enforcement of conventional (chemical) agriculture: the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly identified flaws in federal oversight and enforcement related to pesticide restrictions, starting more than 40 years ago. See Beyond Pesticides’ coverage of an EPA Office of the Inspector General’s report on the agency’s inefficacy. Other coverage has included this report by Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program in 2020, and coverage of (1) a 2021 GAO report on poor protection of farmworkers from pesticides, (2) a GAO report on EPA’s “conditional” registrations practice, and (3) another GAO report finding that EPA “does not have sufficient chemical assessment information to determine whether it should establish controls to limit public exposure to many chemicals that may pose substantial health risks.”

The Federal Register publication of the SOE (which will be effective March 20, 2023) asserts that the rulemaking is designed to “strengthen oversight and enforcement of the production, handling, and sale of organic agricultural products. The amendments protect integrity in the organic supply chain and build consumer and industry trust in the USDA organic label by strengthening organic control systems, improving farm to market traceability, and providing robust enforcement of the USDA organic regulations.” The Washington Post reporting notes, “Key updates to the rules include requiring certification of more of the businesses, such as brokers and traders, at critical links in organic supply chains. It also requires organic certificates for all organic imports and increases inspections and reporting requirements of certified operations.”

Even deeper into the weeds, the AMS announcement includes a list of specific topics addressed: “applicability of the regulations and exemptions from organic certification; National Organic Program Import Certificates; recordkeeping and product traceability; certifying agent personnel qualifications and training; standardized certificates of organic operation; unannounced on-site inspections of certified operations; oversight of certification activities; foreign conformity assessment systems; certification of producer group operations; labeling of nonretail containers; annual update requirements for certified operations; compliance and appeals processes; and calculating organic content of multi-ingredient products.”

This new rulemaking finalizes the draft version proffered by USDA in 2020. USDA has taken some small steps to improve enforcement of the NOP requirements, including, for example, a memo to “put a stop to the practice of allowing organic certification for container systems produced on land managed with substances, such as the herbicide glyphosate, which are not permitted in organic production.”

Chief Executive of the Organic Trade Association, Tom Chapman, remarked that the new rulemaking represents “the single largest revision to the organic standards since they were published in 1990,” adding that it should help boost confidence in the organic label. According to The Washington Post, Mr. Chapman indicated that the move “raises the bar to prevent bad actors at any point in the supply chain.”

Executive Director of the National Organic Coalition, Abby Youngblood, commented that the organization “applauds the USDA for their sustained work to bring this rule to completion. Organic producers’ livelihoods depend on strong and consistent enforcement of organic regulations. For more than a decade, operations have been undercut by fraudulent products that have no business carrying the organic seal. NOC strongly supports provisions in this rule that will give USDA and certification agencies more authority to crack down on bad actors.”

Recent high-profile cases of “organic fraud” have brought increased attention to the issue of producers representing their products (e.g., non-organic grain, dairy, meat, or produce) as organic, and typically harvesting an undue premium price for the scheme. More recently, others in the organic supply chain have entered the fraudulent arena. And as the sector has grown, some “food manufacturers” source ingredients from abroad, which makes it more challenging to assure that such items are legitimately organic. Domestic producers recognize, and voice, that enabling such companies to market their products as organic — absent better oversight and enforcement — undermines trust in the label and makes a distinctly uneven playing field for “genuine Certified Organic” vs. “faux-organic.”

Both The Washington Post in 2017 and The New Yorker in 2021 covered such incidents. (That first article covers a shipment of soybeans from Ukraine, via Turkey, to California, during which trip the beans were miraculously transformed from conventionally grown/treated with pesticides, to “organic.”) Beyond Pesticides wrote an article in response to the somewhat “organic skeptical” coverage in The New Yorker article, “The Great Organic Food Fraud,” in which it was explained how the NOP operates, and provided fuller context for thinking about fraud in the organic sector, given the state of conventional, chemical-intensive agriculture and the massive harms it inflicts on public health and the environment.

Last year, a Minnesota farmer was federally indicted for fraud because of his scheme to sell what he claimed were organically grown grains — but were not, according to the FBI — to buyers in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. He netted some $46 million from those sales. A co-conspirator farmer in the case has also been charged in the scheme. Another example is that of several individuals and entities (out of Dubai and Turkey) being charged by the U.S. Department of Justice in the District of Maryland for a 2015–2017 multimillion-dollar scheme to export non-organic grain into the U.S. to be sold as Certified Organic.

Some in the organic sector note that the increased demand for organically produced foods in recent years may be contributing to the increase in such cases. The MinnPost writes, “The booming organic produce market is worth at least $63 billion per year. Increasing demands for organic grains have raised their prices to double or even triple the cost of grains grown conventionally with synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. But for those who purchase grain, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to tell organic grain from non-organic grain, making fraud hard to detect and prosecute. And the temptation to sell crops at a much higher price is difficult for some to resist.” USDA has indicated, according to MinnPost, that the growth of the organic industry, for example, “has attracted many businesses to the USDA organic label and increased the complexity of global organic supply chains,” perhaps overwhelming the capacity of organic industry watchdogs.

USDA said in its press release on the new rule, “Complexity makes oversight and enforcement of the organic supply chains difficult because organic products are credence goods, which means that their organic attributes, or ‘integrity,’ cannot be easily verified by consumers or businesses who buy organic products for use or resale. The elements needed to guarantee organic integrity — transparent supply chains, trusted interactions between businesses, and mechanisms to verify product legitimacy — are more difficult to achieve in the increasingly complex modern organic industry.” This reality explains the importance of “eternal vigilance” on the part of federal regulators, and evolution of the NOP to respond to the dynamism of the organic sector.

Representative Chellie Pingree (D) of Maine welcomes the new SOE regulations, saying in a statement from her office, “When rule-breakers cheat the system, it sows seeds of doubt about the organic label’s integrity and jeopardizes the future of the industry as a whole. As a longtime organic farmer, I know how expensive and time consuming it is to adhere to the required standards to earn a USDA [C]ertified [O]rganic label. It’s been a long wait, but I am pleased that the USDA and the Biden Administration are publishing a final rule that works to help consumers trust that the food they’re paying for was actually farmed in a way that supports soil health, minimizes synthetic material usage, and strengthens biodiversity, as the organic label suggests. Equally importantly, it is critical that farmers who comply with the rigorous certification standards are not losing sales to fraudulent growers, suppliers, or importers.”

Beyond Pesticides is among the most ardent of voices for organic integrity, as evidenced by the organization’s consistent urging of steps to protect it. (For more, see here, here, here, and the organization’s webpage, Keeping Organic Strong.) Beyond Pesticides recognizes that protecting and improving the organic sector is an ongoing project, and is hopeful that the new rule will make meaningful differences in NOP oversight and enforcement — bolstering trust of the Certified Organic designation and label by the public and, indeed, by elements of the organic supply chain itself. Advocates for organic integrity look forward to the improvements this SOE is designed to launch, will pay attention to its impacts on the organic sector, and continue to encourage public engagement with keeping organic strong.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/19/usda-rule-organic-fraud/

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

(Beyond Pesticides, January 26, 2023) A study published in Food Safety and Toxicology finds that the widely used fungicide azoxystrobin (AZO), used in food production and turf management, can disrupt the function of the intestinal (colonic) barrier responsible for the absorption of nutrients and defense against harmful substances. This and other similar data are important because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with its required pesticide testing protocol, says that the chemical has “low acute and chronic toxicity to humans, birds, mammals, and bees,” and speaks to the need for the agency to modernize its registration requirements. [The agency does note that AZO is “is highly toxic to freshwater fish, freshwater invertebrates, and estuarine/marine fish, and very highly toxic to estuarine/marine invertebrates.]

AZO is a broad-spectrum chemical used in wheat, barley, oats, rye, soya, cotton, rice, strawberry, peas, beans, onions, and a long list of other vegetables, as well as on lawns and golf courses, on a range of fungal diseases. The intestinal (colonic) barrier prevents the internal environment from damage caused by exogenous toxins to ensure internal homeostasis, impeding incidences of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), sepsis, and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS).

The intestines host a group of microorganisms that form the gut microbiome. These microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi, play a crucial role in digestion, bodily function, detoxification, and immune and central nervous system regulation. Ample evidence demonstrates environmental contaminants like pesticides negatively affect gut microbes. Through the gut biome, pesticide exposure can enhance or exacerbate the adverse effects of additional environmental toxicants on the body. Studies even find low levels of pesticide exposure during pregnancy or childhood cause adverse health effects, including metabolic disorders tied to gut microbiome disruption (dysbiosis).

Although studies show how chemical exposures affect overall human health, a growing body of peer-reviewed scientific literature is now questioning how these toxic chemicals influence gut health and the subsequent occurrence of diseases. The study notes, “The results of this study will strongly support new insights that the gut microbiota can be a key target of the health effects of pesticide exposure.”

Researchers divided 36 male mice into three treatment groups of 12: the control group with deionized water, low dose of azoxystrobin (L-AZO) in deionized water, a high dose of azoxystrobin (H-AZO) in deionized water. After a week of treatment, the researchers collected microbial contents from the colons of each group for transplantation into donor mice. Researchers orally administered the collected microbiota to donor mice to determine the correlations between the presence of these biota, metabolites of gut contents, and traits associated with colonic barrier function. The results reveal AZO exposure altered the metabolic profile of microbes in the gut, inducing gut dysbiosis, leading to structural damage of the colon and colonic inflammatory response. Although the L-AZO treatment group experiences no changes in body weight compared to the control group, the H-AZO treatment group has significantly reduced body weight and weight gain.

A gut microbiome is a group of microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi, that plays a crucial role in digestion, bodily function, detoxification, and immune and central nervous system regulation. The gut, also known as the “second brain,” shares similar structural and chemical parallels to the brain. The microbiota in the gut plays a crucial role in lifelong digestion, immune and central nervous system regulation, as well as other bodily functions.

Through the gut biome, pesticide exposure can enhance or exacerbate the adverse effects of additional environmental toxicants on the body. Since the gut microbiome shapes metabolism, it can mediate some toxic effects of environmental chemicals. However, with prolonged exposure to various environmental contaminants, critical chemical-induced changes may occur in the gut microbes, influencing adverse health outcomes.

The impacts of pesticides on the human gut microbiome represent another pesticide assault on human health. Because the biome harbors between 10 and 100 trillion symbiotic microbes, pesticide exposure has effects on some of those bacteria. The human gastrointestinal tract and its digestive processes (a.k.a., the “gut”) mediate the function of several systems. Dysfunction of the gut microbiome is associated with a host of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, some cancers, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, asthma, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and inflammatory bowel disease, as well as allergies, autism, depression, obesity, and other disorders or syndromes.

This study is the first to demonstrate AZO’s effect on colonic barrier function in mammals which is the first barrier of the host against exogenous (external) pollutants. AZO’s effect on the gut results in changes in the tight junctions of intestinal epithelial cells and the integrity of the intestinal barrier for protection. Additionally, AZO exposure alters the ability of gut bacteria to break down proteins, fats, carbohydrates, or other macronutrients into residual metabolites, which constitute the metabolic profile. For instance, gut bacteria break down fatty acid chains into dietary fibers, a process essential in modulating the immune system, gene expression, and cell multiplying, among others.

AZO is far from the only pesticide linked with the growing global metabolic disorder incidence rates over the past few decades. The World Health Organization (WHO), European Union (EU), and endocrine disruptor expert (deceased) Theo Colborn, Ph.D., classify over 55 to 177 chemical compounds (e.g., detergents, disinfectants, plastics, and pesticides, etc.) as endocrine disruptors associated with notorious metabolic disorders like diabetes/obesity that can span generations. However, endocrine disruption is the mechanism for several adverse health endpoints, interacting with the body’s hormone system and affecting the development, growth, reproduction, and behavior of both animals and humans. 

To improve and sustain gut microbiome health, the use of toxic pesticides must end. Beyond Pesticides challenges the registration of toxic chemicals due to their impacts on soil, air, water, and health. Instead, emphasis on converting to regenerative-organic systems and using least-toxic pest control to mitigate harmful exposure to pesticides, restore soil health, and reduce carbon emissions, should be the main focus. Public policy must advance this shift rather than allow unnecessary reliance on pesticides. Moreover, purchasing organic food when possible can help curb exposure and adverse health effects. Beyond Pesticides holds that safer alternatives are available, and organic practices can protect public health and the environment. In addition to positive impacts on the human microbiome, organically grown food (e.g., milk, meat, strawberries, tomatoes, and a range of other foods) contain a much more diverse bacterial community than their chemical-intensively grown counterparts.

