(Beyond Pesticides, August 4, 2020) Last month Massachusetts lawmakers finalized, and the Governor subsequently signed, emergency legislation S.2757, aimed at revamping the state’s approach to mosquito management. The final version of this mosquito reform bill continues to include certain problematic provisions, but nonetheless represents a significant shift from an initial proposal that would have allowed the blanket spraying of mosquito adulticides throughout the Commonwealth with little oversight, notification, or transparency. “Though many cooks had a hand in the process, the resulting final bill was strengthened by advocates,” said state Senator Jo Comerford, Chair of the state’s Joint Committee on Public Health, in an emailed statement to supporters. “I’m pleased that we were able to build in strong protections for both the environment and human health.”

The original bill was filed by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (R) under emergency legislative provisions, requiring state lawmakers to act within a set period of time. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) had indicated that this year would bring higher risks of mosquito-borne disease, particularly Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), for which outbreaks generally last two or three years.

The state saw 12 human cases of EEE and four deaths from the disease in 2019; EEE was also confirmed in nine livestock animals. Thus far in 2020, sporadic reports of EEE have been found, but the state considers the current risk level “low.”

While EEE and other mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile Virus do pose a public health threat, it is critical that the response focus on achieving the highest level of public safety without further compromising resident health through the use of highly toxic adulticides (insecticide sprays that target adult mosquitoes). To that end, a coalition of advocacy groups released a fact sheet, and urged state lawmakers improve safeguards within the legislation. A Dear Colleague letter circulated by State Representative Carolyn Dykema and State Senator Adam Hinds echoed many of the coalition’s concerns and stressed the need for broader reforms.

The updated legislation ultimately passed by lawmakers improves transparency around making public health determinations, requires 48 hours prior notice to the public before mosquito spraying, sets a process to allow people and communities to opt-out of spraying, and sunsets all new powers within the bill after two years. Most importantly, over the course of the next two years, the legislation establishes a Mosquito Control for the Twenty-First Century Task Force, which will be overseen by a range of stakeholders. As Senator Comerford, who helped push for the task force, wrote, “Our current mosquito management system is a relic from the 1950s, and I am hopeful that the Task Force recommendations will lead to a more modern system that recognizes the latest evidence about effective mosquito management and environmental protection.”

In the meantime, the bill will provide outsized powers to state officials to conduct mosquito spray campaigns throughout the state. However, the desire to conduct broad, long-lasting spray campaigns may be tempered by a complaint filed with the state Inspector General by the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), regarding the past efficacy of the Commonwealth’s adulticide-focused program.

Beyond Pesticides and many coalition partners had hoped to see further improvements in the legislation regarding the setting of strict thresholds for toxic pesticide use, and a greater focus on public education and least-toxic larvaciding, but will have to urge the task force to include these important provisions. Greater transparency of inert ingredients, and broader opt-out opportunities for beekeepers will also be important points the mosquito task force will need to address.

While pesticides are often billed as a silver bullet for mosquito control, such claims are rarely, if ever,` true. A program that focuses on killing adult mosquitoes after they are hatched, flying, and biting people and animals, is the least effective approach to mosquito management. It requires a knock-down rate of 90% of mosquitoes in a given area to achieve adequate control.  Research finds that aerosol plumes from truck mounted ultra-low volume spraying fail to make adequate contact with target mosquitoes at the rate necessary to achieve disease reduction.  And while adulticides may indiscriminately reduce some level of flying insect abundance, larval mosquitoes remain.  Overarching concerns regarding efficacy, repeated spraying of mosquitoes is likely to foster pesticide resistance. 

Abating mosquito-borne disease is best achieved through a science-based approach that prioritizes preventive measures. These measures include surveillance, monitoring, public education on eliminating breeding sites and personal protective actions, consideration of local ecology, habitat manipulation, larviciding with biological materials, full disclosure of all pesticide use, advance notice of spraying, and opt-out opportunities for local residents. Communities, such as Washington DC and Boulder, Colorado, are spotlighted for progressive and ecologically sensitive approaches to mosquito management that do not focus primarily on adulticide use.

For more information on what an effective community mosquito management approach looks like, as well as tools to enact these changes in your community, see Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on Mosquito Management and Insect Borne Diseases.

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

Source: Framingham Source

(Beyond Pesticides, August 3, 2020) The effects of pesticide use are important, yet ignored, factors affecting people of color (POC) who face elevated risk from Covid-19 as essential workers, as family members of those workers, and because of the additional or cumulative risk that pesticides pose. As a part of this deadly combination, exposure to pesticides occurs at work, in community parks, schools and playing fields, and through food residues. EPA is ignoring the real hazards resulting from a combination of exposures that is reflected in the statistics that have emerged—with farmworkers suffering a rate of coronavirus five times higher and landscapers three times higher than community rates. Why is this the case? Because pesticide exposure weakens the respiratory, immune, and nervous system and makes those exposed more susceptible to the coronavirus. 

EPA has the power to immediately, on an emergency basis, adjust allowable pesticide use and exposure, recognizing that we have alternative practices and products to meet food production and landscaping needs.

Tell Congress to require EPA to examine the contribution of pesticide exposure to Covid-19 and protect those at greatest risk, people of color.

Farmworkers and landscapers have been deemed essential employees during the coronavirus outbreak, but without mandated safety protocols or government assistance, have experienced an explosion in Covid-19 cases. Workers in these industries are primarily Latinx people of color, many of whom are undocumented. According to a report published by the University of California Los Angeles, Latinx Californians aged 50 to 64 have died from the virus at rate five times higher than white people of the same age.

Most people in the U.S. suffer from one or more chronic conditions identified as putting people at increased risk of dying from Covid-19. The diseases, which involve disruption of the immune system, include metabolic diseases of obesity, diabetes, liver, kidney, and cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases including asthma, allergy, emphysema, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in addition to autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, and lupus. The chronic inflammation induced by these diseases makes a dangerous heightened response to coronavirus more likely. 

While metabolic, respiratory, and autoimmune disease is widespread, the poor working conditions to which farmworkers and landscapers are subject put them at disproportionate risk of pesticide-induced diseases. Occupational exposure to pesticides is, in fact, a form of institutionalized racism, putting people of color at disproportionate risk of death from Covid-19. 

It is essential that when EPA weighs risks and benefits of pesticide use, it does not allow risks to workers and people of color to be ignored or undervalued. An appraisal of the contribution of pesticide use and exposure to health outcomes of Covid-19 is urgently needed. 

Tell Congress to require EPA to examine the contribution of pesticide exposure to Covid-19 and protect those at greatest risk, people of color.

Letter to Congress

I am writing out of concern for disproportionate risks to people of color arising from pesticide exposure during this pandemic. Please take emergency steps to require EPA to examine the contribution of pesticide exposure to the severity of Covid-19.

The effects of pesticide use are important, yet ignored, factors affecting people of color who face elevated risk from Covid-19 as essential workers, as family members of those workers, and because of the additional or cumulative risk that pesticides pose. As a part of this deadly combination, exposure to pesticides occurs at work, in community parks, schools and playing fields, and through food residues. EPA is ignoring the real hazards resulting from a combination of exposures—reflected in the statistics showing that farmworkers suffer a rate of coronavirus five times higher and landscapers three times higher than community rates. Why? Because pesticide exposure weakens the respiratory, immune, and nervous system and makes those exposed more susceptible to the coronavirus.

Farmworkers and landscapers have been deemed essential employees during the coronavirus outbreak, but without mandated safety protocols or government assistance, have experienced an explosion in Covid-19 cases. Workers in these industries are primarily Latinx people of color, often undocumented. According to a report published by the University of California Los Angeles, Latinx Californians aged 50 to 64 have died from the virus at rate five times higher than white people of the same age.

Most people in the U.S. suffer from one or more chronic conditions identified as putting people at increased risk of dying from Covid-19. The diseases, which involve disruption of the immune system, include metabolic diseases of obesity, diabetes, liver, kidney, and cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases including asthma, allergy, emphysema, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in addition to autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, and lupus. The chronic inflammation induced by these diseases makes more likely a dangerous heightened response to coronavirus.

While metabolic, respiratory, and autoimmune disease is widespread, the poor working conditions to which farmworkers and landscapers are subject put them at disproportionate risk of pesticide-induced diseases. Occupational exposure to pesticides may be seen as institutionalized racism, putting black and brown people at disproportionate risk of death from Covid-19.

Farmworkers and landscapers have been deemed essential employees during the coronavirus outbreak, but without mandated safety protocols, adequate regulatory review, or government assistance, have experienced an explosion in Covid-19 cases. Workers in these industries are primarily Latinx people of color, many of whom are undocumented. According to a report published by the University of California Los Angeles, Latinx Californians aged 50 to 64 have died from the virus at rate five times higher than white people of the same age.

It is essential that when EPA weighs risks and benefits of pesticide use, it does not allow risks to workers and people of color to be ignored or undervalued. An appraisal of the contribution of pesticide use and exposure to health outcomes of Covid-19 is urgently needed. Please mandate EPA to perform an emergency assessment of the contribution of pesticide exposure to Covid-19 vulnerability. To highlight the urgency of this assessment, EPA should be given three months to put in place temporary measures based on scientific literature and advice of medical personnel, with permanent measures to be codified within a year.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent issue.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 31, 2020) On July 22, the New York State Legislature passed Senate 6502 / Assembly 732-B — a bill that would ban the use of all glyphosate-based herbicides on state properties. The bill now awaits Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature, which would make it law effective December 31, 2021. Beyond Pesticides considers this a hopeful development in the glyphosate “saga” and has urged the governor ought to sign it. Nevertheless, such piecemeal, locality-by-locality initiatives represent mere “drops” of protection in an ocean of toxic chemical pesticides to which the U.S. public is exposed. A far more effective, protective solution is the much-needed transition from chemical-intensive agriculture and other kinds of land management to organic systems that do not use toxic pesticides.

The bill — titled “An Act to amend the environmental conservation law, in relation to prohibiting the use of glyphosate on state property” — was introduced in 2019 and sponsored by New York State Assembly Member Linda B. Rosenthal (D/WF-New York) and State Senator José Serrano. It would add a new subdivision to section 12 of the state’s environmental conservation law, proscribing “any state department, agency, public benefit corporation or any pesticide applicator employed thereby as a contractor or subcontractor to apply glyphosate on state property.” More than 50,000 gallons of glyphosate-based herbicides were applied in public spaces across the entirety of the state, as reported in 2019 by Bronx.com.

Senator Serrano said of the bill, “Our parks, playgrounds and picnic areas are an oasis for New Yorkers, and have particularly become safe havens during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important that we protect the health and safety of workers, families, and pets by proactively eliminating the use of potentially harmful chemicals like glyphosate in our public spaces, and by finding safe alternatives that will not risk the health of New Yorkers and our environment.”

Assembly Member Rosenthal commented: “Weeds are unsightly, but cancer is a killer, and we should not wait for a child or anyone to become sick to take action to protect them against a serious potential risk. Parents don’t want their children exposed to dangerous, toxic chemicals when they play in state parks, and groundskeepers and farm workers should not be exposed to potentially deadly chemicals while doing their job. Prohibiting the use of glyphosate on State property makes good sense: doing so will protect the public health and environment while shielding the State from millions of dollars in potential liability associated with its use. With safer alternatives available, there is no reason the State should be using a potential carcinogen to kill weeds.”

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup^TM, Monsanto’s (now Bayer’s) ubiquitous and widely used weed killer; it is very commonly used with Monsanto’s companion seeds for a variety of staple crops (e.g., soybeans, cotton, corn, canola, and others). These glyphosate-tolerant seeds are genetically engineered to be glyphosate tolerant; growers apply the herbicide and expect that it will kill weeds and not harm the crop. Roundup has been marketed as effective and safe, but, in reality, its use delivers human and ecosystem harms. Exposures to it threaten human health (including transgenerational impacts) and the health of numerous organisms. In addition, many target plants are developing resistance to the compound, making it increasingly ineffective as a weed killer, and resulting in ever-more-intensive pesticide use. Glyphosate was classified in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a probable human carcinogen.

Because children spend ample time in and on the kinds of turf that are often treated with glyphosate, and are more likely than adults to inhale, or ingest, or incur other kinds of exposures from grass and soil, Beyond Pesticides and many experts are very concerned about the use of this toxic chemical on such sites. Indeed, a study by the Center for Environmental Health found that children carry significantly higher levels of glyphosate in their bodies than do their parents.

Legislative and regulatory moves on the parts of states, counties, cities, and towns, like this bill in New York State: (1) happen in the context of, and in part because of, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) abdication of its protective responsibility to the public; (2) are often successfully challenged on the grounds that “higher level” pre-emption supersedes local laws and regulations; and (3) tackle the problem one chemical compound in one locality at a time — an approach that Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman has called “whack-a-mole.”

In addition, federal pesticide regulations in the Trump era have intentionally been made less robust and narrower in scope, and enforcement even of those has been anemic. That said, for decades, EPA has for decades aimed to “mitigate” risks rather than exercise the principle of Precaution in rulemaking. In July 2020, Beyond Pesticides described “the folly of the federal regulatory system’s attempts to ‘mitigate’ risks of pesticide exposure through small and piecemeal rules. Given the many thousands of chemical pesticides on the market, the complexity of trying to ensure ‘relative’ safety from them (especially considering potential synergistic interactions, as well as interactions with genetic and ‘lifestyle’ factors), and the heaps of cash that fund corporate interests . . . via lobbyists and trade associations, there is one conclusion. ‘Mitigation’ of pesticide risks is a nibble around the edges of a pervasive poison problem.” All of these failings have been made worse by an administration devoted to reducing or eliminating regulation on corporate actors.

There is no guarantee that Governor Cuomo will sign Senate 6502 / Assembly 732-B into law; in early 2020, he vetoed legislation to ban chlorpyrifos, and instead issued an immediate ban on aerial application, and proposed a regulatory phase-out to ban all uses by 2021. As the chief executive official of the state, he could — In addition to signing bills that come from the Legislature — take executive action to, for example, ban use of the most dangerous pesticides. Beyond Pesticides believes that the governor is not living up to his responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of New York State residents and environment from the dangers of chemical pesticides.

Beyond Pesticides reported on a bill for a local law proposed in 2019 in New York City Council (Intro 1524) that would prohibit city agencies from applying any chemically based pesticide to any property owned or leased by the City of New York. In 2019, Bronx.com reports, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation used upward of 500 gallons of glyphosate on 28,000+ acres of parks, playgrounds, beaches, athletic fields, recreational facilities, and other sites to “control” weeds. In its January 2020 hearing before the council’s Committee on Health, the bill was ultimately “laid over by committee” — a term that can mean a bill will be taken up the next legislative day, but which also can be a euphemism for “how a bill gets killed by ignoring it.”

In covering that bill, Beyond Pesticides wrote about the context in which New York City and other localities have increasingly turned to local action: “The issue is made more urgent, for New York City and for many, many municipalities and states, because most environmental regulation below the federal level in the U.S relies heavily on the determinations of EPA. Under the Trump administration, federal environmental regulation generally, and regulation of pesticides, in particular, have been dramatically weakened; this administration and its EPA clearly advantage agrochemical and other industry interests over the health of people and ecosystems. The consequent loss of public trust in federal agencies broadly, and EPA in particular, reinforce the need for localities to step up and protect local and regional residents and environments.” Currently, the bill is being held up by the Speaker’s office.

Along with the bill banning use of glyphosate on state property, the New York State Legislature passed S.5579a / A.5169, which, when signed, will mandate that written notices and signs informing the public of pesticide use in commercial and residential settings be printed in English, Spanish, and any other locally relevant languages. Senator Serrano commented, “It’s critical that all New Yorkers are aware of any warnings regarding pesticide use and application in their neighborhoods. . . . [This bill will ensure] that every resident can be adequately informed of pesticide use in their communities and take steps to ensure the health and safety of their loved ones.”

In light of the increasing evidence of the harm glyphosate can cause, some countries have stepped up restrictions or instituted bans on use of the compound, including Italy, Germany, France, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bermuda, Fiji, Luxembourg, and Austria. A growing number of jurisdictions in some countries have taken similar actions. In the U.S., counties, towns, and cities, including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Miami, and many others in California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Washington State, and more, have banned glyphosate applications on public lands.

Beyond Pesticides urges a federal ban on the use of glyphosate herbicides, and supports interim efforts of localities to protect their own communities — and those who work directly with these chemical — as New York State is beginning to do through this bill (S.6502 / A.732-B) that would prohibit glyphosate use on all state properties. It is unfortunate that, if signed, the law would not go into effect until the very last day of 2021, but Governor Cuomo should nevertheless immediately sign the bill into law.

The solution to the current federal “whack-a-mole” approach to mitigating the impacts of glyphosate (and all pesticide) use is a wholesale transition away from the chemical dousing of public lands, agricultural fields, and all manner of maintained turf. Organic approaches to pest and weed problems in agriculture and on other lands and landscapes (and in homes, gardens, buildings, et al.) do not involve toxic pesticides, and avoid the health and ecological damage they cause.

In addition to being genuinely protective of human health, organic management systems support biodiversity, improve soil health, sequester carbon (which helps mitigate the climate crisis), and safeguard surface- and groundwater quality. Beyond Pesticides encourages the public to contact federal, state, and local officials to demand real protection from toxic pesticides, perhaps beginning with a ban on the use of glyphosate on public lands, as New York is attempting to do. Find contact information for federal Representatives here, and for Senators here. Contact information for states and localities is typically available on state and city/town websites.

Source: https://bronx.com/new-york-state-poised-to-ban-use-of-glyphosate-on-state-land/

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

(Beyond Pesticides, July 30, 2020) Simultaneous exposure to pesticides and noise from agricultural machinery increases farmworkers, risk of hearing loss, according to the study, “Hearing Loss in Agricultural Workers Exposed to Pesticides and Noise,” published in the journal Annals of Work Exposures and Health. Hearing loss is the 3rd most common health issue in the U.S., affecting eight million Americans. Although specific conditions like age, illness, and genetics, can mediate hearing loss, research suggests other factors can induce auricle (ear) damage, including medications, exposure to toxic chemicals (including pesticides), and loud, ongoing noise. Past studies find an association between hearing loss and pesticide exposure or noise exposure, alone. However, this study is one of the first to associate hearing loss with the additive effect to concurrent, persistent pesticide exposure, and noise.

This research is significant as human senses are integral to everyday human activities, and it is vital to understand how chronic pesticide exposure can limit the body’s ability to function normally, for farmers and everyone alike. Researchers in the study note, “[I]t is necessary to understand what work-related factors are contributing to this high prevalence of hearing loss in [Thai] agricultural workers in order to develop effective interventions and policies.”

