(Beyond Pesticides, May 11, 2021) Last week, multinational agrichemical company Bayer Cropscience lost its bid to overturn a 2018 ban on bee-toxic neonicotinoids throughout the European Union. The ruling from the European Court of Justice rejected all grounds on which the company filed its appeal, noting, “It must be held that the arguments put forward by Bayer CropScience cannot, in any event, succeed.” In denying the appeal, the court ruled Bayer responsible for paying its own legal fees, as well as the fees of environmental organizations that intervened to defend the ban.

Environmental groups are applauding the ruling, as it reinforces several important aspects of the EU’s pesticide policy that favor greater public health and environmental protections. In an interview with EURACTIV, policy officer Martin Dermine at Pesticide Action Network Europe notes that the decision provides more leeway for pesticide regulators to consider new scientific evidence on pesticide hazards. “More than that,” he told EURACTIV, “the Court confirms the definition of the precautionary principle:  in case of doubts on the toxicity of a pesticide, the European Commission is entitled to ban it.”

Pesticide regulators in Europe began restricting neonicotinoids in 2013, when a continent-wide moratorium was put in place based upon evidence that neonicotinoids were contributing to declines in pollinator populations. The original ban applied only to flowering crops, but was expanded in 2018 to include a prohibition on all outdoor uses of the three most commonly used neoncotinoids – clothianidin, thiamethoxam, and imidacloprid. To make its determination, EU regulators analyzed over 1,500 studies from academia, beekeeper associations, agrichemical companies, farmer groups, nongovernmental organizations, and national regulators, and concluded that neonicotinoids should be severely restricted in order to protect honey bees and wild pollinators.

While Europe unwinds the use of bee-toxic pesticides and has further pledged to halve its use of pesticides by 2030 in order to protect pollinators and biodiversity, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has done less than the bare minimum to protect pollinators from neonicotinoids and other  hazardous pesticides. As the EU was issuing its first moratorium, EPA was denying a petition by beekeepers to recognize that honey bees face an “imminent hazard” from the continued use of neonicotinoids. As the EU was expanding its moratorium, EPA was being cited by internal watchdogs for its failure to provide basic oversight of voluntary state pollinator protection plans the agency claimed would be adequate to protect bees without regulatory intervention.

Although much of the problem lies with EPA’s consistent reticence to use the tools at its disposal to protect health and the environment, a significant amount of blame for the lackluster U.S. response to the pollinator crisis lies with the underlying federal statute governing pesticide registration and use. FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, does not embrace a precautionary approach to pesticide regulation. Instead, the risk-based assessments of FIFRA place the onus on those harmed by pesticide exposure to prove their case. With most of the science justifying pesticide approvals in the U.S. conducted by the pesticide industry and much of it under lock and key by EPA as “confidential business information,” the regulatory process is both unwieldly and time consuming. As a result, EPA prefers to  negotiate a “voluntary cancellation” of hazardous pesticides with manufacturers, rather than expend the resources and time associated with an onerous regulatory process subject to industry litigation. 

Beyond Pesticides has documented numerous instances over the years where EPA has thrown precaution to the wind and allowed substances with questionable safety records to be sold to consumers. From systemic insecticides to nanotechnology, genetically engineered (GE) plants dependent on pesticides, antibiotics in agriculture, inert ingredients and wood preservatives, the sum of problematic areas for our health and safety feed into an urgent call to embrace a precautionary approach in the U.S.

The EU high court ruling underscores the value of the natural world. “The Court of Justice has reaffirmed that protecting nature and people’s health takes precedence over the narrow economic interests of powerful multinationals,” said Greenpeace legal strategist Andrea Carta to Reuters.

In light of legal limitations and lackluster regulatory decisions, U.S. residents are encouraged to support an approach to pest management that does not rely on highly toxic pesticides. By forgoing the use of toxic synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, genetically engineered seeds,  sewage sludge and other unnecessary hazards, and working with natural systems, organic practices represent a truly sustainable path forward for public health and ecological stability. But in the U.S., even these standards are under attack by the same forces pushing toxic products in chemical farming. Help stand up for organic integrity by urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to complete rulemaking on materials and standards allowed in organic production.

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

Source: Reuters, EURACTIV

(Beyond Pesticides, May 10, 2021) USDA is dragging its heels in completing rulemaking recommended by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB)—including recommendations passed as early as 2001 and including those concerning both materials and organic practices. This threatens organic integrity and public trust in the process governing the USDA organic label. When the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) was passed in 1990, supporters had grave mistrust of the commitment of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)—a department that had embraced chemical-intensive agriculture and promoted the dependence on pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Therefore, Congress built into the law protections by assigning a major role for the NOSB—an advisory board comprised of representatives of all the stakeholders including producers, processors, retailers, certifiers, consumers, scientists, and environmentalists. Not only must the NOSB vote on allowed synthetic materials used in organic production, but USDA must also consult with the NOSB on all aspects of the National Organic Program (NOP). 

Tell USDA that NOSB recommendations must be proposed as regulations.

Crucial to organic practices, and written into OFPA, is the concept of continuous improvement. The importance of this concept is most apparent in materials review, which includes a sunset provision that requires all synthetic materials used in crop and livestock production and non-organic ingredients used in processing to be re-considered every five years. If organic producers no longer need those materials or new issues of concern have been identified, they should no longer be allowed. However, continuous improvement extends to all aspects of the organic program, including regulations governing organic practices. 

USDA has had difficulty with the concept of continuous improvement because it requires flexibility that is unusual in regulatory programs across government. The biggest obstacle, according to USDA, is the Office of Management and the Budget (OMB). Ever since the Reagan administration, regulatory review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and the Budget (OMB) has prevented agencies from promulgating new regulations based on new science and technologies that are more protective of health and the environment—the argument being that it causes economic dislocation for the regulated industry. OIRA acts as a gatekeeper to new regulations and has generally resisted changes to the status quo—even in regulations designed to adapt to new science and technology.

Immediately following his inauguration, President Biden issued an Executive Order (EO) directing the heads of all executive departments and agencies to produce recommendations for improving and modernizing regulatory review, with the goal of promoting public health and safety, economic growth, social welfare, racial justice, environmental stewardship, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future generations. This Executive Order reverses the historical trend of status-quo regulatory reviews required by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that typically support vested economic interests of polluters (e.g., petroleum-based pesticide and fertilizer manufacturers). Instead, the President’s EO, Modernizing Regulatory Review, sets the stage for the adoption of agency policy across government to seriously and with urgency confront the climate crisis, biodiversity collapse, and disproportionate harm to people of color communities (environmental racism). It allows—even promotes—the policy of continuous improvement.

NOP’s list of NOSB recommendations includes those on which USDA has refused to take action as well as those which have lingered for years. USDA has refused to prohibit the use of sodium nitrate, carrageenan, inulin-oligofructose enriched, Turkish bay leaves, and whey protein concentrate as recommended by the NOSB. It has failed to act on recommendations to examine individual non-disclosed “inert” ingredients. It has closed consideration of several practice standards and let others languish. If the EO has any meaning, then USDA must act to bring these recommendations to the regulatory arena, where the public may provide comments and they can be evaluated against the new criteria of the EO, as well as the old criterion of continuous improvement.

Tell USDA that NOSB recommendations must be proposed as regulations.

Letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack

 Congress built into the Organic Foods Production Act a major role for the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB)—an advisory board comprised of representatives of organic stakeholders, including producers, processors, retailers, certifiers, consumers, scientists, and environmentalists. Not only must the NOSB vote on the allowance of synthetic materials used in organic production, but USDA must also consult with the NOSB on all aspects of the National Organic Program (NOP).

Unfortunately, USDA still fails to complete rulemaking recommended by the NOSB—including recommendations passed as early as 2001 and including those concerning both materials and organic practices.

Crucial to organic practices is the concept of continuous improvement. The importance of this concept is most apparent in materials review, which includes a sunset provision that requires all synthetic materials used in crop and livestock production and non-organic ingredients used in processing to be re-considered every five years. If organic producers no longer need those materials or new issues of concern have been identified, they should no longer be allowed. However, continuous improvement extends to all aspects of the organic program.

USDA has had a difficulty with the concept of continuous improvement because it requires flexibility that is unusual in regulatory programs. The biggest obstacle, according to USDA, is the Office of Management and the Budget (OMB). Ever since the Reagan administration, regulatory review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and the Budget (OMB) has prevented agencies from promulgating new regulations. OIRA acts as a gatekeeper to new regulations and has generally resisted changes to the status quo—even in regulations designed to adapt to new science and technology.

Immediately following his inauguration, President Biden issued an Executive Order (EO) directing the heads of all executive departments and agencies to produce recommendations for improving and modernizing regulatory review, with a goal of promoting public health and safety, economic growth, social welfare, racial justice, environmental stewardship, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future generations. This Executive Order reverses the historical trend of status-quo regulatory reviews required by OMB that typically support vested economic interests. Instead, the President’s EO, Modernizing Regulatory Review, sets the stage for the adoption of agency policy across government to seriously and with urgency confront the climate crisis, biodiversity collapse, and disproportionate harm to people of color communities (environmental racism). It allows—even promotes—the policy of continuous improvement.

NOP’s list of NOSB recommendations includes those on which USDA has refused to take action as well as those which have lingered for years. USDA has refused to prohibit the use of sodium nitrate, carrageenan, inulin-oligofructose enriched, Turkish bay leaves, and whey protein concentrate as recommended by the NOSB. It has failed to act on recommendations to examine individual non-disclosed “inert” ingredients. It has closed consideration of several practice standards and let others languish. If the EO has any meaning, then USDA must act to bring these recommendations to the regulatory arena, where they can be judged by the public against the new criteria of the EO, as well as the old criterion of continuous improvement.

Thank you for your attention to this important issue.

(Beyond Pesticides, May 7, 2021) Soil health is one of the linchpins on which the food production that sustains human life — as well as biodiversity, pollinator health, and carbon sequestration — depend. A recent meta-review of nearly 400 studies finds that, in 71% of the cases reviewed, pesticides kill or otherwise harm soil invertebrates that contribute mightily to soil health. In their paper, “Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment,” published in Frontiers in Environmental Science in early May, the researchers write, “A wide variety of soil-dwelling invertebrates display sensitivity to pesticides of all types . . . [These results] support the need for pesticide regulatory agencies to account for the risks that pesticides pose to soil invertebrates and soil ecosystems.” Beyond Pesticides, which has long reported on impacts of pesticides on soil health, concurs with that conclusion, and adds that the real solutions to noxious pesticide impacts lie in the adoption of  regenerative organic approaches to all land management because they obviate any need for petroleum-based toxic chemical controls.

The term “pesticide” can refer to myriad kinds of chemical treatments — including antimicrobials, disinfectants, rodenticides, and others — but in the agricultural and land management realms, primarily means insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. These are used intensively in conventional, chemical-intensive (i.e., non-organic) agriculture to kill off insect pests, weeds, and fungal infestations, respectively. As the study paper notes, pesticides enter soils when they are applied to flora or to soils themselves (as sprays or drenches, or in granular form), but they also contaminate soil in the form of seed coatings. In addition, soils can be contaminated by pesticide runoff from treated fields, and through drift of aerially applied compounds to non-target areas. Beyond Pesticides recently wrote about the extent of pesticide contamination of U.S. farmland, including how residues of these compounds can persist in soils, even after transition to organic management, for decades.

The researchers’ broad conclusions include: (1) insecticides have greater negative impacts on invertebrates in soil than do herbicides or fungicides; and (2) nevertheless, herbicides and fungicides do have many negative effects, but show more variance across different pesticide classes and studied taxa than do insecticides. The study also notes that research studies on pesticide impacts often “use a narrow range of surrogate species that are easy to rear, identify, or study, while smaller and more cryptic organisms are rarely analyzed. In some cases, the organisms that are the most extensively studied are known to be less sensitive to pesticides than other organisms, suggesting that we have limited knowledge of the extent of harm caused by pesticides.”

Healthy, living soils contain a universe of organisms, including many invertebrates, that provide critical services: they decompose biomass and cycle nutrients, maintain soil structure, hold carbon, and support ecosystem equilibrium by controlling pests and diseases, and making nutrients available to biota. Such organisms include earthworms, ground-nesting bees, beetles, ants, springtails, termites, millipedes, and others. The declines in such terrestrial invertebrate populations have been attributed in large part to agrichemical (synthetic pesticide and fertilizer) pollution and habitat loss. Invertebrates that are harmed, or killed, by pesticides are thus compromised in their ability to deliver those soil and ecosystem services. Such extreme loss of these organisms is also devastating to biodiversity.

In a recent Daily News Blog, Beyond Pesticides covered research that showed that the pivot in agriculture from “older generation” pesticides (e.g., organochlorines, organophosphates, and carbamates) to newer compounds, such as pyrethroids and neonicotinoids, is significantly responsible for invertebrate (and plant) population declines. The blog entry noted, “Invertebrates and plants are vital for ecosystem function, offering various services, from decomposition to supporting the food web. Furthermore, invertebrates and plants can act as indicator species . . . that scientists can observe for the presence and impact of environmental changes and stressors. Therefore, reductions in invertebrate and plant life have implications for ecosystem health that can put human well-being at risk.”

This subject study (“Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment”) was conducted by researchers from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), Friends of the Earth, and the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park. This is the first comprehensive review of the impacts of pesticides on soil invertebrates; it focuses on invertebrates that spend at least some stage of their development in soil and are not target species of pesticide applications. The study evaluated 275 different taxa (or combined taxa) of such organisms, and 284 discrete pesticide active ingredients (or unique mixtures thereof). In doing so, it used data related to nine different endpoints: mortality, biochemical biomarkers, behavior, reproduction, growth, structural changes, richness and diversity, abundance, and biomass. This methodology meant that the study ultimately analyzed 2,842 separate “tested parameters, measured as a change in a specific endpoint following exposure of a specific organism to a specific pesticide.”

As mentioned, research results indicate that 71% of the tested parameters showed negative effects from pesticide exposure; 28% showed no significant impacts, and the remaining 1% showed positive impacts. Sorted by pesticide type, 75% of parameters were negatively affected by insecticides, 63% by herbicides, 71% by fungicides, and 56% by pesticide mixtures. Impacts of such mixtures yielded varying results based on type: of the 49 mixtures evaluated, insecticide mixtures negatively affected tested parameters 84% of the time, herbicide mixes 62%, fungicide mixes 39%, and cross-category pesticide mixes 50% of the time. 

Among the more concerning specific results of the research are those for earthworms: 84–90% of tested parameters in them were negatively affected by the most-studied classes of insecticides, and some herbicides and fungicides (amide/anilide herbicides and benzimidazole fungicide) were especially harmful. This is disturbing because earthworms are a keystone species. They play a huge role in soil health: they increase aeration of soil, boost water infiltration and retention, reduce soil compaction, stimulate microbial activity, transform decaying material and minerals into usable forms and cycle nutrients, increasing soil fertility. In addition, they are an important menu item and part of the food chain for birds, frogs, snails, moles, foxes, snakes, and turtles, among others.

Study co-author and Senior Researcher at CBD, Nathan Donley, PhD, commented, “Beetles and springtails have enormous impacts on the porosity of soil and are really getting hammered, and earthworms are definitely getting hit as well. A lot of people don’t know that most bees nest in the soil, so that’s a major pathway of exposure for them. It’s not just one or two pesticides that are causing harm, the results are really very consistent across the whole class of chemical poisons.” He added, “The level of harm we’re seeing is much greater than I thought it would be. Soils are incredibly important. But how pesticides can harm soil invertebrates gets a lot less coverage than pollinators, mammals and birds — it’s incredibly important that changes.”

The researchers conclude that pesticide use is a serious threat to soil invertebrates and the essential ecosystem services they provide. They assert that soil organisms ought to be included in any risk assessment for a pesticide that could potentially contaminate soils, and that mitigation of such risk must be done in a way that “will specifically reduce harm to the soil organisms that sustain important ecosystem services. The United States Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] does not have sufficient testing requirements or tools in place to quantify risk to soil dwelling organisms. The European honeybee is the only terrestrial invertebrate included in mandatory ecotoxicological testing of pesticides. The practice of using the honeybee as a surrogate underestimates harm to many taxa and often results in narrow efforts to mitigate pesticide impacts solely to honeybees and other pollinators, not soil organisms.”

Nathan Donley, PhD commented: “It’s crazy to have a single species that may never come into contact with soil in its entire life as a proxy for every terrestrial invertebrate out there. You might as well use a fish.” Matt Shardlow, head of the conservation group Buglife, commented: “The answer is clear here — the distribution of outcomes in published studies is massively weighted on the negative side. The high level of negative effects on reproduction across the board is one of the most concerning results [the researchers] highlight. We all want fertile agricultural soils, but this shows that the pesticides we are applying are assaulting the fertility of the animals that live in the soil. If we want to protect healthy soils, we do need to take soil organisms into consideration when deciding if a pesticide is safe to use.”

An important sidebar: Dr. Donley will be a speaker at Beyond Pesticides’ 2021 National Pesticide Forum, Cultivating Healthy Communities: Confronting Health Threats, Climate Disasters, and Biodiversity Collapse with a Toxic-Free Future. Co-author of this subject study, he is also a former cancer researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, and is a current senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, where his work focuses on U.S. pesticide policy and regulation.

Beyond Pesticides would readily argue that, given the myriad harms they cause, including the harm to invertebrates demonstrated in this research, pesticides are incompatible with healthy soil ecosystems — yet EPA is failing to attend to the dire impacts of pesticides on the soil organisms that ensure that health. We recently wrote: “To prevent a future void of vital invertebrate and plant species critical to biodiversity and food production, global leaders must examine the necessity of pesticide use. More than ever, individuals must connect with their local, state, and federal elected officials to demand that we protect insect populations. . . . Solutions like regenerative organic agriculture and organic land management curtail the need for toxic pesticide use.”

