(Beyond Pesticides, May 16, 2021) Despite the fact that many more people die from living and working in unhealthy environments than from homicides or traffic crashes, resources put into preventing those deaths have been lacking—even decreasing in recent years.

Tell Congress to double budgets for environmental law enforcement. 

Toxic pesticide residues readily contaminate soils, water (solid and liquid), and the surrounding air at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set standards. Scientific literature demonstrates pesticides’ long history of adverse effects on the environment, including wildlife, biodiversity, and human health. Pesticides can present acute and long-term health impacts worldwide, especially to farmers, 44 percent of whom experience pesticide poisoning every year. Furthermore, a 2020 study attributes approximately 385 million cases of non-fatal unintentional poisonings and 11,000 deaths annually to pesticides. 

The risks to human and environmental health must be met with strong environmental law enforcement. In the case of pesticides, this involves not only enforcement of label restrictions in the field, but also closer attention to ensuring that pesticides are not registered for uses in which risks outweigh benefits—as required by law. The commitment to stronger environmental law enforcement should begin with a doubling of the budget for these activities. President Biden’s 2023 budget proposal, which aims to create more than 1,900 new full-time positions, barely covers the 1,500 jobs the EPA eliminated during the first year and a half of the Trump administration. Instead, a doubling of the staff level will help EPA to reduce the growing divergence between workload and staff.

In addition to EPA, other environmental agencies are in dire need. More investigators at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest Service, and other agencies are needed to protect wildlife and endangered species at danger from poachers, chemical contamination, development, and climate change. The Fish and Wildlife Service has only about 250 special agents investigating wildlife crimes, while the BLM devotes just 70 people to criminal investigations.

Tell Congress to double budgets for environmental law enforcement. 

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

As you consider President Biden’s budget requests, I ask that you address the need for environmental law enforcement. Despite the fact that many more people die from living and working in unhealthy environments than from homicides or traffic crashes, resources put into preventing those deaths have been lacking—even decreasing in recent years.

Toxic pesticide residues readily contaminate soils, water, and the surrounding air at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set standards. Scientific literature demonstrates pesticides’ long history of adverse effects on the environment, including wildlife, biodiversity, and human health. Pesticides can present acute and long-term health impacts worldwide, especially to farmers, 44 percent of whom experience pesticide poisoning every year. Furthermore, a 2020 study attributes approximately 385 million cases of non-fatal unintentional poisonings and 11,000 deaths annually to pesticides.

The risks to human and environmental health must be met with strong environmental law enforcement. In the case of pesticides, this involves not only enforcement of label restrictions in the field, but also closer attention to ensuring that pesticides are not registered for uses in which risks outweigh benefits—as required by law. The commitment to stronger environmental law enforcement should begin with a doubling of the budget for these activities. President Biden’s 2023 budget proposal, which aims to create more than 1,900 new full-time positions, barely covers the 1,500 jobs the EPA eliminated during the first year and a half of the Trump administration. Instead, a doubling of the staff level will help EPA to reduce the growing divergence between work load and staff.

In addition to EPA, other environmental agencies are in dire need. More investigators at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest Service, and other agencies are needed to protect wildlife and endangered species at danger from poachers, chemical contamination, development, and climate change. The Fish and Wildlife Service has only about 250 special agents investigating wildlife crimes, while the BLM devotes just 70 people to criminal investigations.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent issue.

(Beyond Pesticides, May 13, 2022) The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting has covered a report, released days ago by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that acknowledges the agency’s failures to meet its responsibilities under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and sets out a plan for improving its performance and meeting its obligations. The report, Balancing Wildlife Protection and Responsible Pesticide Use: How EPA’s Pesticide Program Will Meet Its Endangered Species Act Obligations, 2022, notes that these failures have resulted “not only in inadequate protections for listed species, but also, litigation against the Agency that has increased in frequency in recent years” — to the tune of more than 20 lawsuits covering 1,000+ pesticide products. Beyond Pesticides has covered the many chemical assaults on ESA species, as well as a number of lawsuits brought on their behalf — most recently, the Center for Biological Diversity’s (CBD’s) suit about the threats of synthetic pyrethroid insecticides to fragile species.

Beyond Pesticides reported on a 2019 CBD lawsuit seeking to force the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to initiate rulemaking to prevent most pesticide use in critical habitat for endangered species — an aspect of the ESA that is too frequently not protected. Under ESA, federal agencies (such as EPA) are required to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service (of which NMFS is an office) to ensure that any agency actions are unlikely to jeopardize the continued existence of any ESA-listed species or result in the destruction of or negative impacts on critical habitat of such species.

The Midwest Center extracted a startling metric from the recent EPA report: “Since 2005, the number of completed pesticide registrations has more than doubled, while the number of employees overseeing the process has dropped by a quarter.” The Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA) of 2004 (and its subsequent iterations) aimed to expedite the pesticide registration process, and funnel funds to the agency through fees charged to applicant pesticide manufacturers (though with plenty of exemptions). Despite that, the number of applications in the years since then has far outstripped the ability of agency staff to keep up.

According to the report, for example, in 2005 EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) completed 1,098 PRIA actions (reviews, evaluations, approvals) with 809 staff FTEs (full-time equivalents). With massively reduced staff capacity in 2021 — 603 FTEs — OPP completed 2,556 actions. But that 2,500+ figure came nowhere near addressing what is now a nearly-20-year backlog of Endangered Species Act decisions. The report’s Executive Summary opens with this: “In past decades, the Agency has met those obligations [under the Endangered Species Act] for less than 5% of the thousands of pesticide actions it completes annually under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA),” the federal law that regulates the registration, sale, and use of pesticides in the U.S.

The report also notes that, “EPA’s current ESA priorities are driven almost entirely by litigation settlements and other court-enforceable deadlines. Over the next six years [those] deadlines will require EPA to complete ESA reviews for 18 pesticides — the most the Agency estimates it can handle during this period based on its current capacity and processes. And ongoing litigation and settlement discussions for other lawsuits cover dozens of additional pesticides and will likely fill the Agency’s ESA workload beyond 2030. Even though these litigation deadlines have determined most of the ESA workload for the next decade, that workload is estimated to cover less than 5% of EPA’s future pesticide actions that trigger ESA obligations. Because the Pesticide Program currently lacks the capacity and efficient processes to fully meet its ESA obligations on those remaining pesticide actions, it remains vulnerable to additional lawsuits.”

This May report from EPA follows on a January 2022 EPA announcement of a new “ESA protection policy” in the agency’s evaluation of any new pesticides looking to be registered. In its coverage of that policy shift, The Midwest Center wrote, “The agency said — for the first time — it will take a systematic approach to regulating pesticides’ harmful effects instead of being forced to comply one-by-one by different lawsuits.” In January, EPA said that previously, “in most cases, EPA did not consistently assess the potential effects of conventional pesticides on listed species. This resulted in insufficient protections for listed species, as well as resource-intensive litigation against EPA for registering new (pesticides) prior to assessing potential effects on listed species.” This, of course, does nothing to address the legion of currently registered pesticides that are harming species and habitats across the U.S.

That said, of that EPA announcement, CBD’s Governmental Affairs Director Brett Hartl commented in January: “It’s a pretty big sea change. They know they’re violating the law, but here they’re finally saying, ‘You’re right, we have to impose restrictions when there’s potential for harm.’ That is not nothing.”

An opinion piece in The Revelator places the identified failings of EPA and other federal agencies in an historical context of failures to protect the public, and environmental justice communities, in particular, from “environmental harms caused by corporate polluters, lax oversight, and poor enforcement of existing laws.” It notes broad neglect of monitoring and enforcement activities that are supposed to identify and hold accountable those who perpetrate violations of environmental regulations, and the anemic penalties often meted out to the guilty — historically, “little more than a slap on the wrist — if they’re prosecuted at all.”

Pointedly, John Platt’s editorial specifies the need for “more investigators to detect and stop corporations from poisoning our air, water and bodies,” calls out the Trump administration’s decimation of EPA staff and draconian reductions in enforcement activities, and asserts that all those staff losses at EPA need to be restored ASAP. The “country desperately needs new eco-detectives — trained employees and citizens [sic] who can identify and uncover pollution, poaching and other eco-threats that harm people, wildlife and the planet.” Of EPA’s capacity, and the goals of the new EPA report, he writes, “Under Trump the EPA shed thousands of staff members and dramatically reduced its enforcement of existing laws. Those people need to be back on the beat. President Biden’s 2023 budget proposal aims to create the equivalent of more than 1,900 new full-time positions. That’s a start, but it barely makes up for the 1,500 jobs the EPA shed during the first year and a half of the previous administration. Let’s double that number of new hires.”

In the face of threats from corporate malfeasance, climate change, and wildlife poaching, among other factors, The Revelator piece also advocates for the need for more staffing at a variety of federal agencies. It calls, variously, for more investigators, scientists and researchers, public health specialists, wildlife inspectors (at ports and borders), and environmental prosecutors — across EPA, FWS, the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Park Police, and the Department of Justice. Mr. Platt does note that President Biden’s 2023 budget proposes increases in staffing for some of these agencies. He also identifies the need for boosts in staffing at the state level, more environmental journalists, and courage among public employees to whistleblow when the public’s needs are not being served.

In the Balancing Wildlife Protection report, EPA says it is creating a new “vision of success” for its ESA–FIFRA work that would mean the agency “is protecting ESA species and their habitats from pesticide effects to an extent that fulfills its obligations under all federal laws. EPA would be achieving this goal while minimizing impacts to pesticide users, supporting the development of safer technologies to control important public health and agronomic pests, and completing timely pesticide registration decisions. EPA would also become a trusted expert in protecting listed species through its pesticide decisions, using real-world, up-to-date information.”

The agency identifies six challenges to achievement of this vision:

• the large (and growing) number of necessary FIFRA actions (largely, requests for new registrations and required 15-year review of existing registrations), given OPP’s current staffing at 2013 levels
• the current ESA-FIFRA process, which tends not to yield protections for listed species that are both practical for pesticide users to implement and sufficiently timely re: the at-risk species
• the broad geographic spread of FIFRA registrations, which cover many pesticide uses and affect many types of listed species
• the need to harmonize the FIFRA process with the ESA process: e.g., the current FIFRA process assesses each pesticide on a chemical-by-chemical basis, but this approach is unsustainable across hundreds of pesticides, many of which affect hundreds of listed species
• the tension among the need for better, more-granular data (which would extend the length of the ESA–FIFRA process), staff capacity, and timely protection
• the need for strong working relationships among EPA, FWS, NMFS, and the Department of Agriculture; “All four agencies are working toward this goal but still have room for improvement.”

EPA’s proposed workplan is described as a “living document” that will be reviewed and updated, and its progress evaluated, over the next two years. The plan will employ numerous strategies, including a prioritized approach, given time constraints, staffing limits, and the legally mandated ESA–FIFRA protection processes. Per the report: “The top tier includes actions with existing and future court-enforceable deadlines and the registrations of new conventional pesticide active ingredients. The second tier includes the large number of remaining conventional pesticides, without court-enforceable deadlines, that EPA reevaluates every 15 years (i.e., FIFRA registration review). The third tier includes all other FIFRA actions for conventional pesticides (e.g., new uses of existing pesticides) and FIFRA actions for non-conventional pesticides (e.g., biopesticides).”

It is difficult to understand how EPA will enact this new plan absent a significant influx of new funding that could expand staffing. As the report notes, “EPA’s capacity to fully meet its ESA obligations at this time is limited and continues to place listed species at risk and the Agency at considerable risk of ESA lawsuits. Further . . . any future court decision or legal settlement to complete an ESA determination during that time will stretch the Agency’s already very thin program capacity and may undermine EPA’s ability to meet its other ESA commitments. EPA is striving to increase the number of ESA determinations it can complete annually, partly through process improvements described in this workplan and the FY2023 President’s proposed budget that includes an additional $4.9 million and 10 FTE to integrate ESA requirements in conducting risk assessments and making risk management decisions.”

In January 2022, Beyond Pesticides wrote about the emerging changes emanating from EPA in relation to its OPP ESA efforts: “Beyond Pesticides joined with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and three dozen allied groups to lay out what a ‘larger effort’ to reform the Office of Pesticide Programs should resemble. The current action, if properly implemented, would begin to address a single problem within the scope of systemic failure. Reform advocates are urging EPA to focus on holistic reforms that confront climate change, biodiversity collapse, and environmental racism. To rout out industry influence by rejecting corrupt data from pesticide companies and promote alternative assessments that embrace safer pest management systems that do not require toxic chemical use” would be a robust approach.

The new report provides some hope that broad advocacy is having an impact on the current administration’s approach. It would seem to signal a shift in direction, but the proof, as always, will be in “on the ground” changes in agency function that would result in meaningful actions to protect people and the planet from the unnecessary use of toxic pesticides.

Sources: The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, EPA’s Balancing Wildlife Protection report, and The Revelator

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

(Beyond Pesticides, May 12, 2022) A report published in Environmental Health finds that exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of pesticides can alter gut microbial communities, as demonstrated through fecal samples. Over 300 environmental contaminants and their byproducts, including pesticides, are chemicals commonly present in human blood and urine samples. Ample evidence demonstrates that environmental contaminants, including pesticides, negatively affect the human mouth and gut microbes. However, fecal samples provide an accurate representation of the microbial community existing in the gut. These toxicants can alter hormone metabolism, which adversely affects health outcomes. Adverse health effects of environmental contaminants include reproductive and developmental defects, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, obesity, thyroid disorders, and improper immune operation. Although studies show how chemical exposures affect human health, more research is now questioning how these toxic chemicals influence gut health. Therefore, studies like these highlight the importance of evaluating how chemical contaminants deregulate normal bodily function through microbiome changes. The report notes, “Our results highlight the need for future dietary intervention studies to understand effects of pesticide exposure on the gut microbiome and possible health consequences.”

Researchers examined dietary exposure to 186 common pesticide residues in the fecal excrement to determine impacts on the microbiome among 65 twins in the United Kingdom. Gut microbiota composition has associations with dietary habits, different life stages, geographical location, exercise, antibiotics, and disease states. However, researchers investigated if these associations can also impact concentrations of pesticide residues in excrement to indicate gut health alterations. Using metagenomics and metabolomics, researchers measured the metabolic activity of microbes in fecal matter and pesticides in urine excretion to note any bodily changes.

The report finds all urine samples contain pyrethroid or organophosphate insecticide residues, with 53 percent of urine samples containing glyphosate. Individuals who consume more  fruits and vegetables grown with chemical-intensive practices have higher concentrations of organophosphate residues. Although urinary metabolite (pesticide breakdown product) excretion lacks a correlation with gut microbial changes, there are 34 associations between the concentration of pesticide residues and metabolite residues in fecal matter and gut health. Glyphosate excretion in the fecal matter correlates with an increase in bacterial species richness, fatty acid metabolites, and phosphate concentrations in the gut. For pyrethroids, deltamethrin metabolite, Br2CA, has a positive association with phytoestrogens enterodiol (dietary estrogen) and negative associations with specific amino acids in the gut.

The gut microbiome is a group of microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, viruses, and fungi, that plays a crucial role in digestion, bodily function, detoxification, and immune and central nervous system regulation. Through the gut biome, pesticide exposure can enhance or exacerbate the adverse effects of additional environmental toxicants on the body. Since the gut microbiome shapes metabolism, it can mediate some toxic effects of environmental chemicals. However, with prolonged exposure to various environmental contaminants, critical chemical-induced changes may occur in the gut microbes, influencing adverse health outcomes. Like gut microbes, soil microbes are essential for the functionality of the soil ecosystem. Toxic chemicals damage the soil microbiota by decreasing and altering microbial biomass and soil microbiome composition (diversity). Pesticide use contaminates soil and results in a bacteria-dominant ecosystem causing “vacant ecological niches, so organisms that were rare become abundant and vice versa.” The bacteria outcompete beneficial fungi, which improves soil productivity and increases carbon sequestration capacity. The resulting soil ecosystem is unhealthy and imbalanced, with a reduction in the natural cycling of nutrients and resilience. Thus, plants grown in such conditions are more vulnerable to parasites and pathogens. Moreover, the effects of climate change only exacerbate threats to soil health as studies show a link between global climate change and a high loss of microbial organisms in the soil ecosystem.

The findings add to the growing quantity of environmental studies linking pesticide exposure to metabolic distress and the respective health consequences. Although previous studies suggest pesticide exposure in the environment disrupts the gut microbiome, this report is the first to find an association between pesticide excretion and exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of pesticides. Although most pesticide exposure decreases microbial species richness, some chemicals, like glyphosate, increase bacterial species richness. However, an increase in species richness is not always positive as it cannot measure the function of how these bacteria work together. Studies find functional diversity declines faster with agricultural intensification then species richness. Functional diversity involves the interaction of species based on similarity in behavioral, morphological, physiological, or resource use as it relates more strongly to ecosystem function. Moreover, an increase in species richness in the gut microbiome can allow more resilient bacteria to flourish and outcompete other beneficial bacteria regardless of pathogenic potential. For instance, glyphosate kills bacterial species beneficial to humans and incorporated in probiotics yet allows harmful bacteria to persist, leading to resistance. Similarly, glyphosate-exposed soils contain a greater abundance of genes associated with antibiotic resistance and a higher number of inter-species transferable genetic material. 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. Nevertheless, studies show an organic diet lowers individual exposure to pesticides, demonstrating a significant reduction in bodily pesticide concentration. Therefore, organic can also protect human gut microbe health by reducing the number of toxic chemicals within the body.