In agriculture, farmworkers and their children suffer elevated rates of injuries and illnesses, including hearing loss, various cancers, neurological disorders, and respiratory diseases. Additionally, research suggests that chemical-intensive agriculture’s high pesticide use puts farmers and farmworkers at greater risk of pesticide exposure than other occupations. With agricultural workers experiencing a higher frequency of hearing loss than other professions, an understanding of the etiology of non-age-related hearing loss associated with pesticide exposure is important to adequate pesticide regulation. 

To calculate the metrics for pesticide exposure (intensity x duration x frequency) and cumulative noise exposure for farmers, researchers examined 163 chemical-intensive conventional and 172 organic farmers using a survey. The survey contained data about demographic characteristics, noise-related activities, and agricultural machinery use. Additionally, conventional farmers diarized maintained a diary of their pesticide use every day for a year. Hearing assessments employed pure tone audiometric testing for all participants, using a mean hearing threshold in the low-frequency band (0.5–2 kHz) and high-frequency band (3–6 kHz) for analysis. Lastly, researchers compared pesticide and noise metrics to the average hearing threshold in each frequency band using linear regression models for each ear to determine association.

After adjusting for confounding variables, this research finds that years of exposure to pesticides in conventional farming and noise from agricultural machinery increases the average hearing threshold (> 25 dB HL threshold) in the high-frequency band. An increase in threshold in high-frequencies results in a higher prevalence of abnormal hearing (clinical hearing loss) as 93 and 78 percent of those with high-frequency hearing loss also have a low-frequency hearing loss in the right and left ear, respectively. Specifically, the highest level of cumulative pesticide exposure stems from organophosphates (OP)—derived from World War II nerve agents)—which are significantly associated with hearing loss in the high-frequency band, according to the study. Based on the regression models, the results support the study’s hypothesis that that pesticide and noise have an additive effect on hearing.

Many studies find an association between pesticide exposure and an alteration in the senses when pesticides enter the body. Research links pesticide exposure to blurred vision (vision loss), change in taste receptors (taste loss), loss of sensory reception (touch), loss of olfactory function (smell), and loss of auditory function (hearing). Although pesticides acutely and chronically affect most senses, loss of auditory function is unique as it is solely a chronic side effect of pesticide exposure. Previous occupational (work-related) studies suggest that organophosphate insecticides increase the risk of vision or hearing loss. A 2018 study finds that pesticides can increase the risk of occupational hearing loss in farmworkers. Tobacco growers exposed to pesticides display symptoms of central auditory dysfunction, according to a 2016 study. However, not all pesticides-related hearing loss is occupational and has implications for the health of children and pregnant women. Prenatal exposure to the OP chlorpyrifos disrupts hearing and vision maturation in infants. Furthermore, research finds that legacy organochlorine pesticides (OCP) (banned for use) have ototoxic (toxic to the ears) effects, as prenatal OCP exposure causes hearing deficits in infants.

In addition to understanding how pesticides impact the five senses, it is vital to consider the ways that pesticides can enter the body and cause harm. Three commons ways pesticides enter the body are via contact (on the skin, eyes), ingestion (mouth), and inhalation (mouth, nose), with the most common route of exposure via absorption through contact with the skin. Pesticide inhalation from vapors and fine particles in spray solution can severely damage the nose, throat, and lung tissue as the rapid absorption of pesticides increases the risk of respiratory problems. Oral exposure to pesticides via ingestion can be most severe as symptoms include damage to the gastrointestinal tract, repository depression, and even death. The chemical state of the pesticide (i.e., solid, liquid, or gas) affects the probability of bodily penetration as pesticides in liquid or gas formulas can enter the body through all exposure routes (inhalation, ingestion, contact). Although solid formula pesticides have a lower probability of entering the body, they can still enter the body via the same manner as gas, through volatilization, and liquid; they have to be small enough and remain on the skin long enough to do so. Once these chemicals enter the body, the bloodstream can readily absorb them, causing disease-inducing issues like oxidative stress and endocrine disruption.

This study adds to the expanding volume of research linking pesticide exposure to ototoxicity as statistic models demonstrate that cumulative pesticide exposure via increased pesticide use is a risk factor for hearing loss. Some research explains the underlying mechanism of pesticide-induced hearing loss because of injury to the stereocilia (inner ear cilia like organelles) in the organ of Corti, or the organ responsible for hearing. Additional studies suggest pesticides, like OPs, induce damage to the cochlea (which houses the organ of Corti) by generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) that contribute to oxidative stress. Although this study suggests pesticides and noise exposure on hearing is additive (two independent factors with the same effect), other studies find these factors to be synergistic, with more vigorous combined consequences, as the amount of time to induce hearing loss decreases upon exposure. With evidence suggesting chronic pesticide exposure and use causes a decline in the functionality of the five senses, advocates say that stricter policy regulations are vital to mitigate the adverse impacts not only on the senses both on the entire human body.

Hearing loss is an increasingly common health issue, plaguing people around the globe. Although genetics, other ailments, and prolonged noise exposure contribute to the decline in auditory function, pesticides, independently and in conjunction with other factors, exacerbate the decline in hearing function. Studies related to pesticides and auditory function can aid in future research to understand the underlying mechanisms that cause hearing loss, especially in essential occupations where hearing loss is more common (e.g., agriculture). With the Trump administration dismantling many environmental regulations, private sector understanding of how exposure to environmental pollutants, like pesticides, can increase the risk of developing chronic health issues, is critical to corporate action—especially if regulatory rollbacks increase the persistence of environmental pollutants.

Policies should enforce stricter pesticide regulations and increase research on the long-term impacts of pesticide exposure. Beyond Pesticides tracks the most recent studies related to pesticide exposure through our Pesticide Induced Diseases Database (PIDD). This database supports the clear need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. For more information on the multiple harms, pesticides can cause, see PIDD pages on sexual and reproductive dysfunction, endocrine disruption, cancer, and other diseases. Furthermore, buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits, which curtail the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices. Regenerative organic agriculture nurtures soil health through organic carbon sequestration, while preventing pests and generating a higher return than chemical-intensive agriculture. For more information on how organic is the right choice for both consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

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

Source: Annals of Work Exposures and Health

(Beyond Pesticides, July 29, 2020) Farmworkers and landscapers are deemed essential employees during the coronavirus outbreak, but without mandated safety protocols or government assistance, have experienced an explosion in Covid-19 cases. Workers in these industries are primarily Latinx people of color, many of whom are undocumented. According to a report published by the University of California Los Angeles, Latinx Californians aged 50 to 64 have died from the virus at rate five times higher than white people of the same age. The poor working conditions farmworkers and landscapers are subject to already put them at disproportionate risk of pesticide-induced diseases. Alongside other hardships such preexisting health problems, family obligations, cramped housing and transportation, threat of deportation, and communication difficulties, the risks of these essential workers contracting and dying from Covid-19 are compounded exponentially.

The PBS Frontline documentary “Hidden Toll” follows the experiences of many California farmworkers, and how their daily struggle has been exacerbated as a result of the virus. One worker profiled, Sinthia Hernandez, has both diabetes and cancer but must continue to go to work to support her family. “In these times, it’s necessity that makes us work despite the fear we have,” Hernandex told Frontline.

Despite the necessity of farmworkers to put food on the table of countless Americans, apart from voluntary guidelines, which are often not followed, Sinthia and farmworkers like her are provided no meaningful assistance. “They are not giving us the essentials to protect ourselves,” she told reporters.

Companies that hire farmworkers are not even required to tell employees when other farmworkers become sick. The highly contagious nature of coronavirus means that one farmworker falling ill can result in an entire crew getting sick. But there are no avenues available for recourse or restitution. And many who consider reporting their illness are plagued by other concerns.

“They don’t want people to know that they’re here undocumented,” said Max Cuevas, MD, a doctor who runs California farmworker clinic, Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas. “There’s that fear of, ‘I could be gone tomorrow if I am taken away. And what’s going to happen to my family?’ It’s a horrible kind of fear that people learn to live with. You try to assure them, ‘Don’t be afraid of that one right now. Be afraid of the virus.’”

Landscapers in areas like Southern Florida are subject to similar pressures on their health and safety. A piece in the Washington Post followed Guatemalan landscaper Alfredo, who helps maintain some of the wealthiest properties in the Miami area. He continued to work through the initial outbreak, but notes, “By June, we were pretty much all sick, and we brought it back to our families.” His young daughter came down with a critically high fever over 105 degrees, and had to be placed in intensive care.

The Post notes that while Covid-19 cases in Guatemala are low, communities in South Florida have been devastated. In order to get by, many like Alfredo live in overpriced apartments where they may share space with multiple families or up to a dozen other workers. Transportation to and from job sites often requires workers to sit in close quarters with each other, making social distancing impossible.

Rather than improving protections, mandating face coverings and other measures known to reduce viral transmissions, politicians such as Governor Ron Desantis (R-FL) are scapegoating these vital communities. In June, he told reporters that increases in conoravirus in the state was from “overwhelmingly Hispanic farmworkers,” and blamed Democrats for not putting protections in place. Groups swiftly condemned the Governor for his statements. “Months ago, actions should have been taken to prevent this,” Oscar Londoño, executive director of We Count!, told NBC News. “The recent attempts to scapegoat workers who have been sustaining our entire food chain during the pandemic is shameful…[The Governor’s] messaging continues to try to stoke nativism, racism and anti-immigrant sentiment across the state of Florida.”

Pesticide use is an important, yet underreported factor among those already in the throes of several crises. Yet evidence is mounting that threats to the immune and respiratory systems posed by pesticides are likely to make those exposed more susceptible to the coronavirus.

Stand up for those who perform the critical work of bringing food to American’s dinner plates by telling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to improve farmworker protections. Stop the ongoing poisoning of landscapers by sending a letter to your state’s Governor urging them to establish that lawn care pesticide use is not essential during the coronavirus pandemic.

No one should have to endure the hardship that Sinthia Hernandez and Alfredo are experiencing. In addition to taking action above, particularly if you live near an area with agricultural production, get involved in assisting and strengthening local farmworker support organizations in your region.  

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

Source: PBS Frontline, Washington Post, NBC News

(Beyond Pesticides, July 28, 2020) With honey bees around the world under threat from toxic pesticide use, researchers are investigating a new way to track environmental contaminants in bee hives. This new product, APIStrip (Adsorb Pesticide In-hive Strip), can be placed into bee hives and act as a passive sampler for pesticide pollution. Honey bees are sentinel species for environmental pollutants, and this new technology could provide a helpful way not only for beekeepers to pinpoint problems with their colonies, but also track ambient levels of pesticide pollution in a community.

According to a study published by an international team of researchers, APIStrip has the potential to detect 442 pesticides as well as their primary break down products at levels lover than parts per billion. The strip, comprised of polymer, is what scientists describe as “a bee-proof, in-hive passive sampler.”

Current methods of sampling honey bee hives for contaminants is time-consuming, requiring removal of bees, pollen, honey or beeswax, and can result in significant hive disturbance. This new method was piloted by citizen-science beekeepers, and according to researchers proved to be a simple and effective tool that any interested citizen-scientist could employ.

Passive sampling of environmental contaminants by citizen scientists is becoming increasingly possible as new tools and techniques are developed. However, most are still in their investigative phase and not currently available for commercial development and distribution.  Earlier this year, it was reported that researchers at North Carolina State (NC State) and Duke University were developing silicone monitoring devices (such as wristbands, collars, etc) that could be placed on dogs. “If we develop ways to correlate dog disease with their exposures over time, it may allow human-health professionals to mitigate these exposures for both species,” said Matthew Breen, Ph.D., at NC State.

The technique of using wristbands has already been trialed in California’s Salinas Valley, as part of an ongoing (CHAMACOS) study of the Salinas Evaluating Chemicals in Homes and Agriculture (COSECHA) project. The study was able to test for 72 different pesticides that teenage girls living in the region may be exposed to. Of those 72, researchers detected as many as 20 and an average of 8 pesticides over just one week of routine activity.

Beekeepers frequently have a difficult time testing their hives for pesticide residue. Often, a suspected pesticide kill will not be detected because the appropriate samples were not preserved in time.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bee Research Laboratory, as the front page of its website highlights, is focused primarily on detecting parasites and disease, despite overwhelming evidence that pesticides are playing a critical role in colony failures throughout the country.

Having local data on contamination from honey bee hives could significantly expand understanding of the extent of pesticide pollution occurring in communities across the country. For example, one APIStrip piloted in Denmark found up to 40 different pesticides through the course of research. For more information on the pesticide threats honey bees continue to confront, see Beyond Pesticides’ BEE Protective webpage.

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

Source: Technology Networks, Science of the Total Environment

(Beyond Pesticides, July 27, 2020) Evian bottled water, produced by the French company Danone, is supposed to be so pure that scientists will calibrate their measuring devices with it. But new data from Swiss researchers finds it to be contaminated with a toxic fungicide. “The fact that even the Evian springs in the French Alps, which are hardly affected by humans, contain pesticide residues is alarming and shows the far too careless handling of these substances,” Roman Wiget, president of the international drinking water association AWBR told the German-language Swiss weekly. The answer is not to simply ban another toxic pesticide, only to be followed by another toxic pesticide, but foundational changes to agriculture and land management with a shift to organic practices. 

Tell Evian to protect water quality and the integrity of its purity claim by prominently supporting a worldwide shift to organic agriculture and land management.

Danone claims that the purity of Evian bottled water comes from its source in Cachat Spring at the base of the French Alps in the town of Évian-les-Bains, France, where it is “[p]rotected under a fortress of geological layers built by glaciers 30,000 years ago, it slowly travels through natural snowy, glacial rocks naturally filtering it.” Evian publishes results of water quality testing, supporting its claims of water high in natural minerals and lacking detections of synthetic chemicals.

Findings of the transformation products of the fungicide chlorothalonil, which is unlikely to have been used near the source of Evian water, demonstrate the fact that pesticides cannot be controlled. Evian, as a purveyor of “pure” water for people who are concerned about the contamination of their own local water supplies, should take actions to protect its water.

Chlorothalonil is a dangerous, highly toxic pesticide. As a probable human carcinogen, there is no safe dose. The transformation products found in Evian bottled water can be removed by carbon filtration, but such treatment results in contaminated carbon and places the burden of removal on Evian, rather than the chemical companies. Although other pesticides have not been found so far in Evian’s water, there is no reason to believe that the Cachat Spring is safe from contamination from other chemicals as long as chemical-intensive agriculture and land management is the norm.

As of 2020, chlorothalonil use is banned in the EU. However, long-distance transport is evidently responsible for the contamination of Cachat Spring water, and the presence of currently used pesticides in the Arctic is evidence of cause for concern. It is particularly worrisome that groundwater, as a principal source of drinking water, is increasingly found to be contaminated with pesticides, even those used far from the site where the groundwater is withdrawn. Action is required worldwide, and we are urging Danone to become a leader in protecting the environment and its brand.

Evian should protect the purity of its water by supporting Beyond Pesticides’ international campaign to transition to organic agriculture. This effort not only protects groundwater, but it confronts the apocalyptic challenges we face as a global community with the climate crisis and the devastation of biodiversity. In the short-term, Danone should protect its consumers and its integrity by using filtration to remove chemical contaminants and labeling when they cannot be removed. However, using filtration is only a limited short-term fix that does not address underlying chemical dependency on hazardous and persistent pesticides that are not needed for land management. 

Tell Evian to protect water quality and the integrity of its purity claim by prominently supporting a worldwide shift to organic agriculture and land management.

Thank YOU for all you do,
— The Beyond Pesticides Team

Letter to Antoine Portmann, President and General Manager, Danone Waters of America,

I am writing in reaction to findings that chlorothalonil transformation products have been found in Evian’s bottled water. Chlorothalonil is a dangerous, highly toxic pesticide. As a probable human carcinogen, there is no safe dose. The transformation products found in Evian bottled water can be removed by carbon filtration, but such treatment results in contaminated carbon and places the burden of removal on Evian, rather than the chemical companies.

Although other pesticides have not been found so far in Evian’s water, there is no reason to believe that the Cachat Spring is safe from contamination from other chemicals. The answer is not to simply ban another toxic pesticide, only to be followed by another toxic pesticide, but make foundational changes to agriculture and land management with a shift to organic practices. I am writing to implore Evian and the Danone company to prominently support a worldwide shift to organic agriculture and land management.

The Evian company is a victim of outdated, antiquated farming and land management practices, supported by the chemical industry that is poisoning the water supply worldwide. Evian bottled water is supposed to be so pure that scientists will calibrate their measuring devices with it. The fact that even the Evian springs in the French Alps, which are protected from most human impacts, contain pesticide residues is alarming and demonstrates that pesticides cannot be controlled. Evian, as a purveyor of “pure” water for people who are concerned about the contamination of their own local water supplies, should take actions to protect its water supply not through a chemical-by-chemical response, but with holistic and systemic change.

As of 2020, chlorothalonil use is banned in the EU. However, long-distance transport is evidently responsible for the contamination of Cachat Spring water, and the presence of currently used pesticides in the Arctic is evidence of cause for concern. It is particularly worrisome that groundwater, as a principal source of drinking water, is increasingly found to be contaminated with pesticides, even those used far from the site where the groundwater is withdrawn. Action is required worldwide.

I request that Evian protect the purity of its water by supporting Beyond Pesticides’ international campaign to transition to organic agriculture and land management. This effort not only protects groundwater, but it confronts the apocalyptic challenges we face as a global community with the climate crisis and the devastation of biodiversity. In the short-term,

Danone should protect its consumers and its integrity by using filtration to remove chemical contaminants and labeling when they cannot be removed. However, using filtration is only a limited short-term fix that does not address underlying chemical dependency on hazardous and persistent pesticides that are not needed for land management. The company should protect its consumers and its integrity by using filtration to remove chemical contaminants and labeling when they cannot be removed.

The contamination caused by toxic pesticide use, no longer needed to grow food or manage land safely and economically, has cascading effects and requires an urgent holistic response. I am asking you— will Danone become a leader in advancing organic agriculture and land management?

Thank you, in advance, for your response.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 24, 2020) As the novel coronavirus pandemic has heightened awareness of infectious diseases, there is increased attention to connections between environmental concerns and such diseases, including factors that may exacerbate their transmission. New research shows one such relationship: the transmission of schistosomiasis, a tropical disease caused by contact with the larvae of parasitic worms (schistosomes), is likely accelerated by the use of pesticides and other agrochemicals (such as synthetic fertilizers). The study, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, also shows that contamination of freshwater bodies with these chemicals disturbs ecological balances that can actually limit schistosome infections. This new research underscores the urgency of the needed transition, in affected tropical and subtropical areas, to agricultural approaches that do not involve synthetic agrochemicals that pollute local waterways and put people’s health at increased risk.