The public has an important role to play in reducing pesticide harms. Learn about what to do as an individual and with the community to support biodiversity, eliminate pesticides in lawn and garden maintenance, create pollinator-friendly landscapes, use pollinator-friendly seeds, and support the growth of organic agriculture. Beyond individual, it is critical to contact elected officials at every level — local, state, and federal — to insist on more-protective regulation of pesticides. Contact us for help with advocacy on this, and any pesticide-related issue.

Sources: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.643847/full and https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/04/vital-soil-organisms-being-harmed-by-pesticides-study-shows

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

(Beyond Pesticides, May 6, 2021) Nearly half of all breakdown products (transformation products) from four common-use environmental pesticides produce stronger endocrine (hormone) disrupting (ED) effects than the parent compound, according to new research published in Environment International. Over 300 environmental contaminants and their byproducts—from chemicals in plastics to cosmetic/personal care products—are commonly present in water bodies, food commodities, and human blood/urine samples. These toxicants can alter hormone metabolism, producing endocrine-disrupting effects that put the health of animals, humans, and the environment at risk.

Many ecological and health risk assessments for pesticides focus on the effects of parent chemical compound products, overlooking the potential impacts of transformation products (TPs). Therefore, studies like these highlight the need to assess the implications of TPs to safeguard human, animal, and environmental health. The researchers note, “Since an increasing number of pesticide TPs have been detected in various environmental media, a more comprehensive understanding of the ecological risk of pesticide TPs is imperative for risk assessments more extensively and regulatory policy-making on pesticide restriction in the future.”

Endocrine disruptors are xenobiotics (i.e., chemical substances like toxic pesticides foreign to an organism or ecosystem), including pesticides, bisphenols, phthalates, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and heavy metals. Past research demonstrates exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals can alter the natural hormones in the body responsible for conventional fertile, physical, and mental development. Numerous studies confirm the effect chemical compound exposure has on human health. However, there is a lack of research regarding the effects of breakdown products or metabolites that these chemical compounds create.

Researchers selected four widely used pesticides—pyriproxyfen (Pyr), malathion (ML), benalaxyl (BX), and fenoxaprop-ethyl (FE)—and their 21 transformation products to evaluate for endocrine-disrupting effects. Using in vitro and in silico approaches, researchers assessed estrogen receptor α, glucocorticoid receptor α, the mineralocorticoid receptor, and hormone levels in H295R cells to determine ED impacts.

The results reveal that 50 percent of TPs exhibit more powerful endocrine-disrupting effects than their respective parent compound. Pyriproxyfen (Pyr) and 5 of its TPs, one TP of malathion, one TP of benalaxyl, and two TPs of fenoxaprop-ethyl exhibit the most effects on estrogen, mimicking the binding activity of the hormone to its receptor. Malathion and its TPs, and two Pyr TPs, have weak impacts on glucocorticoid activity via hydrogen bonding. Lastly, all chemical displaying endocrine-disrupting effects increases hormone secretion and gene expression in H295R cells responsible for sex hormone production (estrogen/androgen).

Clean air, water, and healthy soils are integral to ecosystem function, interacting between Earth’s four main spheres to support life. However, toxic pesticide residues are pervasive in the ecosystem, frequently detectable in soils, water (solid and liquid), and the surrounding air at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. These pesticide residues undergo hydrolysis, photolysis, oxidation, and biodegradation to break down into various transformation products that are just as ubiquitous as their parent compound. For instance, 90 percent of Americans having at least one pesticide biomarker (includes parent compound and metabolites) in their body. The presence of pesticides in the body has implications for human health, especially during vulnerable life stages like childhood, puberty, pregnancy, and old age. Scientific literature demonstrates pesticides’ long history of severe adverse health effects (i.e., endocrine disruption, cancer, reproductive/birth problems, neurotoxicity, loss of biodiversity, etc.) on the environment, including wildlife, biodiversity, and human health. Therefore, exposure to pesticides and their TPs can elicit adverse health effects, including impacts on the endocrine system.

The European Union and endocrine disruptor expert (deceased) Theo Colborn, Ph.D., classify more than 50 pesticide active ingredients as endocrine disruptors (EDs), including chemicals in household products like detergents, disinfectants, plastics, and pesticides. Research demonstrates endocrine disruption is prevalent among many pesticide products like herbicides atrazine and 2,4-D, pet insecticide fipronil, and manufacturing by-product dioxin (TCDD). These chemical ingredients can enter the body, disrupting hormones and causing adverse developmental, disease, and reproductive problems. The endocrine system consists of glands (thyroid, gonads, adrenal, and pituitary) and the hormones they produce (thyroxine, estrogen, testosterone, and adrenaline). These glands and their respective hormones guide the development, growth, reproduction, and behavior of animals, including humans. Endocrine disruption is an ever-present, growing issue that plagues the global population. Hence, advocates maintain that policies should enforce stricter pesticide regulations and increase research on the long-term impacts of pesticide exposure.

This study is one of many to recognize that pesticide breakdown products are just as, or even more, toxic than their parent compounds. Globally, pyriproxyfen (Pyr) is widely used for mosquito control and the only pesticide that the World Health Organization (WHO) approves for controlling mosquitoes in drinking water containers. However, almost all seven TPs of Pyr generate estrogen-disrupting activity in the blood, kidneys, and liver. Malathion is a popular insecticide that inhibits acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activities in the nervous tissue. Inhibition of AChE can cause a buildup of acetylcholine (a chemical neurotransmitter responsible for brain and muscle function). This chemical buildup can lead to acute impacts, such as uncontrolled, rapid twitching of some muscles, paralyzed breathing, convulsions, and, in extreme cases, death. However, the inhibition AChE is non-specific, making dispersal of malathion a severe threat to wildlife and public health. Hence, the study finds two TPs of malathion to have endocrine-disrupting effects on gene expression, hormone secretion, and glucocorticoid metabolism (carbohydrates, proteins, fats). The rapid degradation of pesticide fenoxaprop-ethyl produces two highly toxic TPs that upregulate gene expression 5.8 to 12-fold and have a greater impact on estrogenic activities. Lastly, the primary TP of benalaxyl persists longer in the environment than the parent compound, acting antagonistically toward estrogen receptor α and upregulates gene expression 3-fold. The four pesticides in this study are not the only chemicals of concern; many other pesticides also produce toxic breakdown products. Numerous banned pesticides, older pesticide compounds, newer pesticide compounds, and chemical manufacturing by-products create toxic TPs that contaminate the body and ecosystem.

Banned insecticide DDT, and its major metabolite DDE, remain in the environment decades after use ended, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding chemical concentrations that exceed acceptable levels. Although DDT and DDE dissolve into body fat and linger for many years, DDE remains in the body longer. A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) investigation finds DDE contaminates the bodies of 99 percent of study participants. As in endocrine disruptor, exposure to DDT increases risks associated with diabetes, early onset menopause, reduced sperm count, endometriosis, birth abnormalities, autism, vitamin D deficiency, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and obesity. However, studies find that DDE is even more toxic than its parent compound. This metabolite can produce multi-generational health effects on obesity and diabetes and uniquely augmenting multi-generational breast cancer occurrences. Some older generations of pesticides, including organophosphates like malathion, originate from the same compounds as World War II nerve agents (Agent Orange), producing adverse effects on the nervous system. Triclosan, an antimicrobial pesticide product banned from many products, persists in the environment and produces carcinogenic breakdown products like chloroform and 2,8-dichlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,8-DCDD).

“Newer generation” of chemicals, including glyphosate and neonicotinoids (neonics), are fast-acting, with quick breakdown times, thus less likely to readily accumulate. However, studies find lower concentrations of these chemicals are more toxic than their older counterparts, requiring several kilograms less. Therefore, the breakdown products of these chemicals can produce similar or more severe toxicological effects. Studies indicate that herbicide glyphosate transforms into toxic metabolic AMPA, which alters gene expression. Furthermore, neonic metabolites, such as desnitro-imidacloprid and descyano-thiacloprid, are more than 300 and ~200 times toxic to mammals, respectively, than the parent compound imidacloprid. According to the U.S. Geographical Survey, these metabolites readily contaminate streams. Thus, experts warn that these breakdown products may morph into new forms of chlorinated disinfection byproducts (DBPs)—with unfamiliar/undiscovered health risks—during routine water treatment (chlorination) processes.

Pesticides and their TPs can promote higher acute and sublethal toxicity levels, which can cause chronic effects on species abundance and biodiversity. Various past and present pesticide products act similarly to other environmental contaminants, and individuals can encounter these substances simultaneously. Often, these chemical contaminants work together or synergize to produce a more severe, combined effect. Synergism is a common issue among pesticide mixture and can underestimate the toxic impacts on human, animal, and environmental health. Therefore, current ecological and human health risk assessments vastly underestimate hazardous effects from pesticide residues, metabolites, and other environmental contaminants.  

Lack of efficient pesticide testing fails to evaluate the impacts of breakdown products as many studies merely assess the effect of parent products. With newer generations of pesticide products having faster breakdown times and increased toxicity, breakdown products will pose a real problem for future ecosystem and human health. As has been previously stated: “[Beyond Pesticides] has long been critical of EPA’s risk assessment process, which fails to look at chemical mixtures—including inert ingredients—and synergistic effects in common pesticide products. Additionally, lack of awareness on specific health endpoints (such as endocrine disruption), disproportionate effects to vulnerable population groups, and regular non-compliance with product label directions hinder accurate risk assessments. These deficiencies contribute to its severe limitations in defining real-world poisoning, as captured by epidemiologic studies in Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database.”

The study’s authors conclude, “ [I]t is urgent to pay more attention to the TPs in the process of environmental risk assessment of pesticides, and the profound findings of the endocrine-disrupting effects from pesticide TPs provided in this current study would be beneficial to further risk assessment and regulatory improvement of pesticide use.”

It is essential to understand the effects that endocrine-disrupting pesticides and their breakdown products may have on the health of current and future generations. There is a lack of understanding behind the etiology of pesticide-induced diseases, including predictable lag time between chemical exposure, health impacts, and epidemiological data. Therefore, lawmakers and regulators should consider taking a more precautionary approach before introducing these chemicals into the environment. With far too many diseases in the U.S. associated with pesticide exposure, reducing pesticide use is a critically important aspect of safeguarding public health. Learn more about the effects of pesticides on human health by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database, supporting a shift away from pesticide dependency. This database is a fantastic resource for additional scientific literature, documenting elevated rates of Endocrine Disruption, Cancer, and other chronic diseases and illnesses among people exposed to pesticides. Beyond Pesticides believes that we must mitigate the impacts pesticides and their metabolites pose on human and animal health. Learn more about pesticides, their metabolite, and inert ingredients by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ webpage, What Is a Pesticide? 

One way to reduce human and environmental contamination from pesticides is buying, growing, and supporting organic. Numerous studies find that levels of pesticide metabolites in urine drop greatly when switching to an all-organic diet. Organic agriculture has many health and environmental benefits, which curtail the need for chemical-intensive agricultural practices. Adopting regenerative-organic practices and using least-toxic pest control can reduce harmful exposure to pesticides. Given the wide availability of non-pesticidal alternative strategies, families and agro-industry workers alike can apply these methods to promote a safe and healthy environment. For more information on how organic is the right choice for both consumers and the farmworkers that grow our food, see Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture.

Help Beyond Pesticides educate and build the movement that will bring long-needed protection to humans, animals, and the entire environment by attending the National Pesticide Forum this spring. Cultivating Healthy Communities will bring together expert scientists, farmers, policymakers, and activists to discuss strategies to eliminate harms from toxic chemical use in favor of non-toxic organic solutions. It begins with a pre-conference session on Monday, May 24, and continues every Tuesday beginning May 25, June 1, June 8, and ending June 15, 2021. Registration is open today and available through the webpage on this link. It starts with US.

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

Source: Environment International

(Beyond Pesticides, May 5, 2021) As periodical cicadas begin to emerge throughout the central and eastern United States, many may be tempted to put a halt to their noisy mating calls by reaching for a spray bottle of pesticide. But besides violating local noise ordinances, cicadas are relatively harmless and play a critical ecological role. Environmental organizations are urging U.S. residents and communities not to spray cicadas with pesticides, noting that pesticide hazards will last longer than Brood X cicadas.  

Reports indicate that pesticide applicator groups and businesses agree that there is no need to spray for periodical cicadas. “We really want people to understand and know that pesticides are not the answer, which sounds really funny coming from a pest control company,” Frank Meek, a manager at Orkin, told CNET. “Pesticides are not the thing to use on this insect. They don’t work for it, and it’s a waste of product, and it’s a danger to the environment just to spray down because you’re afraid of the cicadas.”

But while environmental groups and frontline applicators are working to educate the public over the futility of spraying, pesticide manufacturers like Ortho are encouraging homeowners to spend their money on highly toxic and unnecessary pesticides. “Ortho Bug B Gone advertises killing cicadas using the active ingredient bifenthrin, known to cause an array of serious health and environmental impacts,” said Bonnie Raindrop, coordinator for the Maryland Smart on Pesticides Coalition. “With over 99% inert ingredients, it can include other pesticides and chemicals that have greater environment and health risks than the main active ingredient, including the forever chemical PFAS, which was recently found in mosquito control products used in Maryland and Massachusetts. [The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency]  EPA said any level of PFAS is of toxicological significance.”

While bifenthrin and its class of synthetic pyrethroids pose significant dangers to the environment and human health, and have been linked to developmental problems in young children, there is growing evidence that inert ingredients are causing just as much harm, or more harm than the active ingredients in pesticide products. These toxic pesticide products can remain in the environment for months – longer than Brood X stays above ground this year.  

Periodical cicadas grow up to roughly one inch in size, and have red eyes, a black thorax, and wings with orange veins. Periodical cicadas may have either a 13 or 17 year life cycle. The current Brood X, nicknamed “The Great Eastern Brood,” is the largest 17 year cicada brood, and last emerged in 2004. Cicadas spend most of their lives underground feeding on sap from tree roots. Prior to emergence, nymph cicadas will construct tunnels to prepare to emerge once temperatures have hit 64 degrees Fahrenheit. After emerging, nymphs find a location to molt one last time, shedding their exoskeleton and turning their attention to finding a mate. The loud noises produced by cicadas are solely from males, whose mating calls can reach 100 decibels. Cicadas live short lives, and most will die off by mid-July. After mating, females will seek out young trees to lay their eggs. These eggs will then hatch, and the nymphs will again bury underground to begin the cycle anew.

From the description of the cicada life cycle we can find a multitude of reasons why they should not be blanket sprayed with toxic pesticides:

• Cicadas emerge in very large numbers, and provide an abundant food source for local wildlife (and even humans!). Spraying for cicadas could put your own health at risk, and is likely to harm nontarget species as well as those that feed on contaminated cicadas.
• Cicadas dig small tunnels that help aerate soil and cycle nutrients.
• Although pesticide manufacturers are fearmongering over cicada damage to trees, they provide an important ecological role by pruning weak branches.
• When cicadas die, they release vital nutrients back into the soil, acting as a fertilizer.
• Killing cicadas will simply speed up their death before they can fulfill their biological purpose and die naturally.

Although concerns over how cicadas impact trees are overblown by the chemical industry, those with young or valuable fruit or nut trees may want to consider protecting them prior to the Brood X emergence. But protecting trees doesn’t mean spraying toxic pesticides. Cicada control netting (such as this product) have holes that can exclude cicadas from trees without any other unnecessary hazards.

“In a world where so much of the soundscape is dominated by human activity, it can be humbling to be drowned out by these strange and amazing creatures,” said Drew Toher, community resource and policy director at Beyond Pesticides. “Let’s recognize and respect the splendor of this rare event by not spraying toxic pesticides, and simply letting Brood X be.”

If your neighbors or community plan to spray for cicadas this year, educate them on the folly of that approach, and reach out to Beyond Pesticides at [email protected] to let us know. For more information on the hazards pesticides pose to wildlife, our environment, and ourselves, see Beyond Pesticides wildlife program page and the Pesticide Induced Diseases Database.

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

(Beyond Pesticides, May 4, 2021) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has less than two months to determine whether cancel or modify its registration of the brain-damaging, organophosphate insecticide chlorpyrifos, following a decision from a federal appeals court last week. The ruling comes after more than a decade of delay from the federal agency tasked with protecting public health and the environment from the hazards of chemicals like chlorpyrifos. The decision now falls to the Biden Administration’s EPA Administrator Michael Regan, after the previous administration reversed a proposal to ban agricultural uses of chlorpyrifos in 2017. Most residential uses of the chemical were banned in 2000.  

“The EPA has had nearly 14 years to publish a legally sufficient response to the 2007 Petition,” reads a 2-1 opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco. “During that time, the  EPA’s  egregious  delay  exposed  a  generation  of  American  children  to  unsafe  levels  of  chlorpyrifos.”

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate insecticide that is currently registered for use on a range of food crops, golf courses, and for public health mosquito control (in cases of mosquito-borne diseases). It is highly acutely toxic, causing numbness, tingling sensation, in-coordination, dizziness, vomiting, sweating, nausea, stomach cramps, headache, vision disturbances, muscle twitching, drowsiness, anxiety, slurred speech, depression, confusion and in extreme cases, respiratory arrest, unconsciousness, convulsions, and death. Chronic low-level exposure to the chemical through food residue and other sources is particularly dangerous for pregnant mothers and their children. In utero exposures to chlorpyrifos can impair a child’s learning ability and increase risk of developmental delays, ADHD, and is associated with IQs that are up to 7 points lower than those with little or no chlorpyrifos exposure.  

EPA has known for decades about the dangers posed by chlorpyrifos use. In 2000, the agency negotiated an agreement with Dow AgroSciences to eliminate all residential uses of the insecticide due to risks to children, permitting use only by certified applicators. However, because the agency allowed other uses to continue, U.S. residents have been chronically exposed to chlorpyrifos residue on food for nearly two decades. In 2007, a lawsuit launched by Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) urged EPA to cancel all remaining agricultural uses of the insecticide. It took nearly a decade for a response. The Obama Administration EPA provided one at the end of its term (only after pressure from the courts), but did not finalize the decision, ultimately leaving it to the next Administration to make a determination.  