Learn more about soil and gut microbiota and their importance via Beyond Pesticide’s Pesticide and You Journal article, “Sustaining Life From Soil Microbiota to Gut Microbiome.” Additionally, learn more about how pesticides affect human health by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database, which supports the clear need for strategic action to shift from pesticide dependency. 

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

Source: Food Safety and Toxicology 

(Beyond Pesticides, January 25, 2023) Populations of the western bumblebee are in free fall, with 57% declines across the species’ historical range, finds new research led by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey. These data are in line with trends for other once common bumblebees in the United States, like the rusty patched and American, of which the former is now listed as endangered and the latter is under consideration. Most critically, the study authors did not simply generalize the most likely and common reasons, but instead establish the contribution that pesticide use, climate change, and land use changes have on western bumblebee declines. As the study shows, both the drivers and solutions to pollinators declines are in human hands, necessitating a broad rethinking of the nation’s approach to energy use and food production.

The western bumblebee has been under considerable stress for decades. In the 1990s, there were attempts to commercialize the species as a greenhouse pollinator. This industrial approach resulted in the spread of a fungal disease called Vairimorpha bombi, and captive rearing of the western bumblebee was eventually halted and deemed untenable. These dislocations resulted in local declines of the species in certain regions of U.S. Northwest and British Columbia.

While subsequent declines in the species have been attributed to a range of factors, the study authors note that no research has provided quantitative analysis of how land cover, climate change, and pesticide use both separately and simultaneously are affecting the western bumblebees population distribution. Using a range of analytical tools and survey data, the authors evaluate the occupancy range of the species in the U.S. studying changes in climate and land cover during the period 1998 to 2020 and pesticides use during the period 2008 to 2014. The trends found for these factors are then projected out to consider the future effect on the western bumblebee under a varying range of stressors.

Declines between 1998 and 2020 represent a 57% loss of occupancy throughout the bumblebee’s historical range, with the rate varying throughout different ecoregions. For example, while declines were found to be only 15% in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, losses in the Madrean Sky Islands (mountain ranges than span Arizona, southwest New Mexico, and northwest Mexico) were recorded at 83%. Within the climate and land use model, the recorded temperature during the warmest season of the year had the greatest impact on declines, with a twofold greater negative impact than the next stressor – years of severe drought.

In regard to pesticide stressors, the study focuses only on the application of neonicotinoid pesticides within the species range. Without considering other pesticide stressors, occupancy in regions where neonicotinoid applications occurred are 35% lower than areas where these chemicals are not sprayed. Not only are they lower, but scientists found trends to indicate that local populations decrease alongside increasing neonicotinoid use.

The future does not look bright for these pollinators without considerable human intervention or change. “Future projections of B. occidentalis occupancy indicate continued declines in all modeled scenarios,” the authors write. Looking toward the year 2050, in the “most optimistic scenario,” where only climate change and land use continue to act as stressors, and there are no further impacts from pesticide use, declines would still be expected in 44% of the bee’s historical range, with no changes in 25% and some increases in 31%. It is worth noting that the increases are expected in regions already at their lowest population levels, and thus represent a very limited increase. In both the middle and worst-case scenarios with business as usual, continued declines are expected throughout the species’ entire range. As the authors indicate, “given that a complete abatement of extenuating factors beyond changes in climate and land cover would be extremely challenging to achieve, the middle- and worst-case future scenarios are more plausible outcomes.”

It is increasingly clear that humanity’s continued use of fossil fuels and fossil fuel-derived pesticides are the core drivers of pollinator declines. These are not siloed but interacting crises, creating a positive feedback loop and compounding one another’s harmful effects. Despite these stressors, alternatives are within reach. The authors note, “Current evidence suggests that use of these insecticides could be significantly curtailed without reducing crop yield and, in some cases, curtailment could even increase crop yield via insect-provided pollination services.” There is a long string of research finding little to no efficacy from many neonicotinoid uses, including a study published late last year that aligns with this approach, finding that pollination was more important for watermelon production than any level of pest management.

The authors stress the importance of pollinators in maintaining stable ecosystems, and the threat of trophic cascades when they are lost. Pollinators have coevolved with many flowers and help increase their growth and seed set. Loss of pollinators often coincides with the loss of mutually adapted flowers. This in turn, can affect other species like the sage grouse, which rely on early spring forbs, or the brown bear, whose diet may consist significantly of the roots of different flowers.

It must be highlighted that the threat of pollinator losses to the food supply and human health are not future concerns but present issues. Recent research finds 425,000 excess deaths each year can be attributed to pollinator declines caused by a lack of affordable healthy food. While low-income countries are the hardest hit economically from this decline, deaths are concentrated in middle and high income countries, accounting for now 1% of annual total mortality.  

Join Beyond Pesticides in telling Congress and U.S. agencies to take climate change seriously, and incorporate climate impacts into all policy decisions, including agricultural practices and pesticide registrations.

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

Source: USGS press release, PNAS

(Beyond Pesticides, January 24, 2023) Oral arguments begin this week in a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval of the antibiotic streptomycin as a pesticide on citrus crops. Brought forth by a coalition of farmworker, health, and environmental groups, the lawsuit aims to stop the use of a critical medical treatment for agricultural purposes. “Humanity’s dwindling supply of medically effective antibiotics is not worth sacrificing for an industry that has safer alternatives available,” said Drew Toher, community resource and policy director at Beyond Pesticides. “Despite the challenges, we know from the elimination of this material in organic production that we don’t need antibiotics in order to produce a glass of orange juice.”

 In 2020, the Lancet published an article that identifies several of the multiple and interacting crises the U.S. and world face, with a focus on another “looming potential pandemic . . . [a] rise in multidrug-resistant bacterial infections that are undetected, undiagnosed, and increasingly untreatable, [whose rise] threatens the health of people in the USA and globally.” It calls on leaders in the U.S. and beyond, asking that even as they address the current coronavirus pandemic, they also attend to the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) problem, which is a growing threat to public health. The coauthors outline a number of strategies for progress on AMR, including banning of medically important antibiotics in agribusiness, and promoting consumer, and supplier and private sector, awareness and action on food choices. 

The growing threat of antibiotic resistance is a major health care issue. Beyond Pesticides has written, “Many bacterial infections are becoming resistant to the most commonly prescribed antibiotics, resulting in longer-lasting infections, higher medical expenses, the need for more costly or hazardous medications, and the inability to treat life-threatening infections. The development and spread of antibiotic resistance is the inevitable effect of antibiotic use. Bacteria evolve quickly, and antibiotics provide strong selection pressure for those strains with genes for resistance.”

EPA registered streptomycin as a tool for citrus growers because it can suppress Huanglongbing (HLB) disease, also known as citrus greening, caused by a bacterial pathogen transmitted by the invasive Asian citrus psyllid. HLB results in citrus fruit becoming green, misshapen, and bitter. The agency also claims streptomycin “will aid resistance management” for citrus canker disease, a contagious pathogen that can be spread by wind, rain and human activity. Once infected, citrus canker is incurable. Growers may use copper pesticides to delay the inevitable, but there is growing concern of resistance to copper compounds.  

While both diseases represent legitimate concerns for the citrus industry, advocates are clear that the answer cannot be to take an important human medical treatment and broadcast spray hundreds of thousands of pounds across upwards of 650,000 acres of US cropland. EPA’s short-sighted response may help the industry in the short term, but most of these benefits will be seen not by farmers but top-level executives, with the long-term risk of exacerbating the pre-existing epidemic of antibiotic resistance.

Data show that over 35,000 Americans die each year because of antibiotic resistant bacteria. And antibiotic-based pesticides present a significant risk to endangered animals in citrus growing regions, like Florida panthers and Joaquin kit foxes, in addition to dwindling pollinator populations.

The health risk of this decision is greatest to the essential workers that manage citrus groves. “The use of streptomycin as a pesticide continues to be an ongoing threat to the health and safety of our farmworkers, who are at the frontlines of feeding our nation,” said Jeannie Economos, coordinator of the Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Program at Farmworker Association of Florida. “We’re urging swift resolution of this case and an end to the misuse of medically important antibiotics within our food systems. Every day of delay means more farmworkers are exposed, putting themselves and their families at risk.”

The lawsuit against EPA’s decision includes Beyond Pesticides, US Public Interest Research Group, Environment Confederation of Southwest Florida, Farmworker Association of Florida, Farmworker Justice, Migrant Clinicians Network, represented by Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, and Center for Biological Diversity. Petitioners argue that EPA failed to ensure that the approved uses of streptomycin as a pesticide would not result in unreasonable adverse effects on human health or the environment, and say that EPA failed to adequately assess risks streptomycin poses to endangered species.

EPA decision put it at odds with other agencies, as officials with both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have raised concerns about using medically important antibiotics as pesticides.

Concerns over turning medical treatments into pesticides are not conjecture but borne out of experiences already concerning on the ground. There is significant evidence available now that widespread use of human-important antifungal drugs as antibiotics is resulting in resistance to dangerous fungal pathogens that are now infecting humans. Aspergillus fumigatus, a common mold found in soils and composts, has become increasingly virulent to humans. Between 2000 and 2013, cases of invasive aspergillosis increased 3% per annum, and roughly 300,000 worldwide are diagnosed each year. Data show that roughly 20% of Aspergillus fumigatus samples are resistant to azole fungicides used in agriculture but also critical for human treatments. By finding evidence that the same infections strains of Aspergillus fumigatus were also resistant to non-azole agricultural fungicides, scientists provided a direct link from hospital infections to on-farm fungicide applications.  In the same vein, the emerging fungal pathogen Candida auris displays 90% of infections resistant to one drug, and 30% to two or more, with this resistance tracing back to farm use.

Nearly 10 years ago, Beyond Pesticides’ galvanized action on the National Organic Standards Board to eliminate the use of antibiotics like streptomycin in organic apple and pear production. At issue was the destructive bacterial disease fire blight, which can turn blossoms, leaves, twigs, and branches of affected trees black, having the appearance of being hit by fire. Despite the challenges, farmers were able to transition to resistant varieties and craft system management plants to better address outbreaks without resorting to antibiotic use.

Unlike the challenge to organic apple and pear growers, chemical-based citrus farmers already have proof of concept that citrus crops can be grown to market without the use of medically important antibiotics. Organic citrus farmers are prohibited from employing not only antibiotics, but other toxic pesticides such as the systemic neonicotinoids that are often used on chemical farms. Organic growers like Uncle Matt’s in Florida discuss the importance of breeding programs for tolerant rootstock, the use of botanical insecticides such as neem and clove oil, and the release of the biological control agent Tamarixia wasps, which feed on Asian Citrus Psyllids. Watch Uncle Matt’s Benny McClean, production manager, speak about organic citrus production in Florida at Beyond Pesticide’s 33rd National Pesticide Forum.

While the organic approach shows the wisdom and value of organic’s drive towards ‘continuous improvement,’ EPA’s response to industry executives crowing about the potential for declining profit margins represents a short-sighted, knee-jerk reaction. Advocates implore there is no need to steal from our health future to protect the inability of the citrus industry to responsibly manage its problems; what’s needed is a strategy that represents a long-term investment in the future of citrus production. Rather than bringing new chemicals to the market, EPA should work with growers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deploy resistant rootstocks, new biologicals and truly least-toxic pesticides.

For more information about the dangers of antibiotics in farming, see Beyond Pesticides article Agricultural Uses of Antibiotics Escalate Bacterial Resistance.

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

Source: Earthjustice press release

(Beyond Pesticides, January 23, 2023) There is no doubt that the climate crisis is upon us. And the consequences are undeniably grave. So, we must incorporate our understanding of the grave health and environmental effects into the deliberations on all policy decisions regarding petrochemical pesticide registrations and synthetic fertilizer use in agriculture and nonagricultural land management. Of critical importance, in this context, is the effect of policy decisions on soil health—in particular, soil organic carbon, which sequesters atmospheric carbon and reduces its damaging atmospheric effects.

Tell USDA, EPA, and Congress to incorporate in ALL its policy decisions an analysis of impact on the climate crisis, with particular attention to the protection of soil health.

