(Beyond Pesticides, June 24, 2021) This Pollinator Week 2021, U.S. Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Jim McGovern (D-MA) are reintroducing the Saving America’s Pollinators Act (SAPA) in an effort to reverse ongoing declines in wild and managed pollinators. SAPA uses the latest scientific research and perspectives to ensure that pollinators are protected. The bill suspends the use of neonicotinoids and other pesticides harmful to bees and other pollinators until an independent board of experts determine that they are safe to use, based on strong scientific assessment.

“Without our world’s pollinators, the world would be a very different place. These bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other creatures are essential elements of our food system. Losing them means we risk losing the very food we put on our table,” said Rep. Blumenauer. “We must use every tool at our disposal to provide pollinators with much-needed relief from bee-toxic pesticides and monitor their populations to ensure their health and survival.” 

Neonicotinoids are systemic pesticides; once applied to a seed or sprayed on a plant they make their way into the pollen, nectar and dew droplets that plants produce and pollinators feed upon. Exposure impairs pollinator navigation, foraging, and learning behavior, and also suppresses their immune system, making them more susceptible to disease and pathogens like the varroa mite.  

The last decade saw American beekeepers lose over 30% of their hives annually. And wild pollinators are experiencing declines that threaten their extinction. The iconic American Bumblebee has lost 89% of its population over the last 20 years. Populations of eastern monarchs have declined by 80% since the 1990s. This past year, citizens scientists participating in the western monarch count found a scant 2,000 butterflies. This is down from roughly 1.2 million monarchs in the 1990s, 300,000 in 2016, and 30,000 in 2019. All of these impacts have been associated with the use of toxic pesticides in peer-reviewed scientific studies.

The harmful effects of neonicotinoids and other pollinator-toxic pesticides are not siloed in the environment, however. Declines in pollinator populations work their way up and down the food chain, from the plants that depend upon pollination, to the people that rely on healthy, nutrient dense food pollination provides. Pollination services are valued at $125 billion globally, and pollinators are responsible for one in three bites of food, including nuts, fruits, and vegetables. Past research has found that the loss of pollination services would have a devastating impact on global nutritional health, with women and children most affected. Already in the United States, many communities lack access to healthy fruits and vegetables –allowing the pollinator crisis to continue unabated is likely to exacerbate these problems by increasing prices on important staples.

Neonicotinoids also harm people directly. In public parks and playing fields, these are often the chemicals of choice to manage grub problems on turf, despite the availability of alternative methods.  The latest research links neonicotinoids to nervous system toxicity, reproductive damage, and birth defects. In particular, reviews have found links to birth defects of the heart and brain, and the development of finger tremors. Neonicotinoids appear to disproportionately affect the male reproductive system, and animal studies have found cause for concern – from decreased testosterone levels to abnormal and low sperm count (see NRDC for more on the harms of neonics to human health). As reported by the Black Institute, pesticides like glyphosate are disproportionately sprayed in black and brown communities, where public parks are often the only green space available for family picnics and outings.

The Saving America’s Pollinators Act is not limited in its ability to save America’s pollinators. SAPA would help people, who depend on pollination services for healthy food. SAPA would help underserved communities by eliminating unnecessary exposure to pesticides in public green spaces. SAPA would stop the poisoning of farmworkers who work on the farms that grow the plants that bees and insects pollinate. SAPA would also protect the broader web of life that is being devastated by the use of systemic insecticides. According to the Task Force on Systemic Insecticides, a group consisting of 242 scientists from across the world, “the balance of evidence strongly suggests that these chemicals [neonicotinoids] are harming beneficial insects and contributing to the current massive loss of global biodiversity.”

Beneficial soil dwelling insects, benthic aquatic insects, and grain-eating vertebrates like songbirds are in danger from neonicotinoid use. Neonicotinoid concentrations detected in aquatic environments present hazards to aquatic invertebrates and the ecosystems they support. Neonics adversely affects shrimp and oyster health, decreasing their nutritional value.

There is also evidence of adverse effects harming bird populations. A single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid is toxic enough to kill a songbird. Studies conducted in the wild find songbirds that feed on neonicotinoid-contaminated seeds during their migration route display reduced weigh delayed travel, and low rates of survival. The author of that study, ecotoxicologist Chrissy Morrisey, PhD, told Environmental Health News, “Our study shows that this is bigger than the bees — birds can also be harmed by modern neonicotinoid pesticides which should worry us all.” Data from the Netherlands has shown that the most severe bird population declines occurred in those areas where neonicotinoid pollution was highest. These data are alarming in the context of reports finding three billion birds (30% total) lost since 1970 in part due to pesticide use.

“Passing SAPA would reorient pesticide regulation towards the protection of pollinators and ecosystem health – an approach that the U,S. Environmental Protection Agency has long failed to adequately consider,” says Drew Toher, community resource and policy director at Beyond Pesticides.

Specifically, the Saving America’s Pollinators Act:

• Establishes a Pollinator Protection Board (PPB), consisting of scientists, beekeepers, farmers, and conservationists that have no direct or indirect ties to pesticide companies, in order to evaluate pesticides for their toxicity to pollinators and pollinator habitat;
• Cracks down on insecticides that are toxic to pollinators by canceling the registration of neonicotinoid pesticides or pesticides containing imidacloprid, clothianidin, thiamethoxam, dinotefuran, acetamiprid, sulfoxaflor, flupyradifurone, or fipronil until they are properly reviewed by the Pollinator Protection Board; and
• Implements a state-of-the-art monitoring network for native bees, ensuring that experts and the general public have up-to-date information on the status of native bee populations.

The newest bill language also updates the standard to which the PPB regulates toxic pesticides, making determinations on whether the pesticide presents an unacceptable hazard, based upon the potential to cause harm, including injury, illness, or damage to honey bees, and other pollinators, or pollinator habitat. This language would set pesticide regulation more in line with the precautionary approach taken by the European Union and other international bodies.

Advocates remain hopeful that the 2021 Congress will take long-awaited action on SAPA. Reach out to your federal elected officials today – call the Capital switchboard (202-224-3121) and request your Representative’s office, reach out to their office directly, or tweet or post to their social media accounts.

Help Beyond Pesticides keep up the pressure on all federal elected officials. In addition to Congressional Representatives, take action by urging the Biden Administration to establish a comprehensive strategy in the executive branch to protect pollinators. See here for additional actions you can take during Pollinator Week 2021, and stay tuned for more you can do to help institute long overdue protections for our nation’s imperiled pollinators.

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

(Beyond Pesticides, June 23, 2021) Small streams are prone to excessively high levels of pesticide contamination that are even more hazardous than once thought, according to a pilot study generated by a team of German researchers. The results indicate significant risks for the health of aquatic ecosystems and should be used as evidence for establishing greater protections from toxic pesticide use, researchers say. With many aquatic benchmarks set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lower than those established in Germany and the European Union, and evidence of widespread pesticide contamination in America’s waterways, the study could have even greater weight for for U.S. regulatory agencies’ deficiencies.

Scientists established monitoring sites at more than 100 streams throughout Germany over the course of two years. Most sites were established near farm fields, where chemical farmers will use highly toxic pesticides than often make their way into local waterways. Streams were monitored for pesticide concentrations, with particular eye to whether they met the country’s regulatory acceptable concentration (RAC value) in a given water body. The RAC value is intended to be the highest level at which there will be no adverse effects on aquatic life, however these regulatory levels often do not correspond with real world conditions.

The results are significantly worse than researchers anticipated. “We have detected a significantly higher pesticide load in small water bodies than we originally expected,” said Matthias Liess, PhD ecotoxicologist and coordinator of the water monitoring project. RAC values are exceeded in 81% of streams tested. For nearly 1 in 5 streams, RAC values are exceeded for over 10 different pesticide compounds. Certain pesticides are astronomically higher than their RAC value. The neonicotinoid thiacloprid is found in three streams at 100x higher than its RAC value. Twenty-seven streams exceed RAC value between 10 and 100x for the following pesticides: clothianidin, methiocarb, and fipronil, terbuthylazine, nicosulfuron, and lenacil.

Moreover, the data collected allowed scientists to further determine whether RAC values themselves are adequately protective. For the most sensitive aquatic species, such as caddisflies and dragonflies, researchers say that these species require 1,000x lower threshold values than less sensitive animals like snails and worms. “For sensitive insect species, the pesticide concentration in the small lowland streams is the most relevant factor that determines their survival. In contrast, other environmental problems such as watercourse expansion, oxygen deficiency, and excessive nutrient content are less important. For the first time this study allows a ranking of environmental problems,” said Dr. Liess.

Dr. Liess indicates that the results show that the current process for evaluating sensitive aquatic species – using laboratory studies, artificial ecosystems, and simulations, do not adequately account for real world stressors. “In addition to pesticides, many other stressors act on organisms in the ecosystem. These make them much more sensitive to pesticides. Natural stressors such as predation pressure or competition between species are not sufficiently taken into account in the risk assessment. But these obvious problems often go unnoticed because the degree of pesticide contamination and the effect of this have not been validated in the field – neither in Germany nor in other countries,” he notes.

Scientists say that testing protocols may also be missing the mark. Testing conducted after a rain event, rather than regular testing at any given time, resulted in detections of pesticides 10x higher than regular testing. “The event sample provides much more realistic results because the pesticides enter the water bodies as a result of the increased surface run-off from the field, especially during rain”, Dr Liess said. “In order to realistically depict the water pollution, samples must therefore be taken after rainfall events. That’s why we need an official regular environmental monitoring to be able to assess the amount and the effects of pesticides.”

Dr. Liess indicates that his team’s findings should immediately be incorporated into the process that regulatory agency’s use to determine pesticide safety. “We are still using pesticides that were approved many years ago based on an outdated risk assessment,” he said. “This must therefore change as soon as possible. Only in this way can we preserve the biodiversity in our waters and with it the services that these biotic communities provide for our ecosystems.”

While streams in Germany may be worse than researchers expected, U.S. streams are likely more contaminated due to higher RAC values (called aquatic benchmarks by EPA) with less regulatory oversight and testing. The data that is available from the U.S. Geological Survey shows that nearly 90% of water samples in US rivers and streams contain at least five or more different pesticides.

To stem the tide of pesticide contamination in waterways, embrace a farming system that eschews the use of toxic chemical pesticides by purchasing organic whenever possible. Any pesticide approved for organic use undergoes and independent assessment by a board of experts, and must meet higher standards of safety for human health and ecological systems. Read here why organic is the right choice, and see Beyond Pesticides Contaminated Waters webpage for more information on the dangers these chemicals pose to American waterways.

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

Source: EurekAlert! press release

(Beyond Pesticides, June 22, 2021) Glyphosate herbicide use in forested areas persists in the environment for years and can prompt morphological changes in perennial flowers that reduce their fertility and may make them less attractive to pollinators. These findings were published this month in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science by researchers at the University of British Columbia, who hope that their work will inform safer approaches to forest management. “The more we learn the better, and research can always be used to better inform management,” said lead author Lisa Wood, PhD. “Herbicide practices may change, if the research shows that this is in the public’s best interest.”

Glyphosate herbicides like Roundup and Visionmax (a Canada-registered glyphosate product produced by Bayer/Monsanto) are often applied aerially via helicopter on wide swaths of forest land known as cutblocks. Cutblocks, designated areas where coniferous trees are grown for harvest and processing, are doused with glyphosate in order to manage understory trees and shrubs that would compete with the conifers. Researchers set out to understand the nontarget impacts of this practice on the surrounding forest ecosystem.

Wild prickly rose (Rosa acicularis) plants were collected from three different cutblocks, each sprayed with Visionmax according to label directions. A set of untreated plants were gathered outside of the cutblock to function as a control. Researchers also tested the impact of glyphosate on wild rose plants in a more controlled setting by establishing them in a greenhouse. Half of these potted plants were sprayed with glyphosate, while the rest acted as a control. A range of measurements were taken on the flowers and pollen.

The scientists found that wild prickly rose plants sprayed with glyphosate had the viability of their pollen reduced by 66% when compared to the control group. The anthers on the rose, which together with the filament comprise the male portion of a flower that produces pollen, failed to open in 30% of glyphosate treated plants. The results were similar in the greenhouse experiment, where 51% of pollen from treated plants were less viable than the control, and 25% of anthers failed to open.

While some morphological changes are expected given exposure to a highly toxic herbicide, what concerns scientists the most is how long the chemical’s effects persisted in the environment. In contrast to claims by agrichemical corporations that glyphosate breaks down quickly in the environment, wild prickly roses contained traces of the herbicide two years after initial exposure. “The changes to plants have been documented in the past, in agricultural plants, so it is not surprising to find them in forests,” said Dr. Wood. “What is important is the timeline. To continue to find these effects one to two years after herbicide applications, in new parts of growing plants, is noteworthy.”

Rose flowers experienced a range of other alterations that could impact their chance of being pollinated. While most R. acicularis flowers are heart-shaped, just over 1 in 10 that were sprayed with glyphosate were heart-shaped. Likewise, most rose flowers are medium or dark pink, but in both the greenhouse and in the wild, those sprayed with glyphosate were more likely to be either white or brown. Researchers indicate that this phenomenon could change the interaction between pollinators and their propensity to pollinate malformed or discolored flowers.

As a result of current findings, the next round of investigation Dr. Wood will take on concerns how herbicide-induced changes within these plants could impact pollinators. Her team will be testing for residues in the feces of insects and hummingbirds. “This will tell us if pollinators are taking up residues from the plants they feed on,” she explained. “We will also research other plants to see if the changes we observed in the wild rose are also found in other flowers.”

Wild prickly rose is found growing primarily in boreal forests in North America. It has an extensive history of use within indigenous societies, as many parts of the plant are used for medicine and food. Dr. Wood’s research over the last decade has focused on the interaction between industrial forestry operations and the impact on indigenous natural resources. This effort was based on input and requests from Canadian indigenous First Nations communities. Back in 2013, shrubs foraged by traditional berry-pickers in northeastern British Columbia were sampled and found to contain glyphosate residues, leading to the need for a broader investigation. Her prior work found that glyphosate use in forestry operations drifts onto wild edible nontarget plants like raspberries and blueberries, which can then remain contaminated with the chemical for more than a year, after a single application.

Glyphosate’s use places public health and ecosystem stability at grave risk. It’s systemic properties, long touted by industry its ability to kill roots, appears to be limited to tender annuals. Woodier, perennial plants with deep root systems appear to translocate the chemical into their root system, where it can continuously contaminate the pollen, flowers, and fruit of the plant. Despite acknowledgement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that glyphosate use threatens the environment and nearly all endangered species, glyphosate use continues unabated in forestry, agriculture, and neighborhoods throughout America.  

Make this week – Pollinator Week 2021– the week you begin to shift the tide in favor of environmental health and well-being. Beyond Pesticides has three major actions we’re asking supporters to take:

1. Create an organic habitat on your own property or a space in your community.
2. Work toward organic management on all your community’s public spaces
3. Tell President Biden and your state’s governor to ban all pesticides and treated seeds that harm pollinators.

Stemming the tide of pesticide contamination, and protecting pollinators and public health takes both individual and collective actions. For more information on what you can do to stop toxic glyphosate use and help pollinator populations recover see Beyond Pesticides Tools for Change and Bee Protective webpages.

Source: Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Alter the Reproductive Morphology of Rosa acicularis (Prickly Rose)

(Beyond Pesticides, June 21, 2021) Pollinator Week reminds us that change is critical to the survival of the planet and that we can take action, both in our households and communities and in the state and federal policy arena. 

Here’s how YOU can take action…

1. Create an organic habitat on your own property or a space in the community—such as the library grounds, medians, and rights-of-way. Given that plant starts in many garden centers across the country are grown from seeds coated with bee-toxic neonicotinoid pesticides, or drenched with them, Beyond Pesticides has compiled a comprehensive directory of companies and organizations that sell organic seeds and plants to the general public. Included in this directory are seeds for vegetables, flowers, and herbs, as well as living plants and seedlings. [We are always updating the directory, so send us names of companies that should be added and we will.]
2. Go organic in the management of all your town’s public spaces—parks, playing fields, school grounds, and open space. Check out the information on talking with your neighbors, local organizations, and elected officials about advancing our model local policy. Then you can see what other communities are doing across the country. Also, see the cost comparison between organic and chemical-intensive land management.
3. Tell President Biden and your governor to ban all pesticides and treated seeds that harm pollinators—from neonicotinoids, fipronil, synthetic pyrethroids, organophosphate insecticides to the herbicide glyphosate—and assist land managers, from farmers to landscapers, to transition to organic practices that prohibit the use of these deadly chemicals. Tell the Biden administration to reestablish a national strategy to work across agencies to eliminate our reliance on toxic pesticides and assist in the transition to organic land management—in the interest of protecting ecosystems against the ongoing dramatic destruction of biodiversity and the insect apocalypse. Tell your governor to do the same at the state level.

Tell President Joe Biden and your governor to get serious about protecting pollinators with a comprehensive strategy.

Letter to President Biden

During this Pollinator Week, it time to act to get serious about protecting pollinators and in so doing eliminate toxic pesticides that are contributing to dramatic declines in biodiversity. As The New York Times wrote in November 2018, “The Insect Apocalypse is Here.” Scientists and researchers have identified three broad contributors to the crisis: pesticide use, habitat destruction, and climate change. With your leadership, we can shift to alternative products and practices, improve biodiversity, and begin to repair the damage done by chemical-intensive land management practices.