In 2016, Scott Pruitt became EPA administrator under President Trump, and reversed the order, rejecting the conclusions of the agency’s own scientists and raising serious concerns around conflict of interest with the pesticide’s primary registrant, Dow Chemical. The next several years saw a flurry of activity in the Courts, Congress, and individual states. Lawsuits were launched to challenge EPA’s decision, U.S. Representative Nydia Velásquez (D-NY) introduced The Ban Toxic Pesticides Act, H.R.230, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced the Protect Children, Farmers and Farmworkers from Nerve Agent Pesticides Act of 2019, S921,  and the states of Hawaii, California, Maryland, and New York initiated state-level restrictions on chlorpyrifos use. In early 2020, Corteva (DowDuPont) provided notice that it would stop producing chlorpyrifos by the end of the year.

Despite all of these actions, one of the final acts of the Trump Administration EPA was to propose reregistering the insecticide with very few changes to its use patterns. But as the 9^th Circuit Judges note in their ruling that EPA never truly responded to the 2007 petition initiated by health advocates. Its denial of that petition and rejection of the petitioners’ objections were, according to the court, “…just one more attempt at delay…” The court notes that despite EPA studying chlorpyrifos for over a decade, the agency has not been able to conclude that current uses meet statutory requirements that the chemical is not causing harm to public health or the environment. “Yet, rather than ban the pesticide or reduce the tolerances to levels that the EPA can find are reasonably certain to cause no harm, the EPA has sought to evade, through one delaying tactic after another, its plain statutory duties,” the ruling reads.

The court set a hard deadline on the agency, which the judges appeared to indicate was particularly lenient given the circumstances. EPA now has 60 days to either modify the food tolerances (allowed levels of the chemical on food) of chlorpyrifos and publish a finding that the new tolerances are safe for infants and children, or revoke all tolerances. The agency must also determine whether to modify or cancel registration of the chemical for food use under federal pesticide law.

Chlorpyrifos is a poster child for the problems with federal pesticide regulation. Despite overwhelming data, including evidence that the original research EPA relied upon the register the chemical was flawed, the material has been permitted to remain in regulatory limbo. The weakness of federal statutes allowed the Obama EPA to delay and kick the can to the next administration. And an industry-friendly EPA was able to keep the product on the market decades after data supporting the elimination of its use had been established.

Moreover, chlorpyrifos is just one of numerous organophosphate class chemicals remaining on the market. These WW2-era nerve agents – relics of the past, and according to advocates, have no place in 21^st century agriculture and should have already been eliminated from use. But Beyond even the organophosphates lie a number of insecticides that the chemical-intensive farming will utilize other toxic substitutes. This toxic treadmill, with the increased use of bee-toxic neonicotinoid and highly hazardous synthetic pyrethroids, becomes a Faustian bargain for farmers who rely on toxic chemicals that are harmful to health and the environment.

For these reasons it is critical that the elimination of any one particular chemical be seen as an indictment of chemical farming as a whole. It is not acceptable to constantly weigh the evils of one hazardous chemical or another when other systems that do not rely on these products exist. Organic farming eliminates highly toxic synthetic pesticides in favor of practices that enhance biodiversity and soil health. Like the move away from fossil fuel dependent energy and toward renewable systems, organic practices will be the future of farming in the 21^st century.

Get prepared for our organic future by learning more about the benefits of organic agriculture. Attend Beyond Pesticides first ever Virtual National Pesticide Forum, starting May 24 and 25, and running each Tuesday until June 15. You’ll hear from those on the cutting edge of organic practices, such as Jeff Moyer, CEO at Rodale Institute, which showed through a 30 year trial the multitude of benefits organic systems provide for the economy, health, and the environment.

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

Source: Associated Press, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco

(Beyond Pesticides, May 3, 2021) Hazardous disinfectants are not necessary for protection against COVID-19, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is agreeing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seems to now agree, but has not changed it recommendations and listing for the public. Since last March, EPA has recommended disinfectants on List N for protecting against exposure to surfaces that would spread the virus causing COVID-19. Beyond Pesticides has evaluated the disinfectants, categorizing them as materials to seek out or to avoid. More recently, we evaluated the available evidence and recommended that schools and other institutions concentrate on providing adequate ventilation and protection from airborne virus.

Tell EPA to remove risky disinfectants from its recommended list.

EPA’s List N contains products containing toxic chemicals such as chlorine bleach, peroxyacetic acid, alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chlorides, didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride, and other “quats,” sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione, and hydrochloric acid. In addition to their outright toxicity, some of these can also trigger asthma attacks. Now, EPA has recognized this evidence and offered revised recommendations, stressing the need to avoid airborne transmission and stating in an infographic that the risk of contracting disease by touching contaminated surfaces is low and that disinfectants can trigger an asthma attack. However, List N remains as a resource for avoiding COVID-19. This confusion and misrepresentation of safety must stop.

As stated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on April 5,

People can be infected with SARS-CoV-2 through contact with surfaces. However, based on available epidemiological data and studies of environmental transmission factors, surface transmission is not the main route by which SARS-CoV-2 spreads, and the risk is considered to be low. The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 is through exposure to respiratory droplets carrying infectious virus. In most situations, cleaning surfaces using soap or detergent, and not disinfecting, is enough to reduce risk. Disinfection is recommended in indoor community settings where there has been a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 within the last 24 hours. The risk of fomite transmission can be reduced by wearing masks consistently and correctly, practicing hand hygiene, cleaning, and taking other measures to maintain healthy facilities.

Tell EPA to remove risky disinfectants from its recommended list.

Letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan

I am writing to ask you to revise your advice on disinfectants based on the revised assessment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the risk of COVID-19 from surface contamination (fomites) compared to respiratory exposure. I applaud EPA’s new infographic, which de-emphasizes the use of disinfectants, identifying hazards of disinfectants and the efficacy of cleaning with soap and water.

However, List N, which lists 529 products, many of which present respiratory hazards without distinguishing them from less hazardous products, is still the list to which websites and agencies refer. In view of the statements in the infographic—”In most situations, cleaning is enough to reduce risk,” and “Disinfectants can trigger an asthma attack”—EPA must evaluate substances on List N and remove the hazardous products or identify their hazards for those who consult the list.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 30, 2021) A bioinformatics tool developed by researchers from the University of Turku in Finland indicates that “54% of species in the core human gut microbiome are sensitive to glyphosate.” This tool may help predict which microbes in the human gut could be negatively affected by exposure to the ubiquitous herbicide. Because damage to the gut biome is linked to a variety of diseases, this information could prove critical in recognition of the role(s) glyphosate may play in the development of human diseases. Published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, the researchers’ paper states, “The widespread use of glyphosate may have a strong effect on gut microbiomes as well as on human health.” Beyond Pesticides has long reported on the relationship between glyphosate and human health, including potential effects on the human gut microbiome.

Used in multiple herbicide formulations, glyphosate has become widely known as the active ingredient in Bayer/Monsanto’s Roundup®, the most-used herbicide worldwide. The pervasiveness of glyphosate-based herbicide (GBH) use in agriculture, and of Roundup in particular, is due largely to their pairing with genetically engineered (GE) seeds for soy, canola, and corn crops. In many regions, these GE seeds — engineered to resist the glyphosate that is then applied to the crop — dominate.

Farmers have been persuaded by industry that their crop plants will be protected from applications of the herbicide, and that competing weeds will be taken down; for a couple of decades, this more-or-less worked. But more recently, and inevitably, as so much of the agricultural landscape has been drenched in GBHs, weeds are rapidly developing resistance to glyphosate. This has not dampened industry’s enthusiasm for these products; rather, companies are doubling down on chemical solutions.

Very recently, in covering a Tufts University scientific literature analysis, Beyond Pesticides wrote: “Almost five decades of extensive glyphosate use has put animal, human, and environmental health at risk. . . . The chemical’s ubiquity threatens 93% of all U.S. endangered species, with specific alterations [in] microbial gut composition.” In June 2020, we wrote: “Gut microbiota plays a crucial role in lifelong digesti[ve], immune, and central nervous system regulation, as well as other bodily functions. . . . With prolonged exposure to various environmental contaminants [such as glyphosate or other pesticides], critical . . . changes may occur in the gut microbes, influencing adverse health outcomes.”

Glyphosate’s mode of action — the subject of this research — is this: it targets and inactivates an important enzyme in what is called the “shikimate [metabolic] pathway” in plants. That enzyme is EPSPS (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase), which synthesizes three amino acids, phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan, essential to building proteins. This pathway is not found in animal cells, and so, does not exist as a direct vulnerability to glyphosate in human cells — thus, claims that glyphosate has no health impacts on humans.

There is ample evidence that this industry claim is false, not least among which are:

• the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC’s) 2015 finding that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen
• numerous lawsuits against GBH manufacturers for individuals whose exposures led to cancer diagnoses, particularly of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, with some great successes to date
• research that implicates glyphosate in distorting DNA function and links exposures to several chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes, asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Parkinson’s disease)

Impacts of glyphosate on the human gut microbiome represent another pesticide assault on human health. Because the biome harbors between 10 and 100 trillion symbiotic microbes, glyphosate ingestion (via residues on consumed food, primarily) may well have effects on some of those bacteria, according to the subject study. The human gastrointestinal tract and its digestive processes (aka, the “gut”) mediate the function of several systems. Dysfunction of the gut microbiome is associated with a host of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, some cancers, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, asthma, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and inflammatory bowel disease, as well as allergies, autism, depression, obesity, and other disorders or syndromes.

Figuring out what the effects of glyphosate may be is not easy; understanding which microbes in the gut may be vulnerable to glyphosate is a first step that these Finnish researchers have tackled. Their new tool may yield additional evidence that the notion that glyphosate is “safe for humans” is bunk.

The researchers write, “Glyphosate is proclaimed safe for humans and other nontarget organisms because the shikimate metabolic pathway, inactivated by glyphosate, is not present in vertebrates. However, until recently, the presence of the shikimate pathway and diversity of EPSPS in many microbes have largely been ignored. As microbes are ubiquitous, associated with virtually all higher organisms, and essential in maintaining fundamental organismal functions, predicting the consequences of glyphosate use via its potential effects on the microbiome is challenging. The first step toward a more comprehensive understanding of how glyphosate affects higher organisms and biotic interactions involving microbes is to survey microbe susceptibilities to glyphosate.”

The researchers’ bioinformatic method categorizes EPSPS enzymes into four classes, each of which has a different sensitivity to glyphosate, with one of the four classes being particularly vulnerable. The scientists believe that this classification of organisms (by type of EPSPS enzyme) will help evaluate which species are sensitive, or resistant, to glyphosate. The team has already assembled a data set of EPSPS enzymes from thousands of species, including 890 from bacterial species in the human gut microbiome; this is expected to be very helpful in future assessments.

Among the bacteria in the more “vulnerable” categories are: Bacteroides vulgatus, Bifidobacterium adolescentis, Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus, Lactobacillus buchneri, Escherichia [E.] coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Bacteroides fragilis, and Bifidobacterium longum. Researchers expected E. faecalis, L. buchneri, and S. aureus to be resistant to glyphosate’s MO (modus operandi), but found, instead, that they were quite sensitive to it. They theorize that factors other than the EPSPS sensitivity to glyphosate may be at work, potentially including a role for surfactants or other adjuvant or non-active ingredients in GBHs. Beyond Pesticides has written about the unsavory per se and synergistic impacts of so-called “inert” ingredients in glyphosate formulations.

In addition, the co-authors suggest that glyphosate may impact other metabolic pathways (beyond the Shikimate), positing that the mitochondria electron transport chain appears sensitive to the compound. They write, “Even in glyphosate-resistant species, the interference of the herbicide on mitochondrial metabolism may induce oxidative stress and lead to toxic effects.”

Beyond direct effects of glyphosate on the Shikimate pathway in some bacteria, the researchers hypothesize that chronic exposures to the herbicide could lead to the dominance of resistant strains in bacterial communities. They also suggest that some glyphosate-vulnerable bacterial strains could become resistant to glyphosate through “accumulation of mutations in the EPSPS domain or acquisition of a resistance gene via horizontal gene transfer.” Any of these, if found to be valid, could have huge implications for human gut health.

Glyphosate has been the subject of massive controversy, about its safety for humans, non-human organisms, and ecosystems — not to mention the hegemony of Bayer/Monsanto in its control of extraordinarily high percentages of the seed market for corn, soy, and cotton. (As of 2018, more than 90% of these crops in the U.S. were planted with the company’s GE seeds). All those seeds require use of Roundup, of course. Science and environmental advocates have noted the multiple risks the use of glyphosate represents, while industry and big agriculture sometimes minimize or deny those impacts, and even dismiss or distort the science. Those interested might check out Carey Gillam’s talk on Monsanto’s corruption on glyphosate/Roundup at Beyond Pesticides’ 36^th National Pesticide Forum.

Beyond Pesticides has reported on EPA’s (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s) ongoing failures to protect people and the environment from GBH compounds. One obvious bit of evidence is that the presence of glyphosate in human bodies has risen dramatically during the past three decades. Research out of the University of California San Diego found that, between two data collection periods (1993–1996 and 2014–2016), the percentage of people testing positive for the presence of glyphosate (or its degradates) in their urine rose by 500%, and levels of the compound spiked by 1,208%. With increasing use of GBHs during the past decade, that penetration in human bodies has likely continued to rise. In its Gateway on Pesticide Hazards database, Beyond Pesticides lists glyphosate as having endocrine, reproductive, neurotoxic, hepatic, renal, developmental, and carcinogenic effects on human health.

Beyond Pesticides strongly advocates for a comprehensive policy approach that eliminates not only glyphosate, but all hazardous pesticides registered by EPA, with allowances for limited use of organic-compatible products as a last resort. We also urge communities to work with municipalities, counties, school districts, and other entities to ban the use of glyphosate-based herbicides and all toxic pesticides, and robustly promote the critical transition to organic agriculture and land/turf management. (See this recent win in New York City.)

Beyond Pesticides provides tools, information, and support to take local action: check out our factsheet on glyphosate/Roundup and our report, Monsanto’s Roundup (Glyphosate) Exposed. Contact us for help with local efforts, and stay abreast of developments through our Daily News Blog and our journal, Pesticides and You.  

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389420325462?via%3Dihub

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

(Beyond Pesticides, April 29, 2021) Glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) are incompatible with sustainable agriculture goals, according to a recent scientific literature analysis by scientists at Tufts University, Massachusetts. Glyphosate is the most commonly used pesticide active ingredient worldwide, appearing in many herbicide formulas, including Bayer’s (formerly Monsanto) Roundup^TM. The use of this chemical has been increasing since the inception of crops genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate. However, studies demonstrate glyphosate is the main contributor to human, biotic, and ecosystem harms as toxicities from herbicides are now double what it was in 2004. 

The National Academy of Sciences identifies four goals of sustainable agriculture—productivity, economics, environment, and social well-being for future generations. However, pesticides like glyphosate are ubiquitous in the environment, putting the health, economy, and food/resources for future generations at risk. Therefore, research like this is vital for understanding how chemical use can undermine sustainable agriculture goals to protect humans, animals, and environmental health. Researchers note, “[W]hether or not GBHs are viewed as essential or unessential to contemporary agriculture, and notwithstanding their role in non-tillage agriculture, this study shows that glyphosate-based herbicides do not reach the bar of agricultural sustainability, with respect to humans and the environment, making the system they are part of unsustainable.”

Researchers thoroughly examined ~3,000 scholarly sources to analyze whether GBHs meet sustainable agriculture goal standards. Scientists noted any impacts GBHs applications have on human health, non-tillage agriculture, soil quality, aquatic ecosystems, and beneficial/non-target species. Researchers used various viewpoints on agricultural sustainability as a guide for sustainability standards:

• “Promoting agroecology [ecological processes in agriculture systems].
• Protecting the resource base of natural systems for future generations, including and especially the soil.
• Protecting biodiversity.
• Enhancing the quality of life and health of farmers, farmworkers, and society as a whole.”

This paper finds that GBHs do not contribute positively to sustainability, violating enough criteria to make conventional agricultural systems using GBHs unsustainable. Studies regarding “glyphosate toxicology” have been increasing since 2005. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), glyphosate is a “possible human carcinogen,” therefore, GBH use decreases the quality and health of farmworkers and society. Although studies demonstrate the starkest example of GBH toxicity among animals, indicating a risk to humans, many in vitro studies provide evidence that GBHs are toxic to human cells. Further, the review finds ingredients in Roundup^TM are just as toxic as glyphosate itself, causing DNA damage at low concentrations. Thus, various formulas of GBHs can have devastating effects on human health. 

This paper demonstrates that the combined use of GBHs and glyphosate-tolerant, genetically modified/genetically engineered (GM/GE) crops contributes to an increase in glyphosate-resistance weeds. The presence of these weeds increases soil tilling to rid of the invasive plants, making GBHs unsustainable. Furthermore, glyphosate and its breakdown product AMPA are commonly detectable in agricultural soils. These compounds can disrupt microbial communities responsible for standard soil function, increasing pathogen spread while decreasing plant growth and productivity. Beneficial/non-target organisms suffer the consequences of GBH exposure, too. Aquatic organisms like fish, crustaceans, and amphibians experience oxidative stress, birth deformities, and behavioral changes. GBHs disturb the cognitive abilities and gut health of bee pollinators and completely decimate milkweed habitats Monarch butterflies solely rely on for reproduction, thus impacting populations. 

The first introduction to sustainable agriculture was from the United Nations’ 1987 report Our Common Future (the Brundtland Report). The report outlines protecting Earth’s natural resources for future generations, equal income allocation from food production, and supporting small-scale farming. The report emphasizes the challenges of sustainable agriculture, highlighting, “[it] is to raise not just average productivity and incomes [from resources], but also the productivity and incomes of those poor in resources… Land use in agriculture and forestry must [use] scientific assessment of land capacity, and the annual depletion of topsoil, fish stock, or forest resources must not exceed the rate of regeneration.” However, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report establishes that pesticide use does not adhere to sustainable agriculture goals. It fails to minimize the adverse effects of chemicals and waste as increased use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers—driven by rising demand for food, fiber, fuel, and feedstock crops—puts public and environmental health at risk.  