The report concludes, “We found that individuals who are regularly consuming organic products had higher healthy eating index values, but that other lifestyle choices are, in all likelihood, also contributing factors. We provide the first evidence of an association between pesticide excretion and changes in gut microbiome metabolism at environmental levels of exposure in the UK population. Our findings highlight the need for future dietary interventional studies to understand the impact of pesticide exposure on gut microbiome composition and function and its health implications.”

To improve and sustain microbial communities, and thus human, animal, and environmental health, toxic pesticide use must stop. Beyond Pesticides challenges the registration of toxic chemicals due to their impacts on soil, air, water, and our health. While legal battles press on, the agricultural system should eliminate the use of toxic synthetic herbicides to avoid the myriad of problems they cause. Instead, Beyond Pesticides holds that safer alternatives are available, and organic practices can protect public health and the environment. In addition to positive impacts on the human microbiome, organically grown food (i.e., milk, meat, strawberries, tomatoes, and a range of other foods) contain a much more diverse bacterial community than their conventional counterparts.

Moreover, purchasing organic food when possible can help curb exposure and resulting adverse health effects. Emphasis on converting to regenerative-organic systems and using least-toxic pest control to mitigate harmful exposure to pesticides should be the main focus. Learn more about soil and gut microbiota and its importance via Beyond Pesticide’s journal Pesticides and You. Additionally, learn more about how pesticides affect human health by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database, which supports the clear need for strategic action to shift from pesticide dependency.

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

Sources: Environmental Health

(Beyond Pesticides, May 11, 2022) Pregnant women are being exposed to increasing amounts of dangerous industrial chemicals, according to research published this week in Environmental Science and Technology.  The chemicals in question include pesticides, plastics, and parabens, as well as ‘replacement chemicals’ for substances like phthalates and bisphenols that have gained notoriety for risks to public health. With a range of scientific data highlighting chemical exposures during pregnancy as a critical window of vulnerability, public awareness of these growing threats, and meaningful action by government regulators to reduce exposure is needed.  

The results of this study follow the release of data last year finding over 100 different chemicals in U.S. pregnant women’s blood and umbilical cord samples. For the present study, however, researchers did not merely detect these chemicals, they tracked exposure levels over the course of 12 years. The cohort of 171 women represents a diverse group from seven American states and territories (including New Hampshire, New York, Puerto Rico, Illinois, California, and Georgia), with 20% of women participating Black, one third white, 40% Latina, and the remaining from other or multiple groups. Over the course of the study, routine monitoring was conducted utilizing an advanced diagnostic method that permits analysis of dozens of chemicals from a single urine sample.

Of the 103 chemicals reviewed, over 80% is detected in at least one woman enrolled in the research. One third of the compounds is found in over 50% of women. In particular, the study finds that many women have levels of neonicotinoid insecticides in their urine. Although widely known for their hazards to pollinators, a range of data over the last decade has pointed to concerning impacts on human development from prenatal exposure. Peer-reviewed studies have linked these exposures to autism like symptoms, birth defects in the heart, and birth defects in the brain, per a review by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Body burden of these hazardous chemicals are disproportionate between women of different races and backgrounds. Higher exposure amounts is seen in non-white women, those with less education, and pregnant women who are single. Researchers also note that Latinas encountered higher levels of parabens, bisphenols, and phthalates.

“While pesticides and replacement chemicals were prevalent in all women, we were surprised to find that Latinas had substantially higher levels of parabens, phthalates and bisphenols,” said Jessie Buckley, PhD, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and first author of the study. “This could be the result of higher exposures to products with chemicals, such as processed foods or personal care products.”

These data line up with recent research showing that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) communities are exposed to pesticides at disproportionately higher rates than other communities. Beyond these exposures, current laws result in weaker protection of these communities, including elevated risk factors for pesticide-induced illness, toxic housing, and poor enforcement even when problems are identified.

Overall, many of the chemicals detected are found in higher amounts than previous studies in the peer-reviewed literature. “This is the first time we’ve been able to measure the amounts of chemicals in such a large and diverse group of pregnant women – not just identify chemicals,” said Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, professor and director of the UC San Francisco Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment and co-director of the UCSF EaRTH Center, and the senior author of the study. “Our findings make clear that the number and scope of chemicals in pregnant women are increasing during a very vulnerable time of development for both the pregnant person and the fetus.”

Pesticide exposure during this critical window of vulnerability is associated with a range of long-term health hazards. A study published late last month found that maternal pesticide exposure during pregnancy can affect sleep patterns later in life. Sleep problems one may be having now can be precipitated by a chemical exposure at the start of one’s life, causing life-long disruption. But this type of otherwise inscrutable health problems that individuals live with is only one example. Exposure during pregnancy can increase the probability of childhood ear infections, risking hearing loss that can set back childhood development and change the course of an individuals life. ADHD is yet another example, with pregnant mothers who have used insecticides at 98% increased odds of having children with ADHD scores in the 90^th percentile.

Exposures can likewise result in a range of health impacts. Research finds that early exposure to pesticides in the womb increases the risk of the rare fetal disorder holoprosencephaly. This disorder prevents the embryonic forebrain from developing into two separate hemispheres. Pesticides can result in early births and low birth weight, and evidence is growing that glyphosate in particular is a primary contributor to this phenomenon.

Overwhelming data links prenatal pesticide exposure to increased risk of cancer. Whether it be acute childhood leukemia (see coverage of another study on this health outcome here), nephroblastoma kidney cancer, or brain tumors, the data is consistent and incredibly concerning.

While peer-reviewed science continues to sound the alarm, federal regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continue to allow harmful exposures to continue, and in some cases permitted increases in application rates of chemicals linked to prenatal and early childhood health impacts, like the pyrethroid class of insecticides.

Join Beyond Pesticides in efforts to reform the core principles of pesticide law in the United States by urging your Senator to cosponsor Sen. Cory Booker’s Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act. For more information on the hazards pesticides pose to pregnant women and young children, see Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on the Hazards of Pesticides for Children’s Health, as well as the Pesticide Induced Diseases Database.

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

Source:  University of California, San Francisco press release, Environmental Science and Technology

(Beyond Pesticides, May 10, 2022) Widespread weed resistance on chemical corn and soybean farms is leading farmers to till their fields more often, significantly increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These findings were published late last month in the journal Nature Food by a team of Iowa State University researchers. With agricultural practices accounting for roughly 10% of U.S. GHG emissions, and 25% of worldwide releases, farming practices that preserve soil health and sequester GHGs are essential for the future of food production.

Tillage is a farming practice that can provide a range of benefits for crop production, but only in the right conditions. A range of tillage practices exist, ranging from yearly conventional tillage, where most crop residue is plowed into the soil, to conservation tillage where some residue remains, and no-till systems where the soil remains covered. Repeated tillage causes significant harm to soil structure and biology, and result in erosion and the release of GHGs like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide from soil into the atmosphere. The harms of tillage have led both chemical and organic farmers toward no-till or reduced tillage systems.

Organic no-till farming, as practiced by farming groups like the Rodale Institute, employs the use of cover crops that are grown over the fall and winter, and then matted down over the top of the soil using a machine called a roller-crimper. This process suffocates weeds and creates a rich mulch that can often be directly planted into. Some smaller scale organic farmers may till a single time, lay down cardboard or other weed suppressants, and then establish compost mulch beds in which crops can be grown.

Chemical no-till, on the other hand, generally includes the use herbicides sprayed directly over the top of plants to manage weeds competing with crops. This practice is reliant on genetically engineering row crops (specifically corn or soy) to be tolerant of a particular herbicide, or herbicide-tolerant (HT). Glyphosate-tolerant ‘Roundup Ready’ cropping systems have been the been the most popular over the last 25 years, providing chemical farmers a simple method of crop production without soil tillage.

Whatever gains this system provides in reducing atmospheric GHGs by reduced tillage is, according to researchers, eliminated by increases in tillage that have occurred since 2008, when weed resistance to glyphosate became widespread.

To make this determination, researchers created a land-ecosystem model, used mapping data on environmental changes, and long-term farmer surveys to determine how the chemical no-till model came into widespread adoption subsequently broke down. Corn-soybean cropping systems from the mid 1990s until the mid 2010s were analyzed, with 2008 marking a shift in trends.

From 1998 to 2008, corn and soy acreage under chemical no-till increased by over a combined 10 million hectares, roughly the size of Kentucky. This was associated with a reduction in tillage intensity during that time, which also reduced the GHGs emitted by tillage. However, from 2009 to 2016, as glyphosate resistance spread rapidly across multiple different weeds, researchers found increases in GHG emissions from chemical farmers returning to tillage. Particular areas around the country, like the western corn belt in the Dakotas and Minnesota, represented some of the highest GHG emissions from returning to these practices.

“Our work implies that the benefit of HT crop adoption in reducing tillage has reached its peak, while the emerging weed resistance is found to contribute to intensifying tillage practices,” the study reads. “As weed resistance persists and grows, tillage intensity is anticipated to continue to rise, which would further increase GHG emissions and contribute to global warming.”

The shift from reduced tillage to increased tillage is a product of a cropping system that was always intended to provide short-term profits, rather than promote environmental sustainability. The study authors emphasize that farmer choices in managing herbicide resistance are critical in addressing the issue. But many farmers under contract with large agrichemical companies have a difficult time implementing alternative practices outside of a chemical cropping system. The pesticide and agrichemical industry is generally promoting new, more toxic herbicide products utilizing chemicals like glufosinate, dicamba, and 2,4-D to supplement glyphosate’s diminishing returns.

This approach keeps farmers on a treadmill, delaying what is clearly inevitable, while unnecessarily contaminating food, surrounding soil and farmland, water, and air. “Without an effective strategy to control weeds, tillage intensity could continue to grow in the future and could undermine greenhouse gas mitigation achievements from other agricultural activities,” said study author Chaoqun Lu, PhD in an Iowa State press release .

No-till organic addresses the failures of chemical no-till and has the potential to sequester carbon by retaining soil organic matter. Organic farms in general contain 13% more total soil organic carbon than conventional farms, as well as a higher level of the stable soil compounds fluvic and humic acid, a 2017 study found. According to calculations from the Rodale Institute in 2014, soil sequestration has the potential to store the greenhouse gas emissions of up to 52 gigatonnes of CO2.

While the agrichemical industry continues to make arguments for chemical farming based primarily on the need for higher yields, this short-term, myopic focus loses sight of health and a sustainable future that humanity must create to continue life on earth. Research on organic agriculture shows it can  provide quadruple the performance, synergizing financial, human health, ecological, and socio-economic well-being. See Beyond Pesticides webpage on Organic Agriculture for more information.

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

Source: Nature Food, Iowa State press release

(Beyond Pesticides, May 9, 2022) While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated its guidelines for pollinator risk assessments in 2014, the agency continues to either fail to conduct full assessments, or dismiss concerning data it receives. EPA appears to discount threats like the insect apocalypse, evidenced by a 75% decline in insect abundance, which threatens not only global ecosystems, but also food production that depends on animal pollination. As pesticides move through the food web, birds are also at risk. Bird numbers are down 29% since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962.

Tell EPA To Protect Against Other Threats to Pollinators. Tell Congress To Insist that EPA Does Its Job.

The problem is highlighted by EPA’s recent Interim Decision on fenbuconazole, in which the agency notes that, “For larval bees, RQs (risk quotients) exceed the LOC (level of concern) for all pollinator attractive uses including when assessed at the lowest application rate of 0.0938 lb a.i./Acre (RQ = 1.1).” Yet in the same document, the agency declares that “…the benefits of fenbuconazole (e.g., efficacy in management of fungal pathogens) outweigh any remaining risk and that continuing to register fenbuconazole provides significant benefits, including its ability to increase crop yields and help with resistance management.” While the agency added additional restrictive language on spray drift, it implemented no new precautionary measures for pollinators. With the only indications that this chemical is dangerous to pollinators deep in EPA’s dense review documents the public rarely if ever reads, the agency continues to fail pollinators, farmers, and the public.  

Exposure to this commonly used fungicide considered to be ‘slightly toxic or nontoxic’ to pollinators makes male mason bees less likely to find a mate, jeopardizing future generations of critically important pollinators. This determination comes from research recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology by scientists at Germany’s University of Würzburg. The timing of these findings comes after the EPA reapproved uses of fenbuconazole late last year without completing all required studies on pollinator health effects.

EPA’s action on fenbuconazole follows other actions by the agency that threaten pollinators, such as neonicotinoid (neonic) insecticides. Despite EPA’s own findings of evidence of serious threats posed by neonics to pollinators, aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife, it issued interim decisions on them in January 2020 that disregard the science on the pesticides’ impacts and it appears that the agency is prepared to finalize these registrations late in 2022. This would, barring further action, extend the use of these harmful compounds for 15 years.

EPA’s history of unenforceable and impractical pesticide label restrictions resulting in findings of ludicrously small or no risk continues with its announcement that allows the continued use of the deadly organophosphate insecticide malathion—another example of an irresponsible federal agency falling far short, as the nation and world sit on the brink of biodiversity collapse and deadly pesticide-induced diseases. Malathion poses a threat to 97 percent of species listed under the Endangered Species Act, including Kirtland’s Warbler and Black-capped Vireo. Bats, who are valuable pollinators, insectivores, and seed dispersers, are at high risk from pesticide exposure.

After registering over 300 products containing synthetic pyrethroid pesticides within the last six years, EPA has done nothing to safeguard endangered species from exposure to these toxic chemicals, despite a legal requirement to do so. Synthetic pyrethroid insecticides are synthesized derivatives of pyrethrins, which compared to their natural counterpart take significantly longer to degrade in the environment and thus pose longer term risks to humans and wildlife. The chemicals interfere with the proper function of the body’s sodium channels, resulting in harm to the central nervous system. Symptoms of poisoning include headache, nausea, incoordination, tremors, and facial swelling, with severe incidents causing diarrhea, convulsions, paralysis, and death. “The EPA admits pyrethroids’ wide-ranging harm to wildlife but still rubberstamps hundreds of pesticide products containing them without assessing their risks to endangered species,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

To help avert ecosystem collapse, EPA must complete pollinator assessments and ban pesticides, including fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides, shown to imperil populations of insects and other pollinators.

Tell EPA To Protect Against Other Threats to Pollinators. Tell Congress To Insist that EPA Does Its Job.

Letter to EPA (Administrator, Assistant Admininstrator for Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Director of the Office of Pesticide Programs):

While EPA updated its guidelines for pollinator risk assessments in 2014, the agency continues to either fail to conduct full assessments or dismiss concerning data it receives. EPA appears to discount threats like the insect apocalypse, evidenced by a 75% decline in insect abundance, which threatens not only global ecosystems, but also food production that depends on animal pollination. As pesticides move through the food web, bird numbers are down 29% since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962.

The problem is highlighted by EPA’s recent Interim Decision on fenbuconazole, in which the agency notes that, “For larval bees, RQs (risk quotients) exceed the LOC (level of concern) for all pollinator attractive uses including when assessed at the lowest application rate of 0.0938 lb a.i./Acre (RQ = 1.1).” Yet in the same document, the agency declares that “…the benefits of fenbuconazole (e.g., efficacy in management of fungal pathogens) outweigh any remaining risk and that continuing to register fenbuconazole provides significant benefits, including its ability to increase crop yields and help with resistance management.” While the agency added additional restrictive language on spray drift, it implemented no new precautionary measures for pollinators. With the only indications that this chemical is dangerous to pollinators deep in EPA’s dense review documents the public rarely if ever reads, the agency continues to fail pollinators, farmers, and the public.  

Exposure to this commonly used fungicide makes male mason bees less likely to find a mate, jeopardizing future generations of critically important pollinators, according to research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology by scientists at Germany’s University of Würzburg. These findings come after the EPA reapproved uses of fenbuconazole late last year without completing all required studies on pollinator health effects.

EPA’s action on fenbuconazole follows actions on other pesticides that threaten pollinators, such as neonicotinoid (neonic) insecticides. Despite EPA’s own findings of evidence of serious threats posed by neonics to pollinators, aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife, interim decisions in January 2020 disregard the science on the pesticides’ impacts, and it appears that the agency is prepared to finalize these registrations late in 2022, extending the use of these harmful compounds for 15 years.

EPA’s history of unenforceable and impractical pesticide label restrictions resulting in findings of ludicrously small or no risk continues with its announcement that allows the continued use of the deadly organophosphate insecticide malathion—another example of an irresponsible federal agency falling far short, as the nation and world sit on the brink of biodiversity collapse. Malathion poses a threat to 97 percent of species listed under the Endangered Species Act, including Kirtland’s Warbler and Black-capped Vireo. Bats, who are valuable pollinators, insectivores, and seed dispersers, are at high risk from pesticide exposure.

After registering over 300 products containing synthetic pyrethroid pesticides within the last six years, EPA has done nothing to safeguard endangered species from exposure to these toxic chemicals, despite legal requirement to do so. The chemicals interfere with the proper function of the body’s sodium channels, resulting in harm to the central nervous system.

To help avert ecosystem collapse, EPA must complete pollinator assessments and ban pesticides, including fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides, shown to imperil populations of insects and other pollinators.

Letter to U.S. House of Representatives and Senate:

While EPA updated its guidelines for pollinator risk assessments in 2014, the agency continues to either fail to conduct full assessments or dismiss concerning data it receives. EPA appears to discount threats like the insect apocalypse, evidenced by a 75% decline in insect abundance, which threatens not only global ecosystems, but also food production that depends on animal pollination. As pesticides move through the food web, birds numbers are down 29% since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962.