Beyond Pesticides recently covered another study, published in Nature’s Scientific Reports in February 2020, that indicates that agricultural pesticide runoff indirectly increases rates of transmission of schistosomiasis. The transmission landscape for this disease is complex, in part because one of the parasite’s vectors are freshwater snails, which: (1) play an important role in schistosomes’ life cycle, (2) are relatively resistant to the effects of pesticides, and more tolerant of them than their predators, and (3) seem to handle one of the damaging effects of agricultural runoff — eutrophication — well.

These schistosome worms — Schistosoma haematobium spp (the “spp” indicating that this species, unlike others in the genus, has separate female and male organisms) — are internal parasites of molluscs and vertebrates, and require two hosts to reproduce successfully. They develop and proliferate inside freshwater snails (the intermediate host), and release their larvae into their resident freshwater body. The larvae can then penetrate the skin of humans who come into contact with that water, causing schistosomiasis in the final, human, host. When infected people, in turn, contaminate freshwater sources with their excreta, transmission continues. Schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia and “snail fever,” affects hundreds of millions of people annually, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, and can cause lifelong liver and kidney damage. Schistosomiasis is second only to malaria in its global health impacts.

The study — “Effects of agrochemical pollution on schistosomiasis transmission: a systematic review and modelling analysis” — was led by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and included members affiliated with Stanford University, Notre Dame, and the School of Sciences, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University. It comprises a systematic literature review of more than 1,000 studies on impacts of agrochemicals on the lifecycle of Schistosoma haematobium spp, one of the trematodes (blood flukes, or flatworms) responsible for the disease. (There are a number of species within the genus Schistosoma that can play a role in the disease; the main species infecting humans are S. haematobium, S. japonicum, and S. mansoni.)

Researchers were able to identify 144 experiments that provides data connecting stages of the S. haematobium lifecycle with concentrations of agrochemicals in freshwater bodies. They then integrate both the dose-response functions and environmentally relevant agrochemical concentrations (post-application to agricultural fields) into a mathematical model to estimate agrochemical effects on schistosomiasis transmission in nearby human populations.

Christopher Hoover of UC Berkeley, second lead author, comments, “We were shocked by the strength of evidence we found . . . linking agrochemical pollution to the amplification of schistosomiasis transmission.” The study findings indicate that agrochemicals, such as pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, can catalyze the transmission of the schistosome worm in several ways: “by directly affecting the survival of the waterborne parasite itself, by decimating aquatic predators that feed on the snails that carry the parasite, and by altering the composition of algae in the water, which provides a major food source for snails.” These synthetic chemicals can destabilize freshwater ecosystems. For example, predators in the ecosystem that would typically consume snails infected with the parasite may find pesticide-contaminated water uninhabitable — setting the stage for overpopulation of snails that can fulfill their “duty” as first hosts of the parasites.

The study reveals that even small concentrations of pesticides in common use, such as glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, and atrazine, can increase transmission rates. The study’s modeling also shows that short-lived spikes in pesticide concentrations can cause faster rebounds in infection after application of chemical controls (for S. haematobium) to the water. Further, the team estimated that agrochemical effects on schistosomiasis transmission causes, in some situations, upwards of 142 additional DALYs (disability-adjusted life-years) lost annually per 100,000 people. Researchers found that the magnitude of the increased rates could be significant: in communities in West Africa’s Senegal River Basin, the additional disease incidence attributable to agrochemical pollution was roughly equivalent to that caused by diets high in sodium, exposure to lead, and low levels of physical activity.

Many pesticides are implicated across a variety of mechanisms of impact. Some specific findings include:

• herbicides, and especially atrazine and glyphosate, can increase transmission at expected environmental concentrations (EECs)
• a number of insecticides, including chlorpyrifos, permethrin, carbaryl, profenofos, and others, boost mortality among snail predators
• insecticides can decrease transmission via direct impacts on survival of miracidia (the free-swimming, ciliated larval stage of a schistosome, in which a fluke passes from the egg to a host snail) and cercariae (the free-swimming larval stage of a schistosome, in which the fluke passes from a snail to a final, vertebrate host), as well as impacts on snail reproduction and survival.

Investigators note that, although taken alone, some agrochemicals might actually have an ameliorating effect on transmission, both the span of trematode life stages and the variability of persistence of some chemical pesticides may contravene that influence. For example, glyphosate appears to reduce transmission because of its reproductive toxicity to snails (at environmentally relevant concentrations). Yet, the study says, “Indirect effects overwhelm and reverse the transmission-reducing, direct effects on snails and schistosome cercariae, miracidia, and eggs and might also be more likely to dominate in real-world settings, because they occur at lower concentrations that are more commonly observed. [Additionally,] the net effect of chlorpyrifos, profenofos, and atrazine is to amplify transmission through the dominance of indirect effects on snail predators and algal dynamics, which are longer lasting than direct effects on snails and schistosome larvae.”

In addition to the direct relationship to disease transmission, the toxic agrochemical pollution of freshwater sources, as noted, disturbs important ecosystem balances, and can cause profoundly damaging trophic cascades. Such cascades are catalyzed by the interplay between the toxicity of chemical pollution and their indirect impacts, and can significantly reduce, change the behavior of, or destroy populations of plants and animals.

The findings of the study are concerning, and all the more so because the sub-Saharan region — whose agricultural enterprises have until recently been mostly small farms that have not necessarily used pesticides as readily or as intensively as agricultural enterprises in other parts of the world — is changing. The agrochemical industry no doubt sees an “under-exploited” market there, and farmers are increasingly moving to the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. The published research states, “Increases in rural population density and the availability of modern agricultural inputs suggest that sub-Saharan Africa is on the verge of a rapid expansion of agrochemical use, suggesting that agrochemical pollution is likely to become more common in schistosomiasis-endemic areas.”

Several researchers advocate for more-stringent controls on any synthetic agricultural chemical use in schistosomiasis-prone regions. Mathias Liess, PhD, co-author of the 2020 Nature’s Scientific Reports study, confirmed its findings in ScienceDaily, saying: “We were able to demonstrate that even low pesticide concentrations constitute a serious environmental risk and, in this respect, not only contribute to the decline in insect populations, but also indirectly promote dangerous diseases in humans. . . . The results underline the urgent need for reassessing the environmental risk of low pesticide concentrations and for integrated disease management that includes a focus on the regulation and management of pesticides in areas where schistosomiasis is endemic or might be introduced due to potentially favorable ecological conditions.”

Senior author of the UC Berkeley study Justin Remais, PhD comments, “Environmental pollutants can increase our exposure and susceptibility to infectious diseases. From dioxins decreasing resistance to influenza virus, to air pollutants increasing COVID-19 mortality, to arsenic impacting lower respiratory tract and enteric infections — research has shown that reducing pollution is an important way to protect populations from infectious diseases.” Finally, subject study co-author Mr. Hoover adds, “We need to develop policies that protect public health by limiting the amplification of schistosomiasis transmission by agrochemical pollution. . . . [By] limiting their overuse in schistosomiasis-endemic areas, we could prevent additional harm to public health within communities that already experience a high and unacceptable burden of disease.”

Globally, the public is understandably more attentive to protection from infectious diseases in the COVID-19 context. Though many people do not live in climes where schistosomiasis is a problem, this research reinforces the reality: the broader issue of the havoc that agrochemical pollution wreaks on ecosystems and human health needs far more precautionary attention from government officials and regulators. This is true in the U.S. and in most countries, and is particularly acute in a time when it is clear that exposure to these chemicals, directly and indirectly, can put humans at greater risk from the novel coronavirus and other infectious diseases.

To learn more about pesticide use as it relates to the “new coronavirus normal,” see Beyond Pesticides coverage of disinfectant compounds. For general information on protection from pesticides in the community, see the Center for Community Pesticide and Alternatives Information.

Sources: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30105-4/fulltext and https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/07/17/pesticides-speed-the-spread-of-deadly-waterborne-pathogens/

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

(Beyond Pesticides, July 23, 2020) Chronic pesticide use, and subsequent exposure, elevate a person’s risk of developing lung cancer, according to a study published in F1000Research by researchers at the Nakhon Sawan Provincial Public Health Office and Naresuan University, Thailand. 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.

Although there is a vast amalgamation of research linking cancer risk to genetic and external factors (i.e., cigarette smoke), there is increasing evidence that pesticide exposure augments the risk of developing lung cancer, as well. This study highlights the importance of understanding how pesticide use can increase the risk of latent diseases, which do not readily develop upon initial exposure.  Study researchers state, “To our knowledge, the association between lung cancer and pesticides has never been studied before among [Thai] people. The objective of this study was to investigate associations between pesticide exposure and lung cancer among people [living in Nakhon Sawan province, Thailand]. The results can be used for the prevention of lung cancer, and to support the global literature.”

Lung cancer is one of the most common and deadliest types of cancer, afflicting millions of people across the globe annually. The first scientific study associating pesticide exposure with lung cancer occurred 50 years ago and, ever since, epidemiological studies present increasing evidence that pesticide exposure increases the risk of developing lung cancer. A 2004 study demonstrates a positive association between lung cancer and seven widely used agricultural pesticides (e.g., dicamba, metolachlor, pendimethalin, carbofuran, chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and dieldrin). Likewise, a U.S. study finds that the risk of developing lung cancer increases with the number of years working as a pesticide applicator. This study adds to the growing body of research linking pesticide use and exposure to various forms of cancer.

To assess the relationship between pesticide use and lung cancer, researchers compared a lifetime pesticide exposure of lung cancer cases to healthy neighbors of the same gender, from January 1, 2014, to March 31, 2017. Additionally, researchers gathered related data, including age, demographic, and pesticide exposure, via a face-to-face interview questionnaire.

Data analysis used IBM SPSS Statistics and linear regression models to evaluate links between lung cancer incidents and types of pesticides, as well as individual pesticides, adjusting for gender, age, cigarette smoking, occupation, and air pollution exposure. Individual pesticides exhibiting a significant correlation with lung cancer are chlorpyrifos, as well as legacy pesticides carbofuran and dieldrin. Lastly, researchers categorized the number of cumulative pesticide exposure days into quartiles (Q1-Q4), with Q1 being the lowest exposure and Q4 the highest. Researchers placed participants who used pesticides for less than 160 days in Q1 and participants who used pesticides for more than 530 days in Q4. According to the study, the use of pesticides, including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides have a positive association with lung cancer development, with Q4 exposure participants displaying elevated risk of lung cancer compared to Q1 exposure participants.

Although exposure to insecticides and herbicides increases the risk of developing lung cancer for participants in Q2 through Q4, only Q4 exposure (the highest exposure level) significantly increases the risk of lung cancer for fungicide use. From a research perspective, the higher exposure effects for Q2 through Q4 are a function of high acute toxicity for insecticides and herbicides.

The connection between pesticides and associated cancer risks is nothing new, as a plethora of studies links pesticide use and residue to various cancers, from more prevalent forms like breast cancer to rare forms like kidney cancer nephroblastoma (Wilms’ tumor). The connection between lung cancer and pesticides is of specific concern, as etiological studies often attribute lung cancer to genetics or cigarette smoke and overlook the lung cancer risks associated with pesticide exposure via inhalation of powders, airborne droplets, or vapors. Some studies attribute pesticides—labeled hazardous to inhale—sprayed on tobacco plants to lung cancer, and the related mechanisms that cause lung cancer. Upon inhalation, pesticide particles enter the respiratory tract, and the lungs readily absorb the particles into the bloodstream.

Past research demonstrates the mechanism by which cancer can develop after pesticides enter the bloodstream. In 2013, an experimental study showed that exposure to pesticides produces reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are highly unstable and cause potential DNA and cell damage that propagates the development of cancer. Additionally, pesticides can increase cancer risk via alternate mechanisms, including genotoxicity (gene damage), epigenetics (gene expression), immunotoxicity, tumors, and endocrine disruption. A 2008 study showed that a substance other than tobacco smoke, most likely pesticides, was causing gene mutations that prompt lung cancer. Additional research finds that exposure to cigarette smoke, pesticides, and wood dust increases lung cancer incidents. The evidence, associating lung cancer and pesticides, in this study and others like it, highlights the need for better long-term risk assessment of pesticide use on human health as current evaluations fail to capture chronic (long-term) risks fully.

Studies like this one demonstrate the implications that extensive pesticide use has on future human health, as lung cancer develops among those who use pesticides more frequently. Of all the pesticides investigated, dieldrin, carbofuran, and chlorpyrifos show the greatest association with lung cancer incidents. The U.S. and many other countries banned some forms of the legacy pesticides dieldrin and carbofuran due to their adverse health effects on humans, wildlife, and the environment. Both dieldrin and carbofuran are persistent organic pollutants, which not only accumulate in soil and water, but in the fatty tissue and brains of humans as well. The organochlorine pesticide dieldrin causes kidney/liver damage, disrupts normal endocrine function, and increases six-fold the risk of Parkinson’s disease by preventing the body from eliminating the chemicals that prompt degenerative neurological disorder development. Carbofuran is the most toxic carbamate pesticide and is highly toxic upon inhalation and ingestion. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classify carbofuran’s acute effects as highly hazardous/toxic. Furthermore, the chemical can cause endocrine disruption, and depress the nervous system and neurological function. Although the U.S. banned granular carbofuran use due to the concerns about bird ingestion, liquid formulas are still available as restricted use pesticides (RUPs). Since liquid pesticide formulas have particles that are easier to inhale, carbofuran poisoning remains a concern.

Chlorpyrifos is an insecticide in the organophosphate chemical family, which originated from World War II nerve agents. In addition to being highly toxic to terrestrial and aquatic organisms, human exposure to chlorpyrifos can induce endocrine disruption, reproductive dysfunction, fetal defects, neurotoxic damage, and kidney/liver damage. Recently, the European Union banned chlorpyrifos use, and Thailand announced a ban on all chlorpyrifos imports, yet it remains in use in the United States. However, states, including Hawaii, California, New York, and Maryland, plans to phase out most of its agricultural uses after EPA negotiated chlorpyrifos’s withdrawal from most of the residential market because of neurotoxic effects to children in 2000.

Cancer is becoming the leading cause of death worldwide, it is essential to know and understand the implications pesticide use and exposure has on human health. Studies related to pesticides and cancer can aid in future cancer research to understand the underlying mechanisms that cause cancer. With the Trump administration dismantling many environmental regulations, it is vital to understand how exposure to environmental pollutants like pesticides can increase the risk of developing chronic disease, especially if theses regulatory rollbacks increase the persistence of environmental pollutants. 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 can cause, see PIDD pages on sexual and reproductive dysfunction, endocrine disruption, cancer, and other diseases. Additionally, buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits, which curtail the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices. Regenerative organic agriculture revitalizes soil health through organic carbon sequestration while reducing pests and generating a higher return than chemical-intensive agriculture. For more information on how organic is the right choice for both consumers and the farmworkers who grow our food, see Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

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

Source: F1000Research

(Beyond Pesticides, June 22, 2020) In the latest issue of Pesticides and You, the quarterly journal of Beyond Pesticides, articles focus on the key issues of the day—a safe response to novel coronavirus (Covid-19) without toxic disinfectants, and confronting environmental racism in communities with campaigns to take toxic pesticides out of public parks.

A Critical Moment in History

In introducing the issue, Beyond Pesticides executive director, Jay Feldman, writes: “Nurturing and sustaining life is at the core of the environmental work going on in communities across the country. However, as the events of the past months have illustrated, if we are to ensure that our society and planet are sustainable, it will require the protection of those facing the greatest hazards and attention to the underlying disparities behind them.”

“Stopping Systemic Environmental Racism in New York City Parks”

Lead article, “Stopping Systemic Environmental Racism in New York City Parks,” focuses on the  report, Poison Parks, written by The Black Institute in January, documents New York City public spaces in low-income people of color neighborhoods being sprayed with the weed killer glyphosate (Roundup) at significantly higher rates than other parts of the city. The report notes, “Minority and low-income communities suffer from the use of this chemical [glyphosate] and have become victims of environmental racism.” The Black Institute points out that those working in the parks are disproportionately people of color, with 96% building services employees and 56% of laborers being people of color. While the percentages vary, this is generally the case nationwide, in our experience.

At a press conference in front of City Hall in New York City in January, The Black Institute, flanked by Council Members Ben Kallos and Carlina Rivera, Beyond Pesticides, and others, called for the passage of legislation to take toxic pesticides out of public parks. They spoke to the disproportionate harm from pesticide exposure to people of color using the New York City parks.

“The Intersection of Pesticides and the New Normal under Coronavirus”

As people settle in to protect themselves long-term from coronavirus, in addition to common sense prevention (masks and distancing), this article focuses on safer disinfection products that do not increase people’s vulnerability to this deadly illness. The authors point out that, “In the management of viral and bacterial infections, it is always important that we do not exacerbate the risk to individuals in the process of avoiding or controlling the threat. It is important to avoid products that increase vulnerability to respiratory problems or weaken the immune system. In the case of Covid-19, there are protective measures—both practices and products—that can protect us without using toxic products that increase risk factors.” The Beyond Pesticides website offers a guide to buying disinfectants and sanitizers, regularly updated as EPA allows more toxic disinfectants on to the market. (See www.bp-dc.org/disinfectants.)

“Antimicrobial” Face Mask Unnecessarily Toxic”

As the public buys and uses face masks to prevent exposure to Covid-19, there are numerous masks being sold or given away with toxic materials incorporated in the fabric. These chemicals offer no additional protection from the virus, but, in fact, introduce an unnecessary hazard to users. In the article, Beyond Pesticides warns people to avoid any fabric or clothing that markets “extra protection” in the form of a patented antimicrobial. These fabrics introduce a risk and have not been evaluated by EPA or FDA for use as a face mask when the toxic ingredients can be dislodged from the cloth material.

“Two Lawsuits Challenge Deceptive Environmental Practices by Major Corporations”

Earlier this year, Beyond Pesticides sued TruGreen and ExxonMobil in separate lawsuits for making fraudulent claims about their practices to protect people and the environment. The article notes that in both cases, Beyond Pesticides charges that the companies are engaging in fraudulent and misleading practices that misstate the truth and the facts, leading the public to believe that they are offering solutions that people want to support with their purchasing power. The article states: “TruGreen, a nationwide chemical-intensive lawn treatment company, has long characterized its practices as good for the environment and healthy for those who purchase their toxic pesticide service. ExxonMobil, as a oil and gas producer of petrochemicals that are the basis for pesticides, has invested significant advertising dollars to tell the public that they are a green company, heavily invested in addressing and solving the climate crisis.”