Clean air, water, and healthy soils are integral to ecosystem function, interacting between Earth’s four main spheres (i.e., hydrosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere) to support life. However, toxic pesticide residues readily contaminate these spheres, frequently existing in soils, water (solid and liquid), and the surrounding air at levels exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set standards. Scientific literature demonstrates pesticides’ long history of adverse effects on the environment, including wildlife, biodiversity, and human health effects. Pesticides can present acute and long-term health impacts worldwide, especially to farmers, 44 percent of whom experience pesticide poisoning every year. Moreover, a 2020 study finds ~385 million cases of non-fatal unintentional pesticide poisonings and 11,000 deaths annually. Pesticide exposure can produce a plethora of adverse health effects, including cancers and neurological, immunological, and reproductive effects, among other health impacts. Most notably, pesticides are immensely harmful to pollinators. Over the last decade and a half, increasing scientific evidence shows a clear connection between the role of pesticides in the decline of honey bees and wild pollinators (i.e., wild bees, butterflies, beetles, birds, bats, etc.) alike. The agricultural industry relies on insect pollinators to aid in plant pollination and sustain annual crop yield. Globally, the production of crops dependent on pollinators is worth between $253 and $577 billion yearly. Hence, pesticide use fails to support sustainability goals, decreasing agricultural and economic productivity and social (human/animal) and environmental well-being.

Almost five decades of extensive glyphosate use has put animals, human, and environmental health at risk, thus fails to meet sustainability goals this paper addresses. The chemical’s ubiquity threatens 93 percent of all U.S. endangered species, with specific alterations on microbial gut composition and trophic cascades. Although the direct impact pesticides have on pollinators is concerning, the indirect impacts pesticides have on pollinator habitats are equally troublesome. Glyphosate use on mono-crop agriculture and genetically engineered crops can drift onto and destroy adjacent habitats. Habitat destruction results in loss of species biodiversity and stable ecosystem processes that are integral to sustainability. The review indicates extensive glyphosate has impacts on soil quality and function, as well as weed resistance. Researchers note the use of tilling to reduce glyphosate-resistance weed persistence in fields. However, over-tilling can result in soil erosion, which a 2020 study finds is an issue among glyphosate use. Continuous pesticide use leaves the dirt bare and more susceptible to decay from lack of organic material, altering the storage compartments of soil sediments from pesticide sinks to sources. Thus, chemical use stimulates soil erosion, responsible for the soil-based emergence of toxic legacy chemicals. Even farmers employing regenerative agriculture practices like cover crops and no-till to reduce runoff into water end up using over 50 percent more pounds of GBHs to rid cover crops between 2009 and 2016.

Similar to this paper, past studies find a strong association between glyphosate exposure and the development of numerous health anomalies, including cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and autism. Although EPA classifies glyphosate herbicides as “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” stark evidence demonstrates links to various cancers. Thus, EPA’s classification perpetuates environmental injustice among farmers, especially in marginalized communities. According to the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, a lawsuit—filed by the National Black Farmers Association against Bayer/Monsanto—argues that Black farmers are, essentially, forced to use Roundup (glyphosate). Therefore, these farmers incur the risks of developing non-Hodgkin Lymphoma or other cancers (or health impacts) because of pesticide demands and the industry’s “grip” on U.S. agriculture. The lawsuit maintains that the chemical company knowingly failed, and continues to fail, to warn farmers adequately about the dangers of the pesticide.

Not only do health officials warn that continuous use of glyphosate will perpetuate adverse health effects, but that use also highlights recent concerns over antibiotic resistance. Bayer/Monsanto patents glyphosate as an antibiotic since exposure hinders enzymatic pathways in many bacteria and parasites, serving as an antimicrobial. However, glyphosate kills bacterial species beneficial to humans and incorporated in probiotics yet allows harmful bacteria to persist, leading to resistance. Similarly, glyphosate-exposed soils contain a greater abundance of genes associated with antibiotic resistance, as well as a higher number of inter-species transferable genetic material. Therefore, the use of antibiotics like glyphosate allows residues of antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria on agricultural lands to move through the environment, contaminate waterways, and ultimately reach consumers in food. Antibiotic resistance can trigger longer-lasting infections, higher medical expenses, the need for more expensive or hazardous medications, and the inability to treat life-threatening illnesses. Resistance to pesticides is also growing at similar rates among GE and non-GE conventionally grown crops. This increase in resistance is evident among herbicide-tolerant GE crops, including seeds genetically engineered to be glyphosate-tolerant. Although one purpose of GE crops is to reduce pesticide use, an increase in resistance can result in additional pesticide use to compensate. 

Although this study reviews GBHs and sustainability, the authors suggest that all herbicide-based agriculture, regardless of herbicide, is inconsistent with sustainability goals. If one competent of an agricultural system is unsustainable, then the entire system is unsustainable. Therefore, agricultural systems must commit to regenerative organic agriculture and land management to meet future sustainability goals and alleviate the effect these chemicals have on humans and wildlife. Organic agriculture is necessary to eliminate toxic chemical use and ensure the long-term sustainability of food production, the environment, and the economy. Organically managed systems support biodiversity, improve soil health, sequester carbon (which helps mitigate the climate crisis), and safeguard surface- and groundwater quality. There are claims that organic agriculture cannot sustain global crop production. However, scientific studies argue organic yields are comparable to conventional and require significantly lower inputs. Additionally, glyphosate levels in the human body reduce by 70% through a one-week switch to an organic diet. Therefore, purchasing organic food whenever possible—which never allows glyphosate use—can help curb exposure and resulting adverse health effects. Learn more about how consuming organic products can reduce pesticide exposure and the harmful health and environmental impacts of chemical-intensive farming produces.

For more information about organic food production, visit Beyond Pesticides’ Keep Organic Strong webpage.

To learn more about how organic the right choice for both consumers and farmers, see Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Help Beyond Pesticides educate and build the movement that will bring long-needed protection to humans, animals, and the entire environment by attending the National Pesticide Forum this spring. Cultivating Healthy Communities will bring together expert scientists, farmers, policymakers, and activists to discuss strategies to eliminate harms from toxic chemical use in favor of non-toxic organic solutions. It begins with a pre-conference session on Monday, May 24, and continues every Tuesday beginning May 25, June 1, June 8, and ending June 15, 2021. Registration is open today and available through the webpage on this link. It starts with US.

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

Source: GMWatch, Tufts University

(Beyond Pesticides, April 28, 2021) New evidence set to be presented at the Experimental Biology (EB) 2021 meeting held this week suggests that Gulf War Veterans and other individuals with prior pesticide exposures may be more susceptible to Covid-19 infection. As the pandemic continues, it is critically important for researchers to better understand specific vulnerabilities in population groups in order to improve care and patient outcomes. “The reason why COVID-19 causes a severe form of disease leading to hospitalization and high rates of mortality in a small segment of society is unclear,” said Prakash Nagarkatti, PhD, co-author of the study and vice president for research at the University of South Carolina. “This work sheds new light on exposure to pesticides and potential susceptibility to COVID-19 through altered immune response.”  

According to recent data, out of 160,000 Covid-19 cases among veterans, the mortality rate was more than 4%. Researchers are pointing to Gulf War Syndrome, and past exposure to organophosphate pesticides as part of the problem. “We have identified a basic mechanism linked with inflammation that could increase susceptibility to COVID-19 infection among people exposed to organophosphates,” said Saurabh Chatterjee, PhD, from the University of South Carolina.

Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a protein that has both pro and anti inflammatory properties in the body. Individuals produce these proteins to fight off infections, or to heal injuries to soft tissues. Past research had determined that Gulf War veterans had higher levels of IL-6 than the general population. This can occur under continuously stressful conditions like toxic pesticide exposure, and ongoing production of this protein in one’s body can cause chronic inflammation and lower immune system response.

To determine how IL-6 and pesticide exposure affect coronavirus infection, researchers exposed  epithelial cells in a human lung to IL-6 and the insecticide chlorpyrifos for a period of six hours. A control was established that received no exposures. All groups then had the coronavirus “spike protein” – a protein that protrudes on the outside of the virus and helps it infect cells – applied to certain areas of the epithelial cells (known as the apical and basolateral surfaces, roughly translated to the interior tip and the side of the cells, respectively).

The changes researchers observed dealt with the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, an enzyme in the body that can lower blood pressure, but also serves as the entryway for coronavirus to infect cells. Cells exposed to IL-6 and chlorpyrifos had much higher ACE2 expression, indicating a higher risk of infection. Additionally, cells exposed to these materials also recorded higher rates of apoptosis, or cell death. “To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating that the ACE2 receptor translates from the basolateral cell membrane to the apical cell upon co-exposure to organophosphate and IL-6,” said Dr. Chatterjee.

While the study models exposure induced by pesticide-related stressors, researchers note that the implications may be much farther reaching. “This mechanism could also increase risk for people with metabolic diseases and cancer because they tend to exhibit the same type of inflammation,” said Dr. Chatterjee.  “Since people with obesity, type 2 diabetes or cancer also have high circulatory IL-6 levels, we think people with these conditions will also have increased susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection because of increased translocation of ACE2 receptor to the apical cell surface.”

This is not the first study to find greater risk of coronavirus infection from past pesticide exposure. A study published in February this year also found that organophosphates increase vulnerability to COVID-19. That research focused on how pesticide exposure can depress immune system functioning. “To curb SARS-CoV-2 infection, a healthy immune system is obligatory despite potent vaccine to alleviate morbidities in patients. But unintentional exposure to OP compounds from several sources can rupture the antiviral defense against SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, respiratory ailments may also be fueled by OP compounds. Hence, SARS-CoV-2 mediated morbidities and fatalities could be backed by unintentional exposure to OPs in patients,” the study authors wrote.

A study published in October of last year also found a mechanism whereby the common fungicide fludioxonil decreases the body’s ability to produce an important antioxidant by harming an enzyme common to all cells.  

Although the stressors and injuries suffered by Gulf War Veterans are in the past, insecticides like chlorpyrifos are ever-present in our conventional food supply. Despite overwhelming data on the dangers of chlorpyrifos and other organophosphates, regulators at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continue to permit their use. The Biden administration is reviewing the chemical, but even if eliminated, a range of other hazardous organophosphates remain on the market and in our food supply.

Maintain your health by avoiding chemically farmed foods that contain toxic pesticides and are grown with synthetic fertilizers. Organic farming provides a method to grow healthy food free of hazardous synthetic residues that can elevate our risk of disease. To learn more about the benefits of a safer, healthier, organic food system, sign up today for Beyond Pesticides first ever virtual National Pesticide Forum.

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

Source: Experimental Biology 2021 conference press release

(Beyond Pesticides, April 27, 2021) The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) is denying a chemical company’s application to use a highly toxic insecticide on the state’s citrus crops due to the risks the chemical poses to human health and the environment, according to a statement from FDACS released last week. At issue is aldicarb, a carbamate class insecticide that was cancelled in the U.S. over a decade ago. “While there are promising new horizons for fighting citrus greening, like recent breakthroughs at UF/IFAS on genetic resistance, aldicarb poses an unacceptable risk to human, animal, and environmental health in Florida, is one of the world’s most toxic pesticides, and is banned in more than 100 countries,” said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. “The registrant’s application does not meet the requirements of state law, and we must therefore deny the registration of aldicarb for use in the State of Florida.”

At the end of the Trump Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took “aggressive actions” by announcing it was registering aldicarb and the antibiotic streptomycin for use against citrus greening, a disease that is damaging Florida’s citrus industry. The registration provided for a supplemental label allowing use on over 100,000 acres of citrus groves through to April 2023. In its announcement, EPA proclaims that human health risks for aldicarb “…are complete and present no risks of concern, including to young children.” The agency claimed that “ecological risks to birds mammals, aquatic organisms, and honey bees are the same as aldicarb’s existing uses and registrations.”

The statements flew in the face of the agency’s own declarations around aldicarb. Over a decade ago, Bayer, the prime registrant for aldicarb, initiated a voluntary cancellation of the chemical. At the time, EPA wrote the chemical, “may pose unacceptable dietary risks, especially to infants and young children.”

But while news reports proclaimed the end of aldicarb, EPA’s actions in 2010 laid the groundwork for the chemical’s return. The voluntary cancellation allowed Bayer to continue to label aldicarb for use on certain crops, including cotton, peanuts, and beans during a “phase out” until August 2018. Despite the arrangement with Bayer, the agency allowed a different company, AgLogic, to register in 2011 an aldicarb product for use on cotton and sweet potatoes. Now, EPA is permitting AgLogic to do what it told Bayer over a decade ago was too risky for children’s health by registering the product on citrus.

EPA’s approval is being challenged by a lawsuit brought by health, conservation, and farmworker organizations. The highly hazardous nature of aldicarb puts farmworkers on the front lines at greatest risk of poisoning. Acute effects from aldicarb include blurred vision, excessive salivation, stomach pain, disorientation, unconsciousness, seizures, or death. “This approval of aldicarb is just one more assault on the men and women who harvest our citrus crops in Florida, who do ‘essential’ work but who are treated as dispensable,” said Jeannie Economos, coordinator of the Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project at Farmworker Association of Florida in a press release from Center for Biological Diversity. “No one should risk their health and the health of their families in the course of doing a hard day’s labor feeding America.”

The chemical also poses significant risks to environmental health, as aldicarb has a strong propensity to contaminate groundwater. It is also systemic in nature, and thus highly toxic to pollinators that feed on exposed plants due to adulteration of pollen and nectar. EPA noted significant outstanding data on pollinator safety in its registration documents for the new aldicarb products.

Over 100 countries have banned aldicarb under the Rotterdam Convention, an international agreement on toxic chemicals that the United States has signed but not ratified. It was aldicarb production, and the leak of a precursor chemical known as methyl isocyanate, that resulted in one of the worst global environmental disasters in history in Bhopal, India. More than 25,000 individuals died and many others were permanently disabled, while the manufacturer of aldicarb at the time, Union Carbide, was let off with multi-million dollar fine.

According to advocates, aldicarb is a poster child for everything wrong with pesticide regulation in the U.S. Despite horrific manufacturing accidents, EPA allowed use to continue. This occurred despite agency declarations of its unacceptable risks, adverse effects to human health and the environment, and ostensibly cancelling the product. Despite all this, under the prior administration, EPA proposed expanding aldicarb use.

Although there was hope that the Biden administration would use Congressional Review Act to strike down the Trump era allowance, the quick move by Florida regulators to deny the permit at the state level is being met with acclaim by health and environmental advocates. Under federal pesticide law, although the federal government may approve a product for use, EPA simply sets a floor. States are permitted to add additional restrictions that best protect their unique environment and residents’ health.  

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Fried noted in her decision that the citrus infection, citrus greening, remains a difficult problem for the state’s industry, and pledged millions of dollars in research support to develop countermeasures. While citrus greening is causing significant disruptions for many growers, some organic farms are finding nontoxic and less toxic measures of addressing the problem. Watch the talk given by Benny McLean of Uncle Matt’s Orange Juice at Beyond Pesticides’ National Pesticide Forum held in Orlando, Florida from 2015, for more information about innovative, organic methods to tackle problems in citrus production.

While Florida has denied the permit, EPA for all intents and purposes still approves of this decision. Help us tell EPA it’s not too late to reverse its approval of aldicarb today. And for more information on the hazards of pesticides and their alternatives, sign up now to reserve a spot for Beyond Pesticides first ever virtual National Pesticide Forum, taking place May 25 (with a pre-conference event on May 24), and June 1, 8, and 15.  

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

Source: Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

(Beyond Pesticides, April 26, 2021) Representative Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M), and 17 House cosponsors have reintroduced the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA), which establishes a roadmap for achieving net-zero emissions from agriculture by 2040, while empowering farmers with the tools and resources needed to improve soil health, sequester carbon, reduce emissions, enhance their resilience, and tap into new market opportunities. Pingree first introduced the legislation in the 116th Congress, where it served as a model for recognizing agriculture as a part of the climate solution.

Ask your U.S. Representatives and Senators to Cosponsor the Agricultural Resilience Act. Thank those who already have.

The ARA offers farmer-driven climate solutions to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. agriculture by 2040:

• Research
  • Increases funding for USDA’s Regional Climate Hubs
  • Invests in public breed and cultivar research
• Soil Health 
  • Authorizes USDA to offer performance-based crop insurance discounts for practices that can be demonstrated to reduce risk
  • Creates new USDA grants to state and tribal governments to improve soil health
  • Directs USDA to establish a Soil Health and Greenhouse Gas Advisory Committee
• Farmland Preservation and Farm Viability 
  • Creates a new Local Agriculture Marketing Program (LAMP) subprogram to help 
  • Farmers develop and expand markets for farm products that improve soil health
  • Increases funding for the Agriculture Conservation Easement Program
• Pasture-based Livestock 
  • Creates a new grant program to support small-scale meat and poultry processing infrastructure
  • Establishes a new Grasslands 30 Pilot Program through which grasslands at risk of conversion to cropping or development can receive annual payments
• On-farm Renewable Energy 
  • Increases funding for USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program
  • Directs USDA to research dual-use energy systems that integrate renewable energy production with crop or animal production
• Food Loss and Waste 
  • Standardizes food date labeling to reduce consumer confusion
  • Creates a new USDA program to reduce food waste in schools

The ARA has received widespread support from businesses, climate change experts, farmers, and environmentalists for addressing climate threats to and from agriculture.

Ask your U.S. Representatives and Senators to Cosponsor the Agricultural Resilience Act. Thank those who already have.