The problem is highlighted by EPA’s recent Interim Decision on fenbuconazole, in which the agency notes that, “For larval bees, RQs (risk quotients) exceed the LOC (level of concern) for all pollinator attractive uses including when assessed at the lowest application rate of 0.0938 lb a.i./Acre (RQ = 1.1).” Yet in the same document, the agency declares that “…the benefits of fenbuconazole (e.g., efficacy in management of fungal pathogens) outweigh any remaining risk and that continuing to register fenbuconazole provides significant benefits, including its ability to increase crop yields and help with resistance management.” While the agency added additional restrictive language on spray drift, it implemented no new precautionary measures for pollinators. With the only indications that this chemical is dangerous to pollinators deep in EPA’s dense review documents the public rarely if ever reads, the agency continues to fail pollinators, farmers, and the public.  

Exposure to this commonly used fungicide makes male mason bees less likely to find a mate, jeopardizing future generations of critically important pollinators, according to research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology by scientists at Germany’s University of Würzburg. These findings come after the EPA reapproved uses of fenbuconazole late last year without completing all required studies on pollinator health effects.

EPA’s action on fenbuconazole follows actions on other pesticides that threaten pollinators, such as neonicotinoid (neonic) insecticides. Despite EPA’s own findings of evidence of serious threats posed by neonics to pollinators, aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife, interim decisions in January 2020 disregard the science on the pesticides’ impacts, and it appears that the agency is prepared to finalize these registrations late in 2022, extending the use of these harmful compounds for 15 years.

EPA’s history of unenforceable and impractical pesticide label restrictions resulting in findings of ludicrously small or no risk continues with its announcement that allows the continued use of the deadly organophosphate insecticide malathion—another example of an irresponsible federal agency falling far short, as the nation and world sit on the brink of biodiversity collapse. Malathion poses a threat to 97 percent of species listed under the Endangered Species Act, including Kirtland’s Warbler and Black-capped Vireo. Bats, who are valuable pollinators, insectivores, and seed dispersers, are at high risk from pesticide exposure.

After registering over 300 products containing synthetic pyrethroid pesticides within the last six years, EPA has done nothing to safeguard endangered species from exposure to these toxic chemicals, despite legal requirement to do so. The chemicals interfere with the proper function of the body’s sodium channels, resulting in harm to the central nervous system.

To help avert ecosystem collapse, please ensure that EPA completes pollinator assessments and bans pesticides, including fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides, shown to imperil populations of insects and other pollinators.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, May 6, 2022) A December 2021 report commissioned by the trade group Salmon Scotland concludes that the use of pesticide products by the nation’s salmon farms represents potential risk to “wild” swimmers (those who swim in open ocean waters). The report’s primary finding is that the use of insecticide products containing azamethiphos (an organophosphate), deltamethrin, and hydrogen peroxide to control sea lice in farmed fish contaminates sea water and, thus, threatens swimmers in the areas around the farms. Beyond Pesticides has reported on pesticide use in aquaculture, and most recently, on developing resistance — in the parasitic lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) that endanger both wild and farmed fish populations in the North Atlantic — to some of the chemical treatments used by aquaculturists to combat the parasite.

The intense exploitation of wild fish and other marine creatures for human food (and as an ingredient in animal feeds) has caused, in recent decades, depletion of fish and seafood stocks across the world. The aquaculture industry — in which various aquatic species (fish, shellfish, and some plants) are bred, raised, and harvested in the open ocean — has grown rapidly as a response. Since the 1960s, the farming of salmon in the Atlantic has grown such that now, 70% of global salmon production is from ocean farming, and in the U.S., 90% of salmon sold is farmed. Other marine food farming industries that dominate U.S. markets include those that produce tilapia, shrimp, and shellfish (scallops, mussels, clams, and oysters). Asia is the source of more than 90% of all farmed fish/seafood, with China alone representing roughly 58% of production.

Aquaculture operations generate a host of sustainability issues: sea water pollution from the farms’ waste, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals; increased levels of disease in farmed populations; increased use of chemical “controls,” and the inevitable resistance to those compounds among pests (such as sea lice); and a rise in genetically engineered species and the spread of that DNA into wild populations, among others. The “escapes” of farmed fish, due to pen damage from harsh local conditions or predators, are common. This points to yet another problem in this industry: the release of genetically engineered farmed salmon into the wilds of the ocean mean that some wild salmon will breed with them and weaken the genetics. For example, when wild Atlantic salmon breed with escaped farmed salmon, their descendants mature earlier and grow faster than in the wild species, undermining wild populations’ ability to survive and reproduce in their natural habitat.

Beyond Pesticides wrote about the Scottish farmed salmon industry in 2020: “Atlantic salmon . . . are raised in what are, essentially, pens suspended in open sea lochs (arms of the sea that are narrow or partially landlocked) on Scotland’s west coast and Northern Isles. Many of these are in relatively remote areas, so are somewhat ‘hidden’ from public scrutiny. The fish in these pens live under very crowded conditions, with far greater density than do wild salmon. They are fed processed feed that is usually laced with various pharmaceuticals and/or insecticides used to ward off diseases and pest infestations, such as the sea lice, which tend to break out in such crowded conditions. The fish also discharge thousands of tons of feces and food waste into the surrounding sea (as well as pesticide and pharmaceutical residues). The food and fecal matter ratchet up the nitrate levels in the nearby marine ecosystem, which has deleterious effects on ocean plants and organisms. The pesticides and other pharmaceuticals can harm local ecosystems and marine life.”

WCA, the consultant company that produced the report for Salmon Scotland, indicates that the contamination of marine waters (by the products listed above) happens whether the treatments are done “in situ” at the site of a salmon pen, or on board special treatment boats. In either case, post-treatment, the water containing the insecticide products is then dumped into the sea. One might wonder if this is a significant risk, ocean contamination aside — as in, how many folks actually swim in the ocean? It turns out that the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Outdoor Swimming Society boasts 100,000 members!

WCA assigned a metric — to each of the three ingredients in the pesticide products (deltamethrin, azamethiphos, and hydrogen peroxide) — to represent the relative risk identified. A risk factor of “1” or below was characterized as “showing no reason for significant concern or action.” Deltamethrin was determined to be present at levels of negligible concern; azamethiphos was assigned .8; but hydrogen peroxide clocked in at 27.7. The report concludes that levels of azamethiphos and deltamethrin “in the treatment baths can be considered safe,” but that levels of hydrogen peroxide in salmon cages can be 28 times higher than those considered safe for swimmers.

At high concentrations, hydrogen peroxide is harmful if ingested and toxic if inhaled; it can cause skin burns, eye damage, and irritation of respiratory system membranes. In light of the report’s sanguine comments about the safety of azamethiphos and deltamethrin, Beyond Pesticides calls attention to these facts: deltamethrin is a synthetic pyrethroid insecticide that is an irritant to human tissue, disrupts the human endocrine system, and is toxic to bees and to fish and aquatic organisms; and azamethiphos, which is permitted for use in salmon aquaculture in Norway, Ireland, Scotland, and Chile, is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (which action compromises immune and metabolic function), a mutagen (causing genetic mutations), and a neurotoxicant.

Though the first two compounds get a “pass” in this study, Beyond Pesticides points out that this evaluation — as is true for many pesticide evaluations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on this side of the pond — fails to assess risks of exposures to two, or all, of these compounds in combination. The lack of attention to potential synergistic impacts speaks to the ongoing failures of classic toxicological risk assessment as employed by most regulatory agencies.

According to inews.co.uk, the 220+ UK salmon farms (operated by eight companies) discharged more than 10.5 million gallons of hydrogen peroxide into sea waters between 2016 and 2021. The report authors also assert that their assessment of potential risk to swimmers was based on a series of “worst case assumptions” for the average adult swimmer, and that “characterisation of dilution and dispersion factors are likely to be required to be taken into account to demonstrate that discharges of hydrogen peroxide are safe for open-water swimmers.”

Per inews.co.uk, Salmon Scotland maintains that the “‘worst-case’ estimate in [the] report ‘would never occur in real life.’ The pesticide would be dispersed and diluted in the water, it argued, and swimmers kept a ‘safe distance’ from industrial sites and vessels.” The trade association further asserts that levels of hydrogen peroxide used in the salmon treatments “would fall below the ‘no effect’ level 30 minutes after use and ‘generally’ within 200-–300m. . . . There would be ‘very few, if any’ people who would swim for two hours in Scottish coastal waters.”

The report has garnered significant attention in the context of the consideration by a regional Scottish authority, the Argyll and Bute Council, of a proposal from Mowi, the world’s largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon, for a new farming operation off the west coast of Scotland’s Isle of Arran. Advocates have maintained that the “poisons” — pesticides and other chemicals — evacuated (or leaked) into seawater by salmon farms could threaten the health of ocean swimmers, and have demanded regulatory action to reduce or eliminate fish farm chemical pollution

Scotland’s Coastal Communities Network, a coalition of 23 organizations advocating for the marine environment, insists that pesticides risk swimmers’ health. Spokesperson for the group, John Aitchison, commented: “The industry’s own report shows that swimmers will be harmed if they swallow very small amounts of water containing two of the poisons being dumped by fish farms. The risk is especially high for women and children who were not mentioned in the report. No other industry is allowed to dump all its pesticides in the sea.” He was also quoted in Beyond Pesticides’ 2020 coverage of increased use of pesticides on Scottish salmon farms early in the Covid pandemic: “We do not want them to discharge any more pollution. . . . The need to dump even more pollution in the sea during this crisis shows that it must give up its open nets and adopt closed-containment methods to capture its pollution instead, as any other responsible industry would do.”

Fish farms are rough analogues to terrestrial CAFOs — concentrated animal feeding operations. Both crowd too many creatures into too little space; both feed animals with processed food laced with pharmaceuticals and/or insecticides or parasiticides in efforts to “control” the diseases and pest problems that inevitably arise in such living conditions; and both create unnatural concentrations of excreta that move “downstream” to the surrounding environment, whether on land or in oceans, and contaminate and impact nearby ecosystems and water quality.

In addition, on land, these operations create fertile conditions for viruses and bacteria to evolve and jump from animal to human populations — potentially launching more human pandemics. This dynamic may be possible from marine farming, as well. A sensical, precautionary, and protective approach would be to raise animals in sufficiently large, more humane, and more-natural conditions, such as those required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Standards. Such practices would obviate much of the need for the chemical “fixes” operators of these facilities employ.

It is important for the public to know that what Beyond Pesticides’ wrote in its 2018 coverage of the salmon farming industry is, unfortunately, evergreen: all “Atlantic salmon” sold in the U.S. is farmed. That is why it often has a slight gray tinge, is oilier and less firm than wild salmon, and lacks the rich taste of the wild varieties. “Organic” salmon — which consumers may see offered in some supermarkets — is certified in accordance with European Union regulations. But the public should know that, although it may cost roughly the same as genuine wild salmon, it has the same “environmental baggage” as farmed “Atlantic salmon.” “Organic” fish farming significantly contributes to marine pollution by adding synthetic pesticides and antibiotics to the marine environment, contravening what consumers expectat of organic food production systems.

For the public, there are alternatives to participating in this industry. One is not consuming farmed salmon. Another is purchasing only wild varieties, though that increases pressure on already stressed wild stocks. A third, for those who want to continue eating this fish, is to eat only wild salmon, but to reduce the frequency of consumption. The same approaches can apply to other farmed marine foods, although in the U.S., it is increasingly challenging to find any shrimp or tilapia, for example, that is not farmed.

Given what conventional agriculture, whether marine or terrestrial, has wrought in its impacts on human health, ecosystems, and natural resources, concerned consumers now must pay close attention to the provenance of their provisions. In addition, pressure must be exerted on elected leaders, federal and state regulatory bodies, and even the local grocery, to shift food production to systems that don’t cause such degradation, disease, and destruction. Please follow Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News Blog, its journal Pesticides and You, its Facebook page (@BeyondPesticides) and Twitter account (@ByondPesticides), and reach out to us ([email protected] or 202.543.5450) for how to advance the transition to an organic and sustainable food future.

Sources: https://inews.co.uk/news/wild-swimmers-face-toxic-pesticide-health-risk-in-lochs-and-sea-from-220-scots-salmon-firms-report-warns-1605298 and https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21746810/document-22585306.pdf

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

(Beyond Pesticides, May 5, 2022) A report published in Biological Conservation finds environmental pollutants, including pesticides, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and particulate matter, adversely affect tropical terrestrial wildlife. Specifically, these contaminants can interact with one another, altering the chemical landscape of the ecosystem, and causing changes in the endocrine and microbiome systems of mammals.

Since the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), global attention to the danger of pesticides has increased, with environmental agencies banning the use of legacy pesticides like organochlorines for their devastating toxic—sometimes lethal—effects. However, these chemicals can remain in the environment for decades and interact with various current-use pesticides, including organophosphates, neonicotinoids, and pyrethroids. Although many studies demonstrate that environmental pollution plays a significant role in premature deaths among humans, there is a lack of research on how environmental pollution directly affects tropical species mortality. Considering human and wildlife habitats tend to overlap, and chemical pollutants can drift from chemically treated areas, wildlife populations are more likely to experience similar health effects.

With the number of chemicals in the ecosystem growing, studies like these highlight the need for pesticide policies that protect human health in addition to the integrity of the chemical landscapes accommodating wildlife. The researchers note, “Using this [study] background and building on past conservation success, such as mending the ozone layer and decreasing acid rain, we tackle the difficult issue of how to construct meaningful policies and conservation plans that include a consideration of the chemical landscape. We document that policy solutions to improving the chemical landscape are already known and the path of how to construct a healthier planet is discernible.”

The researchers assess how severe the effects of environmental contaminant exposure are among terrestrial mammals in the tropics. To evaluate severity, researchers consider how environmental pollutants interact with one another, the bodily function of mammals (i.e., endocrine and microbiome systems), and the environment itself to produce unanticipated negative impacts. Lastly, researchers determine how to improve policies and conservation efforts when considering the chemical landscape with a catalog of safety data on 10,000 chemicals that predict the toxicity of the range of substances in consumer products for which information is lacking.

With a specific focus on pesticides, the report reinforces that exposure to these toxic chemicals affects wildlife mortality, with sublethal effects weakening species fitness and reproductive rate. Pesticide pollution is increasing in tropical regions, especially in low- and mid-income countries that are home to a high diversity of species. Although countries with higher incomes, like the European Union and the U.S., restrict these environmentally toxic chemicals, mid-and low-income countries import and manufacture these same chemicals without similar restrictions. For instance, DDT is a legacy pesticide that can persist in the environment for decades. Although many high-income countries ban the use and manufacturing of DDT, low- and mid-income countries many still use the product, leading to further environmental contamination and loss of tropical mammal species like the Brazilian Free-Tail Bat. Moreover, there is a lack of research on how chemical pollution from sources like pesticides harms human and wildlife health. Various chemical pollutants are endocrine and microbiome disruptors, ubiquitously dispersed in the tropic and commonly present in mammalian tissue. Exposure can result in changes in sexual reproduction, masculinization and feminization of sex organs, aggressive temperament, and neurological and developmental delays. The researchers note, “The true contribution of chemical pollution, including pesticides, to health outcomes in both humans and wildlife, is likely underestimated because the adverse effects of many environmental contaminants are poorly understood, and interactions among chemicals are rarely investigated.”

Chemical pollution’s detrimental effects on wildlife are not a new phenomenon and can disrupt wildlife productivity via direct or indirect impacts. Insects, other terrestrial and aquatic organisms, and marine and terrestrial mammals can all experience weakened immune function upon pesticide exposure. For instance, studies find pesticide exposure can limit immune response in honey bees, causing early onset of infection or increased probability of mortality from infection. Reports demonstrate that neonicotinoid insecticide exposure impairs honey bees’ ability to groom Varroa mites, responsible for a disease known as deformed wing virus (DWV). Additionally, California sea lions are experiencing high rates of urogenital carcinoma (UGC) cancer from the combined effect of toxic “legacy” pesticides like DDT and the viral infection Otarine herpesvirus-1 (OtHV1). According to multiple studies, exposure to the weed killer glyphosate (patented as an antibiotic) changes the bacterial composition of the gut microbiome in cattle, rodents, and honey bees. Like glyphosate, atrazine can cause gut microbiome disruption, resulting in sex-specific shifts in microbiota. Atrazine is notoriously associated with endocrine disruption among amphibians and reptiles, resulting in reproductive and behavioral changes. Even among humans, exposure to endocrine-disrupting pesticides impacts hormone regulation promoting metabolic diseases like diabetes.

This report is the first to evaluate the severity of environmental pollutant exposure among tropical terrestrial mammals. However, current research likely underestimates the harms of pollutants as of the over 140,000 synthetic chemicals within the ecosystem, less than 5,000 have proper testing for toxicity and safety. Animals and individuals can encounter these chemicals through products (e.g., cosmetics, disinfectants), food, soil, other animal tissue, and the air itself. However, tropical regions contain more threatened and endangered species that are more sensitive to rapid changes in ecosystem structure and chemical bioavailability than temperate regions. For instance, between 2002 and 2019, ~60 million hectares (ha) of tropical forest were lost, resulting in habitat fragmentation that puts wildlife at risk. The researchers highlight that forest edges can contain 56 percent higher concentrations of pollutants, and with fragmented areas, wildlife is more likely to encounter pesticides in chemically treated areas that were once forest habitats. The researchers caution, “Society is not effectively adopting a precautionary principle, rather it is allowing new chemicals and forms of environmental contaminants to be generated in huge quantities and only responding well after the negative consequences of these actions are made apparent, if even then.”