To ensure a serious and meaningful effort to address the threat to pollinators, we need to remove from the market pesticides and treated seeds that have been shown, through independent peer-reviewed scientific review, to harm pollinators. This requires comprehensive action against neonicotinoids and related compounds, fipronil, synthetic pyrethroids, organophosphate insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate. At the same time, it is critical that you bring the resources of government to assist land managers, from farmers to landscapers, to transition to organic practices that prohibit the use of these and other deadly chemicals.

We urge you to reestablish a national strategy to work cross-agency to eliminate our reliance on toxic pesticides that harm pollinators and assist in the transition to organic land management in the interest of protecting ecosystems and dramatic destruction of biodiversity, identified by researchers as the insect apocalypse.

In a systematic review of insect declines by researchers Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, PhD and Kris A.G. Wyckhuys, PhD, pesticide use was identified as a critical component in addressing the crisis at large. “A rethinking of current agricultural practices, in particular a serious reduction in pesticide usage and its substitution with more sustainable, ecologically-based practices, is urgently needed to slow or reverse current trends, allow the recovery of declining insect populations and safeguard the vital ecosystem services they provide,” they write.

Without your leadership to elevate the response to the threat to pollinators, our future is threatened. As renowned UK ecologist and coauthor of the study “More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas,” David Goulson, PhD, has said, “We appear to be making vast tracts of land inhospitable to most forms of life, and are currently on course for ecological Armageddon. If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.”

I look forward to learning that you are moving forward with this recommendation to save our future.

Thank you.

Letter to Your Governor

During this Pollinator Week, it time to get serious about protecting pollinators and in so doing eliminate toxic pesticides that are contributing to dramatic declines in biodiversity. As The New York Times wrote in November 2018, “The Insect Apocalypse is Here.” Scientists and researchers have identified three broad contributors to the crisis: pesticide use, habitat destruction, and climate change. With your leadership, we can shift to alternative products and practices, improve biodiversity, and begin to repair the damage done by chemical-intensive land management practices.

To ensure a serious and meaningful effort to address the threat to pollinators, we need to remove from the market pesticides and treated seeds that have been shown, through independent peer-reviewed scientific review, to harm pollinators. This requires comprehensive action against neonicotinoids and related compounds, fipronil, synthetic pyrethroids, organophosphate insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate. At the same time, it is critical that you bring the resources of government to assist land managers, from farmers to landscapers, to transition to organic practices that prohibit the use of these and other deadly chemicals.

We urge you to establish a state strategy to work across agencies to eliminate our reliance on toxic pesticides that harm pollinators and assist in the transition to organic land management in the interest of protecting ecosystems and dramatic destruction of biodiversity, identified by researchers as the insect apocalypse.

In a systematic review of insect declines by researchers Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, PhD and Kris A.G. Wyckhuys, PhD, pesticide use was identified as a critical component in addressing the crisis at large. “A rethinking of current agricultural practices, in particular a serious reduction in pesticide usage and its substitution with more sustainable, ecologically-based practices, is urgently needed to slow or reverse current trends, allow the recovery of declining insect populations and safeguard the vital ecosystem services they provide,” they write.

Without your leadership to elevate the response to threat to pollinators, our future is threatened. As renowned UK ecologist and coauthor of the study “More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas,” David Goulson, PhD, has said, “We appear to be making vast tracts of land inhospitable to most forms of life, and are currently on course for ecological Armageddon. If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.”

I look forward to learning that you are moving forward with this recommendation to save our future.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, June 18, 2021) As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to drag its feet on protective regulation of neonicotinoid pesticides, states continue to step up to restrict their use. In April, the Maine legislature passed, and Governor Janet Mills has now signed, a new law that will prohibit use of neonicotinoid pesticides with the “active ingredient[s] dinotefuran, clothianidin, imidacloprid or thiamethoxam used for application in outdoor residential landscapes such as on lawn, turf or ornamental vegetation” [links by Beyond Pesticides]. Though short of an outright ban, this law is a solid step forward for Maine in reining in use of these compounds, which are neurotoxicants widely implicated in pollinator (and other insect, bird, and mammal) harms or declines. Until a federal ban happens, Beyond Pesticides offers guidance on avoiding use of neonicotinoid pesticides through its fact sheet, Managing Pests Safely Without Neonicotinoids, and its Bee Protective web pages.

This new Maine law does, however, include exemptions for wood preservation, indoor pest control, use on pets, treatment of structure foundations, and controlling invasive insect pests, such as the Asian long-horned beetle, emerald ash borer, and hemlock wooly adelgid. The statute leaves other large loopholes that will permit continued use of neonicotinoids (neonics) as seed coatings, as well as the sale of nursery stock that has been treated with neonic insecticides.

Neonics are used widely as seed coatings, particularly for corn, soybeans, and other commodity crops. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that nearly all corn seed in the U.S. and as much as 50% of soybean seeds are coated with a neonicotinoid — thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, or clothianidin; it also notes that all three of these are banned in Europe for outdoor use.

As plants from such treated seeds germinate and grow, the neonic compound(s) travel through the vascular systems of the plants, and are then expressed in pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets (drops of xylem sap on the leaf edges of some plants). The insecticides can then migrate to the surrounding soil and nearby waterways, contaminating both, and of course, the plants themselves are vectors of poisoning to foraging pollinators, insects, and birds.

Plants treated with neonics and sold by nurseries represent another vector that threatens these organisms (and soil and water). The same contamination dynamic as described above is at work when people purchase and plant such nursery stock in their yards and gardens. As development of various kinds continues to chew up habitat across the country, some pollinator and insect species are relying less on wild lands for foraging, and more heavily on people’s urban and suburban gardens and yards for food sources.

Neonic contaminated nursery stock in those locations amplifies the risks because of this increased dependence. State Director for Environment Maine Anya Fetcher commented, “Bees are more and more relying on urban gardens and green spaces for healthy and nutritious habitat. . . . That’s why we need to make sure that our backyards and our lawns and gardens are safe spaces for them.” (Indeed, there has been a significant movement in the U.S. to encourage installation of pollinator friendly plants in people’s gardens and yards.)

Some nurseries have transitioned away from the use of neonics in their cultivation of commercial plants; likewise, some retailers are eliminating neonic-treated plants from their inventories and supply lines. In 2015, Beyond Pesticides chronicled some of those developments. A shining example of leadership is a small Maine enterprise, Eldredge Lumber & Hardware, which some years ago eliminated from its shelves all synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and began to carry organic-compatible products. It also sells organic seeds and plants not treated with neonics. Retail operations in Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, California, and Colorado, among others, have discontinued (or never used) neonicotinoid pesticides in their nursery operations.

Neonics, because of their systemic action, are highly toxic to bees and other pollinators. Yet, despite its own acknowledgment of that fact, EPA has done little to curb their use. Indeed, in 2019, the EPA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reported on the agency’s failure, saying that: “EPA has no means to evaluate the national impact of MP3s [state Managed Pollinator Protection Plans]; the agency has not developed a strategy to use data from a planned fall 2019 survey . . . to evaluate either the national impact of MP3s or the agency’s support of state MP3 implementation efforts; [and] EPA focuses primarily on acute risks (those that occur during a single exposure to a specific pesticide), and gives insufficient attention to chronic exposures to pesticides and to native pollinator protection activities.”

Maine has made previous attempts on the neonic front. In 2017, the legislature failed to pass — it actually died in committee — a bill that would have required that “any seed, plant material, nursery stock, annual plant, bedding plant or other plant sold at retail in the State that has been treated with a neonicotinoid pesticide bear a label, or be placed in close proximity to a sign, that notifies the consumer that the product has been treated with a neonicotinoid pesticide and that such pesticides have been found to harm nontarget organisms, including bees and other pollinators.” It would also have prohibited the retail sale of neonics by any entity that did not also sell any restricted-use pesticide, and any use of a neonic except by certified applicators, farmers, and licensed veterinarians.

In 2020, the Maine Legislature considered a bill that would have required the state’s Board of Pesticides Control to “prohibit the use of any product containing neonicotinoids for landscape gardening by certified applicators or limit the use of any product containing neonicotinoids if the board determines that use is necessary to protect the State.” It also would have required the board “to adopt rules establishing restrictions for the use of products containing neonicotinoids.” This bill failed at the end of that legislative session.

Most recently, a bill that would have banned all uses of synthetic pesticides made it out of the Maine Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry Committee, but ultimately failed. Beyond Pesticides supported that legislation and submitted comments to the committee that suggested two amendments to the bill. One clarified the definition of “synthetic,” and the other suggested language to ensure that Maine municipalities could, subsequent to the passage of the subject legislation, also pass laws pertaining to pesticide storage, distribution, or use.

Ms. Fetcher noted that neonic use on plants impairs pollinator brain function, making it more challenging for them to navigate their way back to their hives, collect food, and produce new queens. She also asserted that Maine’s new statute is now the strongest statewide restriction on neonic use in the U.S., saying that although states such as Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maryland “have removed neonics from the shelves . . . licensed applicators such as landscapers and gardeners can still use them in those states.”

The current neonic story in Minnesota is another matter. Back in March, Beyond Pesticides reported on endemic levels of neonic contamination in the state’s deer population. The organization wrote then, “Neonics harm a range of wildlife, including bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators, songbirds, aquatic species and mammals, including humans. . . . [The] widespread contamination of ecosystems [by neonics and other pesticides] ultimately impacts the services that humans depend upon, including nutrient cycling, food production, biological pest control, and pollinator services.”

The data on Minnesota deer contamination with neonics emerged in the context of a larger neonic concern in the Midwest — the environmental contamination risk (and reality) from the use of discarded, neonic-treated seeds as feedstock in the creation of the biofuel, ethanol. As in other industries, toxic contaminants created as waste or byproducts of a primary production process are often problematic, and are rarely dealt with in ways that protect the environment, people, wildlife, etc. A high-profile example is a Nebraska ethanol plant (AltEn) near Omaha that harbors leaking lagoons of toxic wastewater and 84,000 tons of contaminated grain seed. In February 2021, a burst pipe caused four million gallons of manure and pesticide-contaminated wastewater to escape the plant and contaminate surrounding waterways and lands.

Although industry spokespeople in Minnesota played down the risks, Pesticide Action Network’s local lobbyist Chris Cowen called AltEn “an ecological disaster that Minnesota should do everything to avoid. . . . Why Minnesota would hesitate for a minute in making treated seed feedstock illegal, begs the question: How bad does it have to be?” Though spent, treated-seed containers are labeled with a tag that says, “Do not use for feed, food or oil purposes,” advocates and some legislators consider this inadequate to the threat. Minnesota Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Margaret Hart said that, although the department ensures the presence of these labels, it has no role in enforcement of the instructions on them. She indicated that the agency does not regulate treated seed, and does support a proposed ban on making ethanol with treated seed in the state (see below).

In early April, the Star Tribune reported that a rash of bills on pesticides was marinating in the Minnesota Legislature, opining that, “Now Minnesota stands on the cusp of passing some of the most enlightened legislation in the nation to protect human and ecosystem health. With a handful of bills slated to be heard in the Legislature, we may have reached a critical mass of scientific documentation, legislative smarts and public understanding that could result in a state that is cleaner, safer and healthier for people, pets and vital pollinators. The pending bills give communities local control over pesticides (HF 718), set rules for pesticide-coated corn and soy seed to avoid contamination (HF 766), prohibit neonicotinoid systemic pesticides (aka ‘neonics’) and chlorpyrifos (insecticide) in protected wildlife areas (HF 1210), impose a statewide ban on chlorpyrifos (HF 670) and increase pollinator-lethal insecticide fees with revenue allocated to pollinator research (HF 408).”

The Nebraska AltEn contamination episode had prompted multiple bills, including one that would ban the use of discarded neonic-treated seed for food, feed, oil to make ethanol; the legislative effort failed under opposition from Senate Republicans. The enthusiasm in that Star Tribune article was dampened one day later by a piece in Bluestem Prairie, which noted that most of those bills had already fallen by the wayside in the legislature.

Advocates say that the increasingly systemic contamination of ecosystems, wildlife, water, soil, and human bodies with multiple pesticides, including neonics, is an unfolding disaster. EPA’s record (especially recently) of advantaging agrichemical interests over those of the public and the environment is a dangerous trajectory. Although Beyond Pesticides encourages states, localities, and individuals to continue robust advocacy against the use of neonicotinoids, it also asserts that it is way past time for EPA to act protectively on this class of insecticides. EPA deregistration of neonics would, in addition to advancing the agency’s mission, be a strong signal that EPA has righted itself and is no longer operating in the interests of the agrochemical industry.

Neonicotinoids and other systemic bee-toxic pesticides pose unacceptable threats to pollinators (and other organisms) that require elimination of their use. Not only are these chemicals ultimately ineffective at managing pests, but also, organic and sustainable farming practices can replace these toxic compounds and actually foster greater resiliency to pests. Learn more with Beyond Pesticides’ fact sheet, Managing Pests Safely Without Neonicotinoids, and its Bee Protective web pages.

Sources: https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2021-06-15/endangered-species-and-wildlife/law-bans-pesticides-seen-as-harmful-to-bees-in-residential-landscapes/a74625-1 and https://www.startribune.com/contaminated-ethanol-plant-using-pesticide-covered-seed-prods-change-in-minnesota/600068455/?refresh=true

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

(Beyond Pesticides, June 17, 2021) Lead arsenate pesticides continue to contaminate Central Washington residential areas that were once tree fruit orchards. Although these toxic legacy pesticides have not been in use for almost 70 years, the Washington State Department of Ecology report finds lead and arsenic soil concentrations above the Washington State cleanup levels. It is well-known that traces of legacy (past-use) pesticides, like organochlorines, remain in the environment for decades—possibly centuries, post-final application. However, these chemicals have profound adverse impacts on human health, with links to cancer, reproductive and endocrine (hormone) disruption, and birth/developmental abnormalities. Current-use pesticides also contaminate the ecosystem via drift, runoff, and leaching. Therefore the impact of both current and past use of pesticides on human, animal, and environmental health, especially in combination, is critical to any safety analysis.

The researchers note, “Historical application of lead arsenate (LA) pesticides on tree fruit orchards has resulted in the accumulation of lead and arsenic in shallow soil at concentrations above Washington State cleanup levels. These are levels that may be harmful to human health when properties are used for activities other than agricultural or industrial land uses. This report outlines a recommended approach for managing and mitigating LA pesticide soil contamination, as well as educating impacted people and communities about the issue.”

The Washington State Department of Ecology examined lead arsenate pesticide contamination in areas of Central Washington from historical tree fruit orchard practices. There are increasing concerns over health risks to residents living in areas of past pesticide use, especially for those unaware of possible contamination. Hence, the department established the Legacy Pesticide Working Group (LPWG) in 2019 to include stakeholders throughout Central Washington state “to address the complex issues surrounding lead and arsenic contamination on former orchard lands.”

For a year, the LPWG identified residential and commercial areas that were once tree fruit orchards. The group devised recommendations to help landowners, land developers, and communities combat contamination using the Washington State Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) as a guide. The final recommendations include the following objectives:

• “Creating a process for evaluation of all properties.
• Notifying buyers and current homeowners concerning the specifics of LA pesticide contamination on their properties.
• Identifying actions that meet Ecology’s cleanup regulations.
• Creating a broad-based strategy for educating the public about managing the risk from [lead arsenate] pesticide contamination.”

The report finds approximately 115,000 acres of Central Washington has possible lead arsenate contamination from historical orchards, including existing and developing residential (i.e., single-family homes, apartment buildings) and commercial (i.e., malls, schools, parks) areas. From this data, the LPWG set up a “Dirty Alert” map highlighting historic orchards and possible lead arsenate contamination. Property owners can use the map to assess whether they reside in an area of contamination based on previous orchard locations.

The issue of environmental pesticide contamination is not a new phenomenon, especially for legacy pesticides. Pesticides are pervasive in all ecosystems, soils, water (solid and liquid), and air, frequently at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. Many legacy pesticides are on the Stockholm Convention annex lists (i.e., organochlorine compounds) and are no longer manufactured or utilized. However, 90 percent of Americans still have at least one pesticide biomarker (includes parent compound and breakdown products) in their body, including legacy compounds. The presence of pesticides in the body has implications for human health, especially during vulnerable life stages like childhood, puberty, pregnancy, and old age. Scientific literature demonstrates pesticides’ long history of severe adverse human health effects (i.e., endocrine disruption, cancer, reproductive/birth abnormalities, neurotoxicity) and effects on wildlife and biodiversity. Therefore, it is essential to address pesticide contamination using proper prevention practices, risk assessments, and clean-up methods to safeguard human, animal, and ecosystem health and services.

The study demonstrates most of the contamination in Central Washington is in the soil that can experience biological changes in the presence of synthetic chemical pollutants like pesticides. Past misconceptions assuming stable, banned chemicals like legacy pesticides would bind to soil and remain immobile are worrisome. However, studies find some current-use pesticides can induce changes in soil properties that re-release soil-bound, legacy chemicals into the ecosystem, contributing to contamination. A 2020 study finds glyphosate use stimulates soil erosion responsible for soil-based chemical emergence. Continuous pesticide use leaves the dirt bare and more susceptible to decay from lack of organic material, altering the storage compartments of soil sediments from pesticide sinks to sources. Furthermore, soil pesticide contamination impacts organisms, including beneficial insects and microbes that provide essential ecosystem services by aerating the soil, cycling nutrients, and increasing microbial activity.