Although the soil is commonly recognized as a sink for atmospheric carbon, there is a false narrative that says carbon can be sequestered in the soil through chemical-intensive no-till agriculture. Now the Rodale Institute’s 40-Year Report on their “Farming Systems Trial” should end the myth of the toxic, petrochemical-based, GMO-herbicide, no-till systems. Rodale’s scientific trials clearly show that these degenerative no-till systems are inferior to Regenerative Organic Agriculture on every key criterion.

The highest yields of corn in the tilled organic manure system and the best increases in soil organic carbon were produced with an organic manure system and limited tillage (tilled every other year). Of importance to climate resilience, organic corn yields have been 31 percent higher than conventional/industrial farming systems in drought years.

The trials show that herbicide no-till systems do not produce higher levels of soil organic carbon (SOC) than tillage systems. This result is consistent with reviews of 194 studies comparing no-till and tilled fields.

According to Andre Leu, international director at Regeneration International, “The main reason for the loss of soil carbon in farming systems is not tillage; it is synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Research shows that there is a direct link between the application of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers and a decline in soil carbon.” In addition, those same nitrogenous fertilizers act as potent greenhouse gases when volatilized to the atmosphere.

Thus, chemical-intensive agriculture and nonagricultural land management contribute to climate change in multiple ways. If we are to be serious about combating climate change and mitigating its impacts, all agencies must consider climate impacts when making decisions. This means that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must not approve registrations of pesticides that harm the soil or facilitate agricultural practices that interfere with carbon sequestration. It means that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in a much more aggressive way, must lead the transition to organic agriculture as a replacement for chemical-intensive practices and should cease all support for chemical-intensive agriculture immediately. It means that the Department of Interior (DOI) must manage all public lands with organic practices that ensure soil health and all that means for a livable future.

Tell USDA, EPA, and Congress to incorporate in ALL its policy decisions an analysis of impact on the climate crisis, with particular attention to the protection of soil health.

Letter to EPA:

The broad perspective embodied in President Biden’s Executive Memorandum (EM) Modernizing Regulatory Review issued on his first day in office, creates a mandate across all federal agencies for future-oriented public health and safety protections. As well as environmental stewardship, more protections are urgently needed to abate the climate crisis. A separate executive order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, states, ”The United States will also move quickly to build resilience, both at home and abroad, against the impacts of climate change that are already manifest and will continue to intensify according to current trajectories.”

A comprehensive resiliency policy requires EPA to cease allowing the continued degradation of soil and ecosystems that are so critical to abating the climate crisis when alternatives are available and could be promoted. Missing from EPA’s registration program are the steps necessary to reduce and eliminate the contribution of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers to the climate, recognizing the viability of the $63 billion organic industry that is growing, despite EPA’s continuing commitment to the status-quo allowance of chemicals unnecessary to achieve agricultural productivity and land management goals. EPA’s failure in this regard constitutes a public health threat, a reneging of the agency’s responsibility to environmental stewardship, and a missed opportunity and mandate to ensure a livable future.

A key missing element of EPA’s review is the impact of pesticide registration decisions on soil health—in particular, soil organic carbon, which sequesters atmospheric carbon away from damaging atmospheric effects. Although the soil is commonly recognized as a sink for atmospheric carbon, there is a false narrative that says carbon can be sequestered in the soil through chemical-intensive no-till agriculture, which depends heavily on EPA-registered herbicides. Now the Rodale Institute’s 40-Year Report on their “Farming Systems Trial” should end the myth of the toxic, petrochemical, GMO-herbicide, no-till systems. Rodale’s scientific trials clearly show that these degenerative no-till systems are inferior to Regenerative Organic Agriculture on every key criterion.

The highest yields of corn in the tilled organic manure system and the best increases in soil organic carbon were produced with an organic manure system and limited tillage (tilled every other year). Of importance to climate resilience, organic corn yields have been 31 percent higher than conventional/industrial farming systems in drought years.

The trials show that herbicide no-till systems do not produce higher levels of soil organic carbon than tillage systems. This result is consistent with reviews of 194 studies comparing no-till and tilled fields.

According to Andre Leu, international director at Regeneration International, “The main reason for the loss of soil carbon in farming systems is not tillage; it is synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Research shows that there is a direct link between the application of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers and a decline in soil carbon.” In addition, those same nitrogenous fertilizers act as potent greenhouse gases when volatilized to the atmosphere.

Chemical-intensive agriculture contributes to climate change in multiple ways. If we are to be serious about combating climate change and mitigating its impacts, all agencies must consider climate impacts when making decisions. This means that EPA must not approve registrations of pesticides that harm the soil or facilitate agricultural practices that interfere with carbon sequestration. In fact, under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), continued registration of pesticides contributing to the climate crisis or not effectively abating the crisis, when possible, causes “unreasonable” adverse effects.

Please adopt this changed direction. Thank you.

Letter to USDA:

The broad perspective embodied in President Biden’s Executive Memorandum (EM) Modernizing Regulatory Review issued on his first day in office creates a mandate across all federal agencies for future-oriented public health and safety protections, as well as environmental stewardship. More must urgently be done to incorporate protections that abate the climate crisis. A separate executive order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, states,” The United States will also move quickly to build resilience, both at home and abroad, against the impacts of climate change that are already manifest and will continue to intensify according to current trajectories.”

There Is no doubt that climate change is upon us. And the consequences are undeniably grave. We should seriously consider all policy decisions in light of those grave consequences. Among those are decisions that affect soil health—in particular, soil organic carbon, which sequesters atmospheric carbon away from damaging atmospheric effects.

A comprehensive resiliency policy requires USDA in all its programs to reverse the continued degradation of soil and ecosystems that is so critical to abating the climate crisis. Missing from USDA’s analysis, work, and programs generally are the steps necessary to replace dependence on petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers contributing to the climate emergency with a new direction recognizing the viability of the $63 billion organic enterprise. While strides are being made in the National Organic Program, the growth of organic is not keeping pace with the need to confront the climate crisis, given that status-quo use of chemicals is no longer needed to achieve agricultural productivity and land management goals. USDA’s failure in this regard constitutes a public health threat, a reneging of the agency’s responsibility to environmental stewardship, and a missed opportunity and mandate to ensure a livable future.

Although the soil is commonly recognized as a sink for atmospheric carbon, there is a false narrative that says carbon can be sequestered in the soil through chemical-intensive no-till agriculture. Now the Rodale Institute’s 40-Year Report on their “Farming Systems Trial” should end the myth of the toxic, petrochemical, GMO-herbicide, no-till systems. Rodale’s scientific trials clearly show that these degenerative no-till systems are inferior to Regenerative Organic Agriculture on every key criterion.

The highest yields of corn in the tilled organic manure system and the best increases in soil organic carbon were produced with an organic manure system and limited tillage (tilled every other year). Of importance to climate resilience, organic corn yields have been 31 percent higher than conventional/industrial farming systems in drought years.

The trials show that herbicide no-till systems do not produce higher levels of soil organic carbon (SOC) than tillage systems. This result is consistent with reviews of 194 studies comparing no-till and tilled fields.

According to Andre Leu, international director at Regeneration International, “The main reason for the loss of soil carbon in farming systems is not tillage; it is synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Research shows that there is a direct link between the application of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers and a decline in soil carbon.” In addition, those same nitrogenous fertilizers act as potent greenhouse gases when volatilized to the atmosphere.

Chemical-intensive agriculture contributes to climate change in multiple ways. If we are to be serious about combating climate change and mitigating its impacts, all agencies must consider climate impacts when making decisions. This means that USDA must lead in a much more aggressive way the transition to organic agriculture as a replacement for chemical-intensive practices and should cease all support for chemical-intensive agriculture immediately.

Please adopt this changed direction. Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

President Biden’s Executive Memorandum Modernizing Regulatory Review issued on his first day in office creates a mandate across all federal agencies for future-oriented public health and safety protections. More is urgently needed to incorporate protections to abate the climate crisis. A separate executive order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, states, ”The United States will also move quickly to build resilience, both at home and abroad, against the impacts of climate change that are already manifest and will continue to intensify according to current trajectories.”

There is no doubt that climate change is upon us. The consequences are undeniably grave. We must seriously consider all policy decisions in light of those grave consequences. Among those are decisions that affect soil health—in particular, soil organic carbon, which sequesters atmospheric carbon away from damaging atmospheric effects.

A comprehensive resiliency policy requires USDA, EPA, and DOI in all of their programs to eliminate the continued degradation of soil and ecosystems and adopt known alternatives. Missing from the agencies’ analysis, work, and programs generally is a recognition of the viability of $63 billion organic industry. Despite strides made with the National Organic Program, the growth of organic is not keeping pace with the need to confront the climate crisis. Key to the required analysis is the impact of pesticide use on soil health. The agencies’ failure in this regard constitutes a public health threat, a reneging of their responsibility to environmental stewardship, and a missed opportunity to ensure a livable future.

Although the soil is commonly recognized as a sink for atmospheric carbon, a false narrative says carbon can be sequestered in the soil through chemical-intensive no-till agriculture. Now the Rodale Institute’s 40-Year Report on their “Farming Systems Trial” should end the myth of the toxic, GMO-herbicide, no-till systems. Scientific trials clearly show that these degenerative no-till systems are inferior to Regenerative Organic Agriculture in every respect.

The highest yields of corn in the tilled organic manure system and the best increases in soil organic carbon were produced with an organic manure system and limited tillage (tilled every other year). Of importance to climate resilience, organic corn yields have been 31 percent higher than conventional/industrial farming systems in drought years.

The trials show that herbicide no-till systems do not produce higher levels of soil organic carbon (SOC) than tillage systems. This result is consistent with reviews of 194 studies comparing no-till and tilled fields.

According to Andre Leu, international director at Regeneration International, “The main reason for the loss of soil carbon in farming systems is not tillage; it is synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Research shows that there is a direct link between the application of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers and a decline in soil carbon.” In addition, those same nitrogenous fertilizers act as potent greenhouse gases when volatilized to the atmosphere.

Thus, chemical-intensive agriculture and land management contribute to climate change in multiple ways. If we are to be serious about combating climate change and mitigating its impacts, all agencies must consider climate impacts when making decisions. This means EPA must not approve registrations of pesticides that harm the soil or facilitate agricultural practices that interfere with carbon sequestration. It means USDA must forcefully lead the transition to organic agriculture as a replacement for chemical-intensive practices and cease all support for chemical-intensive agriculture immediately. It means DOI must manage all public lands with organic practices that ensure soil health and a livable future.

Please ensure that our federal agencies adopt this changed direction. Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 20, 2023) In late December 2022, the University of California San Francisco made a public apology for the unethical actions of two School of Medicine faculty members who conducted experiments in the 1960s and 1970s on some 2,600 prisoners held at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville. The connection to the work of Beyond Pesticides? The experiments involved exposing male prisoners, by dermal application and via injection, to insecticides and herbicides; this continued until 1977, when the State of California banned all human subject research at state prisons. The investigation and apology — which arose through the work of the UCSF Program for Historical Reconciliation — surface multiple issues surrounding scientific research on human subjects, including ethics and regulations related to consent and to risk of harm. Beyond Pesticides has assiduously chronicled the huge variety of health harms that pesticide use can cause, has reported on many studies evidencing the presence of pesticide residues in human bodies, and in the mid-2000s weighed in on the then-vociferous ethics and regulations controversies surrounding research practices (see more below).

UCSF investigated the case of two dermatology professors who, the university learned, had failed to secure consent from the prisoners — many of whom were then either being evaluated or treated for psychiatric issues. The one surviving professor, Dr. Howard Maibach, wrote in a letter to colleagues: “What I believed to be ethical as a matter of course forty and fifty years ago is not considered ethical today. I regret having participated in research that did not comply with contemporary standards.” He indicated that a former University of San Francisco president had opined to him that the prisoners were ethically able to consent to the experiments. Dr. Maibach has also defended the research, suggesting that it yielded benefits to the prisoners, such as free dermatologic care subsequent to the study, and compensation for their participation (the university has dismissed these “benefits” claims).

The UCSF apology emerges into a landscape in which there is increased public attention in the U.S. on historical (and current) inequities and abuses across institutions, as well as mounting concern about the human and environmental health harms of pesticide use. The medical academy has had its own share of ethical misbehavior, from clinical bias to outright villainy; most notorious among them was the 1930s Tuskegee Institute study on syphilis. In that terrible episode, researchers not only did not secure consent from the study’s 600 Black male subjects, but also, wanting to monitor the disease’s progression, withheld treatment from the 399 subjects who had the disease. Investigators essentially stood by and did nothing as the infected men went blind, had other severe health problems, and/or eventually died.

