(Beyond Pesticides, September 6, 2022) Beyond Pesticides is holding its National Forum series, Health, Biodiversity, and Climate: A Path for a Livable Future, beginning on September 15. The National Pesticide Forum has undergone tremendous change in the format, giving participants easier access to timely, bite-sized, and provocative learning experiences and empowering action to fuel change. This year, it focuses on meeting the health, biodiversity, and climate crises with a path for a livable future. We examine both the existential problems associated with current public health and environmental crises and chart a course for a future that solves these urgent problems—public health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency. The first seminar launches September 15, the second on October 12, and a third will be announced for November. Register for free!

The Forum will address both the science that defines the problems associated with the threats and the solutions, some of which are contained in legislation such as the Zero Food Waste Act and the Compost Act. Two ways of helping to reduce agricultural carbon emissions and reduce hunger are addressed in these two bills—by maximizing the amount of food that is eaten and ensuring that food waste is composted to build soil health instead of generating methane in a landfill.

Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D-CA), Congresswoman Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH), and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced two bills, the Zero Food Waste Act (H.R. 4444) and the Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion Of Sustainable Techniques (COMPOST) Act (H.R. 4443), to reduce the amount of food wasted in the U.S. and to redirect food waste to composting projects. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced companion legislation, Zero Food Waste Act (S.2389) and Compost Act (S.2388), in the U.S. Senate. 

Ask your U.S. Representative and Senators to sponsor the Zerio Food Waste and Compost Acts legislation and, if you are represented by a sponsor of the legislation, thank them for their leadership.

Seminar 1 > HEALTH > September 15, 1-2:30 pmThe Problem: We start the Forum Series with a medical doctor who has both treated and studied the effects of toxic chemical exposure, with a focus on pesticides, throughout our daily lives. Claudia Miller, M.D. provides us with a framework for understanding the dire health implications of the current dependency on pesticides and toxic chemicals and the failure of the regulatory system to fully evaluate and control for the range of adverse effects and complexity of their interactions. Dr. Miller is the author of the acclaimed book, Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes, and her recent research focuses on the relationship between synthetic chemical exposures and disruption of the gastrointestinal microbiome.   
 
The Solution: The solution is found in a transition to management practices that are no longer dependent on toxic inputs and respect the value of nature and works in partnership with the diversity that it offers. This discussion will be led by indigenous farmer Kaipo Kekona who is working in Hawai’i to regenerate and sustain traditional farming production on former sugarcane land. Mr. Kekona and his family run the 12.5-acre Ku’ia Agriculture Education Center in the ahupua’a of Ku’ia on Legacy Lands of Keli’i Kulani in the foothills of the West Maui Mountains. He started in conventional, chemical-intensive farming as a laborer, and now practices 100% natural farming. In June, Mr. Kekona was featured in The Guardian piece, “The farmers restoring Hawaii’s ancient food forests that once fed an island.” See the full program.

Seminar 2 > BIODIVERSITY > October 12, 1:00-2:30 pm JUST ADDED!

The Problem: Life depends on biodiversity. According to the Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), “Harmful economic incentives and policies associated with unsustainable practices of fisheries, aquaculture, agriculture (including fertilizer and pesticide use), livestock, forestry, mining and energy (including fossil fuels and biofuels) are often associated with land/sea-use change and overexploitation of natural resources, as well as inefficient production and waste management.” In this compelling session, you’ll hear from Lucas Alejandro Garibaldi, PhD, professor and director, Institute for Research in Natural Resources, Agroecology and Rural Development, Universidad Nacional de Rio Negro, Argentina, and member of the Secretariat for IPBES and a contributor to its landmark IPBES report.

The Solution: The IPBES report endorses the transition away from pesticide-laden agricultural practices and toward sustainable agriculture to meet the challenges of protecting and enhancing biodiversity. Organic land management systems that eliminate fossil fuel-based toxic pesticides and fertilizers makes a substantial contribution in addressing the dire threat to biodiversity. You’ll hear directly from Bob Quinn, PhD, an organic farmer and miller with Montana Flour and Grains in Big Sandy, Montana, who will share his personal insights on the value of organic food production and land management. Dr. Quinn is coauthor of Grain by Grain: A Quest to Revive Ancient Wheat, Rural Jobs and Healthy Food. Learn more.

Ask your U.S. Representative and Senators to sponsor the Zerio Food Waste and Compost Acts legislation and, if you are represented by a sponsor of the legislation, thank them for their leadership

Letter to U.S. Representatives not current cosponsors:

I am writing to ask you to cosponsor H.R. 4443, the Zero Food Waste Act, and H.R. 4444, the Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion of Sustainable Techniques (COMPOST) Act.

As Representative Chellie Pingree states, “Food waste has a massive environmental footprint and squanders perfectly good food as millions are going hungry.” Nearly half of all food produced in this country is lost or wasted, so an estimated $408 billion is spent on growing, processing, transporting, storing, and disposing of food that is never consumed. Landfills are now the third-largest source of methane in the U.S., and food is the single largest input by weight in our landfills and incinerators.

The Zero Food Waste Act would create a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administered grant program for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments and for nonprofits, which would offer three types of grants: planning grants, measurement grants, and reduction grants. Planning grants could be used to investigate the kinds of food waste mitigation projects or policies would be most impactful within a given community. Measurement grants could be used to better understand the amount of food waste generated in the state or community.

Reduction grants could be used to fund an assortment of different types of projects—such as food waste prevention projects to stop the generation of food waste, recycling projects to reuse food waste as a feedstock for other uses like composting, rescuing projects that redirect surplus food to places like food shelters, and upcycling projects that make new food from ingredients that would otherwise go to landfills. Additionally, localities could use the grant funding to implement food waste landfill disposal or incineration restrictions designed to stop food waste.

Composting is one of the most environmentally friendly means of disposing of food waste and other organic waste. Not only does composting emit a smaller quantity of greenhouse gases compared to alternative disposal methods, it also yields a valuable soil additive that enhances soil health, which in turn makes the soil a better absorber of carbon, while also making the land more resilient to climate change-fueled disasters like wildfires and floods. While there is growing interest by individuals and businesses across the country to compost food scraps and compostable packaging, there is not enough composting infrastructure in the U.S. to meet this demand.

The Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion of Sustainable Techniques (COMPOST) Act would add composting as a conservation practice for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs. Both the act of producing compost from organic waste and using compost on a farm would qualify as a conservation practice. It also would create new USDA grant and loan guarantee programs for composting infrastructure projects, including both large-scale composting facilities as well as farm, home, or community-based projects.

Please cosponsor these bills, H.R. 4443 and H.R. 4444.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Representative currently cosponsoring:

Thank you for cosponsoring H.R. 4443, the Zero Food Waste Act, and H.R. 4444, the Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion of Sustainable Techniques (COMPOST) Act.

As Representative Chellie Pingree states, “Food waste has a massive environmental footprint and squanders perfectly good food as millions are going hungry.” Nearly half of all food produced in this country is lost or wasted, so an estimated $408 billion is spent on growing, processing, transporting, storing, and disposing of food that is never consumed. Landfills are now the third-largest source of methane in the U.S., and food is the single largest input by weight in our landfills and incinerators.

Composting is one of the most environmentally friendly means of disposing of food waste and other organic waste. Not only does composting emit a smaller quantity of greenhouse gases compared to alternative disposal methods, it also yields a valuable soil additive that enhances soil health, which in turn makes the soil a better absorber of carbon, while also making the land more resilient to climate change-fueled disasters like wildfires and floods.

These two bills offer substantial remedies to these pressing problems.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Senators not current cosponsors:

I am writing to ask you to cosponsor S. 2389, the Zero Food Waste Act, and S. 2388, the Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion of Sustainable Techniques (COMPOST) Act.

As Representative Chellie Pingree states, “Food waste has a massive environmental footprint and squanders perfectly good food as millions are going hungry.” Nearly half of all food produced in this country is lost or wasted, so an estimated $408 billion is spent on growing, processing, transporting, storing, and disposing of food that is never consumed. Landfills are now the third-largest source of methane in the U.S., and food is the single largest input by weight in our landfills and incinerators.

The Zero Food Waste Act would create a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administered grant program for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments and for nonprofits, which would offer three types of grants: planning grants, measurement grants, and reduction grants. Planning grants could be used to investigate the kinds of food waste mitigation projects or policies would be most impactful within a given community. Measurement grants could be used to better understand the amount of food waste generated in the state or community.

Reduction grants could be used to fund an assortment of different types of projects—such as food waste prevention projects to stop the generation of food waste, recycling projects to reuse food waste as a feedstock for other uses like composting, rescuing projects that redirect surplus food to places like food shelters, and upcycling projects that make new food from ingredients that would otherwise go to landfills. Additionally, localities could use the grant funding to implement food waste landfill disposal or incineration restrictions designed to stop food waste.

Composting is one of the most environmentally friendly means of disposing of food waste and other organic waste. Not only does composting emit a smaller quantity of greenhouse gases compared to alternative disposal methods, it also yields a valuable soil additive that enhances soil health, which in turn makes the soil a better absorber of carbon, while also making the land more resilient to climate change-fueled disasters like wildfires and floods. While there is growing interest by individuals and businesses across the country to compost food scraps and compostable packaging, there is not enough composting infrastructure in the U.S. to meet this demand.

The Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion of Sustainable Techniques (COMPOST) Act would add composting as a conservation practice for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation programs. Both the act of producing compost from organic waste and using compost on a farm would qualify as a conservation practice. It also would create new USDA grant and loan guarantee programs for composting infrastructure projects, including both large-scale composting facilities as well as farm, home, or community-based projects.

Please cosponsor these bills, S. 2389 and S. 2388.

Thank you.

Thank you’s to cosponsors in Senate:

Thank you for cosponsoring S. 2389, the Zero Food Waste Act, and S. 2388, the Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion of Sustainable Techniques (COMPOST) Act.

As Representative Chellie Pingree states, “Food waste has a massive environmental footprint and squanders perfectly good food as millions are going hungry.” Nearly half of all food produced in this country is lost or wasted, so an estimated $408 billion is spent on growing, processing, transporting, storing, and disposing of food that is never consumed. Landfills are now the third-largest source of methane in the U.S., and food is the single largest input by weight in our landfills and incinerators.

Composting is one of the most environmentally friendly means of disposing of food waste and other organic waste. Not only does composting emit a smaller quantity of greenhouse gases compared to alternative disposal methods, it also yields a valuable soil additive that enhances soil health, which in turn makes the soil a better absorber of carbon, while also making the land more resilient to climate change-fueled disasters like wildfires and floods.

These two bills offer substantial remedies to these pressing problems.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, September 2, 2022) 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.

Those of a certain age may hear “Melamine” and think of the nearly indestructible plastic dinnerware from the mid-20^th century, but “melamine” is an organic chemical compound that, when combined with formaldehyde, forms a durable plastic. Others may remember the 2007–2008 incident in China of contamination of infant formula with melamine, which resulted in six deaths, and kidney and urinary tract harms (ranging from development of kidney stones to acute renal failure) in some 300,000 babies. [A small sidebar explainer: melamine was actually intentionally added to the formula under the notion that it would boost the protein content. And because melamine is a high-nitrogen compound, and the chief test for protein levels at the time assayed nitrogen content, the (false) assumption of more protein, as well as the fact that it is a cheap chemical, drove that tragic and toxic decision.]

After the infant formula incident and others involving melamine-contaminated pet food, the compound was recognized as a kidney toxicant. Yet melamine is found in many commercial products, including synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, dishware, plastics, flooring, cookware, kitchen counters, and others. Cyanuric acid is used as a swimming pool cleaning solvent, disinfectant, and plastic stabilizer; aromatic amines are found in hair coloring, mascara, tattoo ink, paint, tobacco smoke, and diesel exhaust. 

Many of these compounds are also used in industrial applications, such as in rubbers, adhesives, oil refining, synthetic polymers, dyes, perfumes, pharmaceuticals, and explosives. Exposures to melamine, cyanuric acid, and aromatic amines can happen via any of multiple vectors that can be contaminated with these compounds; people encounter them by consuming food, breathing air, ingesting household dust, drinking water, or using products that contain plastics or pigments.

The research team, hailing largely from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, measured 45 chemicals associated with cancer and other risks, using methods that can capture chemicals, or even traces of them, in urine samples. The sampling period extended from 2008 to 2020, though the bulk of collection happened from 2017 to 2020. Samples were collected across all three trimesters of pregnancy. The subjects comprised a group of 171 women — from New York, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, California, Illinois, and Georgia — who are part of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program.

These participants were, on average, 29.5 years old, and represente a relatively diverse sample of the population: 20% were Black, 34% were White, 40% were Latina, 4% were Asian, and 3% were from other or multiple demographic groups. The study authors note that this is “the largest U.S. study to date of melamine, melamine derivatives, and aromatic amines in a geographically and demographically diverse population of pregnant women,” and that previous research on melamine has focused on pregnant women in Asian countries, or been limited to non-pregnant people in the U.S.

More than 60% of the samples show the presence of 12 of the 45 chemicals for which the study looked; five were detected in nearly every sample. Melamine, cyanuric acid, and nine aromatic amines show up in more than half of the study participants. Most chemicals found are associated with higher exposures among Black and Hispanic participants, as compared with non-Hispanic whites. The highest levels of melamine and cyanuric acid are found in women of color and those with greater exposure to tobacco. In another example, the levels of 3,4-dichloroaniline (used in the production of dyes and pesticides) are more than 100% higher among Black and Hispanic women than in white women. 

Not only are these inequities in exposures and body burdens of concern for the women, but also, the presence of these compounds in their bodies during pregnancy raises further alarm for the babies that come of those pregnancies. Because the mothers have been exposed prenatally, there may be a real risk of subsequent developmental impacts, both because there is the potential for maternal–fetal transfer of toxic chemicals via the placenta and/or breastmilk, and because children may have particular “windows” of developmental vulnerability to any one (or more) of these chemicals. Some animal studies have pointed, for example, to fetal growth restriction, incomplete bone development, and spatial cognitive impairments following exposures to melamine (or its analogs, ammeline, ammelide, and cyanuric acid). Further peril lies in the possibility, as the study authors say, that there could be “synergistic effects . . . when exposed to both melamine and melamine analogs.”

Study co-senior author Jessie Buckley, PhD, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, commented: “It’s disconcerting that we continue to find higher levels of many of these harmful chemicals in people of color.” Johns Hopkins postdoctoral fellow and study coauthor Giehae Choi said, “Our findings raise concerns for the health of pregnant women and fetuses, since some of these chemicals are known carcinogens and potential developmental toxicants. Regulatory action is clearly needed to limit exposure.” And study co-senior author and professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive medicine (and director of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment) Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, added, “These chemicals are of serious concern due to their links to cancer and developmental toxicity, yet they are not routinely monitored in the United States.”

The research paper explains, “Our data indicate important differences in exposures by race and ethnicity; evaluating potential sources of exposure that may contribute to these inequities is needed. Our larger follow up study will allow us to better characterize exposures across the U.S. during a critical period of development and further assess influential predictors and demographic differences that we characterized in this initial study. Finally, our study demonstrates the importance of continuous identification of environmental factors that can play an important role in maternal and child health.” It concludes that there is critical and broad need for expanded biomonitoring that can identify sources of exposure disparities by race and/or ethnicity, and evaluate potentially harmful health effects.

Beyond Pesticides spends a good deal of its human capacity sharing information on the very broad and harmful impacts of the use of synthetic pesticides (and other toxic chemical compounds). The research on these compounds is widely appreciated, and yet, Beyond Pesticides has asserted: the state of pesticide regulation, and of research into pesticide impacts, is inadequate and like nothing so much as a game of “whack-a-mole.” A single pesticide or class of pesticides is studied, a paper is written, and policy makers and regulators may or may not pay attention. Then another one happens, and another, and another, ad infinitum.

The pattern of “progress” is similar on the regulation side: individual pesticides registered (aka, approved) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are reviewed “on the regular” — but only every 15 years, barring an emergent and urgent concern. Given the cascade of discovery of harmful impacts over the past couple of decades, 15 years has become a very long window in which to allow continued use for lack of review.

When there is an urgent concern, EPA may undertake more timely review, but again, one compound at a time. Even more fundamentally, its approach to regulation, in the face of evidence of harm, is often characterized by tweaking the use of toxic pesticides “at the margins” — requiring a change to the text on a pesticide label, reducing the time frame in which a compound can be used, restricting application to trained applicators, or other piecemeal actions that are generally wholly inadequate to reducing the health and environmental harms of these compounds being unleashed into the environment.

EPA also continues to fall short on multiple research and regulatory fronts: looking carefully at synergistic impacts, multiple exposure vectors, and endocrine disruption effects, among others. In addition, the agency is far too dependent on industry-generated research, influenced by agrochemical industry lobbying, and sometimes, in downright cahoots with industry.

What Beyond Pesticides wrote in 2020 holds: “It is unconscionable to continue tweaking restrictions on pesticides with known hazards and broad uncertainties about the effect of mixtures, synergistic effects, and cumulative risk . . . given the availability of organic systems . . . [to] eliminate those hazards economically and solve the looming environmental threats.”

Likewise still relevant is a 2019 Daily News Blog article, in which Beyond Pesticides wrote, “Since Rachel Carson stunned the world and ignited the modern environmental movement with [her groundbreaking book,] Silent Spring [60 years ago this year], pesticide regulation has been stuck in a whack-a-mole approach that targets only the most publicly visible, toxic, and researched chemicals for restrictions. By transitioning to organic, not only in food production, but also in the management of pests in lawns and landscapes, and other pest control practices, we can eliminate the broad range of chemicals linked to diseases that are all too common in today’s world, and truly protect public health, wildlife, and the environment.”

Beyond Pesticides continues work on its mission — to transform the nation’s approach to pest management in all sectors (agricultural, residential/structural, and broad land management) by eliminating the current dependency on pesticides and advancing organic regenerative approaches that do not rely on toxic inputs. The subject research adds to the evidence supporting our call to eliminate use of synthetic, fossil-fuel-based pesticides within the next decade. With sufficient public engagement and advocacy, combined with the work of health, environment, and biodiversity organizations, we can put a stop to toxic pesticide exposures and embrace an organic systems approach that is precautionary and protective of all that we hold dear.

Sources: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653522020926?via%3Dihub and https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/963065

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

(Beyond Pesticides, September 1, 2022) Low level exposure to synthetic pyrethroid insecticides at 6-8 months of age is associated with language development delays in two-year old toddlers, according to research published in Neurotoxicology this month. This is the latest study to link this class of chemicals to developmental delays in young children. Despite a steady drum of concerning research, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2019 removed a crucial “safety factor” intended to protect children’s health from synthetic pyrethroids, allowing higher levels of the insecticides to be sprayed on food, in homes, and playing fields around the country.  

To investigate the impact of synthetic pyrethroids on language development, scientists enrolled 327 expectant mothers in their third trimester. The mothers, all from rural areas of China, were selected if they had no history of significant pesticide exposure or family history of serious disease. Urine samples were taken from the women during pregnancy, and from infants 6-8 months after birth. Scientists analyzed samples for concentrations of three different synthetic pyrethroid breakdown products (metabolites), including 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3PBA), 4-fluoro-3-phenoxybenzoic acid (4F3PBA), and cis-2,2dibromovinyl-2,2-dimethylcyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (DBCA). While 3PBA is a metabolite of many synthetic pyrethroids, 4F3PBA a more specific metabolite of cypermethrin, and DBCA is  a metabolite of deltamethrin. At two years of age, enrolled children were tested for expressive communication, receptive communication, and language composite scores.

Average urinary synthetic pyrethroid concentrations in children aged 6-8 months are found to be higher than those taken from their mothers during pregnancy for metabolites 3PBA and 4F3PBA. The cyfluthrin metabolite 4F3PBA correlates with lower receptive communication scores. Every 1 microgram increase in 4F3PBA exposure during infancy corresponds with a 9% increase chance of not passing the receptive communication test. Yet the strongest association is seen with the deltamethrin metabolite DBCA, which is found to increase risk of language development delay by 4.58 times. This metabolite also increases risk of not passing expressive communication tests by 21%. Young boys in particular experience a statistically significant impact compared to young girls, associated with overall exposure to pyrethroid metabolites. Higher amounts of pesticide metabolites in infant boy’s urine is associated with lower scores for receptive communication and language composite tests.

The study concludes that, “The probability of toddlers’ language development delay may be predicted by PYRs [pyrethroids] metabolites of infants aged 6–8 months.”

This conclusion supports long-known concepts regarding the hazards of pesticides for children’s health. Early life exposures during “critical windows of vulnerability” can in fact predict the likelihood, or otherwise increase the chances of an individual encountering a range of pernicious diseases. In addition to findings related to learning and development, early life exposures have been associated with increased risks of cancer, asthma, birth defects, and other diseases.

These exposures have real, tangible impacts not only on the individuals affected, but society as a whole. Environmental disease in children costs over an estimated $76.8 billion annually. Exposures that harm learning and development also impact future economic growth in the form of lost brain power, racking up a debt to society in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The chemical industry is not paying those costs. In fact, all signs indicate that pesticide companies are working overtime to increase the societal costs of pesticides while privatizing the monetary gains. The work of the Council for the Advancement of Pyrethroid Human Risk Assessment (CAPHRA) highlights this coordination. After EPA identified risks of concerns to children over six months and under six years old from exposure to synthetic pyrethroids, the major manufacturers of the insecticides coordinated under CAPHRA to come up with a new evaluation process for the impact of pyrethroids on children’s health. Unsurprisingly, the model developed by CAPHRA effectively exonerated synthetic pyrethroids from harmful effects, allowing the removal of the childhood safety factor and an explosion in pyrethroid usage. Notwithstanding the risks to children in this age range, EPA did not even entertain the potential for damaging impacts to occur earlier in life. In its reevaluation of the safety factor, the agency wrote, “Furthermore, fetal exposure and exposures to children below six months of age are expected to be negligible because pyrethroid levels in food and drinking water are generally low and there is no or low
potential for contact with treated surfaces.” This claim is, of course, not scientifically justified and easily countered. After looking at hundreds of peer-reviewed studies in the independent scientific literature, EPA incorporated only two into its determination.

Study after study has linked synthetic pyrethroids to developmental harm in children. A 2011 study found that children exposed to higher levels of synthetic pyrethroids are three times as likely to have mental delay compared to less exposed children. A 2014 study associated proximity to pesticide treated agricultural fields in pregnancy to increased risk of autism to children of exposed mothers. Two studies published in 2015 find that deltamethrin increases risk of ADHD in children, with one study finding impacts specifically to boys. Studies published in 2017 found that synthetic pyrethroid exposure increases risk of premature puberty in boys, and another associated the chemicals with externalizing and internalizing disorders. The impacts seen are not all developmental. A 2012 study associates pyrethroid exposure before, during, and after pregnancy with increased risk of infant leukemia. And a recent study published earlier this year finds that synthetic pyrethroid exposure during mosquito control operations increases risk of respiratory disease and certain allergies.

Adults who suffered through developmental problems as children can bare a stigma that lasts throughout their life, if they are able to receive the attention necessary to make gains and correct course. Other harmed by cancer or autism may never have the opportunity to contribute to society.

We must embrace a precautionary approach to pesticide regulation, placing the onus on pesticide manufacturers to prove safety rather than on regulators to prove harm. If peer-reviewed studies indicate the potential for harm to children’s health, the precautionary approach rejects this harm in favor of available alternatives. But EPA, instead of incorporating independent peer-reviewed research by scientists and academics, consistently decides to embrace industry models over independent scientists.

Continuing business as usual by placing trust in EPA’s regulatory system perpetuates a system that not only harms public health, and particularly the most vulnerable among us, for the sake of profit, it jeopardizes all of our futures. Join us today in urging your Senator to cosponsor the Protect America’s Children From Toxic Pesticides Act, which would make significant progress in reining in the influence of the pesticide industry at EPA. Learn how to use science in advocacy in community decision making to eliminate toxic pesticide use by attending the 2022 National Pesticide Forum Series, Health, Biodiversity, and Climate: A Path for a Livable Future, beginning on September 15 at 1:30pm(Eastern Time).  

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

Source:  Neurotoxicology

(Beyond Pesticides, August 31, 2022) No rainwater on Earth is safe for consumption and use as per-, and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) readily contaminate the hydrological ecosystem (properties, distribution, and circulation of water), according to a study published in Environmental Science and Technology. This finding is concerning as it adds to research demonstrating chemical pollutants (e.g., pesticides, pharmaceuticals, PFAS, heavy metals, radioactive material, etc.) exceed the “planetary boundary” contamination and needs addressing. The Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University study, “Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” emphasizes that there are nine “planetary boundaries” related to climate change, biodiversity loss, the nitrogen cycle, the phosphorous cycle, stratospheric ozone depletion, ocean acidification, global freshwater use, changes/intensification of land use, atmospheric aerosol loading, and chemical pollution. When crossing these boundaries, the risk of generating large-scale abrupt or irreversible environmental changes increases. In fact, anthropogenic (human) activities are increasing global contamination levels past safe thresholds.

Studies have already found that current human operations are quantifiable in almost all nine planetary boundaries and exceed the threshold for at least four out of the nine boundaries. Most recently, a 2022 report concludes that humanity exceeds planetary boundaries related to environmental pollutants and other “novel entities,” including plastics and pesticides. Considering chemical pollution continually “runs the risk of crossing Earth’s planetary boundary thresholds, government and health officials should have priority for precautionary action and further research.” Therefore, the study notes, “[B]ecause of the poor reversibility of environmental exposure to PFAS and their associated effects, it is vitally important that PFAS uses and emissions are rapidly restricted.”

Regarding chemical pollution, this study compares environmental four perfluoroalkyl acids [PFAAs] (i.e., perfluorooctanesulfonic acid [PFOS], perfluorooctanoic acid [PFOA], perfluorohexanesulfonic acid [PFHxS], and perfluorononanoic acid [PFNA]) in various agents, including rainwater, soils, and surface waters, to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed guideline levels. The results determine global levels of all four PFAAs exceed the planetary boundary for chemical pollution. Since PFAS are highly persistent in the ecosystem and consistently persistent in the water cycle, atmospheric deposition of these substances (accumulation of the substances in the atmosphere) is inevitable. 

The study highlights three key findings:

1. “Levels of PFOA and PFOS in rainwater often greatly exceed US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Lifetime Drinking Water Health Advisory levels and the sum of the aforementioned four PFAAs (Σ4 PFAS) in rainwater is often above Danish drinking water limit values also based on Σ4 PFAS;
2. Levels of PFOS in rainwater are often above Environmental Quality Standard for Inland European Union Surface Water; and
3. Atmospheric deposition also leads to global soils being ubiquitously contaminated and to be often above proposed Dutch guideline values.”

PFAS are a group of nearly 10,000 human-made chemicals in various consumer products that people use daily. Not only is the public exposed to such chemicals; those who work in factories that create products that include PFAS, or workers who use such products regularly, have higher cumulative exposures. Across multiple states, firefighters have begun to bring lawsuits against manufacturers of the foams, charging that the companies knowingly made and sold products with these forever chemicals that put the workers’ health at risk. Others at greater-than-average exposure risk include pregnant or lactating people and young children. Although some PFAS compound manufacturing has ceased, these chemicals last forever in the environment as their chemical structure makes them resistant to breakdown. Thus, PFAS contamination is significantly underrepresented and much more perverse than previously thought, polluting storage and transportation containers, food and water resources, and other chemical products. For instance, many reports address the high levels of PFAS contamination in the insecticide Anvil 10+10.

Although EPA does not regulate PFAS in pesticide formulas, the agency lists these substances in the inert ingredient database, and thus product labels do not require disclosure of contaminants fundamental for pesticide products through the manufacturing or packaging process. Concerning the ecosystem, the ongoing detection of PFAS in various environments and soils also threatens the ability of growers, including organic growers, to produce food that does not harbor these compounds. PFAS chemical residues are persistent in food and drinking water, with over six million U.S. residents regularly encountering drinking water with PFAS levels above the EPA health advisory of 70 ng/L. Therefore, PFAS are detectable in almost all of the U.S. population—disproportionately afflicting people of color communities—and have implications for human health. 

This study adds to the growing number of reports indicating chemical pollution levels exceed safe limits for humanity. PFAS in rainwater, surface water, and soil exceed the planetary boundary for chemical pollution, contaminating above EPA’s proposed guideline levels. Despite reductions in the global emissions for the four PFAS compounds, the environmental persistence and hydrological cycling of these toxic chemicals make them ever-present. Moreover, PFAS are common in non-stick cookware, cleaning/personal care products, food packaging, pesticide products, human and animal tissues, and even remote environments like the Arctic, Antarctica, and Eastern European Tibetan Plateau. The study highlights PFAS accumulation in remote regions as a significant concern, implicating the chemicals’ presence in resources (e.g., food, water, etc.) and passive transfer to body blood/tissue. Moreover, permafrost and glacial melting as a result of global warming will only add to water source contamination as volatile chemicals can enter waterways at the same concentration levels as before ice entrapment, even after several decades. Environmental studies professor at Stockholm University, Ian Cousins, Ph.D., states, “I was surprised that even in the remotest areas on Earth, that the levels in rainwater, for example in Antarctica and on the Tibetan plateau, are above the recently set U.S. EPA health advisories for drinking water,”

PFAS compounds are not the only compounds that exhibit extreme persistence and accumulation in the ecosystem. Some regionally banned legacy pesticides like DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and its breakdown metabolite DDE (dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene) remain at concerning levels in the environment, despite a ban in 1972. Like PFAS, DDT/DDE compounds show up in produce grown in soil treated or contaminated with the chemical — even decades ago.

Contamination of the global water supply with combinations of harmful chemicals is glaringly problematic for public health and the environment. According to Beyond Pesticides, which covers pesticide (and other kinds of) chemical pollution, “These results underscore a grim twin reality to the human-caused climate emergency and should be a dire warning on the state of our shared environment and a time for a systemic movement to eliminate fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers.” This study highlights the impact rain being a vessel for global chemical contamination has on the exceeding levels of PFAS in the ecosystem. 

For humanity to continue to develop and thrive for generations to come, it is critical to avoid catastrophic consequences associated with exceeding planetary boundary thresholds. The study concludes, “In view of the impacts of humanity’s chemical footprint on planetary health, it is of great importance to avoid further escalation of the problem of large-scale and long-term environmental and human exposure to PFAS by rapidly restricting uses of PFAS wherever possible. Furthermore, as has been stated by ourselves and others before, society should not continually repeat the same mistakes with other persistent chemicals.”

Ubiquitous environmental contaminants like PFAS have severe consequences, especially on the health of vulnerable individuals. Various pesticide products act similarly to PFAS, and individuals can encounter these substances simultaneously, resulting in more severe health outcomes. Therefore, advocates urge that policies enforce stricter pesticide regulations and increase research on the long-term impacts of pesticide exposure. Many states are issuing regulatory limits on various PFAS in drinking water, groundwater, and soil. However, EPA must require complete product testing and disclosure of ingredients for proper PFAS regulation. Furthermore, the agency must eliminate the need for toxic pesticides by promoting organic and ecological pest management practices. Solutions like buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Organic land management and regenerative organic agriculture eliminate the need for toxic agricultural pesticides. Given the wide availability of non-pesticidal alternative strategies, families and agricultural industry workers can apply these methods to promote a safe and healthy environment, especially among chemically vulnerable individuals. For more information on why organic is the healthy choice, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. Additionally, learn more about how the lack of adequate pesticide regulations can adversely affect human and environmental health by visiting the Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticides and You article “Regulatory Failures Mount, Threatening Health and Safety.”

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

Source: Wood TV, Environmental Science and Technology

(Beyond Pesticides, August 30, 2022) Minuscule amounts of the weed killer Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate can result in damage to the nervous system, finds research led by scientists at Florida Atlantic University, published in Scientific Reports. As hundreds of millions of pounds of glyphosate continue to be sprayed on hundreds of millions of acres of land throughout the United States each year, recent data indicate that four out of five U.S. children and adults contain detectable levels of glyphosate in their bodies. The pesticide industry and its paid supporters tell Americans that although contamination is widespread, the levels found in humans are not cause for concern. This latest research significantly undermines that specious argument, finding impacts on critical nervous system processes at levels 300 times less than the lowest suggested amount on the Roundup label.

“It is concerning how little we understand about the impact of glyphosate on the nervous system,” said Akshay S. Naraine, MSc., coauthor and a PhD student at Florida Atlantic University. “More evidence is mounting for how prevalent exposure to glyphosate is, so this work hopefully pushes other researchers to expand on these findings and solidify where our concerns should be.” 

To investigate the nervous system effects of glyphosate, researchers employed a soil-dwelling nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, as a model test organism. C. elegans uses a neurotransmitter called Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) in coordination with its normal movement (e.g., the movement of a squirming worm). Any disruption of this normal movement results in convulsive activity. These properties make C. elegans an ideal model organism for studying seizures and epilepsy in humans. In addition to locomotion, human GABA receptors control sleep and are involved in managing mood.

Researchers exposed C. elegans to the active ingredient glyphosate, as well as other formulated glyphosate-based Roundup products, including the Roundup product sold in the U.S. and those before and after the United Kingdom banned the use of polyethoxylated tallowamine (POEAs), a known inert ingredient in Roundup shown to kill human cells.  C. elegans was exposed to electroshock therapy to induce convulsions. Under normal conditions, the nematodes reversed within an average of 34.1 seconds. After exposure to glyphosate, this increased by over 20 seconds, with the U.S. Roundup formulation increasing average convulsion duration to 65 seconds.

While some exposed nematodes take longer to recover, others never recover. In the saline solution this represented less than 5% of worms. For glyphosate alone, this number jumped to 12.9% and, for the Roundup formulations, between 19 to 33% did not recover, with the U.S. formulation representing the highest end of that range.

“The concentration listed for best results on the Roundup® Super Concentrate label is 0.98 percent glyphosate, which is about 5 tablespoons of Roundup® in 1 gallon of water,” co-author Akshay Naraine noted. “A significant finding from our study reveals that just 0.002 percent glyphosate, a difference of about 300 times less herbicide than the lowest concentration recommended for consumer use, had concerning effects on the nervous system.”

Using an anti-epileptic drug called sodium valproate, scientists were able to stop and reverse convulsing nematodes, reducing their recovery time to 20 seconds.

“Given how widespread the use of these products is, we must learn as much as we can about the potential negative impacts that may exist,” said study co-author Ken Dawson-Scully, PhD. “There have been studies done in the past that showed the potential dangers, and our study takes that one step further with some pretty dramatic results,” he said.

Despite decades of use, researchers are still uncovering shocking health information about a product that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is safe when used as directed. “As of now, there is no information for how exposure to glyphosate and Roundup® may affect humans diagnosed with epilepsy or other seizure disorders,” said Dr. Dawson-Scully. “Our study indicates that there is significant disruption in locomotion and should prompt further vertebrate studies.”

A recent study published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation shows that glyphosate has the ability to cross the blood brain barrier, increasing risk of neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s. Research published in Neuroscience Letters links glyphosate exposure to the development of Parkinson’s disease. These effects, separate from the well-documented  connection to cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin lymphoma, expose the grave insufficiency of U.S. pesticide regulatory process. Not only does EPA continue to allow glyphosate, it is also allowing the most toxic version of formulated Roundup to continue to be sold to consumers. Bayer recently committed to removing current formulations of consumer-use glyphosate from store shelves by 2023, but this was not done as a result of regulatory pressure from EPA, but legal pressure from the scores of lawsuits that are reducing the company’s stock price and executive bonuses.  

EPA continues to refuse to get with the science on glyphosate, as evidenced by the need for a federal judge to void EPA’s interim decision on glyphosate for its failure to adequately consider cancer effects and impacts on endangered species. Balancing the corporate capture of EPA requires concerned people to raise their voice to EPA and call out its dangerous decisions. Join us in that effort by telling EPA to ban glyphosate, and Congress to ensure EPA performs its job as required by law.

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

Source:  Florida Atlantic University, Scientific Reports

Image Source: Florida Atlantic University

(Beyond Pesticides, August 29, 2022) Does your community have a pesticide-free park managed with organic practices? Do you wish it did? If you do have an organic parks policy, do you have updated information on current practices? It is time to take action to affirm or protect our authority to shift land management in our communities to organic practices—just as the pesticide industry is lobbying to take that right away from us. Become a Parks Advocate. And, take the action below.