The researcher suggests solutions to generate a path toward a healthier planet and equitable future for people and wildlife:

• Provide credible scientific information to the public and policymakers.
• Create and coordinate teams and networks for monitoring wildlife health.
• Develop a long-lasting foundation that continuously monitors the impacts of environmental contamination and generates science-based policy options. 
• Adequate training and mobilizing scientists in developing countries to gather local community information.
• Produce and communicate information that will effectively inform policy decisions and motivate action through salient, credible, and legitimate resources.

The globe is currently going through the Holocene Extinction, Earth’s 6th mass extinction, with one million species of plants and animals at risk and an increasing rate of biodiversity loss. Environmental advocates say it is essential for government agencies to research how previous and ongoing use of chemical pollutants can impact present-day species. Likewise, collaborative, global monitoring of chemical pollutants can help leaders identify the effect on vulnerable species and the most effective unified global strategy. Animals and humans occupy the same space, so both will experience similar declines in general health, fitness, and well-being. Therefore, pesticide use should be phased out and ultimately eliminated to protect the global wildlife and reduce the number of dangerous pesticides exposed to threatened species, such as tropical mammals. Advocating for local and state pesticide reform policies can protect wildlife from pesticide contamination. For more information on pesticide impacts on wildlife, visit Beyond Pesticides’ wildlife page.

Furthermore, buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides on crops located in wildlife refuges. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits that eliminate the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices in these sanctuaries. For more information on why organic the right choice, see Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture.  

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

Source: Mongabay, Biological Conservation

(Beyond Pesticides, May 4, 2022) Agricultural intensification and climate change are driving unprecedented losses in insect abundance and biodiversity, placing key ecosystem functions like food production in peril. The findings of this research, published in Nature by scientists at University College London, UK, are the first to elucidate the interactions between major drivers of the ongoing insect apocalypse. As civilization moves deeper into a time in which the impacts of a rapidly warming planet meet the devastating effects of habitat loss and rampant chemical use, it becomes ever more critical that action be taken now to avert the worst outcomes for the future of life on the planet. While the solutions are in reach, tremendous public action is needed to stop the fossil fuel and agrichemical industries from their short-sighted pursuit of profit at any cost, climate advocates say.

To conduct their analysis, scientists utilized both short-term studies and the Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity in Changing Terrestrial Systems (PREDICTS) database, which contains insect biodiversity sampling comprising twenty years of information (1992 to 2012). Species richness and total abundance were reviewed for nearly 20,000 insect species, including dragonflies/damselflies, moths and butterflies, flies, true bugs, beetles, bees and wasps, and grasshoppers/crickets from every biome on earth save the tundra. To determine how the synergy between climate change and industrial agriculture affected species, scientists grouped sites from their dataset into four classes based on the level of land intensity (primary vegetation, secondary vegetation, low intensity farming, and high intensity farming). Changes in mean and maximum temperatures, based on a baseline from the early 20^th century, were likewise calculated.

The interaction between climate change (at a standardized temperature anomaly of 1 standard deviation) and high intensity agriculture diminished total insect abundance by 50%, and species richness by 27%. Lower intensity agriculture reduced these impacts, with declines in insect abundance of 30%, and species richness of 23%. Researchers define high intensity agriculture as industrial, chemical dependent systems with large fields, monocrops, and high amounts of mechanization or animal confinement. Low-intensity sites are those not using high amounts of pesticides or cropped in monocultures.

Scientists conducted further analysis to determine of other factors could buffer these declines. It was found that having significant natural land cover near low intensity agricultural sites had the potential to lower species declines. When low intensity agriculture was surrounded by 75% natural habitat, losses in insect abundance dropped only 7% and richness 5%. However, significantly higher reductions were seen when only 25% of natural habitat surrounded farmlands. High intensity agriculture shows no buffering of insect declines with nearby natural lands. Additionally, at the highest modeled levels of climate change, natural land likewise provides no mitigating effects.

As the authors note, climate warming is predicted to accelerate, and agricultural intensification is predicted to increase throughout this century. “If this agricultural expansion is associated with a reduction in the availability of natural habitats within production landscapes or a move toward higher-intensity agriculture, our results indicate that large declines in insect biodiversity will occur, particularly as climate warming accelerates,” the study notes.

The insect apocalypse is worded so bombastically because the impacts are unimaginably deleterious for human civilization as we now know it. Food production relies on the services insects provide: pollination, pest control, soil quality, decomposition, and a stable food web. While these interacting crises are occurring, the public is continuously inundated with misinformation from industries profiting on the crisis to create deliberate confusion and enervation. Arguments are made that high intensity, industrial chemical agriculture is the only way to feed the world, and the fossil fuels are the only way to provide energy. Scientific data is now spelling out exactly what we are in for if we continue to endorse these dangerous myths.

For more information on the ongoing insect apocalypse, see Beyond Pesticides article Study Cites Insect Extinction and Ecological Collapse, as well as previous Daily News articles on the subject.

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

Source: Nature

(Beyond Pesticides, May 3, 2022) Exposure to a commonly used fungicide considered to be ‘slightly toxic or nontoxic’ to pollinators makes male mason bees less likely to find a mate, jeopardizing future generations of critically important pollinators. This determination comes from research recently published in the Journal of Applied Ecology by scientists at Germany’s University of Würzburg. The timing of these findings comes after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reapproved uses of fenbuconazole, the fungicide in question, late last year without completing all required studies on pollinator health effects.

Horned mason bees (Osmia cornuta), a solitary bee species, have a complex mating process that includes a range of “pre-copulatory behaviors” used by male bees attract females. Males create thoracic vibrations with their flight muscles, rub the eyes of female bees with their antennae, and emit a distinct odor from their body. If the female likes the presentation, she will mate with the male. Otherwise, she will move him to the side and wait for another male to try to win her affection.

To see how this process was influenced by pesticide exposure, researchers conducted a range of different experiments. For the first, newly emerged male and female bees were tagged in a laboratory setting, and male bees were exposed to either none, 50%, or 100% of field application rate for the fungicide product Indar 5EW, containing a solution of fenbuconazole in order to mimic bees caught in a spray event. Five male bees from each group were placed in a flight cage with a single female and their activity was observed. Researchers used a total of 68 males, many of which were used more than once to mimic field conditions where males mate with multiple females. A second experiment tested mating pairs by allowing a virgin female to interact with either five males in the control group of five males exposed to 100% field rate of the fungicide. Once a mating pair was established they were removed and observed separately. Scientists likewise analyzed the thoracic vibrations initiated during precopulation, and as well as the cuticular hydrocarbons (odors) of the bees within the first experiment.

“If the fungicide has an effect on male quality signals, this should increase the likelihood that pesticide-exposed males will be rejected by females,” lead author of the study, Samuel Boff, PhD, explains. As indicated, the pesticide did appear to affect the ability of exposed males to mate. Results from the first experiment found exposed males to have significantly fewer successful copulations than the unexposed control bees.  Unexposed bees mated 16 times, while 50% exposed mated five times and 100% exposed mated six. The fungicide did not stop the male bee’s attempt to mate, merely their success after initiating their mating dance. For the second experiment regarding mating pairs, control males were again 20% more likely to mate than the fungicide-exposed group.

While no difference was seen between the length of time control and exposed males conducted thoratic vibrations, the frequency of the vibrations was higher in the control group. Control and exposed bees also exhibited marked differences in the odors they emitted, likely influencing their overall success.

Resources like University of Massachusetts Extension and University of California rate the active ingredient fenbuconazole as slightly toxic or nontoxic to pollinators not requiring any bee precautions unless indicated on the label. But the team of European researchers are calling for deeper investigations before such broad labels are messaged to the public. “Our study shows that the early stages of bee reproduction must be included in the risk assessment of pesticides,” says Professor Thomas Schmitt, PhD, chair of animal ecology and tropical biologist at University of Würzburg.

While EPA updated its guidelines for pollinator risk assessments in 2014, the agency continues to either fail to conduct full assessments, or dismiss concerning data it receives. In its recent Interim Decision published on fenbuconazole, the agency notes that “For larval bees, RQs (risk quotients) exceed the LOC (level of concern) for all pollinator attractive uses including when assessed at the lowest application rate of 0.0938 lb a.i./Acre (RQ = 1.1).” Yet in the same document, the agency declares that “…the benefits of fenbuconazole (e.g., efficacy in management of fungal pathogens) outweigh any remaining risk and that continuing to register fenbuconazole provides significant benefits, including its ability to increase crop yields and help with resistance management.” While the agency added additional restrictive language on spray drift, it implemented no new precautionary measures for pollinators. With the only indications that this chemical is dangerous to pollinators deep in EPA’s dense review documents the public rarely if ever reads, the agency continues to fail pollinators, farmers, and the public.  

As Dr. Boff notes, “The decline in bee populations in agricultural landscapes could therefore be explained by the effect of pesticides on insect mating behavior.” Yet, regulators at EPA have made clear that the benefits associated with killing wild pollinators outweigh the risk of crop loss.

Help create a future where pollinators do not dwindle but thrive by supporting the Saving America’s Pollinators Act. This bill would create a separate process outside of EPA’s industry-driven reviews with an independent board of experts to determine whether additional restrictions are necessary for pesticides with evidence of toxicity to pollinators or their habitat. Take action today by urging your member of Congress to join as a cosponsor.

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

Source: Journal of Applied Ecology, ScienceDaily, EPA Registration Review-Fenbuconazole

(Beyond Pesticides, May 2, 2022) Lawns occupy 40 million acres, or 2% of the land in the U.S. Their maintenance typically involves pesticides and fertilizers that kill pollinators and soil life and wash into streams, where they do more damage. Lawn maintenance also involves a lot of mowing. While mowing is an effective way to encourage grasses over most broadleaved plants, it also has broader ecological impacts.

The 3,600 species of bees in the U.S. and Canada range from large bumblebees to tiny sweat bees. There are many things you can do in your yard and community to protect these bees—starting with managing lawns and landscapes organically and planting flowers favored by bees and other pollinators. This one—No Mow May—requires less work.

Participate in No Mow May. Manage your landscape organically. Plant flowers for pollinators. Send a message to your mayor. 

No Mow May began with research by Plantlife in the UK and was taken up by property owners in Appleton, WI, who demonstrated that “homes that participated in No Mow May had more diverse and abundant flora than regularly mowed green spaces throughout the city.”

May is the month when many bees emerge from hibernation throughout the U.S. and seek sources of pollen and nectar. By allowing your lawn to grow during May, more flowering plants will bloom, feeding the bees and other pollinators. The longer grass also provides a more diversified habitat for ground beetles and some butterflies. Mowing may still be advisable if ticks are a problem (mow paths!) or ground-nesting bees are present.

One obstacle that many people face in taking a break from mowing is that some communities have weed ordinances that prohibit tall vegetation. After years of fines for allowing his grass on his Prairie Street lot to grow, Michael Almon of Lawrence, KS collaborated with the Lawrence Sustainability Advisory Board in drafting a new natural landscaping ordinance to replace the old weed ordinance. See Beyond Pesticides’ Tools for Change for help in changing your city’s outdated ordinance.

Participate in No Mow May. Manage your landscape organically. Plant flowers for pollinators. Send a message to your mayor. 

Letter to mayors:

Lawns occupy 40 million acres, or 2% of the land in the U.S. Their maintenance typically involves pesticides and fertilizers that kill pollinators and soil life and wash into streams, where they do more damage. Lawn maintenance also involves a lot of mowing. While mowing is an effective way to encourage grasses over most broadleaved plants, it also has broader ecological impacts.

The 3,600 species of bees in the U.S. and Canada range from large bumblebees to tiny sweat bees. There are many things we can do in our yard community to protect these bees—starting with managing lawns and landscapes organically and planting flowers favored by bees and other pollinators. But one—No Mow May—requires less work.

No Mow May began with research by Plantlife in the UK and was taken up by property owners in Appleton, WI, who demonstrated that “homes that participated in No Mow May had more diverse and abundant flora than regularly mowed green spaces throughout the city.”

May is the month when many bees emerge from hibernation throughout the U.S. and seek sources of pollen and nectar. By allowing our lawns to grow during May, more flowering plants will bloom, feeding the bees and other pollinators. The longer grass also provides a more diversified habitat for ground beetles and some butterflies. Mowing may still be advisable if ticks are a problem (mow paths!) or ground-nesting bees are present.

One obstacle that many people face in taking a break from mowing is that some communities have weed ordinances that prohibit tall vegetation. Fortunately, many communities are taking a more enlightened approach now. Please let me know whether our city promotes pollinator habitat.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 29, 2022) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS’s) plan to list a rare milkweed species, and the areas in which it grows in south Texas, as critical and endangered has garnered political pushback from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. In February, FWS announced its intention to list 691 acres of prostrate milkweed habitat in order to protect it, given its critical role in supporting monarch butterfly populations. But Attorney General (AG) Paxton sent a letter to FWS saying that the critical and endangered determination “would further destabilize Texas’s border, hindering the construction of the border wall,” and that it would risk security on the border with Mexico. FWS countered with a press release stating that, “This listing and critical habitat proposal is based on the best available science, including a species status assessment that included input and review from academia and state agencies.”

The 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA) mandates that federal agencies, in consultation with FWS and/or the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service, ensure that any actions in which they engage (whether authorizing, implementing, or funding) are unlikely to jeopardize the existence of a listed species, or have negative impacts on its habitat. The nonprofit Endangered Species Coalition cites the efficacy of the ESA, and some related difficulty: “The Endangered Species Act has been successful in keeping more than 99% of species under its wing from going extinct. . . . Species for which critical habitat have been designated are twice as likely to be trending toward recovery than those without. . . . But long delays in adding animal and plant species to the endangered list have heightened the perils and made recovery more difficult.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Pesticide Programs implements some portions of the ESA; see Beyond Pesticides’ ESA archive here.

The FWS proposal on the prostrate milkweed and its habitat arises on the heels of a 2020 lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) to prod the agency to make protective determinations on 241 plant and animal species considered by CBD to be “trending toward extinction, including the prostrate milkweed and more than 35 others in Texas.”

The 691 acres at issue are in Starr and Zapata counties — located on the border with Mexico and near to the Gulf Coast — which are located along one of two important monarch migration flyways. The annual Fall migration path runs along this Texas coast eco-corridor from approximately the third week in October through mid-November each year. In early Spring, the monarchs arrive in Texas from their overwintering grounds in Mexico, and find emerging milkweed on which to lay their eggs before they die. The larvae develop, and the next generation of monarchs continues the migration northeast to repopulate the Eastern U.S. and Southern Canada.  

As covered by Border Report, “If the prostrate milkweed were to make the list, then the area where it grows . . . would be exempt from border barrier construction. And that could halt the construction of a border wall that the state of Texas currently is building outside of the town of La Grulla. . . . [Texas] is funding millions of dollars to build its own wall, which is nearly 2 miles long and the first phase nearly complete. . . . Texas Gov[ernor] Greg Abbott has said the state plans to build more sections of wall throughout Starr County.”

AG Paxton’s letter, sent on the closing day of the FWS comment period on the proposal, also asserted, “The [endangered] designation determination must . . . account for the potential implications to border security, which implicates national security, Texas’s security and economy, and other public policy priorities, such as combatting human and drug trafficking, which are rampant in areas near the border.” He also cited costs to ranchers of “tens of thousands of dollars to repair cut fences and gates destroyed by human smugglers transporting undocumented persons through their ranches.”

Marianna Treviño-Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center (located in the next county east of Starr County) commented on the AG response to the FWS proposal: “The federal government has the ability to waive every law, including the Endangered Species Act, covering plants and animals for border wall construction. The state doesn’t have that authority, so if the state wants to continue building, they risk running amok, running afoul of the Endangered Species Act for their plans if the prostrate milkweed is listed.” She also noted to Border Report that the National Butterfly Center was to re-open on April 23 after a three-month closure due to security threats by far-right organizations. Ms. Treviño-Wright also commented on the political nature of the pushback from the state, noting that she “hopes the federal agency will decide to list the prostrate milkweed on the endangered species list to help butterflies, and to prevent future border wall construction, which she says is not necessary and militarizes the border region.”

FWS added, in defense of its proposal, “This listing and critical habitat proposal . . . will help raise awareness about the threats to this plant and inspire diverse partnerships on its behalf.” CBD’s Senior Conservation Advocate Michael Robinson noted that a federal ESA designation for the prostrate milkweed would also require federal officials to develop a recovery plan for the listed species. The prostrate milkweed (and other milkweeds) are host plants for monarch butterflies, but the plant’s shrubland habitat has been negatively impacted by the introduction of non-native buffelgrass — which is planted for livestock forage and displaces native flora — as well as by encroaching development.

More milkweed habitat destruction from border wall construction would likely threaten the very existence of the species in these Texas monarch flyway counties, according to advocates. The Endangered Species Coalition asserts that, “Construction and maintenance for roads, utilities and the oil and gas industry also destroy these plants, and additional border wall construction on the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge threatens to uproot more of them.” State botanist with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Texas, Christ Best, elaborated on the threat of buffelgrass, saying it is “a tough and invasive grass . . . that spreads far beyond where it is planted. . . . Seems like every year they’re putting in new cable or waterlines or power lines. Every time you disturb the soil, buffelgrass just jumps in and takes over.”

Monarch butterfly populations certainly do not need more challenges to their survival. They have suffered from multiple human assaults on their well-being: profligate use of toxic pesticides; habitat destruction; and climate change impacts that cause or exacerbate wildfires, droughts, and severe storm events, and can impair breeding, migration, and hibernation.