Informed consent is now ethically central to how scientific research can be conducted in the U.S. Legitimate research abides by federal requirements, which include: (1) disclosing to potential research subjects information needed to make an informed decision; (2) facilitating the understanding of what has been disclosed; and (3) promoting the voluntariness of the decision about whether or not to participate in the research. (See also the U.S. Health and Human Services FAQ on informed consent.)

Intentional dosing of human subjects with pesticides is a different kettle of fish from the current biomonitoring protocols employed in some pesticide research. The role of potential harm caused by pesticides has fueled research for decades, but deliberate testing on humans was the subject of much discussion and argument, most intensively during the 1990s and 2000s.

To wit: should humans be the subjects of research on pesticides at all? If so, under what conditions? Should potentially harmful substances ever be intentionally introduced to research subjects? Can all harms be predicted? How is “harm” defined and by whom? Should there be any “weighing” of potential harms to research subjects against potential direct or indirect benefits to them, to public health, to disease treatment or prevention, et al. (See a multitude of Beyond Pesticides coverage of related developments here and here; see also a 2007 publication of the American Medical Association that parses some of these issues.)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and federal agencies broadly, were and are compelled (given their mandates) to address these issues. In 1991, EPA and 14 other federal agencies and departments adopted a set of regulations aimed at creating uniformity in the protection of human research subjects. EPA’s regulation was the “Protections for Subjects in Human Research,” referred to as the Common Rule. In 2006, EPA banned all third-party research (intended for submission to the agency) involving intentional dosing of pregnant or nursing women [or] children with pesticides. The Common Rule has undergone a series of revisions and rulemaking up through 2018, seeking to “modernize, strengthen, and make [it] more effective . . . [and] to better protect human subjects involved in research, while facilitating valuable research and reducing burden, delay, and ambiguity for investigators.”

EPA convened a joint meeting, in 1998, of its Scientific Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Panel on the matter of human pesticide testing. According to an evaluation published in Environmental Medicine, after considerable Sturm und Drang, the committee ultimately “could not agree unanimously whether there are circumstances under which pesticide testing on human subjects can be justified. The final report states, ‘human dosing experiments are not appropriate if the primary intent of the study is to determine or revise a NOEL or NOAEL [types of standardized metrics for symptom levels].’ . . . [I]f the use of human subjects in pesticide testing can be justified, that justification cannot be to facilitate the interests of industry or agriculture, but only to better safeguard the public health.” It is noteworthy that several members objected to the final report because it “minimizes the risks to humans from intentional experimental dosing and deemphasizes the issue that ‘no limited human study will provide information about safe levels of intake of pesticides by humans, especially children.’”

EPA has subsequently adopted several “subparts” to the 2018 Common Rule aimed at increasing protections for participants in human research conducted or supported by EPA, or certain types of third party research. The federal Regulations.gov website notes that “Congress mandated three requirements for EPA’s rule: (1) prohibit the use of pregnant women, infants or children as subjects; (2) be consistent with the principles proposed in the 2004 report of National Academy of Sciences ‘Intentional Human Dosing Studies for EPA Regulatory Purposes: Scientific and Ethical Issues’ and the principles of the Nuremberg Code; and (3) establish an independent Human Subjects Review Board. . . . EPA created [other] regulatory subparts . . . [to] govern research conducted or sponsored by EPA involving . . . intentional exposure to any substance of human subjects who are children or pregnant or nursing women; [additional subparts] provide extra protections for pregnant women and for children who are the subjects of observational research conducted or supported by EPA.”

This apparently represents the current EPA stance; Beyond Pesticides research to find evidence of an outright EPA ban on human dosing experiments found none. That said, a digital search also yielded no evidence of any recent or current research that has intentionally dosed people with pesticides. What is far more common, and has been for some years, is a “retrospective” approach in pesticide research — sampling and analysis of the products of the human body (e.g., urine, blood) to determine the presence and concentration of various kinds of pesticides, acquired through vocational exposures, or through food, water, and general environmental exposures.

Such “biomonitoring” is used in academic/scientific research, but it is also used by government agencies (e.g., the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]), nonprofit advocate organizations, and others watchdogging impacts of specific contaminants in humans (or other organisms). Beyond Pesticides explains that biomonitoring “is considered to be the most health-relevant assessment of exposure because it ‘measure[s] the amount of the chemical that actually gets into people, not the amount that may get into people.’”

However, Beyond Pesticides has historically criticized EPA and the CDC for conducting human monitoring studies without full disclosure of agency knowledge about known or potential hazards associated with the exposure patterns being monitored. In 2012, the CDC and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene enrolled Maryland households in a study that involved spraying the neurotoxic synthetic pyrethroid insecticide bifenthrin on their property to determine the efficacy of this approach in controlling Lyme disease. At the time, Beyond Pesticides voiced concern that study participants, who were given gift cards for their participation, had not been provided complete information about bifenthrin’s potential health risks to people, and requested that the study be halted. [The study was eventually terminated after over a year, when no efficacy was found.]

Similarly, in 2004, EPA launched the two-year Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study of 60 children in Duval County, Florida to collect information on their exposure to pesticides and household chemicals, such as flame retardants and perfluorinated chemicals, a family of substances in products such as Teflon. Paul Gilman, then-EPA science adviser and assistant administrator, said the study, utilizing chemical industry money, will help the agency conduct “groundbreaking work” on how chemicals are absorbed by infants and children from birth to age three. Participating parents, who were to receive up to $970 and a free video camcorder for participating, had to agree to routinely spray or have pesticides sprayed inside their homes during the two-year study period. Chemical concentrations were to be measured in air, dust, and urine samples of the children, and by analyzing chemicals absorbed in clothing before and after pesticide applications. While the study was derailed by public outrage and press coverage, EPA can still engage in “observational studies” that encourage pesticide use with incentives under federal regulations.

One could credibly argue that pesticide use is a grand human experiment, given that virtually everyone carries hundreds of exogenous chemical compounds in their bodies (and the number continues to rise)—an experiment associated with elevated rates of debilitating and deadly diseases. (See Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database.) These compounds enter human bodies through multiple routes (air, food, water, consumer products, etc.), and some accumulate because they are not readily processed/broken down and excreted; these can sometimes linger for long periods and increase risk for certain diseases. “Body burden” refers to the presence and accumulation of these synthetic chemicals in (generally human) bodies.

Beyond Pesticides reports regularly on emerging research documenting the presence and effects of pesticides in people. A recent example is a study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials that, for the first time, finds a high frequency of eight widely available neonicotinoid insecticides in human bile (which is produced by the liver). Residues in the sampled bile was 86% nitenpyram and dinotefuran; the former is used in flea treatments, and the latter in agriculture and land management. This finding suggests that these compounds are not easily degraded by the liver and represent potential toxicity risks to the organ.

One of the important vectors for exposure to chemical contaminants is the food supply; three federal agencies are involved in understanding and regulating pesticide residues in food. EPA sets “tolerances” for the amount of pesticide residue allowable in foods (though it is also able to establish tolerance exemptions for particular pesticides). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforces those EPA tolerances for domestic foods shipped in interstate commerce, and for imported foods (except for meat, poultry, catfish, and certain egg products, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture). FDA conducts a pesticide residue monitoring program that generates an annual report on results of its evaluation thousands of foods and food products each year; see our coverage of the 2020 report, which found that more than half of food in the U.S. contains pesticide residues.

The ubiquity of synthetic chemicals, including pesticides, is true not only in human bodies; other organisms, ecosystems, natural resources, and the environment broadly are all permeated to greater or lesser degrees.

As Beyond Pesticides reported early in 2022, Professor Sir Ian Boyd (of the University of St. Andrews) wrote in The Guardian, “The rise of the chemical burden in the environment is diffuse and insidious. Even if the toxic effects of individual chemicals can be hard to detect, this does not mean that the aggregate effect is likely to be insignificant. Regulation is not designed to detect or understand these effects. We are relatively blind to what is going on as a result. In this situation, where we have a low level of scientific certainty about effects, there is a need for a much more precautionary approach to new chemicals and to the amount being emitted to the environment.”

Research, regulation, and biomonitoring efforts are certainly an improvement over the pesticide landscape of 40 or more years ago. Given that more than 500 synthetic pesticides are registered for use in the U.S. (and thousands of other synthetic chemicals are used in myriad other sectors), it is helpful to know what is happening in humans and the rest of the living world. But these efforts are not solutions to our chemical problem in agriculture and land management.

Once again, Beyond Pesticides points out that, rather than digging our collective selves into a deeper, synthetic chemical/pesticide-saturated hole, the far wiser path is one of moving to a precautionary approach that would eschew these synthetic and petrochemical inputs. Organic is the path to a healthy and sustainable future; we must advance on that path with extreme urgency.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-22/ucsf-apologizes-for-experiments-done-on-prisoners-in-the-60s-and-70s

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

(Beyond Pesticides, January 19, 2023) Research published in Environmental Health Perspectives finds the presence of nine various neonicotinoids (neonics) and six neonic metabolites within human cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). CSF is an essential part of the central nervous system (CNS), especially for CNS development. Specific chemical biomarkers (measurable indicators of biological state), like pesticides, found in CSF are useful for diagnosing and evaluating numerous neurological diseases.

The nervous system is an integral part of the human body and includes the brain, spinal cord, a vast network of nerves and neurons, all of which are responsible for many of our bodily functions—from sensed to movement. However, mounting evidence over the past years shows that chronic exposure to sublethal (low) levels of pesticides can cause neurotoxic effects or exacerbate preexisting chemical damage to the nervous system. The impacts of pesticides on the nervous system, including the brain, are hazardous, especially for chronically exposed individuals (e.g., farmworkers) or during critical windows of vulnerability and development (e.g., childhood, pregnancy). Researchers identify the role agricultural chemicals play in CNS impacts causing neurological diseases, like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson’s disease, dementia-like diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and other effects on cognitive function.

Over 300 environmental contaminants and their byproducts, including pesticides, are chemicals commonly present in human blood and urine samples and can increase neurotoxicity risk when crossing the brain barrier. Therefore, studies like this highlight the importance of understanding how chemical accumulation in the body can impact long-term health and disease prognosis.

The study explores whether the presence of neonics and their metabolites in CSF is an indicator of adverse CNS effects. From April 2019 to January 2021, researchers gathered 314 CSF samples from patients aged one month to 89 years in the First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University, Shantou, China using a clinical lumbar puncture. Researchers collected CSF samples from patients experiencing similar symptoms with a different disease/clinical diagnosis (i.e., “mostly viral encephalitis, encephalitis other than viral encephalitis, leukemia, cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral laceration, urinary tract infection, respiratory failure, pulmonary tuberculosis, and posterior circulation ischemia”). To analyze the presence of neonics and their metabolites in CSF, researchers used acidification, solid phase extraction, and high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Ninety-nine percent of the 314 CSF samples contain at least one neonic. Of the 314 CSF samples, nine percent (28) have a single neonic compound, 84 percent (265) have between 2 and 6, and six percent (19) have between 7 and 10 neonic compounds. Nine of these neonics in CSF samples are nitenpyram (NIT), thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, acetamiprid (ACE), thiacloprid, clothianidin, flonicamid, imidaclothiz, and sulfoxaflor. Additionally, six neonic metabolites are present in CSF: N-desmethyl-thiamethoxam, olefin-imidacloprid, 5-hydroxy-imidacloprid, N-desmethyl-acetamiprid (N-dm-ACE), thiacloprid-amide, and 6-chloronicotinic acid.

Over the past 20 years, neonicotinoids served as an alternative for four major chemical classes of insecticides in the global market (organophosphates, carbamates, phenyl-pyrazoles, and pyrethroids). These systemic agricultural pesticides are highly toxic, resembling nicotine, and affect the central nervous system of insects, resulting in paralysis and death, even at low doses. Like other pesticides, neonics readily contaminate water and food resources as traditional water waste treatments typically fail to remove the chemical from tap water, and the systemic nature of neonics allows the chemical to accumulate within plant products. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly half the U.S. population encounters at least one type of neonic daily, with children ages three to five having the highest exposure risk. Health impacts of exposure to neonics can include neurotoxicity, reproductive anomalies, hepatic and renal damage, and an increase in gene expression linked to hormone-dependent breast cancer. Additionally, researchers identified that some neonicotinoids play a role in enzyme (aromatase) production that stimulates excess estrogen production, a known event in hormone-dependent cancer development.