Letter requesting your Member of Congress to cosponsor

I am writing to ask you to cosponsor the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA), which establishes a roadmap for achieving net-zero emissions from agriculture by 2040, while empowering farmers with the tools and resources needed to improve soil health, sequester carbon, reduce emissions, enhance their resilience, and tap into new market opportunities. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Sen, Martin Heinrich (D-N.M), and 16 House cosponsors reintroduced the ARA that was first introduced in the 116th Congress, where it served as a model for recognizing agriculture as a part of the climate solution. The ARA has received widespread support from businesses, climate change experts, farmers, and environmentalists for addressing climate threats to and from agriculture.

Although farming has always been a risky business, extreme weather events and trade wars today create challenges that threaten food production and jeopardize farmers’ livelihoods. We must work to keep farmers on the land and in business. Climate change impacts agriculture, jeopardizing agricultural productivity, altering the nutrient content of crops, increasing the price of food, and creating other challenges.

Agriculture also impacts climate change, contributing 9.6% of total US greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. We can reduce that number and sequester more carbon in the soil by providing farmers with more diverse, voluntary, incentive-based conservation options. Farmers are already environmental stewards and have a clear interest in adopting conservation practices and renewable energy systems, based on adoption rate increases in the last USDA Census of Agriculture.

The ARA offers farmer-driven climate solutions to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. agriculture by 2040, in these areas: research, soil health, farmland preservation and farm viability, pasture-based livestock, on-farm renewable energy, and food loss and waste.

Please cosponsor the Agricultural Resilience Act.

Thank you.

Thank you to those already cosponsoring

I am writing to thank you for cosponsoring the Agriculture Resilience Act (ARA), which establishes a roadmap for achieving net-zero emissions from agriculture by 2040, while empowering farmers with the tools and resources needed to improve soil health, sequester carbon, reduce emissions, enhance their resilience, and tap into new market opportunities. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Sen, Martin Heinrich (D-N.M), and 16 House cosponsors reintroduced the ARA that was first introduced in the 116th Congress, where it served as a model for recognizing agriculture as a part of the climate solution.

Although farming has always been a risky business, extreme weather events and trade wars today create challenges that threaten food production and jeopardize farmers’ livelihoods. We must work to keep farmers on the land and in business. Climate change impacts agriculture, jeopardizing agricultural productivity, altering the nutrient content of crops, increasing the price of food, and creating other challenges.

Agriculture also impacts climate change, contributing 9.6% of total US greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. We can reduce that number and sequester more carbon in the soil by providing farmers with more diverse, voluntary, incentive-based conservation options. Farmers are already environmental stewards and have a clear interest in adopting conservation practices and renewable energy systems, based on adoption rate increases in the last USDA Census of Agriculture.

The ARA offers farmer-driven climate solutions to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. agriculture by 2040, in these areas: research, soil health, farmland preservation and farm viability, pasture-based livestock, on-farm renewable energy, and food loss and waste.

Thank you for your support of the Agricultural Resilience Act.

It all started with New York City public school teacher Paula Rogovin and her kindergarten class. They went down to city call, wrote letters, shared artwork, and got the attention of Council Member Ben Kallos, who sponsored reform legislation.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 23, 2021) Yesterday, on Earth Day, the New York City Council passed landmark legislation to eliminate the use of toxic pesticides in parks and playgrounds. This new law eliminates the use of toxic pesticides, like glyphosate/Roundup, codifying a ban on pesticides with an allowance for only those permitted under federal organic standards.

A few hours before passage of the bill, Intro. 1524 (see detailed factsheet below), the measure’s sponsor, Council Member Ben Kallos, and the Speaker of the Council, Corey Johnson,  were joined at a press conference by: Bertha Lewis, president of the Black Institute; those who began the movement for the legislation, retired teacher Paula Rogovin and some of her fomer students from Public School (PS) 290 in Manhattan; Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides; and, Patti and Doug  Wood, executive director and program director, respectively, of Grassroots Environmental Education.

“Parks should be for playing not pesticides,” said Council Member Ben Kallos. “All families should be able to enjoy our city parks without having to worry that they are being exposed to toxic pesticides that could give them and their families cancer. I look forward to working with all of our city agencies to ban toxic pesticides and keep our children safe.”

“We no longer burn coal in our buildings, we don’t light our offices with gas lamps, and we shouldn’t be using toxic and dangerous chemicals in our public spaces,” said Council Speaker Corey Johnson ahead of the vote. “Our NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority] residents deserve and our families enjoying a day in the park deserve better. New Yorkers deserve better.”

“This legislation goes beyond banning a specific pesticide and recognizes that toxic pesticides across the board have no place in our municipal parks and playgrounds and that alternative practices and products are available for effective and resilient land management,” 

Bertha Lewis, president of The Black Institute, speaking at press conference with bill sponsor Council Member Ben Kallos.

said Mr. Feldman.

In its report, Poison Parks, The Black Institute, points out the disproportionate harm to people of color neighborhoods in New York City, and documents that the city landscapers who handle dangerous pesticides are almost all black and brown people. Ms. Lewis pointed out that this disproportionate harm is a classic example of environmental racism.

According to Beyond Pesticides, the approach to land care specified by Intro 1524 identifies an allowed substance list (National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances under federal organic law) to ensure that the products and practices used are compatible with the organic systems that protect people and local ecology, including the waterways that surround New York City. “It is this approach to pesticide reform that will effectively stop the unnecessary use of hazardous pesticides applied in parks and public spaces throughout the city,” said Mr. Feldman.

While addressing urgent local concerns related to public health and the environment, passage of this law in New York City makes an important contribution to confronting the climate and the escalating biodiversity crises, including pollinator declines. Petroleum-based, synthetic pesticides release carbon into the environment, as a result of their manufacture and use, and their application to landscapes results in the lost opportunity to sequester atmospheric carbon in organic soil systems.

According to public health advocates, by restricting pesticide use, the City will provide critical protections for community health, particularly for children, the elderly, and vulnerable population groups that suffer from compromised immune and neurological systems, cancer, reproductive problems, respiratory illness and asthma, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, or learning disabilities. The legislation meets an urgent need for hazard reduction at a time of increasing awareness of the danger that pesticides pose to human health and the environment, exacerbating the immunological, neurological, and respiratory risks associated with COVID-19. Advocates also point out that neither the U.S. Environmental Protection (EPA) nor the responsible state agencies (in New York, the Department of Environmental Conservation, but Departments of Agriculture in most of the country) are not adequately protection people and the environment from pesticides, creating an urgency for local action like New York City took yesterday.

Beyond Pesticides’ Jay Feldman delivered this statement in New York City at a press conference on pesticide ban bill, April 22, at Stanley Isaacs Playground:

Earth Day is about local action. This legislation, Intro 1524, brings New York City into the modern era of parks and playground management, recognizing the hazards of pesticides and the viability and benefits of organic practices and materials that protect health and the environment.

Pesticides are associated with adverse health effects that are familiar to us—cancer and immune, neurological, and respiratory issues. They increase vulnerability or exacerbate adverse health conditions.

This legislation intersects with the city’s goal to become carbon net neutral—by eliminating petroleum- based pesticides—as we confront the climate crisis and the collapse of biodiversity.

The work does not end here. It begins here. What does that mean?

The resources are available to work with parks to adopt organic land management. Organic has been widely adopted in agriculture and the same soil management practices are being used in parks across the country. People and groups like Beyond Pesticides and companies like Stonyfield Organic and Osborne Organics are standing by and ready to lend their expertise. Stonyfield is offering $60,000 in resources to this effort. Some park conservancies in the city, including the Brooklyn Bridge and Battery Park, are leaders on organic landscape management and serve as models for parks across the city.

We have reached an exciting moment for New York City with this legislation. The legislation puts the city in a position to protect more people and the largest acreage of parks, playgrounds, and waterways than any other jurisdiction in the country.

Beyond Pesticides is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., which works with allies in protecting health and the environment with science, policy, and action to lead the transition to a world free of toxic pesticides.

FACTS-AT-A-GLANCE:
Intro 1524: Protecting New York City Residents from Toxic Pesticides
(See factsheet pdf)

Intro 1524, introduced by City Councilmember Ben Kallos, will safeguard New York City residents by eliminating the use of toxic pesticides on all NYC property. These protections are critical for vulnerable populations like children, elderly, and pregnant mothers. Those exposed to toxic pesticides in city parks as residents and as city workers managing sites are disproportionately people of color. While existing Local Law 37 made important progress in reducing some dangerous pesticides on the market, it continues to permit a range of synthetic chemicals linked to chronic health effects in people and population declines in wildlife like bees, butterflies, and birds. There is now greater understanding of pesticide dangers, and the healthy, sustainable practices and products that can successfully replace all toxic pesticide use. Intro 1524 restricts the use of toxic pesticides on NYC property in favor of materials regulated as organic or designated minimum risk—the least-toxic on the market. Intro 1524 is an opportunity to improve the health and safety of NYC workers, residents, and their pets, improve the city’s air and water quality, protect threatened wildlife populations like pollinators, and fight the climate crisis.

Background on Current Practices

• Local Law 37¹, passed in 2005, restricts the use of pesticides identified as carcinogenic or developmental toxicants, yet it continues to permit a range of synthetic chemicals that present hazards to human health and the environment.
• In 2018, there were over 284,000 applications of more than 156,000 lbs. of toxic pesticides to NYC properties. Each application puts both applicators and the public at risk.
• Although the use of carcinogenic glyphosate has declined, it accounted for 41% of all liquid herbicide use in NYC in 2018. With continued use, Council action is needed to protect at-risk people and communities.

Improving Protections

• Intro 1524 brings NYC in line with the latest science on pest management, thereby eliminating the dangers that pesticides pose to residents.
• Intro 1524 will incentivize land and pest managers to embrace safer, cost-effective, organic methods of addressing insect and weed problems by focusing on prevention, rather than product use after pests have already become a problem.
• A waiver provision will allow pesticide use only in emergency situations. This will ensure toxic pesticides are used only as a last resort when there is a threat to public health or it is required by state or federal law.

Addressing Long-standing, Disproportionate Harm to NYC Communities of Color

• Poison Parks, a report from NYC-based environmental justice organization The Black Institute, finds significant disparities regarding where pesticides are applied in the City, with low-income people of color communities at greatest risk.²
• For low-income residents living in apartment complexes, public parks are often the only place to take children for play time. NYC school children use the parks for recreation. As the Poison Parks report explains, “Poisoning parks with toxic chemicals is yet another strike against the Black and Brown community. Enjoying a free, public space should not carry unexpected consequences.”
• Glyphosate, identified as a carcinogen by international agencies, is sprayed at much higher rates in parks within communities of color. “A chemical that disproportionately impacts people of color is an act of environmental racism,” finds the Poison Parks “When Black and Brown families that are economically disadvantaged must bear the burden of toxic exposure at a higher rate than white families, there is no argument that can change the racist nature of the subject.”

 Health Effects of Pesticides on Children

• In a landmark report, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) called for governments to reduce children’s exposure to pesticides. AAP wrote that scientific evidence “…demonstrates associations between early life exposure to pesticides and pediatric cancers, decreased cognitive function, and behavioral problems.”³
• Children take in more pesticides relative to their body weight than adults and have developing organ systems that are more vulnerable and less able to detoxify harmful chemicals.⁴
• Pesticides increase the risk of developing asthma, exacerbate a previous asthmatic condition, or even trigger asthma attacks in susceptible children.⁵
• Children with elevated levels of commonly used pyrethroid insecticides, applied to manage common pests, are more likely to have ADHD (learning disabilities), and other behavioral issues.⁶ Pyrethroids were applied roughly 100,000 times in NYC in 2018, accounting for 61% of all insecticide use.

 Tracking State and Local Reform, and Legal Liability

• Over 150 communities throughout the United States have passed policies that restrict the use of toxic pesticides.⁷
• Major urban areas in the United States are increasingly passing laws that take protective steps for local residents in light of inaction by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Portland (Maine), Baltimore (Maryland), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), and Montgomery County (Maryland) have all enacted laws with criteria similar to the pesticide restrictions in Intro 1524 that allow the use of organic compatible products authorized by federal law.
• Increasingly, communities are looking to eliminate toxic pesticide use in light of recent court decisions and legal liability concerns regarding the herbicide glyphosate, including multimillion dollar awards resulting from a California school groundskeeper’s cancer diagnosis.⁸
• Organic land management is an important piece of a city’s environmental strategy to become carbon neutral, eliminating petroleum-based pesticides.

____________

1 NYC Local Law 37. 2021. Pesticide Use by Agencies Report – 2018. https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/pesticide/pesticide-use-report2018.pdf.

2 The Black Institute. 2020. Poison Parks. https://theblackinstitute.org/poisonparks/.

3American Academy of Pediatrics. 2012. Pediatrics. peds.2012-2757; DOI: 10.1542/peds.2012-2757 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/11/21/peds.2012-2757.

4US EPA, Office of the Administrator, Environmental Health Threats to Children, EPA 175-F-96-001, September 1996. See also: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/food/pest.htm.

5Hernández, AF., Parrón, T. and Alarcón, R. 2011. Pesticides and asthma. Curr Opin Allergy Clin Immunol.11(2):90-6.

6 Oulhote, Y. and Bouchard, M. 2013. Urinary Metabolites of Organophosphate and Pyrethroid Pesticides and Behavioral Problems in Canadian Children. Environmental Health Perspectives. Vol. 121, No. 11-12 https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1306667.

⁷Beyond Pesticides. 2019. Map of U.S. Pesticide Reform Policies.

https://www.beyondpesticides.org/programs/lawns-and-landscapes/tools-for-change.

8Levin, S and Greenfield, P. 2018. Monsanto ordered to pay $289m as jury rules weedkiller caused man’s cancer. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/10/monsanto-trial-cancer-dewayne-johnson-ruling.    

(Beyond Pesticides, April 22, 2021) Past maternal exposure to the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) during pregnancy can increase the risk of breast cancer and cardiometabolic disorders (e.g., heart disease, obesity, diabetes) up to three successive generations, according to a new study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Although previous studies highlight early life or in utero exposure to DDT increasing breast cancer risk later in life, this study is the first to note generational effects on grandchildren’s health. DDT continues to adversely affect the health of the U.S. population, nearly 50 years after its ban. However, this ban is not global, as many countries still use or manufacture the chemical compound. Furthermore, residues of DDT metabolite, DDE, continue to readily contaminate food and water worldwide. Therefore, studies like these highlight the need to investigate how first-generation pesticide exposure can impact future generational health in order to prevent adverse health outcomes, especially during sensitive developmental periods (i.e., in utero, infancy/childhood). The study researchers note, “Discovery of actionable biomarkers of response to ancestral environmental exposures in young women may provide opportunities for breast cancer prevention.”

To assess the association between multi-generational health risks and chemical exposure, researchers used the Public Health Institute’s Child Health and Development Studies (CHDS). CHDS has been following a cohort of 20,000 pregnant women since the 1960s and examines how diseases can pass from one generation to the next. Researchers gathered archived blood serum samples from pregnant grandmothers (F0) during and after pregnancy to measure o,p’-DDT, p,p’-DDT and p,p’-DDE concentrations. After adjusting for body mass index (BMI) and health effects among daughters (F1), researchers estimated granddaughter (F2) health outcomes, including waist circumference, weight, height, via log-linear models. Health outcomes like obesity and early menstruation are risk factors for breast cancer later in life. 

The results find obesity risk increases two to three-fold in granddaughter when grandmothers have high o,p’-DDT levels, especially among grandmothers of average weight. There is also a positive association between grandmother o,p’-DDT levels, and early-onset menstruation among granddaughters, regardless of grandmother’s BMI. (See ”Pesticides and the Obesity Epidemic.”)

DDT, an organochlorine (OC) insecticide, was widely used to control mosquitoes and in agriculture. However, a massive environmental movement spurred by Rachel Carson’s  Silent Spring resulted in the chemical ban in 1972. DDT, and its major metabolite DDE, still remain in the environment decades after use ended, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding chemical concentrations that exceed acceptable levels. DDT/DDE are persistent organic pollutants (POPs) resistant to environmental degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. These POPs persist in soil and water sediments, glacier meltwater runoff, U.S. national parks, and food webs. Additionally, these compounds readily dissolve into body fat and linger for many years, adversely affecting the hormonal system, metabolic function, and brain development. Exposure to DDT, as an endocrine (hormone) disruptor, increases the risk associated with diabetes, early onset menopause, reduced sperm count, endometriosis, birth defects, autism, vitamin D deficiency, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and obesity. Past studies indicate DDE exposure has multi-generational health effects on obesity and diabetes, with DDE uniquely augmenting multi-generational breast cancer occurrences. Climate change only threatens to exacerbate residual DDT/DDE exposure, as warming may affect chemical movement and concentration in the environment. Therefore, animals and humans may experience a weakened ability to tolerate those chemicals.

Many studies have long demonstrated that childhood and in utero exposure to DDT increases the risk of developing breast cancer later in life. However, studies find many current-use pesticides and chemical contaminants play a role in similar disease prognosis, including mammary tumor formation. Recent research from the Silent Spring Institute links 28 different EPA registered pesticides with the development of mammary gland tumors in animal studies. Many of these said chemicals are endocrine disruptors, thus have implications for breast cancer risk. Even household cleaners, most of which are pesticides, contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals that increase breast cancer risk. Furthermore, long-term exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides increases adverse health and cancer risk, specifically among women. Like DDT, exposure to other POPs like per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) during pregnancy can increase cardiometabolic disorders like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases among offspring. Since DDT/DDE residues, current-use pesticides, and other chemical pollutants contaminate the environment, exposure to these chemical mixtures can synergize to increase toxicity and disease effects.