The issue includes a continuation of its series, Tracking Biodiversity, with a review of mosses. As the article states, “Mosses are a fascinating and beautiful part of local ecosystems, filling an important niche, and serving as habitat for literally thousands of microscopic organisms that work in concert with nature. And they are evergreen, providing green cover all winter!” The journal issue contains a review of Sicker, Poorer and Fatter: The urgent threat of hormone-disrupting chemicals on our health and future. . .and what we can do about it by Leonardo Trasande, M.D. of New York University Medical School.

You can view Beyond Pesticides Pesticides and You archives on the organization’s website.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 21, 2020) Climate change and pesticide pollution are known to put coral reef fish at significant risk, but research published in Nature Communications shows how these risks can be both overlapping and synergistic. “Fish face a variety of human-induced stressors including increasing water temperatures and pollution from agricultural pesticides,” says study coauthor William Feeney, PhD from Griffith University. According to researchers, both of these stressors alone harm the endocrine (hormone) system and are subsequently exacerbated in combination with each other.

To study the impact of climate change and pesticide pollution, researchers exposed convict surgeon fish (Acanthurus triostegus) to varying levels of water temperature increases, as well as varying levels of the insecticide chlorpyrifos. The scientists then observed how these changes affected the level of hormones the fish were expressing, and how they acted in the presence of predators.

“Both a three-degree temperature increase and exposure to pesticide led to a decrease in the amount of thyroid hormones in exposed fish,” said Marc Besson, PhD, lead author, from PSL Research University, Paris. “These hormones control the development of sensory structures such as the retina, the nostrils and the lateral line, which enables fish to detect nearby water movement.”

When exposed to stressors during metamorphosis from an egg into a juvenile fish, this can significantly impact a fish’s success in the wild. “This matters because animals use their sensory systems to inform ecologically important behaviours, such as their ability to identify and respond to predators,” said Dr. Feeney.

Interestingly, researchers were able to reverse these harmful impacts by providing the fish with a hormone supplement. “When the fish were given supplementary thyroid hormone it reversed these effects, suggesting that for both temperature stress and pollution stress it is the drop in these hormones which causes changes in the sensory organs and increases their vulnerability to predators,” Dr. Feeney remarked.

To further elucidate impacts, researchers lowered the stressor levels from three to a one-and-a-half-degree temperature increase, and from 30 to 5 parts per billion chlorpyrifos. But researchers exposed fish to both of these lower levels at the same time, rather than separately. Researchers discovered adverse effects similar to or worse than that seen from higher rates of a single stressor.

“This means even exposure to low amounts of temperature change or pollution, which on their own have little to no detectable effect, may disrupt hormone processes when experienced together,” Dr Feeney said. “Basically, exposure to multiple stressors, such as climate change and pollution, may be much worse in the developmental stage of coral fish, than exposure to a single stressor alone.”

The study highlights how critical it is to view human-caused stressors holistically, as part of the ecosystems in which they exist. Pesticide regulators in the United States do not consider synergistic impacts between different pesticides, let alone between other anthropogenic stressors like climate change. Adverse effects are viewed through the lens of testing protocols on specific health endpoints that do not adequately capture the complexity of the real world. This myopic thinking perpetuates a regulatory response that permits ongoing destruction to the natural world.  

Dr. Feeney notes that, “The survival of larval fishes is essential for the renewal of fish stocks and the maintenance of biodiversity more generally. The negative effects of anthropogenic stressors on sensory development in larval fishes that we observed is worrying because it affects a baseline process that underpins entire fish assemblages.”

Indeed, the stakes are high. By failing to consider the environment holistically, we create large blind spots that limit our ability to enact comprehensive change that truly improves ecosystem health. If you’re fed up with regulators that don’t listen to cutting-edge science like this, take action. Support Beyond Pesticides in sending a message to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it must do its job to protect health and the environment.

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

Source: Phys.Org press release, Nature Communications

(Beyond Pesticides, July 20, 2020) Does your community spray toxic pesticides for mosquitoes? In a well-intentioned but ill-informed attempt to prevent mosquito-borne illness such as West Nile virus, many communities spray insecticides (adulticides) designed to kill flying mosquitoes. If your community is one of these, then your public officials need to know that there is a better, more-effective, way to prevent mosquito breeding.

Tell your public officials to stop spraying pesticides and adopt a mosquito management plan that protects public health and the environment.

The problem with mosquito pesticides. Two classes of insecticides are favored by mosquito spray programs—organophosphates and synthetic pyrethroids. In order to better target flying mosquitoes, adulticides are generally applied as ultra-low-volume (ULV) formulations that will float in the air longer than usual. 

Pesticides are toxic chemicals and can exacerbate respiratory illnesses like Covid-19.
Organophosphates, which include malathion (Fyfanon), naled (Dibrom), and chlorpyrifos (Mosquitomist for public health uses only) are highly toxic pesticides that affect the central nervous, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems. Symptoms of poisoning in humans include numbness, tingling sensations, headache, dizziness, tremors, nausea, abdominal cramps, sweating, incoordination, blurred vision, difficulty breathing, slow heartbeat, loss of consciousness, incontinence, convulsions, and death. Some organophosphates have been linked to birth defects, cancer, and brain effects. Breakdown times range from a few days to several months, depending on conditions.

Synthetic pyrethroids, which include resmethrin (Scourge), sumithrin (Anvil), and permethrin, are adulticides patterned after pyrethrum (an insecticide derived from chrysanthemum plants), that have been chemically engineered to have greater toxicity and longer breakdown times. Almost all synthetic pyrethroid mosquito products use synergists like piperonyl butoxide (PBO), which increases potency and compromises the body’s ability to detoxify the pesticide. PBO causes a range of short- and long-term effects, including cancer and adverse impacts on liver function and the nervous system. Symptoms of synthetic pyrethroid poisoning include: dermatitis and asthma-like reactions, eye and skin irritation, and flu-like symptoms. Synthetic pyrethroids are endocrine disruptors and have been linked to breast and prostate cancer. People with asthma and pollen allergies should be especially cautious. Exposure has resulted in deaths from respiratory failure. Breakdown times range from a few hours to several months.

Mosquito spraying also hurts the environment. 
Naled, an organophosphate commonly used for mosquito control, affects a variety of non-target animals, including fish, insects, aquatic invertebrates, and honey bees. Naled is moderately acutely toxic to mammals, moderately to very highly toxic to freshwater fish and birds, highly toxic to honey bees, and very highly toxic to freshwater aquatic invertebrates, and estuarine fish and invertebrates. Elevated mortality rates among honey bees have been documented after nighttime aerial ULV applications of naled. Average yield of honey per hive is significantly lower in exposed hives.

Synthetic pyrethroids are highly toxic to fish and honey bees, even in low doses. Beneficial insects, including mosquito predators like dragonflies, will be killed by synthetic pyrethroids and organophosphates. 

Pesticides used to treat adult mosquitoes are not effective.
Spraying to kill adult mosquitoes (adulticiding) is usually the least effective mosquito control method. For example, efforts to control the transmission of malaria are encountering a big, though predictable, problem—the mosquitoes that transmit malaria are developing resistance to at least five of the insecticides that have been central to limiting transmission of the disease. A study released in late June reveals a dramatic increase in resistance to pyrethroid insecticides and DDT across sub-Saharan Africa. This signals the failure of a mainstay chemical approach to the spread of malarial mosquitoes; this same problem—resistance—occurs in chemical management of agricultural pests and weeds, and with antibiotics to treat human bacterial infections. This study underscores a point Beyond Pesticides has made repeatedly—resistance to pesticides (whether insecticides, herbicides, biocides, fungicides, or medical antibiotics) is inevitable. The solution to containing the spread of mosquito-borne diseases lies not in the use of more and different chemicals, but in nontoxic approaches that respect nature and ecological balance.

Preventing the problem. Beyond Pesticides offers resources for managing mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease without the use of toxic pesticides. A better mosquito management plan protects public health and the environment. There are steps that can be taken to eliminate breeding sites around homes and buildings, and throughout the community. For example:

• Clean up standing water on residential property.
• Get rid of unnecessary debris, such as old tires, on residential and commercial property.
• At least twice a week, empty water from toys, buckets, birdbaths, swimming pool covers, and any other areas where water can collect.
• Drill holes in swing tires, and in the bottoms of recycling bins and other outside containers.
• Clean out rain gutters and make sure they drain properly.
• Where water cannot be emptied, the bacterial larvicide Bacillus thurigiensis israelensis is a least-toxic option.
• Turn garbage can covers right side up.
• Utilize safe repellents and other methods to protect against mosquito bites.
• Establish community-wide public awareness campaigns.

Local public policy is key to long-term solutions. Outbreaks of disease-carrying mosquitoes often result from habitat disturbance, such as deforestation, impairing wetlands, and spraying insecticides. Restoring the health of ecosystems helps keep mosquitoes under control. Native minnows, for example, can provide effective control of mosquito larvae breeding in standing water.

Read about Beyond Pesticides’ mosquito door hanger. Get door hangers here,

Tell your public officials to stop spraying pesticides and adopt a mosquito management plan that protects public health and the environment.

To Public Health Officials

Mosquito spray programs, which target flying mosquitoes with highly toxic organophosphate or synthetic pyrethroid insecticides, are ineffective and endanger our health. These pesticides, which are generally applied as ultra-low-volume (ULV) formulations, will float in the air longer than usual because of their small droplet size, but will eventually land on lawns, gardens, and anything that is outside. That droplet size also allows them to be carried deeper into the lungs. These pesticides can cause a wide range of health effects in humans, including exacerbating respiratory illness like Covid-19, and harm our environment.

Symptoms of organophosphate poisoning in humans include numbness, tingling sensations, headache, dizziness, tremors, nausea, abdominal cramps, sweating, incoordination, blurred vision, difficulty breathing, slow heartbeat, loss of consciousness, incontinence, convulsions, and death. Some organophosphates have been linked to birth defects, cancer, and brain effects. Symptoms of synthetic pyrethroid poisoning include dermatitis and asthma-like reactions, eye and skin irritation, and flu-like symptoms. Synthetic pyrethroids are endocrine disruptors and have been linked to breast and prostate cancer. People with asthma and pollen allergies should be especially cautious. Exposure has resulted in deaths from respiratory failure.

Naled, an organophosphate commonly used for mosquito control, affects a variety of non-target animals, including fish, insects, aquatic invertebrates, and honey bees. Naled is moderately acutely toxic to mammals, moderately to very highly toxic to freshwater fish and birds, highly toxic to honey bees, and very highly toxic to freshwater aquatic invertebrates, and estuarine fish and invertebrates. Elevated mortality rates among honey bees have been documented after nighttime aerial ULV applications of naled. Synthetic pyrethroids are highly toxic to fish and honey bees, even in low doses. Beneficial insects, including mosquito predators like dragonflies, will be killed by synthetic pyrethroids and organophosphates.

In addition to the dangers, spraying to kill adult mosquitoes (adulticiding) is the least effective mosquito control method. Close to 99.9% of sprayed chemicals goes off into the environment where they can have detrimental effects on public health and ecosystems, leaving 0.10% to actually hit the target pest. In addition, efforts to control the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases are encountering a big, though predictable, problem—mosquitoes are developing resistance to insecticides.

There are better ways to manage mosquito problems. Outbreaks of disease-carrying mosquitoes often result from habitat disturbance, such as deforestation, impairing wetlands, and spraying insecticides. Restoring the health of ecosystems helps keep mosquitoes under control. Native minnows, for example, can provide effective control of mosquito larvae breeding in standing water. Where water cannot be emptied from containers, the bacterial larvicide Bacillus thurigiensis israelensis is a least-toxic option. A better mosquito management plan protects public health and the environment. Please tell our local and state health departments to abandon spraying and adopt a mosquito management plan that does not depend on toxic chemicals: Public Health Mosquito Management Strategy.

Thanks you for your consideration of my concerns.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 17, 2020) Researchers have discovered that the rivers and creeks that discharge into the lagoon of the Great Barrier Reef are riddled with mixtures of pesticides. The University of Queensland team expected to find some such mixtures in their sampling, but was shocked to find that 99.8% of their samples contained up to 20 different pesticides. Michael Warne, PhD, lead researcher and associate professor at the University of Queensland’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, says, “The issue with having mixtures of pesticides is that as the number of pesticides increases the impact to aquatic ecosystems generally increases.” Beyond Pesticides has covered waterway pesticide contamination in Europe and the U.S. The organization has long advocated for protective federal regulation that considers potential synergistic and additive threats, to ecosystems and organisms, from admixtures of pesticides — whether in formulated products, or “de facto” in the environment, as this study addresses.

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Lagoon is the open water of the Coral sea that lies between the reef and the Queensland, Australia coast. The GBR is the world’s largest coral reef system, comprising more than 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands, and extending across an area of approximately 133,000 square miles. It was designated a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage site in 1981 because of its unique and rich habitat and biodiversity.

UNESCO says of it, “The latitudinal and cross-shelf diversity, combined with diversity through the depths of the water column, encompasses a globally unique array of ecological communities, habitats and species. This diversity of species and habitats, and their interconnectivity, make the GBR one of the richest and most complex natural ecosystems on earth. There are over 1,500 species of fish, about 400 species of coral, 4,000 species of mollusk, and some 240 species of birds, plus a great diversity of sponges, anemones, marine worms, crustaceans, and other species.”

During the 2011–2015 period, the researchers gathered 2,600 samples from 15 waterways that discharge into the lagoon of the Great Barrier Reef. The samples were analyzed for between 21 and 47 pesticides, and 80% contained quantifiable mixtures of 2–20 pesticide compounds. Of the samples with multiple pesticides, 82% of the pesticides identified are compounds that exhibit more than two modes of action; a mode of action is how a chemical causes physiological disruption in target, or other, organisms. Both numbers of pesticides and modes of action vary spatially and are greatly influenced by nearby land use, with waterways that drain areas of sugar cane cultivation evidencing the greatest number of pesticides.

The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, produced in 2018 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), identifies tropical coral reefs as among the most vulnerable ecosystems in the world. The now-fragile GBR system is already subject to a variety of assaults, including mass bleaching events caused by warming ocean temperatures, and threats to the very foundation of the reefs from ocean acidification. The framework of coral reefs depends on calcium-carbonate-secreting organisms; such basic (in the pH sense) structures fare poorly in an increasingly acidic environment. As noted in a 2019 paper, “The Great Barrier Reef: Vulnerabilities and solutions in the face of ocean acidification,” “Loss of coral cover, whether due to OA [ocean acidification], warming or other pressures on the reef, will lead to a shift in fish communities from species that prefer coral habitats toward species which are successful outside reef settings, with associated potential changes to important reef fisheries. Coral reefs also provide coastal protection from storms and support livelihoods and economic activities such as reef-associated tourism and recreation.”

The discovery of such intensive penetration of pesticides in the GBR Lagoon adds to the chronicling of damage being wrought on these marine wonderlands. In March 2020 coverage of a report by the Australian government that showed that agricultural pesticides are severely damaging the Great Barrier Reef, Beyond Pesticides also noted that, with the other hand, the government had given sugar cane growers an extension on the use of a weed killer, Diuron, which EPA classifies as a likely human carcinogen. The sugar cane industry was given eight years in which to find an alternative way to deal with target weeds, but failed to do so. This herbicide, according to World Wildlife Fund Australia, is frequently found in streams that discharge around the GBR, and causes 75% of the pollution that is likely “poisoning the health of seagrass and coral, further contributing to the current heavy die-off of hundreds of turtles and dugong. . . . We call on the federal government to move swiftly to ban this chemical.”

Dr. Warne says of his study, “This work strongly supports the inclusion of the pesticide reduction target in the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan which aims to protect at least 99 per cent of aquatic organisms at the mouths of rivers from the adverse effects of all pesticides.” (The plan “seeks to improve the quality of water flowing from the catchments adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef.”) He indicates that working with land managers, sharing information, and helping them improve their pesticide management practices may be the best way forward, given these results.

His team is partnering with James Cook University and others on Project Bluewater (a project of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation) to reduce the runoff of pesticides into the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon through the adoption of improved sugar cane farming practices. The project currently works with 70 sugar cane farmers in two areas to improve pesticide management and application, upgrade equipment, reduce pesticide use, and switch to use of “lower-risk” pesticides. Dr. Warner reports, “We have found the farmers involved to be very eager to engage with the science — they have embraced the challenge and are making significant steps toward improvement.”

Such pesticide mixtures are found in U.S. waterways, as well. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is primarily responsible for regulating pesticides in the U.S. It regulates point source pollution of surface waters through permitting processes authorized by the Clean Water Act. (That said, EPA recently rolled back protections, stripping them from roughly one of every five stream miles, more than half of the nation’s wetlands, and many other kinds of waterways). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), through its National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) studies, “assesses the occurrence and behavior of pesticides in streams, lakes, and groundwater and the potential for pesticides to contaminate our drinking-water supplies or harm aquatic ecosystems.” February 2020 USGS reporting on a collaborative sampling project (conducted with EPA) for pesticides in waterways detected 141 pesticides in seven Midwest streams, and 73 in seven streams in the Southeast.

Neither USGS studies nor EPA’s aquatic risk assessments investigate the synergistic or additive risks of mixtures of pesticide chemicals. As is typical, EPA assessments focus on the presence of discrete pesticide compounds and their potential toxicity to organisms, but not on any additional risks due to the “medleys” of compounds present in waterways. This negligence likely results in an underestimation — and allowing — of potential hazards to aquatic wildlife. Among the deficiencies in monitoring and regulation of pesticides in waterways are these, as NAWQA has acknowledged (as of 2011), “Current standards and guidelines do not completely eliminate risks posed by pesticides in waterways because: (i) values are not established for many pesticides; (ii) mixtures and breakdown products are not considered; (iii) the effects of seasonal exposure to high concentrations have not been evaluated; and, (iv) some types of potential effects, such as endocrine disruption and unique responses of sensitive individuals, have not yet been assessed.”

Healthy waterways, whether those feeding the GBR Lagoon, or those draining Midwest U.S. agricultural fields, or major rivers that discharge into the world’s oceans (think the Mississippi, Nile, Ganges, or Yangtze), are fundamental to healthy terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as to human health. Whatever pesticides make their way into waterways, from either point or non-point sources, end up in those rivers, in lakes and oceans, and in groundwater — from which half the U.S. population derives it drinking water. The majority of the most commonly used pesticides in the U.S. have been detected in both surface and groundwaters.