Beyond its link to human health effects, neonicotinoids are infamous for their well-documented role in driving mass pollinator declines. However, pollinators are far from the only victims of ubiquitous neonicotinoid contamination. In a recent avian risk assessment, EPA scientists found that neonicotinoids levels in treated seeds exceed the agency’s threshold of concern for certain birds by as much as 200-fold. A 2017 study by researchers at the University of Saskatchewan confirmed that tiny amounts of neonicotinoids – the equivalent of just four treated canola seeds, for example – are enough to cause migrating songbirds to lose their sense of direction and become emaciated. Recent research uncovered the endocrine-disrupting health impacts of imidacloprid on white-tailed deer, adding to the concern of the same effect in humans.

This study adds to the growing research on pesticides and neurotoxic consequences. Although past studies on neonic toxicity focus on neurotoxicity among insects and aquatic invertebrates, emerging evidence demonstrates these compounds also adversely impact the nervous system of animals, including humans as well. Not only does research find exposure to sublethal doses of chemicals affect hormone receptors (endocrine disruption), but neural receptors, such as connections between nerves, the brain, enzymes, and DNA are affected as well. In addition to this research, several studies demonstrate autism, mood disorders (e.g., depression), and degenerative neurological conditions among aquatic and terrestrial animals, including humans, exposed to pesticides. Pesticides themselves, mixtures of chemicals such as the defoliant Agent Orange (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) and its  dioxin contaminants and therapeutic hormones in pharmaceutical products, possess the ability to disrupt neurological function. Furthermore, studies suggest that pesticides formulants (adjuvants) such as POEA (polyoxyethylene tallow amine) have both neurological and endocrine-disrupting activity. POEA is present in some glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup and has higher nervous system toxicity than the active ingredient (glyphosate). Although the biological function and mechanism of neurotoxicity related to pesticide exposure is ambiguous, scientists note synchronized communication within and between cells that have a mechanism of action of “spamming” communication signals. The study concludes, “For continued global use of NEOs [neonics], mechanisms of toxicity, especially to the CNS in humans, need to be more rigorously investigated.”

The nervous system is integral to everyday human activities and the body’s ability to function normally. Pesticides themselves can possess the ability to disrupt neurological function. Pesticides’ impact on the nervous system, including the brain, are hazardous, especially for chronically exposed individuals or during critical windows of vulnerability and development. Therefore, studies related to pesticides and neurological disorders can help scientists understand the underlying mechanisms that cause neurodegenerative diseases. As captured by epidemiologic studies in Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database (PIDD) and Daily News Blog, the adverse health effects of pesticides, exposure, and the aggregate risk of pesticides showcase a need for more precise research on pesticide exposure. Existing information, including this study, supports the clear need for a strategic shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the effects of pesticide exposure on neurological health, see Beyond Pesticides’ PIDD pages on brain and nervous system disorders, including dementia-like diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, and other impacts on cognitive function. 

Beyond Pesticides advocates for organic land and agriculture management as precautionary approach to pest prevention and management. Buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment and from your diet. For more information on why organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

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

Source: Environmental Health Perspectives

(Beyond Pesticides, January 18, 2023) Sunflower plantings have the potential to significantly reduce mite infestations in nearby honey bee colonies, according to research recently published in the Journal of Economic Entomology by researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). With pollinators under threat from pesticides, climate change, loss of habitat, and the spread of disease and parasites, sustainable methods that address multiple factors at once are needed. This study points to a way to address destructive Varroa mites, while reducing the need for in-hive use of miticides that can likewise harm colony health. “If sunflowers are as big of a factor in mite infestation as indicated by our landscape-level correlations … having a few more acres of sunflower within a mile or two of apiaries could bring colonies below the infestation levels that require treatment of hives with acaracides (i.e., mite-controlling chemicals),” said lead author Evan Palmer-Young, PhD, of USDA’s Bee Research Lab in Beltsville, MD.

Prior research has pointed to sunflower pollen as a potential benefit for a number of common bee diseases and infestations, including the Varroa mite, the fungal parasites Nosema spp, and various viruses. Investigations went through four different experiments aimed at characterizing any potential effects. The first focused on landscape associations between Varroa mites and Nosema using National data on over 400 apiaries in 30 states, comparing the amount of sunflower crop area to colony health. The second took a group of 30 bee colonies at the University of Maryland and supplemented their feeding with either an artificial pollen patty, sunflower patty, or wildflower patty during the late summer to early fall, and then assessing the prevalence of mites and disease. The third supplemented a group of 30 colonies in Massachusetts with the same pollen options in springtime, and then evaluated colony health. The last experiment focused on the impact of sunflower pollen on worker bees already infected with Nosema and deformed wing virus.

For the initial experiment on landscape associations, areas with more sunflower production were found to have lower levels of mite infestation. For every doubling of sunflower crop production, models employed show a nearly 1/3 decrease in varroa mite infestation. For the fall pollen feeding experiment, colonies fed sunflower pollen saw a 2.75 fold reduction in the intensity of Varroa infestation compared to the artificial pollen treatment. For the spring feeding, Varroa was found in only one-third of hives sampled. Neither the fall nor spring feed experiment, or the individual caged bee experiment saw a significant effect on viral loading or Nosema prevalence, however. “Although we did not find significant effects of sunflower pollen on endopasrasites [Nosema ceranae] or viruses in laboratory or field settings, sunflower pollen was associated with reduced levels of Varroa mites in honey bee colonies,” the authors write.

This finding is important in the context of declining diversity in U.S. crops. According to the study, the acreage of US farmland under sunflower production has declined by 2% per year since 1980.

While the pesticide industry often cites Varroa mites as the primary factor in pollinator declines, it is critical to understand that pesticides are playing a role in this phenomenon. Evidence shows that exposure to neonicotinoid insecticides increase honey bee vulnerability to mite problems. While mites infestations are relatively simple to diagnose in the field,  it is much more difficult to test for insecticide exposure in a hive, requiring specialized labs and equipment.

Typical approaches to Varroa management include regular hive treatments with various miticides, many of which can likewise place a colony at risk. Any approach that will allow beekeepers to reduce stress on honey bee hives provides important benefits. “If sunflower pollen can be used to effectively manage Varroa mites, the timing of sunflower pollen production—which peaks in late summer (in temperate regions), just as mite levels begin to rise towards their peak in October and November (Traynor et al. 2016)—is ideal for reducing infestation during the critical late-season time frame,” the study notes.

Nearly a decade ago, then-President Obama established a Presidential Pollinator Health Task Force aimed at reversing declines in honey bees and other pollinators, coordinating action among various government agencies, and including guidelines for federal agencies to protect pollinators. USDA did announce some actions to increase habitat, but neglected other factors like pesticides, and only two years later, the Government Accountability Office cited USDA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its failure to address threats to pollinator populations. While the Trump administration took an antagonistic approach towards pollinator safety, siding with industry and delaying even the listing of an endangered pollinator, President Biden has yet to pick up the important work that President Obama began, or take any similar steps to protect pollinators.

With a vacuum in leadership at the top, both managed and wild pollinators continue to suffer unacceptable declines that threaten not only the health of ecosystems, but critical food sources humans rely upon. Earlier this year a study found pollinator declines are the reducing the global production of nuts, fruits, and vegetables by 3-5% annually, and this loss of healthy, nutrient-dense food is resulting in over 425,000 excess deaths each year.

Join Beyond Pesticides in urging the Biden administration to take meaningful steps to reform pesticide regulation and address the coinciding existential crises of our time – climate change, public health, and pollinator and biodiversity decline.

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

Source: Entomology Today, Journal of Economic Entomology

(Beyond Pesticides, January 17, 2023) One of the world’s most successful conservation laws—the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA)—was enacted in 1973. Since then, it has saved countless imperiled species from extinction, put hundreds more on the road to recovery, and has enabled the preservation of habitats that support all of us. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act, the humpback whale, bald eagle, and snail darter are still with us. The ESA is our most powerful tool to combat the extinction crisis and stem the loss of biodiversity currently facing our country and the global community. However, decades of underfunding have kept it from realizing its full potential.

Tell the Biden Administration and Congress to provide adequate funding for the Endangered Species Act.

The Biden Administration must significantly increase its budget request for endangered species in FY24. A budget of $841 million for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is needed to fully implement the Endangered Species Act. Currently, FWS only receives around 50% of the funding required to properly implement the Act. The money is needed to support the following activities.

Listing: FWS needs at least $66.3 million, or an increase of at least $11.3 million per year for at least the next four years, to process the backlog of nearly 200 species awaiting review. Underfunding for the listing program has resulted in many animals and plants waiting over a decade to receive safeguards, with devastating consequences. Nearly 50 unlisted species have been declared extinct while waiting for protections because of these funding shortfalls. This is unacceptable.

Recovery: The FWS recovery program needs $467.9 million to support recovery planning, implementation, and recovery progress tracking. FWS desperately needs additional funding to help stabilize and save the most critically endangered species and ensure that all listed species receive a minimum amount of funding for their recovery.

Planning and Consultation: $179.3 million is required for planning and consultation to be maximally effective and efficient. This includes funding for standard consultations, pesticide consultations; “ECOSphere” development; voluntary conservation; and basic compliance monitoring that does not currently exist.

Conservation and Restoration: $10.15 million is needed to help conserve species—such as the Monarch butterfly—by improving their habitat and removing threats before they need to be listed. 

Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation: $117.7 million is required to close the gap from previous funding shortfalls and match the current need for state and private lands conservation.

Tell the Biden Administration and Congress to provide adequate funding for the Endangered Species Act.

Letter to Secretary Haaland (DOI) and Director Williams (FWS):

The Biden Administration must significantly increase its budget request for endangered species in FY24. A budget of $841 million for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is needed to fully implement the Endangered Species Act. Currently, FWS only receives around 50% of the funding required to properly implement the Act. The money is needed to support a range of critical activities listed below.

The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), enacted in 1973, is one of the world’s most successful conservation laws. It has saved countless imperiled species from extinction, put hundreds more on the road to recovery, and has enabled the preservation of habitats that support all of us. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act, the humpback whale, bald eagle, and snail darter are still with us. The ESA is our most powerful tool to combat the extinction crisis and stem the loss of biodiversity currently facing our country and the global community. However, decades of underfunding have kept it from realizing its full potential.

Here is what is needed for a truly effective program:

Listing: FWS needs at least $66.3 million, or an increase of at least $11.3 million per year for at least the next four years, to process the backlog of nearly 200 species awaiting review. Underfunding for the listing program has resulted in many animals and plants waiting over a decade to receive safeguards, with devastating consequences. Nearly 50 unlisted species have been declared extinct while waiting for protections because of these funding shortfalls. This is unacceptable.

Recovery: The FWS recovery program needs $467.9 million to support recovery planning, implementation, and recovery progress tracking. FWS desperately needs additional funding to help stabilize and save the most critically endangered species and ensure that all listed species receive a minimum amount of funding for their recovery.

Planning and Consultation: $179.3 million is required for planning and consultation to be maximally effective and efficient. This includes funding for standard consultations, pesticide consultations; “ECOSphere” development; voluntary conservation; and basic compliance monitoring that does not currently exist.

Conservation and Restoration: $10.15 million is needed to help conserve species—such as the Monarch butterfly—by improving their habitat and removing threats before they need to be listed. 

Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation: $117.7 million is required to close the gap from previous funding shortfalls and match the current need for state and private lands conservation.

I urge the Biden administration to invest in protecting our nation’s most vulnerable species by requesting a budget of $841,370,000 for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to fully implement the Endangered Species Act.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

The Biden Administration must significantly increase its budget request for endangered species in FY24. A budget of $841 million for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is needed to fully implement the Endangered Species Act. Currently, FWS only receives around 50% of the funding required to properly implement the Act. The money is needed to support a range of critical activities listed below.

One of the world’s most successful conservation laws—the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA)—was enacted in 1973. Since then, it has saved countless imperiled species from extinction, put hundreds more on the road to recovery, and has enabled the preservation of habitats that support all of us. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act, the humpback whale, bald eagle, and snail darter are still with us. The ESA is our most powerful tool to combat the extinction crisis and stem the loss of biodiversity currently facing our country and the global community. However, decades of underfunding have kept it from realizing its full potential.

Listing: FWS needs at least $66.3 million, or an increase of at least $11.3 million per year for at least the next four years, to process the backlog of nearly 200 species awaiting review. Underfunding for the listing program has resulted in many animals and plants waiting over a decade to receive safeguards, with devastating consequences. Nearly 50 unlisted species have been declared extinct while waiting for protections because of these funding shortfalls. This is unacceptable.

Recovery: The FWS recovery program needs $467.9 million to support recovery planning, implementation, and recovery progress tracking. FWS desperately needs additional funding to help stabilize and save the most critically endangered species and ensure that all listed species receive a minimum amount of funding for their recovery.

Planning and Consultation: $179.3 million is required for planning and consultation to be maximally effective and efficient. This includes funding for standard consultations, pesticide consultations; “ECOSphere” development; voluntary conservation; and basic compliance monitoring that does not currently exist.

Conservation and Restoration: $10.15 million is needed to help conserve species—such as the Monarch butterfly—by improving their habitat and removing threats before they need to be listed. 

Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation: $117.7 million is required to close the gap from previous funding shortfalls and match the current need for state and private lands conservation.

I urge you to invest in protecting our nation’s most vulnerable species by supporting a budget of $841,370,000 for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to fully implement the Endangered Species Act.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 16, 2023) Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about individual greatness on February 4, 1968 to his congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta two months before he was assassinated. We take this day—Monday, January 16— to commemorate the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. as an inspiration for taking on the challenges of justice, equity, and safety as a central part of all our work for a sustainable future. It will take the recognition of the greatness that all individuals have within to raise our voices in our communities to stop the toxic petrochemical assault and advance viable solutions that effect a transformation to organic practices and products. In so doing, we will address those who suffer the most harm from petrochemicals—in their production, transportation, use, and disposal.

Whether determining our community’s management of public lands, playing fields, and parks, or choosing food grown without toxic chemicals, or creating habitat for biodiversity, we as individuals and collectively are the instruments for effecting meaningful change. This is true whether focused on an individual chemical exposure or in taking on the existential health, biodiversity, and climate crises of our day.

Dr. King’s complete quote from which the excerpt above is taken:

“If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness. By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In Beyond Pesticides’ strategic work—whether with professionals or laypeople, local elected officials or concerned activists—great individuals play a critical role in advocating for the urgent steps that must be taken. Technical knowledge is not required to play a pivotal role in tapping into the greatness within because Beyond Pesticides provides the support network to use science as a tool for action and the hands-on guidance to adopt regenerative organic practices. In doing this, our strategies are informed by a recognition that, with the escalating grave threats, there is disproportionate risk to communities of color and those with health vulnerabilities. While the chemical industry, and chemical-intensive agriculture and landscape sector, are fiercely fighting to retain the status quo and protect their vested economic interests in petrochemical pesticide and fertilizer use, individuals, joining together in their communities, are able to prevail in transitioning to sustainable practices and policies.

It is important in this work to elevate understanding and meaningful changes that end disproportionate harm. Critical to our analysis and educational work is the disproportionate risk of the existential health crises to people of color and occupational groups. Great individuals and groups of people are seeking to eliminate disproportionate harm, with elevated rates of pesticide-induced diseases among those who live in fenceline communities where chemicals are produced, in farmworkers who harvest the nation’s food, and in landscapers who manage our parks, children’s playing fields, and neighborhoods.

To inform advocacy that recognizes disproportionate harm and seeks to eliminate it, Beyond Pesticides highlights studies and decisions that establish the problems that need our attention and must be corrected. These studies and actions, captured in Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News and numerous databases (e.g., Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database), become important to strategies for structural change that must be adopted to correct injustices.

Here are some of the pieces covered by Beyond Pesticides over the last year that paint a stark picture of disproportionate harm to people of color, translating to a pattern of injustice that must be corrected in the adoption of a transformative path forward.

—A study published on April 18 finds that people in U.S. BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) communities, as well as those living in low-income communities, endure a very disproportionate rate of exposure to pesticides, and of subsequent risks of harm. It finds that such disparities exist in both urban and rural communities, and at all points in the pesticide “life cycle,” from manufacture to application. A section of Beyond Pesticides’ recent mega-issue of Pesticides and You, “Retrospective 2021: A Call to Urgent Action,” is devoted to such inequities. Section IV, “Disproportionate Pesticide Harm Is Racial Injustice: Documenting Victimization: Structural Racism,” reprises Beyond Pesticides’ 2021 coverage of environmental injustices. It also calls for urgent action re: federal and state “evaluations that go into toxic chemical regulation . . . to reform and replace the current regulatory decision-making process, which is empirically racist, with one that acknowledges and cares for those with the highest real-world vulnerabilities and exposure[s].” [See Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Community at Disproportionate Risk from Pesticides, Study Finds]

— A recent report, Exposed and At Risk: Opportunities to Strengthen Enforcement of Pesticide Regulations for Farmworker Safety, by the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School, in partnership with the nonprofit advocacy group, Farmworker Justice, again highlights the systemic racism of our country’s pesticide policies. Our nation depends on farmworkers, declared “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure sustenance for the nation and world. Yet the occupational exposure to toxic pesticides by farmworkers is discounted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), while study after study documents the disproportionate level of illness among farmworkers.

— While we are encouraged to see the formation of EPA’s new Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights, the agency has a historical bias against preventive action to ensure the protection of those disproportionately poisoned by toxic chemicals. While critically important to clean up contaminated communities, EPA must stop the flow of toxic pesticides at the front end because of the disproportionate poisoning effects of use, handling, transportation, and disposal. We live in an age of practices and products that make toxic pesticides unnecessary and their use unconscionable. Yet, EPA insists on the acceptability of harm (which it calls risk), despite its failure to (i) recognize comorbidities and preexisting health conditions, (ii) consider a combination of multiple chemical exposure interactions, and (iii) cite extensive missing health outcomes information (e.g., on endocrine disruption) and a resulting high level of uncertainty. [See Systemic Racism Exposed that New EPA Office of Environmental Justice May Not Address]

—A study published in the International Journal of English, Literature, and Social Science (IJELS) finds an association between pesticide exposure and anemia among female farmers in Indonesia. Anemia is an autoimmune blood disorder negatively affecting the number of red blood cells (RBCs) and subsequent oxygen distribution via available hemoglobin proteins in RBCs. Types of anemia include iron deficiency, pernicious (lack of vitamin B-12 absorption), aplastic (lack of RBC production), and hemolytic (RBC destruction). Although risk factors for anemia consist of age, genetics, lifestyle, and gender, environmental factors such as pesticide use and exposure contribute to disorder development. Pesticides can interfere with cells in the body, causing blood profile abnormalities that affect blood cell formation and immune system function. Anemia disproportionately impacts women and children across the globe, prevalent in over half a billion women. The disorder was more prevalent among pregnant individuals because of blood loss and iron deficiency, causing adverse reproductive outcomes among children. [See Pesticide Exposure Associated with Anemia and Blood Disorders in Farmworkers]

—On Juneteenth Day, we commemorate the abolition of slavery and celebrate human freedom. At the same time, we recognize that we have significant work to do to eliminate systemic racism and advance environmental justice. We strive to ensure that people of color are not disproportionately harmed by pesticides and other toxic chemicals—from production, use, to disposal—and that all people have access to sustainable and organic food and organically managed communities. Acute and chronic exposure to chemicals like pesticides cause a plethora of harmful effects, including (but not limited to) brain and nervous system disorders, birth abnormalities, cancer, developmental and learning disorders, endocrine disruption, immune disorder, and reproductive dysfunction, among others. However, people of color may experience more servere health effects from exposure, resulting in elevated rates of diseases. Communities of color and those living in low-socioeconomic conditions experience an inequitable number of hazards, including toxic waste plants, garbage dumps, and other sources of environmental pollution and odors that lower the quality of life. Therefore, these populations experience greater exposure to harmful chemicals and suffer from health outcomes that affect their ability to work and learn. When discussing health disparities and environmental justice, we need to focus on those most impacted by toxic chemical use. [See This Juneteenth, We Celebrate Those Who Made this Country]

—A report from the Organic Center finds that people in U.S. BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities endure a significant disproportionate risk of exposure to pesticides and subsequent harms. The report also contains a lesson plan that informs young activists on how to improve the food system. Many communities of color and low-socioeconomic backgrounds experience an unequal number of hazards, including nearby toxic waste plants, garbage dumps, and other sources of environmental pollution and odors that lower the quality of life. Therefore, these populations experience greater exposure to harmful chemicals and suffer from health outcomes that affect their ability to learn and work. Doctoral candidate at Northwestern University and author of the report and lesson plan, Jayson Maurice Porter, notes, “Urban planning and city policy considers certain people in certain communities more or less disposable and puts them in harm’s way, giving them an uneven burden of experiencing and dealing with things like pollutants.” [See Highlighting the Connection Environmental Racism and the Agricultural Industry Through History]

—Flood cleanup in Houston after Hurricane Harvey increased resident exposure to a range of pesticides and other industrial chemical compounds, according to a study published recently in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health by scientists at Oregon State University (OSU). The findings are particularly concerning for a community already subject to some of the highest rates of environmental contamination in the country. “Houston is one of our most industrialized cities,” said study co-author Kim Anderson, PhD, of OSU. “When we look a year after the storm, we see that several neighborhoods that are closer to industrial zones — socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods — had higher concentrations of chemicals right from the get-go, and that was only exacerbated when the hurricane came in.”  [See Post-Hurricane Flood Cleanup in Houston Exposed Residents to Range of Pesticides and Industrial Chemicals]

—A report issued on September 7 analyzes the U.S. regulatory structure that is supposed to protect agricultural workers from the harms of pesticide use. Its conclusion? The current, “complex system of enforcement . . . lacks the capacity to effectively protect farmworkers. . . . [and] the cooperative agreement[s] between federal and state agencies makes it nearly impossible to ensure implementation of the federal Worker Protection Standard.” The report, Exposed and At Risk: Opportunities to Strengthen Enforcement of Pesticide Regulations for Farmworker Safety, was developed by the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School, in partnership with the nonprofit advocacy group, Farmworker Justice. Beyond Pesticides’ coverage of farmworker exposure to pesticides and resultant harms began in the late 1970s; it continues today, most recently with attention to incidence of kidney damage, systemic racism in the farmworker policies of EPA (the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), and extra risks endured by farmworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic. [See Farmworkers Still Inadequately Protected from Pesticides, Report Finds]

—Revelations of toxic risks to pregnant people seem to emerge with alarming frequency. In late August a peer-reviewed study published in Chemosphere finds that the compound melamine, its primary byproduct (cyanuric acid), and four aromatic amines were detected in the urine of nearly all pregnant research participants. These chemicals are associated with increased risks of cancer, kidney toxicity, and/or developmental harm to the resultant child. Beyond Pesticides has covered a variety of pregnancy risks from pesticides and other toxic chemicals, including these in just the last three years: pesticides and children’s sleep disorders; prenatal exposures to a multitude of chemicals; insecticides and childhood leukemia; insecticides and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. [See Compounds in Pesticides Shown to Harm Fetuses and Children with Disproportionate Risk to People of Color]

—Indigenous farmer, Kaipo Kekona, provided participants of Beyond Pesticides’ 39^th (2022) National Forum, for a Livable World, with a history of traditional farming production in Hawai’i on land once a productive food forest, but appropriated by non-native corporations that established sugarcane plantations. Mr. Kekona manages a 12.5 acre farm site for the Ku’ia Agricultural Education Center in the ahupau’a of Ku’ia on Legacy Lands of Keli’I Kulani (foothills of the West Maui Mountains). Critical to the mission of the site is to not only reclaim space as a native historical food property, but also introduce to the community the practices that encourage a healthier food system and the soil health that forms the foundation of productive land management. Mr. Kepona brings the teachings from indigenous practices thathave proven to be resilient, healthy, and respectful of life. He serves as the educational coordinator and project director at the Center. Watch Mr. Kekona’s talk here.

It will take the greatness of large numbers of people to find a path forward that corrects the institutional racism that is captured in the pattern harm to people of color. The spoken truth of Martin Luther King, Jr., which we featured last year, speaks to the collective action that unites everyone in adopting the path forward. Dr. King said, “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. . .Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

We at Beyond Pesticides are looking forward to working with great people in communities nationwide to tackle what often seems like insurmountable problems, but problems that have real solutions that are within our reach, when we tap into our greatness and work together.

Thank you Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sign up for Beyond Pesticides Action of the Week and Weekly News Update to stay informed on these issues and take action.

(Beyond Pesticides, January 13, 2023) The pastoral image that “farming” may still conjure for many will suffer a shock as Beyond Pesticides reports, in this Daily News Blog, about developments in the agricultural universe, including massive consolidation in the industries that supply seeds and agrochemicals to conventional farmers. A January 2023 report from Philip H. Howard, PhD updates previous work of his (see here and here) on these trends during the past couple of decades, and focuses on the most-recent (2018–2022) developments. The net conclusion is that the four largest agrochemical companies — Bayer (Monsanto), BASF, Corteva, and Sinochem (which recently subsumed ChemChina/Syngenta) — are exerting increasing leverage over an agricultural system that concentrates power and wealth, while threatening health, the environment, and access to food.

The machinations of these industries for profit, power, market penetration, and privatization of aspects of the natural world are hardly new. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) summarizes some aspects of the situation in saying, “Land and seed once belonged to no one and were shared by all, replicating the giving essence of the natural world. Today, these precious resources are tightly controlled and commoditized inputs. The modern U.S. food and agriculture system is designed to maximize a narrow concept of economic efficiency which fails to prioritize the well-being of small family farmers, rural communities, or the land.”

Increasing mechanization, industrialization, consolidation, and privatization of genetic information and of data all contribute to the dynamic and entropic world in which conventional agriculture currently operates. Aspects of the shifting paradigms in agriculture during the past 75 years can be traced to multiple factors, including World War II innovations in materials science, chemical weapons development, and other technologies; the so-called “Green Revolution”; advances in genetic science and biotechnology in the last couple of decades; and most recently, the advent of uses of Big Data and the technologies that enable it.

To begin with one of those: the dawn of genetically modified seed that would resist the assaults of applied herbicides was a game changer for the agrochemical industry and ratcheted up sector consolidation (see below). Glyphosate-resistant seed meant that farmers could plant the seed and use Roundup (glyphosate) liberally because it would not harm the plant — but would knock down weeds.

NSAC writes: “To create and mass produce a seed that would resist Roundup, Monsanto needed a captive supply of germplasm [seed]. ‘One of their main strategies,’ noted [Kiki] Hubbard [of the Organic Seed Alliance], ‘was to buy up smaller [seed] firms to access their varieties and simply insert their GE traits without needing to do any of the breeding work themselves. . . . Monsanto thus began to acquire small and regionally based seed companies, exponentially multiplying their supply of germplasm and restricting the distribution of these varieties which had been carefully bred to possess ideal traits. These foundations enabled Monsanto to become the first company to genetically engineer a plant cell and eventually mass produce a Roundup Ready line of seed.”

The company promoted the heck out of this pairing of proprietary seed plus herbicide, and competitors took note. With Monsanto’s development of its flagship glyphosate herbicide (Roundup), and its acquisition of seed companies that resulted in the 1996 debut of “Roundup Ready” soybean seed, the consolidation that now characterizes most parts of the food supply system was off and running. Now, several huge companies (see below) sell genetically modified (GM) seed for use with their herbicide products.

Not so many years ago, there were six large agrochemical companies that sold pesticides and (in some cases) synthetic fertilizers and seeds to agricultural operations. Beyond Pesticides has covered several of the huge mergers of the past decade-plus that have reduced that number to four, including Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto, the Dow–DuPont merger (which then reconfigured to DuPont and Corteva), and the ChemChina acquisition of Syngenta (with ChemChina subsequently acquired by Sinochem in 2021). ChemChina had already been scooping up many smaller seed companies over the past decade; multiple of Bayer’s seed divisions were also sold off to BASF, another chemical giant, in 2018.

Bayer, DowDupont, Sinochem, and BASF now control more than 60% of global proprietary seed sales. Globally, sales are dominated by Corteva and Bayer. Notably, Bayer is the inheritor of the beleaguered but ubiquitous glyphosate herbicides, most notably Roundup, that are still in extensive use around the world and often paired with GM seeds for important commodity crops, such as corn, soy, cotton, and increasingly, wheat and oat crops.

Dr. Howard — faculty member in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University, and member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (iPES-Food) — points out in his 2016 book, Concentration and Power in the Food System: Who Controls What We Eat, that control of much of the world’s food supply system by so few entities has enormous impacts on human health, biodiversity, the environment broadly, agricultural workers, and rural communities.

In his 2023 report, Recent Changes in the Global Seed Industry and Digital Agriculture Industries, Dr. Howard goes on to note that the impacts on people “tend to disproportionately affect the disadvantaged — such as women, young children, recent immigrants, members of minority ethnic groups, and those of lower socioeconomic status — and as a result, reinforce existing inequalities.”

Indeed, a year ago, a report — written by the Open Markets Institute and submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law by — begins with this: “Food system consolidation is a danger to all Americans.” It goes on to say, “Just a handful of corporations control critical junctures in the U.S. food supply chain, from seeds and fertilizers to processing to grocery shelves. This concentration of capacity and control increases supply chain fragility by putting more production in fewer hands and fewer places. This consolidation is also what gives these corporations the market power necessary to dictate prices paid to producers and push down workers’ wages, even while they charge consumers more.”

Beyond Pesticides would add that this consolidation makes the products agrochemical companies offer, and the harmful practices they engender, even more entrenched in the operations of most conventional farming. These large companies’ size gives them more influence on governmental and commercial decision makers; more leverage in supply chains and their sector marketplace, and thus, more control of what products are available to producers; and deeper pockets with which to fight challenges to their products and business models. This is true in the U.S. and much of the so-called “developed” world, and increasingly, these companies are making inroads into less-Western, less-mechanized, and heretofore less “agrochemically saturated” agricultural areas around the globe. (See more below.)

Behind the retail food outlets (which are themselves being gobbled up by larger and larger “parent” companies) are these behemoth actors in the food system. These entities exist to make money; they do not, unless forced (or sometimes incentivized) to do so, center human or environmental or community health, or equity concerns, in their business models.

The interest of these corporations is now expanding beyond the production and sale of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and seeds, often genetically modified. In the face of the issue of developing organismic resistance to agricultural chemicals’ efficacy, increasing public distaste for the noxious products these companies offer, and more governmental regulation of their products’ use, some have begun investing in firms that specialize in “biologicals” for pest control. Syngenta, Corteva, and Bayer have all entered into this business realm.

Syngenta’s website characterizes this emerging sector as “harnessing nature to protect and promote plant growth effectively and sustainably,” and notes its entry into both biocontrols (i.e., use of natural pest enemies) and biostimulants (i.e., products with substances or microorganisms to improve growth and boost yield). The company describes biologicals as “derived from or inspired by nature,” which is the “tell.” The companies are likely uninterested in selling what organic farmers use — largely, naturally occurring substances — but rather, once again, in creating genetically modified organisms and/or synthetic versions of natural “substances or microorganisms” to deploy in agriculture and into the environment. Syngenta speculates that the biologicals market will double in a few short years, and that the company expects to “secure market leadership” by 2025.

In addition, some companies are exploring and/or expanding into the digital agriculture space (i.e., the application of robotics, software, automation, and sophisticated data analysis to agricultural operations). The 2023 report notes some corporate aspirations: “Executives at agricultural machinery firm John Deere, for example, said they want to ‘build a world of fully autonomous farming by 2030,’ and Dan Rykhus, CEO of precision agriculture company Raven Industries, is certain that autonomous machinery is ‘the future of farming.’” A recently published book by Kelly Bronson, PhD, The Immaculate Conception of Data suggests, according to Dr. Howard, that “the site of power in the food system has moved from seed and chemicals (or seeds paired to be useful only with chemicals) to data.”

Critics note that the agrochemical and agro-biotech industries have used the myth of the “Green Revolution” of the mid-20^th century in their promotion of “the next big things” in agriculture, whether GM seeds paired with herbicides, or synthetic “biologicals,” or über-mechanized and digital farming. Glenn Davis Stone, of Washington University, revises our understanding of the Green Revolution, and comments, “Today the biotechnology industry and its allies zealously promote the legend as a flattering framing for the spread of genetically modified crops. A Monsanto chief even recounted the aging Borlaug [— Norman Borlaug, credited with the short-stalked wheat with very high yield potential when heavily fertilized that was the linchpin of said revolution in India —] tearing up because while he lived through the Green Revolution, he would not live to see the ‘Gene Revolution’ which might save Africa. . . . [T]he push for a ‘Green Revolution for Africa’ today is very real.” (Note, e.g., China’s investment in “industrializing” agriculture in multiple African countries. See also, pushback against United Nations cooperation with industry, in order to protect agroecological activity.)

Taken together, Dr. Howard writes in this 2023 report, the trends cited above “have blurred previously distinct boundaries between seeds, agrochemicals, and biotechnology, and more recently, between other sectors, including biologicals (‘plant protection and strengthening products that are derived from or inspired by nature’) and digital agriculture (the growth of robotics, software, automation, and sophisticated data analysis in agriculture).”

Taken together, these trends reflect an intensifying industrialization of agriculture and a landscape that some economists might readily deem an “oligopoly.” Control over more parts of the food supply system translates to more power to set prices, dictate practices, and more. Dr. Howard adds, “Such high levels of concentration can also threaten political sovereignty, or lead to additional consequences, including negative impacts on communities, labor, human health, animal welfare, and the environment.”

The Open Markets Institute report is not a fan of consolidation; it asserts, “Food companies and some economic analyses argue that decades of consolidation promoted efficiency and brought down food prices. Recent supply chain disruptions reveal the tradeoffs of prioritizing efficiency over resiliency, diversity, and safety nets. . . . Rebuilding a resilient, sustainable, and equitable food supply chain requires rules of fair competition that encourage businesses to focus on socially beneficial innovation and investing in workers and infrastructure rather than exploiting their brute bargaining power to wring cash out of other people’s pockets. It requires strict assurances of safety and dignity on the job as well as a living wage for workers. And it requires changes in corporate governance to hold corporations accountable to invest in capacity and act in the interests of the public rather than the interests of financiers.”

These industrialization and consolidation trends continue to be very concerning. As long ago as 1999, scientist-researchers at the University of Missouri, led by Dr. William Heffernan, wrote this: “New firm names emerge, often the result of new joint ventures, and old names disappear. But underlying these changes is a continuing concentration of ownership and control of the food system. These structural changes are so strong that they often undermine the desired and expected outcomes of much of the agricultural policy developed over the past couple of decades. These structural changes, often referred to as ‘the industrialization of agriculture,’ have progressed to the point that some agricultural economists now refer to the agricultural stage of the food system as ‘food manufacturing’. . . . One often hears the statement that agriculture is changing and we must adapt to the changes. Few persons who repeat the statement really understand the magnitude of the changes and the implications of them for agriculture and for the long-term sustainability of the food system. It is almost heresy to ask if these changes are what the people of our country really want or, if they are not what is desired, how we might redirect the change. The changes are the result of notoriously short sighted market forces and not the result of public dialogue, the foundation of a democracy.”

In the face of these trends, and the power of the corporations that shape how agriculture is deployed, both in the U.S. and globally, the importance of protecting and promoting alternative approaches is greater than ever. Beyond Pesticides works for the advancement of organic regenerative agricultural strategies that genuinely work with natural systems, do not use synthetic petrochemical inputs (fertilizers and pesticides), and have at their heart the health and welfare of people, communities, soil, environment, biodiversity, and more. It is critical that small- and medium-scale organic agriculture holds true to its origins and principles, and serves as an increasingly robust and viable alternative and counterpoint to the agrochemical and agro-biotech industries, which do not serve or protect consumers, farmers, the environment, or planetary sustainability.

A recent Substack post by Charles Eisenstein offers relevant inspiration. “The core of the old story is hollowing out. . . . The void beneath the power, the wealth, the control, the comfort grows intolerable. . . . Cracks spread through the superstructure. Truths long denied seep out through the cracks. Contradictions erupt through the broken crust. People stop believing the stories that held the world in place. . . . [A]ll of us were born with a biologically encoded Great Expectation which the modern world falls far short of. Yet that expectation never truly dies. It can go dormant for years, for decades, but its ember stays alive at the center of the cold ash of innumerable disappointments. Today many of us are gently brushing away the ash and blowing on the coal within. It bursts back into flame. It is the flame of hope — not the false hope of wishful thinking and ignorance of reality, but the true hope that is a premonition of an authentic possibility, a possibility we have agency in creating. . . . [T]here are two basic kinds of work we may to do. . . . The first is to dismantle the structures, habits, beliefs, and powers of the old story. . . .The second is to grow the structures of the new story” — which can build, as he writes, “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.”