It is not only the monarchs themselves, but their food and host plants that are affected by the same forces. Insects and pollinators broadly are also extremely vulnerable. (In January 2021, Beyond Pesticides wrote about research published in Biological Conservation showing that 41% of insect species are declining and 30% are endangered, with an overall rate of insect decline at 2.5% each year.) Beyond Pesticides has covered many of these issues; learn more here, here, here, and here.

Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, made the case for the importance of protecting rare and endangered species, comparing “the importance of diverse habitats and species resilience to screws on a plane. You can lose some screws on a plane and probably make it fine and land and then they’ll fix it. At some point, if you lose enough screws on the plane, it’s going to crash. It’s the same thing with ecosystems.”

Beyond Pesticides’ latest edition of Pesticides and You, Retrospective 2021: A Call to Urgent Action, lays out the case for protecting species, ecosystems, and the humans who depend on them. The organic solutions to the many problems highlighted in the issue — based on the importance of healthy ecosystems and public health protection — are within reach. The data signal to us all the imperative for urgent action to phase out pesticides within a decade. The well-being of monarch butterflies, prostrate milkweed, and every one of us will turn, in large part, on our ability to achieve this protective milestone. If you are ready to join the movement for a healthier, sustainable, livable future, please contact us: [email protected] or 202.543.4791.

Source: https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/the-border-wall/rare-milkweed-species-could-threaten-border-security-operations-in-south-texas/

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

(Beyond Pesticides, April 28, 2022) A study in Environmental Research finds that glyphosate’s primary metabolite (breakdown product), aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), induces DNA damage through oxidative stress among subpopulations of primary school children. Although pyrethroid and chlorpyrifos metabolites can induce oxidative stress, this study is the first to investigate AMPA’s association with adverse health effects, rather than solely the effects of the active ingredient, glyphosate, in Roundup and other formulations.

Glyphosate is the most commonly used active ingredient worldwide, appearing in many herbicide formulations, readily contaminating soil, water, food, and other resources. Chemical use has been increasing since the inception of crops genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate. However, studies demonstrate glyphosate is among the most prevalent pesticide contributors to human, biotic, and ecosystem harm. According to research, herbicide toxicity to invertebrates has doubled since 2004. Although research links glyphosate exposure to cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin lymphoma, much less research considers the effects that metabolites have on children who are more vulnerable to chemical exposure. Ecological and health risk assessments primarily focus on active ingredients in pesticide products, overlooking the potential impacts of metabolites. Thus, studies like these highlight the need to assess the implications of metabolite exposure to protect human, animal, and environmental health. The study notes, “Our results indicate that [Cypriot] children are co-exposed to a mixture of pesticides likely originating from both dietary and non-dietary sources. On average, these pesticide exposures appear at higher levels than those typically measured in other EU populations. The population health risk associated with such mixture exposures needs to be further investigated.”

The researchers in this study investigated the health of children aged 10 to 11 in Cyprus, using the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) to measure urinary concentrations of glyphosate, AMPA, and pyrethroid and chlorpyrifos metabolites. Using an immunological assay, researchers identified oxidative stress using biological markers to assess lipid and DNA damage. Additionally, parents filled out questionnaires gathering data on demographic characteristics, pesticide usage, and diet.

The results find that AMPA, but not glyphosate, has a positive association with DNA damage via oxidation. Moreover, the metabolites of pyrethroids (3-PBA) and chlorpyrifos (TCPy) are also associated with DNA damage and oxidative stress. Lipid damage from oxidative stress did not occur among these pesticides. However, the results suggest parental education levels influence urinary pyrethroid levels.

Decades of extensive glyphosate herbicide use (e.g., Roundup) have put human, animal, and environmental health at risk. The chemical’s ubiquity threatens 93 percent of all U.S. endangered species, resulting in biodiversity loss and ecosystem disruption (e.g., soil erosion, loss of services, and trophic cascades). Exposure to glyphosate has implications for the development of various health anomalies, including cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and autism. Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies glyphosate herbicides as “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” stark evidence demonstrates links to various cancers, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma. EPA’s classification perpetuates adverse impacts, especially among vulnerable individuals, like pregnant women, infants, children, and the elderly. Not only do health officials warn that continuous use of glyphosate will perpetuate adverse health effects, but that use also highlights recent concerns over antibiotic resistance. Agrochemical company Bayer/Monsanto patents glyphosate as an antibiotic. Exposure hinders enzymatic pathways in many bacteria and parasites. However, studies find glyphosate exposure disrupts the microbial composition in both soil and animals—including humans—discerningly eliminating beneficial bacteria while preserving unhealthy microbes. Moreover, resistance to pesticides is also growing at similar rates among genetically engineered (GE) and non-GE conventionally grown crops. This increase in resistance is evident among herbicide-tolerant GE crops, including seeds genetically engineered to be glyphosate-tolerant.

This study is one of the first to identify oxidative stress from AMPA exposure among children in a nonoccupational setting. However, glyphosate and its formulations have long been associated with oxidative stress and strong evidence of genotoxicity. Moreover, glyphosate degrades relatively quickly in the environment, between five and 20 days, leaving behind AMPA, which is highly persistent with a half-life of 151 days. Therefore, researchers attribute higher rates of AMPA concentration in children’s bodies to relative availability in the environment compared to glyphosate. Additional studies find that 100 percent of adults and children have detectable levels of AMPA in urine samples, with children exhibiting a five times higher bodily concentration than adults. Therefore, researchers suggest that a shift to organic can mitigate exposure to these toxic chemicals, especially among vulnerable populations like children.  

It is essential to understand the effects widely used pesticides and their breakdown products may have on the health of current and future generations. Beyond Pesticides challenges the EPA registration of chemicals like glyphosate in court due to their impacts on soil, air, water, and our health. However, emphasis on converting to regenerative-organic systems and using least-toxic pest control can mitigate harmful exposure concerns. Public policy must advance this shift rather than continue to allow unnecessary reliance on pesticides. 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 never allows glyphosate use—can help curb exposure and resulting adverse health effects. Learn more about pesticides’ impacts on human health by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database. This database supports the clear need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. Moreover, Beyond Pesticides provides tools, information, and support to take local action: check out our factsheet on glyphosate/Roundup and our report, Monsanto’s Roundup (Glyphosate) Exposed. Contact us for help with local efforts and stay informed of developments through our Daily News Blog and our journal, Pesticides and You. Additionally, check out Carey Gillam’s talk on Monsanto’s corruption on glyphosate/Roundup at Beyond Pesticides’ 36th National Pesticide Forum.

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

Source: Environmental Research

(Beyond Pesticides, April 27, 2022) Pesticides can accumulate in aquatic fly larvae, be retained through metamorphosis, and represent a source of chronic pesticide exposure to birds and bats, according to research published in Environmental Science and Technology earlier this month. As population declines among these critical wildlife continue to mount, findings like these highlight the complex ways in which human activities are further stressing natural systems. Pesticide reviews conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are limited to an outdated set of studies conducted by the pesticide industry, and generally reject and dismiss emerging science from independent literature. This myopic focus on industry studies has brought widespread contamination to the natural world that necessitates wholescale changes at EPA through Congressional action.

With widespread acknowledgement that older pesticide chemistries, such as organochlorines like DDT and aldrin, bioconcentrate in living organisms, researchers aimed their study at present use fungicides and herbicides that have not yet undergone similar scrutiny. This includes seven fungicides—azoxystrobin, boscalid, cyflufenamid, fluopyram, tebuconazole, pyrimethanil, and trifloxystrobin—and two herbicides—napropamide and propyzamide. The study notes that formulated end use products, rather than technical grade active ingredients, were used in order to best mimic real world exposure conditions.

Larvae of the nonbiting midge, Chironomus riparius, were subsequently exposed to three different levels (low, moderate, high) of each of the aforementioned pesticide products in a microcosm for 14 days. A control group was left unexposed. Scientists found that all larvae exposed to any level of pesticide accumulated that pesticide in their body by the end of the test. The control group did not bioconcentrate any pesticide.

Exposed midge larvae were then allowed to metamorphosize into adults. After this process, researchers again tested the level of pesticide concentrated in the flies. Adult flies in the medium and high exposure levels all retained pesticides in their bodies, and five of the nine pesticides (trifloxystrobin, tebuconazole, boscalid, propyzamide, azoxystrobin) were also found in adult midges exposed to the lowest treatment levels.

Sex-specific differences were found among the level of pesticide retained through metamorphosis. In general, females retained higher pesticide levels than male flies. However, the level in female flies generally decreased over the course of their life, likely as a result of metabolic processes and egg laying. Male flies generally retained the same concentration over the course of their life. Researchers did note that certain pesticides, such as propyzamide and tebuconazole, increased in concentration in adulthood, which the authors attribute in part to bioamplification due to body mass loss after metamorphosis.

To determine how this contamination moves up the food chain, researchers estimated the flux of pesticides that would make its way into the environment from the low treatment level, in order to provide the most realistic and conservative estimate. It was determined that roughly 10-94 parts per billion of pesticide per year is moving from aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems as a result of this process. This is a significantly higher amount than other studies not including these data have estimated moving from waterbodies to land, which generally indicate between 0.4  to 27 ppb. Ultimately, the researchers find that bats and birds feeding on contaminated midges could result in low to moderate chronic pesticide exposure.

“Considering the declines in bird and bat populations coinciding with increased pesticide use in recent decades, a better understanding of the potential dietary exposure to organic pesticides is of great relevance,” the authors note.

The ability for pesticides to “pass through” pest or prey species and result in harm to species higher up in the food chain is not a new phenomenon. It is perhaps most widely known in the context of DDT’s ability to bioaccumulate up the food chain and result in thinning egg shells for birds of prey. Recent studies have highlighted this process occurring in agricultural settings with the use of neonicotinoid seeds. Scientific studies have reported slugs unaffected by the pesticide killing predator beetles due to high levels of bioconcentrated insecticide.

Pesticides do not simply stay where they are sprayed. They make their way into every facet of an ecosystem, with impacts that are difficult to discern, yet have critical implications for long-term fitness and sustainability. Despite this, regulators at EPA have consistently failed to look comprehensively at the broader ecosystem effects and trophic cascades that can occur from even low levels pesticide contamination in the environment. As a result, advocates are urging Congress to reform EPA through legislation like PACTPA and SAPA, which while aimed at protecting children and pollinators, would enact important reforms that would safeguard overall public health and environmental sustainability. Take action today to urge your member of Congress to cosponsor PACTPA and push for broader reforms to pesticide law.

For more information about the ways pesticide contamination can cascade through ecosystems, see Beyond Pesticides wildlife webpage and the article in Pesticides and You: Pesticide Use Harming Key Species Ripples Through the Ecosystem.

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

Source: Environmental Science and Technology, ScienceDaily

(Beyond Pesticides, April 26, 2022) Using pesticides to reduce the number of ticks in residential areas does not translate to lower rates of tick-borne disease in humans. This finding is the culmination of research overseen by scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which have been studying the effectiveness of pesticides to manage tick bites and tick borne-diseases for over a decade. While earlier research focused on direct pesticide applications to individual household lawns, the most recent publication, under early release in the Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases, represented a broader, neighborhood-wide implementation of control measures. Yet in both instances, pesticide use did not play a role in reducing tick-borne disease. The studies are a stark warning for states and communities considering vector disease spray campaign for ticks in a similar manner to mosquito spraying. “The bottom line is that toxic pesticide use is not the answer to tick bites or tick-borne disease,” said Beyond Pesticides executive director Jay Feldman. “To manage ticks, we must embrace ecological solutions that work with natural processes and education campaigns emphasizing personal protection.”

Researchers set out to test two methods of broad area tick control in 24 residential neighborhoods in Dutchess County, NY. The first method, called the tick control system (TCS), includes the use of bait boxes that attract rodents. Exiting the bait box, rodents encounter brushes that coat them with the insecticide fipronil in attempts to kill any ticks present and prevent future ticks from latching. This system aims to stop ticks from feeding on a white footed mice, the primary disease vector for Lyme disease. The other method employed a biological insecticide called Met52, a spray utilizing a fungus that claims to kill ticks in the environment.

Although fipronil represents a highly toxic pesticide that can cause environmental harm even at very small amounts, this study design is an improvement on the hazards to study subjects in previous studies supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Prior research on tick disease from individual household lawns employed sprays of the synthetic pyrethroid bifenthrin, which is a possible carcinogen, and has been linked to neurotoxicity and a range of developmental problems. Families enrolled in the study did not know whether bifenthrin was applied to their lawns, and Beyond Pesticides expressed concerns that they were not provided full information about the hazards associated with the chemical.

The present study, while well-designed, likewise kept certain residents in the dark regarding whether the application to their property was real or a placebo. The questionable ethics of the study notwithstanding, four treatments were established, as the authors indicate, “[i] placebo TCS boxes and placebo Met52, [ii] placebo TCS boxes and active Met52, [iii]active TCS boxes and placebo Met52,[iv] and active TCS boxes and active Met52.” All neighborhoods active in the study had high incidence of Lyme disease and moderate density of one- or two-family homes.

Bait boxes were placed in areas frequented by small mammals, and Met52 was applied via truck-mounted high-pressure sprayers (placebo groups received water for this application) twice per year during peak nymphal tick activity. Introductory and bi-weekly surveys were provided to participating households, and researchers recorded information on general tick abundance, tick burden on rodents, pet tick encounters and disease, and human tick encounters and disease.

The number of ticks collected in neighborhoods was reduced by 53% after using TCS, but reductions from Met52 were not found to be statistically significant. The number of ticks reported on white-footed mice was also reduced by roughly half due to TCS boxes, but Met52 again showed no statistical reduction. The number of ticks found on pets was not reduced to a statistically significant level, but incidence of disease was half of what it was in prior years for both TCS and Met52 applied neighborhoods. For humans, however, no statistical reduction in tick encounters was experienced, nor was there any reduction in the number of reported tick-borne diseases during the study period.

Researchers indicate that the differences seen between humans and pets could relate to the way they act when outside, with pets potentially spending more time in areas where ticks frequent. They also note, “The observed effect of the active interventions on TBDs [tick-borne diseases] in outdoor pets should be interpreted cautiously.” Authors did not confirm the presence of tick- borne disease in pets through veterinarians, but instead relied on survey results from participants.

With years of data now available showing no evidence that pesticide use will reduce the rate of tick-borne illnesses in people, individuals must re-double personal preventive methods. Ticks can move about one’s body for a long period of time before finding a spot they want to bite – often around the head, ears, and other creases or warm areas of the body. It takes between 24 to 48 hours for a tick to transmit Lyme disease after a bite.** This makes regular tick checks and tick removal of paramount importance. In areas that are potential tick habitats, wear light-colored clothing that covers the body (especially your legs) because it makes it easier to spot ticks so they can be removed before they bite. Although many folks balk at the idea of wearing long-sleeved clothing in the warmer months of the year, consider the range of materials available, such as sun-protective shirts and pants that can provide a thin but effective barrier. Use unscented deodorant, soap and shampoo, save for pine tar soap, which has a natural pine scent which can keep ticks from biting once they have been picked up. Similarly, you can try using least-toxic herbal repellents such as oil of lemon eucalyptus and essential oils. Most importantly, after you have walked through high grass in a tick infested area, check the entire body for ticks and shower to wash off any ticks that have not yet become embedded. This practice is essential for hikes and in residential areas of high tick activity. Treat it like any other personal care routine, like brushing and flossing – and make it a regular part of your outdoor activities. 

Much like bed bugs, which are notoriously difficult to control with pesticides, ticks can find cracks, nooks, crannies and a myriad of other hiding spots that pesticides cannot reach. And merely killing ticks that may latch onto mice does not appear to make enough of an impact to lower disease rates. Future research by CDC should study the impact of more focused ecological interventions on tick populations, which may include surveys of tick-eating insects, birds, and mammals, and their impact on tick populations, the efficacy of installing possum houses, or surveys of mouse-eating reptiles, birds, and mammals and how they impact the mouse population vector of Lyme disease.

As tick populations rise, there is increasing pressure on Homeowner Associations (HOAs), cities, counties and other local jurisdictions to spray pesticides to manage ticks populations. Pesticide companies likewise will often use mailers or go door to door selling pesticide sprays with a promise of a safer yard. Yet with two strong studies from CDC showing these practices to be ineffective, residents across the country are encouraged to push back strongly against pesticide use suggestions for ticks. Those receiving a spray are less likely to take personal protective measures, thinking that the pesticide will do its job. Harming one’s self, neighbors, wildlife and local ecology with toxic sprays for a false peace of mind is not acceptable.

For more information on managing tick-borne disease, see Beyond Pesticides daily news article on the previous CDC study, as well our ManageSafe entry on ticks.

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

Source: Emerging Infectious Diseases (early release)

**A 2015 review found that there is no minimum tick attachment time for Lyme transmission. CDC indicates that the risk under 24 hours is “extremely small,” but caution should be made to remove a tick as soon as possible after attachment. Lymedisease.org provides resources for what do to after a tick bite. Apart from Lyme, some tick-borne diseases are transmitted rapidly after attachment.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 25, 2022) In a campaign to set in place practical programs to address the existential crises of pesticide-induced health threats, the climate emergency, and biodiversity collapse, Natural Grocers continues its fifth annual Ladybug Love^SM drive throughout the month of April, generating broader support for Beyond Pesticides. The campaign celebrates insects that play a crucial role in food supply stability, and regenerative farming practices that use ladybugs and other beneficial insects instead of harmful synthetic pesticides to control pests. Natural Grocers will donate $1 to Beyond Pesticides for each person who pledges (including renewals) to “not use chemicals that harm ladybugs and other beneficial insects on their lawn or garden, and to support 100% organic produce.” You do not need to shop at Natural Grocers to sign, but you will support the environment, public health, and Beyond Pesticides’ hands-on program to assist communities with the transition to organic parks and playing fields.