This report is a valuable tool that serves as a model for pesticide contamination evaluation and recommendations globally. Although lead and arsenic are naturally occurring, these chemicals impact the endocrine system, kidneys, liver, heart, and brain. Exposure can prompt ailments like diabetes, reproductive dysfunction, and various cancers. Similar to current-use pesticides, the severity of poisoning depends upon the amount of chemical exposure, the length of exposure, and pre-established sensitivity to chemical exposure. Not only do reports like these protect future human health, but also human well-being. The current housing crisis demonstrates the need to transform idle landscapes into residential areas for housing development. However, similar to Central Washington, much of this idle land includes abandoned or barren agricultural pasture containing pesticide contamination from past use. In addition to agricultural land, the conversion of golf courses—known for using copious amounts of pesticides—into housing also poses similar health and environmental exposure risks. The researchers suggest decontaminating existing and developing residential areas, requiring property owners to investigate and clean up toxicants from land.

The researchers conclude, “The current confusion about the LA pesticide contamination issue has created a demand for significant education and outreach efforts geared toward reaching a wide variety of stakeholders. Areas of concern include ensuring all who may be affected (e.g., residents, local governments, developers) are aware of the issue; understanding who may be liable for historic LA pesticide contamination and required cleanup activities; creating consistent messaging and guidance related to compliance with MTCA; and making sure updated, accurate data is used to create easy to find mapping resources identifying areas that may be affected by historic LA pesticide applications.”

Legacy pesticide poisoning in the environment has extensive documentation, despite being banned for decades. Chronic, low-level exposure to pesticide residues in habitats weakens ecosystem health and productivity for all species, including humans. Organic production standards must adequately address problems associated with soil contaminants to protect soil health and productivity. The National Organic Standards Board must bring greater attention to the damage that contamination from widespread pesticide use causes, going beyond the focus on residues in the finished food commodities.

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

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

Source: Yakima Herald (Press Release); Yakima Herald (Report)

(Beyond Pesticides, June 16, 2021) Uncultivated field margins contain almost twice as many beneficial insects as cropped areas around farm fields, according to research published this week in the Journal of Insect Science. The study finds that these predators and parasitoids overwinter in diverse vegetation, and can provide farmers an important jump start on spring pest problems. “A benefit of understanding overwintering is that those arthropods that emerge in the spring may be more inclined to feed on pests when pest populations are low,” said Scott Clem, PhD, coauthor of the study. “And so, they may be more likely to nip pest populations in the bud before the pest problem becomes a big deal.”

The study focused on five organic farms, as conventional chemically sprayed fields are not conducive to a thriving overwintering insect population. The farms, all located in the Midwest, each had 10 emergence tents set up both in the middle of the field and around field edges. Emergence tents capture insects that have spent their winter in soil and prevent predatory insects from escaping scientific analysis. After the tents were set up in mid-March 2018, samples were taken in late March, mid-April, and at the end of April.

In total, researchers collected 4,226 insects they considered beneficial, accounting for 95 species of parasitoids and pest predators.  Arthropods collected along field boarders contained two times the diversity and abundance as emergence tents placed within crop fields. The divide between cultivated and uncultivated areas held for four of the farms. On one farm, the field boarder contained mostly grasses with few broadleaf plants and flowers and had been mowed short the previous fall. These field margins were much less diverse than those where farmers had planted wildflower seeds along the edges.  “We were able to determine that these field edges are important for maintaining natural enemies of pest species in the landscape,” said Dr. Clem. “And the quality of the field border is likely to benefit the arthropod communities that live there and enhance the services they provide.”

Previous studies have found myriad benefits from the decision to dedicate a portion of one’s cropland to habitat for pest predators and parasitoids. In addition to their ability to help control pests, there is also evidence that non-crop areas like hedgerows can be an effective barrier against spray drift, reduce soil erosion, and act as habitat corridors for forest plants in agricultural landscapes. However, the ability  for these areas to manage pest populations is dependent upon maintaining favorable conditions for predators to thrive. A 2016 study published in Environment International finds that systemic pesticides like the neonicotinoids can run off from farm fields and make their way into wildflowers along field margins. In this context, these areas become a source sink, as pest predators are drawn to this area but then killed off due to local contamination. In fact, there is evidence that foraging bumblebees would rather dodge traffic than agricultural chemicals.  A 2015 study published in the Journal of Insect Conservation finds two times more pollinators on plants in field margins facing roadways than those facing agricultural fields.

But even conventional chemical farms can begin to shift when land is dedicated to biodiversity. Two studies published in November 2020 bear this out. One study, published in Science Advances, finds that conserving plant diversity around one’s farm can result in much lower rates of pest pressure on plants. Similarly, a study from researchers at University California, Santa Barbara, finds that more diverse landscapes lower insecticide use, while less diverse cropping areas lead to much more intensive pesticide applications.

As co-author Alexandra Harmon-Threatt, PhD, of the present study notes, “This research supports the idea that these uncropped areas — whether you want to call them field borders, field margins or even ditches — are really beneficial for insects and other arthropods. Preserving some land that is not cultivated and not mowing your field edges might make a big difference for insect conservation, but it’s probably also making a difference in controlling pests in farm areas, which is also super-important for meeting our other goals of feeding a growing population.”

For more information on the benefits of field margins and how you can plant more diverse areas around your home in garden (and subsequently reduce your need for pest management!), see Managing Landscapes with Pollinators in Mind and Hedgerows for Biodiversity: Habitat is needed to protect pollinators, other beneficial organisms, and healthy ecosystems.  You can also visit the  BEE Protective Habitat Guide and Do-It-Yourself Biodiversity  for more ways in which you can foster pest resilience in your backyard and community.

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

Source: University of Illinois, Journal of Insect Conservation

(Beyond Pesticides, June 15, 2021) The endocrine disrupting herbicide propazine (in the triazine family of frog-deforming endocrine disruptors) is set for cancellation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a Federal Register notice published last week. The move would eliminate use of the hazardous herbicide by the end of 2022. While health and environmental advocates are pleased with the agency’s move, they say it is critical that all pesticides in the triazine class, including atrazine and simazine, also be eliminated from use.

In November 2020, Beyond Pesticides and allied environmental groups launched a lawsuit against EPA for its intent to reregister the triazine family of chemicals. The agency’s interim approval of the herbicides, conducted under the Trump administration, eliminates important safeguards for children’s health and a monitoring programs intended to protect groundwater from contamination. As is typical with EPA, the agency merely proposed minor label changes in attempts to avert risks identified in its registration review. According to a release from EPA, it made the decision not out of concerns relating to human health and environmental protection, but in order to provide “regulatory certainty” for farmers and local officials.

In March 2021, the Biden administration requested a stay on the atrazine lawsuit brought by environmental groups, as it indicated it would review the Trump administration’s actions on the chemicals. “It is possible that, in response to this review, EPA may undertake actions that could resolve some or all of the issues in this case,” EPA said in its motion to stay, Progressive Farmer reports.

If propazine’s cancellation is the extent of the Biden administration’s corrective actions after the Trump administration’s complete abdication of responsibility to human health and environmental protection, then it is not enough, say advocates. With greenhouse uses already in the process of cancellation, propazine’s remaining use is on sorghum. Although a hefty 200,000 lbs. of propazine are used each year, focused mainly in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, this amount pales in comparison to the over 70 million lbs. of atrazine used throughout the United States.

Under an Endangered Species Act review, initiated by EPA only after a lawsuit from health and environmental groups, the triazine chemicals were found adversely effect a range of species. Propazine was found to harm 64 endangered species, while simazine and atrazine were both likely to harm over 50% of all endangered species an 40% of their critical habitats.

EPA has long known about triazine’s threats to wildlife, including its ability to chemically castrate male frogs. However, the agency has consistently defended the chemical, and sat by while independent researchers like Tyrone Hayes, PhD, who conducted seminal research on atrazine’s endocrine disrupting properties, are pilloried by chemical industry propaganda. In a Critical Perspectives piece published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry last month, Jason Rohr, PhD, provides an in-depth investigation of the atrazine controversy.

“I argue that the atrazine controversy must be more than just a true story of cover-ups, bias, and vengeance,” he writes in the piece. “It must be used as an example of how manufacturing uncertainty and bending science can be exploited to delay undesired regulatory decisions and how greed and conflicts of interest—situations where personal or organizational considerations have compromised or biased professional judgment and objectivity—can affect environmental and public health and erode trust in the discipline of toxicology, science in general, and the honorable functioning of societies.”

The triazine class of chemicals also pose significant threats to human health, and are particularly concerning in the context of the range of chemicals one may be exposed to in today’s world. As Dr. Hayes noted a recent presentation at Beyond Pesticides’ National Pesticide Forum, “Children in utero may be exposed to over 300 synthetic chemicals before they leave the womb… I would argue that a human fetus trapped in contaminated amniotic fluid is no different than one of my tadpoles trapped in a contaminated pond.”  

Atrazine has been linked to a range of adverse birth outcomes, including smaller body sizes, slower growth rates, and certain deformities like choanal atresia (where nasal passages are blocked at birth), and hypospadias (where the opening of a male’s urethra is not located at the tip of the penis).

While industry consistently lines up local Congressmembers, former EPA officials, and agrichemical lobbyists to pressure EPA to keep triazines in the market, there is no evidence that the herbicides benefit the farmers these officials claim to represent. According to research published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, banning atrazine would provide an economic benefit to farmers. “The winners,” the research concludes, “in an atrazine free future would include farm worker, farmers and their families, and others who are exposed to atrazine either directly from field uses or indirectly from contaminated tap water along with natural ecosystem that are currently damaged by atrazine.” 

During the Obama Administration, health and environmental advocates were on the defensive with propazine. After glyphosate-resistant crops predictably invaded genetically engineered cotton fields in Texas, growers requested propazine use on over 3 million acres of farm fields. Although EPA determined Texan farmers met the criteria for an emergency, a decision Beyond Pesticides disagreed with, the agency did find that groundwater risks from the proposed propazine use would be too risky.

Thus, while advocates remain hopeful and determined to pressure the Biden administration to cancel all triazines chemicals, eliminating propazine is a step in the right direction.

Watch for a Beyond Pesticides “Action of the Week” in the coming week requesting that the Biden administration fulfill its statutory duty and stop use of the triazine family of chemicals, including atrazine, as European nations have done since 2004. For more information on the dangers of atrazine and its chemical cousins, read Beyond Pesticides comments to EPA, and watch Dr. Tyrone Hayes presentations from former National Pesticide Forum events on Youtube. Attend the fourth and concluding day of the 38th National Pesticide Forum, Cultivating Community Health, and learn from advocates in local communities. Register now for the June 15 session.

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

Source: EPA, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Center for Biological Diversity, Progressive Farmer DTN

(Beyond Pesticides, June 14, 2021) Beyond Pesticides reports regularly on new science showing how pesticides harm human health and ecosystems. This science is not factored into EPA decisions.

Tell EPA that cutting-edge science must be considered.

More than 50 pesticide active ingredients have been identified as endocrine disruptors that mimic the action of a naturally-produced hormone, such as estrogen or testosterone, thereby setting off similar chemical reactions in the body; block hormone receptors in cells, thereby preventing the action of normal hormones; or affect the synthesis, transport, metabolism and excretion of hormones, thus altering the concentrations of natural hormones. Endocrine disruptors have been linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, early puberty, infertility and other reproductive disorders, childhood and adult cancers, and other metabolic disorders. Similar effects are found in other species. In spite of legal requirements and the flood of research, EPA issues Proposed Interim Decisions (PIDs) on pesticide registrations making no human health or environmental safety findings associated with the potential for endocrine disruption, or identifying additional data needs to satisfy Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program requirements in the PIDs. EPA cannot make findings of no unreasonable adverse effects without findings concerning endocrine disruption. EPA continues to register pesticides posing unreasonable health effects.

There is much research on the impacts of pesticides on aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates and plants, including overwhelming evidence of an on-going insect apocalypse and collapse of bird populations. EPA ignores this science and continues to register pesticides that contribute to the problem. 

EPA ignores science on dangers to pollinators, the human gut microbiome, soil organisms, and effects of breakdown products and combinations of ingredients. This cutting edge science is not  factored into EPA’s static pesticide evaluation program, given its structure. What is needed is a precautionary approach that removes chemicals from the market when science raises reasonable doubts as to their safety. Not to do so is to put economic value to pesticide manufacturers above the health of human beings and the planet.

Tell EPA that cutting-edge science must be considered.

Learn more about science and policy by tuning in to Day 4 of the virtual National Pesticide Forum on June 15. REGISTER NOW. 

EPA Must Consider Cutting Edge Science

Scientific journals report regularly on new science showing how pesticides harm human health and ecosystems. This science is not factored into EPA decisions.

More than 50 pesticide active ingredients have been identified as endocrine disruptors that mimic the action of a naturally-produced hormone, such as estrogen or testosterone, thereby setting off similar chemical reactions in the body; block hormone receptors in cells, thereby preventing the action of normal hormones; or affect the synthesis, transport, metabolism and excretion of hormones, thus altering the concentrations of natural hormones. Endocrine disruptors have been linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, early puberty, infertility and other reproductive disorders, childhood and adult cancers, and other metabolic disorders. Similar effects are found in other species. In spite of legal requirements and the flood of research, EPA issues Proposed Interim Decisions (PIDs) on pesticide registrations making no human health or environmental safety findings associated with the potential for endocrine disruption, or identifying additional data needs to satisfy Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program requirements in the PIDs. EPA cannot make findings of no unreasonable adverse effects without findings concerning endocrine disruption. EPA continues to register pesticides posing unreasonable health effects.

There is much research on the impacts of pesticides on aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates and plants, including overwhelming evidence of an on-going insect apocalypse and collapse of bird populations. EPA ignores this science and continues to register pesticides that contribute to the problem.

EPA ignores science on dangers to pollinators, the human gut microbiome, soil organisms, and effects of breakdown products and combinations of ingredients. This cutting-edge science cannot be factored into EPA’s static pesticide evaluation program. It requires a precautionary approach that removes chemicals from the market when science raises reasonable doubts as to their safety. Not to do so is to put economic value to pesticide manufacturers above the health of human beings and the planet.

Please revise pesticide registration reviews to incorporate precaution.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, June 11, 2021) On Sunday, June 13, Switzerland will hold a national vote on two landmark initiatives related to pesticide use (as well as several referenda). The vote on one initiative, dubbed by advocates “For a Switzerland Free of Synthetic Pesticides” (FSFSP), will determine whether or not the country will ban synthetic pesticides. If it does, it will become the first European nation to do so. The other initiative, which aims to eliminate direct subsidies of farmers who use synthetic pesticides or antibiotics for livestock, is focused on improving the quality of Switzerland’s drinking water and food supply. Beyond Pesticides covered the grassroots origin of the Swiss “no synthetic pesticides” initiative in 2018 and sees potential passage of both it and the water quality initiative as a watershed moment in the protection of health and the environment. These measures would go a long way to protecting and improving the health of humans and ecosystems, and the food supply, as well as protecting biodiversity in Switzerland. It could also — as advocates hope — encourage other European countries to follow suit.

This vote has been scheduled, in part, as an outcome of a 2018 petition by the advocacy group, Future3, which collected more than 100,000 signatures for the FSFSP initiative. That qualified it to be considered by the Swiss federal cabinet (the Federal Council), which then gave its recommendation to Parliament to schedule the upcoming vote. The measure would ban all uses of synthetic pesticides by farmers and industry, as well as ban imported foodstuffs produced with synthetic pesticides (so as not to disadvantage Swiss farmers). The initiative provides a 10-year period during which farmers could make the transition off of synthetic pesticides.

The clean water initiative, in addition to proscribing the use of pesticides, and of antibiotics for livestock, would prevent farmers from using imported animal feed (which could easily contain pesticide residues). In addition, it would limit the numbers of cows, pigs, and chickens being raised in the country in order to reduce all the problems associated with their manure, including contaminated drinking water. Pascal Scheiwiller, an endorser of the clean water initiative — which estimates that a million Swiss residents drink contaminated water — commented, “People have been sold a romantic image of farming in Switzerland, which is far removed from reality.”

Some opponents of the initiatives appear to have a different take on the “reality of farming” in the country, calling the initiatives “extreme,” and claiming that they are based on a misunderstanding of the realities of Swiss agriculture, and would cause enormous damage to farmers. The Swiss Farmers Union opposes the measures, saying that many members feel that their way of life is “under siege.” Such identification of pesticide use with a valued “way of life” may reveal, at least in part, a different misunderstanding — of both the toll of pesticide use on health and the environment, and of the potential and benefits of non-chemical agriculture.