Advance organic land management in your community and ask your Mayor/County Commissioner/Town Manager to affirm or protect your community’s right to restrict toxic pesticides.

If your community is one of a growing number across the country that has taken action to protect its citizens and environment by adopting organic policies and practices in its public spaces, please take this opportunity to request an update on how organic land management is going or ask that the community begin transitioning to organic land management.

At the same time, be aware that the pesticide industry is seeking take away the ability of local communities to restrict toxic pesticides. Ask your Mayor/County Commissioner/Town Manager to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators, on your behalf, and tell them to oppose H.R. 7266 and support the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA), which contains a provision affirming local authority to restrict pesticides.

Please share with us pictures of your parks. Tell us why your pesticide-free parks are important to you.

If your community has not yet taken action to protect its residents and environment by adopting organic policies and practices in its public spaces.

Advance organic land management in your community and ask your Mayor/County Commissioner/Town Manager to affirm or protect your community’s right to restrict toxic pesticides.

Letter to Mayor/County Commissioner/Town Manager:

This letter contains a two-part request—first to address organic management in our community and, second, contact our elected representatives in Congress to protect our community’s right to restrict toxic pesticides.

I would like to make sure that all land (parks, playgrounds, playing fields, etc.) in our area is managed with organic practices that eliminate fossil fuel-based toxic pesticides and fertilizers. Where these practices are in place, I would appreciate a report to the community. Where organic practices are not being utilized, I request that a plan be put in place to transition—as part of a community effort to protect health and biodiversity, and to fight the climate crisis. Now is the time that we must all join together to do our part to curtail petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers and sequester atmospheric carbon in the soil through effective organic practices.

I am also asking you to contact, on behalf of our community, our U.S. Representative and Senators to  tell them to oppose H.R. 7266 and support the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA), which contains a provision affirming local authority to restrict pesticides. We need your voice to be heard on behalf of all residents of our community to protect our health and biodiversity, and fight the climate crisis. Transitioning away from fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers through the restriction of toxic pesticides and the adoption of organic practices is critically important to our health now and future sustainability.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

(Beyond Pesticides, August 26, 2022) New research from a team in California finds one-third of pesticides it reviewed — including glyphosate, paraquat dichloride, and oxyfluorfen — to be associated with the development of thyroid cancer. Researchers investigated the links between exposure to pesticides — including 29 that cause DNA cell damage — and the risk of this cancer. The researchers also find that in all the single-pollutant models they employed, paraquat dichloride — a widely used herbicide — was linked to this cancer. In 2021, Beyond Pesticides covered research by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) that demonstrated that exposures to lindane and metalaxyl also cause heightened risk of thyroid cancer. These study findings add to the already considerable concern about pervasive pesticide exposure — not only among farmers and applicators, but also in the general population.

It is worth noting that, in addition to elevated thyroid cancer risks, multiple pesticides can cause other health damage. Paraquat is also acutely toxic, and can cause longer-term reproductive, renal, and hepatic damage to humans; it is toxic to birds, fish, and other aquatic organisms, and slightly so to honeybees. Glyphosate, as Beyond Pesticides has written frequently, is carcinogenic, and is associated with human, biotic, and ecosystem harm. Oxyfluorfen exposures deliver risk of reproductive, renal, hepatic, and developmental damage to humans, and toxicity to fish and other aquatic creatures.

The research team, from the University of California (UC) Los Angeles Health Sciences, published its study in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The authors say it “provides the first evidence supporting the hypothesis that residential pesticide exposure from agricultural use is associated with an increased risk of thyroid cancer” [emphasis by Beyond Pesticides].

Thyroid cancer is one of the few cancers whose incidence has risen in recent decades — by 3% since 1992, according to Science Daily’s reporting on the California research. The American Thyroid Association also notes the dramatic increase in incidence, and says thyroid cancer is now the fastest-growing cancer in women, with most of that increase representing papillary thyroid cancer (the most common and slowest-growing of the subtypes).

Some of the increased incidence is likely attributable to better detection methods and increased use of imaging in healthcare. And genetics certainly play a role in vulnerability to thyroid disease generally, but widespread exposures to certain pesticides — whether through residues in the food supply, occupational exposures, or as in the subject study, residence in an agricultural production area — appear to pose a real risk for the development of thyroid cancers.

A Scientific American article notes that 20 years ago, a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that “Iowa and North Carolina women married to men using such pesticides as aldrin, DDT and lindane were at much higher risk of developing thyroid disease than women in non-agricultural areas” — at an incidence rate of 12.5%, compared to a 1–8% rate in the general population. [Note: the organochlorine pesticides aldrin and DDT were banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1974 and 1972, respectively.]

Beyond Pesticides was quoted in that study article: “It’s not just farm women who should worry. Trace amounts of chemical pesticides and fertilizers most certainly end up in some of the food we eat. The nonprofit group Beyond Pesticides warns that some 60 percent of pesticides used today have been shown to affect the thyroid gland’s production of T3 and T4 hormones. Commercially available insecticides and fungicides have also been implicated.”

The UC researchers did not need to stray far for their study; they focused on residents of California, which has a huge agricultural sector that uses roughly 25% of all pesticides deployed in the U.S. (The state has been experiencing an uptick in advanced thyroid cancer diagnoses.) The team used data from the California Cancer Registry (for 1999–2012) to examine residential exposure to 29 agricultural pesticides that cause DNA damage or endocrine disruption (ED), and used GIS (geographic information system) data to identify reasonable exposure estimates for each participant.

The study sample comprised 2,067 thyroid cancer cases and 1,003 control participants. All study participants were at least 35 years old, had a thyroid cancer diagnosis, and lived in the study’s target geographic area at the time of diagnosis. Control subjects were also at least 35, lived in that same geographic area, and had been living in California for at least five years before the research interview.

Principal investigator Avital Harari, M.D., pointed to the increased incidence of thyroid cancer and implications of the study’s findings. She said, “[T]he risk of advanced thyroid cancers, which can increase risk of mortality and cancer recurrence, has been found to be higher in the state of California as compared to other states. Therefore, it is essential to elucidate risk factors for getting thyroid cancer and understand potentially alterable causes of this disease in order to decrease risks for future generations. . . . Our research suggests several novel associations between pesticide exposure and increased risk of thyroid cancer. Specifically, exposure to the pesticide paraquat is positively associated with thyroid cancer risk.” She cited additional findings: that exposures to other pesticides, in combination with those to paraquat (in multi-pollutant models) also suggest increase thyroid cancer risk, and that exposures (over a 20-year period) to a larger number of unique pesticides proportionately increase the cancer risk.

Most previous research has focused on the role of endocrine-disrupting pesticides in the development of thyroid cancer, or disease development among those exposed occupationally (e.g., in this research, this, and this). The pesticides metalaxyl and lindane, both established endocrine disruptors, have been implicated in heightened thyroid cancer risk across multiple studies, including the NIH study mentioned above. See more, older research on Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database webpage, in the section on thyroid cancer.

The Science Daily coverage of the UC study explains further that “certain pesticides are established mutagens or have been shown to induce tumor growth and chromosomal abnormalities in vitro. These include glyphosate — the active ingredient in widely used herbicides — and pesticides that induce DNA cell damage in vitro. Pesticides also can alter thyroid hormone production, which has been associated with thyroid cancer risk.”

The relevant methods of action of pesticides re: thyroid cancer are the mutagenic or the (less direct) endocrine disrupting. The actions of endocrine disruptors were laid out by Beyond Pesticides in 2021: “‘The ingredients in many pesticides (and in many consumer products) act as endocrine disruptors in humans and other animals in several ways. They may: (1) mimic actions of hormones the body produces (e.g., estrogen or testosterone), causing reactions similar to those generated by the naturally produced hormones; (2) block hormone receptor cells, thereby preventing the actions of natural hormones; or (3) affect the synthesis, transport, metabolism, and/or excretion of hormones, thus altering the concentrations of natural hormones in tissues or at receptor sites.’ Pesticides acting as EDs can, through disruption of the activities in #3, distort hormone levels in the body.”

Threats to public health — in the subject study, from pesticides associated with development of thyroid cancer, but from toxic pesticides and chemicals far more broadly — are not being adequately mitigated by governments at federal, state, or local levels. And those threats are certainly not front and center in the business models of the agrochemical companies that manufacture pesticide products. Thus, the onus for changing our system of allowing toxic chemical use without adequate, precautionary, and protective review falls on the public and its organizational health, environment, climate (and other) advocates — such as Beyond Pesticides and many, many others. To that end, we invite everyone to participate in our 2022 National Forum Series, beginning September 15.

The event will focus on the existential problems associated with current public health and environmental crises — public health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency — and chart a path for solving these urgent issues. Our involvement, whether as professionals, lay people, elected officials, or concerned advocates, is critical to enhancing public understanding of the science that underlies these crises, and to motivating action on the local, state, and national levels.

These crises arise from a confluence of issues, and are harming all life and every environment on the planet. The need for carefully defined sustainable land management, building and household practices, and consumer and industrial products is urgent. The 2022 National Forum Series launches Beyond Pesticides’ campaign to eliminate fossil fuel-based pesticide use within the next decade — putting a stop to toxic emissions, exposure, and residues, while embracing an organic systems approach that is holistic and respectful of life.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220818175207.htm

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

(Beyond Pesticides, August 25, 2022) A study published in World Journal of Pediatrics finds an association between antibiotic and neonicotinoid (neonic) exposure and onset of pediatric (childhood) type 1 diabetes (T1D) through effects on the gut microbiome. Individuals with type 1 diabetes are at higher risk of other autoimmune disorders, including thyroid and celiac disease. Ample evidence demonstrates environmental contaminants like pesticides and antibiotics negatively affect human mouth and gut microbes.

Through the gut biome, pesticide exposure can enhance or exacerbate the adverse effects of additional environmental toxicants on the body. Moreover, studies find low levels of pesticide exposure during pregnancy or childhood cause adverse health effects from metabolic/immune disorders to mental and physical disabilities. Children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of pesticide exposure as their developing bodies cannot adequately combat exposure effects. Although studies show how chemical exposures affect overall human health, more research is now questioning how these toxic chemicals influence gut health and subsequent occurrence of diseases. In children, gut microbiome disruption, or gut dysbiosis, has significant associations with type 1 diabetes development, and disruption of gut microbiota plays a role in type 2 diabetes development. Over 11 percent (>37 million) of individuals in the U.S. have diabetes, and cases are growing by millions annually. With increasing rates of type 1 and 2 diabetes cases among the global population, studies like these highlight the importance of evaluating how chemical contaminants deregulate normal bodily function through microbiome changes. 

There is a lack of understanding on the real-world effects of neonic and antibiotic exposure on gut microbiome changes akin to the onset of T1D. However, studies suggest the structure of gut microbiota in children can differ depending on the level of chemical exposure, leading to disparities in T1D risk. The study researchers highlight, “[M]ost existing studies on the health risks caused by antibiotics and pesticides tend to focus on the effect of high levels of exposure over short periods because relationships between long-term low-dose exposure and health risks are ambiguous and difficult to study. As a result, the mechanisms associated with their adverse effects on health remain unclear.”

The researchers evaluated antibiotic and neonic concentrations in the urine of 51 children newly diagnosed with T1D, comparing chemical exposure levels to those of healthy control children (without T1D). Mass spectrometry measured urine for concentrations of 28 antibiotics and 12 neonics, grouping children based on the type of chemical exposures. Furthermore, researchers compared gut microbiota in fecal matter to urine samples to determine a correlation between differences in gut microbiota and T1D onset.

The study detects antibiotics in 72.5 percent of children with T1D and 61.2 percent of healthy children, while neonics are present in 70.6 percent of children with T1D and 52.2 percent of healthy children. A child’s exposure to one type of antibiotic or two or more types of neonics increases the T1D risk 2.6 and 3.9-fold, respectively. Co-exposure to antibiotics and neonics has an association with T1D, increasing the risk 4.9-fold. Although antibiotic and neonic exposure has no impact on gut microbiota richness (number of species) and diversity (type of species), children unexposed to both antibiotics and neonics have a higher abundance of Lachnospiraceae (the core taxa of gut microbiota) than children exposed to antibiotics and neonicotinoids, alone or together.

The gut, also known as the “second brain,” shares similar structural and chemical parallels with the brain. Microbiota (i.e., groups of microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi) in the gut play a crucial role in lifelong digestion, detoxification, immune and central nervous system regulation, and 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, prolonged exposure to various environmental contaminants induces a change in gut microbes, influencing adverse health outcomes. Since the gut microbiome shapes metabolism, it can mediate some toxic effects of environmental chemicals. However, prolonged exposure to various environmental contaminants can induce critical chemical changes in the gut microbes, influencing adverse health outcomes.

The impacts of pesticides on the human gut microbiome represent another pesticide assault on human health as the biome harbors between 10 and 100 trillion symbiotic microbes. The human gastrointestinal tract and its digestive processes (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.

Over the past 20 years, neonicotinoids replaced 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 the product rather than externally. 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 the role some neonicotinoids pay in the production of an enzyme (aromatase) that stimulates excess estrogen production, a known event in hormone-dependent cancer development.

Antibiotic exposure can allow more resilient bacteria to flourish in the gut microbiome and outcompete other beneficial bacteria. For instance, glyphosate, patented as an antibiotic by manufacturer Bayer/Monsanto, kills bacterial species beneficial to humans and incorporated in probiotics, yet allows harmful bacteria to persist, leading to resistance. Glyphosate’s mode of action targets and inactivates an enzyme in the “shikimate [metabolic] pathway” in plants. Although this pathway is not present in animal cells, it exists among bacterial species. However, antibiotic exposure can still impact other metabolic pathways in animals. Antibiotic resistance can trigger longer-lasting infections, higher medical expenses, the need for more expensive or hazardous medications, and the inability to treat life-threatening illnesses.

This study is the first to analyze a relationship between long-term, low-dose, daily exposure to antibiotic and neonic on gut microbiota. Children with T1D are more likely to encounter high levels of antibiotic and neonicotinoid exposure, altering bacteria in the gut. Although exposure to high levels of these compounds does not alter microbiota richness (number of species) and diversity (types of species) in the study, exposure to antibiotics and neonicotinoids is associated with small but critical changes to gut microbiota, specifically by disturbing specific taxa. Studies demonstrate gut dysbiosis-related diabetes has associations with decreased short-chain fatty acids and epithelial barrier disruption, allowing toxicants to induce systemic inflammation and insulin resistance. Therefore, children exposed to antibiotics, neonics, or both have an increased risk of T1D due to the lower abundance of Lachnospiraceae, a bacterium producing the short fatty acid chain (butyrate).

The study concludes, “[C]hildren with exposure to antibiotics and neonicotinoids had small but critical changes in gut microbiota, characterize[ed} by a lower abundance of butyrate-producing genera, especially Lachnospiraceae. Similar changes were also observed in T1D children, which were thought to be associated with the increase of autoimmune level. These findings suggest that exposure to high levels of antibiotics and pesticides in daily life might increase the risk of autoimmune diseases, such as T1D. Future work should focus on relationships between antibiotics and neonicotinoids exposure and the onset of autoimmune diseases in children, as well as the underlying mechanisms.”

Current risk assessment methods for pesticides are insufficient as assessment procedures fail to account fully for the sublethal effects of pesticides. With the globe currently going through the Holocene Extinction, Earth’s 6th mass extinction, with one million species of plants and animals at risk over the last four decades, action is needed to mitigate our anthropogenic impact on essential ecosystem organisms.

Pesticides themselves can possess the ability to disrupt metabolic function, especially for chronically exposed individuals (e.g., farmworkers) or during critical windows of vulnerability and development (e.g., childhood, pregnancy). Health officials identify Type 1 diabetes as one of the most common chronic childhood diseases, increasing among children younger than five years old. Therefore, it is essential to mitigate preventable exposure to disease-inducing pesticides. For more information on the effects of pesticide exposure on autoimmune and metabolic health, see Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database pages on diabetes, immune system disorders, endocrine disruption, and more.

Replacing dietary exposure to food grown in chemical-intensive agriculture with organic consistently reduces pesticide levels in one’s body. Preventive practices like organic can eliminate exposure to toxic autoimmune disrupting pesticides, like neonics. There is an indication that maintaining lower levels of conventional, synthetic pesticides is likely to reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes. In addition to positive impacts on the human microbiome, organically grown food (i.e., milk, meat, strawberries, tomatoes, and a range of other foods) contain a much more diverse bacterial community than their chemically grown counterparts. Organic agriculture represents a safer, healthier approach to crop production that does not necessitate toxic pesticide use. Beyond Pesticides encourages farmers to embrace and consumers to support regenerative, organic practices. A complement to buying organic is contacting various organic farming organizations to learn more about what you can do. Additionally, learn more about the hazards posed to children’s health through Beyond Pesticide’s Pesticide and You Journal article, “Children and Pesticides Don’t Mix.”

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

Source: World Journal of Pediatrics 

(Beyond Pesticides, August 24, 2022) New research is helping the medical community understand the mechanism through which exposure to the banned insecticide DDT increases risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a team of researchers from Florida International University and Rutgers used multiple models to demonstrate the effects of DDT on the production of toxic proteins in the brain. The constant stream of new health risks regarding a chemical banned decades ago underlines the importance of a precautionary approach to pesticide regulation, particularly as red flags are already being raised about the connection between widely used weed killers like glyphosate and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

“The vast majority of research on the disease has been on genetics — and genetics are very important — but the genes that actually cause the disease are very rare,” says study coauthor Jason Richardson, PhD of Florida International University. “Environmental risk factors like exposure to DDT are modifiable. So, if we understand how DDT affects the brain, then perhaps we could target those mechanisms and help the people who have been highly exposed.” Previous research from Dr. Richardson found that DDT exposure increased risk of Alzheimer’s by four times.

Scientists used cultured cells, and employed certain lab-reared breeds of mice and flies to study the impact of DDT on the amyloid pathway. Amyloids are proteins widely considered to be a causative factor in the development of Alzheimer’s, as these proteins are sticky, they clump together and build up in the brain, causing plaques that impair proper functioning of brain cells. To study how DDT affected this pathway, scientists focused on sodium channels the brain uses to communicate.  A variety of complex analytical methods, including real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, multiplex assay, western immunoblotting and immunohistochemical approaches were employed to analyze the mechanisms through which DDT affects these channels.

Results show that DDT exposure significantly increased the production of amyloid precursor proteins. DDT does this by causing sodium channels to remain open, which led to increased production of amyloid-beta. This mechanism was confirmed through the use of a compound called tetrodotoxin (a toxic chemical found in the liver of certain amphibians and fish, perhaps best known for its associated risk with eating puffer fish sushi). The compound prevents the regular flow of sodium channels in the brain. When introduced into their models, scientists find that they can prevent the production of amyloid proteins. “We found that if we block sodium channels with the compound tetrodotoxin and then dose neurons with DDT, then they don’t increase the amyloid precursor protein and don’t secrete excess amyloid-beta,” Dr. Jason Richardson indicates. “This finding could potentially provide a roadmap to future therapies for people highly exposed to DDT.”

Dr. Richardson indicates that his team will begin to look into those potential therapies, noting that there are already a number of drugs on the market that act on sodium channels. “We are in the process of doing those studies to see if we can take an already FDA-approved drug and see if it reduces toxic amyloid accumulation,” he notes.

Once pesticides are introduced into the environment, there is little that humans can do to hasten their degradation. Many of the organochlorine insecticides like DDT are still found in throughout the world, traveling through atmospheric transport and deposition, to this day creating risks in far-flung regions like Alaska and arctic glaciers. These insecticides accumulate in fatty tissue, and are equally insidious once inside the human body, unlikely to ever be completely eliminated. The hazards posed by DDT have already been decades long, and its multi-generational impacts may be felt for centuries.

Yet, with this history and these hazards in mind, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency permits the chemical industry to tweak chemistries and continue to produce new, novel poisons that are equally likely to cause harm to current and future generations. Beyond Pesticides has long called for an end to this pesticide treadmill. To make the case for a broadscale transition away from hazardous synthetic pesticides linked to Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative disorders, the organization maintains the Pesticide Induced Diseases Database (PIDD). PIDD regularly tracks new scientific findings on the dangers of pesticides, providing ample evidence of the need for a pesticide-free future.

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

Visit PIDD for more information on the risks of pesticide exposure and its association with diseases that are all too common in today’s world.

Source: Florida International University, Environmental Health Perspectives

(Beyond Pesticides, August 23, 2022) Bees exposed to systemic insecticides become disoriented and cannot walk straight, showing evidence of brain damage in areas that coordinate movement, according to research published in Frontiers in Insect Science. Although scientific studies and regulatory determinations have already provided ample evidence implicating systemic insecticides like the neonicotinoids and sulfoxaflor with pollinator danger and decline, new research continues to fill in the remaining gaps. “Here we show that commonly used insecticides like sulfoxaflor and the neonicotinoid imidacloprid can profoundly impair the visually guided behavior of honey bees,” said lead author Rachel H Parkinson, PhD, a scientist at the University of Oxford. “Our results are reason for concern because the ability of bees to respond appropriately to visual information is crucial for their flight and navigation, and thus their survival.”

Honey bees rely on landmarks, the direction of sunlight, and wide-field visual motion to orient themselves in a landscape, find nectar and pollen, and bring it back to the hive. While sunlight provides a compass, wide-field visual motion helps bees adjust speed and altitude, and determine where they are relative to known landmarks. Worker bees use this innate ability to reorient themselves to food or their hive should they ever veer off course.

To test how pesticides impact this process, scientists employed an optomotor assay. Worker bees were placed on a small ball in a virtual arena and exposed to videos of vertical bars that shifted left to right, mimicking a worker bee getting blown off their course. Four groups of worker forager bees captured as they were returning to their hive in Falmouth, Maine were tested in this virtual arena. Prior to the test, one group was exposed to 50 parts per billion (ppb) of imidacloprid, one to 50 ppb of sulfoxaflor, another to 25ppb of imidacloprid and 25ppb of sulfoxaflor, with the last group acting as an unexposed control. Exposed bees were evaluated for how well they reorient after the visual disturbance.

All worker honey bees exposed to insecticides displayed asymmetrical responses. In other words, contaminated pollinators were only able to respond to visual stimuli coming from a single direction. According to the study, the asymmetry between left and right turns was more than 2.4 times greater for the pollinators subjected to systemic insecticides than those left unexposed.

In hopes of further understanding what is occurring in bee brains under these conditions, researchers took another four groups of workers and treated them with the same amount of insecticide as those that underwent the optomotor assay. Pollinators from these groups then had their brains dissected for analysis. Genes that help honey bees detoxify after chemical exposure showed decreased expression after imidacloprid treatment. Sulfoxaflor exposure revealed evidence of damage to brain cells in the optic lobes. “Neonicotinoid and sulfoximine insecticides activate neurons in the insect brain and are not always recycled fast enough to prevent toxicity. The effects we observed could be due to a type of rewiring in the brain: to prevent neural damage by reducing the sensitivity of neurons to these compounds,” said Dr. Parkinson.

The same research team found in 2019 that neonicotinoid exposure had significant impacts on the visual field of locusts, with implications that similar results would be seen in other insects, like bees and other pollinators. “Like any organism, the sensory system enable the bee to function. If the brain function, as this study finds, is altered, the organism cannot function normally,” Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides wrote to Salon in a comment on the current study. “We know that similar effects to the nervous system occur in people with similar vulnerabilities.”

Worker bees getting blown off course and unable to find their way back to the hive was the defining aspect of Colony Collapse Disorder, a term which has since fallen out of favor as beekeepers have since experienced variety of differently characterized hive losses. Yet, declines in both wild and managed pollinators continues to this day, with 2021 marking the second highest honey bee losses recorded. “The major concern is that – if bees are unable to overcome any impairment while flying – there could be profound negative effects on their ability to forage, navigate, and pollinate wildflowers and crops,” said Dr. Parkinson.

We cannot continue to sit back as pollinators die and the data linking these deaths to pesticide exposure continues to pile up. To stop and reverse pollinator declines, we must stop EPA from registering pesticides that harm these critical species. The Saving America’s Pollinators Act (SAPA) does this, establishing a board of experts who make determinations over pesticide use that poses a danger to pollinators. Join us today in promoting pollinator protection and urging your member of Congress to cosponsor SAPA.

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

Source: Frontiers in Insect Science (peer reviewed study), Frontiers in Insect Science (science news)

(Beyond Pesticides, August 22, 2022) The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is, as President Biden claims, “The single most aggressive action the U.S. is taking to tackle the climate crisis and create clean energy solutions in American history.” However, that is a low bar to clear. There is much more required to meet the President’s climate goals and much is needed to ensure that the IRA is implemented in a way that helps farmers, fenceline communities, and biodiversity. As stated by Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, “President Biden and his administration should take this moment not only to celebrate, but also to recommit and refocus on addressing the environmental injustice and wildlife crises.” For more in-depth coverage, see Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News.

Tell President Biden that funds in the Inflation Reduction Act must meet the need for a transformative moment to address the existential health (including environmental justice), biodiversity, and climate crises and shift society to organic practices by eliminating fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers; and that further steps are needed to reach critical and urgent goals. 

We cannot meet climate goals while maintaining a dependence on fossil fuels. Eliminating that dependence requires more than a shift from gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles, shifting from oil- and gas-generated electricity to wind and solar generation, or adopting quick fixes like carbon capture. It requires us to think of systems differently. Conserving energy by reducing consumption, eliminating planned obsolescence in products, better urban planning, and improved agricultural systems is as important as producing power differently.

Organic agriculture, with its elimination of chemical fertilizers and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, is an example of an improved system. Organic producers are required to create and act upon an organic system plan that maximizes biological diversity and minimizes adverse environmental impacts. Organic farming increases sequestration of carbon in the soil. Provisions in the IRA that enhance the success of organic farmers and encourage transition to organic farming promote a climate-friendly system.

The organic system should be applied to all land management. Organic farming and land management not only help meet climate goals, but also reduce the impacts of hazardous chemicals and resource extraction on fenceline communities and ecosystems, making it responsive to environmental justice threats.

As monies are expended under this legislation, the government must prioritize programs that attack the existential crises associated with pesticide threats, including health, biodiversity, and climate. This mandate must come from the White House and ensure that all funds first and foremost effect a transformative change necessary to meet the current looming crises. To this end, 100% of funds dedicated to conservation (Conservation Stewardship Program and all other affected agricultural programs), environmental quality incentives program (EQIP), environmental justice, and other related programs, must go to organic transition that eliminates toxic pesticides and fossil fuel-based chemicals and fertilizers.

Experts have now identified the current climate emergency, a health emergency, and an ecological emergency. Advocates are calling on President Biden to heed calls to declare a climate emergency and initiate creative, systemic solutions to existential threats to human life and life on Earth.

Tell President Biden that funds in the Inflation Reduction Act must meet the need for a transformative moment to address the existential health (including environmental justice), biodiversity, and climate crises and shift society to organic practices by eliminating fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers; and that further steps are needed to reach critical and urgent goals. 

Members of U.S. Congress

Congratulations! The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed, “the single most aggressive action the U.S. is taking to tackle the climate crisis and create clean energy solutions in American history.” However, that is a low bar to clear. There is much more required to meet our climate goals, and much is needed to ensure that the IRA is implemented in a way that helps farmers, fenceline communities, and biodiversity. As stated by Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, “President Biden and his administration should take this moment not only to celebrate, but also to recommit and refocus on addressing the environmental injustice and wildlife crises.”

We cannot meet climate goals while maintaining a dependence on fossil fuels. Eliminating that dependence requires more than a shift from gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles, shifting from oil- and gas-generated electricity to wind and solar generation, or adopting quick fixes like carbon capture. It requires us to think of systems differently. Conserving energy by reducing consumption, eliminating planned obsolescence in products, better urban planning, and improved agricultural systems is as important as producing power differently to meet the existential crises of the day.

Organic agriculture, with its elimination of chemical fertilizers and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, is an example of an improved system. Organic producers are required to create and act upon an organic system plan that maximizes biological diversity and minimizes adverse environmental impacts. Organic farming increases sequestration of carbon in the soil. Provisions in the IRA that enhance the success of organic farmers and encourage transition to organic farming promote a climate-friendly system.

The organic system should be applied to all land management. Organic farming and land management not only help meet climate goals, but also reduce impacts of hazardous chemicals and resource extraction on fenceline communities and ecosystems.

As monies are authorized and appropriated under this and much needed future legislation, Congress must prioritize programs that attack the existential crises associated with pesticide threats, including health, biodiversity, and climate. Congress must mandate the expenditure of funds, first and foremost, to effect a transformative change necessary to meet the looming crises. To this end, 100% of funds dedicated to conservation (Conservation Stewardship Program and all other affected agricultural programs), environmental quality incentives program (EQIP), environmental justice, and other related program, must go to organic transition that eliminates toxic pesticides and fossil fuel-based chemicals and fertilizers.

We are experiencing a climate emergency, a health emergency, and an ecological emergency. I call upon you to heed calls to declare a climate emergency and initiate creative, systemic solutions to existential threats to human life and life on Earth.

In addition, please support H.R. 794, which requires President Biden to declare a climate emergency and prioritize investments and actions enabling a racially and socially just transition to a clean energy economy. Thank you.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Department of Interior

Congratulations! The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed, “the single most aggressive action the U.S. is taking to tackle the climate crisis and create clean energy solutions in American history.” However, that is a low bar to clear. There is much more required to meet your climate goals, and much is needed to ensure that the IRA is implemented in a way that helps farmers, fenceline communities, and biodiversity. As stated by Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, “[You] should take this moment not only to celebrate, but also to recommit and refocus on addressing the environmental injustice and wildlife crises.”

We cannot meet climate goals while maintaining a dependence on fossil fuels. Eliminating that dependence requires more than a shift from gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles, shifting from oil- and gas-generated electricity to wind and solar generation, or adopting quick fixes like carbon capture. It requires us to think of systems differently. Conserving energy by reducing consumption, eliminating planned obsolescence in products, better urban planning, and improved agricultural systems is as important as producing power differently to meet the existential crises of the day.

Organic agriculture, with its elimination of chemical fertilizers and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, is an example of an improved system. Organic producers are required to create and act upon an organic system plan that maximizes biological diversity and minimizes adverse environmental impacts. Organic farming increases sequestration of carbon in the soil. Provisions in the IRA that enhance the success of organic farmers and encourage transition to organic farming promote a climate-friendly system.

The organic system should be applied to all land management. Organic farming and land management not only help meet climate goals, but also reduce impacts of hazardous chemicals and resource extraction on fenceline communities and ecosystems.

As monies are expended under this legislation, the government must prioritize programs that attack the existential crises associated with pesticide threats, including health, biodiversity, and climate. This mandate must come from the White House and ensure that all funds, first and foremost, effect a transformative change necessary to meet the looming crises. To this end, 100% of funds dedicated to conservation (Conservation Stewardship Program and all other affected agricultural programs), environmental quality incentives program (EQIP), environmental justice, and other related program, must go to organic transition that eliminates toxic pesticides and fossil fuel-based chemicals and fertilizers.

We are experiencing a climate emergency, a health emergency, and an ecological emergency. I call upon you to encourage President Biden to declare a climate emergency and initiate creative, systemic solutions to existential threats to human life and life on Earth.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, August 19, 2022) On August 16, President Biden signed a bill — the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” — that will provide unprecedented sums to address the existential threats we face related to climate, biodiversity, and health. The $750 billion total appropriation is far less than the original $1.75 trillion hoped for early in the legislative process, but nevertheless is an historic level of federal investment. Beyond Pesticides sees in the bill, now law, opportunities to make significant headway on our call for the elimination of toxic pesticides over the next decade, which launches during our 2022 National Forum Series. The new law could (and should) also provide investment in the critical transition to organic production methods in agriculture. Should the federal government advance organic systems as a climate, health, and environmental justice solution, those two priorities would go far to improve health, reduce dependence on synthetic, fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, and allow natural systems to begin to heal from 70+ years of chemical assault.

Component sections of the Inflation Reduction Act include those on Clean Energy and Transmission, Clean Transportation, Buildings and Energy Efficiency, Manufacturing, Environmental Justice, Conservation and Agriculture, Fossil Fuels, and Permitting Reform. Within those categories, many programmatic investments are embedded. For example, the law offers eight that go directly to environmental justice concerns. A detailed primer on the law’s provisions can be found here.

The act also seeks to advance economic and environmental equity, greater fairness in the enforcement of the federal tax system, and both cost reductions and increased access in health care. A quick look at the health care, federal revenue, and health savings provisions is available here.

Beyond Pesticides points to some features of particular interest, given biodiversity and equity concerns, in particular. The new law:

• increases incentives for wind and solar projects built in or connected to low-income communities
• enhances loan assistance for rural electricity cooperatives, and boosts rural renewable energy loan capacity
• establishes a loan guarantee program to support economic opportunities in energy projects for (federally recognized) tribes and Alaska Native Corporations
• funds the Neighborhood Access and Equity Grants Program, which supports equitable, safe, and affordable transportation options
• provides multiple provisions to support electrification of homes and buildings, including multi-family and tribal properties
• invests in affordable housing resilience, and energy and water efficiency
• supports reforestation, old growth watersheds, and habitat protection for threatened species
• increases funding for the Endangered Species Act Recovery Plans and resilience for climate-induced weather events

Yet the new law is hardly without flaws. The last two categories (Fossil Fuels and Permitting Reform) contain multiple provisions of great concern to advocates for clean energy and climate action. Those features include concessions to Senator Joe Manchin, such as the expediting of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and prioritization of 25 energy infrastructure projects that have to be “balanced by project type: critical minerals, nuclear, hydrogen, fossil fuels, electric transmission, renewables, and CCS (‘carbon capture and storage’) technology.”

Other concerning aspects include:

• Its agricultural provisions neglect to address meat and dairy production, which generate the greatest carbon emissions in the farming sector.
• It provides $3+ billion for the elusive and much-derided CCS. As a New York Times guest essay says, “The Inflation Reduction Act does more to cut fossil fuel use and fight climate change than any previous legislation by expanding renewable energy, electric cars, heat pumps and more. But the law also contains a counterproductive waste of money, backed by the fossil fuel industry, to subsidize CCS.” In reality, the authors say, 90% of CCS projects operating in 2021 were actually engaged in “enhanced oil recovery” — extraction of crude oil that cannot otherwise be extracted. They add, “This process produces more natural gas and oil, increases carbon dioxide emissions and transfers carbon dioxide that was naturally locked away underground in one place to another one elsewhere. . . . [W]e consider these ventures oil or natural gas projects, or both, masquerading as climate change solutions.” Many climate advocates agree.
• The law incentivizes hydrogen production for use as fuel, but the utility of hydrogen in a clean energy future is in doubt. Its greenhouse gas emissions impacts can be significant if production is based on derivation from fossil fuels. In addition, hydrogen is prone to significant leaking and when it does, it contributes to atmospheric warming. Last, hydrogen is highly explosive if not managed properly.
• What the law advances with one hand, it regresses with the other. To wit, as the Council on Foreign Relations explains, “The legislation also includes a provision that tethers offshore wind leasing to oil and gas extraction. Over a ten-year period, the Interior Department will be prohibited from issuing a lease for offshore wind development unless at least sixty million acres — the size of Michigan — have been leased for oil and gas in the previous year. The bill also requiresthe Interior Department to lease at least two million acres of public lands — more than double the size of Rhode Island — for oil and gas drilling as a prerequisite for any renewable energy development on public lands. Experts, such as the Center for Biological Diversity’s Brett Hartl, have voiced concernthat ‘handcuffing’ renewable energy development to new oil and gas extraction will ‘fan the flames of climate disasters torching our country.’”

Nevertheless, the new and significant directed revenue is set to support programs to address the climate crisis and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40% by 2030. Beyond Pesticides has documented the role of agriculture in the climate crisis, including the “contributions” of chemically intensive, conventional farming practices — use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, both of which are sourced from fossil fuels — and of industrial CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). Much has been written about the value of Nature’s ecosystem services and threats to them, including the fragility of ecosystems to chemical assaults, and the biodiversity and climate crises. And we have researched, written about, and advocated endlessly for the huge role that the transition to organic regenerative agriculture would play in resolution of multiple threats humanity faces.

The “plusses” in the Inflation Reduction Act could potentially transform the energy and climate landscape, as well as aspects of the food system, which is dominated by conventional chemical-intensive agriculture. Globally, the food system is responsible for 25–30% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Provisions of the law under “Conservation and Agriculture” could significantly redirect how agriculture operates in the U.S.

The roughly $21 billion designated for “climate smart” agriculture and Farm Bill conservation programs could tamp down some of the harmful impacts of conventional, petrochemically dependent farming on the environment, ecosystems, wildlife, and natural resources. The law’s agricultural provisions aim, among other goals, to help farmers create and sustain pollinator habitat, increase soil’s capacity to store carbon, and boost resilience of food producers as they face increasingly extreme and unpredictable weather and water shortages.

Specific investments include those for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which funds projects that restore ecosystems and/or reduce emissions on farmland. Another is the Conservation Stewardship Program, which, according to Vox, “pays farmers to make their lands more sustainable,” and has the potential to shift “industrial” farms — which grow huge numbers of acres of monocrops with tons of chemical inputs — to approaches that employ diverse crops, which provides some pest protection; employ cover crops that enrich and feed microbial soil life (the basis of soil health), suppress weeds, and limit erosion; interplant to reduce pest risk; use compost in place of synthetic fertilizers; and deploy other nonchemical approaches that are infinitely less damaging to the soil, the environment, and ultimately, human health (which is put at risk in multiple ways from chemicals, both in agriculture and broadly). Such approaches are integral to organic production.

The law also supports the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which helps landowners restore soils, water, and wildlife on a regional or watershed scale, and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, which conserves land and protects its agricultural viability by limiting “negative nonagricultural uses.”

In addition to the climate smart programs in which the new law will invest, Beyond Pesticides would argue that some funds must be allocated more directly, via USDA (the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the National Organic Program), to advance a transition to organic practices that virtually eliminate the use of fossil-fuel-derived synthetic inputs, radically improve soil health and thus, its carbon storage capacity, and use approaches that cooperate with, rather than damage, Nature. Beyond Pesticides also advocates that some of the funds the law provides should be used to redirect the focus and programs at EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) so that the agency’s evaluations of, and decisions on, registration of pesticides account for their impacts on the climate, biodiversity, and health crises. Such realignment would be entirely consistent with the agency’s mission — “to protect human health and the environment — and would stand in some contrast to how the agency has operated over the past few decades.

Response to the new legislation in the environment, health, and biodiversity advocacy communities has been both clear-eyed on its negatives, and appreciative of the opportunities the Inflation Reduction Act will enable. Mike Lavender of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition commented, “The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition celebrates [the] signing into law of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 by President Biden. While not as comprehensive as earlier iterations, this bill represents a meaningful step forward on addressing the climate crisis and reflects key priorities lifted up by the farmers and communities our membership serves.”

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF), joined by 131 signatories representing conservation, farming, ranching, hunting, and angling groups, as well as food and agriculture companies, sent a letter to Congressional leaders that included this comment: “Farmers, ranchers, and foresters are ready to adopt practices that sequester carbon and reduce emissions if they are provided the tools and resources to make that goal a reality. Increasing funding for the Farm Bill conservation programs and climate-smart agriculture, and ramping up conservation technical assistance on the ground will enable landowners to mitigate the impacts of drought and flood, restore wildlife habitat, improve soil health and long-term food security, create new job opportunities for rural economies, and galvanize the agriculture sector to lead the charge in our fight against climate change.”

NWF president and CEO Collin O’Mara wrote, “The historic Inflation Reduction Act underscores that we do not need to choose between confronting the climate crisis and lowering costs for families. The Inflation Reduction Act sets America on a new path to a clean energy future by reducing pollution, creating good jobs, and achieving energy independence. [It] is the most significant climate legislation in decades — and a strong foundation for future efforts on environmental justice and wildlife conservation.”

Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, said: ”We see opportunities in this new law to advance transformative organic practices, that will, if we successfully advocate for them, move us closer to our goal of eliminating fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers—chemicals that exacerbate the existential public health, biodiversity, and climate threats. However, with the clock ticking and total societal collapse looming, we must leverage the opportunities that this law provides — to elevate the transformational changes with the urgency that they deserve. This will require our community coming together to advocate effectively and with grassroots power.”

Beyond Pesticides sees in this new law great opportunity to turn around the entropic path of environmental, climate, health, and biodiversity harm on which we have trod for the past half-century. We invite the public to join us for the 2022 National Forum Series: Virtual Seminars from Beyond Pesticides (beginning September 15). The National Forum Series launches Beyond Pesticides’ campaign to eliminate fossil-fuel-based pesticide use within the next decade — putting a stop to toxic emissions, exposure, and residues, while embracing an organic systems approach that is holistic and respectful of life.”

The Beyond Pesticides website explains: “The series will focus on three challenging categories: public health threats, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency. In each category of our involvement — whether as professionals or lay people, local elected officials or concerned advocates — we play a critical role in enhancing public understanding of the science and [in] the practical hands-on experience to inform the urgent steps that must be taken at the local, state, and national levels. In this context, our positions are informed by a recognition that with all the existential threats there is disproportionate risk to people of color communities and those with health vulnerabilities. While the current challenges result from a confluence of issues that are harmful to sustaining life, the need for carefully defined sustainable land management and building and household practices and products is urgent.”

Join us for the National Forum Series to learn, engage, and perhaps become active in your community and state to change the trajectory and head toward a safer and more-sustainable future! Register here.

Source: https://www.progressivecaucuscenter.org/climate-and-energy-provisions-in-the-inflation-reduction-act

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

(Beyond Pesticides, August 18, 2022) A study published in Environmental Research suggests occupational (work-related) exposure to pesticides among nonpregnant women and men may increase childhood cancer risk for offspring. Already, studies find low levels of pesticide exposure during pregnancy or childhood cause adverse health effects from metabolic disorders to mental and physical disabilities. However, few assess parental exposure’s impact on childhood disease risk outside critical development periods (e.g., pregnancy). Although medical advancements in disease survival are more prominent nowadays, childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death from disease among children. Furthermore, childhood cancer survivors can suffer from chronic or long-term health complications that may be life-threatening.

The etiology or cause of childhood cancer involves the interaction of multiple components like lifestyle and genetics. However, emerging evidence indicates that environmental contaminants like pesticides (e.g., occupational exposures, air pollution, pesticides, solvents, diet, etc.) play a role in disease etiology. Pesticide contamination is widespread in all ecosystems, and chemical compounds can accumulate in human tissues resulting in chronic health effects. Children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of pesticide exposure as their developing bodies cannot adequately combat exposure effects. Moreover, several studies demonstrate an association between environmental or occupational pesticide exposure and the risk of childhood cancer. Considering maternal pesticide exposure can have a stronger association with cancer among children than childhood exposure, and newborns can still encounter pesticides, it is important to understand how pesticide accumulation and co-occurrence can increase the risk of latent diseases (e.g., cancers) among vulnerable populations, such as children/infants.

There is a lack of understanding of cancer risk from parental exposure to pesticides via occupation. The study examines whether parents’ exposure to pesticides has an association with childhood cancer development among offspring. The International Classification of Childhood Cancer classifies childhood cancers as leukemias, lymphomas, and central nervous system (CNS) tumors/gliomas. 

Using a Swedish register-based case-control study spanning 1960 to 2015, researchers compare juvenile cancer cases from the Cancer Register that are less than 20 years old to healthy (control) children born in the same year. The study investigates parental employment history around the time of the offspring’s birth and evaluates whether there is any exposure to herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides.  Logistic regression analyses estimate the risk for cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma, CNS and other solid tumors. Although work-related maternal and paternal exposure to pesticides does not have an increased association with childhood cancer risk overall, exposure indicates a 42 percent higher risk of lymphoma (primarily Hodgkin lymphoma) and a 30 percent increased risk of solid non-CNS tumors in children. Additionally, paternal pesticide exposure can indicate a 15 percent risk for myeloid leukemia. The researchers detect that even low levels of pesticide exposure may lead to a higher risk of childhood cancers.

There is a significant scientific connection between pesticides and cancer as several studies link pesticide use and residues to various cancers, from prevalent forms like breast cancer to rare like kidney cancer nephroblastoma (Wilms’ tumor). Sixty-six percent of all cancers have links to environmental factors, especially in occupations of high chemical use. In addition to the robust links between agricultural practices and pesticide-related illnesses, over 65 percent of commonly used lawn pesticides and 70 percent of commonly used school pesticides have links to cancer. Although general pesticide exposure can increase susceptibility to cancer, prenatal and early-life exposure to environmental toxicants can increase cancer risk. For decades, studies have long demonstrated that childhood and in utero exposure to the U.S. banned insecticide DDT increases the risk of developing breast cancer later in life. Moreover, a 2021 study finds previous maternal exposure to the chemical compound during pregnancy can increase the risk of breast cancer and cardiometabolic disorders (e.g., heart disease, obesity, diabetes) up to three successive generations. 

Both current and past-use pesticides and chemical contaminants play a role in similar disease outcomes as several of these chemicals are endocrine disruptors, thus having implications for specific cancer risks (e.g., breast cancer). Even pregnant mothers’ exposure to household cleaners, many of which are pesticides, can increase nephroblastoma (kidney cancer) and brain tumor risk in children. Furthermore, long-term exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides increases adverse health and cancer risks, specifically among women. Since DDT and its metabolite DDE residues, current-use pesticides, and other chemical pollutants contaminate the environment, exposure to these chemical mixtures can synergize to increase toxicity and disease effects. Globally, cancer is one of the leading causes of death, with over eight million people succumbing to the disease every year. Notably, the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC) predicts a 67.4 percent rise in new cancer cases by 2030. Therefore, it is essential to understand how external stimuli—like environmental pollution from pesticides—can drive cancer development to avoid exposure and lessen potential cancer risks.

Although this study does not identify a definitive association between increased risk of all childhood cancer among children and parental occupational exposure to pesticides, maternal occupational exposure indicates a higher risk for specific cancers like lymphoma (i.e., non-Hodgkin lymphoma) and solid non-CNS tumors. Moreover, children of fathers with occupational insecticide exposure have a higher risk of myeloid leukemia. The likely reason for occupational pesticide exposure to indicate potential cancer risk is due to genetic mutation or damage that may occur and passed down to offspring. This alteration makes the offspring more susceptible to other factors that may increase cancer risk. For instance, the risk of developing lymphoma is slightly higher if a close relative (e.g., parent, sibling, offspring) has/had lymphoma or another type of blood cancer. As the rate of chronic diseases like cancer continues to increase in the U.S., and additional studies find these diseases to be pesticide-induced, the public must increase pressure on regulators and lawmakers to enact meaningful measures that eliminate pesticide use and the hazards. The study concludes, “Although these findings merit further investigation, they indicate that parental exposure to pesticides may lead to higher risks of childhood cancer even in settings of low exposure.”

There is a strong consensus among pediatricians that pregnant mothers and young children should avoid pesticide exposure during critical windows of development. However, the general population should follow this advice as the effects of pesticide exposure span every individual. Fortunately, the wide availability of non-pesticidal alternative strategies allows families and agricultural industry workers to apply these methods to promote a safe and healthy environment, especially among chemically vulnerable individuals. For instance, buying, growing, and supporting organic land management can reduce human and environmental contamination from pesticides. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits, which curtail the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices. Numerous studies find that pesticide metabolite levels in urine significantly decrease when switching to an all-organic diet. For more information on how organic is the right choice for both consumers and the farmworkers that grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage on Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture.

Both government officials and the public must comprehend the health implications of pesticide use and exposure on humans, especially when pesticides increase chronic disease risk. Beyond Pesticides tracks the most recent news and studies on pesticides through the Daily News Blog and Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database (PIDD). This database supports the need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the adverse effects of pesticides on human health, see PIDD pages on cancer (lymphoma, multiple myeloma), birth/fetal defects, and other diseases. Additionally, since pesticides can have multi-generation impacts on our health, you can learn more about the hazards posed to children’s health through Beyond Pesticide’s Pesticide and You Journal article, “Children and Pesticides Don’t Mix.”

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

Source: Environmental Research

(Beyond Pesticides, August 17, 2022) Health and environmental advocates are urging Governor Kathy Hochul (D) to sign into law legislation that allows localities in the state to protect freshwater wetlands from toxic pesticide applications. The legislation, SB S8378C, sponsored by Senator Pete Harckham (D-WF) and passed by the state Senate and Assembly, represents an important affirmation of the local democratic right of communities seeking to protect their residents and local environments from hazardous pesticides. The state-level legislation comes at a time when local communities are under attack from pesticide industry allies in Congress, who are promoting legislation to “preempt” or prohibit states from enacting these laws, and localities from exercising their right to local control. The bill is awaiting the governor’s signature.

Underlying Senator Harckham’s legislation is the principle that local communities should be able to set rules to protect their drinking water from contamination. Local officials, Sen. Harckham notes, know their wetlands and aquifer systems best. “Pesticides and herbicides should not have blanket application if a municipality chooses to regulate their local wetlands that way,” he told Spectrum News 1. Under the proposed legislation, a locality may enact pesticide restrictions only if the local government has already implemented a freshwater wetlands protection law.

The pesticide industry has rallied against the legislation with standard anti-democratic arguments that undermine public health protections. Representatives of the industry group with the misleading name “Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment,” an offshoot of CropLife America—which has consistently worked to suppress local right—told Spectrum News 1 that local jurisdictions lack “expertise” in addressing the use of toxic pesticides. This argument contradicts the U.S. governmental structure that vests local governments with the authority to adopt standards that may exceed state and federal standards in order to address local conditions and issues of contamination. Apparently, the pesticide industry would rather have the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state agencies preempt local elected officials who, through the democratic process, are charged with protecting the environment and health of their community when state and federal law is viewed as inadequate.

As Terrence Centner of the University of Nebraska College of Law and Davis Heric of University of Georgia note in their study, Anti-community state pesticide preemption laws prevent local governments from protecting people from harm, published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability and supported by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, pesticide preemption laws “compromise public health and economic well-being” by preventing localities from enacting pesticide use restrictions on private property that are more restrictive than their state’s regulations. As the authors explain, “By eliminating the ability of local governments to enact ordinances to safeguard inhabitants from health risks posed by pesticides, state preemption laws denigrate public health protections… If legislators care about the health of their communities and citizens, they need to repeal preemption laws that prevent appropriate safety regulations by local governments.”

The New York Farm Bureau has also come out against the legislation, concerned that the law “would devalue pesticide registrations” and “create confusion” over where pesticide applications are allowed. Messrs. Centner and Davis note that the pesticide industry’s desire to centralize control through “economies of scale” seeks to concentrate economic power despite its adverse impact on public health. According to Drew Toher, community resource and policy director at Beyond Pesticides, “In the eyes of the pesticide and agrichemical industry, localities should be more concerned about the profit margins of their businesses than the health of their neighbors or local ecology.”

“[T]he Farm Bureau tends to have a reflexive reaction when it comes to clean water initiatives,” Senator Harckham told Spectrum News 1. “I would hope the Farm Bureau would work with us on this. It’s a good bill. It’s a local bill and it will go a long way to protect our drinking water supplies.”

As the pesticide industry seeks to influence New York State’s affairs, its sights are currently set on Congress. If the industry gets its way, New York would have no say over whether its localities could restrict pesticide use, precluding the adoption of Senator Harckham’s legislation. That is because the pesticide industry wants to enact pesticide preemption at the federal level, overruling the exercise of both the state and local democratic process. H.R.7266, introduced by Representative Rodney Davis (R-IL), would also prohibit a community to “continue in effect” any requirement relating to pesticide use, overturning any existing restrictions already passed in local communities. With uncertainty over how broadly this bill would be interpreted, all local jurisdictions with pesticide reform policies, including those only applying to public properties, could be reversed with this legislation.  

As it stands, according to Beyond Pesticides’ analysis, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) already has the power to allow local jurisdictions to enact pesticide protections. No jurisdiction has yet made a formal request, but the passage of this legislation may spur further interest in additional protections.

Despite loud and vocal opposition from the pesticide industry, Senator Harckham is hopeful for the bill’s passage, as he indicated he worked with the governor on its inclusion in the state budget. A spokesperson for Governor Hochul indicates that she is reviewing the legislation.

Contact Governor Hochul and urge her to sign the legislation. You can send a message here. Ask her to sign SB S8378C into law and stand up to the pesticide and chemical industry’s attack on democracy.

Stop the pesticide industry’s attack on state and local democracy by getting in touch with your US member of Congress today. Help us work not only to beat back this latest attempt, but enshrine local rights in federal law by urging your Senators to support the Protect America’s Children From Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA).

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

Source: NY State Senate,  Spectrum News 1

(Beyond Pesticides, August 16, 2022) Over half of all food samples tested by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) contain the residues of at least one pesticide, and one in ten samples have levels that violate legal limits established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These findings, published by FDA this month in its 2020 Pesticide Residue Monitoring Report, are simply par for the course for government regulators, as FDA indicates the 2020 results “were consistent with recent years.” However, while reporting on the dangerous pesticides present in U.S. food has become routine for FDA, more and more Americans are rejecting regular exposure to unnecessary toxics in their food by going organic with their food choices, planting their own pesticide-free gardens, and encouraging their elected officials to embrace safer, sustainable land care policies.  

FDA has conducted a review of pesticide residues on food on an annual basis since 1987, evaluating both domestic and imported foodstuffs into the US market. While EPA sets “pesticide tolerances,” also known as “maximum residue levels,” of allowed pesticide residues on certain foods, FDA (and USDA, for some specific items like meat, poultry, and eggs) is tasked with enforcing these provisions.

Pesticide tolerances, from the start, imply that there is a tolerable level of pesticide exposure that can be applied to the general public. However, this process is rife with problems that have important public health implications. EPA sets tolerances as part of its “food safety equation,” conducting a dietary risk assessment to determine the amount that will result in “reasonable certainty of no harm” under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. As part of this process, EPA is required by law to evaluate both dietary pesticide exposure and all other sources, including from air, water, landscaping, and household pesticide use for pesticides that have a “common mechanism” of effect. While the agency claims it is taking into account consumption by more sensitive groups, in practice this is often not the case.

Regulatory deficiencies place pregnant mothers, children, and certain ethnic groups in the U.S. at risk. Pregnant mothers and their children take in more pesticide relative to adults and have developing organs systems less capable of detoxifying toxic chemicals; as a result, they are at greater risk from lower amounts of pesticide exposure on food than adults. Many ethnic groups also consume much more of a given food than EPA often estimates the average consumer would eat. Thus, for various foods, like lychee, feijoa, soursop, sapodilla and other foods that may be consumed rarely by the general public but regularly by certain U.S. communities, tolerance levels are not necessarily protective of higher levels of consumption. Similarly, not considered at elevated risk are those with preexisting conditions or with elevated exposures because they are living in fenceline communities (near chemical plants) or working in industries with exposure to hazardous substances

Due to the pandemic, FDA’s sampling program included a smaller sample size than previous years. Out of 2,078 samples tested, 316 were domestic and 1,762 were from imported food. Of the 316 domestic food samples, 59.2% contained the residue of at least one pesticide, and 3.2% were in violation of EPA pesticide tolerances. Import samples totaled 1,762, of which over 50% contained at least one pesticide residue, and 11.6% were in violation. In general, samples of food imported to the U.S. from other countries appeared to pose a greater risk of containing pesticide residue. Countries documenting the highest number of import violations included Mexico, India, and Pakistan.

Among the over 2,000 samples tested, 185 different pesticide residues were detected. The fungicide azoxystrobin appeared the most frequently (146 times), followed by the notorious, bee-killing insecticide imidacloprid (143 times), and the fungicide boscalid (124 times). Bee-killing neonicotinoids comprise three of the 10 most frequently detected chemicals on food, including thiamethoxam (92 times) and acetamiprid (77 times), in addition to imidacloprid. Neonicotinoids, as systemic insecticides, spread throughout a plant’s vascular system and as a result are not easily washed off, significantly increasing the likelihood of post-harvest human exposure. Other notable detections included 70 samples containing chlorpyrifos, which is now banned for use in agriculture. Thirty-three samples contained glyphosate, which FDA was previously cited for failing to test by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Products with the highest number of violations include basmati rice imported from India and Pakistan, green onions from Mexico, dragon fruit from Vietnam, and jackfruit from Mexico. Of these major violations, several are foods that certain ethnic communities in the United States consume at a higher rate than other ethnic American communities, increasing the disproportionate risk to which many communities are subjected.  

While FDA’s low sample numbers in 2020 can be excused due to the pandemic, GAO previously cited FDA for testing a mere fraction of fruits and vegetables produced and imported in the U.S. In 1997 testimony before Congress, Federal Regulation of Pesticide Residues In Food, GAO stated, “Our overall judgment is that because of the limited amount of food that FDA is able to test for pesticide residues, it is important that FDA’s monitoring program acts as a strong deterrent against the shipment of food containing pesticide residues that render the food adulterated. Our reviews of FDA’s pesticide monitoring program show that this is not the case.”

It is clear that not much has changed since that 1997 testimony. Rather than acting as a strong deterrent, FDA appears content as long as data is “consistent” with the findings of recent years. Yet, the experience of recent years has shown that business as usual cannot continue. In addition to the growing specter of pesticide induced diseases harming countless American residents, pesticide residues that remain on our food are merely the remnants of earlier biocidal warfare against the natural world, the legacy of poisoned farmworkers, landscapers, pollinators, streams, or natural lands.

To stop rampant pesticide use harming people and the natural world, we must look beyond identifying a dozen or so dirty, problematic fruits and vegetables, and work towards Eating With a Conscience. Our food choices directly effect the health of our environment and the farmworkers that grow and harvest the food we eat. In the absence of meaningful protections from federal regulators, eat organically whenever possible, try your hand at a pesticide-free garden, and help protect organic integrity to ensure it remains a viable, pesticide-free alternative to toxic chemical agriculture.

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

Source: FDA Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program Reports and Data

(Beyond Pesticides, August 15, 2022) Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and seven other members of the United States Senate are calling on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to phase out the use of toxic pesticides in National Wildlife Refuges in order to protect declining wildlife species and the country’s unique natural resources. The senators sent a letter to FWS Director Martha Williams urging FWS to “expeditiously begin a rulemaking process to phase out the use of agricultural pesticides on National Wildlife Refuges.” The move comes at a time when native wildlife and the ecosystems humans rely upon are under greater threats than ever before from climate change, habitat destruction, and the indiscriminate use of toxic pesticides.

Join eight U.S. Senators in calling for a phase out of the use of toxic pesticides in National Wildlife Refuges.

“The Refuge System was established to provide sanctuary for listed threatened and endangered species, migratory birds, and other wildlife,” wrote the senators in their letter. “The Refuges’ migratory sanctuary and breeding grounds are especially critical for North American birds, as they have faced precipitous population declines; there are 3 billion fewer breeding birds in North America than there were in 1970. Unfortunately these birds and other threatened species are being put at risk by pesticide use in the Refuges that were designed to protect them.” 

Responding to court challenges in 2014, the former Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System officially phased out the use of genetically engineered crops and neonicotinoids insecticides on all US wildlife refuges. The decision, as outlined in a memorandum by former Chief James Kurth, was based on the fact that neonicotinoid use, and the harms associated with it, “is not consistent with Service policy…[]based on a precautionary approach to our wildlife management practices and not on agricultural practices.”

Despite these important restrictions, other toxic agricultural pesticides continued to be sprayed in these sensitive and protected sites. A report by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) found that in 2016 alone over 270,000 acres were sprayed with more than 490,000 pounds of hazardous pesticides. Despite these concerning statistics, the Trump administration’s FWS released a memorandum reversing the 2014 restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides, allowing use on a “case-by-case basis,” thus unnecessarily exposing a broad range of threatened and endangered wildlife to chemicals that do not belong in protected natural areas. As the senators write, these chemicals “leach into the surrounding groundwater and soil and are picked up by native flowering plants and pollinators.” This threatens not only non-target organisms, but also the 53 million annual human visitors to U.S. Wildlife Refuges.

An update to CBD’s report, finds pesticide use expanded 34% from 2016, to more than 363,000 acres of wild lands. Use of the most dangerous pesticides increased by more than 70% within this time frame. To remedy the situation, the senators are calling for the Refuge System to work to eliminate all toxic pesticide use in favor products compatible with organic land care. The letter to FWS also asks for provisions that permit pesticide use on non-native species only on a limited basis if compatible with a Refuge’s Comprehensive Conservation Plan. Furthermore, they ask that the 2014 memorandum issued by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Chief James Kurth be reinstated, phasing out neonicotinoids.

In addition to Senator Booker, Senators Ed Markey (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) signed on to the letter.

Help support the efforts of these Senate champions by joining calls to urge FWS to reinstate Refuge System protections. Further support Senator Booker’s steadfast efforts to protect American children and the wider environment from toxic pesticides by urging your own senators to join in cosponsoring the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act.

Join eight U.S. Senators in calling for a phase out of the use of toxic pesticides in National Wildlife Refuges.

Letter to FWS Director Martha Williams

I am writing to support the request by Senator Cory Booker and seven other U.S. Senators that FWS phase out the use of toxic pesticides in National Wildlife Refuges in order to protect declining wildlife species and the country’s unique natural resources. Native wildlife and the ecosystems upon which humans rely are under greater threats than ever before from climate change, habitat destruction, and the indiscriminate use of toxic pesticides.

As stated by the senators, “The Refuge System was established to provide sanctuary for listed threatened and endangered species, migratory birds, and other wildlife. The Refuges’ migratory sanctuary and breeding grounds are especially critical for North American birds, as they have faced precipitous population declines; there are 3 billion fewer breeding birds in North America than there were in 1970. Unfortunately, these birds and other threatened species are being put at risk by pesticide use in the Refuges that were designed to protect them.”

Along with the senators, I ask that you expeditiously begin a rulemaking process to phase out the use of agricultural pesticides on National Wildlife Refuges. Specifically, I ask that:
1. All chemical or biological pesticides registered under Section 3 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act be subject to phase out on National Wildlife Refuge land, automatically exempting minimum risk pesticides such as those used in organic production.
2. The use of any pesticides for the control of invasive or non-native species be authorized only on a limited basis when necessary so long as it is compatible with each Refuge’s Comprehensive Conservation Plan and strictly in conformity with an Integrated Pest Management plan.
3. As a short-term fix, I ask that the 2014 memorandum issued by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Chief James Kurth be reinstated, phasing out neonicotinoids.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators

I am asking you to support the request by Senator Cory Booker and seven other senators that U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) phase out the use of toxic pesticides in National Wildlife Refuges in order to protect declining wildlife species and the country’s unique natural resources. Native wildlife and the ecosystems upon which humans rely are under greater threats than ever before from climate change, habitat destruction, and the indiscriminate use of toxic pesticides.

As stated by the senators in a letter to FWS, “The Refuge System was established to provide sanctuary for listed threatened and endangered species, migratory birds, and other wildlife. The Refuges’ migratory sanctuary and breeding grounds are especially critical for North American birds, as they have faced precipitous population declines; there are 3 billion fewer breeding birds in North America than there were in 1970. Unfortunately these birds and other threatened species are being put at risk by pesticide use in the Refuges that were designed to protect them.”

Along with the senators, I ask that you ask FWS to expeditiously begin a rulemaking process to phase out the use of agricultural pesticides on National Wildlife Refuges. Specifically, I ask that:
1. All chemical or biological pesticides registered under Section 3 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act be subject to phase out on National Wildlife Refuge land, automatically exempting minimum risk pesticides such as those used in organic production.
2. The use of any pesticides for the control of invasive or non-native species be authorized only on a limited basis when necessary so long as it is compatible with each Refuge’s Comprehensive Conservation Plan and strictly in conformity with an Integrated Pest Management plan.
3. As a short-term fix, I ask that the 2014 memorandum issued by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Chief James Kurth be reinstated, phasing out neonicotinoids.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

(Beyond Pesticides, August 12, 2022) Gestational (during pregnancy) exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) like pesticides, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), among others, may increase pediatric (child) liver injury and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) risk, according to a study published in Environmental Health. Past studies associate exposure to EDCs with increased susceptibility to adverse health effects during critical fetal and childhood developmental periods. The World Health Organization (WHO), European Union (EU), and endocrine disruptor expert (deceased) Theo Colborn, Ph.D., classify over 55 to 177 chemical compounds as endocrine disruptors, including various household products like detergents, disinfectants, plastics, and pesticides. Endocrine disruption can lead to several health problems, including hormone-related cancer development (i.e., thyroid, breast, ovarian, prostate, testicular), reproductive dysfunction, and diabetes/obesity that can span generations. Because EDCs are ubiquitous because they are found in many products, studies report that these toxic chemical compounds are detectable in infants, children, and pregnant women. Furthermore, pregnant women can readily transfer compounds to the developing fetus through the placenta. Therefore, it is essential to understand the mechanism behind how harmful chemical exposure induces endocrine disruption during critical developmental periods. Researchers note, “Considering the lack of studies on endocrine disruption and pediatric NAFLD, research like this highlights the need to understand the underlying mechanisms that contribute to growing endocrine disease incidents.”

Researchers used the Human Early-Life Exposome population-based cohort study involving 1108 mother and child pairs across 6 European countries to determine how prenatal chemical exposure impacts liver health. The study examined the effect of three organochlorine pesticides, four organophosphate pesticides, five polychlorinated biphenyls, two polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), three phenols, four parabens, ten phthalates, five PFAS, and nine metals on the liver. Using the Bayesian weighted quartile sum and machine regression, researchers compare the associations between liver injury (or cytokeratin 18 [CK-18]) levels and mixtures of EDC groups in maternal blood and urine samples. The results confirm that all EDCs increase the odds of liver injury or liver cell apoptosis, except phthalates and phenols, due to high molecular weight.

Organochlorine compounds (OCs), such as organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), are well-known persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Banned by the Stockholm Convention treaty in 2001 because of persistence, toxicity, and adverse effects on environmental and biological health, these pollutants have a global distribution, with evaporation and precipitation facilitating long-range atmospheric transport, deposition, and bioaccumulation of hazardous chemicals in the environment. Organochlorines remain in the environment for decades—possibly centuries, post-final application, as OCPs have higher chemical stability and gradual attenuation. However, these chemicals have profound adverse impacts on human health, especially on the endocrine system. Although some, but not all manufacturing and use of specific OCPs have declined in the U.S., OCPs remain a global issue, as much of the developing world still report usage. However, organophosphate insecticides continue to have global uses, despite being associated with neurotoxicity, learning and developmental disorder, and immune/hormone disruption, especially among children.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a group of over 9,000 human-made chemicals present in various consumer products that people use daily. Although some PFAS compound manufacturing has ceased, these chemicals last forever in the environment as their chemical structure makes them resistant to breakdown. Thus, PFAS contamination is significantly underrepresented and much more perverse that previously thought, polluting storage and transportation containers, food and water resources, and other chemical products. For instance, independent research by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility PEER) finds that widely used insecticide Anvil 10+10 contains high levels of PFAS from contamination. Although EPA does not regulate PFAS in pesticide formulas, the agency lists these substances in the inert ingredient database. However, product labels do not require disclosure of contaminants fundamental for pesticide products through the manufacturing or packaging process. Contamination of a toxic product with other harmful chemicals is glaringly problematic for public health and the environment. Moreover, PFAS chemical residues are persistent in food and drinking water, with over six million U.S. residents regularly encountering drinking water with PFAS levels above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health advisory of 70 ng/L. Therefore, PFAS are detectable in almost all of the U.S. population—disproportionately afflicting people of color communities—and have implications for human health. 

Since EPA fails to regulate PFAS and other underrepresented EDCs, the depth and scope of the contamination may be difficult to assess. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) classify many EDCs as possible carcinogens based on epidemiological studies identifying instances of kidney, ovarian, testicular, prostate, and thyroid cancer, as well as non-Hodgkin lymphoma and childhood leukemia. Considering EDCs like PFAS are anatomically similar to fatty acids and may impair fatty acid metabolism and lipid synthesis in the liver, there may be an underestimation of toxicity effects on human, animal, and environmental health.

The study demonstrates an increase in pediatric NAFLD disease incidence among children exposed to EDCs during prenatal development. This study adds to the growing body of research demonstrating exposure EDCs during the sensitive pregnancy period may increase the risk for adverse health effects. Particularly, researchers attribute endocrine-induced liver injury and liver cell death during childhood to the growing epidemic of pediatric NAFLD. Similar to this study, mixtures of various EDCs can induce synergism that may increase pesticide toxicity or result in changes to its characteristics, like penetrative abilities. Endocrine disruption can promote obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and elevated liver enzyme, that all have an association with NAFLD. Therefore, gestation represents a window of increased vulnerability to EDC exposure. The researchers conclude, “These results advance the current limited understanding of pediatric NAFLD etiology and support the need for more investigation in this area. Our findings can inform more efficient early-life prevention and intervention strategies to address the current NAFLD epidemic.”

The endocrine disrupting effects of pesticides and other chemicals have extensive documentation. Beyond Pesticides tracks the most recent studies on pesticide exposure through our Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database (PIDD). This database supports the clear need for strategic action to shift from pesticide dependency. For more information on the multiple harms that pesticides can cause, see PIDD pages on Endocrine Disruption and other diseases.

One way to reduce human and environmental contamination from pesticides is to buy, grow, and support organic. Numerous studies find that levels of pesticides in urine significantly drop when switching to an all-organic diet. Furthermore, given the wide availability of non-pesticidal alternative strategies, families, from rural to urban, can apply these methods to promote a safe and healthy environment, especially among chemically vulnerable individuals or those with health conditions. For more information on why organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers that grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture.

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

Source: Scientific Reports

(Beyond Pesticides, August 11, 2022) A study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health finds that Brazilian agricultural workers are more likely to die from acute kidney failure (AKF) than other acute illnesses. Among the agricultural workers, the prevalence of AKF is higher for individuals at younger ages, who are female, and located in regions south of chemical use, particularly rural areas. However, the AKF mortality rate in urban areas is also increasing, but not as fast as in rural areas.

Over six million people in the U.S. have kidney disease (i.e., nephritis [kidney inflammation], nephrotic syndrome (improper protein filtration), and nephrosis). Although many studies find an association between exposure to environmental contaminants like pesticides and chronic kidney disease (CKD), the association between pesticides and acute kidney failure remains unclear. CKD is a risk factor for AKF, and other environmental factors can increase the risk of AKF mortality. Therefore, studies like this highlight the need for comprehensive information regarding co-occurring exposure patterns and disease prevalence that can have global implications. The study notes, “Our findings reinforce the need for more robust epidemiological studies that account for co-exposures and conditions of agricultural work in the relationship between pesticide exposure and kidney health in Brazil.”

To investigate trends in AKF and pesticide exposure, researchers used the death certificate (1980-2014) of agricultural workers in southern and Midwest Brazil in regions of intense chemical use. A joinpoint regression (an analytic tool used to measure epidemiological trends) calculates the changes in AKF mortality rate each year among rural/urban areas. Researchers compare AFK mortality among agricultural workers and the nonagricultural population, adjusting for age, sex, region, education, and race. The results find AKF mortality increases for agricultural workers regardless of region (urban/rural), with the greatest increase occurring between the mid-1990s and 2000s. Moreover, agricultural workers who are younger, female, and living in southern regions with higher pesticide expenses are more likely to die from AKF.

Many studies document pesticides’ impacts on kidney function, finding a range of chemicals linked to kidney damage. Even among the 40 most commonly used lawn care pesticides, 80 percent have associations with kidney or liver damage. These chemicals include widely used herbicides like glyphosate and organophosphate insecticides like malathion. Glyphosate was initially created as a chelating agent (bonding ions and molecules to metal ions) to form strong chemical bonds with metals. In 2013, the Center for Public Integrity highlighted that glyphosate bonds with toxic heavy metals in the environment, such as cadmium and arsenic, forming stable compounds. These compounds are present in food and water for consumption and do not break down until they reach the kidneys. Thus, farmworkers exposed to glyphosate are likely to have these toxic metals in their kidneys. Malathion is an organophosphate class insecticide used primarily for mosquito control. Individuals may encounter malathion through consuming food produced in chemical-dependent agriculture or drinking water, or as a result of drift from pesticide application and public use. A study published in October 2021 found significant associations with malathion exposure, low kidney function, and increased risk of CKD. A 2022 study found that 68 percent of well water sampled in Sri Lanka (south-east Asian) contains at least one pesticide above the global drinking water guidelines, including the organophosphate insecticide diazinon. Individuals that reported drinking well water during their lifetime had a significantly (6.7 times) lower kidney health on average than those who never drank well water. However, organophosphates are also known to have high acute toxicity that can directly impact the onset of AKF, in combination with chronic health effects (e.g., CKD, kidney toxic drug ingestion, iodinated contrast, heart failure, liver diseases, sepsis, diabetes). Therefore, protection from pesticide exposure is critical for those working and living in chemical-intensive agricultural areas.

AKF causes biochemical (biological) abnormalities that alter the metabolic system, and delayed diagnosis and treatment are some of the factors that result in a high mortality rate. Overall, trends in AKF are increasing in southern Europe, South America, and North America with a higher incidence in low-to-middle-income countries. However, in high-income countries, age (elderly) and socioeconomic factors (racial disparities) play more of a role in AKF incidence rates. In low-to-middle-income countries, AKF incidence rates are higher among younger adults and children. Most cases of AKF occur via accident or intentional organophosphate poisoning, as the toxicity makes them lethal substances.

This study is one of the first to assess AKF mortality trends, specifically in rural areas or areas with pesticide use in Brazil. The study concludes, “[R]ural and urban municipalities and municipalities with low, medium and high pesticide-per-capita expenditure in the Brazilian south and midwest experienced an increase in AKF mortality in recent years compared to the whole studied period. These results reinforce the hypothesis that different and ‘traditional’ risk factors can contribute to the development of AKF in urban and rural areas.”

The kidneys are one of the most important organs for filtering waste out of our bodies. However, kidneys are often the main target of pesticide toxicity mediated through oxidative stress. Therefore, we must protect human and ecological health by shifting to organic/regenerative systems to limit exposure to these toxic chemicals. Additionally, buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits, eliminating the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices. Considering glyphosate levels in the human body can decrease by 70% through a one-week switch to an organic diet, purchasing organic food whenever possible—which eliminates toxic pesticide use—limits overall exposure (toxic body burden) and resulting adverse health effects. Learn about pesticides’ impacts on human health by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ pages on kidney/renal cancer and disease, oxidative stress, and other diseases in the Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database. This database supports the need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and farmers, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

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

Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

(Beyond Pesticides, August 10, 2022) Cover crops added in-between rows of organic corn while they are still growing can provide a range of benefits that improve a farm’s sustainability and lowers its impact on the surrounding environment, according to a study published in Agronomy Journal by scientists at Pennsylvania State University. “The use of cover crops in organic grain systems has many potential benefits,” says study coauthor Sarah Isbell, PhD. “These include improvements in soil quality, increased nutrient retention, prevention of erosion, and suppression of weeds. In organic systems where synthetic inputs are not used, cover crops can be managed to reduce nitrate leaching through soils and supply nitrogen to cash crops.” As demand for organic products continues to increase, and more and more farmers are embracing the organic mantra of “continuous improvement,” research like the present study is critical to the development of new efficiencies and ecologically sustainable practices.

Scientists set out to understand the best method for planting cover crops under organic corn grown for grain or silage (fed to cattle and other animals). Determining a planting time for corn cover crops is difficult because corn is often harvested late in the fall, leaving little time for a cover crop to establish itself before the winter.

To better understand the most effective cover cropping approach, silage, and grain corn were grown under three different methods – without any cover crop, with a cereal rye cover crop planted after corn harvest, and a ryegrass cover crop interseeded between the corn. While the grain plot received typical applications of nitrogen, the silage corn plot was provided a high nitrogen treatment to mimic what would occur if fertilizer was overapplied and thus risked environmental contamination. To gauge the impact of these treatments, scientists looked at the levels of inorganic nitrogen that remained in the soil as well as the soil microbial biomass.

In organic systems, organic forms of nitrogen are converted into plant-available inorganic nitrogen from the action of soil microbes. This contrasts with a chemical farming approach, which applies synthetic forms of industrially manufactured nitrogen produced using fossil fuels. In terms of soil inorganic nitrogen, results show that levels are higher in all fallow, non-cover cropped fields. Both interseeded and post harvest treatments have more than threefold lower levels of inorganic nitrogen, with the interseeded crop having the lowest of all. This indicates that the cover crop is taking up whatever excess nitrogen is left after the corn is produced.

Regarding soil microbial biomass, researchers do not find immediate changes in December after the interseeded cover crop is established, but do find more microbial activity by June. “We found that, in the spring, the interseeded treatments with a high nitrogen application level had higher microbial biomass than other treatments,” Dr. Isbell says, noting that, “It may take several years of cover crop treatments to change the microbial ecosystem.”

In sum, the study provides an endorsement for an approach that could save farmers time and increase the environmental profile of a system that is already embracing ecologically responsible practices. Of critical importance to many farmers, no yield reductions are seen under any cover crop planting system. As Dr. Isbell explains, “Incorporating cover crops into cropping systems in innovative ways, such as interseeding, provides a great opportunity to implement productive farming systems and decrease nutrient pollution.”

Organizations like Rodale Institute, which maintains a long-running farming systems trial, show that organic production systems can boost soil health, crop yield, increase energy efficiency, use less carbon, reduce water contamination, and increase nutrient density of crops when compared to chemical-intensive practices. Enhancing crop diversity results in enhanced productivity, and reduces the need for toxic pesticides by lowering the pest pressure on a cash crop. Oddly it is this approach, enshrined in ecological theory since the 1940s that is viewed as innovative, and even controversial in the 21^st century. Rather than time tested methods that embrace natural processes, agriculture in the United States is considered “conventional” when it employs synthetic chemicals, genetic engineering, and monoculture farmland devoid of any biomass but the cash crop.

It is critical that organic embrace innovative methods and continue along its path of continuous improvement in order to maintain and expand the myriad of benefits it provides. Join Beyond Pesticides today in telling the U.S. Department of Agriculture to support organic, not undermine it’s credibility and integrity.

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

Source: Crop Science Society of America,  Agronomy Journal

(Beyond Pesticides, August 9, 2022) The most widely used pesticide chemicals in the United States are not listed on product labels, yet pose widespread environmental and public health hazards, according to commentary published this month in Environmental Health Perspectives by two veteran researchers. At issue are adjuvants and so-called “inert” (or “other”) ingredients, chemicals that are added to formulated pesticide products, but do not undergo the same safety reviews as the active ingredient in pesticide products. This donut hole of regulation has permitted, as the commentary shows, millions of pounds of chemicals to be applied in California and throughout the country without proper scientific evaluation of their human health or ecological impact.

Researchers first draw a distinction between adjuvant products and inert ingredients in pesticide products. Adjuvants are materials specifically designed to improve the performance of a pesticide spray and are sold separately from formulated pesticide products. Adjuvants are “tank mixed” with a pesticide prior its application. Inert ingredients are any ingredient within a formulated pesticide product that is not designed to prevent, destroy, or repel a pest. Adjuvants and inert ingredients can be the same material – the difference lies in when they are added to a formulated pesticide product and the claimed purpose of their use. This distinction is important because researchers utilized data from California’s pesticide reporting system for their review. In California, pesticide adjuvants are required to be registered as pesticides, and their use reported to the state on a monthly basis. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not require this, nor does any other state than California. In California and throughout the country, inert ingredients are minimally reviewed by EPA and added to an inert ingredient database. Pesticide manufacturers can use any inert ingredient in EPA’s inert ingredient database without disclosing that material on the pesticide product label. There are no reporting requirements for inert ingredients in any state.  

An evaluation of California’s pesticide reports finds that among all pesticides and adjuvants registered, 37 of the 100 most widely used pesticides in California are adjuvants. Researchers subsequently zeroed in on the most used material, the adjuvant α-(p-nonylphenyl)-ω-hydroxypoly(oxyethylene) (APNOHO). Over 10 million acres of agricultural land in California is sprayed with APNOHO each year. The chemical is a nonionic surfactant, used to increase the penetration of an active ingredient in attempts to improve a pesticide’s performance. In addition to its registration as an adjuvant in over 150 adjuvant products in California, a freedom of information act request to EPA uncovered it being used as an inert ingredient in over 650 federally registered fully formulated pesticides (including insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides).

With no oversight of this chemical, APNOHO use in California has more than doubled over the past 20 years, from just over one million pounds per year in 2000 to 2.2 million pounds in 2019. APNOHO and other chemicals in its class are applied to nearly 12 million acres of farmland in California each year. Between its use as an adjuvant and inert ingredient in other states, there is no telling how much of this chemical U.S. residents are being exposed to each year.  

The widespread use of this material raises a range of health and environmental worries. APNOHO is considered an endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemical by the European Union, yet despite a recent damning report from the EPA Office of Inspector, the U.S. lags far behind in its safety evaluations of these concerning impacts. Out of over 1,300 chemicals that require testing, EPA has issued orders for a scant 52. An analysis in the commentary finds that the little data EPA has produced on APNOHO indicates its hormone disrupting activity is more potent than the active pesticide ingredients and known endocrine disruptors methoxychlor and vinclozolin.

Endocrine disruptors pose a growing risk to the American public; one that is increasing due to a lack of regulation by EPA. These materials function by: (i) mimicking the action of a naturally-produced hormone, such as estrogen or testosterone, thereby setting off similar chemical reactions in the body; (ii) blocking hormone receptors in cells, thereby preventing the action of normal hormones; or (iii) affecting the synthesis, transport, metabolism and excretion of hormones, thus altering the concentrations of natural hormones. Endocrine disruptors have been linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, early puberty, infertility and other reproductive disorders, childhood and adult cancers, and other metabolic disorders. 

In addition to effects on the body’s hormonal system, APNOHO is associated with increased risk of birth defects in laboratory and epidemiological studies, including one paper that shows a doubled risk for the birth defect craniosynostosis. The chemical likewise poses significant environmental hazards, with data showing harm to aquatic life greater than that caused by the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid. Researchers note that APNOHO is considered hazardous within other U.S. laws, including the Toxic Release Inventory and Clean Air Act.

To better understand the implications of the widespread use of APNOHO and other inerts and adjuvants, the commentary suggests recommendations both for other researchers and policymakers. For researchers, it is suggested that adjuvants and inerts be included in epidemiological studies, chemical abstract service (CAS) numbers be included for all ingredients in all pesticide products studies  (if unable to discern up front, analytical techniques should be employed to find and identify all ingredients to the greatest extent possible), and all pesticides, inert ingredients, and adjuvants should be evaluated for endocrine-disrupting activity.

Regulators and policymakers are urged to consider health and environmental effects that result from combinations of pesticides, adjuvants, and inert ingredients. It is further recommended that officials in states other than California require registration of pesticide adjuvants. Lastly, the authors note that it has been 25 years since the American Medical Association recommended that pesticide products contain all ingredients on their labels and safety data sheets, making these steps long overdue.

“In the past, improving public access to data about emissions of toxic chemicals has prompted important health and safety improvements,” the authors note, referencing the impact of Toxic Release Inventory data in prompting updates to the Clean Air Act.

Beyond Pesticides is strongly in favor and has been consistently active in efforts to push EPA to fulfill its statutory obligations to review endocrine-disrupting pesticides and increase public health transparency by disclosing all ingredients in pesticide formulations. Take action today to tell EPA to regulate hormone disruption chemicals, and Congress to pass the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA), which would require label disclosure of all inert ingredients in a pesticide.

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

Source: Environmental Health Perspectives

(Also see: EHP Invited Commentary)

(Beyond Pesticides, August 8, 2022) The pesticide industry has selected August as Anti-Democracy Month, as it launches a month-long campaign to undermine local control over pesticides. The National Pest Management Association is encouraging members to lobby members of Congress in August to support H.R. 7266, to “prohibit local regulations relating to the sale, distribution, labeling, application, or use of any pesticide or device” subject to state or federal regulation under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Beyond Pesticides urges you to make August Preserve Local Democracy Month by participating in actions in support of allowing communities to protect themselves from chemical exposure when state and federal regulation is inadequate.

Tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to support communities by opposing H.R. 7266 and supporting the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA), which contains a provision affirming local authority to restrict pesticides.

The fight to defend the authority of local governments to protect people and the environment has been ongoing for decades, reaching the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. The Court specifically upheld the authority of local governments to restrict pesticides throughout their jurisdictions under federal pesticide law. In Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, the Court ruled that federal pesticide law does not prohibit, or preempt, local jurisdictions from restricting the use of pesticides more stringently than the federal government throughout their jurisdiction. According to Mortier, however, states do retain authority to take away local control. In response to the Supreme Court decision, the pesticide lobby immediately formed a coalition, called the Coalition for Sensible Pesticide Policy, and developed boilerplate legislative language that restricts local municipalities from passing ordinances on the use of pesticides on private property. The Coalition’s lobbyists descended on states across the country, seeking and passing, in most cases, preemption legislation that was often identical to the Coalition’s wording.

Since the passage of those state laws, there have been numerous efforts to prohibit localities from developing policies reflecting the unique needs and values of the people living there. In states that do not prohibit local action on pesticides, an ever-increasing number of communities are stepping up to protect their residents and unique local environment from pesticide poisoning and contamination. Having failed to curtail local action and with a growing number of communities deciding to act, the chemical industry is flexing its muscle with an attack in Congress.

Legislation introduced in April by U.S. Representative Rodney Davis (R-IL), who just lost his primary race, would roll back, preempt, and prohibit local jurisdictions from enacting policies that protect resident health and a community’s unique local environments from hazardous pesticides. The bill is a direct attack on the scores of local communities that have enacted common sense safeguards from toxic pesticides, and represents the pesticide industry’s response to the growing momentum of the pesticide reform movement. Health and environmental advocates are expecting Rep. Davis and his partners in the agrichemical industry to attempt to work the provisions of the legislation into the upcoming 2023 farm bill. The industry had previously failed to work prohibitions against local restrictions into the 2018 farm bill, after massive pushback from health advocates, local officials, and Congressional allies.

Rep. Davis’s press release for the bill, in which he was joined with quotes from a range of agrichemical industry leaders, is titled “Davis Introduces Legislation to Prevent Liberal Local Governments from Banning or Restricting Pesticide Use,” striking a partisan tone. Caring about public and environmental health is typically not viewed as a liberal or conservative, Democratic or Republican issue. Those monitoring local governments that enact pesticide restrictions do not see partisan motivations; these laws are borne out of concern for children’s health, pregnant women, workers at disproportionate risk, and the immunocompromised, many of whom come to local government meetings to share their stories of pesticide poisoning. Conversations in local communities focus on the potential contamination of drinking water, local recreational swimming areas in waterways, the parks in which residents walk their beloved pets, and stories of locals witnessing a steep decline in pollinators.

The decision to enact a local pesticide policy is one that comes from local community discussion. Yet, Rep. Davis’s bill could stop communities from exercising basic local governance to protect people and the environment. 

The bill would amend federal pesticide law by adding the following provision:

“(d) LOCAL REGULATION PROHIBITED – A political subdivision of a State shall not impose, or continue in effect, any requirement relating to the sale, distribution, labeling, application, or use of any pesticide or device subject to regulation by a State pursuant to this section or by the Administrator under this Act.”

This language is considerably more restrictive than the amendment Rep. Davis and the industry proposed under the 2018 farm bill. Under this new language, by prohibiting a community to “continue in effect” any requirement relating to pesticide use, the bill would overturn any existing restrictions already passed in local communities. With uncertainty over how broadly this bill would be interpreted, all local jurisdictions with pesticide reform policies, including those only applying to public properties, could be reversed with this legislation.  

While traditionally anathema to the ideology of Rep. Davis and his colleagues, this bill represents a massive federal “big government” overreach into local communities.

The impacts for public health and ecological stability would be devastating. Only state agencies and the federal government would be able to regulate pesticide use. With the vast majority of state agencies effectively acting as rubber stamps for pesticide approvals by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), local jurisdictions would be forced to follow the rulemaking of an agency that has been documented to be captured by industry interests.

Time and time again, EPA has shown itself to be willing to override its mission to protect health and the environment at the behest of agrichemical industry interests. As dozens of local communities act to protect declining pollinator populations by limiting the use of bee toxic neonicotinoid insecticides, EPA is set to reregister them for another 15 years. While local communities across the country are eliminating the use of glyphosate due cancer concerns and legal liability over its health impacts, EPA has denied the chemical’s cancer links and worked hand in glove with agrichemical industry groups to defend its use and stop other countries from enacting bans or restrictions.

With new evidence continuing to emerge on the depths of agrichemical industry corruption within EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, it is little wonder that a large and growing swath of communities are enacting laws that eliminate nearly all synthetic pesticides registered by EPA in favor of organic and minimum risk practices and products.

Scientific research backs up the assertion that laws limiting local protections harm public welfare. The study, “Anti-Community State Pesticide Preemption Laws Prevent Local Governments From Protecting People From Harm,” published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability and supported by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, finds that state laws prohibiting local protective ordinances “compromise public health and economic well-being” by preventing localities from enacting pesticide use restrictions that are more restrictive than their state’s regulations. In the words of the authors, “By eliminating the ability of local governments to enact ordinances to safeguard inhabitants from health risks posed by pesticides, state preemption laws denigrate public health protections.”

The most frequent justification stated by anti-democracy proponents is the desire for “economies of scale” to prevent a “patchwork” of legislation, which would centralize control and create a “predictable regulatory environment.” Rep. Davis’s press release is littered with similar statements. Based on evidence of industry influence over state policies, however, study authors hold the position that these justifications are a ploy for more perverse economic motivations—to sell their toxic products, increase their stock, and reward their highly paid executives.

According to OpenSecrets, the agricultural services/products industry represented one of the top five industries donating to Rep. Davis between 2019-2020, totaling $160,625 for that period.

Tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to support communities by opposing H.R. 7266, and supporting the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA), which contains a provision affirming local authority to restrict pesticides.

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

I am writing to urge you to oppose H.R. 7266, which seeks to deny local communities the power to protect themselves from chemical exposure when state and federal regulation is inadequate. The bill would amend federal pesticide law to prohibit local governments from restricting pesticide use on private property within their jurisdictions. However, the rights of local governmental jurisdictions under existing pesticide law, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), have been left to the states since the law’s adoption. In fact, local laws protecting the environment and public health have historically emerged out of local governments, with laws related to recycling, smoking, pet waste, building codes, and zoning.

The rights of local governments to protect people and the environment were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. The Court specifically upheld the authority of local governments to restrict pesticides throughout their jurisdictions under federal pesticide law. In Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, the Court ruled that FIFRA does not prohibit, or preempt, local jurisdictions from restricting the use of pesticides more stringently than the federal government. According to Mortier, however, states may restrict local control as a matter of state authority.

Please support the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act (PACTPA), which contains a provision affirming local authority to restrict pesticides. PACTPA will provide some desperately needed improvements to FIFRA to better protect people and the environment, including banning some of the most damaging pesticides, restoring balance to protect ordinary citizens by removing dangerous pesticides from the market, and protecting frontline communities that bear the burden of pesticide exposure.

Please let me know your position on these bills.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, August 5, 2022) A terrible saga of environmental injustice — and of grieving couples who wanted children but could not have them — is getting new attention via the BBC’s (British Broadcasting Corporation’s) recent coverage of Di-bromochloropropane (DBCP) exposures and impacts on banana plantation workers in multiple Latin American countries. A significant number of those male workers became sterile, and many charge that their exposures to DBCP in the 1970s was responsible. A 1979 ban on uses of DBCP on the U.S. mainland by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not immediately stop manufacturers from exporting the toxic insecticide to (primarily) Central American countries, nor did it stop U.S. fruit companies operating there from using it. Beyond Pesticides wrote in 2020 about the damaging and what some call unethical practice of allowing corporate export of domestically banned pesticides — which practice continues in the U.S.

This BBC investigative report comes on the heels of a piece in The Lancet, United States and United Nations pesticide policies: Environmental violence against the Yaqui indigenous nation, that catalogues the abuse of pesticide export policies on indigenous peoples. The piece finds: “The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) is a U.S. statute that allows “pesticides that are not approved – or registered – for use in the U.S.” to be manufactured in the U.S. and exported elsewhere. The UN Rotterdam Convention also allows the global exportation of “banned pesticides.” The ongoing exportation of banned pesticides leads to disproportionately high rates of morbidity and mortality, most notably in Indigenous women and children.”

The authors cite the extent of the export issue from the U.S.: “Export data from U.S. ports found that over 27 million pounds of pesticides forbidden for use domestically were shipped at an average of 32 thousand pounds per day.¹ In 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that banned pesticides were being produced in 23 U.S. states.”

DBCP was commonly used to kill microscopic nematodes that damage banana plants. The compound was manufactured and sold in the 1970s by U.S. companies, primarily under the brand names Fumazone (Dow Chemical Company) and Nemagon (Shell Chemical Company); other iterations were manufactured by Occidental Chemical Corporation and AMVAC. In the 1960s, Dole Fruit (then Standard Fruit) started using DBCP on banana crops in Latin America; Chiquita and Del Monte followed suit in the early 1970s.

By 1977, EPA had restricted use of the compound on 19 mainland crops, and allowed its use on other crops only within very narrow conditions, and with use of respirators and other protective gear for workers. It then cancelled the registration for DBCP for all uses in this country in 1979 (except for that on pineapple crops in Hawai’i, which was halted in 1985). According to the BBC, “Even though Shell and Dow stopped manufacturing DBCP in 1977, they continued legal exports of their unused stocks of the pesticide to several Central American countries.” Dow and Shell were able, legally, to offload remaining stocks of the insecticide.

Shell says it “had already ceased all sale or manufacture of Nemagon before the EPA” ban; Dow says that “every sale or shipment of DBCP occurred well before October 1979” (when the EPA cancelled DBCP’s registration). Occidental and AMVAC sold DBCP to Panama until 1979; AMVAC continued to sell to Panama as late as 1985. An Occidental officer said, “The sales and uses upon which you are focused date back 40-plus years. . . . According to records that I have seen, the company apparently sold DBCP in bulk to distributors who, in turn, sold the goods into various LatAm [Latin American] countries. The final destination for these goods was often unclear.”

According to BBC reporting, tens of thousands of banana industry workers from Panama, Guatemala, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica have brought litigation against both the manufacturers of DBCP and the companies that used it in their Latin American operations (Dole, Del Monte, and Chiquita). Documents from the lawsuits show that, as early as the 1950s, internal animal studies by Dow and Shell evidenced testicular atrophy and reduced sperm counts due to DBCP exposures. One of the investigators in those studies, Dr. Charles Hine, wrote in a draft report for U.S. regulators that, “repeated exposure to DBCP could affect human reproduction.” Yet the compound was approved for use in 1964 — with no indication on its label that it could represent a threat to male fertility.

For its part, Dow continues to insist that “the dose makes the poison,” and that “Low dose, outdoor, or intermittent exposures will not affect male fertility.” In a statement to the BBC, a Dow spokesperson said that “DBCP had been ‘shown to possibly affect reproductive function of some male workers who handled it directly in very high doses at manufacturing plants.’ . . . [But] “agricultural workers would have potentially experienced significantly lower doses, and no studies of agricultural workers have shown a similar effect from working with DBCP.” Its website states that “there is no credible scientific evidence that Dole’s use of DBCP on banana farms caused any of the injuries claimed in any of the DBCP lawsuits, including sterility.”

Beyond Pesticides suggests that the folks at Dow take a look at the 2019 study by J. Marino, et al., which concluded that its research “evidence suggests that DBCP has significant and occasionally permanent effects on semen parameter and fertility in exposed men.” Or perhaps consider the 2018 research by K. McAbbe, et al., which states flatly, “DBCP is a banned nematicide that has been shown to cause male infertility.”

Workers have repeatedly sought justice in U.S. courts, to no lasting avail. The BBC reports that “there has been only one case in which a U.S. court considered whether the pesticide caused sterility” — the central harm for which plaintiffs have repeatedly sought compensation, often with the hope of securing better healthcare with such funds. In 2007, a group of Nicaraguan litigants was awarded $2.5 million in punitive damages in a case charging sterility as an outcome of exposures. But in 2010, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge overturned that ruling, saying that the company had been a victim of fraud related to plaintiffs’ alleged witness tampering.

The BBC article asserts: “To date, there have been no successful litigations in the U.S by banana workers. Their cases have been dismissed on procedural matters or the companies have settled out of court, making payments to some plaintiffs, but not accepting liability. There are currently just two active cases in the U.S. Scott Hendler, the lawyer pursuing them on behalf of workers from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama, says the companies are ‘resorting to procedural matters again and again.’ He wants a jury to see the evidence. ‘There is no question that DBCP can cause sterility,’ he says. ‘The question is whether each of these individual plaintiffs sustained sufficient exposure in their own right to be a substantial factor in causing their own infertility.’”

Beyond Pesticides has covered some of the history of litigation related to DBCP:

• In the 2000s, Nicaraguan courts ordered a total of $805 million in damagesto be paid to hundreds of victims by Dow Chemical, Shell Oil, and Occidental Chemical (now OxyChem). The companies refused to pay, saying the courts lacked jurisdiction and had denied them fair trials. In one of those suits, in 2001,a court in Nicaragua ordered Shell, Dole, and Dow to pay $489 million to 500 male banana workers made sterile by DBCP. The companies refused to pay and counter-sued the plaintiffs for fraud, asking for $17 billion in damages. When a U.S. federal court was asked by the plaintiffs to enforce the Nicaraguan court judgment, the U.S. court refused to hear the case.
• In 2002, a case tried in a Nicaraguan courtresolved when the judge ordered those same three companies to pay $490 million to 583 banana workers adversely affected by the use of the pesticide Nemagon (DBCP). The case was filed in Nicaragua under a law allowing any Nicaraguan worker to sue a foreign company. But Dow called the judgment “unenforceable” because the case was supposed to be moved to a U.S. court; further, defendants’ attorneys argued that the ruling was based on a Nicaraguan law criticized by its own attorney as “unconstitutional.” The companies again refused to pay.
• A 2005 case against Dole and Dow, brought by 150 Nicaraguans for injury by DBCP from their 1970–1982 work on Dole banana plantations, was found for the plaintiffs by a Nicaraguan court, which awarded them $97 million for the sterility and psychological suffering they had endured. A U.S. District Court in Miami then reversed that judgment, sayingthat it “was rendered under a system which does not provide impartial tribunal or procedures compatible with the requirements of due process of law, and the rendering court did not have jurisdiction over Defendants.”

Having exhausted options in the U.S., Nicaraguan banana workers brought suit in 2018 in France against Dow Chemical, Occidental Chemical, and Shell Oil, seeking compensation for the 1,200 litigants for health problems caused by the companies’ DBCP products. Plaintiffs argued that the global nature of the pesticide and agricultural markets gave them standing in France, but in May 2022, their attempts were again thwarted when the Paris Trial Court denied the claim, saying the judges had no jurisdiction over the companies.

As noted above, Beyond Pesticides has covered the practice of allowing corporate export of domestically banned pesticides, which happens in the U.S. and some European countries. In 2020, Greenpeace affirmed that the United Kingdom was the biggest European exporter of banned, toxic pesticides to poorer, often so-called “developing” countries, such as Mexico, some on the African continent, Brazil, Ukraine, and Indonesia.

This practice continues to be legal here; the EPA website notes: “Pesticides that are not approved — or registered — for use in the United States may be manufactured in the United States and exported.” EPA requires only some documentation that shows that the foreign entity doing the purchasing (of a specific product and shipment) knows the compound is not legal in the U.S., and then EPA notifies whatever national health and environment officials exist in the receiving country.

In 2019, Truthout captured well the pernicious nature of how policies that allow toxic pesticide exports can play out. “When the federal government bans a pesticide, pro-industry loopholes allow agrochemical companies to recoup lost profits by manufacturing the same pesticide for use abroad. . . . With no comprehensive global regulatory framework to guide policy for transport, storage and use, the U.S. consciously subjects vulnerable agricultural workers overseas to chemicals known to cause harm and death, and widens international dependence of agriculture on pesticides. Every registered pesticide has a ‘tolerance’ . . . how much residue can remain on a food product before it is deemed unsafe for human consumption. Pesticides deemed too dangerous or unregistered with the EPA cannot be sold in the U.S. . . . While the U.S. is required to inform countries when a pesticide is not registered in the U.S., there is no assurance that the receiving official will forward the data to the user of the chemical. Agrochemical companies can satisfy labeling requirements simply by placing labels on shipping containers rather than on the product container. . . . Given the reality of how these pesticides are actually used (without appropriate protective equipment, lack of proper disposal, etc.), halting exportation is critical.”

Beyond the ethical violations that such practices are, they can create a perverse “circle of poison,” as banned compounds are exported, used in other countries, and then return as residues on imported foods to pollute the domestic food supply. And such policies send a message that American lives (or British, or French, etc.) are more important than those of the largely “brown” populations of the countries that use these toxic imports. This exacerbates the existing reality that many BIPOC communities (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) in the U.S. and globally already endure higher levels of pesticide exposures and consequent health anomalies than do dominant white populations.

The 2015 documentary film, “Circle of Poison,” featuring Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman and luminaries such as Vandana Shiva, Noam Chomsky, and President Jimmy Carter), focuses on the toxic pesticide export issue. It “shows how the global pesticide industry is politically powerful, shaping regulations (or lack thereof) and the conditions of food and farming around the world.”

For banned pesticides such as DBCP — sometimes called “legacy” chemicals — the fates of agricultural workers thousands of miles away, who suffered infertility through no fault of their own as long as 50+ years ago, may seem (increasingly) remote. Certainly the U.S. judicial system has been, ultimately, indifferent to their plights. But it is critical to remember that legacy chemicals are “gifts that keep on giving,” whether DDT from the ‘40s and ‘50s, DBCP in the ‘70s, or PFAS chemicals used for the past 90 years (among others). But in addition, the creation and deployment of toxic legacy chemicals are not all “in the past”; this is a “rolling admissions” situation because we continue to use — and export — toxic chemicals whose impacts may show up now, or may show up in a decade or more.

It is a harmful and cynical experiment we are conducting in our continued allowance of toxic pesticides (and other chemicals) being pumped out into products, the environment, and our bodies, with insufficient understanding of how they may harm us and Nature. And in truth, in some cases, government officials, more-or-less “captured” by industry interests, allow this even when the damaging effects are well understood.

It may be too late for Isabel Coba and Rafael Martínez González — just two of thousands of workers who expected to have children and then found themselves infertile — to find justice. Certainly, it is too late for the many workers from the 1960s and 1970s who have already died. But it is not too late to stop the threats to current and coming generations of agricultural workers who may suffer exposures to toxic pesticides that we in the U.S., or in various European countries, have found unacceptable for use inside our own nations. We must insist to our legislators and federal agencies, and to EPA in particular, that the export of domestically un- or deregistered pesticides must stop.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-62120058

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

(Beyond Pesticides, August 4, 2022) An Arizona State University (ASU) study shows that the popular herbicide glyphosate can infiltrate the brain through the blood (blood-brain barrier), increasing neurological disease risk. The blood-brain barrier filters various molecules entering the brain from the circulatory system. However, the permeation of glyphosate molecules elevates the expression of TNFα and the accumulation of soluble beta-amyloid (Aβ) proteins in the brain and has associations with immune, inflammatory, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

More than 6 million people in the U.S. are living with Alzheimer’s, and cases are expected to double by 2050. Although Alzheimer’s research has focused heavily on finding genetic causes of the disease, fewer than half of cases are genetic. Thus, researchers are now evaluating how environmental contaminants may increase disease risk. 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 notes, “Brain glyphosate correlates with increased TNFα levels, suggesting that exposure to this herbicide may trigger neuroinflammation in the brain, which may induce changes that are seen in neurodegenerative disorders. […] Collectively, given that a large subset of the population may be exposed to this chemical agent, these results raise awareness of the detrimental effects glyphosate exposure may have on the brain and human health.”

Several studies demonstrate that glyphosate is detectable in the brain tissue of animals. However, this research investigates if persistent exposure to glyphosate leads to detectability in brain tissue and how the chemical’s presence affects TNFα levels in the brain. Using urine, plasma, and brain samples from mice in the study, researchers examined gene expression associated with dose-dependent exposure to glyphosate. Moreover, the study employs a novel one-step glyphosate extraction method using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry  (LC-MS)-based quantification to measure the level of glyphosate and its breakdown product aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in brain tissues. The results confirm that glyphosate infiltrates brain tissue, elevating TNFα levels and soluble Aβ, causing cell death among exposed cortical neurons. The novel one-step glyphosate extraction method provides the first evidence of dose-dependent glyphosate accumulation in the brain. Moreover, the extraction method finds a small amount of AMPA in brain tissue, indicating glyphosate is also breaking down in the body. Therefore, glyphosate exposure has implications for neurodegenerative diseases like AD, resulting from elevated protein levels and expression.

The nervous system is an integral part of the human body and includes the brain, spinal cord, and a vast network of nerves and neurons, all of which are responsible for many bodily functions—from sensation to movement. However, exposure to chemical toxicants, like 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). Mounting evidence over the past years shows that chronic exposure to sublethal (low) levels of pesticides adversely affects the central nervous system (CNS) and neural receptors such as connections between nerves, the brain, enzymes, and DNA. Specifically, researchers identify agricultural chemical exposure as a cause of many adverse CNS impacts and neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Parkinson’s disease. Therefore, advocates say it is essential to avoid toxic chemical exposure to lessen potential acute and chronic health risks.

The study highlights that glyphosate crosses the blood-brain barrier in vitro (in an artificial environment outside the body), but this study verifies this in vivo (in a living organism). Glyphosate exposure increases inflammatory cytokine proteins in the blood, especially TNFα. The overexpression of the TNFα protein has associations with cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases. Although this study adds to the growing body of research surrounding pesticide neurotoxicity, it is the first to demonstrate that glyphosate successfully crosses the blood-brain barrier, accumulating in the brain in a dose-dependent manner. However, this is not the first time that toxic compounds transfer from the blood to other organs and vice versa. Several studies find pesticide compounds in a mother’s blood can transfer to the fetus via the umbilical cord. Furthermore, a 2021 study finds that pregnant women already have over 100 detectable chemicals in blood and umbilical cord samples, including banned persistent organic pollutants (POPs). However, 89 percent of these chemical contaminants are from unidentified sources, lack adequate information, or were not previously detectable in humans.

Pesticides themselves, mixtures of chemicals such as Agent Orange or dioxins, and therapeutic hormones or pharmaceutical products possess the ability to disrupt neurological function. These chemicals can pass through the skin (dermal) and mucosal membranes, including the lungs (inhalation) and gut (ingestion), and into blood circulation. For instance, studies suggest pesticide formulants (adjuvants), such as POEA (polyoxyethylene tallow amine), have neurotoxic activity. POEA is present in some glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup and has higher nervous system toxicity than the active ingredient (glyphosate).

The study concludes, “While there are many correlations between glyphosate and various illnesses, our goal is to shed light on the correlation between glyphosate application and AD [Alzheimer’s diseases]. Future work will focus on uncovering the molecular overlap between glyphosate exposure and AD pathology. Specifically, we will focus on determining if glyphosate exposure is capable of exacerbating amyloid [Aβ] pathology and inducing cell death, in vivo in mouse models of AD.”

There is a lack of complete understanding of the etiology of pesticide-induced diseases, including predictable lag time between chemical exposure, health impacts, and epidemiological data. 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. Although occupational and environmental factors, like pesticides, adversely affect human health, regulatory reviews are plagued by numerous limitations in defining real-world poisoning, 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 surrounding occupational and residential pesticide exposure in order to make complete determinations and the importance of fully recognizing uncertainty in regulatory decisions that are precautionary. 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. 

Alzheimer’s disease has no cure, but preventive practices like organics can eliminate exposure to toxic AD-inducing pesticides. Organic agriculture represents a safer, healthier approach to crop production that does not necessitate pesticide use. Beyond Pesticides encourages farmers to embrace regenerative, organic practices. A compliment to buying organic is contacting various organic farming organizations to learn more about what you can do. 

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

Source: Arizona State University, Journal of Neuroinflammation