Inheritance of health issues spanning generations relating to hereditary influence is a familiar phenomenon. However, this study represents the first study to demonstrate multi-generational health problems from DDT exposure, a non-genetic factor. Therefore, exposure to pesticides poses just as much of a multi-generational health risk as hereditary illnesses. A plethora of research links pesticide exposure to endocrine disruption with epigenetic (non-genetic influence on gene expression) effects. As far back as 15 years ago, a Washington State University study linked pesticide exposure to multi-generational impacts on male fertility in rodents. According to multiple studies, glyphosate exposure has adverse multi-generational effects causing negligible observable effects on pregnant rodents but severe effects on the two subsequent generations. These impacts include reproductive (prostate and ovarian) and kidney diseases, obesity, and birth anomalies. New findings suggest exposure to the pesticide atrazine causes multi-generation resistance to the chemical in wasps by altering gut bacteria composition. Moreover, chemical byproducts made during the pesticide manufacturing process, such as dioxin, have multi-generational consequences on reproductive health.

Researchers note that past studies investigating DDT exposure measured bodily DDE concentration, as the metabolite stays in the body longer than the parent chemical itself. However, this study finds o,p’-DDT, rather than DDE, is the most sensitive biomarker for DDT exposure, indicating exposure during pregnancy many decades ago. The compound metabolizes much quicker than the main ingredient for DDT (p,p’-DDT) that breakdowns to DDE. Furthermore, studies find less endocrine disruption potential associated with breast cancer risk for DDE compared to o,p’-DDT. Lastly, the study’s researchers note that higher rates of obesity among granddaughters are most likely due to grandmother’s DDT exposure rather than exposure to present-day obesogenic chemicals from diet or other means. DDT-associated compounds are commonly detectable in most of the U.S. population, especially among people of color (POC) communities. Therefore, it is essential to understand the impacts these residual compounds, and others like them, have on the future of human, animal, and environmental health.

Study co-author and scientist at Public Health Institute Barbara Cohn, Ph.D., stresses, “In combination with our on-going studies of DDT effects in the grandmother’s and mother’s generations, our work suggests we should take precautionary action on the use of other endocrine-disrupting chemicals, given their potential to affect generations to come in ways we cannot anticipate today…We don’t want to wait [for] the next three generations to find out the chemicals that are in use now cause breast cancer.”

It is essential to understand the effects that endocrine-disrupting pesticides may have on the health of current and future generations. There is a lack of understanding behind the etiology of pesticide-induced diseases, including predictable lag time between chemical exposure, health impacts, and epidemiological data. Therefore, lawmakers and regulators should consider taking a more precautionary approach before introducing these chemicals into the environment. With far too many diseases in the U.S. associated with pesticide exposure, reducing pesticide use is a critically important aspect of safeguarding public health and addressing cost burdens for local communities.

Learn more about the effects of pesticides on human health by visiting Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database, supporting a shift away from pesticide dependency. This database is a fantastic resource for additional scientific literature, documenting elevated rates of Endocrine Disruption, Cancer, Body Burdens, and other chronic diseases and illnesses among people exposed to pesticides. 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. Solutions like buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Learn more about the multi-generation impacts of pesticides on our health via Beyond Pesticide’s journal Pesticides and You. Additionally, read more and help spread the word about the hazards pesticides pose to children through our Children and Pesticides Don’t Mix fact sheet.

Help Beyond Pesticides educate and build the movement that will bring long-needed protection to humans, animals, and the entire environment by attending the National Pesticide Forum this spring. Cultivating Healthy Communities will bring together expert scientists, farmers, policymakers, and activists to discuss strategies to eliminate harms from toxic chemical use in favor of non-toxic organic solutions. It begins with a pre-conference session on Monday, May 24, and continues every Tuesday beginning May 25, June 1, June 8, and ending June 15, 2021. Registration is open today and available through the webpage on this link. It starts with US.

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

Source: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, Environmental Health News

(Beyond Pesticides, April 21, 2021) The vast majority of bald and golden eagles in the United States are contaminated with toxic anticoagulant rodenticides, according to research published in the journal PLOS One earlier this month. Although eagle populations have largely recovered from their lows in the 1960s and 70s, the study is a stark reminder that human activity continues to threaten these iconic species. “Although the exact pathways of exposure remain unclear, eagles are likely exposed through their predatory and scavenging activities,” said study author Mark Ruder, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Georgia to CNN.

Eagle carcasses were retrieved from the University of Georgia’s ongoing Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. Eighteen state wildlife agencies and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service all sent in specimens from a period spanning 2014 to 2018. In total, 116 bald eagle and 17 golden eagle carcasses had their livers tested for the presence of anticoagulant rodenticides.

Out of the 116 bald eagles tested, 96, or 83% had were exposed to toxic rodenticides. Forty of the eagles  (35%) were exposed to more than one rodenticide compound. Thirteen out of 17 golden eagles were contaminated was rodenticides, with four exposed to a single rodenticide and nine exposed to more than one. The second-generation anticoagulant rodenticide brodifacoum was the most detected compound in sampled eagles. In sum, researchers identified 12 eagles (4%) that had died specifically from toxicosis caused by rodenticide exposure.

The recovery of eagle populations over the last 50 years is a major wildlife success story, showing the power and impact of science, advocacy, and a meaningful regulatory response. DDT and other organochlorines pesticides were eliminated, and the Endangered Species Act was successful at protecting eagles’ critical habitat.

The spot eagles hold at the top of their respective food chains were challenged by human activity, effectively acting as predaceous downward pressure on their population numbers. The current study reveals that similar threats remain that warrant further reforms. Prior studies have deemed anticoagulant rodenticides “super-predators” in ecosystems for the widespread damage that can result from their use. This is because rodents that eat these chemicals, often contained in toxic baits, do not die immediately. The anticoagulant nature of these rodenticides means that they stop an animal’s blood from clotting, resulting in a slow, painful death. The animal becomes confused and slow, blood vessels are ruptured, hair and skin loss begin to occur, and nosebleeds and bleeding gums will present prior to succumbing to the poison.  

While a rodent is likely to die from this poison, ingesting it also turns it into a sort of poison trojan horse for any predator that may take advantage of its slow decline. An eagle that eats a poisoned rodent at the edge of death will be the next to succumb to the anticoagulant effects of the chemical. If not killed outright, a poisoning event can weaken a predator’s immune system and make the animal more susceptible to disease. “Humans need to understand that when those compounds get into the environment, they cause horrible damage to many species, including our national symbol, the bald eagle,” Dr. Ruder told CNN.

Over a decade ago EPA issued rules intended to reduce non-target poisonings from rodenticide use. However, the study notes that ongoing poisonings must continue to be investigated. “The prevalence of exposure is concerning, and the documentation of SGAR toxicosis in eagles in this study suggests that exposure and mortality due to SGAR exposure remains a problem in eagles, despite recent risk mitigation efforts,” the authors write.

Fifty years ago, EPA met the challenge of protecting the nation’s iconic birds of prey from collapse. With fair warning of future problems, we need not wait until another crisis to stop the use of toxic pesticides. The state of California is out ahead and has already begun to take action on toxic anticoagulant rodenticides. In September 2020, the legislature voted to ban the use of these chemicals with limited exceptions. Although many advocates rightfully note the need to tighten up the current list of exceptions, the law provides an important first step, and a recognition that this is an issue that can and should be addressed.

It is not just eagles and birds of prey that are threatened by these compounds. Numerous mountain lions throughout California have been poisoned over the last decade, including mountain lion P-22, which, for a time, roamed the Hollywood Hills along Griffith Park’s Hollywood sign. Scientific studies indicate that mountain lion populations in Southern California’s Santa Ana and Santa Monica Mountains are at risk of local extinction within 50 years without intervention.

It is critically important that bobcats, fishers, mountain lions, owls, hawks, and other critically important predators remain at the top of their food chain. Ultimately, it is by embracing and encouraging the growth in their numbers that we can address the excess of pests in human built environments. The installation of owl boxes, for instance, can provide a very effective way to address rodent populations on farms and in large landscaped areas.

Avoid the use of rodenticide baits in and around one’s home. See Beyond Pesticides’ ManageSafe page on least-toxic control of mice for strategies that can be used that do not include the use of highly hazardous baits. And for more information on the dangers rodenticides and other toxic pesticides pose to wildlife, see Beyond Pesticides’ Wildlife program page.

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

Source: PLOS One, CNN

(Beyond Pesticides, April 20, 2021) Roundup products manufactured by Bayer-Monsanto kill exposed bumblebees at high rates, according to a new study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, which points to undisclosed inert ingredients (those that typically make up a majority of the product formulation) as the primary culprit. Roundup products have become synonymous with their main active ingredient glyphosate, but Bayer-Monsanto has been quietly reformulating its flagship product with different herbicides in a likely attempt to rebrand as glyphosate cancer lawsuits drag down the company’s performance. The new study reveals that these new Roundup products present the same hazards to pollinators as glyphosate-based formulations, raising important questions about the pesticide regulatory process.

Researchers based at Royal Holloway University of London, UK conducted the present study to better understand the hazards posed by herbicides often characterized as “bee safe” to the public. To do so, 10 healthy bumblebee (Bombus spp) colonies were retained, split into small groups, and sprayed with a particular herbicide. Four different herbicide products were employed, including: i) Fast Action Roundup^® Ready‐To‐Use (containing glyphosate); ii) Roundup^® Speed Ultra (containing acetic acid and no glyphosate); iii) Weedol^® Gun! Rootkill Plus (containing glyphosate) and; iv) Roundup^® ProActive (contains glyphosate – for agricultural use). Each group of bumblebees received two sprays of the ready to use substance, or in the case of the agricultural Roundup, received an amount similar to that applied when farming. Although these amounts were not what is considered field realistic, the aim of the study was to determine the harm pollinators experience from direct exposure to a product claimed to be safe for pollinators. In the authors’ words, “Fundamentally, our experiment was designed to enable the detection of hazardous effects from substances previously reported to be non‐hazardous.”

Interestingly, the “no glyphosate” formulation of Roundup being sold in the UK and European Union is different than “no glyphosate” formulations being sold in the United States. In the U.S., Bayer-Monsanto is selling a product line called Roundup^® for Lawns which contains four different main active ingredients: dicamba, MCPA, quinclorac, and sulfenzatrone. The UK/EU version of the product appears to only contain acetic acid (vinegar), a least toxic substance that presents moderate hazards to pollinators from exposure. However, the results raise the likelihood that it is primarily the so called “inert” materials not disclosed on the Roundup label that are harming pollinators.

Bumblebees sprayed with consumer use Roundup Ready-To-Use (contains glyphosate) experienced a shocking 94% mortality. Subsequent experiments were conducted at lower application rates for that product, and significant mortality was seen for the 1:1 dilution (98% mortality) as well as the 1:3 dilution rate (78% mortality). The agricultural use Roundup Proactive (contains glyphosate) saw lower rates of death at 30%. Weedol, a glyphosate-based consumer product, displayed a mortality rate (6%) similar to the unexposed control group of bumblebees (4%). However, Roundup Speed Ultra (no glyphosate) was found to kill 96% of exposed pollinators.  

The combined results indicate a serious problem with Roundup formulations. “Together, this demonstrates that the co‐formulants in these Roundup^® products, not the active ingredient glyphosate, are driving mortality,” the researchers indicate. The scientists note that surfactants or other inert ingredients may be smothering exposed pollinators, noting that only Roundup products caused “comprehensive matting of bee body hair.” The authors’ write, “We suggest that the mechanism driving this mortality may be surfactants in the formulations blocking the tracheal system of the bees, which is essential for gas exchange.”

While the evidence appears to strongly favor inerts as the primary culprit in this research, it is worth noting that studies have found technical grade (pure) glyphosate can harm pollinators. A 2018 study found that it disrupts honey bee microbiota, and a 2015 study found that it result in sublethal effects on honey bee navigation and foraging success.

Inerts, like surfactants, emulsifiers, and other co-formulants, or not required to undergo the same level of scrutiny for the harm they may cause – as strong regulations for these other ingredients are lacking on both sides of the Atlantic. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has refused to disclose these ingredients to the public on the label of pesticide products despite repeated attempts by Beyond Pesticides and other advocacy organizations to petition the agency.

This is not the first time inert ingredients have been cited for their danger to pollinators. A 2014 study found that pesticide mixtures and inert ingredients – particularly one inert able to be identified by researchers, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone – resulted in high rates of larval honey bee mortality. In 2017, a study published in the journal Nature found that a specific inert called Slygard 309, an organosilicone surfactant, increased honey bee’s susceptibility to a deadly virus.

The latest concerning news on inert ingredients revolves around widespread findings that PFAS chemicals are contaminating pesticide products. A 2017 study detected PFAS chemicals in bee hives, and a study published earlier this month indicates that PFOS (a certain type of PFAS chemical) can increase honey bee mortality and halt brood development.

It is little wonder why regulatory agencies have been brought to task by the scientific community for inaction on inert ingredients. A 2018 report published in Frontiers in Public Health reviewed the literature on commonly used formulations of glyphosate, finding a wide range of different inert ingredients and toxicity levels from different glyphosate products. Despite this variability, researchers note how many studies conducting research on glyphosate as the active ingredient actually use formulated products in their studies, potentially botching results.

As the authors of that study recommend, regulatory agencies should not be treating inert ingredients separately from active ingredients. When both active and inert ingredients can be equally hazardous, there is no reason to ignore up to 99% of a pesticide’s formulation simply because the manufacturer claims that only the active ingredient will harm the target pest.

We can work to protect the natural world from pesticide hazards when we know what those hazards are, making complete inert ingredient disclosure an urgent necessity. “Our research has shown that manufacturers need to be more transparent in their list of ingredients and also look at what they are using in their formulas which makes one weed spray safer than another,” said study coauthor Edward Carpentier, PhD. And once we know these hazards, we can work to avoid their use by embracing a more precautionary approach to farming and landscaping. With Earth Day fast approaching, pledge to eliminate toxic pesticide use by signing the ladybug love pledge and follow up with other actions that will make a difference.

To learn more about the hidden dangers of pesticides from experts throughout the US and the world, as well as how you can eliminate their use in your yard and community, attend Beyond Pesticides National Pesticide Forum: Cultivating Healthy Communities. Register today to ensure your spot!

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

Source: Journal of Applied Ecology, Royal Holloway University press release

(Beyond Pesticides, April 19, 2021) In celebration of Earth Day and its fourth annual Ladybug Love campaign throughout the month of April, Natural Grocers is supporting Beyond Pesticides. The campaign celebrates insects that play a crucial role in food supply stability, and regenerative farming practices that use ladybugs and other beneficial insects instead of harmful synthetic pesticides to control pests. Natural Grocers will donate $1 to Beyond Pesticides for each person who pledges (including renewals) “not use chemicals that harm ladybugs and other beneficial insects on their lawn or garden, and to support 100% organic produce.” 

>>1. Sign the Ladybug Pledge and support Beyond Pesticides. 

You do not have to be a Natural Grocers shopper to sign this nationwide pledge. For shoppers at any of Natural Grocers’ 161 stores—all in 20 states west of the Mississippi—you can donate to Beyond Pesticides at checkout. Thank you! Ladybug Love also features in-store promotions.

>>2. Advertise your commitment with a Beyond Pesticides “Pesticide Free Zone” sign.

Natural Grocers’ fundraising efforts have supported Beyond Pesticides and local leaders in converting the following parks and recreational areas to convert exclusively to organic practices and to eliminate the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers: Roosevelt Park in Longmont, CO, Chief Garry Park in Spokane, WA, Reid Park and Silverlake Fields in Tucson, AZ, Tempe Sports Complex in Tempe, AZ, Irwin Park in Eugene, OR, and Island Park in Springfield, OR. Beyond Pesticides has assisted other cities in such a transformation and invites people and local governments to contact us about the program at [email protected].

>>3. Sign the letter below to ask your Mayor to convert to organic landcare in city parks and other public places.

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

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

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, April 16, 2021) Recent research, published in Environmental Pollution in late 2020, examines levels and persistence of pesticide pollution in recreational lakes. The study finds: (1) concentrations of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid at levels exceeding ecotoxicity limits for aquatic invertebrates in a recreational lake that receives predominately urban runoff, and (2) that pesticide residues persist in the studied lakes throughout the growing season. Based on their findings, the scientists emphasized the importance of stricter regulation of insecticide compounds, and of better education about their impacts. Beyond Pesticides maintains that neonicotinoid pesticides should be banned for several reasons, not least of which is the extreme damage they cause to pollinators.

The goal of the study was to evaluate potential ecosystem exposure to pesticide contamination in Midwestern recreational lakes, as well as the persistence of pesticide residues in those water bodies over the course of the growing season. Study authors hypothesized that watersheds with significant agricultural land uses would have higher concentrations of pesticides compared to largely urban and herbaceous watersheds.

This research, out of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the University of Kentucky, looked to evaluate the occurrence of neonicotinoid and organothiophosphate insecticides, and some fungicides, in three lakes with differing dominant land uses in watersheds of Nebraska’s Lower Platte River Basin. The land uses of the three context watersheds were classified as: herbaceous (mostly grassy prairie, shrubs, and open vegetated areas, and excluding forested or woody areas); urban (primarily residentially developed areas); and agricultural (largely production fields planted with soybeans and corn). Each watershed had multiple kinds of land uses within it, but the designated categorical use was dominant compared to the others. Researchers aimed to assess the occurrence of commonly used pesticides, such as neonicotinoid and organothiophosphate insecticides, as well as strobilurin and acylamino acid fungicides, in the lakes.

Two of the 12 compounds the study assessed — imidacloprid and clothianidin — are very commonly used neonicotinoids (neonics) found in both urban and agricultural areas. Imidacloprid is used to treat soil, seeds, and foliage of vegetable and cotton crops to control sucking insects such as rice hoppers, aphids, thrips, whiteflies, various turf and soil insects, and some beetles. It is also used in pet flea treatments and in home gardens. Clothianidin is used similarly, on food (e.g., corn, soybean, leafy greens, and fruit) and non-food crops, as well as on turf and residential areas. It is used to control many of the same insects as imidacloprid targets, and is likewise applied to leaves, soil, or seeds.

Clothianidin is toxic for bees, birds, and fish and other aquatic organisms, and so, is very harmful to these creatures’ ecosystems and to biodiversity. Imidacloprid shares those characteristics and more: it also harms human health, wildlife, domestic pets, water quality, and the environment broadly. The fungicide azoxystrobin is toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms.

Imidacloprid was the first neonic sold in the U.S. and is the most commonly deployed insecticide globally. Annual agricultural use in the U.S. in 2014 tallied to 2,204,623 pounds. Use of clothianidin, largely on corn crops, rose to 3,747,858 pounds yearly by that same year. Neonics comprise a class of pesticide used intensively in many parts of the world. Though they are applied to plant foliage, or directly to soils as a drench, the dominant use globally is as a seed treatment. Neonic pesticides are banned or restricted in the European Union, France, Germany, and Italy; some states have also worked to rein in their use, but federal regulation in the U.S. continues to be wholly inadequate.

The study methodology included use of multiple sampling techniques — both “grab” sampling and “passive” sampling (in which the collection unit remains in the water for a period of time) — in the subject lakes and in inlet streams contributing to them. Multiple sampling periods were conducted. These strategies enabled averaging of concentrations and, therefore, more comprehensive assessments of pesticide concentrations than would have been gotten through “snapshot” or grab sampling alone. The paper notes, “Concentrations were then used with runoff volume estimates to calculate the total load of individual pesticides entering the monitored lake during each sampling period.”

The study co-authors note that, although low-level concentrations of pesticides are pervasive in both rural-agricultural and urban waterways, recent reports have found pesticides in urban and agricultural lakes, including Midwestern national park lakes (as well as in adjacent groundwater). A 2011 USGS survey found that 61% of agricultural streams and 90% of urban streams had at least one detectable pesticide at levels exceeding aquatic-life benchmarks.

The findings of the research include:

• Azoxystrobin, clothianidin, and imidacloprid were the most frequently detected compounds via both sampling methods at all locations; concentrations were significantly different depending on dominant watershed land use and sampling method.
• Significantly higher pesticide concentrations were found in the urban watershed compared to the others, particularly for imidacloprid. The paper distinguishes between “pesticides” (used for “plant protection”) and “biocides” (used for other, non-plant-protection purposes, such as on domestic pets or in homes), though in some instances, a biocide and a pesticide (or insecticide) can be chemically identical. (Domestic use of biocides is less regulated, generally, than is use of pesticides, according to the co-authors.)
• Whereas concentrations of imidacloprid exceeding acute aquatic toxicity benchmarks were observed in the urban lake for only two of the six sampling periods, chronic aquatic toxicity benchmarks (for aquatic invertebrates) were exceeded for imidacloprid in that lake for every sampling period, and in the agricultural lake for four of the six sampling periods.
• Though clothianidin (and thiamethoxam) in the agricultural lake showed the highest concentrations among compounds sampled, those levels remained well below both chronic and acute toxicity limits for both pesticides.
• Sampling from contributing inlets to the lakes showed imidacloprid concentrations exceeding chronic toxicity limits in both the agricultural and urban settings.

The finding of higher concentrations in the urban watershed was unexpected by the researchers, and did not support their working hypothesis that agricultural watershed bodies would evidence the highest pesticide concentrations. The co-authors wrote: “Overall, the urban watershed was the primary pesticide contributor per unit area. We hypothesize that this is likely due to limited pesticide outreach programs for homeowners regarding ideal timing and quantity of biocide applications along with absent regulations for pesticide applications in nonagricultural areas.”

They added specificity to that explanation: “Directly upstream to the urban lake was a dog park and next to the urban lake there was a golf course. Imidacloprid is used in flea prevention treatment for dogs, rapidly metabolized, and excreted primarily through urine. Further, imidacloprid is often used to protect trees and shrubs from the insect species such as emerald ash borer, grasshoppers, and weevils and is commonly used in the region for insect prevention on residential lawns and golf courses. Therefore, the high concentrations of imidacloprid was suspected to be from biocide usage in the predominately urban watershed from contributions of domestic animals, lawn and tree care, and golf course maintenance.”

Beyond Pesticides has covered the contributions of golf course maintenance, flea treatments for pets, and lawn maintenance to the pesticide problem in the U.S., and advocated for alternative approaches that reduce or eliminate the toxicity issues related to these activities (see more on solutions for golf courses, flea treatment, and lawns). The study co-authors conclude: “Findings from this study are critical for preventing and mitigating potential effects of pesticides, specifically applied as biocides in urban landscapes, from entering and persisting in recreational lakes.”

Impacts of neonics on pollinators, and on bees, in particular, are well documented, and worldwide, detectable levels of pesticides in water resources continue to rise, driven primarily by runoff from agricultural fields treated with herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. Beyond Pesticides has reported extensively on pesticide water pollution, including by neonics, noting that: “Neonicotinoid insecticides are detected regularly in sampling of the nation’s waterways at concentrations that exceed acute and chronic toxicity values for sensitive organisms.” See this deep dive, “Poisoned Waterways,” from Beyond Pesticides’ Spring 2017 issue of Pesticides and You.

The United Kingdom has banned use of several classes of pesticides — including neonics — but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to allow use of thousands of demonstrably harmful pesticide compounds, and nods to “protection” by maintaining databases of acute and chronic toxicity in order to identify “areas of concern” for registered pesticides. This anemic approach continues to allow the myriad water quality, health, ecosystem, and biodiversity harms of pesticide use to continue.

The comprehensive solution to these harms is getting off the toxic pesticide treadmill through a transition from chemically intensive land management (including in agriculture) to management through organic systems. The benefits to water quality, never mind every other impacted sector of the environment and human health, would be enormous and systemic.

As Beyond Pesticides wrote some years ago, “Growing food with a reliance on toxic pesticides has resulted in the nation’s waterways being heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals. Organic farming demonstrates clearly that relying on toxic chemical inputs for crop yields is not only unnecessary, but serves to protect waterways and public health from chemical pollution. Creating healthy soils, which is the foundation of organic systems, conserves water, nurtures fertility, leads to less surface runoff, and reduces the need for nutrient input. With less toxic pesticide use, organic farming helps to protect the quality of the nation’s waterways.”

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749120370883

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

(Beyond Pesticides, April 15, 2021) Gestational (during pregnancy) and childhood exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) increase cardiometabolic risk, or the risk of heart diseases and metabolic disorders, later in life, according to a Brown University study published in Environment International. Past studies associate exposure to chemical pollutants with increased susceptibility to adverse health effects during critical fetal and childhood developmental periods. Some of these health effects are cardiometabolic risk factors, including obesity, insulin issues, abnormal blood pressure, that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) and metabolic disorders (e.g., type 2 diabetes). PFAS are of particular concern as these endocrine-disrupting chemicals are common in non-stick cookware, cleaning/personal care products, food packaging, and other consumer products. They are now being found in pesticide products. Because of their ubiquitous use in many products, studies report that PFAS compounds are detectable in infants, children, and pregnant women. Furthermore, pregnant women can readily transfer compounds to the developing fetus through the placenta.

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are among the leading causes of death globally. Additionally, heart conditions are one leading cause of disability in the U.S., as research demonstrates environmental pollutant exposure can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, including stroke, heart attack, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and cardiac arrest. Therefore, it is essential to mitigate harmful chemical exposure to safeguard human health, especially during critical developmental periods. Researchers note, “ [F]uture epidemiolocal studies are needed to investigate the impact of other PFAS and PFAS mixture on cardiometabolic risk and investigate the biological mechanisms underlying these associations.”

Researchers collected blood serum from 221 mother-child pairs to understand the effects PFAS exposure has on children. The collection took place during pregnancy, at birth, and ages three through 12 years. A blood serum analysis examined samples for the presence of four PFAS concentrations (perfluorooctanoate [PFOA], perfluorooctane sulfonate [PFOS], perfluorononanoate [PFNA], and perfluorohexane sulfonate [PFHxS]). Lastly, researchers compared PFAS exposure levels to cardiometabolic risk factors among, including insulin resistance, impaired glucose absorption, high blood pressure, and visceral (abdominal) fat and inflammation.

The study results demonstrate that high exposure to a combination of all four PFAS compounds during pregnancy worsens cardiometabolic health among adolescents at age 12 years. Youth groups with higher PFOA exposure rates during pregnancy and PFOA and PFHxS exposure at birth/during infancy results in elevated adverse cardiometabolic risks.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a group of over 9,000 human-made chemicals present in various consumer products that people use every day. Although some PFAS compound manufacturing has ceased, these chemicals last forever in the environment as their chemical structure makes them resistant to breakdown. Chemical residues are persistent in food and drinking water, with over 6 million U.S. residents regularly encountering drinking water with PFAS levels above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health advisory of 70 ng/L. Therefore, PFAS are detectable in almost all of the U.S. population—disproportionately afflicting people of color communities—and have implications for human health. EPA links these chemical compounds to adverse health effects. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies PFAS as possible carcinogens based on epidemiological studies identifying instances of kidney, ovarian, testicular, prostate, and thyroid cancer, as well and non-Hodgkin lymphoma and childhood leukemia. Moreover, PFAS are anatomically similar to fatty acids and may impair fatty acid metabolism and lipid synthesis in the liver, resulting in endocrine (hormone) disruption. Some studies even demonstrate PFAS reduces the efficacy of vaccines. Although the presence of PFAS in consumer products is a concern for human health, these substances contaminate some already toxic pesticide products. Neither the manufacturer nor regulators have a good understanding of how chemical contamination occurs, and contamination may increase adverse health outcomes. 

Independent research by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) finds that widely used insecticide Anvil 10+10 contains high levels of PFAS from contamination. Although EPA does not regulate PFAS in pesticide formulas, EPA still lists these substances in the inert ingredient database. Many companies have patents on file for pesticide formulations containing PFAS. However, product labels do not require disclosure of contaminants fundamental for pesticide products through the manufacturing or packaging process. Contamination of a toxic product with other harmful chemicals is glaringly problematic for public health and the environment. Mixtures of various chemicals can induce synergism that may increase pesticide toxicity or result in changes to its characteristics, like penetrative abilities. Therefore, there may be an underestimation of toxicity effects on human, animal, and environmental health.

The study results demonstrate that early life exposure to PFAS has implications for future heart and metabolic health. Echoing past studies, exposure to PFAS in utero may increase obesity risk, insulin and leptin levels, and glucose intolerance more than adult exposure. Therefore, gestation represents a window of increased vulnerability to PFAS exposure. Furthermore, this study employs both traditional and novel cardiometabolic risk scores that better predict subsequent risks. For instance, researchers measured risk factor scores for adiponectin to leptin ratio indicating insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. These risk factor scores are good predictors of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes risk or mortality. The researchers suggest continuous measurement of cardiometabolic risk score can provide opportunities for disease prevention before onset during adulthood. Since EPA fails to regulate these toxic substances, the depth and scope of PFAS contamination may be difficult to assess. Although new “short-chain” PFAS compounds are replacing older, more toxic “long-chain/C8” compounds, some research suggests these new compounds are just as toxic. Researchers, including study co-author Joseph Braun, Ph.D., conclude, “Future epidemiologic studies investigating the health impacts of early life PFAS exposure should consider using continuous cardiometabolic risk summary scores to assess cardiometabolic risk and confirm our findings… [These findings can] give policymakers information so they can prevent exposure at the population level and set health-based regulatory guidelines that protect people’s health because, at the end of the day, that’s what’s really important — protecting people’s health.”

Ubiquitous environmental contaminants like PFAS have severe consequences, especially on the health of vulnerable individuals. There is a consensus among pediatricians that pregnant mothers and young children should avoid pesticide exposure during critical periods of development. Various pesticide products act similarly to PFAS, and individuals can encounter these substances simultaneously, resulting in more severe health outcomes. Therefore, advocates urge that policies enforce stricter pesticide regulations and increase research on the long-term impacts of pesticide exposure. 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 that pesticides can cause, see PIDD pages on Birth/Fetal Effects, Learning/Developmental Disorders, Endocrine Disruption, Cancer, Body Burdens, and other diseases. To learn more about how the lack of adequate pesticide regulations can adversely affect human and environmental health, see Beyond Pesticides’ Pesticides and You article “Regulatory Failures Mount, Threatening Health and Safety.”

Many states are issuing regulatory limits on various PFAS in drinking water, groundwater, and soil. However, EPA must require complete product testing and disclosure of ingredients for proper PFAS regulation. Furthermore, the agency must eliminate the need for toxic pesticides by promoting organic and ecological pest management practices. Solutions like buying, growing, and supporting organic can help eliminate the extensive use of pesticides in the environment. Organic land management and regenerative organic agriculture eliminate the need for toxic agricultural pesticides. Furthermore, given the wide availability of non-pesticidal alternative strategies, families and agricultural industry workers alike can apply these methods to promote a safe and healthy environment, especially among chemically vulnerable individuals. For more information on how organic is the right choice for both consumers, and the farmworkers who grow our food, see Beyond Pesticides webpage, Health Benefits of Organic Agriculture. 

Help Beyond Pesticides educate and build the movement that will bring long-needed protection to humans, animals, and the entire environment by attending the National Pesticide Forum this spring. Cultivating Healthy Communities will bring together expert scientists, farmers, policymakers, and activists to discuss strategies to eliminate harms from toxic chemical use in favor of non-toxic organic solutions. It begins with a pre-conference session on Monday, May 24, and continues every Tuesday beginning May 25, June 1, June 8, and ending June 15, 2021. Registration is open today and available through the webpage on this link. It starts with US.

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

Source: Brown University Press Release, Environment International

(Beyond Pesticides, April 14, 2021) Litigation on the highly toxic herbicide paraquat may soon move into its next phase as lawyers representing victims recently requested cases be consolidated in the federal district court of Northern California. Over a dozen lawsuits have been filed against the Swiss-based agrichemical corporation Syngenta in several states throughout the U.S. The complaints allege that exposure to Syngenta herbicides containing paraquat resulted in their diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease.

Paraquat dichloride (paraquat) is a highly toxic herbicide that has been registered for use in the United States since 1964. Although not permitted for residential use, the product is registered on a wide range of agricultural land, from row crops to vegetables and trees, and on non-farm areas, including airports, certain industrial sites and commercial buildings. It can be used as a preemergent, post-emergent, and post-harvest as a desiccant or harvest aid in the field.

The lawsuits target both Syngenta and Chevron corporation, which previously held the rights to sell paraquat in the 1960s under an agreement with a company that was eventually purchased by Syngenta. Syngenta itself, while still headquartered in Switzerland, is now owned by the Chinese National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) after a 2016 merger. Despite significant ongoing use in the U.S., concentrated in the South, Central U.S., and California’s central valley, the pesticide has been banned in many other countries, including the EU in 2007 and Brazil in 2020. Switzerland banned the chemical as far back s 1989, and China’s ban came into effect last year.

Paraquat presents a range of health concerns. Recent research shows that inhalation of low doses can disrupt one’s sense of smell, and past research has found the chemical may result in adverse respiratory health among farmers that apply it. However, there are two primary concerns related to this hazardous chemical. The first concern is the rampant poisonings and suicides that have occurred as a result of the fast action and high toxicity of paraquat. Less than a shot glass of the pesticide is enough to kill a grown adult, and there have been far too many instances of accidental poisonings. A recent report from The Intercept, in coordination with French newspaper Le Monde and Unearthed, reveal the Paraquat Papers and insider information on how the company worked to cover up its failure to deter these avoidable poisonings.

The second primary concern with paraquat is strong evidence linking the use of paraquat to the development of Parkinson’s disease. Research finds that cumulative exposures over one’s life increases risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, and other factors such as genetics, exposure to other chemicals further elevate the threat. Recent studies show that one’s zip code and proximity to paraquat use in agriculture likely plays an important role in an individual’s risk of developing Parkinson’s.  “The data is overwhelming” regarding the link between paraquat and Parkinson’s, said Samuel M. Goldman, MD, an epidemiologist in the San Francisco Veterans Affairs health system to the New York Times in 2016. Another expert interviewed by the New York Times, Freya Kamel, PhD, with the National Institutes of Health said the connection was “about as persuasive as these things get.”

All of this overwhelming, persuasive data, did not change the US Environmental Protection Agency’s decision last year to give paraquat another 15 year lease for use on American soil. But, like the ongoing Roundup lawsuits, it is looking increasingly unlikely that EPA’s failure to act will weigh heavily on court cases.

According to reporting in Environmental Health News (EHN), plaintiff lawyers are upbeat about the case. “We are confident that science strongly supports the causal connection between paraquat and the devastation of Parkinson’s disease,” said Mike Miller, lead attorney of the Miller Firm, which also led much of the Roundup litigation. “The Northern District of California is well equipped to handle these cases.” Syngenta/ChemChina and Chevron deny any connection between paraquat and Parkinson’s and are vowing to vigorously defend their products.

EHN reports that some plaintiffs have uncovered important evidence from internal Syngenta documents indicating that, like its foreknowledge of problems from suicides and accidental poisonings, the company may have likewise known for years that paraquat caused Parkinson’s disease.

With another potentially large monetary loss for the agrichemical industry on the horizon, many industry watchdogs are wondering what the game plan is. Notwithstanding the immense human suffering created by the use of paraquat, as the Roundup litigation with Bayer/Monsanto show, short-term, profit motivated thinking can result in significant economic losses down the road. With EPA unable to provide effective cover, and under the new administration likely changing its approach to industry oversight, many are looking to significant reforms on the horizon.

Help make change possible by contacting EPA and telling the agency to stop registering toxic pesticides until an audit is performed on pesticide registrants, and EPA can assure the public that their science and determinations are not corrupt. For more information on the link between paraquat, other pesticides, and Parkinson’s disease, see Beyond Pesticides Pesticide Induced Diseases Database.

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

Source: Environmental Health News, Fears Nachawati Law Firm press release

(Beyond Pesticides, April 13, 2021) A new study is making it increasingly clear that current laws are not protecting wild, ground nesting bees from the hazards of neonicotinoid insecticides. According to research conducted under a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) projects, Blue Orchard Mason Bees (Osima spp) are at particular risk from pesticide-contaminated soil they use to create their nest. Authors of the study note that with honey bees already in decline, pollination services provided wild managed bees like Mason bees are growing in importance. “Wild bees such as Osmia are becoming increasingly popular as managed pollinators in many systems, as there is growing concern that honeybees may not be able to continue to meet the increasing demands of agricultural pollination if these trends continue,” the study reads.

The study looked at three overarching threats to mason bee populations, aiming to identify risks from pesticide contaminated soil used as a nest, effects on larvae exposed to contaminated soil, and whether female mason bees could determine the difference between contaminated and uncontaminated soil. “Imidacloprid is a neonicotinoid, which is a group of pesticides that are highly toxic to bees,” said Christine Fortuin, PhD, graduate student and lead author of the study. “It has several common uses but my research was focused on the soil-drench application method. This is when it is applied directly to the soil and soaked up through the roots of the tree to prevent beetles and other pests.”

To investigate the risks of neonicotinoid-contaminated soil to mason bees, 120 female bees were separated out into groups and exposed to varying levels of imidacloprid (nil exposure, 50 parts per billion [ppb], 390 ppb, and 780 ppb), representing an unexposed control group, as well as low, medium, and high levels in the environment. This experiment was repeated with varying levels of moisture (20% and 40%) in the soil material used to create the mason bee’s nests. A separate experiment exposed the four-day old larvae of mason bees to similar concentrations of neonicotinoids. A final experiment was conducted providing female mason bees the choice whether to use treated or untreated soil to use in their nests.

The study found no trend to the mason bee’s ability to distinguish between contaminated and uncontaminated soil. Embryos appeared to be particularly resilient to the effects of pesticide exposure. However, female mason bees were harmed by soil contact exposure, with effects on fitness noted at each exposure level. At the highest exposure rate, researchers observed a 66% decline in nesting activity as females produced 40% fewer offspring overall. Nesting activity was similarly reduced by 42% in the medium exposed group. For the lowest exposures at 50 ppb (the equivalent of adding 50 drops of pesticide in a 10,000 gallon swimming pool), the sex ratio for offspring was skewed toward male bees. This group had 50% fewer female bees than the unexposed control group.

Soil moisture has important and surprising implications for toxicity. Soil at 20% moisture shows few effects on the pollinators, but at 40% researchers witnessed over 50% of female Blue Orchard Mason bees dying at every level of exposure.

While researchers note that the study provides evidence on routes to avert risk, such as mulching around areas treated with a toxic pesticide to discourage mason bee access, the evidence is increasingly pointing to the fact that no level of use will be safe for pollinators. Although there is relatively little data specifically focused on the harm neonicotinoids inflict on wild-ground nesting bees, this study is already reinforcing existing results. A study published in late 2020 finds that the additive stress of pesticide exposure and food scarcity leads to significant declines in wild mason bees. Scientists exposed female mason bees to the neonicotinoid imidacloprid and found they produce 42% fewer offspring. This effect is exacerbated when food supplies are also low, reducing reproduction by 57%. Not only are the effects on reproduction similar, the study also finds skewed sex ratios – with those exposed to imidacloprid producing 33% fewer daughters.

A study published in March 2021 finds that another wild, ground nesting bee, the hoary squash bee, initiates 85% fewer nests, harvests 5 times less pollen, and produces 89% fewer offspring than bees not exposed to neonicotinoids. A 2019 study may provide insight into the observed effects. That research looks at the effects on larvae after exposure to imidacloprid, recording alterations in development induced by the pesticide. Contaminated larvae display a variety of morphological changes, indicating a hormetic response, wherein changes in development occur in order to compensate for energy the bee diverts into physical and biological protections from pesticide exposure.

Concerns over the long-term ability for honey bees to meet future pollination needs should not be an overarching consideration in exploring methods to protect mason bees. We must protect all pollinators from the hazards of pesticide exposure. Rather than trying to avert risk through changes to label requirements that limit when, where and how a highly hazardous chemical should be sprayed, we must acknowledge that any amount of a bee-toxic pesticide in the environment has the potential to cause harm which is not yet documented. “No pollinator is safe from the harmful effects of neoincotinoid insecticides,” said Drew Toher, community resource and policy director at Beyond Pesticides. “This understanding demands a precautionary approach that stops the use of any pesticide that present unacceptable hazards to pollinators or else we risk a bleak, pollinator-free future that looks like the farm fields of eastern Kenya,” Mr. Toher continued.

Current laws do not come close to implementing such an approach. The Saving America’s Pollinators Act would begin to turn the tide in favor of pollinator protections, but it faces an uphill battle in Congress that requires strong advocacy to move forward. In the absence of a precautionary route to protect pollinators, we must continue to push local, state, and federal leaders to embrace meaningful changes.

Help Beyond Pesticides educate and build the movement that will bring long-needed protections to pollinators and the wider environment by attending the National Pesticide Forum this spring. Cultivating Healthy Communities will bring together expert scientists, farmers, policymakers, and activists to discuss strategies to eliminate harms from toxic chemical use in favor or non-toxic organic solutions. It begins with a pre-conference session on Monday, May 24, and continues every Tuesday beginning May 25, June 1, June 8, and ending June 15, 2021. Registration is open today and available through the webpage on this link.

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

Source:  Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education press release, Project final report

(Beyond Pesticides, April 12, 2021) Are you a regular National Pesticide Forum attendee? Have you always wanted to attend, but couldn’t afford the time and money? Are you new to the pesticide issue and want the best introduction, from Pesticides 101 to deep science? Do you want to meet with others who are taking their communities to natural organic land management? Do you want to meet with people doing amazing work across the country who are fighting the climate crisis, biodiversity collapse, and environmental injustice. This is your chance!

This year’s Forum is taking place virtually and will be held over four weeks, one day a week, May 25, June 1, 8, and 15. Plus, there’s a special pre-conference session Pesticide Literacy 101: Truth & Advertising on May 24. What’s more, we have registration options for all budgets.

Take Action: Sign-Up for the Forum and join with others across the country and around the world for a toxic-free future – confronting health threats, climate disasters, and biodiversity collapse. See you there!

What’s it all about? Scientific understanding. Collective action. Systemic change. A toxic-free future. Organic transition. The serious and existential environmental and health challenges that we face bring an urgency to the focus of this Forum and the work that is going on in communities around the U.S. and the world. Central to the solution is the elimination of petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers in exchange for regenerative organic land management and nontoxic materials that stop the harm from toxic chemical production, use, and disposal. We recognize that this is the only way to protect our children and families, those in workplaces, pets, pollinators, and the rich diversity of organisms essential to life.

Who attends? The Forum brings together scientists, policymakers, practitioners, advocates, and activists to elevate with greater clarity the threats associated with environmental decline and collapse and the urgency with which we need to adopt solutions that are within our grasp. We hope you will participate! 

While we are celebrating Beyond Pesticides’ 40th anniversary this year, we still have much work to do and you are critical to the successful transition to organic solutions. That’s why we hope you will join us for this important conference! Please take a look at the Forum website, including the stellar list of confirmed speakers (more being added), for more details.

Thanks for being part of the network and for your continued support. We hope to “see” you in May. 

Take Action: Sign-Up for the Forum and join with others across the country and around the world for a toxic-free future – confronting health threats, climate disasters, and biodiversity collapse. See you there!

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES! Showcase what you’re doing (as a nonprofit, volunteer, or business organization) through our “poster” or “exhibitor” opportunities. Take a look at our sponsorship packages, there’s a cost-effective option for all budgets. If you’d like to discuss a sponsorship, please call 202-543-5450 or send us an email. 

(Beyond Pesticides, April 9, 2021) In early April, the leaking, open-air, Piney Point storage pond near Tampa, Florida necessitated hundreds of resident evacuations over concerns that the “reservoir” would breach and flood a three-county area with what was described as a potential “20-foot wall of water.” Ultimately, controlled releases from the 480-million-gallon “pond” (into Tampa Bay) avoided such a flood, but the event underscores the “ticking bomb” nature of such open-air, toxic-liquid-waste facilities, which are used by multiple industries in the U.S. Among those are, as in this case, the phosphate mining sector, and the synthetic fertilizer industry. The latter is tied directly to the chemical-intensive agriculture crisis, and to the exact kind of waste storage facility at issue in the Florida event. This “double whammy” related to synthetic fertilizers further validates Beyond Pesticides’ advocacy for a global transition to organic land management — which rejects the use of synthetic fertilizers for the myriad harms they cause.

As reported by The New York Times, that Florida storage pond contains “legacy processed water” — code for wastewater with traces of heavy metals and other toxicants — contained by walls of phosphogypsum tailings at least 70 feet high. Phosphygypsum tailings are the leftover waste when phosphate ores are processed to create phosphoric acid, an ingredient used in synthetic fertilizers. Most of the 23 million tons of phosphate mined annually in the U.S. is used in production of such fertilizers, and generates enormous amounts of phosphogypsum waste.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) describes the use of phosphogypsum tailings to store toxic wastewater: “Phosphogypsum has little market value and is transferred as a slurry to waste piles called phosphogypsum stacks. The solid portion of the slurry consolidates while the water pools on the stack’s surface. Eventually gypsum is dredged from the pools to build up the edges around the stack forming a reservoir for storing process water. . . . Stacks are generally constructed on unused land or on mined out areas at production sites with little or no prior preparation of the land. They are not covered with soil or any other material. There are over 70 identified stacks in the U.S. with the highest percentage found in Florida. The stacks are of considerable size, ranging from 2–324 hectares (800 acres) in surface area and 3–60 meters in height.”

The phosphogypsum stacks contain uranium and its decay products, such as the isotope radium-226 (which has a half-life of 1,600 years and decays into radon); these are highly radioactive elements. The stacks also contain toxic elements, such as lead and arsenic. In the Piney Point event, the concern — beyond the potential tsunami of wastewater had the holding pond breached — was that the stacks might then collapse and send along radioactive waste in the flood waters.

According to EPA, most phosphate mining occurs in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee, with some activity in Utah and Idaho. Florida produces 80% of mined phosphate in the country, and is home to the world’s largest phosphate strip mine, which is 100,000 acres wide, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. It is at best mystifying that a state with many areas with relatively high water tables, and multiple regions at fairly low elevations, would permit these open-air pools of toxic wastewater, given that the warming climate is increasing extreme precipitation events and resultant flooding. Flooding in such areas can readily contaminate waterways and drinking water, as well as inundate infrastructure of all kinds. Any sort of compromise of these toxic holding pools can be an extreme threat to public health and safety.

The problem of waste ponds, lagoons, and other “holding features” for the waste from U.S. agricultural and industrial activity is huge, with 70 such phosphogypsum stacks, 700 coal-ash ponds (for waste from nearby coal-burning power generation facilities), and thousands of agricultural lagoons. The latter are primarily at large, industrial CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) raising beef cattle, dairy cows, and hogs. Florida has approximately 2,100 industrial wastewater holding facilities, including those at livestock CAFOs, which are notorious users of waste lagoons. All of these holding facilities are potential disasters come storms, hurricanes, increasing intense precipitation events, or failing infrastructure. Indeed, they’re environmentally noxious even absent such events.

At Piney Point, infrastructure had been failing for a while; that failure includes “tears in the plastic liner that holds wastewater.” There will also be environmental impact from the controlled releases into local waterways, as the NYT notes: “Even though the fear of a wider breach appears to have passed, there is likely to be environmental fallout from the emergency release of the polluted water, which also contains nutrients that could spur harmful algae blooms, followed by fish kills.”

Agricultural/CAFO lagoons — many of which are little more than unlined depressions in the soil — typically hold a mix of animal waste, water, and chemicals. These pools not only contaminate groundwater, but also, pollute the air with ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. When these sites receive heavy precipitation, or are otherwise flooded so that “you can’t manage the amount of water that’s coming in, you can end up with the bacteria, and chemicals, in the surface water, and on the land,” according to D’Ann Williams, a researcher for the Center for a Livable Future at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In 2019, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) put the number of U.S. CAFOs at roughly 7,600. How many of these utilize waste lagoons is unknown, but it is not unreasonable to assume that most do. NRDC reported in 2019 on the incredibly poor state of federal data collection on CAFOs, noting: “A decade ago, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office concluded that the EPA could not fulfill its regulatory duties under the Clean Water Act without accurate and facility-specific information about CAFOs. The EPA, for its part, has admitted that ‘unlike many other point source industries, the EPA does not have facility-specific information for all CAFOs in the United States.’”

Back when farming was not industrial, but conducted on a smaller scale with few (if any) chemical inputs, the manure from livestock was a useful and valued on-farm commodity with which to fertilize corn and other silage and crop fields. As industrial agriculture has become widespread, that practice is less common (except among some smaller-scale farmers, and certainly, organic farmers). Silage corn (for animal feed) is now mostly grown at huge scale with genetically modified seeds, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers. Composted manure still represents a strategy that would (and does) benefit agricultural systems. The obstacle to its broad re-adoption is that large industrial agricultural enterprises find it cumbersome to deploy, and would rather opt for cheap, destructive, synthetic fertilizers. This is a bad bet for a healthful and livable future.

At the scale at which CAFOs operate, there is far more manure generated than can be used on on-farm fields. An Environment America factsheet reports that a 2,500-head dairy farm generates as much waste as a city of 411,000 people. As synthetic fertilizers have largely replaced the use of manure, what to do with all that animal excrement? Basically, it is stored (with water added), untreated, in these huge pools or pits for as long as six months, during which time it decomposes anaerobically and releases methane and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). After that period, it is spread or sprayed on croplands. With that applied solution travel any pathogens, antibiotic and pesticide residues, and sometimes, trace heavy metals from animal feed, such as copper, zinc, and lead.

Percolating through the ground or running off of compacted or not-yet-thawed fields, this waste can enter and pollute ground and surface waters. Leaks or spills from these (generally unlined, but for a layer of clay) pits can similarly contaminate ground and surface waters (they are not infrequently sited quite close to existing rivers or streams). CAFO waste pits pollute local air, as noted. When this non-composted, untreated waste enters waterways, it can kill fish and other organisms downstream, and contribute to toxic algal blooms. A Chicago Tribune analysis of data from Illinois showed that, for example, hog CAFO spills and leaks killed 492,000 fish from 2005 through 2014. This toxic “storage” strategy is dangerous and unsustainable. The very creation of these huge holding ponds destroys habitat and compromises local ecosystems.

The nearly wholesale agricultural (and other land management) adoption of synthetic chemical fertilizers is contributing to multiple negative environmental and public health and safety problems. The demand for these fertilizers drives the mining of phosphate, with its nasty byproducts — toxic and radioactive waste “process” water and phosphgypsum stacks, respectively. The use of such fertilizers, which use petrochemicals (derived from fossil fuels) and phosphoric acid, among other ingredients, has generated the creation of thousands of manure-holding, noxious-gas-emitting, water-contaminating holding pits. The processing of mined sulfur, another ingredient, causes significant emissions of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere; this gas damages terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems through the increased acidity it causes in rainfall. Sulfur dioxide also contributes to the development and severity of human respiratory disorders. 

The nitrates in synthetic fertilizers degrade soil health, and are a huge cause, via agricultural runoff from fields, of nutrient deposition in waterways that can cause multiple environmental impacts. For example, nitrates not only disrupt the carbon-capturing activity of critical salt marshes, but also, create algal blooms and subsequent dead zones that cause eutrophication and hypoxia, killing off organisms and destroying marine ecosystems. In addition, nitrogen from chemical fertilizers escapes into the air on application, and is deposited in forest soils, where it is having serious ecosystem impacts, including decline of mycorrhizae, changes in species composition and diversity, and overall poorer ecosystem functioning because of trees’ increased vulnerability to insects, disease, freezing, and drought.

The excess nitrogen in these fertilizers is also driving global nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions dangerously high, exacerbating the climate crisis. Manufacturers of these fertilizers often use a nitrogen-heavy ratio of the three famous “NPK” inputs: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Nitrogen supports growth and photosynthesis (so plants “green up” readily), but too much can deplete other soil nutrients, inhibit development of flowers and fruit, and contribute to excess nitrate leaching into groundwater.

In its 2020 “Year in Review,” Beyond Pesticides quoted Jessica Shade, PhD of The Organic Center: “Many common organic farming practices — like composting and the use of manure fertilization in place of synthetic fertilizers — can recycle reactive nitrogen that is already in the global system, rather than introducing new reactive nitrogen into the environment, and thus have a much smaller environmental impact.”

A 2019 UN report cites synthetic fertilizers’ role in the “degradation of ecosystems, pollution of water systems from runoff, and contributions to climate change,” and says that “in light of these impacts, current and projected patterns of global pesticide and fertilizer use are not sustainable.”

There are some bright spots in the landscape: in 2020, South Portland, Maine passed legislation that bans the use of synthetic fertilizers, with few exceptions, as part of the city’s commitment to climate action and protection of its coastal waterways. Hyattsville, Maryland has established a law that prohibits the use of synthetic fertilizers on city-owned and -managed property: “The City of Hyattsville shall only use natural organic fertilizers. The use of a synthetic fertilizer is prohibited on City-owned or -managed properties.” Beyond Pesticides encourages communities to recognize that organic land management requires only natural soil supplements that feed microbial soil life and sequester atmospheric carbon, and to work to enact local laws mandating the switch away from synthetics.

The reasons to shift agricultural and other land management practices to organics are legion but boil down to this: do we humans want to continue perpetuating systems that poison and degenerate human and ecosystem health, biodiversity, a livable climate, and functional soils that underlie all of those? Or do we want to make the transition to organic regenerative systems that eliminate the multiple thousands of toxic chemicals now in use, and instead, protect organisms (including people) from them, as well as enrich and vivify soils, sequester carbon, support healthy ecosystems, and nourish the living planet and its biomass? Beyond Pesticides is solidly in favor of the second option. Contact Beyond Pesticides for help with advancing organics in your community.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/climate/florida-ponds-toxic-waste.html

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