It is imperative that pesticide use be phased out and ultimately, eliminated, and alternative practices, such as organic, regenerative agriculture, adopted to protect the nation’s and world’s precious waterways. Creating and nurturing living, healthy soils — the foundation of organic/regenerative systems — conserves water, nurtures fertility, reduces surface runoff and erosion, reduces the need for nutrient input, and critically, eliminates the toxic chemicals that threaten so many aspects of human and ecosystem life, including water resources. Learn more about these nontoxic, protective approaches here.

Source: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-congressman-faces-felony-charges-over-alleged-voter-fraud-n1233867?cid=sm_fb_maddow&fbclid=IwAR2RtlozbwylfJXpA3vV2kyh5wrbnV3KNvuNqMmrl6YclRnCI2MMAc2r4hw

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

(Beyond Pesticides, July 16, 2020) Long-term exposure to sublethal (low-level) concentrations of the neonicotinoid in soil negatively affects the health and behavioral development of black garden ants (Lasius niger) colonies, according to a study published in Communications Biology by scientists at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Ants are one of the most biologically significant insects in the soil ecosystem, acting as ecosystem engineers. Their burrowing behavior aerates the soil, allowing oxygen and water to penetrate down to plant roots. Additionally, ants increase soil nutrient levels by importing and accumulating organic material like food and feces, thus enhancing nutrient cycling.

Like many other insects, ants are unfortunate victims of the global insect apocalypse or population decline, and much research attributes the recent decline to several, including pesticide exposure. Broad-spectrum pesticides, like neonicotinoids, indiscriminately kill pests and nontarget organisms alike, as their ubiquitous use contaminates soils, even in untreated areas. This study highlights the necessity of rethinking chemical pest management, developing sustainable agricultural practices that reduce the use of agrochemicals, like pesticides, to prevent permanent environmental ecosystem damage. Researchers in the study note, “To prevent irreparable damages to functioning ecosystems, [we] suggest to either fully incorporate long-term effects in risk assessment schemes, or to make a shift in plant protection strategies…[thus applying] the precautionary principle when making policy decisions.”

The sublethal effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on nontarget organisms are evident. Research shows long-term pesticide exposure on some social insects with long-living queens (e.g., bees) impacts foraging behavior, learning, orientation, memory abilities, immune functions, fertility, colony growth, and reproduction. A majority of studies detailing the sublethal effects of pesticides focus on pollinators due to their economic and environmental importance. However, there is a lack of data to show how pesticide exposure at low concentration affects soil-dwelling invertebrates, like ants, long-term. Soil ecosystems are of great economic and ecological importance, housing invertebrates which cycle and decompose organic nutrients for agriculture. Soil-dwelling insects are also essential biological indicators of soil health and quality. This study uses data collected at the University of Bern in cooperation with Agroscope and the University of Neuchâtel to investigate the long-term effects pesticide exposure has on black garden ants, undetectable during the first year of colony development. The study’s researchers state, “To fully understand the threat of toxic substances in risk assessments, long-term studies [require research to cover] full [organism] life-cycles to determine the ecological risk, especially for long-lived organisms like social insect colonies.”

The researchers examine laboratory-reared colonies of black garden ants, born from field-captured ant queens, after exposure to field-realistic (sublethal) concentrations of thiamethoxam. Scientists exposed gynes (the primary reproductive female class of social insects destined to become queens) of L. niger to this commonly applied agricultural pesticide. Thiamethoxam’s ability to bind to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors is 10,000-fold less potent than other neonicotinoids, including its clothianidin metabolite, making the insecticide an excellent candidate to test the effects of low-level exposure. To assess the potential chronic effects of pesticide exposure on colony development, researchers monitored ant colonies from colony establishment and first-year overwintering (hibernation) to second-year overwintering, for 64 weeks. Additional tests performed on the queen and worker ants analyze residue levels of thiamethoxam and clothianidin to measure uptake and detoxification of these neonicotinoids among the different insect classes.

According to the study, chronic exposure to sublethal concentration of thiamethoxam results in reduced ant colony size, propagating fewer worker ants and larvae during the second overwintering. The analysis of thiamethoxam and clothianidin residues indicates that ant queens have better detoxification mechanisms than workers. However, additional evidence finds that the superior detoxification may compromise the queens’ reproductive fitness. Lead author of the study, Daniel Schläppi, PhD, at the Institute of Bee Health of the University of Bern, states, “With our study we show that ants, which play a very important roles in our ecosystems and provide valuable ecosystem services such as natural pest control, are negatively affected by neonicotinoids too.”

Over the past 20 years, neonicotinoids became the most used insecticide in the global market, surpassing sales of the four major chemical classes of insecticides (organophosphates, carbamates, phenyl-pyrazoles, and pyrethroids). These systemic agricultural insecticides resemble nicotine and affect the central nervous system of insects, resulting in paralysis and death. Chemical exposure from water-source, food, and soil contamination can cause harmful to nontarget species, like pollinators and aquatic organisms. A 2015 study shows that soybean seeds coated with thiamethoxam did not adversely affect insect pests (slugs). Instead, the insecticide bioaccumulated in the pest and translocated to the nontarget insect predator (beetle) via ingestion. This translocation of thiamethoxam killed more than 60% of the insect predators, which caused crop loss as the decline in beneficial insect predators prompted an increase in pest populations. Furthermore, research finds that seeds coated with neonicotinoids are high toxicity to songbirds who confuse seeds for grit, which they consume for digestion. In addition to insecticides, herbicides also impact ecosystem biodiversity, especially in soils. Herbicides can devastate habitats adjacent to agriculture that are important to organisms for foraging, reproduction, and shelter. Alas, current risk assessment methods for pesticides are insufficient as assessment procedures fail to account for the sublethal effects of pesticides.  With the loss of a quarter of the global insect population and over three billion birds in the U.S over the last four decades, action is needed to mitigate our anthropogenic impact on essential ecosystem organisms.

This study is one of the few of its kind to investigate the potential impacts long-term, sublethal exposure on soil-dwelling invertebrates, like black garden ants. In addition to pesticide exposure routes from direct pesticide application and indirect food ingestion, residue in soils expose black garden ants to pesticides. Researchers consider black garden ants sedentary since colonies are usually immobile in their soil habitats. This sedentary lifestyle exacerbates chronic pesticide exposure as these residues can accumulate in the soil over decades. Since black garden ants have a long lifespan, with the queens living up to 30 years, it is vital to understand how pesticide exposure impacts these organisms.

Ants are eusocial insects that perform essential terrestrial ecosystem functions and require a colony of ample size to do so. Although the impact of neonicotinoid exposure varies among worker ants and queens, the decline in colony size from this exposure is most critical. Colony size indicates colony fitness, and ant colonies in poor health jeopardize regular ecosystem function. The number of worker ants is an integral part of ant colony fitness/success, and the study outcomes observe effects that threaten colony survival. The study’s researchers conclude, “This is an exemplary study showing how negative effects of an environmental contaminant only become visible after long[-term] monitoring, but with potentially far-reaching consequences. [We] stress the importance [of including] ants as model organisms and to fully incorporate long-term effects in future risk assessment schemes for more sustainable agriculture.”

Ants are ecosystem engineers that aid in maintaining normal ecosystem function and interaction, even outside of the soil environment. The data in this study has implications for soil-dwelling insect species, like ants, as chronic, low-level exposure to pesticide residue in soil habitats weakens soil health and productivity. More than ever, individuals must connect with their local, state, and federal elected officials to demand that we must protect insect populations. Now, grassroots advocacy groups in Connecticut, and Maryland, in addition to dozens of local groups, collaborate to create lasting positive changes to pollinator protection policies. Solutions like regenerative organic agriculture and organic land management curtail the need for toxic pesticide use as these practices warrant similar or better results than chemical-intensive ones. Learn more about the science and resources behind pesticides’ pollinator impact and take action against the use of pesticides. To find out more about what you can do to protect insects like ants that indirectly, and bees that directly pollinate, check out information on pollinator-friendly landscapes, pollinator-friendly seeds.

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

Sources: University of Bern, Communication Biology

(Beyond Pesticides, July 15, 2020) Evian bottled water is supposed to be so pure that scientists will calibrate their measuring devices with it. But new data from Swiss researchers finds it to be contaminated with a toxic fungicide.  “The fact that even the Evian springs in the French Alps, which are hardly affected by humans, contain pesticide residues is alarming and shows the far too careless handling of these substances,” Roman Wiget, president of the international drinking water association AWBR told the German-language Swiss weekly.

Researchers looked specifically at the levels of the fungicide chlorothalonil in Swiss waterways, as Switzerland and the European Union took steps last year to ban use of the pesticide. In banning the chemical, regulators at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) noted, “Great concerns are raised in relation to contamination of groundwater by metabolites of the substance.” EFSA designated the fungicide as a 1B carcinogen, meaning that it “may cause cancer.”

Chlorothalonil has been in production and use since the 1960s, but it is only now that regulators are starting to take a closer look at its health and environmental impacts. In addition to cancer, chlorothalonil is neurotoxic, can harm the human reproductive system, damage kidneys, liver and other organ systems, and irritate skin. Recent research has focused on the fungicide’s effect on pollinators, showing that it can alter honey bee microbiomes, reduce bumblebee colony size, and may even be a factor in ongoing pollinator declines.  

While EU officials continue to scrutinize long-used chemicals, regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have done little to address chlorothalonil, the 10^th most commonly used pesticide in the county. In fact, EPA is several years late on a workplan it set for itself on the fungicide. The agency estimated it would open a review document for the chemical in 2016, but the most recent action taken, according to the agency’s docket folder on regulations.gov, was a meeting with the chemical’s primary registrant Syngenta/ChemChina.

While EPA is behind on removing pesticides from drinking water sources, in the United States it is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that regulates bottled water. FDA generally follows EPA guidelines on setting allowable levels of certain pesticides, but oversight is lacking in many areas. For example, while public water systems are required to undergo quarterly testing from certified labs, bottled water is only required to be tested once a year, and the tests are not required to come from certified labs. Bottled water manufacturers are also not required to report violations to state or federal officials.

Generally, a home water filter will successfully remove most hazardous contaminants from tap water, and should be preferred over plastic and expensive bottled water. Researchers note that reverse osmosis or a fresh activated carbon filter (changed at regular intervals), would adequately remove the levels of chlorothalonil found in Evian. But few are likely to take their bottled water and put it through another level of filtration.

The best way to eliminate pesticide contamination in drinking water is to remove the source of contamination in the first place. While EU and Switzerland are still finding the fungicide in drinking water, it is likely to significantly decline as use stops, though its long-lived nature shows the dangers in allowing a toxic product on the market in the first place. Switzerland has the potential to take even further steps, as it is in the process of debating a country-wide ban on pesticide use.

In the United States, reduce the pesticides that make their way into your drinking water by advocating for a local and state pesticide reform policies. For more information about protecting you and your family from pesticide contaminated water, see the Threatened Waters program page and Beyond Pesticides’ article Pesticides in My Drinking Water? Individual Precautionary Measures and Community Action.

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

Source: SWI, Water Research

(Beyond Pesticides, July 14, 2020) The Mexican government announced late last month that it plans to phase out the importation and use of glyphosate in the country over the next four years. The announcement means that Mexico will join other countries, such as Luxembourg, Vietnam, Germany in prohibiting the chemical and the toxic consumer products, like Roundup, that contain it as an ingredient. International watchdogs are keeping an eye on reactions from the United States, which in recent years has worked to intervene in other countries’ decision-making over toxic pesticides.

The government’s announcement cites the Precautionary Principle as part of its decision-making. According to the Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle, “Where an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.” In the case of glyphosate, there is strong evidence, per a 2015 review by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), that glyphosate is carcinogenic. Since 2015, several more publications have added weight to glyphosate’s link to cancer. A February 2018 meta-analysis finds “a compelling link between exposures to GBH [glyphosate-based herbicides] and increased risk of NHL [non-Hodgkin lymphoma]. A February 2019 University of Washington study found that glyphosate increased the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by as much as 41%.

Víctor M. Toledo, Mexico’s Minister of the Environment, said in a press release that the effort is part of decision steps to transform the county’s food system to make it “safer, healthier and more respectful of the environment (más seguro, más sano y respetuoso con el medio ambiente).” The country will be analyzing alternatives to glyphosate, importantly, focusing in management experiences and practies used by farmers in indigenous communities for thousands of years.  

Cancer is far from the only health impact demonstrably linked to exposure to glyphosate-based herbicide formulations. glyphosate (and the adjuvant ingredients in formulations) is also linked to endocrine disruption, reproduction harm, and renal and hepatic damage, and toxicity to fish and other aquatic organisms. A 2018 Washington State University study determined that residents living near areas treated with the herbicide are one-third more likely to die prematurely from Parkinson’s disease. Studies also find that glyphosate is linked to multi-generational adverse health effects, including prostate, ovarian, and kidney diseases.

The Mexican government will launch an educational campaign to educate residents on the health risks involved with the use of glyphosate products. Minister Toledo sums of the concerns well, noting that this is a problem everyone must act on; “beyond productivity, there is human and environmental health (más allá de la productividad, está la salud humana y Ambiental),” he said.

The U.S. government has acted antagonistically to countries that have begun to phase out toxic pesticides like glyphosate. Last month, the U.S., alongside the Bolsonaro government in Brazil, launched complaints against Thailand with the World Trade Organization after the country added paraquat and chlorpyrifos to its list of hazardous substances. Due to U.S. pressure, Thailand had already delayed implementation and dropped its intent to include glyphosate on its hazard list.

As Mexico will show over the next decade, there are readily available alternatives to glyphosate that do not put human health and the environment at unnecessary risk. Organic practices represent a path forward that eschews the use not only of glyphosate but the myriad of other toxic pesticides registered by environmental agencies. See Beyond Pesticides’ Organic Agriculture program page for more information on why supporting organic is the right choice.  

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

Source: Medtruth, Mexican Government press release (translated page)

(Beyond Pesticides, July 13, 2020) Soil is central to organic production. Therefore, hydroponic operations should not be considered eligible for organic certification, and the National Organic Program (NOP) must take a clear position in opposition to hydroponics and other non-soil-based methods in organic production, including containers. Organic farmers and consumers strongly agree that organic production must be soil-based. 

Tell NOP hydroponics is not organic! Educate your congressional representatives and senators.

NOP authorizes the certification of hydroponic operations as organic. This undermines the authenticity of organic farming and creates unequal competition, market instability, and consumer distrust in organic certification.

Organic farming and soil are inextricably linked. The microorganisms in healthy soils interact in a symbiotic manner with plant roots, strengthening the plant, enabling it to resist diseases and facilitating water and mineral uptake. The essence of organic production is maintaining and enhancing the organic matter content of soil by relying on environmentally beneficial methods such as green manure, crop rotation, and biological pest management.

On March 3, 2020, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a lawsuit challenging the USDA’s decision to allow hydroponics operations to be certified organic. Organic farmers and consumers believe that the organic label means two things: grown in the soil and farmed in a manner that builds soil biology and the natural cycling of nutrients. Hydroponics meet neither of these requirements and involves methods of growing crops that is dependent on soluble synthetic nutrients.

Soil Ecology Supports Healthy Crops
Historically, perhaps the most important principle of organic production is the “Law of Return,” which, together with the rule “Feed the soil, not the plant” and the promotion of biodiversity, provide the ecological basis for organic production and land management. Together these three principles describe a production system that works with natural systems.

The Law of Return says that we must return to the soil what we take from the soil. Non-crop organic matter (residue) is returned directly or through composting plant materials or manures. To the extent that the cash crop removes nutrients, they must be replaced by cover crops, crop rotation, or additions of off-site materials, when necessary. 

Although some hydroponic producers may compost residues, they do not return the residues to the hydroponic system and close the loop. Inputs of organic matter reported by hydroponic practitioners are produced off-site, with no return to their production system. While most organic growers depend on some off-site inputs, most of the fertility in a soil-based system comes from practices that recycle organic matter produced on-site.

The cycling of organic matter and on-site production of nutrients—as from nitrogen-fixing bacteria and microorganisms that make nutrients in native mineral soil fractions available to plants—is essential to organic production. The Law of Return is not about feeding plants, but about conserving the biodiversity of the soil-plant-animal ecological community.

“Feed the soil, not the plant” reminds us that the soil is a living superorganism that supports plant life as part of an ecological community. We do not feed soil organisms in isolation, to have them process nutrients for crop plants; we feed the soil to support a healthy soil ecology, which is the basis of terrestrial life. Feeding the soil is intended to support the soil ecosystem is intrinsically counter to a hydroponic system. Hydroponics, in bypassing the soil ecology, rely on added plant nutrients that feed the plants.

Additionally, creating a structure to house hydroponic goes against the legal requirement in federal organic law: “The producer must select and implement tillage and cultivation practices that maintain or improve the physical, chemical, and biological condition of soil and minimize soil erosion.” 

Biodiversity Conservation
Finally, biological diversity is important to the health of natural ecosystems and agroecosystems. The definition of “organic production” in the federal organic regulations requires the conservation of biodiversity. As stated in the NOP Guidance on Natural Resources and Biodiversity Conservation (NOP 5020),

The preamble to the final rule establishing the NOP explains: “The use of ‘conserve’ [in the definition of organic production] establishes that the producer must initiate practices to support biodiversity and avoid, to the extent practicable, any activities that would diminish it. Compliance with the requirement to conserve biodiversity requires that a producer incorporate practices in his or her organic system plan that are beneficial to biodiversity on his or her operation.” (76 FR 80563) 

Biodiversity promotes ecological balance, which protects farms from outbreaks of damaging insects and disease. It supports the health of the soil through the progression of the seasons and stresses associated with weather and farming. It supports our health by offering a diversity of foods. On a soil-based organic farm, many practices support biodiversity—from crop rotations to interplanting to devoting space to hedgerows and other non-productive uses. Many of these practices can and should be used by farmers producing food in greenhouses. However, hydroponics is considered a monocultural environment that does not support biodiversity. Thus, it is not enough for a hydroponics producer to say it is not diminishing soil and plant biodiversity—the operation must take active steps to support biodiversity.

Organic production allows exceptions to soil-grown produce like mushrooms, which grow on ecologically appropriate substrate such as manure or wood and sprouts. Sprouts are not required to be grown in soil because sprout production is a way of processing seeds. However, these exceptions imply that organic production is soil-based.

The ecological system of a hydroponic nutrient system is more like a fermentation chamber—a means of processing plant nutrients—than the soil ecosystem of an organic farm.

Integral to the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) is the understanding that soil is alive, not merely a medium for supporting plants, as is the case, to a large extent, in  “conventional” chemical-intensive agriculture. “Conventional” farmers pour poisonous synthetic fertilizers into soil without the protecting the ecological community. Interestingly, in defining organic in OFPA, organic producers compared conventional agriculture to hydroponics because it bypasses the soil. 

Practitioners of hydroponics have learned the value of biology in their nutrient solutions. However, the biology of fermentation tanks is not “soil ecology,” although it is merely an artificial mimic of soil ecology and a reductionist approach to manipulating nature.

Threatening the Value of the Organic Label
Organic farmers and consumers view the current interpretation of organic as a threat to the integrity of the organic seal, impacting every organic farmer and consumer in every state. The consideration of hydroponic production in organic is an issue that impacts every aspect of the organic industry. Members of the organic industry consistently rank this issue, maintaining consumer’s confidence in the organic seal, as a top priority and mandatory to their success.

However, it is critical that we address any compliance limitations of organic certification systems when it occurs and ensure corrective action in a timely fashion with full transparency. Without this kind of response, public trust in the organic food label will suffer dramatically. Additionally, to the extent that the enforcement system is known to be highly rigorous, it will decrease the likelihood of aberrant behavior.

One factor leading consumers to purchase organic produce is its perceived greater nutrient value. Research supports that perception—showing that nitrate concentrations in leafy vegetables are significantly different for hydroponic, conventional, and in-ground organic systems, with desired nutrients generally more concentrated in organic vegetables.

Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, the organic industry was meeting with congressional staff to explain its position. We need your help to continue that effort as your outreach to NOP and your elected official is critical to our success.

Because of the high turnover of congressional staff, groups opposing this policy need to continuously educate our elected officials on this issue.

We urge you to take action by sending a letter to NOP and your congressional representative. 

Tell NOP hydroponics is not organic! Educate your congressional representatives and senators.

Thank you!
The Beyond Pesticides Tea

Letter to Congress

I am writing to request congressional oversight of the National Organic Program (NOP) on a matter that goes to the core of organic production—soil. In allowing USDA organic labeling of hydroponically grown food, NOP is violating the law.

Soil is central to organic production. Therefore, NOP must take a clear position in opposition to hydroponics and other non-soil-based methods in organic production, including containers. Organic farmers and consumers believe that the organic label means two things: grown in the soil and farmed in a manner that builds soil biology and the natural cycling of nutrients. Organic farmers and consumers strongly agree that the organic label requires two things: grown in the soil and farmed in a manner that builds soil biology and the natural cycling of nutrients. A failure by NOP to enforce these requirements in federal law will ultimately have dire adverse economic consequences for the organic market.

NOP authorizes the certification of hydroponic operations as organic. This undermines the authenticity of organic farming and creates unequal competition, market instability and consumer distrust in organic certification. On March 3, 2020, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed a lawsuit challenging the USDA’s decision to allow hydroponics operations to be certified organic.

Organic farming and soil are inextricably linked. The microorganisms in healthy soils interact in a symbiotic manner with plant roots, strengthening the plant, enabling it to resist diseases and facilitating the water and mineral uptake. The essence of organic production is maintaining and enhancing the organic matter content of soil by relying on methods such as green manure, crop rotation, and biological pest control.

Historically, perhaps the most important principle of organic production is the “Law of Return,” which, together with the rule “Feed the soil, not the plant” and the promotion of biodiversity, provide the ecological basis for organic production. Together these three principles describe a production system that works with natural systems.

The Law of Return says that we must return to the soil what we take from the soil. Non-crop organic matter (residue) is returned directly or through composting plant materials or manures. To the extent that the cash crop depletes soil, organic production systems replace them with cover crops, crop rotation, or additions of off-site materials, when necessary. Hydroponic producers do not return the residues to the hydroponic system, closing the loop.

“Feed the soil, not the plant” reminds us that the soil is a living superorganism that supports plant life as part of an ecological community. We do not feed soil organisms in isolation, to have them process nutrients for crop plants; we feed the soil to support a healthy soil ecology, which is the basis of terrestrial life. Feeding the soil has a positive impact on the ecosystem, which cannot be done with hydroponics. Hydroponics rely on added nutrients, added to feed the plants, not the ecosystem.

Finally, biological diversity is important to the health of natural ecosystems and agroecosystems, protecting farms from outbreaks of damaging insects and disease. The definition of “organic production” in the organic regulations requires the conservation of biodiversity—the producer must “initiate practices to support biodiversity and avoid, to the extent practicable, any activities that would diminish it.”

Organic farmers and consumers view allowing hydroponics in organic as a threat to the integrity of the organic seal, impacting every organic farmer and consumer in every state.

Thank you for pushing for congressional oversight to protect public trust in the organic label and ensure the growth of the organic market.

Letter to USDA

It is absolutely essential to any government or private standard setting process that enforcement and compliance operate effectively and is trusted by the public. Without an effective enforcement system, the value of the USDA organic label is undermined in the market. Whether related to imported or domestically grown food, enforcement against fraud and an assurance of compliance with organic standards is critical to the ongoing growth and stability of the organic market. Fraud is a problem when, for example, crops are grown with prohibited inputs, when livestock do not get the required access to pasture, and when crops are produced in artificial media and, therefore, not in compliance with organic standards.

Consumer trust and organic farmer and handler investments are jeopardized by ineffective oversight and enforcement of organic standards by USDA. USDA and accredited organic certifying agents are generally meeting expectations, but the enforcement process has fallen short in several instances, particularly in allowing hydroponic production, and additional actions are needed to safeguard the integrity of the organic label.

Contrary to a 2010 recommendation by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), the National Organic Program (NOP) has been allowing hydroponics operations to be certified as organic. This reversal of an NOSB decision without any new scientific information undermines the NOSB process and will have a devastating long-term impact on the credibility of the organic label. In response, organic stakeholders, including growers, consumers, processors, and retailers, have come together around an add-on label that will inform consumers that their organic food has been grown in the soil and managed in accordance with the intent and spirit of Organic Foods Production Act, which requires that organic growers “foster soil fertility, primarily through the management of the organic content of the soil through proper tillage, crop rotation, and manuring.” This add-on label will provide transparency so that consumers can be assured that farmers are engaged in the practices of soil-based agriculture, which are foundational to the principles and values integral to the law.

From its very beginnings, the organic sector has been driven by an alliance of farmers and consumers who defined the organic standards as a holistic approach to protecting health and the environment, with a deep conviction that food production could operate in sync with nature and be mindful of its interrelationship with the natural world—protecting and enhancing the quality of air, water, land, and food. These standards, integral to organic, certainly do not preclude the adoption of other methods that can identify themselves as offering other assets, but adherence to the principles of organic cannot be compromised if we are to sustain the organic market in the future. So, from this perspective, we have a serious fraud and enforcement problem with the current allowance of certified organic hydroponic production.

Please tell certifiers that hydroponic production cannot be certified organic.

Thank you for your attention to this serious matter of public trust in the organic label.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 10, 2020) A study published in June 2020 in Environmental Health journal is especially concerning for people who become, or plan to become, pregnant. It concludes that personal, agricultural, and household exposures to pesticides may increase the risk of a relatively rare fetal disorder called “holoprosencephaly.” The study finds that pre-conception and the first few weeks of pregnancy are the most vulnerable periods during which exposure can increase risk of this disorder, in which the embryo’s forebrain fails to develop into two distinct hemispheres. The study’s results reinforce Beyond Pesticide’s long-standing warnings of the dangers of pesticides to children and the necessity of shifting to a precautionary approach to the introduction and use of synthetic pesticides (and other chemicals) across all sectors. The importance of this shift is perhaps no more poignantly illustrated than in the impacts that pesticide exposure can have on new life.

The study, conducted from 2016 through 2019 by researchers from NIH (the U.S. National Institutes of Health) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is a case-control study — one that compares subjects who have a disease or disorder with “controls” who do not have the disorder, comparing the frequency of exposure to a particular risk factor in each group so as to determine the incidence relationship between the risk factor and the disease. In this research, the risk factor is pesticide exposure, and the disorder is holoprosencephaly (HPE).

The 91 subjects for the study were found through the National Human Genome Research Institute’s ongoing research projects on HPE. The 56 “controls” are children with Williams-Beuren Syndrome, a genetically caused disorder unrelated to HPE, but which is also characterized by congenital malformations (e.g., by pre- and post-natal growth delays, short stature, varying degrees of mental deficiency, and distinctive facial features). Subjects in both groups were predominantly from the U.S.

HPE is the most common malformation of the forebrain in humans, occurring in one of every 8,000 live births. The prognosis and lifespan of fetuses with HPE vary significantly, and depend to great extent on the severity of the abnormalities. Most do not survive even to birth; in less-severe cases, the brain may be more-nearly normal and those children may have a typical life expectancy, though the disorder is often accompanied by developmental delays. Many children born with holoprosencephaly have facial abnormalities (of eyes, nose, and lips), and some may exhibit endocrine dysfunction.

As with other congenital abnormalities, HPE’s etiology is complex and includes both genetic and environmental factors, which can interact to affect neurodevelopment. Only 25% of HPE cases exhibit mutations in one of the four genes most commonly associated with development of the condition. Other, non-genetic causes are thought to include environmental teratogens — agents that can cause malformations of an embryo. As the study authors write, “Epidemiologic and animal studies suggest that the interactions between genetic and environmental factors underlie the etiologic heterogeneity and complexity of human birth defects.” (A sample of congenital defects associated with pesticide exposure is available on Beyond Pesticides Pesticide-Induced Diseases: Birth/Fetal Defects website page.)

The researchers are interested in the relationship between pesticide exposures before and during pregnancy vis-à-vis HPE outcomes; no human studies to date had examined this relationship. The paper’s authors write, “Given the neurotoxic nature of many pesticides, increased susceptibility of the developing brain to toxic agents, associations of pesticides with brain malformations, and experimental evidence linking ingredients in pesticides with inhibition of the most important pathway in holoprosencephaly, investigation of pesticide exposure in HPE etiology is warranted.” [For science types: HPE brain and facial malformations “result from acute inhibition of the Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) pathway at a critical period of sensitivity during early embryogenesis.”]

Using a detailed questionnaire to estimate household, occupational, and environmental exposures to pesticide products (and other factors), the researchers examine maternal exposure to a number of pesticide compounds during four identified stages of pregnancy: preconception, early, mid, and late pregnancy. Among the pesticide categories surveyed are: personal insect repellents; lice or scabies medication; pet pest control products; insecticides for home or yard/garden use; and weed killers. The survey also asked about occupational exposures, and residential proximity to agricultural fields. Last, it sought information about some demographic characteristics, and about other factors that might either be protective or associated with HPE risk, such as maternal intake of folic acid before and during pregnancy, and substance use, including alcohol and nicotine, respectively.

Some highlights of the research findings include:

• maternal use of folic acid supplements prior to conception and/or during the first month of pregnancy are associated with reduced odds of HPE
• self-reports of pesticide use for some common pesticides, including those containing N, N-diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET) are rare, but exposure to DEET-containing repellents during the preconception period are associated with increased risk for HPE; read about Beyond Pesticides DEET-related recommendations here
• self-report of maternal exposure to any personal insect repellents in the preconception period are associated with increased odds for HPE
• exposure rates for lice and scabies treatments are similarly low, and not associated with HPE risk
• exposures to weed killers during preconception are not associated with HPE except where the exposures occur inside the home, in which case a trend toward association with HPE are found (researchers note that “residential pesticide use has been shown to contribute to the persistence of higher than recommended quantities of pesticide residues in the indoor air and [on] surfaces for as long as two weeks after a single application”)
• residential proximity to an agricultural field (within 100 meters) during the preconception period or early pregnancy (i.e., the first trimester) are positively associated with HPE risk

Pesticide products used for pets or in the home show the strongest association with increased odds of HPE (compared to controls). Notably, exposures during pregnancy to insecticides and acaricides (compounds poisonous to ticks, fleas, and mites) used on pets, either via maternal use or use by another household member, are positively associated with risk for HPE. In addition, maternal exposure to personal insect repellents during preconception and/or during early pregnancy are positively associated with HPE — indeed, there is an observed twofold increase in risk.

The study authors assert that pesticides’ neurotoxicity is a likely actor in the compounds’ potential role as HPE teratogens. The study does not drill down to identify the specific active ingredients in the pesticides to which subjects reported exposure, nor does it examine dietary pesticide exposures. The authors note: “Future epidemiologic and experimental work should investigate associations between specific pesticide products and chemicals because nontargeted analyses grouping different pesticides including innocuous chemicals could mask the role of those chemicals contributing to HPE.”

The researchers identify five major pesticide classes — pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, carbamates, organochlorines, and organophosphates — and acknowledge a variety of modes of action across them re: developmental neurotoxicity. Given the recent relative increase of pyrethroid compound use in homes, and the strong associations between in-home pesticide and acaricide use, they say, “It would be especially imperative to examine possible associations between exposures to components of pyrethroid insecticide formulations and the risk for HPE.” They also assert that further investigations of genetic-plus-environmental interactions, as well as of biomarkers, are warranted.

The research does not establish causation, but rather, degrees of association between various kinds of pesticide exposure and subsequent incidence of HPE. The paper says, “Given the small sample size it is difficult to conclude causal associations, however, results of this analysis combined with emerging experimental data, increase potential weight of evidence that pesticide use and both active and inactive ingredients should be considered potential risk factors for HPE.” They also note that there is in vitro evidence that a co-ingredient in more than 1,000 pyrethroid insecticide products, piperonyl butoxide, inhibits the HPE-associated Shh pathway mentioned above.

Beyond Pesticides has written about the issue of pesticide exposure during critical developmental windows — which include the period prior to pregnancy and the first few weeks of the first trimester, especially. Those early weeks of pregnancy are when basic structures and systems such as the central nervous system (which includes the brain) develop rapidly. During these vulnerable developmental windows, neurodevelopmental toxins, such as those found in many active ingredients of pesticides, are particularly dangerous. Apart from development of HPE, some of the impacts and increased vulnerability that fetuses, babies, and children may endure may continue throughout childhood, putting kids at increased risk of cancer, developmental delays, and learning disabilities. Philippe Grandjean, MD, PhD, of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has said, “Unfortunately, current testing paradigms do not properly assess the impact of risk factors during vulnerable exposure windows. Without new policies and guidelines, we cannot have a universal healthy start for children.”

In 2019, Dean Baker, MD, MPH — professor emeritus of medicine, epidemiology and public health in the School of Medicine, and former director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, University of California Irvine, California — wrote for Beyond Pesticides’ journal, Pesticides and You: “There are millions of chemicals registered in the chemical registry of the American Chemical Society, or the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) Registry. There are over 80,000 chemicals that are produced and used in the United States, most of them having been synthesized in the past 50 years. There are 2,000 new chemicals introduced into commerce every year. The majority have not been tested for other than acute toxicity. Over 95% have not been tested for their effects to children.”

The pregnancy-related risks of HPE due to pesticide exposures to which this study points serve to illuminate the folly of the federal regulatory system’s attempts to “mitigate” risks of pesticide exposure through small and piecemeal rules. Given the many thousands of chemical pesticides on the market, the complexity of trying to ensure “relative” safety from them (especially considering potential synergistic interactions, as well as interactions with genetic and “lifestyle” factors), and the heaps of cash that fund corporate interests (i.e., selling these compounds) via lobbyists and trade associations, there is one conclusion. “Mitigation” of pesticide risks is a nibble around the edges of a pervasive poison problem; this approach does not at all adequately protect the fragility of life.

Many scientists have argued that approaches to the challenges posed by pests, weeds, fungal infections, disease-carrying insects, and other problems ought to be guided by the Precautionary Principle. Developed at a 1998 conference, the scientists that convened for it declared, in their Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action.”

In application, this means that governmental regulation of any substance or activity proposed by an entity (usually a corporation) must require that proponents of the activity or substance, rather than the public, bear the burden of proof of safety. But more than 20 years hence, despite research results that support the eminent sense of this precautionary approach, and the advocacy of nongovernmental organizations and members of the public, the Precautionary Principle is still not the foundation of the U.S. approach to pesticides. Given the grossly inadequate nature of pesticide regulation in the U.S., the public cannot currently rely on governmental regulation, but must use local and personal actions to take precaution, as well as continue to advocate for federal, state, and locality precautionary paradigms.

For information on such personal precautions and protections, see these Beyond Pesticides’ website pages: Safer Choice: How to Avoid Hazardous Home, Garden, Community, and Food Use Pesticides; Center for Community Pesticide and Alternatives Information; Organic Agriculture, Eating with a Conscience, and Buying Organic Products; Mosquito Management and Insect-Borne Diseases; and Lawns and Landscapes, among others.

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

Source: https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-020-00611-z

(Beyond Pesticides, July 9, 2020) Conventional U.S. milk contains growth hormones, antibiotics, and low to elevated levels of pesticides not found in organic milk, according to a study published in the journal of Public Health Nutrition by Emory University researchers. Milk can bioaccumulate certain organic pollutants, making it a valuable medium to assess what chemical we might be ingesting daily. With milk being one of the most consumed beverages in the U.S., in addition to its use in other popular drinks (i.e., coffee and tea), this study discloses widespread contamination and highlights the need for improved regulation. Researchers in the study note, “To our knowledge, the present study is the first study to compare levels of pesticide in the U.S. milk supply by production method (conventional vs. organic). It is also the first in a decade to measure antibiotic and hormone levels and compare them by milk production type.” 

The market for conventional milk, produced in chemical-intensive agriculture, is declining, but the demand for organic milk is increasing due to concerns over chemical contamination in consumer products from pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets limits for pesticide residues in food products, the agency fails to assess aggregate pesticide exposure and the accompanying risks. Milk is a staple in many Americans’ diets, especially children and developing youth who continue to consume it into adulthood. In addition to being the first to assess the degree to which toxic chemicals like pesticides, antibiotics, and growth hormones (synthetic) exist in commercial milk, this research demonstrates how chemical concentration levels in milk vary among organic and conventional, non-organic milk production. Researchers at Emory University state, “Little is known about the real-life, often prolonged exposure to combinations of pesticides that may compound any effect.”