Please Take Three Actions.

1. Sign the Ladybug Pledge this year (even if you have previously) and support Beyond Pesticides.

April shoppers at Natural Grocers’ 162 stores—all in 20 states west of the Mississippi—are also invited to donate to Beyond Pesticides at checkout. Ladybug Love also features in-store promotions.

2. Advertise Your Commitment with a Beyond Pesticides “Pesticide Free Zone” Sign.

In partnership with major retailers like Natural Grocers and Stonyfield Organic, the Beyond Pesticides’ Parks for a Sustainable Future program provides in-depth training and demonstration sites to assist community land managers in transitioning public green spaces to organic landscape management, while aiming to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to eventually transition all public areas in a locality to these sustainable and safe practices. Through this program, Beyond Pesticides is now assisting local leaders and municipal landscapers to convert parks and recreational areas across the country to exclusively organic practices, which eliminate the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.

For more information on the importance of transitioning to organic land management practices, see the latest issues of Beyond Pesticides’ journal, Pesticides and You, Retrospective2021—A Call to Urgent Action.

3. Ask your mayor to convert to organic landcare in city parks and other public places. 

    
   Letter to mayor:

A growing body of evidence in scientific literature shows that pesticide exposure can adversely affect neurological, respiratory, immune, and endocrine systems in humans, even at low levels. Children are especially sensitive to pesticide exposure because they (1) take up more pesticides (relative to their body weight) than do adults, and (2) have developing organ systems that are more vulnerable to pesticide impacts and less able to detoxify harmful chemicals. Fortunately, there are proven safe, effective, and affordable ways to maintain attractive lawns and playing fields without the use of toxic pesticides.

In the spirit of Earth Day and daily concern for the environment, please commit to converting care of public lands in our city to organic practices. Organic practices have been proven to be successful and cost-effective. Avoiding use of toxic pesticides is good for public health, particularly in these times when respiratory assaults can increase the threat of Covid-19. Organic practices are also climate-friendly and support biodiversity.

Beyond Pesticides provides in-depth training to assist community land managers in transitioning two public green spaces to organic landscape management through its Parks for a Sustainable Future program (bp-dc.org/sustainable-parks). Please contact Beyond Pesticides at [email protected] to find out how our town can transition to organic.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 22, 2022) A study published on April 18 finds that people in U.S. BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) communities, as well as those living in low-income communities, endure a very disproportionate rate of exposure to pesticides, and of subsequent risks of harm. It finds that such disparities exist in both urban and rural communities, and at all points in the pesticide “life cycle,” from manufacture to application. A section of Beyond Pesticides’ recent mega-issue of Pesticides and You, “Retrospective 2021: A Call to Urgent Action,” is devoted to such inequities. Section IV, “Disproportionate Pesticide Harm Is Racial Injustice: Documenting Victimization: Structural Racism,” reprises Beyond Pesticides’ 2021 coverage of environmental injustices. It also calls for urgent action re: federal and state “evaluations that go into toxic chemical regulation . . . to reform and replace the current regulatory decision-making process, which is empirically racist, with one that acknowledges and cares for those with the highest real-world vulnerabilities and exposure[s].”

The first comprehensive assessment of disparities in pesticide protections and oversight in the U.S., the study paper appeared in the journal BMC Public Health. The authors set out the broad history of how humanity moved from “Traditional Ecological Knowledge” approaches to pests, practiced by indigenous populations the world over — through use of “the largest and most effective pest controller,” nature itself — to the current era of massive deployment of chemical pesticides. They also provide the overlay of the dynamic intersection of institutional racism and class discrimination in the U.S. with the current, chemically intensive, paradigm. “This structural racism and classism, defined here as a system brought about by historical, institutional, cultural, or behavioral societal actions that routinely disadvantage, harm, and cumulatively oppress BIPOC and/or people of low-income or wealth, has led to significant disparities in exposure to many pollutants that can lead to premature death or chronic disease.”

The acute and chronic health impacts of pesticide exposure are myriad. Beyond Pesticides identifies specific diseases and other health anomalies linked to exposures to pesticides, and points readers to research papers that provide evidence of such links, in its Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database. Through its Gateway on Pesticide Hazards and Safe Pest Management, the public can find details on roughly 400 pesticides, including fact sheets, uses, health and environmental effects, and alternatives.

The disproportionate exposures and impacts of pesticide use for BIPOC and low-income community members tend to occur through occupational activities, largely in agriculture, and/or via places of residence, which may be near to agricultural storage and application sites or pesticide manufactories, or in substandard, overcrowded, and usually urban housing that is typically subject to the use of pesticides as a short-term fix for chronic pest problems. Of course, these inequities are layered over the typical exposure routes to which nearly everyone in the U.S. is vulnerable: through food, contaminated drinking water and air, and/or pesticides used on public and private landscapes and in all kinds of buildings.

The peer-reviewed study was conducted by researchers from environmental/conservation, farmworker, and racial justice organizations, as well as from HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). The researchers’ objective was “to identify and discuss not only the historical injustices that have led to these disparities, but also the current laws, policies and regulatory practices that perpetuate them to this day with the ultimate goal of proposing achievable solutions.” The team asserts that the disparities identified continue via current regulations and statutes that (1) inadequately protect workers, (2) operate with a pesticide safety “double standard,” and (3) permit the export of toxic pesticides to “developing” countries, as detailed in these specific findings:

• disproportionate exposures to harmful pesticides: biomarkers for 12 dangerous pesticides, tracked over the past 20 years, were found in the blood and urine of Mexican-American and Black people at average levels up to five times those in white people. 
• weaker protections for agricultural workers: although 10,000–20,000 — largely Latinx — farmworkers are sickened annually from pesticide exposure, such workers are not covered by the same regulatory pesticide protections provided to the general public. 
• unequal risks: people of color comprise 38% of the aggregate population of California, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, and Louisiana, but that 38% represents 63% of those living nearby to 31 pesticide manufacturing facilities that are in violation of environmental laws (such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act).
• poor enforcement: based on available data for a recent five-year period, approximately 1% of agricultural operations that use pesticides had any annual inspections for violations of worker protections — despite violations found at nearly half of inspected facilities; further, enforcement actions proceeded against only 19% of the violators.
•  toxic housing: 80% of low-income housing sites in New York State, for example, regularly apply pesticides indoors; a home air quality monitoring study found that 30% of pregnant African American and Dominican women in New York City had at least eight pesticides in their bodies, and 83% had at least one pesticide in umbilical cord samples.
• export of harm: pesticides banned in the U.S. are nevertheless allowed to be produced here and exported; the study notes that organophosphate and carbamate pesticides banned domestically were sold to 42 countries between 2015 and 2019, and 78% of importing countries report more than 30% of their workforce members are poisoned by pesticides annually.

On the matter of the weaker protections for farmworkers and others exposed vocationally to pesticides, the authors explain: “For the general population, exposed mainly to pesticides through their diet, water and residential use, EPA takes a risk-only approach — approving a pesticide only if the agency determines that it will not result in significant harm. Yet for farmworkers and those exposed to pesticides mainly through their work, EPA takes a cost-benefit approach whereby harm to workers is allowed as long as the purported benefit of the pesticide, presumably to the grower, sufficiently offsets those harms.” Such unequal treatment is dangerous, unethical, and functionally racist.

In addition, the paper asserts that racial, ethnic, and income disparities persist in part because of policies and regulatory practices that fail to:

• implement Executive Orders (EOs) on EJ (environmental justice) matters, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) failure to implement EO 12898, “Federal Action to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-income Populations” — in the 25 years since its 1994 issue.
  
  
• account for off-label pesticide use and provide the training and support that could reduce such uses; examples of the problems include these, from the research: 14–65% of surveyed farmworkers across multiple states reported receiving no pesticide safety instruction by their employer; and although EPA touts the refrain, “the label is the law,” it nevertheless does not require that pesticide manufacturers provide pesticide labels in any language other than English — despite the facts that 83% of U.S. farmworkers are Latinx or Hispanic, and only 28% of farmworkers report that they can read English well.
  
  
• monitor and follow-up effectively with vulnerable communities once a pesticide has been approved; new pesticide products are often approved with minimal toxicity assessments, making an effective monitoring system (for health and environmental impacts) critical; but periodic review of registered pesticides is compromised by a lack of both epidemiological data and follow-up data on people with the greatest exposures; the paper asserts, “An underfunded surveillance system that relies exclusively on a dataset that extensively underrepresents harm to BIPOC and lower-income communities is designed to fail.”
  
  
• implement important protections for children, who are uniquely vulnerable to developmental toxicants; the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) required an extra margin of safety for children — a “safety factor” that would reduce the amount of pesticide considered “safe” for children by tenfold; but the researchers note that “implementation of the . . . safety factor has been dismal from the outset. . . . A recent in-depth analysis of 47 non-organophosphate pesticides found that only 13% of acute food exposures and 12% of chronic food exposures incorporated any FQPA children’s safety factor whatsoever.”

The research paper states the “meta” issue clearly: “This is not simply a pesticides issue, but a broader public health and civil rights issue. The true fix is to shift the [U.S.] to a more just system based on the Precautionary Principle to prevent harmful pollution exposure to everyone, regardless of skin tone or income. However, there are actions that can be taken within our existing framework in the short term to make our unjust regulatory system work better for everyone.”

The solutions proposed by the researchers include regulatory actions that could reduce the disparate impacts of pesticides on BIPOC communities by:

• eliminating (or reducing the magnitude of) the pesticide safety double standard
• implementing a system to adequately monitor and account for harms to environmental justice communities
• strengthening worker protections
• reducing unintended pesticide harms
• adequately protecting children, who are the most vulnerable to pesticide harms
• prohibiting export of unregistered pesticides to other countries
• assessing and rectifying regulatory capture within the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs

Beyond Pesticides has long pointed to the Precautionary Principle as an optimal approach to the registration and use of all pesticides. In 2019, for example, we argued for precaution as a fundamental and important platform for pesticide reform, given the regulatory inefficacy and negligence of EPA. We have also called attention to the “regulatory capture” of federal agencies, including the USDA’s (U.S. Department of Agriculture’s) National Organic Standards Board, and EPA — particularly, the Office of Pesticide Programs, as detailed here, here, and here.

The study makes abundantly clear the importance of the work of environmental justice, and other health and environmental, organizations, which have welcomed the publication of this research. Jeannie Economos of the Farmworker Association of Florida commented, “The people doing some of the most important work in our country — harvesting the food that feeds the nation — bear a disproportionate burden of the toxic pesticide exposure that risks their and their family’s health and lives. This report makes this unequivocally clear, so we ask our political leaders committed to environmental justice, ‘What are you going to do about it?’”

Amy K. Liebman of the Migrant Clinicians Network added, “Our regulatory systems exclude farmworkers from basic protections. This results in farmworkers and their families being regularly overexposed to pesticides that have acute and chronic health repercussions, and negatively affect the health of agricultural communities. Strong and enforced regulations are needed now.” Another response came from Fatemeh Shafiei, director of environmental studies and associate professor of political science at Spelman College: “For too long communities of color have served as literal dumping grounds for many of our nation’s most dangerous toxic chemicals, including pesticides. This must change. It’s time for state and federal regulators across the U.S. to jumpstart aggressive efforts to put an end to this deeply troubling form of environmental racism.”

Finally, Nathan Donley, PhD, lead author on the research and environmental health science director for the Center for Biological Diversity, commented, “Pesticides are more likely to harm people of color because of firmly entrenched policies and laws that stack the deck against them. This research identifies concrete steps the Biden administration can take to begin righting these wrongs.” Beyond Pesticides will continue to monitor progress on inequities related to pesticides, agriculture, farmworker well-being, and health of BIPOC communities in the U.S.

For current reporting on matters related to environmental justice, see Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News Blog EJ archives. We also recommend that readers check out Section IV, “Disproportionate Pesticide Harm Is Racial Injustice: Documenting Victimization: Structural Racism” in our Retrospective 2021: A Call to Urgent Action” issue of Pesticides and You.

Sources: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-13057-4, https://biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/pesticides-and-environmental-justice/, and https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/04/19/18849137.php

Note: BMC Public Health is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on the epidemiology of disease and the understanding of all aspects of public health. 

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

(Beyond Pesticides, April 21, 2022) A literature review published in Royal Society finds that ‘inert’ ingredients’ in pesticide formulations adversely affect the health of bees and other wild pollinators. Inert ingredients, also known as “other” ingredients, and not disclosed by name on pesticide product labels, facilitate the action of active ingredients targeting a specific pest. Although both ingredients have chemical and biological activity, most studies on agricultural chemical toxicity focus on the active ingredient, assuming that inert ingredients are “nontoxic.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in regulating pesticides, assesses the toxicity of individual active ingredients on bees through various testing methods. However, there are no requirements for EPA to test inert ingredients to the same degree, despite evidence demonstrating these chemicals harm pollinators. Moreover, EPA does not require pesticide manufacturers to disclose the inert ingredients used in any product as the information is confidential.

Both wild and commercial bees and other pollinators encounter multiple stressors, including pesticides, parasites, and poor nutrition, that act together to increase the risk of bee mortality. Therefore, reviews like these highlight the need for pesticide testing to consider the effects of all product ingredients, regardless of perceived toxicity. The researchers caution, “We argue that ‘inert’ ingredients have distinct, and poorly understood, ecological persistency profiles and toxicities, making research into their individual effects necessary. We highlight the lack of mitigation in place to protect bees from ‘inert’ ingredients and argue that research efforts should be redistributed to address the knowledge gap identified here. If so-called ‘inert’ ingredients are, in fact, detrimental to bee health, their potential role in widespread bee declines needs urgent assessment.”

In conducting a systemic literature review of studies regarding the effects of inert ingredients on bee health, researchers find no empirical evidence that inert ingredients are nontoxic, despite that often being the assumption. There are only 19 studies that test the effects of inert ingredients on bee health. The results demonstrate that multiple exposure routes act in conjunction and synergistically with other stressors (e.g., disease, climate, habitat destruction, etc.) to cause bee mortality with colony-level consequences.

The United Nations states that 75 percent of the 115 top global food crops depend on insect pollination, with one-third of all U.S. crops depending on pollinators, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, research finds that many insect populations are declining, including managed and wild pollinators, mainly due to habitat fragmentation, climate change, and extensive pesticide use. There are various classes of bee-toxic pesticides, such as neonicotinoids, sulfoxaflor, pyrethroids, fipronil, and organophosphates. Research shows that residues from neonicotinoids (including seed treatments) and sulfoxaflor accumulate and translocate to pollen and nectar of treated plants, increasing the potential risk and indiscriminate to pollinators. Both pyrethroids and fipronil impair bee learning, development, and behavioral function, reducing survivability and colony fitness. However, inert ingredients in these products cause similar or more severe impacts on bee populations, such as disruption in bee learning behavior through exposure to low doses of surfactants. With the global reliance on pollinator-dependent crops increasing over the past decades, a lack of pollinators threatens food security and stability for current and future generations.

The study finds only 19 studies investigate the effects that inert ingredients have on pollinator health, despite the fact that inerts typically make up most of the ingredients in pesticide formulations, up to 99 percent in some cases. Although manufacturers claim inert ingredients, including surfactants, emulsifiers, and other co-formulants, do not harm target pests like active ingredients, inerts can be even more toxic than active ingredients as these chemicals magnify the effects of active ingredients, sometimes as much as 1,000-fold. Moreover, inert ingredient exposure can occur through many routes, impacting both target and non-target species. One of the most hazardous ingredients in the commonly used herbicide Roundup, POEA, is a surfactant classified as an inert and therefore unlisted on the label. However, researchers find that POEA can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental, and umbilical cord cells. Therefore, it is essential for agencies to require manufacturers to disclose inert ingredients to limit adverse health effects in the ecosystem, especially among non-target species.

This is not the first research to cite inert ingredients as dangerous to pollinators. Inert ingredients in pesticide mixtures, like N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone and Slygard 309 (surfactant), increase baby bee mortality and honey bee susceptibility to deadly viruses. The latest concerning news on inert ingredients revolves around widespread findings that PFAS chemicals contaminate pesticide products. A 2017 study detected PFAS chemicals in bee hives, with another study indicating PFOS (a certain type of PFAS chemical) can increase honey bee mortality and halt brood development. Although evidence suggests inert ingredients are the primary culprit of pollinator decline, scientists maintain agency assessments should not disregard the impacts that active ingredients have on pollinator health. A 2018 study found that technical grade (pure) glyphosate disrupts honey bee microbiota, with sublethal effects on honey bee navigation and foraging success. Moreover, science accumulated over the last decade and a half demonstrates that neonicotinoids, and the multitude of pollinator-toxic pesticides, are critical factors in the cause of pollinator declines.  Federal law, under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, protects as proprietary information the disclosure of inert ingredients specific to pesticide products unless the EPA Administrator determines there is a public health issue.

The study concludes, “Evidence of ‘inert’ ingredients having the potential to cause mortality in bees dates back to the 1970s, yet in the EU and U.S., there is still no regulatorily mandated toxicity testing of ‘inert’ ingredients. This means that the only currently available research stream is academic testing, which accounts for the small number of studies to date. As a result, this represents a large gap in our understanding of pesticide ecotoxicology. The research collated here demonstrates that ‘inert’ ingredients are not inert and can pose significant risks to bee health. We call on researchers to devote more attention to ‘inert’ ingredients and regulators to require testing of ‘inert’ ingredients to ensure their safety to bees.”