Help us build that world in agriculture and the food system, and amplify the message, by protecting and growing organic — join us, organize and advocate, and buy organic!

Source: https://philhoward.net/2023/01/04/seed-digital/

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

(Beyond Pesticides, January 12, 2023) Exposure to certain pesticides among individuals diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) can increase the risk of symptom progression. According to a study published in Science of the Total Environment, nearly 20 percent of pesticides associated with the onset of PD also increase the risk of faster decline in motor and non-motor function. Several studies find exposure to chemical toxicants, like pesticides, has neurotoxic effects or exacerbates preexisting chemical damage to the nervous system. Past studies suggest neurological damage from oxidative stress, cell dysfunction, and synapse impairment, among others, can increase the incidence of PD following pesticide exposure. Despite the association between PD onset via pesticide exposure patterns, few epidemiologic studies examine the influence pesticides have on worsening motor and non-motor symptoms in PD.

Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, with at least one million Americans living with PD and about 50,000 new diagnoses annually. The disease affects 50 percent more men than women, and individuals with PD have a variety of symptoms, including loss of muscle control and trembling, anxiety and depression, constipation and urinary difficulties, dementia, and sleep disturbances. Over time, symptoms intensify, but there is no current cure for this fatal disease. While only 10 to 15 percent of PD cases are genetic, PD is quickly becoming the world’s fastest-growing brain disease. Therefore, research like this highlights the need to examine how chemical exposure accelerates disease progression, especially among severe, incurable, and fatal illnesses. The study notes, “Pesticides are not applied in isolation, and people are not singly exposed to one agent over a lifetime. Both scientists and regulators need to consider co- and sequential application hazards and human exposures.”

Using a geographic information system (GIS) tool to gather information on ambient exposure to pesticides in residences and workplaces via California Pesticide Use Report records and land use records. The researchers examine the association between 53 pesticides with links to PD onset to determine PD symptom progression for five years and 2.7 years (respectively) for two patients. Measurements of PD symptom progression include movement disorder specialist-administered Unified Parkinson’s disease Rating Scale part III (UPDRS), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). Of the pesticides with links to PD onset, ten or ~18.8 percent (i.e., copper sulfate [pentahydrate], 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid [MCPA] dimethylamine salt, tribufos, sodium cacodylate, methamidophos, ethephon, propargite, bromoxynil octanoate, monosodium methanearsonate [MSMA], and dicamba) have associations with faster symptom progression. The study identifies a progressive decline among three endpoints: motor skills, cognitive function, and mental health regarding depression. Markedly, individuals living near residential areas or working in occupations with higher exposure to copper sulfate and MCPA experience a rapid decline in all endpoints.

Parkinson’s disease occurs when there is damage to dopaminergic nerve cells (i.e., those activated by or sensitive to dopamine) in the brain responsible for dopamine production, one of the primary neurotransmitters mediating motor function. Although the cause of dopaminergic cell damage remains unknown, evidence suggests that pesticide exposure, especially chronic exposure, may be the culprit. Occupational exposure poses a unique risk, as pesticide exposure is direct via handling and application. A 2017 study finds that occupational use of pesticides (i.e., fungicides, herbicides, or insecticides) increases PD risk by 110 to 211 percent. Even more concerning, some personal protection equipment (PPE) may not adequately protect workers from chemical exposure during application. However, indirect nonoccupational (residential) exposure to pesticides, such as proximity to pesticide-treated areas, can also increase the risk of PD. A Louisiana State University study finds that residents living adjacent to pesticide-treated pasture and forest from the agriculture and timber industry have higher rates of PD incidence. Furthermore, pesticide residues in waterways and on produce present an alternate route for residential pesticide exposure to increase the risk for PD via ingestion. Pesticide contamination in waterways is historically commonplace and widespread in U.S. rivers and streams, with over 90 percent of water samples containing at least five or more pesticides. Pesticide exposure can cause severe health problems even at low residue levels, including endocrine disruption, cancers, reproductive dysfunction, respiratory problems (e.g., asthma, bronchitis), and neurological impacts (e.g., developmental effects and Parkinson’s), among others. Nevertheless, direct occupational and indirect nonoccupational exposure to pesticides can increase the risk of PD. 

This study is one of the few, possibly the first, to identify that pesticides can contribute to the progression of Parkinson’s disease. The study identifies 53 pesticides associated with PD onset, with ten directly accelerating declines in motor and non-motor function and mental health from amplified disease progression. However, pesticides’ worsening disease risk following exposure is not an unfamiliar phenomenon for either physical or psychiatric health. For instance, pesticide exposure can cause injury to cells responsible for safeguarding against viral infections, inducing more severe disease progression. Since the start of the pandemic, studies evaluating disease outcomes acknowledge excessive and improper use of pesticides, like disinfectants, as a culprit of immunocompromising the respiratory system of COVID-19 patients. COVID-19 is a systemic (general) disease that overwhelmingly impacts the respiratory system of many patients. The respiratory system is essential to human survival, regulating gas exchange (oxygen-carbon dioxide) in the body to balance acid and base tissue cells for normal function. Damage to the respiratory system can cause many issues—from asthma and bronchitis to oxidative stress that triggers the development of extra-respiratory, systemic manifestations like rheumatoid arthritis and cardiovascular disease. However, just as the respiratory system is far from the only bodily system affected by the virus, pesticides’ adverse effects can span multiple bodily systems, even co-concurrently. Furthermore, underlying medical conditions (i.e., heart/kidney disease, diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, obesity, etc.) heighten risks associated with severe illness from disease. Additionally, this study is not the first to identify an association between multiple disease risks and proximity to areas with regular pesticide applications. Studies can match disease risk to zip code, with individuals in low-income, indigenous, and people of color communities at the greatest risk of developing pesticide and other environmentally induced diseases.

Over 300 environmental contaminants and their byproducts, including pesticides, are chemicals commonly present in human blood and urine samples and can increase neurotoxicity risk. For instance, 90 percent of Americans have at least one pesticide compound in their body, primarily from dietary exposure, like food and drinking water. These compounds have a global distribution, with evaporation and precipitation facilitating long-range atmospheric transport, deposition, and bioaccumulation of hazardous chemicals in the environment. Thus, exposure to these toxicants can cause several adverse environmental and biological health effects. With the increasing ubiquity of pesticides, current measures safeguarding against pesticide use must adequately detect and assess total chemical contaminants. 

The study concludes, “Identifying modifiable risk factors for disease progression may help identify new targets for research, perhaps leading to mechanistic insights important for medication development, and importantly help revise public health policy, aiming to reduce exposure to disease-modifying agents. Our study has implicated individual pesticides in Parkinson’s disease progression in several domains. For some, previous epidemiologic or experimental data are supportive of our findings. Further investigation should target both these individual pesticides and the cumulative risk of their mixtures to tease out potential synergistic effects.”

The scientific literature demonstrates pesticides’ long history of severe adverse effects on human health (i.e., endocrine disruption, cancer, reproductive/birth problems, neurotoxicity, loss of biodiversity, etc.) and wildlife and biodiversity. In addition to this research, several studies demonstrate autism, mood disorders (e.g., depression), and degenerative neurological conditions (e.g., ALS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s) among aquatic and terrestrial animals, including humans, exposed to pesticides. However, there are several limitations in defining real-world poisoning as captured by epidemiologic studies in Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database. The adverse health effects of pesticides, exposure, and the aggregate risk of pesticides showcase a need for more extensive research on occupational and nonoccupational pesticide exposure, especially in agriculture. For more information on the effects of pesticide exposure on neurological health, see PIDD pages on Parkinson’s disease, dementia-like diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, and other impacts on cognitive function. 

Parkinson’s disease has no cure, but preventive practices like organics can eliminate exposure to toxic PD-inducing pesticides. Organic agriculture represents a safer, healthier approach to crop production that does not necessitate toxic pesticide use. Beyond Pesticides encourages farmers to embrace regenerative, organic practices and consumers to purchase organically grown food. A complement to buying organic is contacting various organic farming organizations to learn more about what you can do. Those affected by pesticide drift can refer to Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on What to Do in a Pesticide Emergency and contact the organization for additional information. Furthermore, see Beyond Pesticides’ Parkinson’s Disease article from the Spring 2008 issue of Pesticides and You.

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

Source: Parkinson’s News Today, Science of the Total Environment

(Beyond Pesticides, January 11, 2022) Neonicotinoid insecticides can have detrimental effects on liver health, according to research published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. While this is the first study to investigate how these chemicals harm the liver, there is increasing evidence that neonicotinoids, otherwise notorious for their effects on pollinators and aquatic life, can cause direct harm to human health. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to protect the pesticide industry from any measure of meaningful regulation around these hazardous products, the job falls to advocates to place pressure on elected officials to make the changes necessary to safeguard long-term health and well-being.

Scientists postulated that neonicotinoids are neither metabolized by the liver nor excreted by urine. To test that hypothesis, 201 individuals from a hospital in China were enrolled into a study. Of the enrolled,  81 were cancer patients, and 120 were not. These individuals underwent a procedure called endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography whereby samples of their bile, a fluid produced in the liver, were retrieved and analyzed. Researchers also performed a series of blood tests, measuring a range of biomarkers, including cholesterol, bilirubin, bile acids, white blood cells, platelets, and others. Lastly, scientists determined the amount of eight neonicotinoids in bile samples, including acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran, imidacloprid, imidaclothiz, nitenpyram, thiacloprid, and thiamethoxam.   

Researchers found their hypothesis to be correct. Of all samples taken, at least one neonicotinoid was detected in 99% of individuals tested. However, different neonicotinoids were found to act in different ways. While the detection of acetamiprid was low (1% of samples), 97% contained nitenpyram. The widely used insecticide dinotefuran was detected in 86% of bile. Detections did not appear to differ between participants of different health backgrounds.

The results led scientists to believe that neonicotinoids found in bile will eventually be absorbed again by the intestines, make their way into blood, and eventually one’s liver. Biomarkers tested, such as cholesterol, bilirubin, and bile acids, were found to correlate with higher concentrations of certain neonicotinoids. Of the various neonicotinoids, dinotefuran, thiamethoxam, and clothianidin were found to pose the greatest risk to liver health.

In this context, it may be interesting for readers to see how far EPA got in making a determination on liver health and neonicotinoids. Using dinotefuran as an example, here is a link to the Human Health Draft Risk Assessment the agency produced in 2017. As part of tests on the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination studies on dinotefuran, EPA requires one single “special study” on neonatal rat metabolism to determine how the chemical absorbs once in the body. The results (EPA does not provide methodology, only results in its review documents) indicate that in 12 day old rats, “absorption was high (absorption could not be adequately determined but may have approached 80%) and the radiolabel was widely distributed within the body.” Furthermore, the results indicate that, “The test material was essentially not metabolized, the parent compound accounting for >97% of the radiolabel in the excreta, plasma, kidneys, and stomach, and nearly 61-83% in intestines (and contents), and liver.”

Thus, EPA has enough evidence to show that dinotefuran barely metabolizes at all in one’s body. Yet this result did not tip EPA off in any way. No further testing was conducted to understand or characterize the hepatotoxic (injurious to liver) nature of the insecticide, and it does not appear as though the results influenced any changes in the agency’s determination around use patterns. In other words, EPA has enough data to investigate this issue and make even minor protective changes. Instead, after decades of this chemical being on the market, it has taken an independent, peer reviewed study to extrapolate and further investigate the critical details of how a near complete lack of dinotefuran adsorption in the body affects the liver.

Most disturbingly, this is not the only neonicotinoid health impact that the agency has failed to address. EPA is now being sued for long-term failure to screen and regulate pesticides that have the potential to disrupt the endocrine (hormone) system. In the context of neonicotinoids, there is growing evidence that exposure to these chemicals can result in hormone-dependent breast cancer. A 2019 study found that imidacloprid and thiacloprid can increase expression of a gene linked to breast cancer, and a 2022 study also found associations between neonicotinoid exposure and breast cancer.

In addition to the direct effects of cancer and liver toxicity, the latest evidence also shows these chemicals are indirectly killing hundreds of thousands of people around the world each year as a result of their detrimental impact to pollinator populations relied on for healthy, nutrient-dense food.  

Join us in urging the Biden Administration, EPA and Congress to adopt a new direction for pesticide regulation, and Congress to once and for all pass the Saving America’s Pollinator Act.  

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

Source: News-medical.net, Journal of Hazardous Materials