Switzerland is home to Syngenta, the largest pesticide manufacturer in the world. The company has opposed and derided these measures since they were brought forward three years ago, warning that passage would reduce agricultural yields by up to 40%. This scare mongering flies in the face of evidence that non-chemical-intensive, organic practices can generate yields on par with, and sometimes greater than, chemical production, and can improve profit margins. A well-kept “secret” about pesticides is that they do not actually work as well as most farmers believe they do. Should the FSFSP initiative pass, the government would likely need to create technical and economic support programs for farmers navigating the transition from intensive pesticide use to effective and practicable non-chemical and organic approaches.

Swiss organic farmer and winemaker Roland Lenz — whose vineyards are surrounded by farmers who oppose these agricultural initiatives — favors them, saying that to continue pesticide use would be “sheer lunacy,” particularly given that there are ready methods of growing successfully without them. He commented, “With a ‘Yes’ vote on both initiatives, we will finally move from the chemical age back to the organic age,” and added that passage of these measures “would allow Switzerland to become a pioneer in organic food as well as an example to the rest of the world.”

Early on in the campaign for the FSFSP initiative, Professor Edward Mitchell of the University of Neuchâtel said, “I am convinced that other countries may follow suit. Switzerland with its direct democracy system is somewhat different from other countries, making such a change perhaps more likely in the short term. This puts us in a privileged position to act proactively rather than in response to government actions, and with this goes a responsibility to do so.”

Reuters reports that the Swiss vote on these agriculture-related measures is expected to be close, following what the outlet calls “an unusually bitter debate over the initiatives. . . . A recent Tamedia [Zurich-based media company] poll showed 48% of voters favoured the drinking water initiative and 49% supported the pesticide ban.”

The use of synthetic pesticides has been a contested issue across many European countries, and the European Union (EU), in recent years. Recent developments have included a 2018 EU ban on outdoor uses of a number of commonly applied neonicotinoid pesticides; the European Parliament’s special PEST Committee’s 2019 recommendation of greatly strengthened pesticide regulation; and the EU 2020 adoption of a new strategy to evaluate synergistic impacts of multiple pesticide exposures. To date, only Bhutan has banned synthetic pesticides altogether and adopted organic farming practices.

Beyond Pesticides has spent decades laying out the risks and impacts of synthetic pesticide use — for human and ecosystem health, for organism health and biodiversity, for climate, for water and air and soil quality, for food system integrity — and the multiple solutions that lie in a wholesale transition to organic agriculture and land management. Many of these topics can be explored on the website through the “Programs” drop-down menu. A consistent focus in Beyond Pesticides coverage of pesticide issues has been impacts on human health; that universe of information can be navigated through the Daily News Blog and the Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database.

An on-the-ground chronicle of the kinds of health impacts that pesticide use can have arrived to us recently from someone who lives in Switzerland. Karen Cortesi contacted Beyond Pesticides earlier this year in search of help for a very challenging experience she and her family are having as a result of a neighbor’s use of pesticides that drift onto her family’s property. Ms. Cortesi provided a detailed accounting of the health impacts experienced by her, her partner Simone Roncoroni, their son, and their rabbit and chickens over the course of the past four years. (Beyond Pesticides is unable to fact check all aspects of Ms. Cortesi’s account, which were communicated to us via email; nevertheless, we present highlights of it because it offers a “real life” look at what havoc pesticide use and misuse can wreak.)

The family lives in Novaggio, near the border with Italy, in an area that is designated as both an agricultural zone and a water protection zone. The parents are both homeopaths, and the family grows and sells, at a small scale, organic eggs, fruits, and vegetables. As Ms. Cortesi recounts, pesticide use in her area is permitted for “professional” use (which we interpret to mean for commercial use by trained applicators). The family’s neighbor has been applying to his property, since April of 2020, pesticides that she says are illegal for private use, and in concentrations from three to 20 times what is legally allowed.

Initially, they did not know what pesticide products he was using; Ms. Cortesi reports that they did once spot an applicator tank hand labeled with “Karate 0.08%.” The active ingredient in this product — Karate with Zeon Technology (“Zeon Technology” meaning that it uses nanoparticles) — made by Syngenta, is lambda-cyhalothrin, which Beyond Pesticides’ database notes is a synthetic pyrethroid that is an endocrine disruptor, a skin and mucosal irritant, and a neurotoxicant; it is also toxic to at least bees and aquatic organisms. For humans exposed, it can have acute oral, dermal, and inhalation toxicity (at high exposure levels, potentially resulting in coma or death from respiratory depression). The label on this product indicates that no one should enter a treated area for 24–48 hours after application.

Once authorities finally visited the neighbor’s property, the products (some names of which are in Italian) discovered included: Karate, Switch (fludioxonil, ciprodinil); Pergado (mandipropamid); Radico (1-naftil-acetico, which we believe is 1-naphthaleneacetic acid); Rame 30 (ossicloruro di rame); Flint (trifloxystrobin, tebuconazole); Tega (trifloxystrobin); Ridomil vino (metalaxyl); Topas vino (penconazole); and Rondo (dithianon, difenoconazole). (Most of these are fungicide compounds.) Ms. Cortesi also reported that the neighbor regularly washed pesticide application equipment in an outdoor sink that discharges directly into a river that contributes to the water supply for the village of Pura.

Ms. Cortesi recounted what family members, and their animals, have experienced since the pesticide use started in 2017:

• My rabbit lost her hair, and her skin was bright red, and as she lives with a male and never gave birth, we think that she has become sterile. 
  • My rooster had a red eye, no voice, and collapsed on the ground for hours. 
  • My hen couldn’t breathe well, and completely stopped laying eggs. 
  • For us [humans], the symptoms grew slowly from burning eyes, throat, and nose, to headaches, collapse*, and great difficulty breathing; then, neurological symptoms, such as tremors, motor weakness, and hallucinations. In April of 2020, we feared we might die because of the extreme respiratory distress. Simone has had testicular pain; recently, after [the neighbor] used some substance again, I had severe organ pain and vomiting. Another time, I had an asthma-like attack, and was on the floor for 30 minutes gasping for breath and coughing, though I have never had any respiratory issues in my life prior to this.

[* By “collapse,” Ms. Cortesi reports that she meant that Mr. Roncoroni first got a “headache, then his eyes rolled backward and he started to have hallucinations and spasms, and couldn’t speak.” Her theory about the neurological symptoms is that because Karate uses nanoparticles, some compound(s) may be crossing the blood–brain barrier.”]

Ms. Cortesi wrote about their utter frustration and cited to Beyond Pesticides their numerous attempts to get authorities to recognize what was happening to them, find out what the neighbor was spraying, and compel him to stop, as well as to get medical help with figuring out what was poisoning them. At most every turn, Ms. Cortesi says, their attempts have been met with anemic action, some level of indifference, and subtle implications that they are somehow “crazy.”

The family does not dare sell its eggs as “organic” after the hens’ exposure to the pesticides. Their health continues to be affected by this neighbor’s pesticide use, so they have decided they must move. Sunday’s vote on whether to ban synthetic pesticides, even if successful, will not be a remedy for this family. Out of their own experience, and with the hope that it might inform people prior to the June 13 vote, the couple has made a video describing what they have endured. Beyond Pesticides hopes that the two pesticide initiatives are approved in the June 13 vote so that, in time, experiences like this will become, at worst, exceedingly rare.

Beyond Pesticides reminds readers that the best ways to avoid harmful pesticides are to purchase organic food, support organic practices in landscapes and agriculture, and help educate local communities about the dangers of pesticides and the potential for organic systems. Please contact us for guidance on how to advocate for a pesticide-free world.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/china/swiss-vote-become-first-european-nation-ban-synthetic-pesticides-2021-06-07/

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

(Beyond Pesticides, June 10, 2021) Exposure to toxic chemicals decreases egg count and increases infertility risk among women, according to a study published in Environment International. Since 2014, U.S. fertility rates have been decreasing, with many attributing the decline to older age pregnancies. However, several findings demonstrate that exposure to environmental pollutants, like persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from the industrial and agriculture industry, contributes to a decline in fertility rates. Scientists and health officials already associate exposure to POPs, like pesticides, with adverse impacts on male fertility, including reduced sperm count, quality, and abnormal sperm development. Therefore, it is essential to understand how exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment affects reproductive success, especially among women who can transfer contaminants to the fetus via the umbilical cord. The researchers note that these findings should urge government and health officials to reexamine chemical safety concerning reproductive health, and “strongly encourage [them] to study mechanisms behind POP-associated infertility in women in more detail.”

Researchers examined ovarian egg reserve size in pregnant women directly by examining the density of follicles and immature eggs in ovarian tissue and indirectly via serum anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH). Using AMH serum samples, researchers assessed concentration levels of 31 POPs: nine organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), ten polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), three polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), and nine perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

The study results find women of all reproductive ages with higher levels of POPs in serum samples also have fewer immature eggs remaining in the ovaries. At least 14 mixtures of POPs are present in all women in the study. Mixtures of lipophilic or fat-loving POPs, including PCBs, PBDEs (flame retardants), and p,p’-DDE (DDT breakdown product), significantly reduce ovarian follicle numbers. Additionally, exposure to OCPs, like trans-nonachlor (an ingredient in chlordane) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB), also affect healthy ovarian follicle concentrations. Lastly, researchers found that HCB, p,p’-DDE and various OCP mixtures increase infertility risk, including longer time-to-pregnancy (TTP) and earlier reproductive dysfunction.

The 2001 Stockholm Convention treaty bans persistent organic pollutants (POPs), like well-known organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). POPs are primary pollutants of concern (UNEP, 2009), as their persistence and toxicity adversely affect environmental and biological health. These pollutants have a global distribution, with evaporation and precipitation facilitating long-range atmospheric transport, deposition, and bioaccumulation of hazardous chemicals in the environment. The U.S. was a signatory to the treaty, but U.S. Senate never ratified it, relegating U.S. officials to observer status. While various POPs on the Stockholm Convention annex lists (i.e., organochlorine compounds) are no longer manufactured or utilized, 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. Furthermore, some OCPs like lindane, although banned, remain active as pharmaceutical treatments for lice and scabies. Therefore, individuals can still encounter various POPs at varying concentrations.

The ubiquity of pesticides in the environment and food supply is concerning as current measures safeguarding against pesticide use and exposure do not adequately detect and assess total environmental chemical contaminants. For instance, 90 percent of Americans having at least one pesticide biomarker (includes parent compound and breakdown products) in their body. Additionally, pregnant women already have over 100 chemicals detectable in blood and umbilical cord samples, including banned POPs. However, 89 percent of these chemical contaminants are from unidentified sources, lack adequate information, or were not previously detectable in humans. The presence of pesticides in the body has implications for human health, especially during vulnerable life stages like childhood, puberty, pregnancy, and old age. The scientific literature demonstrates pesticides’ long history of severe adverse human health effects (i.e., endocrine disruption, cancer, reproductive/birth problems, neurotoxicity, loss of biodiversity, etc.) and effects on wildlife and biodiversity. Most concerning is exposure to both POPs and current-use pesticides, as these chemicals display endocrine-disrupting effects. Endocrine disruption can lead to several health problems, including hormone-related cancer development (i.e., thyroid, breast, ovarian, prostate, testicular), reproductive dysfunction, and diabetes/obesity.

This study highlights concerns over prenatal exposure to chemicals from consumer and industrial products and sources. There is a growing consensus that exposure to environmental toxicants before pregnancy can impair fertility, pregnancy, and fetal development. These adverse effects can continue into childhood and adulthood and may have multigenerational consequences. Therefore, researchers stress that future studies must evaluate chemical exposure and fertility among non-pregnant women or women experiencing fertility issues. Although the women in this study are fertile enough to conceive, this may differ for the general population or in regions of high chemical exposure. Moreover, researchers advocate for enhanced chemical residue regulations for contaminated food. Numerous studies, including this one, indicate chemical exposure mainly stems from dietary exposure, like food and drinking water. Considering rates of preterm births, miscarriages/stillbirths, and birth malformations are increasing, it is necessary to assess the impact that chemical exposure has on fertility to safeguard future generations’ health.

Doctors and pediatricians strongly agree that pregnant mothers should avoid pesticide exposure during critical development periods. Wildlife, laboratory, and epidemiologic studies show exposure to low-level environmental contaminants, such as pesticides and other chemicals, subtly undermines the ability to reproduce. Furthermore, studies regarding endocrine disruption reveal mechanisms that show how specific chemical toxicants can alter fertility. Therefore, advocates urge that policies stengthen 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 away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the multiple harms of pesticide exposure, see PIDD pages on Sexual and Reproductive Dysfunction, Birth/Fetal Effects, Endocrine Disruption, Cancer, Body Burdens, and other diseases.

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

Collaborate with Beyond Pesticides to educate and build the movement that will bring long-needed protection to humans, animals, and the entire environment by attending the National Pesticide Forum on June 15. Cultivating Healthy Communities brings together expert scientists, farmers, policymakers, and activists to discuss strategies to eliminate harms from toxic chemical use in favor of non-toxic organic solutions. The conference began with a pre-conference on May 24, launched on May 25, and continues every Tuesday until June 15, 2021. Registration is open today and available through the webpage on this link. It starts with us. With registration, you will be able to view talks from the entire conference.

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

Source: Environment International, The Conversation

(Beyond Pesticides, June 9, 2021) Earlier this week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia blocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from approving use of the hazardous insecticide aldicarb on citrus crops in Florida. The decision comes shortly after Nikki Fried, Florida’s Agriculture Commissioner, denied a state-level registration for aldicarb, which was cancelled in the United States over a decade ago due to risks to children and water contamination. Health, conservation, and farmworker advocates that brought the suit are praising the court’s decision.

“We applaud this decision by the court whose ruling confirms what we already knew — that there is no place for a toxic pesticide like aldicarb to be used on crops in Florida where our workers and our water would be at grave risk,” said Jeannie Economos, coordinator of the Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project at Farmworker Association of Florida in a press release. “Farmworkers can breathe a bit easier knowing that this neurotoxin will not be used on the citrus crops they harvest. We are grateful to Florida commissioner of agriculture Nikki Fried for refusing to allow this toxin to poison our communities, our food and our environment. This decision sends a message to EPA — protecting people and the environment must be their top priority.”

Shortly before the end of the last administration, former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler provided one last handout to the agrichemical industry by approving aldicarb for use on Florida’s citrus groves. The move came after a meeting between Mr. Wheeler, regional EPA staff, and the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association in October 2020, where the industry group urged EPA to reregister the banned chemical. Although the chemical was approved quickly, advocacy groups responded in kind by placing pressure on EPA, and filing a legal challenge to the decision.

By April, Commissioner Fried had heard from both sides, and the Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services rejected state-level approval of the hazardous insecticide. “While there are promising new horizons for fighting citrus greening, like recent breakthroughs at UF/IFAS on genetic resistance, aldicarb poses an unacceptable risk to human, animal, and environmental health in Florida, is one of the world’s most toxic pesticides, and is banned in more than 100 countries,” said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. “The registrant’s application does not meet the requirements of state law, and we must therefore deny the registration of aldicarb for use in the State of Florida.”

In rejecting EPA’s approval of aldicarb, the court cited the state’s denial, and found that EPA did not comply with Endangered Species Act requirements prior to registration. “We’re thrilled the court has rejected use of one of the most dangerous pesticides in history on Florida oranges and grapefruit,” said Nathan Donley, PhD, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This important decision is a sharp rebuke of the EPA’s pesticide office, which even under the Biden administration chose to dismiss science and the law to protect profits at the expense of farmworkers, children and endangered species.”

While the Biden administration has made important, hopeful statements about certain pesticides and taken some minor steps towards improving protections, it has continued to defend heinous decisions by the previous administration, like the allowance of aldicarb and reregistration of the bee-toxic insecticide sulfoxaflor, in the courts. It is becoming increasingly evident that it will take persistent public pressure to move the Biden EPA to make decisions that are in the interest of public health and the environment.

Aldicarb should never have been considered for use on citrus crops, and should be completely eliminated from use in the United States and around the world. The chemical is banned in over 100 countries under the international Rotterdam Convention, which the U.S. has signed but not ratified.

Aldicarb is a poster child for why pesticide product stewardship is an oxymoron, say advocates. Its downstream effects result in the poisoning of farmworkers, contamination of drinking water, and residues on food can put children at increased risk of serious health problems. EPA findings at the time of aldicarb’s 2010 cancellation showed that use on citrus crops represented the highest risks to children. Upstream effects of aldicarb are also devastating. It is primary feedstock, methyl isocyanate, is the same chemical that caused the Bhopal, India disaster, one of the worst environmental crimes in history where over 25,000 men, women, and children died or were permanently disabled after a leak occurred at a plant owned by Union Carbide (a company later purchased by DowDuPont/Corteva). Every step of aldicarb’s supply chain leaves a trail of pain and suffering for those involved, while industry executives removed from the day to day of the chemical’s use continue to profit.

Despite the federal court’s decision, it is possible EPA may appeal or take further administrative action in favor of industry, as was done after dicamba’s registration was vacated by the courts. New staff at EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention have acknowledged political interference in that decision and committed to scientific integrity moving forward. Aldicarb should be a simple test for such an approach, advocates note. Join us in telling EPA to reverse its approval of highly toxic aldicarb now.

And for more information on the hazards of pesticides and their alternatives, and to hear from experts working on cutting edge legal, advocacy, and scientific approaches, sign up for Beyond Pesticides first ever virtual National Pesticide Forum. June 15 is the last week of the forum, but signing up will also get you access to the full range of speakers and presentations!

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

Source: Center for Biological Diversity

(Beyond Pesticides, June 8, 2021) Biosolid-based fertilizer products like Milorganite, often sold to consumers as “organic,” are contaminated with dangerous PFAS chemicals, according to a study published by Sierra Club and Ecology Center. Biosolids, also known as sewage sludge, have been found in the past to contain residues of hazardous pesticides, heavy metals, antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and a range of other toxicants. While the latest news may not be surprising for careful shoppers who have long avoided biosolid fertilizers, none of these risks are 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.

Sierra Club and Ecology Center looked at nine fertilizer products, each produced from the sewage sludge of a particular American city. For instance, Milorganite, perhaps the most well-known biosolid sludge fertilizer, is derived from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin sewage treatment system. Other products were derived from locations including Sacramento, CA (Synagro); Tacoma, WA (TAGRO); Madison, GA (Pro Care); Las Vegas, NV (Ecoscraps); Eau Claire, WI (Menards Premium Natural Fertilizer); Jacksonville, FL (Greenedge); North Andover, MA (Earthlife); and Washington, DC (Cured Bloom).

As the report notes, many of these products advertise themselves as “organic,” “natural,” or “eco-friendly.” But with these products, “organic” does not mean the same as certified organic products, which prohibit the use of fertilizers containing biosolids. The source of this discrepancy lies with the Association of American Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO). Fertilizer labeling is currently enacted on a state-by-state basis, and most states follow AAPFCO’s model language. The group defines organic fertilizer as a material containing carbon and one or more elements other than hydrogen and oxygen essential for plant growth. This definition permits fertilizers to be labeled as “organic” even if they do not comply with the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) standards to produce organic food.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in charge of regulating sewage sludge, its oversight does not extend beyond pathogens and heavy metals. This leaves a wide range of contaminants that can make their way into lawns and gardens that unsuspecting consumers may think they’ve kept organically managed. As the report finds, PFAS chemicals are a glaring omission by EPA.

PFAS – poly and per fluroalkyl substances – is a moniker representing a wide range of fluorinated synthetic chemicals. These chemicals have been linked to cancer, liver damage, birth and developmental problems, reduced fertility, asthma and a range of increasingly common health conditions. Of utmost concern is that PFAS are considered “forever chemicals,” as there is little indication that these substances break down into a state in the environment in which they do not remain toxicologically active. While there is growing recognition from the Biden Administration that action must be taken on PFAS, the range of new products and places in which the substances are being found highlights the extent of the challenge, and regulators’ collective mistake in allowing these substances to remain on the market in the first place.  

Sierra Club and Ecology Center found PFAS in every biosolid fertilizer tested. In fact, each product was contaminated with 14 to 20 different PFAS chemicals, out of 33 that were tested for (and there are over 4,700 different PFAS that have been manufactured, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)). Results reveal even higher levels of precursor chemicals to PFAS production, and up to 6,000 times greater amounts of unknown fluorinated chemicals in the tested products. The highest amount of PFAS was found in Cured Bloom Soil Conditioner, produced from Washington, DC’s sewage treatment process. The report notes that a school  in the District is using one of the tested biosolid products in its school garden.

While EPA Administrator Michael Regan has begun to look at PFAS in wastewater, and is gathering data from other industries, states are out front in regulating these chemicals. Maine has begun to regulate PFAS contamination in biosolids after discovering PFAS chemicals in its milk supply. Michigan recently crafted regulations around PFAS in biosolids, and Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont are in the process of establishing oversight.

One source of PFAS in wastewater and the environment likely stems from the application of toxic pesticides. Increasing evidence is revealing widespread contamination of pesticide products with PFAS chemicals, after testing was first conducted by researchers at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Consumers wishing to avoid the use of dried sewage sludge on their home yard and garden are encouraged to read the fertilizer label carefully. To assist, Beyond Pesticides created a resource of Fertilizers Compatible with Organic Landscape Management. The resource focuses on companies that produce consumer use fertilizers that bear the certified organic label, which never allows the inclusion of biosolid sewage sludge.

Fight back against sewage sludge on your food and in your agricultural community by urging local leaders to prohibit the use of these products on farm fields. Communities across the U.S. have begun to take on this fight. Advocates in Luther, OK, hope that their victory banning the use of biosolid applications in their small town will translate to bigger changes in more farming communities throughout the country.

Additional information on the dangers of biosolids can be found on the report “Biosolids or Biohazards.” And for more information on the developing story around PFAS contamination in pesticide products, attend Beyond Pesticides National Pesticide Forum Workshop on Cutting-edge Science: Environmental Contaminants, featuring Kyla Bennet, PhD, of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Day 3 (June 8, 2021) of the first ever virtual Forum starts today at 1pm: it’s not too late to register to reserve a spot!

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

Source: Sierra Club and Ecology Center Report

(Beyond Pesticides, June 7, 2021) Beyond Pesticides and Friends of the Earth (FOE) collaborated to analyze herbicide products at two of the most popular home and garden retailers, Home Depot and Lowe’s. This new Commercial Herbicide Analysis highlights the adverse health and environmental effects of widely available toxic pesticides while encouraging retailers to expand on—and consumers to use—safer, least/nontoxic pesticide approaches.

Tell Home Depot and Lowe’s to remove toxic herbicides from their shelves and replace them with products that promote least-toxic practices.

According to Akayla Bracey, Beyond Pesticides’ science and regulatory manager and lead researcher on the review, “People generally aren’t aware that the pesticides widely available in garden retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s are a threat to health and the environment, and that there are safer approaches that are available and used in organic land management.” 

When it comes to weeds, gardeners need good tools that enable them to control them with minimal effort and damage to their plants. Although gardeners differ in their preference for style of garden hoe, all must be sharp to operate efficiently, so files for sharpening should be located near the hoes, and customer service representatives should be prepared to demonstrate their use. 

Weed-free and chemical-free organic mulches—such as straw or wood chips—are garden essentials for both weed control and long-term organic fertility. Speaking of fertility, natural fertility builds healthy soil for growing strong plants that resist insect and disease damage, while synthetic fertilizers kill valuable soil organisms. Stores should stock fertility products approved for use in organic production.

Friends of the Earth composed a comprehensive list of products sold by Home Depot and Lowe’s by browsing online and local stores. Furthermore, the organization allowed each retailer to review and edit the list. Beyond Pesticides evaluated active ingredients in all products and performed a toxicity analysis using available epidemiological and laboratory and studies.

The analysis, conducted by Beyond Pesticides, reveals that approximately half of all Home Depot herbicide products (24 of 51) and Lowe’s herbicide products (23 of 40) contain ingredients considered Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HPPs). The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) classifies HHPs as “pesticides linked with a high incidence of severe or irreversible adverse effects on human health or the environment.” The following active ingredients pose the most harm to human, animal, and ecosystem health, including cancer, reproductive harm, neurotoxicity, and hormone (endocrine) disruption: glyphosate, 2,4-D, dicamba, mecoprop, and pendimethalin. Of these five chemicals, all but dicamba are classifiable as HHPs. Only 29 percent of Home Depot (15 of 51) and 17 percent of Lowe’s (7 of 40) herbicide products qualify as least-toxic or organic.

View the analysis, and for more information, see Beyond Pesticides Lawns and Landscapes webpage and Products Compatible with Organic Landscape Management.

Tell Home Depot and Lowe’s to remove toxic herbicides from their shelves and replace them with products that promote least-toxic practices. 

P.S. Learn more about encouraging organic land care practices in your community by tuning in to Day 3 of the virtual National Pesticide Forum on June 8. REGISTER NOW. 

Letter to Home Depot and Lowe’s

A recent report by Beyond Pesticides and Friends of the Earth showed that about half (23 of 40) of the herbicide products stocked by your stores contain ingredients considered Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HPPs). The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) classifies HHPs as “pesticides linked with a high incidence of severe or irreversible adverse effects on human health or the environment.” The following active ingredients pose the most harm to human, animal, and ecosystem health, including cancer, reproductive harm, neurotoxicity, and hormone (endocrine) disruption: glyphosate, 2,4-D, dicamba, mecoprop, and pendimethalin. Of these five chemicals, all but dicamba are classifiable as HHPs. Only 17 percent of Lowe’s (7 of 40) herbicide products qualify as least-toxic or organic.

Many customers are unaware of what chemicals are in the products they use, let alone their chemical effects. When it comes to weeds, your customers need good tools that enable them to control them with minimal effort and damage to their plants. Although gardeners differ in their preference for style of garden hoe, all must be sharp to operate efficiently, so files for sharpening should be located near the hoes, and customer service representatives should be prepared to demonstrate their use.

Weed-free and chemical-free organic mulches—such as straw or wood chips—are garden essentials for both weed control and long-term organic fertility. Speaking of fertility, natural fertility builds healthy soil for growing strong plants that resist insect and disease damage, while synthetic fertilizers kill valuable soil organisms. Please stock fertility products approved for use in organic production.

Please replace the highly hazardous pesticide products in your stores with products (bp-dc.org/WSHS-brochure) to help customers grow organically—high quality tools, organic materials, and least-toxic pesticides (bp-dc.org/organic-compatible) approved for use in organic production.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, June 4, 2021) The release of the most recent U.S. Geological Services (USGS) study of pesticide contamination of rivers on the U.S. mainland finds that degradation of those rivers from pesticide pollution continues unabated. USGS scientists looked at data from 2013 to 2017 (inclusive) from rivers across the country and offered these top-level conclusions: “(1) pesticides persist in environments beyond the site of application and expected period of use, and (2) the potential toxicity of pesticides to aquatic life is pervasive in surface waters.” Beyond Pesticides maintains that ultimately, water quality and aquatic organisms and their ecosystems will be fully protected from pesticides through a wholesale movement to organic land management practices.

USGS undertakes periodic assessments of the presence and toxicity of pesticides in the country’s surface waters under the agency’s National Water-Quality Assessment Program. Recent news from these studies has not been good. In September 2020, Beyond Pesticides reported on another, related USGS survey, which found that nearly 90% of U.S. rivers and streams are contaminated with mixtures of at least five or more different pesticides. A March 2021 Beyond Pesticides Daily News article noted that USGS research demonstrated that, of 422 water samples taken from streams across the U.S. over a five-year period, 95% showed contamination by at least one pesticide.

As the number of pesticides in waterways increases, it has detrimental impacts on aquatic ecosystem health, especially as some pesticides have synergistic impacts in combination, amplifying negative effects. In addition, many aquatic organisms, such as algae and fish, are threatened even at low levels of pesticide exposure. For details on such impacts, see the “Summary of Findings” in Beyond Pesticides’ paper, Poisoned Waterways. it also writes about the multiple issues related to pesticides and water quality; the under-examined impacts of pesticide breakdown products in waterways; and the serious concerns about pesticides in surface waters used as sources of public drinking water.

The researchers’ goals for this current study were: (1) to offer national and regional estimates of (a) pesticide-use data, (b) detection frequency of 221 pesticide compounds, and (c) potential toxicity of these pesticides to aquatic biota and human health; and (2) to investigate impacts of human activity on surface water quality by examining the relationship between agricultural pesticides use and surface water concentrations. If there were a single, net takeaway from this study, it might be this: detected pesticide levels across all the sampled sites and compounds correlate highly with intensity of pesticide usage in the basin/watershed of the sampled surface river waters. The add-on to that is that the chronic exceedances of benchmark levels (thresholds above which negative outcomes are expected) for particular pesticides, and the extent of pesticide contamination of surface waters, are alarming.

Published in mid-April 2021 in Science of the Total Environment, the study quantified concentrations of 221 compounds — 57 herbicides, 38 insecticides, 11 fungicide parent compounds, and 115 pesticide degradates (breakdown products). Herbicides constitute 88% of the total pesticide use represented in the sampling. The researchers assess potential toxicity of the various compounds by comparing the pesticide concentrations in river (surface water) samples to standard concentrations (benchmarks) considered to affect human health or aquatic organisms negatively.

As the paper notes, “Benchmarks are a critical element of all ecological assessments, and USEPA and USGS have assembled rigorous set of benchmarks for an analysis of pesticide risk to human health and aquatic life. However, the benchmarks based on toxicity tests conducted in the laboratory may not fully reflect the risk to field populations.” For the study’s purposes, a collection site was understood to have a “benchmark exceedance” for a given pesticide within a given water year when the 60-day moving average concentration was greater than the method detection level for that pesticide and greater than the benchmark concentration.

The study sampled water (via 12–24 samples annually) from 74 river sites across the five regions it identified: the Northeast, South, Midwest, West, and Pacific (see map below). (Collection of samples was more frequent from April through September — periods of high pesticide use and runoff.) The study uses this regionalization of data because much pesticide contamination of surface waters happens via agricultural activity, which varies widely across the mainland. Given that, the scientists reasonably expected that differences in crop production would cause variability in pesticide use, detection frequency, and benchmark exceedance patterns. The regionalization of the data enables the scientists to assess whether water quality issues related to pesticides are pervasive or isolated to a particular region.

Most collection sites have drainage areas so large that their water quality reflects mixed sources of pesticides from multiple land-use categories. No one site reflects only an agricultural, or a developed, land use. However, a dominant use category, capturing the prevailing use in each watershed, is defined for each collection site. Thirty-two are deemed agricultural, 13 are urban, and the 27 other sites reflect mixed use.

The researchers also note that the contributions of urban/developed areas to the presence of pesticides in river surface water is tricky to sort out. Although urban landscape pesticide “contributions” are relatively small compared with those from dominantly agricultural areas, the researchers posit that for insecticides, the contributions may be more significant. They write: “Unlike agricultural use, for which we have a reasonable estimate, the amount of a pesticide applied in an urban setting is not possible to estimate, as few records of use in this setting are available. . . . Elevated surface water concentrations, particularly of insecticides like fipronil, diazinon, and carbaryl, have been documented in rivers draining [urban] watersheds.” 

The paper highlights additional findings. At least one pesticide is detected at 71 of the 74 sampling sites; an average of 17 discrete pesticides are found at each site; and 75% of the detected pesticides have not been measured in previous USGS national-scale assessments. Herbicide and fungicide use intensity is significantly higher in the Midwest than in the other regions, and intensity of use is significantly greater in the South, Midwest, and Pacific regions than in the Northeast and West. Although agricultural pesticide use is at least 2.5 times greater in the Midwest than in any other region, and the number of pesticides detected in Midwest samples is 1.5 times greater, potential toxicity results are distributed more evenly across regions.

The highest rate of detection frequencies (DFs) for the most-detected herbicides (atrazine, metolachlor, and 2,4-D) occurs in the South and Midwest, with 2,4-D appearing for the first time in a USGS national-scale assessment. (Several other compounds also appear for the first time in USGS research, underscoring the co-authors’ point that periodic updates to the list of pesticides included in assessments are critical.) DFs for insecticides and fungicides are, across the board, much lower than those for herbicides. Noteworthy is the fact that the insecticides found most frequently in this study’s sampling — acephate, imidacloprid, and carbaryl — are currently banned in Europe.

The study deals with two categories of benchmarks — aquatic life benchmarks (ALBs) and human health benchmarks (HHBs) — though within those exist subset benchmarks (e.g., fish benchmarks or invertebrate benchmarks). At least half of the sample sites within each of the regions have at least one chronic benchmark exceedance, with imidacloprid representing the gravest potential threat to aquatic life: it totals 245 ALB exceedances (out of a maximum of 370) at 60 of the 74 sites. The study data show that imidacloprid, metolachlor, and atrazine clock by far the highest number of benchmark exceedances over the data years.

The researchers write, “These results show that pesticides persist in the environment beyond the site of application and expected period of use. . . . [and] illustrate the value of multi-year, national-scale monitoring of pesticides in surface waters, as we were able to capture this chronic and widespread pesticide threat through a range of concentrations from multiple sites and years.”

Between 80% and 100% of sampling sites in the Northeast, Midwest, and South have at least one site with a pesticide exceeding a chronic invertebrate benchmark; for the West and Pacific regions, that metric is lower (50% and 67%, respectively). Researchers found two herbicides, atrazine and metolachlor, present in concentrations high enough to exceed chronic fish benchmarks; metolachlor also exceeds chronic benchmarks for invertebrates. Herbicides with plentiful (12 to 33) benchmark exceedances, including acetochlor, atrazine, and metolachlor, are heavily used and consistently detected at elevated concentrations. These herbicides also exceed benchmarks across a range of taxa, including plants, fish, and invertebrates.

The co-authors write: “The high number of chronic benchmark exceedances indicated that the threat of pesticides to aquatic life across the [mainland U.S.] can be persistent. Even with limited sampling, our benchmark exceedance analysis indicated that transient high pesticide concentrations can result in the exposure of aquatic organisms to acutely toxic conditions across all regions of the [conterminous U.S.].”

These documented threats to aquatic organisms and ecosystems, and to human health — particularly given the persistence of pesticide compounds in surface waters — should be of concern to all. Transitioning to organic land management practices, especially in agriculture, but in all turf and landscape management, is the path toward a nontoxic future and healthy, optimally functioning ecosystems of all kinds.