As has been widely reported, pollinators (such as bees, monarch butterflies, and bats) are a bellwether for environmental stress as individuals and as colonies. Pesticides intensify pollinators’ vulnerability to health risks (such as pathogens and parasites) with pesticide-contaminated conditions limiting colony productivity, growth, and survival. However, ending toxic pesticide use can alleviate the harmful impacts of these chemicals on species and ecosystem health. Beyond Pesticides captured the bigger picture in its introduction to its 2017 annual Pesticide Forum, Healthy Hives, Healthy Lives, Healthy Land: “Complex biological communities support life.”

Learn more about the science and resources behind pesticides’ impact on pollinators, including bee pollinator decline, and take action against the use of pesticides. To find out more about what you can do to protect bees and other pollinators, check out information on the BEE Protective Campaign, pollinator-friendly landscapes, pollinator-friendly seeds, pesticide-free zones, bee-friendly habitats, and what you, or your state representative, can do to protect our pollinators. For more information on the insect apocalypse, see the Beyond Pesticides article in our Pesticides and You newsletter, Tracking Biodiversity: Study Cites Insect Extinction and Ecological Collapse.

Furthermore, buying, growing, and supporting organic agriculture can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Organic land management eliminates the need for toxic agricultural pesticides. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see the Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

With Earth Day tomorrow, get ready to grow your spring garden the organic way by Springing Into Action, pledge to eliminate toxic pesticide use by signing the Ladybug Love Pledge and follow up with other actions that will make a difference.

Source: Royal Society

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

(Beyond Pesticides, April 20, 2022) A University of Michigan study is the first to highlight that maternal pesticide exposure during pregnancy adversely affects sleeping patterns for offspring later in life, specifically for females. Prenatal development is one of the most vulnerable periods of exposure as the fetus is most susceptible to the harmful effects of chemical contaminants. Many studies indicate that prenatal and early-life exposure to environmental toxicants increases susceptibility to diseases, from learning and developmental disabilities to cancer. However, the toxicity of pesticide exposure ad its full impact on the nonagricultural population in the U.S., especially women. Given research links to sleep-related disorders and neurological and cognitive development, studies like this can help government and health officials identify how pesticides’ impact on the brain elevates health concerns. The authors note, “Overall, these results are of public health importance considering the continued widespread agricultural and possibly residential use of pyrethroids and chlorpyrifos [in Mexico]…Thus, our results underline the importance of additional research studies that include both larger samples and assessment of unregulated pesticides, as well as studies that consider the underlying mechanisms explaining sex differences.”

Levels of inadequate sleep patterns are rising among children and adolescents. Reports find variability in sleep duration results in higher rates of depression, anxiety, and fatigue among juveniles. Since sleep is an important factor in normal brain development, disturbance in sleep patterns, such as sleeping too much or too little, can result in long-term associations between sleep and the brain’s white matter integrity (responsible for age-dependent cognitive function).

University of Michigan scientists in this study assess measure urinary concentrations of two pesticides, pyrethroids, and chlorpyrifos, in samples from 137 pregnant women during their third trimester. The scientists followed up with the offspring during adolescence, conducting a sleep study test to determine whether maternal pesticide exposure during pregnancy affected the offspring’s sleep pattern.

The results demonstrate that exposure to chlorpyrifos, but not pyrethroids, during pregnancy have greater associations with longer sleep duration and changes in sleep patterns among offspring. However, these sleep effects only occurred among adolescent girls, demonstrating sex-specific health outcomes. Although longer amounts of sleep may seem desirable, the study authors suggest that longer sleep duration is indicative of difficulties falling or staying asleep.

Pesticides’ presence in the body has implications for human health, especially during vulnerable life stages like childhood, puberty, pregnancy, and old age. Pesticide exposure during pregnancy is of specific concern as health effects for all life stages can be long-lasting. Just as nutrients are transferable between mother and fetus, so are chemical contaminants. Studies find pesticide compounds present in the mother’s blood can transfer to the fetus via the umbilical cord. Furthermore, 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. Therefore, pesticide exposure during pregnancy has implications for both mother and child’s health.

Many studies indicate prenatal and early-life exposure to environmental toxicants increases susceptibility to disease. A 2020 study finds the first few weeks of pregnancy are the most vulnerable periods during which prenatal exposure to pesticides can increase the risk of the rare fetal disorder holoprosencephaly. This disorder prevents the embryonic forebrain from developing into two separate hemispheres. Moreover, women living near agricultural areas have an increased risk of birthing a baby with abnormalities, including acute lymphoblastic leukemia and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Regular household pesticide use (e.g., disinfectants) during pregnancy can increase nephroblastoma (kidney cancer) and brain tumor risk among children. 

Environmental contaminants like pesticides are ubiquitous in the environment, with 90 percent of Americans having at least one pesticide compound in their body. These pollutants have a global distribution, with evaporation and precipitation facilitating long-range atmospheric transport, deposition, and bioaccumulation of hazardous chemicals in the environment. Many of these chemical compounds remain in soils, water (solid and liquid), and the surrounding air at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. The increasing ubiquity of pesticides concerns public health advocates as current measures safeguarding against pesticide use do not adequately detect and assess total environmental chemical contaminants. Therefore, individuals will continuously encounter varying concentrations of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, adding to the body burden of those toxic chemicals currently in use.

This study is the first to examine the links between pesticide exposure during pregnancy and sleep health among adolescent offspring. Pesticides can function as an endocrine disruptor that affects hormone function, including melatonin responsible for sleep. However, this study is not the first to demonstrate a risk to offspring. Although studies find glyphosate exposure has a negligible impact on pregnant rats’ health, incidents of prostate, ovarian, and kidney cancer increase in the two subsequent generations. However, chemical exposure encompasses more than just current-use, toxic pesticides like glyphosate. Many long-banned pesticides still cause adverse effects to human health. Researchers at Drexel University report that higher levels of some organochlorine compounds, like DDT, during pregnancy are associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID).

Although pesticides’ impact on sleep specifically affects female offspring, this study is not the first to demonstrate the sex-specific effect of pesticide exposure. In 2017, scientists presented a study at the 99th meeting of the Endocrine Society, demonstrating instances of early onset puberty in boys after exposure to common pyrethroid insecticides. Furthermore, a 2021 study demonstrates that exposure to current-use pesticides, like organophosphates, poses a greater health risk to women. Women with organophosphate exposure are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, bronchitis, asthma, and various cancers. Proximity to heavy chemical use during a mother’s third trimester increases the risk of childhood autism by 87%. Considering rates of preterm births, miscarriages/stillbirths, and birth malformations are increasing, it is necessary to assess chemical exposure effect on mothers and offspring to safeguard future generations’ health.

There is a consensus among pediatricians that pregnant mothers and young children should avoid pesticide exposure during critical periods of development. Various pesticide products act similarly or in conjunction with other chemicals. 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. Beyond Pesticides tracks the most recent studies related to 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 Birth/Fetal Effects, Learning/Developmental Disorders, Endocrine Disruption, Cancer, Body Burdens, and other diseases.

Beyond Pesticides advocates a precautionary approach to pest management in land management and agriculture by transiting to organic. Buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment and from your diet. For more information on how organic is the right choice for consumers and the farmworkers who 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: University of Michigan, Environmental Research

(Beyond Pesticides, April 19, 2022) Both houses of Maine’s legislature have just approved a bill that would, by 2030, ban pesticides that contain PFAS chemicals — the so-called “forever chemicals.” The bill’s next stop is the Appropriations Committee, for approval of $200,000 in annual funding to enact the bill; if successful there, it will move to the desk of Maine Governor Janet Mills for her signature. The legislation is one of a suite of lawmaker efforts in the state to address the growing PFAS problem with which localities across the U.S. are struggling. In this Daily News Blog article, Beyond Pesticides continues its coverage of the scourge of PFAS chemicals, particularly as it relates to pesticide use and the use of fertilizers made from PFAS-contaminated “biosludge” from municipal treatment facilities.

PFAS — “per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances” — are any of a family of more than 9,000 synthetic chemicals, invented in, and widely deployed since, the 1950s in a multitude of industrial and consumer products. PFAS molecules are made up of a chain of linked carbon and fluorine atoms; the carbon–fluorine bond is one of the strongest chemical bonds that exists, which means that these compounds do not break down in the environment. Scientists cannot even estimate the environmental half-life of PFAS (half-life being the amount of time required for 50% of the compound to degrade and “disappear”). Hence, the “forever chemicals” moniker.

NIEHS (the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences) notes: “Research on two kinds of PFAS forms the basis of our scientific understanding about this group of chemicals. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) were manufactured for the longest time, are the most widespread in the environment, and are the most well-studied. Although these two compounds are no longer made in the United States, chemical manufacturers have replaced them with alternative PFAS.”

PFAS have emerged during the past decade or so as a serious environmental contaminant and health concern. They represent yet another “chickens come home to roost” scenario characteristic of the poorly regulated use of chemicals in the industrial, military, and commercial materials streams that, ultimately, end up in the environment and human (and other) bodies.

In February 2022, Beyond Pesticides wrote, “There has been precious little activity at the federal level to deal with PFAS. . . . The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in 2019 that a ‘Comprehensive Nationwide PFAS Action Plan’ would be forthcoming. (It has not yet emerged.) Since 1998, EWG [the Environmental Working Group] notes, ‘despite mounting evidence of PFAS’ toxicity and contamination, EPA has inexcusably dragged its feet. The [agency] has failed to set a legal limit for any PFAS in tap water, and its non-enforceable health advisory level for PFOA and PFOS is 70 times higher than what independent studies show is needed. In 2019, EPA announced a toothless “action plan” that would do nothing to reduce ongoing PFAS releases or clean up legacy PFAS pollution.’”

These chemicals are contaminating waterways, water bodies, and drinking water sources; the food supply; wastewater and biosolids; soils; and now, us — PFAS is present in the bloodstreams of 97% of the U.S. population. Exposure to these compounds has been linked to a variety of human health anomalies, including cancers, kidney dysfunction, neurodevelopmental compromise in children, immunosuppression, pre-eclampsia, increased risk of cardiometabolic diseases (via exposure during pregnancy), and respiratory system damage — not to mention that it may increase the risk of Covid infection and severity. As Beyond Pesticides has written, PFAS presents a chronic danger to Americans that demands immediate regulatory action.

Absent such protective federal action on these chemicals, states have been stepping up, particularly in the past five years or so, to deal with the host of problems PFAS represent. Maine has been a particular hotbed of activity; media have helped put the PFAS issue in front of plenty of eyeballs in the state (and elsewhere). A recent (and small) sampling includes The Penobscot Times coverage of PFAS runoff from a Two Rivers Paper Company landfill into the St. John River; the Press Herald’s reporting on PFAS contamination of Maine fish stocks and wild deer; and publication about research by Northeastern University and the Penobscot Nation on PFAS-contaminated leachate from the Juniper Ridge Landfill.

The Penobscot Times article noted that the Two Rivers pollution is not unique: “Every landfill that has produced results so far from the first of five rounds of state-required testing of landfill runoff shows some concentration of the so-called forever chemicals.” The problem extends to PFAS in wastewater and solid waste; a University of Maine Cooperative Extension newsletter, quoting from another Penobscot Times issue, writes: “PFAS is flowing into Maine waters, but no one knows the level of contamination. Treatment plants release millions of gallons of wastewater into Maine’s waterways each day that could contain elevated levels of so-called forever chemicals.” Indeed, from wastewater and solid waste treatment plants, and from septic systems that discharge the PFAS from consumer product use, PFAS is finding its way into myriad water sources.

Recent high-profile cases of PFAS contamination in Maine have no doubt added momentum to the legislature’s pursuit of controls. For several years running, an Arundel dairy farmer testified to Maine legislators about the ruination of his multi-generational dairy operation by the discovery of PFAS in his water and soils, and in his cows’ milk. The farmer attributes the wholesale contamination to the “biosolids” (waste sludge) he had used on his silage crop fields for years through a state program, and/or ash from a nearby paper mill.

Early in 2022, Beyond Pesticides wrote about another Maine farming operation, Songbird Farm in Unity, Maine, which is now facing similar issues. The farmers grow diversified, organic grain and vegetable crops and were stunned to learn that their fields were victims to the legacy use, a quarter century before their tenure on the land (starting in 2014), of contaminated sludge. Now, their water, soil, and produce were all likewise contaminated; their well water has tested at 400 times the state limit.

Because Songbird Farm is a Certified Organic operation, in which trust between farmer and consumer is fundamental, the owner-operators felt they needed to halt sales of their crops. They now await answers from the state and some kind of way forward. One of the farmers said to WBUR Radio, “At least we know and we can stop drinking our water. But who still doesn’t know? Who is drinking water right now that’s as high as ours? Who is about to have a baby? Who is thinking about having a baby? It’s so too late . . . to be telling everybody this.”

Her partner added that the state has to assure farmers and homeowners of some kind of long-term financial support in the face of this calamity. “To leave people in limbo is untenable. It’s not going to be good for the farming community and it is not going to be good for the state to do that. And I know that everyone is scrambling to catch up on this issue. We’re just learning about PFAS contamination in Maine. We’re just acknowledging it. It’s 30 years old, but we’re just recognizing it.”

The Maine legislature has moved more quickly in response than have many other states; in its 2019–2020 session, it passed “An Act To Protect the Environment and Public Health by Further Reducing Toxic Chemicals in Packaging,” which included measures to reduce the use of PFAS in food packaging. In 2021, Maine lawmakers passed “An Act To Stop Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Pollution,” which bans (in 2023) the sale or distribution of carpets, rugs, or fabric treatments, and in 2030, use of PFAS in all consumer products in the state.

It also passed, as the Press Herald reported last year, “Bills . . . with broad, often-unanimous support . . . set[ing] among the nation’s strictest limits on PFAS pollution in drinking water, prohibit[ing] the uncontrolled testing of PFAS-laced firefighting foam, and provid[ing] millions of dollars to detect and clean up contamination.” The drinking water legislation established a limit of 20 ppt (parts per trillion) for the six most common types of PFAS; this more protective than the federal government’s current “advisory level” of 70 ppt for two PFAS compounds.

Most recently, the legislature has been considering a group of four bills:

• the subject ban on pesticides containing PFAS, effective in 2030
• a ban, effective immediately, on the spreading on farmland of fertilizers derived from treated human waste (a practice previously promoted by the state); such waste is nearly always contaminated with PFAS
• creation of a fund to compensate farmers who, to date, are unable to grow and sell food products because their land has been contaminated with high levels of PFAS; that fund is likely to have a starting appropriation of $60–$100 million
• launch of a study of the remediation possibilities for PFAS in landfills, which then leak into water supplies

The bill to create a compensation fund was, according to WMTW News, the least controversial of this batch of PFAS bills, while those featuring the ban on pesticides and the ban on spreading of waste biosolids were opposed by the Maine Farm Bureau and some farmers, concerned about the associated costs to farming operations. But many legislators and advocates have been outspoken in their support for the bills that address the PFAS issue. State Senator Craig Hickman responded to critics of the legislation: “Chemical weapons of warfare, that is what we are talking about. We cannot continue to kill ourselves in the name of agriculture.”

The contamination of pesticides with PFAS has been covered by Beyond Pesticides, and confirmed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The source of the contamination may be twofold; storage of pesticide compounds in plastic barrels that leach PFAS into the pesticide is one culprit. But as Beyond Pesticides has noted, “Why would PFAS be found in a pesticide formulation? The chemicals can work well as dispersants, surfactants, anti-foaming agents, or other pesticide adjuvants intended to increase the effect of the active ingredient. EPA includes PFAS chemicals in its “Inert Finder” database, and a PEER [Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility] press release indicates that many companies have patents on file for pesticide formulations containing PFAS.”

The 2030 target date for the state ban on pesticides contaminated with PFAS is too far in the future for some in the health and environmental sector, who would prefer to see the effective date be much sooner. Executive director of the Maine Farm Bureau, Julie Ann Smith, has said, “Even with allowing that ban to not take effect until 2030, you’re going to see over 1,500 different products eliminated from the market, with nothing else available for use.” On that point, advocacy director for Defend Our Health Sarah Woodbury, conceded: “You . . . have to give industry time to switch over and find alternatives.”

Beyond Pesticides would remind both “sides” that alternative management practices and products are available to all producers: organic regenerative agriculture. Transition, of course, requires time and effort, and should be supported by the state (and federal) governments, but getting off the toxic chemical treadmill in agriculture resolves multiple environmental and health problems simultaneously — including that of PFAS in pesticides and fertilizers.

There has been considerable controversy about the bill to ban use of “biosludge” fertilizers on farm fields — precisely what has contributed to the compromise, if not destruction, of multiple farm businesses in the state. Nevertheless, the Press Herald reports, “A group of farmers and wastewater treatment operators that calls itself the Maine Work Boots Alliance . . . warn[ed] lawmakers against a ‘knee-jerk, misguided reaction’ to all sludge recycling and farm use. . . . The group asked lawmakers to narrow the ban at the heart of L.D. 1911 so that it only prohibits the recycling or land application of sludge with unsafe levels of PFAS. ‘No Maine farmer wants to contaminate their land,’ said Courtney Hammond, a third-generation blueberry farmer in Harrington and past president of Maine Farm Bureau. ‘What we are looking for is a science based approach to monitoring for these PFAS levels.’”