The researchers investigated the difference between residues in conventional and organic milk by examining milk samples for current-use pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones (i.e., bovine growth hormone [bGH] and insulin-like growth factor 1 [IGF-1]). Scientists obtained milk samples from four half-gallon U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) labeled organic and four half-gallon non-organic milk cartons, from nine U.S. regions. The regions include California, Great Lakes, Midwest, New England, New York, Northwest, Rocky Mountain Southeast, and Southwest. Six of the eight half-gallon cartons are 2% milk, a majority of what most American children drink, and the remaining two are whole milk. Researchers determined residue levels in milk samples using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. Lastly, researchers compared the results of the study to that of chemical residue levels established by federal tolerances.

All conventional, non-organic milk samples have residues of current-use pesticides, antibiotics, and growth hormones, not present in organic samples, according to the study. Researchers detect low to elevated levels of current-use pesticide residues in conventional milk samples. The pesticides include atrazine (26%), permethrin (46%), cypermethrin (49%), chlorpyrifos (59%), and diazinon (60%). Additionally, the study finds that antibiotic residue levels in conventional milk samples surpass federal limits for amoxicillin (3%), and illegal sulfamethazine (37%) and sulfathiazole (26%). Concentration levels of growth hormones bGH and IGF-1 are 20 and three times greater in conventional milk samples than organic samples, respectively. The research did detect the presence of legacy pesticides—pesticides banned for use but remain environmentally persistent—in both non-organic and organic samples, hexachlorobenzene, ppDDT, and ppDDE (a DDT metabolite). However, legacy pesticide residue levels remain higher in conventional milk samples than organic.  

This research indicates a lack of information surrounding the chemicals that contaminate commercial consumer goods like milk. The Organic Center’s director of science programs, Jessica Shade, PhD, mentions, “This study finds that the presence of antibiotics and pesticides in conventional milk is much more prevalent and pervasive than previously thought.”

Many studies document occupational and residential pesticide exposure from point source pesticide applications. Sprays, granular baits, and other pesticide application methods directly expose pesticide applicators and adjacent communities to the harmful effects of these toxic chemicals, even at low levels. However, pesticides can move from non-point applications and contaminate commercial products that are ingested (i.e., drinking water, food), inhaled (i.e., cigarettes, nano-silver laced masks) or absorbed (i.e., pet products, soaps, and other antimicrobials). A 2015 study reveals heptachlor contaminated milk in Hawaii increased the risk of developing the degenerative disorder Parkinson’s disease.

International retail milk also faces similar pesticide contamination issues as a 2020 study finds eight different types of insecticides and fungicides, in addition to other chemicals, present in Israeli milk samples. Although EPA and FDA set legal limits on chemical residues in consumer products, the agencies often fail to enforce the law.

The USDA oversees the organic certification process and ensures organic farms comply with organic regulations. However, the organic industry has a problem when it comes to the issue of milk production and factory farms. Several exposés uncover how USDA fails to enforce National Organic Program regulations on larger dairy farms. In 2017, the Washington Post investigated the Aurora Organic Dairy farm in Colorado and found, “Signs of grazing were sparse.[…] The number of cows seen on pasture numbered only in the hundreds.[…] At no point was any more than 10 percent of the herd out.” The Post sent milk samples from the farm to Virginia Tech for analysis, confirming these cows produce conventional (non-organic) milk. Previously, the organic agriculture watchdog group Cornucopia Institute filed a complaint with USDA against the same dairy farm for violating the organic grazing rules. Grazing is vital in organic milk production. Consumers expect that the organic milk they drink comes from cows that are pastured because it is better for the cows and for the people who drink their milk. Despite the discrete issues within the organic industry, organic milk remains a healthier option in comparison to conventional, non-organic.  

Past studies find organic milk and grass-fed milk—with similar practices—to be healthier. Specifically, organic milk contains 62% more omega-3 fatty acids and 25% fewer omega-6s. An unbalanced ratio of more omega-6 to omega-3s can cause severe health problems, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other illnesses. Nevertheless, higher consumption of omega-3s reduces the risk of diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, and many other chronic disorders. Organic foods can mitigate exposure to pesticides due to the method in which farmers grow and prepare food. The American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) recognizes that organic food is lower pesticide residues, making it significantly better for child consumption. Children are especially sensitive to pesticide exposure as their bodies are still developing. Additionally, pesticide exposure early on in life heightens the risks of developing chronic diseases, like diabetes, various cancers, neurological disorders, and more.

This research provides evidence that levels of chemical contaminant residues in conventional, non-organic milk greatly surpass that of organic. While organic contains no detectable levels of current-use pesticides, all non-organic samples do. Four milk samples exceed the federal limits for the pesticide residue, with 59% of sampling containing the highly neurotoxic, insecticide chlorpyrifos residue. Chlorpyrifos is of special concern, as states including Hawaii, California, New York, and Maryland, are phasing out most of its agricultural uses, after EPA negotiated chlorpyrifos’s withdrawal from most of the residential market because of neurotoxic effects to children in 2000. Current chlorpyrifos use is on golf courses and row crops like corn, soybeans, fruit/nut trees, brussels sprouts, cranberries, broccoli, and cauliflower. Human exposure to chlorpyrifos can induce endocrine disruption, reproductive dysfunction, fetal defects, neurotoxic damage, and kidney/liver damage. Chlorpyrifos is highly toxic to bees, birds, and aquatic organisms.

Studies like this one demonstrate the need for improved monitoring of consumer products to ensure product safety. Although skeptics question the use of liquid chromatography to accurately detect levels of chemical residues, instead of the FDA approved inhibition method, detection alone is enough of a concern. Jean Welsh, PhD, a preeminent author of the Emory University study and a nutritional epidemiologist, states that not enough is known about the impact of these chemicals. Additionally, Drs. Shade and Welsh react to the study results, implying “[a] need [for] further research to see how chronic, low levels of antibiotics, pesticides, and hormones impact health in the long term.”

Beyond Pesticides believes that we must eliminate pesticide use that contaminates consumer products by converting to organic practices to eliminate the hazards associated with pesticide exposure. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits, which curtail the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices. Regenerative organic agriculture revitalizes soil health through organic carbon sequestration, while reducing pests and generating higher return than chemical-intensive agriculture. It is vital to continue to support organic food production and maintain the integrity of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic label. For more information about organic food production, visit Beyond Pesticides Keep Organic Strong webpage. Learn more about the adverse health and environmental effects chemical-intensive farming poses for various crops and how eating organic produce reduces pesticide exposure. Additionally, learn more about the implications of pesticides on human health by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database. This database supports the clear need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. 

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

Sources: Public Health Nutrition, USA Today

(Beyond Pesticides, July 8, 2020) Efforts to control the transmission of malaria are encountering a big, though predictable, problem: the mosquitoes that transmit malaria are developing resistance to at least five of the insecticides that have been central to limiting transmission of the disease. A study released in late June reveals a dramatic increase in resistance to pyrethroid insecticides and DDT across sub-Saharan Africa. This signals the failure of a mainstay chemical approach to the spread of malarial mosquitoes; this same problem — resistance — is happening with chemical management of agricultural pests and weeds, and with antibiotics to treat human bacterial infections. This study underscores a point Beyond Pesticides has made repeatedly: resistance to pesticides (whether insecticides, herbicides, biocides, fungicides, or medical antibiotics) is nearly inevitable. The solution to containing the spread of malaria lies not in the use of more and different chemicals, but in nontoxic approaches that respect nature and ecological balance.

Malaria is a sometimes deadly disease caused by female Anopheles mosquitoes infected with any of four varieties of the Plasmodium parasite. The disease kills roughly 400,000 people annually, with half that mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. The U.S. sees approximately 2,000 cases of malaria annually, primarily in people returning from countries in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that deal with consistent malaria threats.

In such regions, primary control strategies for these mosquito vectors during the past couple of decades have been the insecticidal treatment of bed nets (known as ITNs), and indoor residual spraying (IRS) of insecticides on walls, floors, ceilings, and eaves prior to the intensive malaria transmission season. The development of mosquito resistance to these insecticides means that existing control programs, which promote ITNs and/or IRS, are becoming far less effective. Over the course of the last two decades, deltamethrin and λ-cyhalothrin (synthetic pyrethroids), and DDT have been used for IRS, but the authors note that other classes of insecticides, such as carbamates and organophosphates, are increasingly being used for IRS.

It is noteworthy that DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was used intensively as a malarial control (and for other purposes) from the 1940s through the 1960s. In the U.S., the compound was banned in 1972 because of its extreme persistence in and harm to the environment, and because it accumulates in fatty tissue in humans. Exposure to DDT and its breakdown products is linked with harms to the human reproductive, endocrine, and neurological systems, as well as to development of cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Although DDT is no longer manufactured or used in much of the world (China is currently the largest manufacturer), its use continues in 19 countries, and much of that is for mosquito control.

In 2018, Beyond Pesticides reported that “Rampant overuse [of DDT], both to control disease vectors and in agriculture, resulted in the development of significant resistance to the compound. Today, DDT resistance is widespread in Anopheles mosquitoes.” In 2017, Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) noted, “Of the 73 countries that provided monitoring data to WHO [the United Nations World Health Organization] from 2010 onward, 60 countries reported insect resistance to at least one insecticide and 50 reported resistance to 2 or more insecticides. This highlights the problem of relying on insecticide-based strategies for vector control. . . . Ultimately, disease vectors and parasites develop resistance to the insecticide and it becomes almost ineffective in the long run.”

The subject study comes out of the University of Oxford, and was published by PLOS Biology. Researchers and co-authors Catherine Moyes, PhD and Penelope Hancock, PhD analyzed a database of information on mosquitoes across the sub-Saharan region of Africa, mapping dates and locations of the rise of insecticide resistance in Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. They then created modeling to quantify temporal and spatial trends in eastern and western regions of the continent. During the period from 2005 to 2017, their modeling found, mosquito mortality after exposure to pesticides dropped from nearly 100% to under 30% in some regions, and the geographic spread of such resistance grew.

West Africa showed drastic increases in resistance to all synthetic pyrethroids. For example, in 2005, mean mortality to deltamethrin was below the WHO (World Health Organization) threshold for confirmed resistance across 15% of the region; by 2017, that figure rose to 98%. East Africa has seen a real, though somewhat less dramatic, increase in resistance to pyrethroids, with an analogous rise in spread during the same period from 9% to 45% of the region. DDT resistance was more widespread in 2005 than was resistance to pyrethroids, but it, too, showed progression. In the west in 2005, confirmed resistance (as defined by mortality below the WHO threshold) to DDT was found in 53% of the territory, and rose to a spread across 97% of the area by 2017.

The researchers assert that, although their modeling included more than 100 predictor variables that might influence selection for resistance, “it is unlikely that we have captured the full set of causal variables underlying selection. In particular, data on the quantities of insecticides used in agriculture, and where they were applied, were not available. Such information would better inform predictive relationships between resistance and agricultural insecticide use. We note that the relationships between insecticide resistance and the predictor variables represented in our models do not prove causality. Each variable interacts with other variables . . . and possibly with variables not included in our analysis.” This acknowledgment points to a potential role for agricultural use of pesticides in the resistance scenario for malarial mosquitoes.

The issue of resistance is growing in agriculture, in medicine, and in other sectors (such as mosquito control) in which humans hope to quell the advance of organisms that harm people and critical supports for human life, such as food and medical care. In all these areas, the “fixes” on which people have come to depend, whether antibiotics for bacterial infections, or pesticides to beat back weed and insect pests, or insecticides to try to prevent vector-borne diseases, are increasingly failing as organisms develop resistance to compounds that would thwart them. PANNA notes, “The World Health Organization underscored the problem in their 2012 guidance on policy making for Integrated Vector Management (IVM): ‘Resistance to insecticides is an increasing problem in vector control because of the reliance on chemical control and expanding operations . . . Furthermore, the chemical insecticides used can have adverse effects on health and the environment.’”

Development of resistance is an entirely normal, adaptive phenomenon: organisms evolve, “exploiting” beneficial genetic mutations that give them survival advantage. For nearly a century, human response to this has been primarily a chemical “chasing” of such evolutionary changes — developing a compound that kills the offending organism (whether pest or weed or bacterium or fungus) for a while. Organisms nearly inevitably change to become resistant to that particular chemical assault, whereupon people — the chemical industry, researchers, applicators, farmers, public health workers, clinicians, et al. — have typically moved on to the next chemical “solution.”

Beyond Pesticides has written extensively on the issue of resistance, particularly as it relates to the use of agricultural and other land-management pesticides, with the central message: resistance is a symptom of the ineffectiveness of chemical-intensive agriculture, and leads to increased use of more, and more-toxic, pesticides. In addition, resistance in one of the “sectors” mentioned above can “cross over” to become problematic in another. Agricultural and veterinary uses of antibiotics, for example, have contributed very significantly to the problem of resistance of certain bacteria or fungi to antibiotics that have historically knocked down such infections in humans. Examples include familiar drug names: penicillin, vancomycin, azithromycin, and fluconazole — all of which have become less and less effective as pathogens have developed resistance to them.

Transmission of malaria is a problem that needs solutions far less reliant on intensive chemical treatments, especially noxious DDT. PANNA has endorsed the WHO concept of Integrated Vector Management (IVM), writing: “Vector control relying on a community-based, least-toxic version of Integrated Vector Management (IVM) has proved to be much more effective in the long run in controlling mosquito populations and the diseases they transmit. . . . When communities are at the forefront of active mosquito control and malaria management efforts — using the least toxic, yet very effective IVM methods — significant reductions in malaria incidences can be observed. . . . Given the effective alternatives to using hazardous pesticides, it is essential that governments around the world focus on supporting IVM strategies that are least toxic and can be sustained over the long term through community leadership and participation.”

A decade ago, Pesticide Action Network Germany published on its website, “Control malaria without DDT! There are more options than currently used” — a call to using no- or low-risk approaches. Among the alternative strategies it identifies are:
• prevention measures that eliminate mosquito breeding sites (any standing water), such as leveling land to eliminate water-catching depressions, clearing vegetation, removing trash, and planting trees; use of ecosystem-compatible predators and nematodes; use of bacterial and/or botanical larvicides; improvements in home/building sanitation and structural integrity; personal protection, such as long-sleeved shirts, botanical repellants, and mosquito nets and screens
• pathogen control, including medicinal herbs, chemoprophylaxis, and vaccination when available
• vector controls, such as mosquito traps and targets; pyrethroids if necessary; and use of fungi

Research published in 2018 demonstrated yet another potential approach to controlling malaria transmission: exposing A. gambiae to specific antimalarial compounds via treated surfaces (such as bed nets). When the mosquitoes take up low concentrations of an antimalarial drug prior to or shortly after infection by the Plasmodium parasite, the drug causes “full parasite arrest in the midgut, and prevents transmission of infection,” the research found. Of course, antimalarial drugs are subject to the same resistance development as any other chemical approach.

Even if malaria is not a local concern, most people are concerned about the diseases mosquitoes can transmit, including West Nile virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, and Zika fever. Beyond Pesticides provides useful information on mosquito management and insect-borne diseases on a section of its website devoted to these issues.

Beyond Pesticides advocates alternatives to chemical approaches. The most successful malaria control programs combine a variety of strategies with community education, and require government commitment and political will. For example, Vietnam reduced malaria deaths by 97% and malaria cases by 59% when it switched in 1991 from trying to eradicate malaria using DDT to a DDT-free malaria control program involving distribution of drugs and mosquito nets, along with widespread health education organized with village leaders. A program in central Kenya focuses on reducing malaria by working with the rice-growing community to improve water management. The program also involves using livestock as bait, introducing biological controls, and distributing mosquito nets in affected areas.

Beyond Pesticides maintains that management strategies to combat insect-borne malaria cannot be successful if they are based on chemical-intensive strategies that ignore the underlying conditions that exacerbate the spread of the disease. Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, has noted, “We should be advocating for a just world where we no longer treat poverty and development with poisonous band-aids, but join together to address the root causes of insect-borne disease, because the chemical-dependent alternatives are ultimately deadly for everyone.” He also said, “We should focus on the deplorable living conditions, and inequitable distribution of wealth and resources worldwide that give rise to squalor, inhumane living conditions, and the poor state of development that, together, breed insect-borne diseases like malaria.”

Even if malaria is not a local concern, most people are concerned about the diseases mosquitoes can transmit, including West Nile virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, and Zika fever. Beyond Pesticides provides useful information on mosquito management and insect-borne diseases on a section of its website devoted to these issues.

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

Sources: https://www.courthousenews.com/scientists-track-pesticide-resistance-in-malaria-carrying-mosquitoes/amp/; https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000633#sec001

(Beyond Pesticides, July 7, 2020) One’s zip code plays an important role in the likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD), according to data published by Louisiana State University researchers in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. With genetics and exposure to agricultural pesticide use identified as the main factors affecting PD, proximity to certain cropland and its effluent had a major impact on disease risk. As with most environmentally related diseases, this study highlights the disproportionate risk and environmental racism low income, indigenous and people of color communities endure.

Researchers received access to over 23,000 PD diagnoses in Louisiana between 1999 and 2012, and mapped these data by zip code. Risk was determined calculating the number of diagnoses per 10,000 people in a given zip code, based on census data. To flesh out the role agriculture was playing in PD diagnoses, additional data derived from water quality samples taken by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and the U.S. Geological Survey pesticide use estimates were compared against reported disease incidence.

Results show that certain zip codes faced significantly higher incidence of PD than others in the state. Further, “The PD high-risk areas match closely the arbor-pastoral areas of the state that are of deciduous and evergreen forests, forest not otherwise specified, and grass/pastures,” the study indicates. In Allen and Evangeline parishes, with heavy timber operations and abundant pasture land, researchers found upwards of 35 diagnoses per 10,000 residents. The average annual incidence of of the disease in the state was found to be 2.9 per 10,000 people. According to census data, nearly 30% of people in Evangeline parish live below the poverty line, and roughly 1 in 5 adults under the age of 65 have a disability.

Researchers note that areas with high aquifer recharge potential had higher rates of PD diagnoses. The Sabine River, and the contribution of Texas agriculture was specifically cited in the study. “One does not have to be living on a riverbank to be drinking its water,” the study reads. In particular, the authors indicate that a number of Native American communities live the Sabine River aquifer and are at elevated risk due to the potential for drinking water to be contaminated.

The study identifies pesticide use, specifically 2,4-D, paraquat, and chlorpyrifos, on pasture land, forestry, or woodland operations, as major risk factors for PD. Areas where these chemicals quickly seep into drinking water are at highest risk. The authors indicate that a transition to glyphosate-tolerant crops seemed to lessen the disease risk in certain agricultural areas. However, given glyphosate’s strong links to cancer, it is possible that risks shifted to different disease outcomes. Further, while glyphosate may have temporarily replaced the use of 2,4-D in many cropping systems, with glyphosate resistance on the rise, 2,4-D is making its way back into heavy use. In fact, the agricultural industry is now speeding towards multi-herbicide tolerant cropping systems, resulting in a much greater public health threat than any prior cropping system.

The study concludes with the following, “three aspects of Parkinson’s disease that need to be kept in mind: (1) It is, unfortunately, a disease that cannot be cured; it can only be prevented; (2) It is part of the agricultural ecology; (3) It is dynamic; its expression can change.” Beyond Pesticides rejects the concept that increased risk of a degenerative disease, that can only be prevented, must also be seen as an indelible part of agricultural ecology. Organic agriculture represents a safer, healthier approach to crop production that does not necessitate the use of highly toxic pesticides. See here for the whole picture on the benefits of organic production to our health.

Environmental racism must be tackled through programs that acknowledge the damage of past actions, and improve outcomes for disproportionately affected communities. Support organizations that are working to advance black food sovereignty, and farmworker rights.

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

Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

(Beyond Pesticides, July 6, 2020) EPA’s proposed interim decision (PID) on the weed killer clopyralid is inadequate to protect human health, property, nontarget plants, and pollinators from damage. Clopyralid poses unreasonable adverse effects that cannot be remedied by EPA’s proposed fixes. It should be banned.

Sign the petition by noon Monday, July 6! Tell EPA to ban the persistent toxic herbicide clopyralid.

Clopyralid is a toxic persistent herbicide used to control broadleaf weeds on lawns and turf, range, pastures, right-of ways, and on several crops. Approximately 1.6 million pounds of clopyralid is used on 20 million acres per year in the U.S. on agricultural land, but it is also commonly used to kill dandelions, clover, and thistles. Lawn care operators applied over a million pounds of clopyralid in 2013.

Clopyralid is notorious for causing damage to nontarget plants. The registration was modified in 2002 to delete residential turf uses from the clopyralid product label. Additionally, under the amended label professional applicators are required to notify property managers not to compost clippings from treated grass. EPA proposes to expand the prohibition to include school turf, but clopyralid products will continue to be used on golf courses and certain other forms of nonresidential turf, as well as farm, ranch, and forestry uses.

Clopyralid causes environmental and property damage through drift, runoff, use of treated plant material (such as straw or grass clippings) for mulch or compost, contaminated irrigation water, and urine or manure from animals consuming treated vegetation. Clopyralid is “considered volatile,” according to EPA, meaning that it can evaporate from foliage and soil after application, move away from the application site, and “adversely affect nontarget broadleaf plants.” EPA calculated that volatilization of only one percent of applied clopyralid would be enough to damage nontarget plants.

Clopyralid can cause damage to sensitive plants at levels of 10 parts per billion. It is not broken down in composting facilities, and composters are very concerned about carry-over of clopyralid and other persistent herbicides, such as aminopyralid, aminocyclopyrachlor, and picloram into compostable materials. Clopyralid can enter the composting facility through lawn clippings, hay, straw, crop residues, and manure. Compost facilities now test for residues of persistent herbicides, but such tests are time-intensive and expensive.

In November 2002, the registration of clopyralid for use on residential lawns was voluntarily cancelled by the registrant, Dow AgroSciences. However, compost feedstocks are contaminated by other uses that are still allowed. Residues from any of these uses may find their way to composting facilities. Grass clippings, hay, and straw may also be used as mulch, allowing direct transfer of the herbicide to susceptible plants.

The contaminated mulch and compost may be used by homeowners, landscapers, or organic farmers. In the case of homeowners, it can mean the loss of expensive plantings. Landscapers may be liable for damages. In the case of organic farmers, it can mean the loss of a crop and possibly the loss of organic certification.

Clopyralid is not metabolized by animals but passes through in urine and feces. Thus, farmers and composters are advised to avoid manure from animals that may have eaten hay or feed that may be contaminated with it or other persistent herbicides. EPA proposes label amendments to mitigate these problems. If these label restrictions are followed, they may minimize the spread of clopyralid residues into sensitive areas. Doing so, however, reduces the availability of organic nutrients for crops and compost makers, thus burdening organic farmers and composters. This places undue burdens on those who do not benefit from the use of the herbicide and makes agriculture less sustainable. Instead, registrations of clopyralid and other persistent herbicides should be cancelled.

All herbicides, especially those targeting broadleaved plants, pose the risk of removing plants that provide food and habitat for pollinators. Some of those pollinators may be threatened or endangered species. As EPA admits, it has not evaluated risks to threatened and endangered species. Nor has it completed endocrine disruption evaluation. Since both of these are very sensitive consequences—that may result from much lower exposures than those evaluated thus far—reregistration must not proceed until those evaluations—including consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service—are complete. 

Although EPA downplays them, clopyralid does present human health risks. Clopyralid is classified by EPA in acute toxicity class III as slightly toxic. Laboratory studies have shown that clopyralid is a severe eye irritant and dermal irritation has also been noted, which can lead to skin sensitization for prolonged skin exposures. Some developmental and reproductive effects have been observed in laboratory animals. The livers and kidneys of rats as well as the livers of dogs were affected by changes in weight and decreased red blood cell counts. Another study found that weights of rabbit fetuses decreased at both low and high doses of clopyralid. Skeletal abnormalities were also observed in these fetuses at all doses. Clopyralid products also contain toxic contaminants and “inert” or “other” ingredients.

Resistance to herbicides is an expected consequence of their use, so any perceived benefit of using an herbicide must be discounted by its reduced lifespan as an effective weed control. There are currently 514 unique cases (combinations of species and sites of action) of herbicide resistant weeds globally, with 262 species (152 dicots and 110 monocots). Weeds have evolved resistance to 23 of the 26 known herbicide sites of action and to 167 different herbicides. Herbicide resistant weeds have been reported in 93 crops in 70 countries. Resistance to clopyralid is known in four species, and resistance to other synthetic auxins has been documented in other species. 

The growth of organic agriculture demonstrates the viability of nontoxic alternatives in agriculture. Nonorganic producers are looking to organic practices for help in dealing with the problem of herbicide resistance. In turf systems, managers are increasingly successful using organic systems, often mandated by local ordinances.

The use of clopyralid poses risks to human health, property, and the environment that are borne mostly by those who do not receive any benefit from the use of the herbicide. The risks are not outweighed by benefits, so the registration of clopyralid should be cancelled.

See Beyond Pesticides comments for more details and references.

Sign the petition by noon Monday, July 6! Tell EPA to ban the persistent toxic herbicide clopyralid.

Thank you!
The Beyond Pesticides Team

PETITION TO EPA
Docket ID # EPA-HQ-OPP-2014-0167

The undersigned oppose the continued registration of clopyralid.

EPA’s proposed interim decision (PID) on clopyralid is inadequate to protect human health, property, nontarget plants, and pollinators from damage. Clopyralid poses unreasonable adverse effects that cannot be remedied by EPA’s proposed fixes. It should be banned.

Clopyralid is toxic persistent herbicide used to control broadleaf weeds on lawns and turf, range, pastures, right-of ways and on several crops. Approximately 1.6 million pounds of clopyralid is used on 20 million acres per year in the U.S. on agricultural land, but it is also commonly used to kill dandelions, clover, and thistles. Lawn care operators applied over a million pounds of clopyralid in 2013.

Clopyralid is notorious for causing damage to nontarget plants. The registration was modified in 2002 to delete residential turf uses from the clopyralid product label. Additionally, under the amended label professional applicators are required to notify property managers not to compost clippings from treated grass. EPA proposes to expand the prohibition to include school turf, but clopyralid products will continue to be used on golf courses and certain other forms of nonresidential turf, as well as farm, ranch, and forestry uses.

Clopyralid causes environmental and property damage through drift, runoff, use of treated plant material (such as straw or grass clippings) for mulch or compost, contaminated irrigation water, and urine or manure from animals consuming treated vegetation. Clopyralid is “considered volatile,” according to EPA, meaning that it can evaporate from foliage and soil after application, move away from the application site, and “adversely affect nontarget broadleaf plants.” EPA calculated that volatilization of only one percent of applied clopyralid would be enough to damage nontarget plants.

Clopyralid can cause damage to sensitive plants at levels of 10 parts per billion. It is not broken down in composting facilities, and composters are very concerned about carry-over of clopyralid and other persistent herbicides, such as aminopyralid, aminocyclopyrachlor, and picloram into compostable materials. Clopyralid can enter the composting facility through lawn clippings, hay, straw, crop residues, and manure. Compost facilities now test for residues of persistent herbicides, but such tests are time-intensive and expensive.

In November 2002, the registration of clopyralid for use on residential lawns was voluntarily cancelled by the registrant, Dow AgroSciences. However, compost feedstocks are contaminated by other uses that are still allowed. Residues from any of these uses may find their way to composting facilities. Grass clippings, hay, and straw may also be used as mulch, allowing direct transfer of the herbicide to susceptible plants.

The contaminated mulch and compost may be used by homeowners, landscapers, or organic farmers. In the case of homeowners, it can mean the loss of expensive plantings. Landscapers may be liable for damages. In the case of organic farmers, it can mean the loss of a crop and possibly the loss of organic certification.

Clopyralid is not metabolized by animals, but passes through in urine and feces. Thus, farmers and composters are advised to avoid manure from animals that may have eaten hay or feed that may be contaminated with it or other persistent herbicides. EPA proposes label amendments to mitigate these problems. If these label restrictions are followed, they may minimize the spread of clopyralid residues into sensitive areas. Doing so, however, reduces the availability of organic nutrients for crops and compost makers, thus burdening organic farmers and composters. This places undue burdens on those who do not benefit from the use of the herbicide and makes agriculture less sustainable. Instead, registrations of clopyralid and other persistent herbicides should be cancelled.

All herbicides, especially those targeting broadleaved plants, pose the risk of removing plants that provide food and habitat for pollinators. Some of those pollinators may be threatened or endangered species. As EPA admits, it has not evaluated risks to threatened and endangered species. Nor has it completed endocrine disruption evaluation. Since both of these are very sensitive consequences—that may result from much lower exposures than those evaluated thus far—reregistration must not proceed until those evaluations—including consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service—are complete. 

Although EPA downplays them, clopyralid does present human health risks. Clopyralid is classified by EPA in acute toxicity class III as slightly toxic. Laboratory studies have shown that clopyralid is a severe eye irritant and dermal irritation has also been noted which can lead to skin sensitization for prolonged skin exposures. Some developmental and reproductive effects have been observed in laboratory animals. The livers and kidneys of rats as well as the livers of dogs were affected by changes in weight and decreased red blood cell counts. Another study found that weights of rabbit fetuses decreased at both low and high doses of clopyralid. Skeletal abnormalities were also observed in these fetuses at all doses. Clopyralid products also contain toxic contaminants and “inert” or “other” ingredients.

Resistance to herbicides is an expected consequence of their use, so any perceived benefit of using an herbicide must be discounted by its reduced lifespan as an effective weed control. There are currently 514 unique cases (combinations of species and sites of action) of herbicide resistant weeds globally, with 262 species (152 dicots and 110 monocots). Weeds have evolved resistance to 23 of the 26 known herbicide sites of action and to 167 different herbicides. Herbicide resistant weeds have been reported in 93 crops in 70 countries. Resistance to clopyralid is known in four species, and resistance to other synthetic auxins has been documented in other species. 

The growth of organic agriculture demonstrates the viability of nontoxic alternatives in agriculture. Nonorganic producers are looking to organic practices for help in dealing with the problem of herbicide resistance. In turf systems, managers are increasingly successful using organic systems, often mandated by local ordinances.

The use of clopyralid poses risks to human health, property, and the environment that are borne mostly by those who do not receive any benefit from the use of the herbicide. The risks are not outweighed by benefits, so the registration of clopyralid should be cancelled.

Please see Beyond Pesticides comments for more details and citations.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.                                                                                            

Image by Rickard Zerpe, Hardyhead Silverside (Atherinomorus lacunosus) (Photo: Hardyhead Silverside…/cc/flickr)

(Beyond Pesticides, July 2, 2020) Exposure to low levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals commonly in waterways, including pesticides, can impact future generations of major commercial fish, despite no direct exposure to the chemicals, according to research published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science by Oregon State University (OSU) researchers. Many studies assess the acute or chronic health implications associated with endocrine disruptors on a single generation but lack information on multi-generational impacts that can provide vital information on the fundamental survivability or fitness of many species. This study highlights the significance of understanding the implications of endocrine disruptors, even at low levels of exposure, as parental exposure can have adverse epigenetic consequences for future generations. Kaley Major, a Ph.D. fellow at Oregon State University (OSU) and lead research author, explains, “What t[his] gets at is something your grandparents may have come into contact within their environment can still be affecting the overall structure of your DNA in your life today.”

Endocrine disruptors are xenobiotics (i.e., chemical substances like toxic pesticides foreign to an organism or ecosystem). Past research shows exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals can adversely impact human, animal—and thus environmental—health, by altering the natural hormones in the body responsible for conventional fertile, physical, and mental development. However, this study looks at the implications of low levels of endocrine disruptors in a multi-generational platform, showing an epigenetic relationship between pesticide exposure and disease. Susanne Brander, Ph D., professor and aquatic toxicologist at OSU’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, notes the importance of understanding the consequence of exposure to endocrine disruptors on a day-to-day basis, “It’s really important to understand how animals can deal with stress in the environment, particularly when we are introducing new stressors on a daily basis.”

Researchers examine the multi- and trans-generational impacts on early life exposure to endocrine disruptors and their alteration of the genome in inland silversides (Menidia beryllina) fish, a staple bird prey and commercially valuable fish. The chemicals under investigation are emerging endocrine disruptors of concern: the pyrethroid insecticide bifenthrin; the synthetic progestin levonorgestrel; commonly detected synthetic estrogen (ethinylestradiol); and a synthetic androgen (trenbolone). Scientists added the analogous of a few drops of each endocrine disruptor in an Olympic-size swimming pool with silversides to mimic low-level exposure in the natural environment. Previous research demonstrates endocrine disruptors’ impact on DNA methylation (i.e., the process of adding a methyl group to a DNA molecule). Therefore, researchers tracked methylation for changes in gene expression and organism development using bisulfite sequencing, over 21 months in three generations.

 All three generations of fish demonstrate multi- and trans-generational inheritance of altered DNA methylation patterns and epigenetic dysfunction in comparison to the control group. Researchers observe an enrichment in biological processes and pathways involving carcinogenesis or cancer formation in fish. Additional analysis shows methylation differs in prospective endocrine responsive genes upon exposure to each endocrine-disrupting chemical, within each generation.

Inheritance of genetic dysfunction relating to hereditary influence on gene expression is a familiar phenomenon. Various studies note that adverse genomic alterations can phase down to future generations. However, the inheritance of epigenetic dysfunction relating to non-genetic influence (i.e., exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals like pesticides) on gene expression poses just as much of a risk to future generations. As far back as 15 years ago, a Washington State University study linked pesticide exposure to multi-generational impacts on male fertility in rodents. More recently, a plethora of research links pesticide exposure to endocrine disruption with transgenerational effects. According to multiple studies, exposure to the weed killer glyphosate (patented as an antibiotic) changes the bacterial composition of the gut microbiome in cattle, rodents, and honey bees. Researchers also found that glyphosate exposure has adverse multi-generational effects, causing negligible observable impacts on pregnant rodents, but severe effects on the two subsequent generations, including reproductive (prostate and ovarian) and kidney diseases, obesity, and birth anomalies. The emerging pesticide of concern, bifenthrin, disrupts normal reproductive function in rodents, causing alterations to the gene expression for hormone synthesis. New findings suggest exposure to the pesticide atrazine causes multi-generation resistance to the chemical in wasps by altering gut bacteria composition. Even banned pesticides like DDT still impact current and future generations, as DDT (and subsequent metabolites) can cause multi-generational cancer, multi-generational obesity, and generational reproductive abnormalities via endocrine disruption. Moreover, chemical byproducts made during the pesticide manufacturing process, such as dioxin, have multi-generational consequences on reproductive health.

This research finds clear evidence of epigenetic alteration to silverside fish offspring’s genome from limited exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The consistent patterns of methylation across the three generations show a relationship between methylation and epigenetic dysfunction. Scientists in the study believe that the observable, generational methylation patterns affect gene expression associated with distorted sex ratios, a reduction in hatching, and developmental defects in silversides. Implications for future research include a better understanding of what methylation markers mean and how these markers determine the effect of pollutants on the evolution or fitness of inland silversides. Dr. Susanne Brander states, “Our research helps show what animals do to respond to these changes and how quickly they can respond to them. That’s going to help us understand our impact on the environment in the long run.”

It is imperative to comprehend the impacts endocrine-disrupting chemicals have on aquatic organisms, like silverside fish, to help researchers understand the implications associated with exposure. However, environmental pollution from endocrine disruptors like pesticides is specifically concerning as the Trump administration is dismantling many environmental regulations, undermining scientific data, and upholding agrochemical company interests above ordinances. The administration reduced environmental safeguards in federal water by permitting offshore aquaculture. The administration already fails to accurately monitor water sources as exposure atrazine from waterways is higher in the Midwest during spring. Despite this, the administration has waived the requirement of the multinational chemical company Syngenta-ChemChina to continue monitoring Midwest waterways for the presence of the weed killer atrazine, through 2020. The input of glyphosate into the water ecosystem leads to a loss in ecosystem biodiversity and productivity. Furthermore, Chicago-based black women who consumed more glasses of tap water per day had residues of the DDT metabolite (DDE’) in their system. With this evidence, it is apparent that the federal government should implement strong safeguards that avoid harmful impacts of pesticide exposure on the current and future generations of humans and animals.

Beyond Pesticides believes that we must mitigate the multi-generational impacts pesticides pose on human and animal health. Adopting regenerative-organic practices and using least-toxic pest control can reduce harmful exposure to pesticides. Public policy should advocate for formidable safeguards on the agrochemical industry that ensure the terrestrial and aquatic environment are safe from chemical hazards. In doing so, we can shift away from unnecessary reliance on pesticides. For more on how to make that reality possible, check out our Tools for Change page and keep well-informed with our Action of the Week—tell Congress to save our oceans. Learn more about multi-generation impacts of pesticides on our health via Beyond Pesticide’s journal Pesticides and You. Additionally, learn more about the effects of pesticides on human health by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database. This database supports the clear need for strategic action to shift away from pesticide dependency. 

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

Sources: Frontiers in Marine Science, Oregon State University