Read our factsheet, Organic Land Management and the Protection of Water Quality, or download the shorter brochure version for more on how organic practices can protect water quality. To learn more about pesticides and water quality, see the Beyond Pesticides website page, Threatened Waters: Turning the Tide on Pesticide Contamination. For closer-to-home concerns, see Pesticides in My Drinking Water? Individual Precautionary Measures and Community Action.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721022178

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

(Beyond Pesticides, June 3, 2021) A report published in Royal Society Open Science finds pesticide-resistant parasitic lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) are endangering wild and farmed fish populations in the North Atlantic. Extensive use of pesticides to rid the parasite has led to widespread resistance to multiple pesticides, prompting increasing infection rates among North Atlantic salmon populations. Overexploitation of wild fish and other ocean organisms has depleted seafood stocks globally. Some fisheries market aquaculture practices, like fish/seafood farming, as a solution to overfishing. However, the aquaculture industry repeatedly faces sustainability issues and fails to adhere to environmental regulations that threaten marine health.

The oceans are essential to human health and well-being, feeding billions, supporting millions of jobs, and supplying medicinal materials. However, environmental contaminants like pesticides have profound impact on the ecosystem and the inhabitants. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how pesticides can influence resistance among lethal pest populations, especially in ecologically vulnerable and highly interconnected ecosystems like ocean basins. The authors of the report caution, “These results demonstrate the speed to which this parasite can develop widespread multi-resistance, illustrating why the aquaculture industry has repeatedly lost the arms race with this highly problematic parasite.”

Over the past two decades, organophosphate and pyrethroid insecticides have been the two main chemical classes used to control parasitic salmon lice. However, laboratory studies find increasing resistance among salmon lice to these chemicals, in addition to multi-resistance after in vitro crossbreeding. Since laboratory studies identify that multi-resistance to both chemical classes can occur via crossbreeding, researchers suggest this same resistance transpires in the field. Therefore, this study aims to address multi-resistance in salmon lice populations resulting from reduced sensitivity to multiple chemical compounds in the North Atlantic region.

From 2000 to 2017, researchers sampled 1,988 lice from North-Eastern wild Atlantic salmonid (salmon, sea trout, and farmed salmon) populations. Researchers analyzed parasites for genetic markers for both pyrethroid and organophosphate resistance.

The study results find genetic resistance among salmon lice has a spatiotemporal (location and time) evolutionary pattern. This pattern means that lice demonstrate simultaneous resistance to organophosphate and pyrethroid insecticides across the entire North Atlantic, except Canada. Over 50 percent of lice populations around fish-farming operations are resistant to both insecticide classes. Some sample areas contain lice populations that are all resistant to at least one pesticide. Researchers infer aquaculture intensive regions, using an extensive amount of chemicals for delousing, leads to pesticide multi-resistance among salmon lice populations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines aquaculture as any “farming of aquatic organisms, including baitfish, crustaceans, food fish, mollusks, ornamental fish, sport or game fish, and other aquaculture products.” Farmed fish, like Atlantic salmon, in this case, use one of the most high-risk aquaculture practices, open-net pens in coastal and offshore regions. These pens allow easy exchange of waste (i.e., feces), chemicals (i.e., pesticides and pharmaceuticals), parasites/diseases (i.e., sea lice) between farm and surrounding ocean environment. The discharge of waste, chemicals, and parasites/diseases can have a disastrous impact on marine organisms and plants, disrupting ecosystem services. Many of these pens are in relatively remote areas, somewhat “hidden” from public scrutiny. However, these fish live in very crowded conditions, unlike wild-caught fish. The fish consume food that may contain various pharmaceuticals or insecticides to control diseases and pest infestations that frequently occur in these conditions. Furthermore, the farm pens can attract predators, such as marine mammals, that can tangle and drown in fish farm nets.

This study is one of the first to demonstrate spatiotemporal resistance to multiple chemical pesticides among salmon lice under real-world conditions. According to the results, specific sampling years in combination with geography highlight how resistance spreads. Under normal conditions, lice populations decline in the winter with a shift in salmonid population dispersal. However, the crammed, over-treated nature of farm fishing creates an environment for these parasites to persist through regular winter die-offs. Resistant lice appear in farm pens a few years post-treatment and leak via current through the barrier, due to their small size. All oceans connect to one another, cycling nutrients, chemicals, and organisms throughout the world. Hence, pesticide-resistant lice can potentially spread their resistance gene across the entire ocean basin. These mutant parasites have already made their way from Scandinavia to Greenland and Iceland, where farmers never used chemical pesticides.

There are similar reports about the adverse effects of farmed fish on Scotland’s west coast and Northern Isles. The use of antibiotics and pesticides on local marine ecosystems (i.e., insecticides to control sea lice in farmed salmon) results in coastal habitat loss and genetic and health risks to wild marine populations. Marine species biodiversity is already rapidly declining due to overfishing, global warming, pathogens, and pollution. This biodiversity loss may result in changes in marine and terrestrial ecosystem function and reduce ecosystem services.

Salmon lice are the greatest challenge to aquaculture production and environmentally sustainable aquaculture. These parasites attach to the fish’s skin and feed on their blood and mucus, creating sores that lead to infection or death. Thus, investigating the ubiquity and distribution of pesticide multi-resistance among sea lice populations in the North Atlantic is critical. Pesticides are pervasive in all water ecosystems—from rivers, lakes, and oceans to glaciers in the Arctic. Therefore, it is essential to understand how parasites may develop resistance to pesticides used to control populations to safeguard human, animal, and environmental health.

Advocates say that the federal government should require safeguards in aquaculture industry practices to avoid harmful impacts on wild marine organisms, water resources, and aquatic habitats. A sustainable aquaculture industry, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, would require robust and timely production data, prohibit the discharge of wastes over certain environmentally determined levels, and specify appropriate siting locations for such operations. Instead, federal policy has opted, as the Center for American Progress says, to “focus on weakening successful fisheries management measures and selling off federal waters to big corporations with few safeguards.”

Regulation and elimination of pesticides, not only in aquaculture but in agriculture and other areas of use, can reduce the propagation of harmful effects on the wildlife, ecosystem, and health. Furthermore, melting glaciers associated with the climate crisis elevates new concern over the high levels of chemical concentrations in the oceans from pesticides trapped in ice. Toxic pesticide use must end to protect the nation’s and world’s waterways and reduce the number of pesticides and resistant parasites found in our food, water, and wildlife resources. Learn more about pesticide’s hazards to wildlife and what you can do through Beyond Pesticides’ wildlife program page.

There are many resources individuals can use to help gain knowledge and apply practices to avoid pesticide use and its adverse effects. These include news stories, local organizations, school pesticide policies, regulatory contacts, and least-toxic pest control operators. Organic practices can successfully eliminate toxic pesticide use. Replacing pesticides with organic, nontoxic alternatives is crucial for safeguarding public health and ecosystems from pesticide toxicity. Buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment and from your diet. For more information on why organic is the right choice for both consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Help Beyond Pesticides educate and build the movement that will bring long-needed protection to humans, animals, and the entire environment by attending the National Pesticide Forum on June 8 and 15. Cultivating Healthy Communities brings together expert scientists, farmers, policymakers, and activists to discuss strategies to eliminate harms from toxic chemical use in favor of nontoxic organic solutions. The conference began with a pre-conference on May 24, launched on May 25, and continues every Tuesday until June 15, 2021. Registration is open today and available through the webpage on this link. It starts with us. Upon registration, you will be able to view talks from the entire conference.

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

Source: Royal Society Open Science, New Scientist

(Beyond Pesticides, June 2, 2021) U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria last week rejected a proposal from multinational agrichemical company Bayer (Monsanto) to settle future court claims around the company’s flagship Roundup/glyphosate herbicide. In making his decision, Judge Chhabria asserted that the corporation’s proposal was inadequate for future victims diagnosed with cancer after using the herbicide. The decision has Bayer scrambling for a way out, and it indicated in a “Five Point Plan” released after the ruling that it will, “discuss the future of glyphosate-based products in the U.S. residential market.”

Bayer’s rejected proposal would have established a $2 billion fund, split between future claimants (who would receive between $5,000 and $200,000), and the cost to cover cancer monitoring, lawyers’ fees, and an advisory panel to review claims. Bayer has agreed to a separate $9.6 billion agreement to settle existing lawsuits, having lost several rounds of litigation where juries found in favor of plaintiffs who claimed that their use of Roundup resulted in their development of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Recently, in mid-May, Bayer lost an appeal of the Hardeman vs. Monsanto case, as a three judge panel upheld a $25 million award.

Prior to rejecting the proposal on future claimants, the judge questioned why Monsanto (which Bayer purchased for $63 billion in 2018) never added a warning label to its Roundup products. “For years I’ve been wondering why Monsanto wouldn’t do that voluntarily to protect itself,” said Judge Chhabria of the label, according to Reuters. The judge was particularly concerned about individuals who are currently healthy, but likely to be diagnosed with cancer after using Roundup in the future. He noted that current healthy users may not adequately review or understand the proposal provided to them. Judge Chhabria expressed concern that Bayer could bring the case to the U.S. Supreme Court and receive a favorable ruling that the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the nation’s pesticide law, prohibits lawsuits claiming a corporation did not adequately warn consumers about health dangers.  

Ultimately, Judge Chhabria determined that Bayer’s proposal had “glaring flaws” that would not benefit future victims. “If a settlement that reasonably protects the interests of Roundup users who have not been diagnosed with NHL (non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) can be reached, that agreement must be presented on a new motion for preliminary approval,” said Judge Chhabria, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. “The attorneys pushing this deal repeatedly intone that it will be difficult for Roundup users who are diagnosed with NHL in the future to get a trial, given the limited capacity of courts and given that many plaintiffs will be ‘in line’ ahead of them,” he continued.

Bayer’s response and five point plan indicates the company will create a new website on safety issues associated with Roundup that is likely to be, for all intents and purposes, corporate propaganda. It will ask EPA to approve a corresponding label that links to this website. The company will also establish an “independent” science advisory panel that is part of Bayer’s attempt to “explore alternative solutions aimed at addressing potential future Roundup claims.” Those on the panel will also publish information to Bayer’s new website, the company says, but advocates question as being biased information.

The company will also “regularly reassess” whether its current approach to settling claims is able to “serve the company’s best interest.” Bayer indicates it has addressed nearly 96,000 total claims to date, out of 125,000 existing. And as Judge Chhabria alluded to, Bayer is banking on the Supreme court to “significantly reduce future liability risk” as it expects a favorable decision from the court in 2022 that would preempt state-based failure to warn claims that the company alleges are in conflict with federal law.

However, the largest potential change announced from company headquarters concerns consumer use Roundup products. After noting that it will not affect “professional or agricultural users,” the company appears to be reconsidering sales to residential landscape users of Roundup, “as the overwhelming majority of claimants in the Roundup™ litigation allege that they used Roundup™ Lawn and Garden products,” the company wrote.

Eliminating Roundup from store shelves is a move that regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should have taken long ago, according to advocates. It is unacceptable for regulators to sit by while tens of thousands of Americans develop cancer, and then leave the problem for the courts to work out, says advocates.

Evidence is mounting that cancer is not the only concern when it comes to glyphosate exposure. A growing body of research finds that urinary concentrations of glyphosate in pregnant mothers corresponds with adverse birth outcomes. Mothers with higher rates of glyphosate in their urine later in their pregnancy were more likely to experience preterm birth. And with this effect, glyphosate exposure beyond residential use is implicated, as one of the primary routes for pesticides in one’s urine is through food.

While Bayer hopes for a Hail Mary from the U.S. Supreme Court to cover its ill-fated gamble on Monsanto’s hazardous herbicide, local advocates are encouraged to continue the fight in their communities, in the marketplace, and with their elected officials. Work to eliminate pesticide use where you live, but don’t stop at Roundup- more toxic products are waiting in the wing to replace it if there isn’t an organic land care plan in place to stop toxic pesticide use all together. For more information on the benefits of alternative land care and how you can enact change in your community, see Beyond Pesticides Non-toxic Lawns and Landscapes Tools for Change webpage.

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

Source: Reuters, Bayer press release, Progressive Farmer DTN

(Beyond Pesticides, June 1, 2021) Farmworkers are at greatest risk from pesticides. EPA’s policies toward farmworkers comprise a blatant example of systemic racism. Although everyone suffers from pesticide poisoning, farmworkers and their families shoulder a disproportionate burden of the hazards. 

Agricultural justice demands that we ensure a workplace with fair wages and benefits, no discrimination or coercion, and protection from hazards, such as harmful chemicals, including pesticides. Acknowledging, respecting, and sustaining the workers who plant, cultivate, and harvest our food is central to the basic values and principles that advance sustainable practices.

Agricultural justice demands that we ensure a workplace with fair wages and benefits, no discrimination or coercion, and protection from hazards, such as harmful chemicals, including pesticides. Acknowledging, respecting, and sustaining the workers who plant, cultivate, and harvest our food is central to the basic values and principles that advance sustainable practices.

Tell EPA to protect farmworkers from pesticides.

Worker Protection Standards Are Inadequate to Protect Farmworkers
Worker protection standards are set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The original standard was developed after field hearings in which EPA heard from growers, but not farmworkers. With the threat of litigation from the National Association of Farmworker Organizations and Migrant Legal Action Program looming in the late 1970s, the Carter Administration funded an effort, conducted by Beyond Pesticides’ executive director, to reach out to workers and collect data on their experiences with pesticide exposure and poisoning in the fields.

Through a series of field hearings in collaboration with the nongovernmental organization Rural America, and EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, federal and state agencies heard directly from farmworkers. Although EPA concluded in 1983 that the regulations were inadequate to protect agricultural workers, it took until 1992 to update the Agricultural Worker Protection Standards (WPS).

Those 1992 updates to the WPS were intended to eliminate or reduce exposure to pesticides, mitigate exposures that occur, and inform employees about the hazards of pesticides. Despite these intentions, the updated WPS still did not adequately protect farmworkers. These standards have been notoriously difficult to enforce and require no record keeping documenting whether the rules have been implemented and only minimal training—all of which can threaten farmworkers and their families.

On September 28, 2015, EPA finally released its new regulation regarding farmworker pesticide safety, revising the WPS, which had not been updated for more than 20 years. These revisions attempt to strengthen the standards through increased training 

for workers who handle pesticides, improved notification of pesticide applications, and a first-time minimum age requirement for children to work around pesticides. However, the Trump Administration weakened these standards, including reducing protection offered by Application Exclusion Zones (buffer zones).

Systemic Racism is Embodied in EPA’s Risk Assessments
Exposure assessments inevitably discount the impact workers, people of color, and those with preexisting health conditions or comorbidities. For example, EPA routinely calculates worker exposure separately from other exposures. In applying aggregate exposure assessments of pesticides, EPA does not include worker exposure. Risk assessments do not include exposures to multiple chemicals—and such exposures that routinely occur to fenceline communities, farmworkers, and factory workers.

In the past, EPA has admitted that even with maximum feasible personal protective equipment (PPE) and engineering controls, including all provisions required by the WPS, risks to workers still exceed EPA’s levels of concern. A 2008 study analyzing poisonings of pesticid

e workers between 1998 and 2005 concluded that in 30% of the cases of high levels of pesticide exposure, all labeling requirements, including those involving re-entry and PPE, had been followed — clearly demonstrating that the WPS and/or labeling requirements are inadequate.

Farm work is demanding and dangerous physical labor. As the scientific literature confirms, farmworkers, their families, and their communities face extraordinary risks from pesticide exposures. Pesticide application and drift result in dermal, inhalation, and oral exposures that are typically underestimated. A 2004 study detected agricultural pesticides in homes near to agricultural fields. According to a 2010 study, workers experience repeated exposures to the same pesticides, evidenced by multiple pesticides routinely detected in their bodies. As a result of cumulative long-term exposures, farmworkers and their children, who often also work on the farms, are at risk of developing serious chronic health problems such as cancer, neurological impairments, and Parkinson’s disease. Children, according to an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report (2012), face even greater health risks compared to adults when exposed to pesticides. For more information, read our factsheet, Children and Pesticides Don’t Mix.

What We Can Do
Our food choices have a direct effect on those who, around the world, grow and harvest what we eat. This is why food labeled organic is the right choice. In addition to serious health questions linked to actual residues of toxic pesticides on the food we eat, our food buying decisions support or reject hazardous agricultural practices and the protection of farmworkers and farm families. See Beyond Pesticides’ guide to Eating with a Conscience to see how your food choices can protect farmworkers. In addition to choosing organic, it is important to consider food labels that create standards for farmworker safety and fairness. See below for more information and resources on how to uphold strong agricultural justice standards.

Tell EPA that we need strong Worker Protection Standards, and more fundamentally, EPA must base its pesticide risk assessments on the dangers to the most vulnerable people—farmworkers and their families. EPA must reverse its policy and require that risk assessments adopt a standard that protects farmworkers.

Beyond Pesticides is holding a virtual National Pesticide Forum, in which we address these issues. 

Tell EPA to protect farmworkers from pesticides.

On Tuesday, June 1, our virtual Forum will address these issues in two sessions with farmworker community representatives address these issues in two sessions with farmworker community representatives. The Forum runs half days for the next three Tuesdays. Schedule won’t work for you? No worries, sessions will be available on demand for your viewing convenience. Register now. 

Letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Farmworkers are at greatest risk from pesticides. EPA’s policies toward farmworkers comprise a blatant example of systemic racism. Although  suffer from pesticide poisoning, farmworkers and their families shoulder a disproportionate burden of the hazards.

Agricultural justice must ensure a workplace with fair wages and benefits, no discrimination or coercion, and protection from hazards, such as harmful chemicals, including pesticides. Acknowledging, respecting, and sustaining the workers who plant, cultivate, and harvest our food is central to the basic values and principles that advance sustainable practices.

Worker protection standards (WPS) are set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The various iterations of the WPS have failed to adequately protect farmworkers. These standards have been notoriously difficult to enforce, and require no record keeping documenting whether the rules have been implemented and only minimal training—all of which can threaten farmworkers and their families. On September 28, 2015, EPA finally released its new regulation regarding farmworker pesticide safety, revising the WPS. These revisions attempt to strengthen the standards through increased training for workers who handle pesticides, improved notification of pesticide applications, and a first-time minimum age requirement for children to work around pesticides. However, the Trump Administration weakened these standards, including reducing protection offered by Application Exclusion Zones (buffer zones).

Systemic racism is embodied in EPA’s risk assessments. Exposure assessments inevitably discount the impact workers, people of color, and those with preexisting health conditions or comorbidities. For example, EPA routinely calculates worker exposure separately from other exposures. EPA has admitted that even with maximum feasible personal protective equipment (PPE) and engineering controls, including all provisions required by the WPS, risks to workers still exceed EPA’s levels of concern. In applying aggregate exposure assessments of pesticides, EPA does not include worker exposure. Risk assessments do not include exposures to multiple chemicals—and such exposures routinely occur to fenceline communities, farmworkers, and factory workers.

Please implement strong Worker Protection Standards and reverse the weakening changes of the Trump administration. More fundamentally, EPA must base its pesticide risk assessments on the dangers to the most vulnerable people—farmworkers and their families. EPA must reverse its policy and require that risk assessments adopt a standard that protects farmworkers.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, May 28, 2021) A report by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concludes that scientific analyses by the agency were altered so as to favor top Trump administration officials’ policy choices in the 2018 reapproval of the highly toxic and problematic pesticide, dicamba. The report, “EPA Deviated from its Typical Procedures in Its 2018 Dicamba Pesticide Registration Decision,” was publicly released on May 24. It confirms aspects of what Beyond Pesticides and many others in the science, advocacy, public health, and environmental communities have been saying and reporting since 2016: the Trump administration executed a wholesale assault on scientific integrity in federal decision making.

In its research on the matter, the Inspector General’s office (OIG) reviewed EPA’s 2016 and 2018 decisions on dicamba’s registration, documentation that purported to support those decisions, and the concerns forwarded in the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and by many stakeholders. (See more in figure below.) It also reviewed EPA internal procedures and guidance on pesticide registration, and agency scientific integrity materials; interviewed career scientists and other agency staff; and communicated with EPA’s Scientific Integrity (Science Advisor) program staff.

As reported by The Hill, interviews and emails with multiple agency scientists and staff members reveal a host of concerning behaviors. One is that after a senior management review of the 2018 re-approval of dicamba (for use on genetically engineered cotton and soybeans), the assistant administrator’s office instructed scientists to use an outline it provided to them for rewriting an impact analysis document, including removal of several sections of the original document. One scientist asserted that senior management in OCSPP (EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention) told them to use industry-provided data — rather than EPA’s own data — for reported damage from dicamba. Yet another was a staff scientist’s claim that senior management and policymakers instructed that plant height (rather than the academic standard of “visual signs of plant injury”) should be used to measure dicamba’s effects. The OIG report concluded that such behaviors ultimately changed the scientific conclusions about dicamba’s use.

The OIG report concluded: “We found that the EPA’s 2018 dicamba pesticide conditional registration decision varied from the OPP’s [Office of Pesticide Program’s] written standard operating procedures, namely because EPA did not conduct the required internal peer review of scientific documents created to support the dicamba decision. . . . Senior leaders in OCSPP’s immediate office — specifically the former deputy assistant administrator, former deputy assistant administrator for Law and Policy, and former acting principal deputy assistant administrator (hereafter referred to as “senior management”) — were more involved in the dicamba decision than in other pesticide registration decisions. This led to senior-level changes to or omissions from scientific documents, including omissions of some conclusions addressing stakeholder risks” [emphasis by Beyond Pesticides]. The individuals in those specific EPA positions cited in the report included, respectively: Nancy Beck (former deputy assistant administrator, who previously served as a senior director at the American Chemistry Council—the trade organization for the chemical industry), Erik Baptist (former deputy assistant administrator for Law and Policy), and Charlotte Bertrand (former acting principal deputy assistant administrator).

The report continues: “In separate interviews, scientists from the OPP’s Registration Division, EFED [Environmental Fate and Effects Division], and BEAD [Biological and Economic Analysis Division] all described feeling constrained or muted in sharing their scientific integrity concerns with senior management during the dicamba registration process. The EPA’s actions on the dicamba registration left the decision legally vulnerable, resulting in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacating the three 2018 registrations for violating FIFRA by substantially understating some risks and failing to acknowledge others entirely.” (FIFRA is the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the governing framework for registration and labeling of pesticides.)

Dicamba has been the subject of extreme controversy in recent years, with rampant reports of “peripheral” damage due to its strong tendency to drift and cause damage to nontarget plants. Midwestern states have been especially affected. Use of dicamba is also associated with harmful environmental/ecosystem and health impacts: it is toxic to birds, fish, and other aquatic organisms; it leaches into groundwater; and it plays a role in carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, hepatic and renal damage, and developmental effects, among other anomalies.

The Trump EPA’s actions on dicamba were part of a larger context and mission. The OIG report confirms what Beyond Pesticides and other advocates have maintained for years: the Trump administration’s EPA acted repeatedly in ways that ignored, contravened, or outright distorted science in service of political aims, and worked to hobble the agency’s ability to protect the environment and the public. This happened with dicamba, as the OIG report notes, but was not confined to that compound’s fate. A very small sampling follows.

That Trump administration’s launch — featuring the appointment of Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator and a hiring freeze at the agency — was just the start. Out of the gates and in cahoots with the agrochemical industry, EPA reversed the agency’s own decision to ban use of the neurotoxic insecticide chlorpyrifos on food, and sought to delay release of information showing that three organophosphate pesticides are highly toxic to endangered species. Mr. Pruitt vowed to slash EPA staff in half by 2020, and banned scientists funded by EPA from serving on its Science Advisory Board, making EPA more beholden to industry “science” and its priorities of “profit through pollution.” EPA sought, in 2017, to harness the flow of scientific information coming out of the agency by banning its distribution via social media, and instituting on staff scientists an “unspecified vetting process before sharing their work outside the agency” — a move that violated EPA’s own scientific integrity policy. The administration attacked scientists who identified problems with EPA’s regulation of pesticides. Trump’s EPA weakened protections of U.S. waterways and wetlands. At the eleventh hour, Trump’s EPA finalized its misnamed “transparency rule,” which in fact significantly restricted the scientific research EPA could use in developing regulations to protect human health.

To put arms around the breadth of the environmental damage the Trump administration had caused (with continued effect) during its tenure, The New York Times published — on President Biden’s Inauguration Day — its chronicle, “The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.” A number of items on the list note harmful pesticide-related actions.

EPA’s history with dicamba is convoluted; the OIG report provides a simple and useful timeline:

After the Ninth Circuit Court ordered the dicamba OTT (over the top, meaning for post-emergent use) registrations to be vacated, a mere four months later those dicamba uses were reregistered yet again by the Trump EPA, this time for five years. In a press release, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) wrote, “Just days before the November presidential election, the Trump EPA rushed to reapprove dicamba products for five years, and farmers and conservation groups were forced again to sue to challenge the approval. This is the third time the agency has registered these products, each time with additional restrictions that have failed to stem devastating drift.”

Stephanie Parent, an attorney for CBD and other plaintiffs in a lawsuit against EPA for that decision, commented on the OIG report in an email to Progressive Farmer and DTN, “[A]fter the Office of the Inspector General’s damning report on the EPA’s highly politicized, anti-science approach to fast-tracking the use of this harmful pesticide, the agency should cancel its recent approval, not try to defend it in court. The EPA knows that anything less is likely to result in yet another summer of damaged fields and lost profits for farmers choosing not to use dicamba.”

Progressive Farmer further reports that EPA is standing by the 2020 reregistration decision. In an emailed statement, an EPA spokesperson said, “The agency has responded to the Office of the Inspector General’s report and is implementing several actions to ensure that our pesticide registration decisions are free from political interference and that the agency’s scientific integrity policy is upheld. The agency looks forward to productive conversations with the Office of the Inspector General as we work to resolve this matter. EPA stands by its 2020 decision made with the input of career scientists and managers.”

From the report: “The EPA’s Scientific Integrity Policy notes that the Agency’s ability to pursue its mission to protect human health and the environment depends upon the integrity of the science on which the EPA relies. Per the policy, the EPA’s scientists and managers are expected to represent Agency scientific activities clearly, accurately, honestly, objectively, thoroughly, without political or other interference, and in a timely manner, consistent with their official responsibilities. Additionally, scientists and managers are expected to follow federal and EPA transparency requirements, including documenting the formulation and execution of policies and decisions. For pesticide registration decisions, the OPP must review registrations and document its decisions.”

What this EPA OIG report portends for dicamba with the new Biden administration is unclear. Michal Freedhoff, principal deputy assistant administrator​ for OCSPP in the Biden administration, confirmed that the agency agrees with OIG’s conclusion that EPA mishandled the 2018 dicamba decision. He agreed that EPA should follow existing protocols and processes, and that senior managers must justify and document any changes they make, including the reasons for them. He commented in an internal response to the report, “This incident occurred despite the best efforts of OCSPP’s career scientists and managers to recommend a different approach that was scientifically, procedurally and legally sound.”

This is confusing at best. One the one hand, EPA is saying that the agency “mishandled the 2018 dicamba decision.” On the other, it appears to be standing by its 2020 anti-science decision to reregister the pesticide for OTT uses. Advocates say that what EPA ought to do is ban the use of this toxic pesticide entirely. Short of that, they say it should at the very least abide by the 2020 order of the Ninth Circuit Court to vacate the registrations of the OTT uses, given that their registrations violated FIFRA, thus reversing the Trump EPA’s 2020 ruling. Beyond that, advocates maintain that EPA should undertake a wholesale review of dicamba, using legitimate data sources and the analyses of career experts both within and without the agency to set new rules that would protect farmers’ crops, farmworkers, ecosystems, and human health.

In November 2020, Beyond Pesticides wrote about the need for an EPA (and agency administrator) that understands: “the relationship between a healthy environment and a healthy economy; disproportionate risk and environmental racism; the importance of standing up to polluting industries; the existential threats facing the country and the globe; the failure of risk assessment and unrealistic risk mitigation measures that poison people and the environment, and destroy life; and the need for meaningful results, rather than politically expedient compromises.” Implementing these understandings into EPA’s work, according to Beyond Pesticides, would remedy a great many wrongs done during the past four years and longer.

If it acts seriously on its campaign slogan that science must underpin federal policy and decision making, the Biden administration faces a legion of harmful decisions that must be undone. We must all insist that President Biden’s EPA restore the role of legitimate science in federal policy and rulemaking, and jettison agency rulings that arose out of the political and corrupt motivations of the last administration. Beyond Pesticides asks the public to contact elected U.S. Senators and Representatives, and President Biden, to insist on a precautionary and protective EPA.

Sources: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/555174-trump-epa-changed-scientific-analyses-pesticide-re-approval-watchdog?rl=1 and https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2021-05/documents/_epaoig20210524-21-e-0146.pdf

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

(Beyond Pesticides, May 27, 2021) Research by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) finds exposure to lindane and metalaxyl pesticides heightens thyroid cancer risk. Both incidents of non-aggressive thyroid tumors and advanced-stage thyroid cancer are on the rise. However, researchers speculate that environmental pollutants, such as pesticides, may contribute to this increase, especially considering the pervasiveness of pesticide exposure among the general population.

Globally, cancer is one of the leading causes of death, with over 8 million people succumbing to the disease every year. Notably, the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC) predicts new cancer cases to rise 67.4% by 2030. Various environmental pollutants like pesticides have endocrine (hormone) disruption effects that promote higher instances of thyroid and reproductive cancers. Therefore, studies like these highlight the importance of understanding how pesticide use can increase the risk of latent diseases (e.g., cancers), which do not readily develop upon initial exposure. The researchers state, “More work is needed to understand the potential role of these chemicals in thyroid carcinogenesis.”

The European Union and endocrine disruptor expert (deceased) Theo Colborn, Ph.D., classify more than 55 pesticide active ingredients as endocrine disruptors (EDs), including chemicals in household products like detergents, disinfectants, plastics, and pesticides. Endocrine disruptors are xenobiotics (i.e., toxic chemical substances foreign to an organism or ecosystem). Past systematic research shows exposure to endocrine-disrupting pesticides can adversely impact thyroid hormone disruption and disease development. However, this study is the first to evaluate associations between occupational exposure to specific pesticides and the risk of thyroid cancer development.

Researchers gathered information on pesticide use and exposure via the Agricultural Health Study, a cohort of licensed pesticide applicators (mainly male) between 1993 to 1997 and 1999 to 2005. Exposure reports include 50 different pesticides, 44 of which researchers evaluated exposure for thyroid cancer risk. Using cumulative intensity-weighted lifetime exposure, scientists determined factors influence exposure measured in days. Researchers assessed thyroid cancer incidents among male participants during 2014/2015 and estimated hazard ratios and confidence intervals using Cox regression.

The study finds participants’ exposure to metalaxyl (benzenoid fungicide) and lindane (organochlorine insecticide) increases the risk of thyroid cancer. Exposure to high levels of carbaryl (carbamate insecticide) has an inverse association with thyroid cancer. Additionally, chlorimuron-ethyl (herbicide) has an inverse association with a common thyroid cancer subtype, papillary cancer.

It is no secret that specific endocrine-disrupting chemicals can induce changes in thyroid function, including pesticides like organochlorine, organophosphate, carbamate, and pyrethroid. Specific to thyroid function, pesticides can inhibit iodine uptake, binding to hormone receptors and transport proteins, and interfere with gene expression. However, impacts on the thyroid are not the only result of endocrine disruption. The entire endocrine system directly affects traditional endocrine glands and their hormones and receptors (i.e., estrogens, anti-androgens, thyroid hormones). Furthermore, endocrine disruption can negatively impact reproductive function, nervous system function, metabolic/immune function, and fetal/body development. NIH’s National Cancer Institute also finds many cancer-causing substances are endocrine disruptors. Moreover, 66 percent of all cancers have links to environmental factors, especially in occupations of high chemical use. Considering endocrine disruption has such close ties with hormone-related cancers like thyroid cancer, it is essential to avoid toxic chemical exposure to lessen potential cancer risks.

This study is the first to show a direct association between thyroid cancer—rather than function or disease—and specific occupational pesticides. Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) are well-known persistent organic pollutants (POPs) banned by the Stockholm Convention treaty in 2001. OCPs, like lindane, are primary pollutants of concern (UNEP, 2009), as their persistence and toxicity have adverse effects on environmental and biological health. These pollutants have a global distribution, with evaporation and precipitation facilitating long-range atmospheric transport, deposition, and bioaccumulation of hazardous chemicals in the environment. The U.S. was a signatory to the treaty, but U.S. Senate never ratified it, relegating U.S. officials to observer status.

While various POPs on the Stockholm Convention annex lists are no longer manufactured or utilized, lindane is an exemption, remaining active in pharmaceutical lice and scabies treatments. Metalaxyl is not a POP or banned chemical; however, extensive use of this fungicide has resulted in the primary fungi target (Pythium spp.) developing severe resistance. Additionally, a 2013 report found 117 pesticides, including metalaxyl, present in Long Island, New York’s drinking water. The chemical readily leaches, is highly soluble and persistent in water, and has links to acute toxicity, kidney and liver damage, and toxicity to birds. Metalaxyl alone was present 1,327 times in 546 different locations on Long Island. Lindane and metalaxyl can work together, or synergize, to produce a more severe, combined effect. Synergism is a common issue among pesticide mixtures and can underestimate the toxic impacts on human, animal, and environmental health. Hence, individuals encountering both chemicals, from pharmaceutical treatments and overapplication of chemicals to compensate for resistance, face elevated health risks.

The connection between pesticides and associated cancer risks is nothing new. Several studies link pesticide use and residue to various cancers, from more prevalent forms, like breast cancer, to rare forms like kidney cancer nephroblastoma (Wilms’ tumor). A past report using the same Agricultural Health Study (AHS) cohort demonstrates an association between non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and lindane, establishing the chemical as carcinogenic to humans. Moreover, the same AHS cohort displayed higher thyroid cancer rates than the general population, especially regarding past use of atrazine (herbicide) and malathion (insecticide). Although this study finds that carbaryl has an inverse association with thyroid cancer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies the chemical as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” Furthermore, the European Commission report on endocrine disrupting substances classifies carbaryl as a category one endocrine disruptor, the highest category ranking.

Despite the rarity of endocrine cancers, thyroid cancer is the most common type, occurring before 40 years old in >30 percent of patients. Furthermore, women are at a higher risk for thyroid cancer than men, and pesticide exposures can disproportionately impact one sex more than the other. Thus, study researchers advocate for the evaluation of thyroid cancer risk and chemical exposure between sexes.

There is a lack of understanding behind the etiology of pesticide-induced diseases, including predictable lag time between chemical exposure, health impacts, and epidemiological data. Exposure to pesticides can increase the risk of developing chronic illnesses that may be rare and disproportionately impact various populations. Therefore, studies related to pesticides and cancer can help scientists understand the underlying mechanisms that cause the disease.

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 away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the multiple harms pesticides pose on human health, see PIDD pages on cancer (including thyroid), endocrine disruption, and other diseases. 

Beyond Pesticides advocates a precautionary approach to pest management in land management and agriculture by transitioning 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 why organic is the right choice for both consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Help Beyond Pesticides educate and build the movement that will bring long-needed protection to humans, animals, and the entire environment by attending the National Pesticide Forum June 1, 8 and 15. Cultivating Healthy Communities  brings together expert scientists, farmers, policymakers, and activists to discuss strategies to eliminate harms from toxic chemical use in favor of nontoxic organic solutions. The conference began with a pre-conference on May 24, launched on May 125, and continues every Tuesday beginning June 1, June 8, and ending June 15, 2021. Registration is open today and available through the webpage on this link. It starts with us. Upon registration, you will be able to view talks from the entire conference.

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

Source: Oncology Learning Network, Environment International

(Beyond Pesticides, May 26, 2021) Coffee leaf rust, caused by a fungus that can devastate fields of coffee plants, and the coffee industry of entire countries, was recently detected on the Hawaiian Islands for the first time. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acted quickly to approve the emergency use of a synthetic fungicide, but new research conducted in the fungus’ home range shows the promise of a hyperparasite biocontrol.

Caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, coffee leaf rust was first documented in its home range of Africa in the 1860s. By the later part of that decade, it had spread to Sri Lanka, and destroyed the country’s monoculture coffee plantations, which were subsequently replaced with tea cultivation. The disease has now been found in every coffee producing country, but up until late last year, it had never been seen on the Hawaiian Islands.

Thus, Hawaiian coffee farmers are rightly concerned about the disease. In response, EPA permitted the use of a product called Priaxor Xemium, a fungicide consisting of the active ingredients fluxapyroxad and pyraclostrobin, which has been linked to birth and developmental effects, and presents significant hazards to birds and aquatic organisms. “Hawai’i coffee growers now have an added method to combat the coffee leaf rust, which is extremely difficult to manage,” said Phyllis Shimabukuro-Geiser, chairperson of the Hawai’i Board of Agriculture. But while conventional chemical growers may opt to spray hazardous pesticides, organic farmers will look towards less toxic methods of management.

A new study published by a team of researchers from Sweden and Ethiopia shows promising indications for a biologically based approach to addressing H. vastatrix. Scientists began their investigation in Southwestern Ethiopia, the home range of Arabica coffee and its fungal disease. Sixty sites, consisting of 50 by 50m (164 x 164 ft) plots, were analyzed in the region over the course of three years. The sites varied in the level of management intensity, amount of shade provided the coffee plants, and the ecological characteristics surrounding the farmland.

Researchers aimed to catalog the interaction between H. vastatrix and another fungus known as Lecanicillium lecanii. L lecanii is considered a ‘hyperparasite,’ in that it is a parasite that attacks another parasite. Scientists know that the hyperparasite controls the rust fungus, but are not aware how widespread it is distributed, the conditions in which it thrives, and whether may be able to play a role in suppressing the rust in commercial production.

Results of the three-year study show that rust problems are enhanced during dry seasons, while the hyperparasite thrives in wet conditions. “We also found a slight variation in the environmental requirement of the rust and the hyperparasite. The rust can thrive in low moisture conditions whereas the hyperparasite favours areas characterised by moist and shaded habitats,” said Beyene Zewdie, PhD, study coauthor and researcher at Stockholm University to SciDev.Net.

The hyperparasite fared better at higher altitudes, while the rust thrived at lower altitude. And generally, shade grown coffee was able to provide a better habitat for the proliferation of the hyperparasite. “Coffee needs shade and growing the crop under shade could buffer the microclimate around the coffee shrubs,” Dr. Zewdie told SciDev.Net. “Shade also creates a conducive environment for the coffee leaf rust hyperparasite and we need to maximise this potential to make use of the capacity of the hyperparasite to suppress the rust in areas where the two interacting species co-occur.”

Scientists determined that prevalence of the rust fungus increased as management intensity increased. Less intensively managed coffee systems had higher abundance of the hyperparasite.

“The discovery of L. lecanii as a hyperparasite against the coffee rust fungus in a natural environment is a major breakthrough that may have a significant contribution in the management of the coffee leaf rust,” said Bernard Gichimu, PhD of Kenya’s University of Embu to SciDev.Net. “With climate change, the disease has become even more damaging … even in areas that were hitherto known to be less prone to the disease.”

Experts like Dr. Gichimu indicate that management with the rust fungus’ natural control organism could be the favored management method, as fungicides often fail to control the disease due to resistance or misapplication. Any fungicide will of course target both the rust fungus and kill its fungal hyperparasite. “Reduced use of fungicides will also reduce environmental pollution which will be beneficial to the non-target organisms and safe to both the farmers and coffee consumers,” Dr. Gichimu told SciDev.Net.

Previous research on organic coffee production determined that organic farms can foster a range of complex biological interactions that can help manage coffee leaf rust and other coffee plant pests. Rather than reaching for a bottle that would kill both pest and predator alike, all farmers in Hawai’i have the opportunity to show the world how the disease can be managed without toxic fungicides, by enacting preventive practices that increase the habitat conditions for pest predators.

For more information on managing pests through less toxic and biological means, join Beyond Pesticides National Pesticide Forum, which continues each Tuesday until June 15th. It’s not too late to register – visit Beyond Pesticides’ forum webpage to reserve your spot.

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

Source: SciDev.Net, The Maui News, Hawai’i Department of Agriculture, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment (peer reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, May 25, 2021) High levels of glyphosate in urine later in a pregnancy is significantly associated with preterm birth, according to recent research conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan. While awareness of the strong connection between glyphosate and certain cancers is growing among the public, the chemical’s link to adverse pregnancy outcomes is beginning to receive more attention. “Since most people are exposed to some level of glyphosate and may not even know it, if our results reflect true associations, then the public health implications could be enormous,” said senior author John Meeker, ScD, professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

This latest study is part of a cohort dubbed PROTECT (Puerto Rico Testsite for Exploring Contamination Threats), focused on investigating environmental exposures leading to preterm birth in Puerto Rico. Previous research indicates that Puerto Rico has some of the highest rates of preterm births in the United States, roughly matching Mississippi. With America’s abysmal track record for maternal care, preterm birth rates in these locations also represent the highest in the world.

In order to determine the association between glyphosate use and preterm pregnancy, pregnant women between the ages of 18 to 40 were recruited at local hospitals and clinics in northern PR at around 14 weeks pregnant. Study subjects did not have major preexisting conditions, such as diabetes, organ damage, or heart disease. Urine samples were obtained from the enrolled women roughly at weeks 18, 22, and 26 of gestation. These samples were tested for the presence of both glyphosate and its common breakdown component AMPA (Aminomethylphosphonic acid). Preterm births were defined in the study as delivery prior to the 37^th week of pregnancy.

Of the 247 women tested, glyphosate detection rates were roughly 78%, and AMPA was found in half of participants at each test. While associations were not found between glyphosate/AMPA levels found early in pregnancy and preterm birth, late term exposures differed. Detection of glyphosate during the last visit at 26 weeks was significantly associated with having a preterm birth – with data showing a roughly 67% increased odds with AMPA and 35% increased odds with glyphosate exposure.

Dr. Meeker indicates that the spark for this research came when seeing an advertisement for glyphosate after pulling out of a PR gas station. “I’m like, I’m wondering if we can measure its main chemical, glyphosate, in our participants. Maybe that’s high here,” Dr. Meeker said.

“Despite the potential for widespread exposure to glyphosate and AMPA, there is very little information regarding the health effects of exposure during pregnancy,” said study coauthor Monica Silver, PhD. “Ours is the first study to measure AMPA, and only the second to measure glyphosate in relation to birth outcomes.”

Beyond Pesticides reported on that prior research in 2017, in which 69 expectant mothers were tested and tracked. For that study, glyphosate was detected in 63 of 69 mothers, and women with higher levels were found to have significantly shorter pregnancies, and babies with lower birth weights. While studies are now findings concerning associations, there has been evidence of glyphosate’s impact on birth outcomes for decades.

In 2011, a report published by Earth Open Source sounded the alarm about the European Union’s knowledge of the associations between glyphosate and adverse birth outcomes. At the time, the data was limited to laboratory studies. Monsanto released a statement after the 2011 report was published, saying, “Based on our initial review, the Earth Open Source report does not appear to contain any new health or toxicological evidence regarding glyphosate.”

This highlights the weakness of regulations in both the EU and the U.S. While the laboratory evidence  (most often produced by the chemical manufacturers themselves) may indicate associations with birth defects, it is all too easy for regulators to hide behind risk and chance, and indicate that label changes will avert these dangers, or even that the risks are too low for any action at all. Even when strong epidemiological data is built, like it has now been for cancer effects, and is beginning to occur for birth defects, regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lean on risk calculations and shirk their responsibility to protect the public.

Recent research finds that pregnant women have over 100 chemicals detectable in their bodies, with 89% of the chemicals detected of unknown origin, or lacking adequate data. Such ubiquitous exposure to environmental chemicals should concern us all. But even more concerning are studies which are able to pinpoint the health effects of one particular chemical, and then link that chemical directly to an adverse outcome. Although additional data is always needed to firm up connections, and make the jump between associations and likelihood of causality, with the range of ever-present environmental hazards, advocates argue that it should be incumbent upon regulators to act quickly and embrace a precautionary approach.

In the absence of protective regulations from the widespread use of pesticides like glyphosate, US residents, particularly sensitive populations like pregnant mothers, are encouraged to take their own precautions. One important step can be switching to an all organic diet. Study after study finds that making that switch significantly reduces the levels of synthetic pesticides like glyphosate in the body.

For more information on the link between pesticides and our health, attend the first ever virtual National Pesticide Forum, starting today at 1pm ET. Today’s workshop “Protecting Children from Pesticides” will feature expert speakers, including Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP of New York University Grossman School of Medicine, Bertha Lewis of The Black Institute, and Maida Galvez, MD, of the Dept. of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, and Dept. of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discussing the link between pesticide use and children’s health.  Click here to view the forum webpage and register now!

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

Source: University of Michigan News, Environmental Health Perspectives

(Beyond Pesticides, May 24, 2021) Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change. In a recent article in Science, Clark et al. show that even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately, emissions from the global food system alone would make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult even to realize the 2°C target. According to the International Panel of Climate Change, agriculture and forestry account for as much as 25% of human-induced GHG emissions. The contribution of animal agriculture has been estimated at 14.5% to 87% or more of total GHG emissions. These estimates include emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ammonia. The carbon dioxide contribution largely comes from converting land from natural forest to pasture or cropland.

Tell EPA and USDA that “regenerative” agriculture must be organic.

“Regenerative” agriculture is widely considered to be a solution for reducing or even reversing these impacts. Unfortunately, a movement by promoters of chemical-intensive agriculture has fooled some environmentalists into supporting toxic “regenerative” agriculture. The so-called “regenerative agriculture” promoted by these groups ignores the direct climate impacts of nitrogen fertilizers, the damage to soil health caused by pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and the fact that pesticide and fertilizer manufacturing is dependent on fossil fuels—as key ingredients as well as for the heat and energy driving chemical reactions. It is important to see through this deception.

Regenerative agriculture must be organic.

Organic agriculture practices reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 

Reducing Emissions of Nitrogen Oxides. Excessive use of nitrogen fertilizers in chemical-intensive agriculture is driving global nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions higher than any projected scenario, putting the world at greater risk of a climate catastrophe. According to research published by an international team of scientists in the journal Nature, failure to adequately address nitrous oxide emissions has the potential to impede the ability for the world to keep warming below the 2°C target established under the Paris Climate Agreement, necessitating further cuts in other greenhouse gasses.
 
A 2018 study from the University of Virginia and The Organic Center found that “reactive” nitrogen, in the form readily available to be taken up by plants, is conserved in organic systems. Jessica Shade, PhD of The Organic Center, noted that the research was “significant and timely because its findings show that many common organic farming practices—like composting and the use of manure fertilization in place of synthetic fertilizers—can recycle reactive nitrogen that is already in the global system, rather than introducing new reactive nitrogen into the environment, and thus have a much smaller environmental impact.”

Organic practices sequester carbon. Organic systems sequester significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere into on-farm soil carbon. A report from the Rodale Institute expounds on these benefits. It reads, “Simply put, recent data from farming systems and pasture trials around the globe show that we could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive organic management practices, which we term ‘regenerative organic agriculture.’ These practices work to maximize carbon fixation while minimizing the loss of that carbon once returned to the soil, reversing the greenhouse effect.”

Organic practices preserve natural lands and biodiversity. Natural forests are more effective than tree plantations in sequestering carbon. Preserving natural land increases biodiversity, which also reduces dependence on petroleum-based pesticides. Organic farms are required to “comprehensively conserve biodiversity by maintaining or improving all natural resources, including soil, water, wetlands, woodlands, and wildlife, as required by § 205.200 of the regulations and per the § 205.2 definition of Natural resources of the operation.”

It is crucial, as we move forward with a plan to harness agriculture in the fight against climate change, that we not be misled into promoting the same practices that have created the problem. As aptly stated by Jeff Moyer of the Rodale Institute, “We believe that in order to be regenerative, you have to start by being organic. It’s a little disingenuous to say you can regenerate soil health and sequester carbon and still use nitrogen fertilizers and synthetic pesticides. What you’re really saying is equivalent to saying ‘I want to be healthy as a person, but I still want to smoke cigarettes.'”

Tell EPA and USDA that “regenerative” agriculture must be organic.

Jeff Moyer, the CEO of Rodale Institute, and others will discuss regenerative organic agriculture at the National Pesticide Forum, starts this week with a pre-conference session on Monday and runs every Tuesday for a month after that. Schedule won’t work for you? No worries, sessions will be available on demand for your viewing convenience. Register now. 

Letter to Biden Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, Climate Ambassador John Kerry, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan:

I am concerned that “regenerative” agriculture, which is widely considered to be a solution for reducing or even reversing climate change, will have negative impacts if not properly defined. Unfortunately, a movement by promoters of chemical-intensive agriculture has fooled some environmentalists into supporting toxic “regenerative” agriculture. The so-called “regenerative agriculture” promoted by these groups ignores the direct climate impacts of nitrogen fertilizers, the damage to soil health caused by pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and the fact that pesticide and fertilizer manufacturing is dependent on fossil fuels—as key ingredients as well as for the heat and energy driving chemical reactions. It is important to see through this deception.

The climate crisis and the devastating decline in biodiversity are escalating as a result of uncontrolled and unnecessary reliance on toxic chemicals. These threats to life require a meaningful holistic strategy to end our fossil fuel dependence and use of materials that release harmful levels of noxious gases (including greenhouse gases). The current carbon market proposals fall short.

The lack of a holistic approach allows continued disproportionate hazards to people of color and communities living near toxic sites. Alongside proposals to replace the combustion engine with electric vehicles, agriculture must—across the board and on an expedited five-year schedule—shift to organic practices. Organic practices both sequester carbon and eliminate petroleum-based pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Importantly, the data show that organic agriculture now operates without sacrificing productivity or profitability. While the vested economic interests in the petroleum and chemical industry cling to the status quo, there are good jobs and money to be made in a green economy.

We need a national plan to shift to 100% organic farming. Organic land management is more effective at reducing emissions and sequesters carbon in the soil. There is already a national program for certifying farms that meet organic standards. Organic operations must “comprehensively conserve biodiversity by maintaining or improving all natural resources, including soil, water, wetlands, woodlands, and wildlife.”

Undefined “regenerative” agriculture falls short by ignoring the direct climate impacts of nitrogen fertilizers, the damage to soil health and ecosystem services caused by pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and the fact that pesticide and fertilizer manufacturing is dependent on fossil fuels—as key ingredients and for the heat and energy-driving chemical reactions. 

We need a national land management plan.  Preserving natural land increases biodiversity, reducing dependence on petroleum-based pesticides, and is more effective in sequestering carbon. Biodiversity buffers against damage from climate change—for example, by protecting shorelines from storm damage.

Preserving natural lands and transitioning farms to organic production should be the cornerstones to combating climate change. I urge you to incorporate into a holistic approach, at the very least, the provisions included in the following:

*Climate Stewardship Act of 2019.

*The Agriculture Resilience Act of 2020.

*A pledge to conserve at least 30% of U.S. land and ocean by 2030 and 50% by 2050.

*The Resolution on a National Biodiversity Strategy.

*A $30 billion fund dedicated solely to fund the transition to organic agriculture, with a goal of achieving 100% organic farms by 2026.

Thank you.