But as Ms. Woodbury has pointed out, “The State of Maine set screening standards for PFAS and sludge. Over 95% of that sludge has tested above the screening standards that the DEP put into place a couple of years ago. We don’t want that stuff on our farmland.” According to the Press Herald, sponsor of the “sludge” bill, Representative Bill Pluecker, said that “there is no such thing as farming-safe sludge, at least not yet, because science has yet to determine how much PFAS is acceptable in all crops, meats and fish. State and federal authorities can’t even agree on safe drinking water levels.” Maine Farmland Trust’s Amy Fisher commented, “Now that we know that PFAS chemicals accumulate and are persistent in our soil and water, and that so much of this contamination is directly linked to sludge, we simply can’t afford to continue spreading sludge that contains PFAS.”

Beyond Pesticides adds that biosludge products are not only sold to farmers; they also show up on the shelves of retailers as fertilizers for consumer home and garden use. The organization wrote in 2021 that these products not only often contain PFAS, but also, harbor “hazardous pesticides, heavy metals, antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and a range of other toxicants. . . . None of these risks [is] relayed to consumers on fertilizer packages. With fertilizer regulations failing the American consumer, it becomes more important than ever to seek out certified organic fertilizer products.” Some communities and states have taken action to restrict the use of such fertilizers, including the flurry of activity in Maine. See more on the biosludge issue here and here.

Beyond Pesticides welcomes Maine’s legislative attention to these PFAS issues, and encourages the public to insist that their own states and local jurisdictions take up issues related to PFAS — whether contamination of drinking water (as so many Northeast states and locations near Department of Defense facilities now face); agricultural practices that “invite” PFAS contamination of food, water, and soil through pesticide and/or biosludge use; and/or lack of consumer knowledge about the presence of PFAS in thousands of consumer products, which then end up in groundwater or (post-wastewater treatment) in water bodies/ways.

As we often say, organic practices solve many problems in one fell swoop. Certified organic production and food labeled “USDA Organic” may not be produced with biosolids or fertilizers containing biosolids, and the National Organic Program proscribes the use of toxic pesticides. Please consider working to get your state or locality to act protectively on pesticide use and/or to stop the use of biosolids. Beyond Pesticides can help; contact us at [email protected] or 202.543.5450.

Sources: https://www.pressherald.com/2022/04/11/maine-lawmakers-approve-ban-on-pesticides-with-pfas-by-2030/ and https://www.wmtw.com/article/maine-legislators-move-toward-final-passage-of-bills-restricting-pfas-forever-chemicals/39707206

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

(Beyond Pesticides, April 18, 2022) Industrial poultry operations—generally indoors and with crowded conditions—provide the perfect incubator for pandemic influenza. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “These involve the congregation of large numbers of genetically identical animals of the same age (young) and sex, with rapid turnover and ‘all-in, all-out’ systems.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is delaying the adoption of organic rules that would require meaningful outdoor access and prevent indoor crowding.

Influenza pandemics have killed millions of people—between 20 and 40 million people died in the 1918 pandemic, one million in 1957, and one to three million in 1968. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Influenza type A viruses are of most significance to public health due to their potential to cause an influenza pandemic.” There are several subtypes of type A influenza, which originates in birds. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there were 700 human cases of the H5N1 subtype since 2003, and only 40% survived.

Tell USDA to promulgate a strong Organic Livestock and Poultry Standard. Tell USDA to protect against flu pandemics by applying the same rules to all poultry.

Because avian flu poses a risk to domestic poultry as well as humans, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of USDA conducts ongoing surveillance of wild birds, who can carry the virus without becoming sick.

Wild birds provide valuable services to farmers, and pastured poultry is valued for integration with organic farming systems as well as the superior quality of eggs and meat. Yet conventional advice from USDA discourages outdoor access for poultry as well as allowing wildlife on the farm.

The virus thrives on intensive confinement, and the lack of genetic diversity is a contributing factor. If the virus gets into a barn, it will wreak havoc. Hence, USDA and the commercial poultry industry point endlessly to biosecurity, which is integral to conventional industrial production systems, but not as effective as removing the underlying unhealthy conditions that cause the problem. According to the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association,

The virus causes the most damage to intensely confined flocks commonly found in the commercial poultry industry. A relatively small number of backyard birds have also been affected. But backyard is not synonymous with pastured and the commercial flocks, as USDA is reporting them, do not include any pastured flocks.

In the 2014-2015 outbreak the affected sites looked like this:

• 211 commercial poultry farms killing 50 million chickens and turkeys.
• 21 backyard flocks killing 10,000 birds. Approximately 5,000 of those backyard birds were on a gamebird farm. 

The outbreak in 2022 is showing similar trends. When you look at the data, there’s a clear risk, and it’s not pastured poultry farms. 

Furthermore, organic poultry is required to have access to the outdoors. However, the National Organic Program lacks regulations to ensure meaningful outdoor access for organic chickens and other animal welfare requirements. After a decade of work by organic stakeholders and the National Organic Standards Board, USDA promulgated the 2017 Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP) final rule in the waning days of the Obama administration, then withdrew it in 2018 during the Trump administration. The OLPP contained provisions to ensure outdoor access and prevent indoor crowding, thus reducing the likelihood that organic poultry operations will be incubators for influenza. A remake of the rule (OLPS) is pending.

Tell USDA to promulgate a strong Organic Livestock and Poultry Standard. Tell USDA to protect against flu pandemics by applying the same rules to all poultry.

Letter to USDA (Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Administrator Jenny Tucker):

Industrial poultry operations—generally indoors and with crowded conditions—provide the perfect incubator for pandemic influenza. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “These involve the congregation of large numbers of genetically identical animals of the same age (young) and sex, with rapid turnover and ‘all-in, all-out’ systems.”

Influenza pandemics have killed millions of people—between 20 and 40 million people died in the 1918 pandemic, one million in 1957, and one to three million in 1968. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Influenza type A viruses are of most significance to public health due to their potential to cause an influenza pandemic.” There are several subtypes of type A influenza, which originates in birds. According to the CDC, there were 700 human cases of the H5N1 subtype since 2003, and only 40% survived.

Because avian flu poses a risk to domestic poultry as well as humans, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) conducts surveillance of wild birds, who can carry the virus without becoming sick.

Wild birds provide valuable services to farmers, and pastured poultry is valued for integration with the organic farm as well as the superior quality of eggs and meat. Yet, conventional advice from USDA discourages outdoor access for poultry as well as allowing wildlife on the farm.

The virus thrives on intensive confinement, and the lack of genetic diversity is a contributing factor. If the virus gets into a barn, it will wreak havoc. Hence USDA and the commercial poultry industry drone on and on about biosecurity, which is their only defense, and not as effective as removing the unhealthy conditions. According to the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association,

The virus causes the most damage to intensely confined flocks commonly found in the commercial poultry industry. A relatively small number of backyard birds have also been affected. But backyard is not synonymous with pastured and the commercial flocks, as USDA is reporting them, do not include any pastured flocks.

In the 2014-2015 outbreak the affected sites looked like this:

* 211 commercial poultry farms killing 50 million chickens and turkeys.

* 21 backyard flocks killing 10,000 birds. Approximately 5,000 of those backyard birds were on a gamebird farm. 

The outbreak in 2022 is showing similar trends. When you look at the data, there’s a clear risk, and it’s not pastured poultry farms. 

Furthermore, organic poultry is required to have access to the outdoors. However, the National Organic Program lacks regulations to ensure meaningful outdoor access for organic chickens and other animal welfare requirements. After a decade of work by organic stakeholders and the National Organic Standards Board, USDA promulgated the 2017 Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP) final rule in the waning days of the Obama administration, then withdrew it in 2018 during the Trump administration. The OLPP contained provisions to ensure outdoor access and prevent indoor crowding, thus reducing the likelihood that organic poultry operations will be incubators for influenza. A remake of the rule (OLPS) is pending.

We need not only a strong OLPS for the sake of organic integrity, but also similar requirements for non-organic farms to protect against future pandemics. Please ensure that USDA takes steps to require healthy living conditions for all poultry that will not promote the development of the next flu pandemic. We can prevent it if we take the necessary steps to require meaningful outdoor access and eliminate overcrowding in the management of poultry.

Thank you.

Letter to U.S. Representative and Senators:

Industrial poultry operations—generally indoors and with crowded conditions—provide the perfect incubator for pandemic influenza. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “These involve the congregation of large numbers of genetically identical animals of the same age (young) and sex, with rapid turnover and ‘all-in, all-out’ systems.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is delaying the adoption of organic rules that would require meaningful outdoor access and prevent indoor crowding.

Influenza pandemics have killed millions of people—between 20 and 40 million people died in the 1918 pandemic, one million in 1957, and one to three million in 1968. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Influenza type A viruses are of most significance to public health due to their potential to cause an influenza pandemic.” There are several subtypes of type A influenza, which originates in birds. According to the CDC, there were 700 human cases of the H5N1 subtype since 2003, and only 40% survived.

Because avian flu poses a risk to domestic poultry as well as humans, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) conducts surveillance of wild birds, who can carry the virus without becoming sick.

Wild birds provide valuable services to farmers, and pastured poultry is valued for integration with the organic farm as well as the superior quality of eggs and meat. Yet, conventional advice from USDA discourages outdoor access for poultry as well as allowing wildlife on the farm.

The virus thrives on intensive confinement, and the lack of genetic diversity is a contributing factor. If the virus gets into a barn, it will wreak havoc. Hence USDA and the commercial poultry industry drone on and on about biosecurity, which is their only defense, and not as effective as removing the unhealthy conditions. According to the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association,

The virus causes the most damage to intensely confined flocks commonly found in the commercial poultry industry. A relatively small number of backyard birds have also been affected. But backyard is not synonymous with pastured and the commercial flocks, as USDA is reporting them, do not include any pastured flocks.

In the 2014-2015 outbreak the affected sites looked like this:

* 211 commercial poultry farms killing 50 million chickens and turkeys.

* 21 backyard flocks killing 10,000 birds. Approximately 5,000 of those backyard birds were on a gamebird farm. 

The outbreak in 2022 is showing similar trends. When you look at the data, there’s a clear risk, and it’s not pastured poultry farms. 

Furthermore, organic poultry is required to have access to the outdoors. However, the National Organic Program lacks regulations to ensure meaningful outdoor access for organic chickens and other animal welfare requirements. After a decade of work by organic stakeholders and the National Organic Standards Board, USDA promulgated the 2017 Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP) final rule in the waning days of the Obama administration, then withdrew it in 2018 during the Trump administration. The OLPP contained provisions to ensure outdoor access and prevent indoor crowding, thus reducing the likelihood that organic poultry operations will be incubators for influenza. A remake of the rule (OLPS) is pending.

We need not only a strong OLPS for the sake of organic integrity, but also similar requirements for non-organic farms to protect against future pandemics. Please ask USDA to take steps to require healthy living conditions for all poultry that will not promote the development of the next flu pandemic. We can prevent it if we take the necessary steps to require meaningful outdoor access and eliminate overcrowding in the management of poultry.

Thank you.

The organic solutions to problems highlighted in the latest issue of Pesticides and You—based on the importance of healthy ecosystems and public health protection—are within reach, and the data creates an imperative for action now that phases out pesticides within a decade, while ensuring food productivity, resilient land management, and safe food, air, and water.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 15, 2022) The current issue of Pesticides and You, RETROSPECTIVE 2021: A Call to Urgent Action, is a look at a year of science, policy, and advocacy that informs both the existential problems that the U.S. and the world are facing due to toxic pesticide dependency, and solutions that can be adopted now. The information in this issue captures the body of science that empowers action at the local, state, and federal level, and provides a framework for challenging toxic pesticide use and putting alternatives in place. The issue finds that 2021 was a pivotal year in both defining the problem and advancing the solution.

This year in review is divided into nine sections that provide an accounting of scientific findings documenting serious pesticide-induced health and environmental effects, disproportionate risk to people of color and those with preexisting conditions, regulatory failures, at the same time it provides documentation on the viability of organic practices that offer a solution. Dependency on toxic, fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers contributes to the existential crises of human pesticide induced or exacerbated illness, biodiversity collapse, and the climate emergency, and calls for urgent action to eliminate their use.

With the April 4 release of the United Nation’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres said that the lack of action puts us “firmly on track towards an unlivable world. We are on a fast track to climate disaster.” The science in this issue of Pesticides and You identifies the contribution of fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers to the climate emergency, human and ecosystem health threats, and biodiversity collapse.

According to Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman, “This issue of Pesticides and You is both a jarring documentation of the threats that we face from toxic, fossil fuel-based pesticides and the uplifting opportunities that we have to transition society to sustainable practices. This recounting of one year provides a framework for moving ahead—given existing scientific analyses of the problem, identified regulatory failure to address the seriousness of the threats, and effective action now available to us for a livable future.”

RETROSPECTIVE 2021: A Call to Urgent Action can be accessed here. For more details, see Beyond Pesticides website.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 14, 2022) Over the last century, cities across the world have engaged in a “war on rats” that has failed to achieve meaningful results, and should consider a new paradigm for rodent management, according to a review of relevant literature published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution last month. As awareness regarding the widespread dangers of commonly used rodenticides increases, and states like California begin to rein in their use, the importance of alternative management approaches has grown. Reviewing over 100 studies on municipal rat management, the authors outline a path forward that embraces a systems approach and calls for a change in public expectations.

Since the early 1900s, municipal rat management has primarily focused on killing rats and removing their food, water and harborage, but data available on the efficacy of this approach is sparse. Successful programs, according to the literature, are often grant funded and time limited, or employ such substantial amounts of rodenticide that it carries significant risks regarding secondary poisoning of people and nontarget species.

Failures consistently note the ephemeral nature of rodent reductions. A 1909 study referenced in the review, from which the authors indicate much of present-day rodent management is based, discusses how Stockholm, Sweden removed over 700,000 rats over 10 years, but the total number of rats removed each year never decreased. “Despite several studies which successfully ‘won’ the war by relying extensively on rodenticide, the realities of management may have relegated much of this war to rat “farming” in which rats were harvested only to “regrow” and require repeat collection,” the study indicates.  

The response to this ephemeral nature of rat reductions, and general ineffectiveness of municipal management campaigns is attributed to various reasons, including lack of interest within government or the public, the complexity of the problem, a dearth of information on cost-effective methodologies at a large scale, and an inability to change behaviors of residents and other members of the public contributing to rat problems.

The authors provide first a way to fix the current integrated pest management paradigm that calls for killing rats and reducing their food, water, and harborage. They suggest the implementation of large scale impact assessments and evaluation measures, and improving reduction strategies that incorporate a greater understanding of rat ecology. For example, the authors reference a study on the ecology of sewer-dwelling rats that determined that winter was the best time to implement control efforts as their population is lowest at that time.

Nonetheless, skeptical of the long-term success and sustainability of our continued “war on rats,” the authors propose a new paradigm for management – one that embraces a systems approach to the overall complexity of the issue. The difference is compared in metaphor to a sinking ship. The current paradigm, “uses a bucket to bail water out of a sinking ship (i.e., remove the rats) but acknowledges that this needs to be combined with methods to patch the holes from which the water entered,” the study says. An alternative approach, the researchers indicate, “considers the complex set of upstream determinants of why the holes were there in the first place might investigate how to effect change over the materials, engineering, and design of the ship, the policies that allowed the ship to be built that way, the behaviors of the crewmates that allowed the ship to fall into disrepair, the decisions of the captain which steered the ship into shallow water, or the policies which encouraged the ship to travel in dangerous weather conditions.”

Applied to rat management, a focus changes from killing rats to one that initially considers the reasons why rats are in an area in the first place. Such an approach would focus on improving the quality of life in low-income areas of degraded housing and other public amenities, rather than placing fines or penalties on rat activity. It also requires accepting that rat problems can be intractable “wicked problems.” Defined by reference in the study, wicked problems are those where a problem is always the symptom of another problem, and a problem that is unique.  Rats are symptoms of other problems because they are always a factor of what the authors call “upstream determinants” like weak building codes or inadequate landscaping practices. Municipal rat problems are also always unique, with different outbreak sources, conditions, and goals, making clear best practices for rat management effectively impossible.

As a result, the authors say that the first step in a new paradigm for rat management is to map out the rat problem in the region, “to highlight, for example, where rats are considered problematic, who is vulnerable, who is resilient, what policies are in place to address them and do they work better in some areas, and which municipal departments and sectors of the urban environment are affected.” This new approach emphasizes the improvement of overall community health, rather than focusing on rats as symptoms of a problem that occurs in a vacuum. The study references work done to eliminate parasite transmission in Kathmandu, Nepal utilizing an ecosystem approach. With this work, community stakeholders came to together to map out the issue and zero in on areas where specific actions could be taken to address the problem. The community was able to successfully break transmission through different intervening actions – such as proper waste disposal, keeping livestock out of water bodies, and alterations to butchering practices.

The new paradigm proposed by researchers recognizes the complex reality of rodent management in large cities as a wicked problem that cannot be solved. “Instead,” as the authors indicate, “The problem can only be managed, making incremental gains in different aspects of the problem over time.”

While individuals can take ad-hoc protective measures to address rodent problems in and around their home, the study underscores  the need for this issue to be dealt with comprehensively at a community-wide scale with an approach that does not focus solely on killing rats, but instead on achieving a set of specific, likely shifting outcomes agreed upon by the community. With advocacy from local residents, large cities will begin to shift toward this new, safer and more sustainable paradigm for rat management.

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

Source: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution