(Beyond Pesticides, October 11, 2019) The Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking public comment on a document that describes an “interim process” being used to assess potential synergistic effects of admixtures of pesticide active ingredients on non-target organisms. This interim risk assessment process was catalyzed in part by a 2015 lawsuit brought by a group of non-governmental organizations; that suit cited EPA’s failure to evaluate appropriately the impacts of a new herbicide, Enlist Duo, on non-target species, including some endangered species. EPA’s inattention to synergistic impacts on non-target species has long been a deficiency of EPA’s pesticide review and regulation and a focus for Beyond Pesticides’ work to factor in uncertainties, or unknowns, in registering pesticides under a precautionary approach. Although EPA recognizes that pesticide exposures occur in combinations, it evaluates a very limited number of such interactions.

Manufactured by Dow AgroSciences, Enlist Duo combines glyphosate and 2,4-D. Increasingly, manufacturers create and market such “twofer” products as responses to the burgeoning issue of plant resistance to individual pesticides. As insects, fungi, weeds, or other “pests” inevitably develop resistance to pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, or insecticide compounds, the efficacy of the chemical treatment obviously plummets. Manufacturer response is often either to find a new chemical, or to “double down” with combined-ingredient products that may be effective until the next wave of resistance develops.

EPA acknowledged, during that 2015 litigation, which challenged EPA registration of Enlist Duo, that some patent applications for registered pesticide products claim that they provide so-called “synergistic” control of target species. The patent assertions about greater than additive (GTA) effects have “raised questions and concerns about the EPA’s current process for evaluating ecological risks of pesticide mixtures because some target pests are also members of taxonomic groups of nontarget organisms that EPA assesses.” Also in 2015, EPA asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to “vacate its [2014] registration decision and remand the application for Enlist Duo for further study of these effects and any measures that might be needed to mitigate the risk to non-target organisms.” The court denied EPA’s request.

Of EPA’s call for public comment, the National Law Review notes that, “EPA typically registers pesticide products that are not intended to protect public health without any independent evaluation of efficacy data. Nevertheless, in general EPA may choose to evaluate pesticidal efficacy data; such circumstances in the past often involved cases where EPA was required to consider whether pesticide benefits are sufficient to outweigh identified risks. In the Enlist [Duo] case, EPA determined that it should do so where potential synergy in pesticidal efficacy is pertinent to evaluating ecological effects on non-target species. What EPA must decide now is how often efficacy data that has been deemed adequate by the Patent and Trademark Office to support a patent for a new pesticide mixture will have any material significance in the context of ecological risk assessment. . . . EPA has decided it is prudent to afford all stakeholders an opportunity to comment on whether EPA has been asking the right questions.”

Some background: an application for registration of a pesticide product must meet standards in order to be approved. EPA describes those: “Applicants are responsible for citing or generating all data necessary to meet data requirements specified by FIFRA [the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the federal law that created the basic system of pesticide regulation]. The standard for determining whether an application should be granted includes a finding that: (1) a product’s composition warrants the proposed claims for it; (2) the product’s labeling and other material required to be submitted complies with FIFRA; (3) the product will perform its intended function without causing unreasonable adverse effects on the environment; and (4) when used in accordance with widespread and commonly recognized practice, the product will not cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.” FIFRA defines “unreasonable adverse effects” as “any unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide.”

For new chemicals in EPA’s pesticide registration process — about which EPA has specific concerns about the potential for GTA effects — the OPP protocol proposes to “request” that registrants: (1) review data from existent patent applications that assert GTA effects from active ingredient interactions; (2) compare data from those applications to EPA ecological risk assessment relevancy criteria; (3) report effects testing data from relevant patents; and (4) “analyze the data to determine if observations of greater than additive effects in mixtures are statistically significant in the context of test variability.” EPA would then review all submitted information to decide whether it should be utilized in ecological risk assessment. Importantly, OPP would rely here on: (1) registrant-submitted data rather than independently secured data, and (2) registrants’ compliance with the “requests.” The Federal Register notice of the protocol document does at least indicate that EPA is “uncertain concerning the utility for risk assessment of the information used by manufacturers to support synergistic effects claims in pesticide patents.”

“Synergy” in the pesticide context has two aspects: one is what these patent applications claim, which is some “greater than the sum of its parts” or “greater than additive” impact on, e.g., weed suppression, by these herbicides with multiple active ingredients. The other aspect is the largely unexamined — by regulators — universe of threats that exposure to multiple pesticide ingredients poses to the environment and to nontarget plant and animal species.

The OPP document, titled Process for Receiving and Evaluating Data Supporting Assertions of Greater Than Additive (GTA) Effects in Mixtures of Pesticide Active Ingredients and Associated Guidance for Registrants, sets out the process that OPP’s Environmental Fate and Ecological Effects Division is using in its attempts to evaluate synergistic risks. However, that process reviews only those admixtures whose makers assert that their efficacy on the target weed or pest is synergistic. OPP’s narrow focus ignores all the other potential synergistic impacts — effects that may arise when organisms, whether floral or faunal, are exposed to multiple active pesticide ingredients. Such “mixing” may happen during industry formulation of a product, in an applicator’s garage or barn, or at the organismic point of exposure via air, water, soil, and/or food.

OPP’s protocol is typical of EPA’s failure to consider risks related to all those other vectors for exposure to multiple pesticides. In a 2016 letter to EPA, Beyond Pesticides noted, for example, that although EPA had concluded that “the combination of 2,4-D choline and glyphosate in Enlist Duo does not show any increased toxicity to plants,” it was unclear that EPA had evaluated synergistic risks to other, non-plant organisms (including humans), who would be exposed to this chemical mixture. Beyond Pesticides wrote, “It does not appear that assessments, based on exposure to both glyphosate and 2,4-D choline, have been conducted to properly assess whether synergistic effects can occur in non-plant organisms.” Beyond Pesticides has advocated, in the face of EPA’s inattention synergistic impacts, that the EPA Office of the Inspector General — tasked with conducting “audits and investigations of EPA to promote economy and efficiency, and to prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse” — investigate this critical failure.

Beyond Pesticides advocates robustly for a regulatory approach to pesticides that prohibits high-risk chemical practices, and rejects uses and exposures deemed acceptable under risk assessment calculations filled with uncertainty. Rather, the federal regulatory framework should focus on safer, effective alternatives, such as organic agriculture, which prohibits the vast majority of toxic chemicals.

Beyond Pesticides encourages public comment on the OPP risk assessment protocol. Such commentary could include the following points:

• Impacts of pesticides mixtures, which occur in in air, soil, water, and agricultural products, should be considered in all EPA registration decisions.
• Any decision that a pesticide does not cause unreasonable adverse effects (considering all the risks and benefits) requires EPA to determine whether a pesticide is effective. Thus, efficacy data should be required for all pesticides.
• Synergistic effects of pesticides may involve interactions with pharmaceuticals or naturally occurring biochemicals and processes in humans and other organisms.
• Synergistic effects may be mediated in the environment; for example, an herbicide may destroy habitat for an animal that is also being poisoned by an insecticide.
• EPA should investigate potential synergistic impacts of all pesticides.

Public comments on the proposed EPA policy can be contributed here until October 24 at 11:59pm EST. Please consider incorporating the bullet points above in your comments to EPA.

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

Source: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/epa-seeks-comment-its-risk-assessment-methodology-evaluating-potential-synergistic

(Beyond Pesticides, October 10, 2019) Mysterious vaping illnesses across the country could be related to pesticide exposure, among other contaminants in black-market marijuana vaping products. To date, there have been 23 deaths from vaping-related illness, and about 1,100 cases of the illness nationwide. Yesterday, a 17-year-old boy from the Bronx became the youngest person to pass away from the illness. Most patients have reported that they used vape cartridges with THC. THC is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

NBC News recently commissioned laboratory tests of 18 THC cartridges – three from a legal Californian dispensary and 15 from unlicensed dealers. Cartridges from legal dispensary had no heavy metals, pesticides, or residual solvents. 10 out of the 10 of the black-market products tested were positive for pesticides. CannaSafe, the laboratory, reported that some of the unregulated products contained the fungicide myclobutanil. Heating myclobutanil can cause it to break down into harmful products, including hydrogen cyanide – a known potent carcinogen. Other pesticides detected included mixtures of the following pesticide or pesticide formula ingredient: fipronil, piperonyl butoxide, permethrin, malathion, and others (see full test results here).

Melodi Pirzada, M.D., a pediatric pulmonologist at NYU Winthrop Hospital, called the finding of myclobutanil “very disturbing,” and mentioned that it would “cause a very toxic effect on the lungs.” Dr. Pirzada is alarmed at the results showing that 13/15 of the black-market samples contained vitamin E, a solvent which damages the lungs when inhaled.

The nicotine vaping industry is under fire as the illnesses impact young individuals that may be drawn in by fruity flavors such as “Candy Cane” and “Fruity Loops.” New York City filed a federal lawsuit against websites that sell these products to New Yorkers who are under 21, the legal age limit for tobacco products in New York. The American Vaping Association, meanwhile, maintains that the outbreak is linked to THC oils and black-market products.

Last December, Colorado recalled two legal marijuana products due to dangerous pesticide residues, raising questions on safety and regulations in cannabis production even in the state-sanctioned market. Beyond Pesticides insists that any and all pesticide use on cannabis is illegal. Advocates are asking states to establish laws and/or regulations that mandate an organic systems approach to cannabis production.

As stated in Beyond Pesticides’ Action of the Week, “Pesticides have not been registered for use in cannabis production, yet they are being widely used under state-adopted enforcement levels that imply safety, but not subject to any standard of review that meets pesticide registration standards.” As seen in the case of myclobutanil, heating toxic chemicals and inhaling them through the sensitive exposure route of the lungs is dangerous – not only due to the active ingredient but also the breakdown components.

Congress should intervene on the cannabis issue to protect public health and safety. Ask them to: (1) Hold oversight hearings to document state violations of federal pesticide law by allowing the pesticide use in cannabis production and processing, despite not being registered for this use by EPA. (2) Request an OIG and Government Accountability investigation to assist in clarifying EPA and state enforcement responsibility to ensure compliance with pesticide product labels.

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

Source: NBC News

(Beyond Pesticides, October 9, 2019) Pesticide industry propaganda promoting the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides took another hit last month, as a study published by an international team of researchers found the chemical had the potential to induce breast cancer when combined with other risk factors. The study, Glyphosate Primes Mammary Cells for Tumorigenesis by Reprogramming the Epigenome in a TET3-Dependent Manner, led by scientists from Indiana’s Purdue University and the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM)/Institut de Cancérologie de L’Ouest (ICO) in Nantes, France, provides an important new lens through which to view pesticide-induced cancer development.

“This is a major result and nobody has ever shown this before,” says Sophie Lelièvre, PhD, a professor of cancer pharmacology in Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine and co-leader of IBCN. “Showing that glyphosate can trigger tumor growth, when combined with another frequently observed risk, is an important missing link when it comes to determining what causes cancer.”

To make their determination, scientists exposed human breast cells low levels of glyphosate every three to four days over the course of 21 days. A control group was also dosed with a known cancer-promoting peptide. Glyphosate caused the same changes to exposed cells as the cancer-promoting peptide, indicating that glyphosate promotes DNA hypomethylation, a process denoted by the loss of methyl groups to a certain nucleotide. DNA methyl groups control the way DNA is expressed, and there has long been concern regarding the way pesticides adversely interfere with gene expression in the lead up to diseases like cancer.

To test whether DNA hypomethylation in exposed cells would in fact lead to cancer, researchers implanted the breast cells into mice. While cells exposed to the cancer-promoting peptide developed cancer in all implanted mice, none of those exposed to glyphosate developed into cancer.  However, drawing upon scientific hypotheses on the role of multiple stressors in cancer development, scientists created a “two factor hit” whereby molecules known to cause oxidative stress were added to glyphosate exposed cells that were subsequently implanted into mice.  These molecules were linked to stress caused by factors such as aging, diet, alcohol consumption, or smoking. Mice exposed to this “two factor hit” developed cancer 50% of the time.

“What was particularly alarming about the tumor growth was that it wasn’t the usual type of breast cancer we see in older women,” Dr. Lelièvre said. “It was the more aggressive form found in younger women, also known as luminal B cancer.”

Importantly, through this research scientists were able to determine the epigenetic pathway through which glyphosate and other stressors induced breast cancer development. The results suggest additional investigation into methyl groups that control certain genes as an avenue for mitigating breast cancer risk.

“There has been a heavy focus on research for both treatment and detection, but prevention just isn’t as prevalent,” Dr. Lelièvre said. “If we can find a way to mitigate the risks, we can have hope for fewer cases.”

The study underlines the importance of preventing similar “two-factor hits” in the real world. While many will dismiss concerns over exposure to various toxic substances by saying “everything causes cancer” the study shows that, in fact, it is very likely the combination of multiple exposures that will ultimately result in cancer. In that way, any method that reduces exposure to carcinogenic agents in our environment is a benefit for health.

“There is a huge gap in the research that is targeted at understanding why cancer develops,” Dr. Lelièvre said. “This discovery is novel, primarily because until now, there hasn’t been any scientific evidence to show that a second factor when associated with common pollutants would be sufficient for cancer to develop.”

Pesticides represent a low hanging fruit for reducing carcinogenic risks. Their use, in the vast majority of cases, is simply not necessary given the availability of alternative products and practices. To avoid exposure to carcinogenic herbicides like glyphosate, choose organic whenever possible.

Beyond Pesticides continues to advocate against the use of glyphosate and other carcinogenic pesticides in farming, landscaping, and other outdoor areas. Join this effort by urging your local government to eliminate glyphosate use and adopt organic land management practices. Follow the links below based on your region to send a letter to your local leaders:

WEST

• Mountain West: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming
• Pacific West: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington

MIDWEST

• East North Central: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin
• West North Central: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota

SOUTH

• South Atlantic: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, District of Columbia, and West Virginia
• East South Central: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee
• West South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas

NORTH EAST

• North East: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania

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

Source: Purdue University press release, Frontiers in Genetics (peer-reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, October 8, 2019) As medicinal and recreational marijuana continue to be legalized in a growing number of states, concerns about the safety of the burgeoning industry—how the substance is grown, harvested, processed, distributed, sold, and used—have emerged. Pesticides have not been registered for use in cannabis production, yet they are being widely used under state-adopted enforcement levels that imply safety, but not subject to any standard of review that meets pesticide registration standards.

Pesticide contamination of medical cannabis is important not only because it introduces toxic chemicals into a medicine, but also because medical cannabis can interfere with the body’s ability to detoxify those pesticides. Cannabinoids have been shown to inhibit the activity of enzymes that help detoxify chemicals, which can make pesticides more toxic.

Tell your U.S. Representative and Senators to hold oversight hearings and request investigations into EPA and state responsibilities to prevent misuse of pesticides on cannabis.

New Frontier Data CEO Giadha Aguirre de Carcer, pointing to California residue testing results, cites a threat to the medicinal cannabis market. She notes that 84% of 2016 product batches tested were found to harbor pesticide residue; and that in the recent California round of assays 20% failed established state standards due to contamination from pesticides, bacteria, or processing chemicals, and in some cases, inaccurate labeling.

Colorado, Washington, and Oregon have all taken steps to list “allowable” pesticides for marijuana cultivation. However, by law, states cannot label pesticides that do not have a federal pesticide registration—which cannot be accomplished because of marijuana’s illegal federal status. California began in June 2018 to set out parameters for testing of cannabis; at this juncture, all cannabis for medical and recreational use must be tested for 66 different proscribed pesticides, as well as for other contaminants, such as E. coli, feces, mold, insect and rodent parts, mycotoxins, terpenoids, and heavy metals. The regulatory matrix in the states is dynamic, and events such as Colorado’s recalls and California’s fraudulent lab reporting may spur further adjustments.

Pesticide use on marijuana is illegal. Because marijuana is not a legal agricultural crop under relevant federal law (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) and hemp has only recently been legalized, EPA has not evaluated the safety of any pesticide on marijuana plants. EPA has established no allowances for pesticide use in cannabis production, and no tolerances, nor any exemptions from tolerances, for pesticide residues on cannabis. In the absence of federal regulations governing pesticides in cannabis production, the use of pesticides not registered by EPA is illegal. Several states have codified this understanding by adopting policies that prohibit all federally registered pesticides. Other states have taken the position that state policy is unnecessary, since EPA has not registered any pesticides for cannabis production and registered pesticide use is illegal. A review of state laws conducted by Beyond Pesticides finds a patchwork of regulations with varying degrees of protection for consumers and the environment.

Because of the absence of thorough federal testing of potential effects of the use of pesticides on cannabis for consumers, producers, and the environment, states do not have the authority to permit pesticide use in cannabis production and processing. State may, however, provide clear rules for sustainable production practices that will protect public health and the environment.

The lack of federal review and registration of pesticides used in cannabis production effectively requires the industry to embrace only those inputs exempt from federal registration and adopt true organic soil management practices.

Beyond Pesticides has recommended that states establish laws and/or regulations that mandate an organic systems approach to cannabis production. A requirement, for example, that growers and processors follow the dictates of national organic soil management standards would be prudent, precautionary, and a positive trajectory for the cannabis industry.

Congress should intervene to protect public health and safety. Ask them to:

• Hold oversight hearings to document state violations of federal pesticide law by allowing the pesticide use in cannabis production and processing, despite not being registered for this use by EPA.
• Request an OIG and Government Accountability investigation to assist in clarifying EPA and state enforcement responsibility to ensure compliance with pesticide product labels.

Letter to Congress

Please intervene to protect public health and safety from misuse of pesticides on cannabis. As medicinal and recreational marijuana continue to be legalized in a growing number of states, concerns about the safety of the burgeoning industry—how the substance is grown, harvested, processed, distributed, sold, and used—have emerged. Pesticides have not been registered for use in cannabis production, yet they are being widely used under state-adopted enforcement levels that imply safety, but not subject to any standard of review that meets pesticide registration standards.

Pesticide contamination of medical cannabis is important not only because it introduces toxic chemicals into a medicine, but also because medical cannabis can interfere with the body’s ability to detoxify those pesticides. Cannabinoids have been shown to inhibit the activity of enzymes that help detoxify chemicals, which can make pesticides more toxic.

Pesticide use on marijuana is illegal. Because marijuana is not a legal agricultural crop under relevant federal law (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) and hemp has only recently been legalized, EPA has not evaluated the safety of any pesticide on marijuana plants. EPA has established no allowances for pesticide use in cannabis production, and no tolerances, nor any exemptions from tolerances, for pesticide residues on cannabis. In the absence of federal regulations governing pesticides in cannabis production, the use of pesticides not registered by EPA is illegal. Several states have codified this understanding by adopting policies that prohibit all federally registered pesticides. Other states have taken the position that state policy is unnecessary, since EPA has not registered any pesticides for cannabis production and registered pesticide use is illegal. A review of state laws conducted by Beyond Pesticides finds a patchwork of regulations with varying degrees of protection for consumers and the environment.

Because of the absence of thorough federal testing of potential effects of the use of pesticides on cannabis for consumers, producers, and the environment, states do not have the authority to permit pesticide use in cannabis production and processing. State may, however, provide clear rules for sustainable production practices that will protect public health and the environment.

The lack of federal review and registration of pesticides used in cannabis production effectively requires the industry to embrace only those inputs exempt from federal registration and adopt true organic soil management practices.

States should establish laws and/or regulations that mandate an organic systems approach to cannabis production. A requirement, for example, that growers and processors follow the dictates of national organic soil management standards would be prudent, precautionary, and a positive trajectory for the cannabis industry.

Please protect public health and safety by:

• Holding oversight hearings to document state violations of federal pesticide law by allowing the pesticide use in cannabis production and processing, despite not being registered for this use by EPA.
• Requesting an OIG and Government Accountability investigation to assist in clarifying EPA and state enforcement responsibility to ensure compliance with pesticide product labels.

Thank you for your attention to this important issue.

(Beyond Pesticides, October 7, 2019) Central American agricultural workers, exposed in the 1970s and early 1980s to a highly toxic pesticide, subsequently began suing manufacturers in the mid-1980s, with mixed success. Now, some of those workers have stepped up their game: they have brought suit against three big agrochemical industries in France to try to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in damages awarded to them by Nicaraguan courts, but never paid. As reported by The New York Times, “the case could set a legal precedent and lead to more lawsuits in France for harm done in other countries by the pesticide Nemagon.”

Farmworkers in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, the Philippines, West Africa, and the U.S. were exposed to the highly toxic, brominated organochlorine pesticide ingredient, DBCP (dibromochloropropane), from the 1960s until cessation of its use, which has varied from country to country. DBCP was sold in the pesticide products Nemagon and Fumazone as a soil fumigant and nematocide on banana plantations and other crops across Central America (especially), in western Africa, and in Hawaii.

As acknowledged by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), DBCP has multiple adverse health impacts: decreased sperm production and mobility, disturbed estrous cycles, reduced phagocytosis by white blood cells, and malignant tumorigenesis, as well as mutagenesis. The IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) has classified it as a possible human carcinogen. The headline impact on agricultural workers has been reproductive sterility: a huge number of men were sterilized by exposure to this compound — an estimated 1,500 in Costa Rica in the 1970s, and tens of thousands across all regions of use by the 1990s.

DBCP was introduced to agriculture in the U.S. in 1955; as reported by the European Environment Agency, a mere six years later, laboratory experiments showed that the compound shrank rodent testicles and greatly reduced sperm quality and quantity; still, the chemical industry marketed the pesticide, and it became a commercial success. By 1975, production had reached 25 million pounds per year, and its use had spread from the U.S. to Central America, West Africa, the Philippines, and the Caribbean.

According to EPA, until 1977, DBCP was used on more than 40 different crops in the U.S. Then, EPA suspended registration for all products containing DBCP (excepting use on pineapple crops in Hawaii) from 1977 to 1979. In 1985, the agency announced its intent to cancel all registrations for DBCP; after that, even the use of existing stocks of DBCP was prohibited. Although agricultural use of the compound was functionally banned in the U.S. in 1979, primarily for causing sterility, its use continued abroad. In Nicaragua, for example, DBCP was legal from 1973–1993. Also, U.S.-based banana and pineapple producers continued to use Nemagon through the early 1980s at their production sites in countries with poorer environmental standards.

In a pattern of corporate irresponsibility, if not actual malfeasance, now commonly recognized — think Big Tobacco, Big Fossil Fuels, Big Pharma, Big Chem — Shell (Royal Dutch Shell) and Dow Chemical were aware as early as 1958 of toxicological data from experiments on male rats demonstrating that exposure to DBCP caused reproductive anomalies, including reduced testes size at airborne exposures of 5ppm (parts per million), and at 20ppm, sterility in all subjects. (Dow Chemical merged for a time with DuPont to become DowDuPont; in spring of 2019, that company disaggregated into Dow, DuPont, and Corteva, the last of which handles the agricultural seed, trait, and chemicals strands of the business.)

Farmworkers, particularly from banana plantations, who had suffered harms from DBCP — usually sterility — began to sue manufacturers (largely Dow and Shell) and large producers, such as Dole (formerly Standard Fruit Company, now Dole Food Company). Such frontline workers most affected by the ravages of pesticide use often face a Sisyphian task in seeking legal and monetary redress for those harms, as they confront giant corporate entities that leverage enormous resources to delay, delegitimize, and defeat the “little guys.” In these DBCP cases, that list includes flat-out stonewalling on payment by industry, repeated challenges to courts’ jurisdiction in the matter, and U.S. courts punting on these cases by outright refusing to hear them.

Some examples from that fraught landscape:

• In the 2000s, Nicaraguan courts ordered a total of $805 million in damages to be paid to hundreds of victims by Dow Chemical, Shell Oil, and Occidental Chemical (now OxyChem). The companies refused to pay, saying the courts lacked jurisdiction and had denied them fair trials. In one of those suits, in 2001, a court in Nicaragua ordered Shell, Dole, and Dow to pay $489 million to 500 male banana workers made sterile by DBCP. The companies refused to pay and counter-sued the plaintiffs for fraud, asking for $17 billion in damages. When a U.S. federal court was asked by the plaintiffs to enforce the Nicaraguan court judgment, the U.S. court refused to hear the case.
• Similar suits were filed in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006.
• In 2002, a case tried in a Nicaraguan court resolved when the judge ordered those same three companies to pay $490 million to 583 banana workers adversely affected by the use of the pesticide Nemagon (DBCP). The case was filed in Nicaragua under a law allowing any Nicaraguan worker to sue a foreign company. But Dow called the judgment “unenforceable” because the case was supposed to be moved to a U.S. court; further, defendants’ attorneys argued that the ruling was based on a Nicaraguan law criticized by its own attorney as “unconstitutional.” The companies again refused to pay.
• A 2005 case against Dole and Dow, brought by 150 Nicaraguans for injury by DBCP from their 1970–1982 work on Dole banana plantations, was found for the plaintiffs by a Nicaraguan court, which awarded them $97 million for the sterility and psychological suffering they had endured. A U.S. District Court in Miami then reversed that judgment, saying that it “was rendered under a system which does not provide impartial tribunal or procedures compatible with the requirements of due process of law, and the rendering court did not have jurisdiction over Defendants.”
• A California court, in 2007, ordered Dow Chemical and Dole to pay $3.3 million to Nicaraguan farmworkers who had suffered sterility due to their exposure to DBCP. The suit was one of a group of five litigations involving 5,000 agricultural workers from Ecuador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama, who were left sterile after being exposed to the pesticide.

As Beyond Pesticides reported in 2004, “For the most part, U.S. judges have argued that their courts are not the appropriate arenas for trying these cases [that originate outside the U.S.], and only four percent of the rejected cases are re-filed in other countries. Under the civil codes of most Latin American countries, plaintiffs’ rights are weaker, there are fewer jury trials and they lack strong discovery rules. Some of the cases rejected in the U.S. were heard in other countries, but there the accused corporations wield strong influence or no longer hold sizable assets.”

Taking the suit to French courts is an attempt to secure some justice — and the $805 million — for the harms the workers have suffered and for which they’ve found no remedy in Central American or U.S. courts. As The New York Times reports, the “case now has a new life half a world away in Europe, where the companies have significant assets and 1,245 former workers and relatives are looking to collect the money. While French courts have been open to hearing cases linked to human rights abuses that have occurred elsewhere, this is the first with such a large monetary award at stake.” On [September 17], a French court froze shares of Dow worth about $110 million, pending a trial scheduled for January.

Plaintiffs hope to collect at least part of that sum, per the Nicaraguan court judgments, from Dow in France, and to secure the freezing and sale of assets owned by Dow, Shell, and OxyChem in other European countries where they do business — predicated on a European Union (EU) rule that allows a court order issued in a member state to be enforced in any of the 28 EU countries.

The companies maintain that the suits that were settled — all but Dole settled in 1997 with 26,000 former banana workers in Central America, Africa, and the Philippines for $41 million; and Dole settled in 2014 with 1,700 Nicaraguan former banana workers for an undisclosed amount. The workers and families suing in France were not party to either of those suits.

Dow claims that it did not get a fair trial in Nicaragua in this lawsuit. François-Henri Briard, one of the lawyers representing the workers and their relatives, has said, “We live in a globalized world where it’s easy for multinational companies to hide assets so as not to allow justice and court orders to be enforced. This is what the U.S. companies did in Nicaragua: they poisoned people, they were sentenced by the courts, and they left without paying anything.” He argues that in such a world, victims should also be allowed to cross borders to enforce payment. Another member of plaintiffs’ counsel, Stuart H. Smith, said, “Thousands of individuals were knowingly put into the zone of risk of these pesticides after [DBCP] was banned.”

It is noteworthy that, even with all the permitted pesticides that are in use, some that have been banned sometimes end up in continued use. Often, as with DBCP, a ban in the U.S. or Europe will take effect, but the compound is permitted for far longer in other parts of the world; also, unscrupulous manufacturers sometimes look for overseas markets in which to “dump” products they can no longer sell in the U.S.

Beyond Pesticides not only advocates for a rapid transition away from chemically intensive agriculture, but also, recognizes the economic and health impacts that pesticide use inflicts on those who work (and have worked) in the fields and orchards that produce much of the world’s food. Those who are harmed by industry’s negligence or malfeasance deserve redress and compensation. Read about agricultural justice issues at Beyond Pesticides’ Agricultural Justice web page.

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

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/business/energy-environment/dow-chemical-pesticide-banana-workers.html

(Beyond Pesticides, October 4, 2019) A Circuit Court judge in Lincoln County, Oregon has overturned a hard-won ban on aerial spraying of pesticides, citing preemption of state law over any local ordinance. In her late-September decision, Judge Sheryl Bachart wrote that Oregon’s Pesticide Control Act “expressly and conclusively displaces any local ordinance regarding pesticide use. The intention of the legislature is apparent and unambiguous.” She noted in her opinion that the Oregon Revised Statutes (the codified laws of the state of Oregon), Chapter 634.057 “prohibits local governments from making any ordinance, rule or regulation governing pesticide sale or use.”

Voters in the county approved the subject ban on the aerial spraying of pesticides (Measure 21-177) in 2017, the initiative having been spurred by the work of Lincoln County Community Rights (LCCR), a grassroots organization that “seeks to educate and empower people to exercise their right of local community self-government in matters that pertain to their fundamental rights, their natural environment, their quality of life, their health and their safety.” In its advocacy for the initiative, the group cited both the harm done by aerial pesticide spraying to people and ecosystems, and the injustice of laws — often drafted by corporations for approval by legislatures — that make it illegal for the people to protect their health and safety more stringently than state regulations allow.

Immediately after the 2017 vote — a “win” for the local community — commercial fisherman and timberland owner Rex Capri and Wakefield Farms, LLC, both of whom used aerial spraying on their properties (prior to the ban), filed a legal challenge to the ban ordinance, which has been largely in effect during the two years since the ordinance passed.

The basis of the lawsuit lay in their claims that Lincoln County (or any political subdivision of the state) lacks the authority to create such an ordinance, that local statutes cannot override state law, and that the ban is barred by state regulations governing the use of pesticides, forestry practices, and the “right to farm.” The group that formed back in 2017 to oppose the ban initiative, the Coalition to Defeat Measure 21-177, is pleased with the news. In response to the judge’s ruling, the coalition’s director, Alan Fujishin, said, “Pesticide use by Lincoln County’s farmers, foresters, fishermen, vegetation managers and pest control professionals is already carefully regulated by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and supporting agencies — as it should be.”

LCCR joined in the case of Rex Capri and Wakefield Farms, LLC vs. Dana W. Jenkins and Lincoln County as an intervenor-defendant. Rio Davidson, a member of LCCR, called the judge’s ruling “heartbreaking.” He noted that during the two-years-plus when the ban was in effect, most large companies shifted to ground application of pesticides; he now expects that most will revert to aerial spraying.

In an LCCR statement of September 30 — titled “Timber Corporations Have More Rights Than People of Lincoln County Says Court; Aerial Spray Ban Overturned” — Mr. Davidson added, “The fight for our legal, constitutional, and fundamental right of local self-government marches on, and it is going to take the political will of the people to make it a reality if we ever want to stop living under the thumb of corporate government.” LCCR plans to appeal the ruling.

The LCCR statement asserts that Judge Bachart had failed to consider the right of local self-government, and that this right must prevail against state preemption when exercised to protect health, safety, and welfare. LCCR also stated, “It is widely recognized that, under the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, states have the authority to recognize and secure ‘unenumerated’ rights (rights not expressly stated in the Constitution), and thereby to establish greater rights at the state level than the protections provided under federal law.” This argument has been made by Beyond Pesticides, CELDF (Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund), and other advocates in laying groundwork for greater local authority over threats to communities.

In covering the Lincoln County case in 2017, Beyond Pesticides noted, “The case points to the legal conundrum that localities face in trying to protect their residents, lands, and resources from the assaults of pesticides, GMOs (genetically modified organisms), factory farms, fracking sites, or a host of other ills that communities may find objectionable because of health, safety, and/or environmental concerns. As communities (in the form of towns, counties, or cities) initiate efforts to establish regulations that may be more protective than prevailing state laws are, states and, very often, corporations persistently challenge those initiatives, arguing that state statutes supersede local authority to regulate. Such deference to state authority and statute is referred to as preemption — the use of state law to nullify the authority of a ‘lower’ level of government, or a specific statute or ordinance, on that preemptive basis.”

Again, from that 2017 Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog piece: “The tension between states’ preemptive authority, and the emerging insistence on greater local control to protect its residents, goes to the very heart of not only how governments at state and local levels derive their authority in a democratic system, but also, how that authority is shared — or not. The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) clearly establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the supreme law of the land. At the state level, things can become a bit less clear. Each state has its own Constitution, of course, its own interpretive history of the document, and its own assignations of authority regarding the host of issues with which governments concern themselves.”

In 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, that the federal law known as FIFRA — the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act — which regulates pesticide distribution, sale, and use, does not preempt local jurisdictions from creating more-stringent pesticide regulation. Thus, it was ruled that FIFRA nowhere expressly supersedes local regulation. However, and critically, the court left intact the ability of states to preempt such regulations. The essential argument of localities, and of Beyond Pesticides in the many cases in which it has participated, is that state preemption laws effectively deny local residents and decision makers their democratic right to better protection when a community decides that minimum standards set by state and federal law are insufficient. Check out the Beyond Pesticides Fact Sheet on “State Preemption Law: The battle for local control of democracy.”

This tussle between “higher” and “lower” levels of government re: which claim authority to regulate factors in public health and safety, which has played out across communities in the U.S., goes to some of the fundamental principles on which the American democratic experiment is based. In 2012, Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman wrote, “This is a very interesting story in American democracy. How did we get to this point in the history of the [U.S.] that we have taken away the local police powers of our local jurisdictions to protect the local public health of our people? This challenges a basic tenet that this country is based on — local governance.”

Beyond Pesticides has covered many of the numerous efforts of localities to establish more-stringent controls over pesticide use than respective state laws allow. Among them: in 2012, Cuyahoga County banned most chemical insecticides, weed killers, and other pesticides on county property. In 2013, the Takoma Park, Maryland City Council passed a law that restricted use of cosmetic lawn pesticides on public and private property within the city. The Town of Ogunquit, Maine banned the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers on private property in 2014. Montgomery County, Maryland created a law similar to Takoma Park’s in 2015. South Portland, Maine, followed by Portland, Maine have adopted ordinances that stop the use of lawn and landscape pesticides. Also in 2015, Thurston County, Washington banned the use of neonicotinoid insecticides on county-owned and -managed lands.

All of these efforts represent the interest of the public in reducing the health and environmental threats of the use of toxic chemicals in their local communities. A study covered by Beyond Pesticides earlier in 2019 shows that “‘By eliminating the ability of local governments to enact ordinances to safeguard inhabitants from health risks posed by pesticides, state preemption laws denigrate public health protections [authors’ words].’” Track developments in municipal and county efforts to establish greater local protections with Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News Blog, and its journal, Pesticides and You.

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

Source: https://www.klcc.org/post/judge-overturns-lincoln-county-ban-aerial-pesticides

Fig. 3 Geographic distribution of antimicrobial resistance in LIMCs. (A) P50, the proportion of antimicrobial compounds with resistance higher than 50%.

(Beyond Pesticides, October 3, 2019) A study in the journal Science focuses on the global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) due to overuse of animal antibiotics in food produced for low- and middle-income countries. Authors conclude, “the portfolio of antimicrobials used to raise animals for food is rapidly getting depleted, with important consequences for animal health, farmers’ livelihoods, and potentially for human health.” Highest resistance rates were observed for the most commonly used antimicrobials in animal production: tetracyclines, sulfonamides, and penicillins.

Researchers used data from 901 point prevalence surveys – a data collection tool used to identify number of infections – from low- and middle-income countries that reported antimicrobial resistance rates of common infectious microbes (e.g. E. coli, Salmonella spp.) found in animals raised for food production. Using geospatial models they produced global maps of antimicrobial resistance.

The important findings include:

• From 2000-2018, the proportion of antimicrobial compounds with resistance higher than 50% (P50) increased from 0.15 to 0.41 in chickens and from 0.13 to 0.34 in pigs and plateaued between 0.12 and 0.23 in cattle.
• Global maps of antimicrobial resistance show hotspots of resistance in northeastern India, northeastern China, northern Pakistan, Iran, eastern Turkey, the south coast of Brazil, Egypt, the Red River delta in Vietnam, and the areas surrounding Mexico City and Johannesburg.
• Areas where resistance is just starting to emerge are Kenya, morocco, Uruguay, southern Brazil, central India, and southern China.

Meat consumption has increased in low- and middle-income countries due to global expansion of intensive animal production systems, often taking the form of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOS). As animals are clustered together, risk of disease increases and therefore antimicrobials are often used preventively.

The World Health Organization (WHO) told its member states in 2017 to reduce veterinary antimicrobial use due to the potential threat it poses to human health. Antimicrobial resistance is becoming a more common global issue with estimates of 700,000 to a million deaths per year.

Beyond Pesticides wrote extensively on the topic of antibiotic resistance – a subset of antimicrobial resistance – and its relationship to food production in 2016. Antibiotic use is prohibited in all organic production. Though organic standards require sick animals to be treated, animal products from that treated animal cannot be sold as organic.

As stated in Pesticides and You, “It may not be widely appreciated that use of antibiotics on fruit trees can contribute to resistance to the antibiotic in human pathogens. The human pathogenic organisms themselves do not need to be sprayed by the antibiotic because movement of genes in bacteria is not solely ‘vertical,’ that is from parent to progeny—but can be ‘horizontal’— from one bacterial species to another. So, a pool of resistant soil bacteria or commensal gut bacteria can provide the genetic material for resistance in human pathogens.”

The basic mechanism is as follows. If bacteria on the plants and in the soil are sprayed with an antibiotic, those with genes for resistance to the chemical increase compared to those susceptible to the antibiotic. Resistance genes exist for both streptomycin and tetracycline, and spraying with these chemicals increases the frequency of resistant genotypes by killing those susceptible to the antibiotic and leaving the others. Those genes may be taken up by other bacteria through a number of mechanisms, collectively known as ‘horizontal gene transfer.’”

The same principle of horizontal gene transfer applies to antimicrobial resistance created during animal production. The authors of this new study suggest that countries with high AMR, such as China, take immediate steps to restrict animal use of antimicrobials critical to human medicine. They suggest high-income countries support the transition to sustainable animal production through, for example, “a global fund to subsidize improvements in farm-level biosafety and biosecurity.” In countries where AMR is low or just starting to emerge, they point out, it is possible to intervene and point farmers in a different direction. Beyond Pesticides advocates, for the sake of human safety and environmental sustainability, that direction should be organic.

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

Source: Science

(Beyond Pesticides, October 2, 2019) New data gleaned from the Kuakini Honolulu Heart Program — a longitudinal study of men of Japanese descent living on Oahu — demonstrate that occupational exposure to high levels of pesticides can increase risks for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the forms of coronary heart disease (CHD) or stroke (CVA, or cerebrovascular accident). Further, researchers determined both that workers who experience high-level exposures may not experience such effects for years afterward, and that the maximum subsequent effects were seen within a decade of exposure. The study’s conclusion highlights the importance of pesticide applicator use of protective gear when handling toxic pesticides. These risks and harms could be eliminated through a transition to non-chemical means for pest control in agriculture, land management, and home and personal practices.

The Kuakini Honolulu Heart Program, after enrolling more than 8,000 Japanese-American men, 45–68 years old and living on Oahu, Hawaii between 1965 and 1968, has continued to examine and interview these subjects, and document morbidity and mortality among them. This study, which performed statistical analyses on 7,557 of the subjects, is the longest longitudinal study of cardiovascular disease and any association with chronic occupational pesticide exposure, taking into account epidemiologic risk factors for CVD. Data on rates of heart disease and stroke were available through December 1999, representing as many as 34 years of follow-up. Exposure to pesticides in subjects, who self-reported their occupations, was estimated via an OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) tool that assesses intensity and length of occupational exposure for each occupation.

As the study co-authors note in their research paper, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in late September, previous research that has evaluated vocational chemical exposure and CVA, CHD, and CVD have looked only at CVD mortality. These researchers hypothesized that occupational exposure to pesticides would be a risk factor for CVD, CHD, and CVA, so they set out to examine where there is an association between such exposures and incidence of those three outcomes. They adjusted their analyses to accommodate for all relevant risk factors for CV (that were identified and measured as of 1999) and found, in the first 10 years of post-exposure follow-up, and compared to vocationally non-exposed men:

• a roughly 45% higher risk of CHD or CVA in those with high-level pesticide exposure; the figure was 46% after adjusting for age, and 42% after adjusting for additional CHD risk factors beyond age
• no significant relationship between low-to-moderate exposure to pesticides and the risk of CHD or CV

Occupations associated with pesticide exposures are typically agricultural or industrial, and include such workers as pesticide applicators, landscapers, forestry and agricultural workers, factory workers, pesticide manufacturing emplooyees, aircraft mechanics, and jet fuel refinery employees. Although the specific pesticides to which subjects had been exposed were not known, according to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture in 1969, common pesticides in Hawaii included several classes of organophosphates, organochlorines, insecticides, fumigants, and herbicides. (Many of these chemicals — such as DDT, heptachlor, chlordane, dieldrin, hexachlorobenzene, and toxaphene — have since then been banned because they are persistent organic pollutants.)

Cardiovascular health effects of exposures can manifest, as noted, years down the road, although the incidence dissipates after the first 10 years. This is because, in part, some pesticide compounds have very long half-lives and can persist for decades. Beatriz L. Rodriguez, MD, PhD, MPH, study co-author and professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, commented that, “After following the men for 34 years, the link between being exposed to pesticides at work and heart disease and stroke was no longer significant. This was probably because other factors tied to aging became more important, masking the possible relation of pesticides and cardiovascular disease later in life.”

The co-authors also identify some clinical healthcare implications of their findings:
• healthcare providers ought to be mindful of occupational exposure risks, particularly for those who work in agriculture
• both acute and chronic exposures to pesticides (or any other chemicals) need to be documented in people’s medical recordsagricultural workers need to employ personal protective measures, wear protective clothing and gear, and get monitored for development of cardiovascular disease

There are limitations of this research; one is that the cohort group within the study that had moderately intense exposure to pesticides constituted a small sample size, so researchers combined it with the low‐pesticide‐exposure group, which also contained a small number of subjects. Another limitation is that all subjects were male, as well as of Japanese descent. Thus, results may not be applicable to women or to people of different “racial” descent.

Zara Berg, PhD, study co-author and adjunct science professor at Fort Peck Community College in Poplar, Montana, noted that, “Previous studies have found that men and women may respond differently to pesticide exposure. One class of pesticides may give women heart attacks but not men and other pesticides may give men heart disease but not women. Hormones may also play a role in the impact of pesticide exposure and the development of cardiovascular disease.”

Beyond Pesticides regularly covers new research on the many health impacts of pesticide use, including those related to cardiac health, e.g.: 2011 coverage of a relationship between exposure to organochlorine pesticides and the development of atherosclerosis, and December 2018 reporting on associations between pesticide exposure and CVD among Hispanic and Latino workers in some U.S. cities. In addition, Beyond Pesticides has reported on evidence that endocrine disrupting chemicals, which some pesticides are, indirectly boost risk for cardiovascular (and other) anomalies, including this study that shows risks for children.

The Beyond Pesticides Pesticide-Induced Diseases Database is a useful source of information about disease development associated with exposures to pesticides. This report, Good Health Harmed by a Cascade of Complex Pesticide Effects, provides a broader look at health impacts. Such holistic context is important because human bodies comprise complicated systems that interact with one another, and whose functioning is mediated by chemical signals, whether as hormones, neurotransmittters, or others. Compromised function of any of those systems or of the body’s signaling capacity — whether because of pesticide exposures or any of a multitude of other factors — can affect multiple bodily systems.

To protect their cardiac and general health, individuals who may be at risk for high-level pesticide exposure through their job duties and sites must be extremely attentive to health and safety precautions because of their elevated risks. This is especially true for agricultural workers and pesticide applicators. The chemical assaults of pesticide exposure should be far more comprehensively evaluated by federal regulators, and those assessments should include adjuvant as well as active ingredients in pesticide products, as well as endocrine-disrupting, synergistic, low-dose, and epigenetic impacts.

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

Source: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.119.012569

(Beyond Pesticides, October 1, 2019) Commonly used fungicides induce trophic cascades that can lead to the overgrowth of algae, according to research published in the journal Chemosphere. While the current process for regulating pesticides in the U.S. focuses on the acute toxicity of pesticides, and may consider some chronic impacts, real world complexities as described in the current study are not reviewed. This gap in our assessment can lead to significant adverse effects not just on individual species, but entire ecosystems.

Researchers investigated how fungal parasites known as chytrids control the growth of phytoplankton. While some strains of chytrids are notorious for their impact to frog species, some do in fact provide important stopgaps within ecosystems.

“By infecting cyanobacteria, parasitic fungi limit their growth and thus reduce the occurrence and intensity of toxic algal blooms,” says IGB researcher Ramsy Agha, PhD, co-author the study. “Whereas we usually perceive disease as a negative phenomenon, parasites are very important for the normal functioning of aquatic ecosystems and can — as in this case — also have positive effects. Pollution by fungicides can interfere with this natural process,” the researcher adds.

The agricultural fungicides tebuconazole and azoxystrobin were tested on chytrid-infected toxic bloom-forming cyanobacteria in a laboratory setting. A control group was also established to compare effects. At concentrations that are likely to occur in the real world, exposure to both of the fungicides resulted in a significant reduction in infections by the chytrid parasite.

These results indicate that use of the fungicide may be facilitating harmful algae blooms by suppressing fungal pathogens that may otherwise control their growth.

This is not the first time that pesticides have been implicated in harmful algae blooms. A 2008 study published in the journal Nature found that the herbicide atrazine directly killed off free floating algae, which permitted run-away growth of attached algae. In this study, researchers found additional ecosystem-level impacts. The growth in attached algae led to higher populations of snails, a vector for a parasite that can infect amphibians. As a result, more snails, and a higher parasite load led to a higher infection rate in local frog populations, which led to a population decline.

Beyond Pesticides is working to raise awareness of the difficult-to-perceive yet critically important ecosystem-level effects of pesticide use. As we noted with research published last week estimating over 3 billion birds, comprising 30% of the overall US population, lost since 1970, that report was more than a report on birds, it is a report on gnat, caddisfly, and earthworm declines, on species that create the foundation of the food web.

As study co-author Justyna Wolinska, PhD, notes, “As the cultivation and identification of aquatic fungi in scientific labs is continuously improving, risk evaluations should consider the impact of fungicides on aquatic fungi.” There is a need not only to consider the issue raised by the current study, but the wide ranging indirect impacts of pesticide use.

For more information on how pesticide cause affects that impact entire food webs and ecosystems, see Beyond Pesticides’ article Pesticide Use Harming Key Species Ripples through the Ecosystem.

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

Source: Chemosphere, Science Daily

(Beyond Pesticides, September 30, 2019) A warm thank you to all who have sent in comments for the Fall 2019 National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting. We are sending out a second reminder so that those who have not commented can take this opportunity to do so. If you have already submitted, we encourage you to make a second round of comments to make sure your voice is heard!

Public comments are due by October 3, 2019. Your comments and participation are critical to the integrity of the organic label. Written comments may be submitted through Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm ET October 3, 2010. Reservations for in-person and webinar comments close at the same time.

The proposals of the NOSB, as a part of its ongoing review of practices and materials, are published for public comment.  Beyond Pesticides/OrganicEye is providing the public with a listing and analysis of the issues under consideration by the Board when it meets in Pittsburgh, PA on October 23 – 25, 2019. You can view USDA’s announcement of the NOSB’s meeting and proposals here.

Issues before the NOSB include materials allowed in organic production as well as some policy issues. Materials are either being considered for initial use in organics or the subject of a five-year Sunset Review. To be allowed, materials must have evidence demonstrating that they meet Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) requirements of essentiality, no adverse effects on humans and the environment, and compatibility with organic practices.

Major issues before the NOSB at the Fall 2019 meeting
(Please feel free to copy and paste the language below with your own, personalized introduction to regulations.gov.)

Take nitrates out of organic meat!
The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) prohibits the addition of nitrates to organic food because of the known health effects, but producers of organic processed meat products, along with producers of nonorganic “nitrate free” meats, have found a way around that prohibition –celery powder. The high levels of nitrate fertilizer allowed in nonorganic production concentrate in some vegetables, including celery, but organically grown celery does not contain high enough levels of nitrate to be used in curing meat. Celery powder has been listed as an allowed nonorganic agricultural ingredient since 2007.

Nitrates are prohibited in organic food because of their impacts on human health, which include methemoglobinemia, hypotension, risk of pregnancy complications, a number of reproductive effects, and cancer. In addition, the Beyond Pesticides Eating with a Conscience database identifies impacts of pesticides used in producing nonorganic celery, including farmworker poisonings, contamination of water, wildlife poisoning, and pollinator impacts. The NOSB must deny the relisting of celery powder.

Keep genetic engineering out of organic! 
The NOSB continually updates its assessment of which methods meet the criteria for “excluded methods” in organic production—that is, genetic engineering. At this meeting, the Materials Subcommittee proposes to add induced mutagenesis developed via use of in vitro nucleic acid techniques to the list of excluded methods and embryo transfer, or embryo rescue, in livestock, without use of hormones in recipient animals, is proposed to be listed as “not excluded.” We support these recommendations, except that there should be no use of hormones in either donor or recipient. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) appears to have forgotten the lesson learned 20 years ago when it was forced to ban genetic engineering (GE) in organic regulations. At a July 17 hearing called by the U.S. House Agriculture Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research on “Assessing the Effectiveness of the National Organic Program,” Greg Ibach, the USDA’s Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, stated, “There is the opportunity to open the discussion to consider whether it is appropriate for some of these new technologies, including gene editing, to be eligible to be used to enhance organic production.” In view of this statement, we believe it is important to stress that gene editing, like other forms of genetic engineering, is unacceptable in organic production.

Stop supporting organic CAFOs!
The addition of synthetic methionine to organic poultry rations has a long and controversial history –not because of direct health effects on organic consumers, but because it facilitates industrial-style production of poultry. 

Poultry production in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) needs synthetic methionine because of the lack of outdoor access and the choice of fast-growing breeds. 

The “need” for synthetic methionine is a result of choices regarding breeds, stocking rates (both density and group size), and outdoor access. Increasingly, consumers are turning to eggs and meat produced in pastured poultry systems, which require fewer synthetic inputs. There have also been advances in the use of insects –specifically black soldier fly larvae—as a source of natural methionine.

The European Union does not allow the use of synthetic methionine in organic poultry, but does require more space per bird, fewer birds per house, and more access to the outdoors. Significantly, the EU also requires that poultry be of slow-growing breeds or be slaughtered at an older age. All these factors contribute to the welfare of poultry.

Research shows that methionine acts as a growth promoter above and beyond its role as a protein building block. Manipulating methionine in the diet through additions of synthetic methionine is effectively using a synthetic growth promoter and is comparable to the use of rBGH to enhance milk production.

Sunset gives the NOSB the opportunity to reconsider past decisions and reinstitute a process of continuous improvement. The NOSB should delist synthetic methionine or add an expiration date to force serious reconsideration.

Written comments may be submitted through Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm ET October 3, 2019.

Not sure how to use our suggested language to comment? Follow these simple steps:

1. Select the text in our comments (place your cursor before the first word in the text, then press and hold down the left mouse button and, without releasing the button, move the cursor to the end of the comments).
2. Copy the selected text by selecting the Ctrl and C keys simultaneously.
3. Click on this link to open a new tab and in that tab, place your cursor in the “Comment” box.
4. Paste the comments you copied by selecting the Ctrl and V keys simultaneously.
5. Personalize your comments before entering your contact information and selecting “Continue”.

Please go to Beyond Pesticides’ Keeping Organic Strong (KOS) webpage to learn more about these and other substantive issues, and to provide a unique public comment to the NOSB. We will continue to update the KOS page in advance of the public comment deadline on October 3.

Again, thank you for helping to protect and uphold organic integrity!

(Beyond Pesticides, September 27, 2019) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) will be required to protect the habitat of the endangered rusty patched bumblebee, per a settlement with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reached earlier this week. The bee was listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2017, but USFWS has yet to designate the “critical habitat” for the bee where improved protections must be made to ensure its recovery. With the decline of both wild and managed pollinators throughout the U.S., action on this issue by federal agencies is sorely needed.

According to NRDC, the settlement will require FWS to propose critical habitat by July 31, 2020, unless it makes a finding that habitat protections are not prudent. The Service must then finalize any habitat protections by July 31, 2021. Under ESA, FWS is required to designate the critical habitat of a listed species within one year of its listing if not included within its listing announcement. Thus, by drawing out this process, FWS is flouting this important action that will lead to real on-the-ground protections.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has violated federal law—again—by not designating critical habitat for the rusty patched bumble bee,” said Lucas Rhoads, staff attorney for NRDC. “This settlement is a step in the right direction to ensure the bee’s survival. The Service must now do their part to protect the bee’s habitat or they’ll find themselves in court once more.”

According to FWS, the rusty patched bumble bee was once widespread across the United States, but declined dramatically in the 1990s.  Since then, their populations have dwindled and their overall decline is estimated at 91 percent. In its initial assessment, FWS acknowledged that the population may be even smaller than estimated, as data used for this listing have not been reassessed in the field since the early 2000s.

Commercial bumble bees represent a threat to the rusty patched, as they carry diseases and are often released near wild populations. Climate change plays a part, along with habitat loss from industrial agriculture and development. There is also an overwhelming amount of research demonstrating that systemic neonicotinoid insecticides, working either individually or synergistically, play a critical role in the ongoing decline of bees and other pollinators.

“Pollinators are small but mighty parts of the natural mechanism that sustains us and our world,” said FWS in a press release when the rusty patched was first listed. “Without them, our forests, parks, meadows and shrublands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand.”

It is concerning that statements from federal agencies do not match up with actions on the ground. True protections come from full implementation of the law, yet FWS, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture continue to fall short. A recent report from the EPA Office of Inspector General found EPA was lacking in its oversight of state plans aimed at protecting managed honey bee populations. In 2016, a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concluded that the federal government was not doing enough to safeguard pollinators from the the multiple threats to their populations. In sum, there has been little action since 2014, when the Obama Administration convened a White House Pollinator Task Force, itself ultimately a tepid response to a crisis with perilous implications for the civilized world.

In fact, the Trump administration is attacking ESA, and working to roll back a law that has helped prevent the extinction of 291 species since it was first passed in 1973; a 99% success rate. With the current administration either attacking or failing to implement basic legal requirements to protect endangered pollinators, we must look to Congress to act. To stop the Trump administrations attempt to undo the ESA, tell your member of Congress to cosponsor the PAW and FIN Conservation Act. And to implement lasting protections for pollinator populations, tell them to join in support of the Saving America’s Pollinators Act.

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

Source: NRDC Press Release

(Beyond Pesticides, September 26, 2019) While the leaves are beginning to turn and the world is inundated with all things pumpkin spice, remember that fall is the best time to start transitioning your lawn to organic management practices.

The key to a healthy lawn is feeding soil biology (soil organisms) in tandem with proper cultural practices (mowing height, water management, aeration, and overseeding). Healthy soil contains high organic matter content and is teeming with biological life. Healthy soil supports the development of healthy grass that is naturally resistant to weeds, insects, and fungal disease. In a healthy and well-maintained lawn, diseases, and pest problems are rare.

“But doesn’t it cost more?” If your lawn is currently chemically‐dependent, initially it may be more expensive to restore the biological life. But, in the long term, it will actually cost you less money. Once established, an organic lawn cycles nutrients naturally, uses fewer materials, such as water and fertilizers, and requires less labor for mowing and maintenance. Most importantly, your lawn will be safe for children, pets, and your local drinking water supply.

Getting Started‐ Late September‐ Early October

1. Mow High Until the Season Ends – Bad mowing practices cause more problems than any other cultural practice. Mowing with a dull blade makes the turf susceptible to disease and mowing too close invites sunlight in for weeds to take hold.

Keep your blades sharp, or ask your service provider to sharpen their blades frequently. For the last and first mowing, mow down to 2 inches to prevent fungal problems. For the rest of the year, keep it at 3‐3.5 to shade out weeds and foster deep, drought‐resistant roots.

2. Aerate – Compaction is an invitation for weeds. If your lawn is hard, compacted, and full of weeds or bare spots, aerate to help air, water and fertilizer to enter. If you can’t stick a screwdriver easily into your soil, it is too compacted. Get together with your neighbors and rent an aerator. Once you have an established, healthy lawn, worms and birds pecking at your soil will aerate it for free!

3. Fertilize, but go easy and go organic! – Fertilizing in early fall ensures good growth and root development for your grass. Nitrogen, the most abundant nutrient in lawn fertilizers promotes color and growth. Adding too much nitrogen, or quick release synthetic fertilizers, will result in quicker growth and the need for more mowing. Too much nitrogen can also weaken the grass, alter the pH, and promote disease, insect, and thatch build‐up. If applied too late, nutrients can leach directly into nearby surface waters. Be aware of local phosphorus or nitrogen loading concerns. Your soil test results will ensure that you apply only what you need.

Your grass clippings contain 58% of the nitrogen added from fertilizers, improve soil conditions, suppress disease, and reduce thatch and crabgrass. So, leave the clippings on your lawn. You can also use a mulching mower and leave the leaves on the lawn too. Compost is an ideal soil amendment, adding the much‐needed organic content to your soil and suppressing many turf pathogens. In the fall and spring, preferably after aerating, spread ¼ inch layer of organic or naturally‐based compost over your lawn. Compost tea and worm castings are also great additions.

Look for compost or organic slow release fertilizers at your local nursery or order online. A few fertilizers, such as Ringer® Lawn Restore®, are certified by the Organic Materials Review Institute. North Country Organics has a number of natural fertilizers, including phosphorus‐free fertilizers for lawns close to fresh water bodies. Others choices include Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, Down To Earth’s Bio‐Turf, and Harmony Farm.

4. Overseed With the Right Grass Seed – Once again, fall is the best time to seed your lawn. Grass varieties differ enormously in their resistance to certain pests, tolerance to climatic conditions, growth habit and appearance. Endophytic grass seed provides natural protection against some insects and fungal diseases ‐ major benefits for managing a lawn organically. Talk to your local nursery about the best seed for your area. Check to see the weed content of the grass seed and that there are no pesticide coatings.

5. Learn to love the odd balls ‐ many plants that are considered weeds in a lawn have beneficial qualities. Learn to read your “weeds” for what they indicate about your soil conditions. Monocrops do not grow in nature and diversity is a good thing.

For instance, clover‐ considered a typical weed, is found in soil with low nitrogen levels, compaction issues, and drought stress ‐ conditions that can be alleviated with the above recommendations. However, clover is a beneficial plant that takes free nitrogen from the atmosphere and distributes it to the grass, which helps it grow. Clover roots are extensive and extremely drought resistant, providing significant resources to soil organisms, and staying green long after turf goes naturally dormant.

It is highly recommended that you analyze your soil to determine specific soil needs. Contact your University extension service to find out how to take and send in a soil sample. In addition to nutrients and pH, ask for organic content analysis, and request organic care recommendations. Ideal pH should be between 6.5‐7.0, and organic content should be 5% or higher.

Happy fall!

For more information, see Beyond Pesticides lawn and landscape resource or call 202-543-5450.

(Beyond Pesticides, September 24, 2019) In 2016, Canadians and Americans residing in Havana reported symptoms of headaches, dizziness, nausea. They described hearing strange buzzing and high-pitched sounds – some woke in the middle of the night fumbling for alarm clocks that were not going off. Media used the term “Havana syndrome” to describe the illness. Diplomats, scared by symptoms that seemed to only hit them in their hotel rooms or at home, speculated that a sonic weapon was being used against them. The Trump administration accused Cuban leaders of misconduct and removed all but essential employees. Later, some suspected that the diplomats could have experienced “mass hysteria.” A new Canadian study provides a more likely explanation to this mysterious illness that impacted diplomats in Havana: neurotoxic pesticide exposure.

Researchers conducted testing on 14 individuals who had resided in Havana and a control group of 12 that had never lived there. Some of the experimental group had been recently exposed while others, tested 19 months after their return, were classified as “remotely exposed.” Tests included brain imaging and self-reported symptom questionnaires. They analyzed blood samples for routine biochemistry, kidney, liver, and metabolic functions. Individuals that showed symptoms of brain injury went through further neurological, visual, movement, auditory, and vestibular assessments.

The self-rated questionnaires from individuals who had lived in Havana were consistent with “post-concussion syndrome” and disabling headaches. Auditory and visual tests showed no significant problems, but some tests suggested brain-stem dysfunction and other neurological damage. The authors reported, “Cognitive tests showed significant reduction in spatial memory and a milder decrease in decision making quality in both exposed groups.” Further, they stated, “The clinical course, pattern of injury, brain regions involved, cortical and sub-cortical dysfunction, together with a history of common exposure, all raise the hypothesis of recurrent, low-dose exposure to neurotoxins.”

Mass spectrometry tests found the presence of cholinesterase-inhibiting insecticides including Temephos, an organophosphate, as well as pyrethroids. The enzyme cholinesterase is critical to the creation of neurotransmitters and, therefore, healthy neuron communication.

Lead author Alon Friedman, PhD told CBC in an interview that they only developed the working hypothesis after getting most of the test results. “There are very specific types of toxins that affect these kinds of nervous systems … and these are insecticides, pesticides, organophosphates — specific neurotoxins,” said Dr. Friedman. “So that’s why we generated the hypothesis that we then went to test in other ways.”

Beginning in 2016, Cuba responded aggressively to the threat of Zika virus by spraying for mosquitoes. The embassies sprayed both inside and outside offices and diplomatic residences, increasing frequency of fumigations up to five times more than normal – sometimes every two weeks. The report found a correlation between individuals with strongest symptoms and the number of fumigations conducted at their residence. More research will be conducted on current residents of Havana.

Organophosphates were developed during World War II as nerve gas agents for military use – there is, therefore, some bitter irony to be found in the mystery of the “Havana Syndrome” being attributed to a government attack. Many groups, including Beyond Pesticides, have long advocated for the total discontinuation of the use of organophosphates and other neurologically damaging pesticides because of the known health effects described by the diplomats. In the U.S., farmworkers and their children are on the frontlines of this ongoing debate.

A group of leading toxics experts called for a ban on organophosphates after the publication of their 2018 paper in the journal PLOS that researched the impact of organophosphate exposure during pregnancy as well as impacts on child development. They concluded: (1) widespread use of organophosphate pesticides to control insects has resulted in ubiquitous human exposures; (2) acute exposures to OPs is responsible for poisonings and deaths, particularly in developing countries; and (3) evidence demonstrates that prenatal exposures, even at low levels, put children at risk for cognitive and behavioral deficits, and for neurodevelopmental disorders.

Pyrethroids, too, are known neurotoxins that have been linked to learning and development issues in children. Despite this, the Trump administration recently lowered safety measures on pyrethroids for children in the US.

Toxic pesticides are furtive and largely characterized as benign, often escaping notice until it is too late. Victims of chemical poisoning are frequently, like these diplomats, dismissed as “hysterical.” As Dr. Friedman told CNN, “There is a lot we don’t know about how much we can expose people to these chemicals and what are toxic levels, or if the damage in the brain is reversible, but it’s not called a neurotoxin for nothing. The hint is in the name.”

To help move the nation and world to a more cautionary approach to pesticides engage with the Action of the Week, check out Tools for Change, and consider joining the organization as one more way to advocate for the transition away from toxic chemicals. A better, less-toxic world is possible.

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

Sources: CBC, Buzzfeed, CNN, The Guardian

(Beyond Pesticides, September 24, 2019) “Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song,” Rachel Carson wrote in Silent Spring in 1962. New research finds that quote has held true since it was written. Over three billion birds, or 29% of 1970s abundance have been lost in North America over the last 50 years.

To make these dismal determinations, scientists drew from multiple long-term bird monitoring datasets, and a network of nearly 150 weather radars that pick up and thus have recorded the trajectory of migratory birds. Long-term surveys helped scientists determine the 3 billion bird decline, while satellite data found that migratory bird abundance has declined by 9.1% since 2007.

In general, 57% of bird species are in decline, with showing the largest loss. Ninety percent of all declines were within 12 bird families: American sparrows, warblers, blackbirds, larks, Old world sparrows, swallows, nightjars, swifts, finches, flycatchers, starlings, and thrushes. Only waterfowl and wetland bird species showed any increase, 13% and 56%, respectively. Ducks, geese, and raptors all improved population levels more than 50% since 1970.

Importantly, researchers caution that their results are conservative, as only breeding populations were estimated, and true losses in the wild could be even worse.

Like other declines the world is currently witnessing, there are a range of threats contributing to losses. Advocates urge that business as usual is unacceptable and devastating, as the call to enact solutions is at a crisis level. As the authors note, North American declines are not unlike those being witnessed in other areas of the world. “In particular,” the study reads, “depletion of native grassland bird populations in North America, driven by habitat loss and more toxic pesticide use in both breeding and wintering areas, mirrors loss of farmland birds throughout Europe and elsewhere.”

Just last week, Beyond Pesticides reported on research linking the use of neonicotinoid insecticides to the silent demise of songbirds. As co-author Christy Morrissey, PhD, told Environmental Health News, there are “already replacements for neonics—and they’re just as toxic as neonics, they’re just a different name.” To fix the problem, focus should be on the “need to change the whole system to make it more resilient.” She indicated, “We should incentivize farmers to diversify systems rather than substituting one chemical for another.”

As Dr. Morrissey’s message indicates, our charge is both farther-reaching and more sinister than simply eliminating one pesticide or pesticide class. As the current study shows, banning DDT and other organochlorine insecticides resulted in raptors and other birds of prey significantly increasing their overall population. But protecting songbirds and other species lower on the food chain will required a change not just in chemical use, but in our entire approach to land management and food production.

Rachel Carson warned the world how insidious pesticide use can be. She wrote in Silent Spring:

“For each of us, as for the robin in Michigan or the Salmon in the Miramichi, this is a problem of ecology, of interrelationships, of interdependence. We poison the caddis flies in a stream and the salmon runs dwindle and die. We poison the gnats in a lake and the poison travels from link to link of the food chain and soon the birds of the lake margins become its victims. We spray our elms and the following springs are silent of robin song, not because we sprayed the robins directly but because the poison traveled, step by step, through the now familiar elm leaf-earthworm-robin cycle. These are matters of record, observable, part of the visible world around us. They reflect the web of life — or death — that scientists know as ecology.”

Thus this report on bird losses is more than a report on birds, it’s a report on gnat, caddisfly, and earthworm declines, on species that create the foundation of the food web. Ecological effects ripple up and down the food chain, resulting in trophic cascades that effect all life in a region.

It’s clear that industrial agriculture is contributing to the insect apocalypse, as well as declines in birds and other yet unknown species. Yet we also know that, by eschewing pesticide use, focusing on soil health, diversification, and sustainable practices, organic and regenerative farming and land management can help reverse this decline. Join this effort by purchasing organic whenever possible, planting diverse pesticide-free habitat on your property, and encouraging your local community to follow suit. Initiatives in cities like Amsterdam, Netherlands show that this is an issue we can still address.

Critically, we must also fight for the backstops that prevent the complete loss of species. Take action to protect the Endangered Species Act against the current administration’s attacks by contacting your member of Congress today.

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

Source: Science (peer-reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, September 23, 2019)  Your voice is making a difference! Last month, thousands of individuals took action through Beyond Pesticides and other environmental groups to express concern to their federal lawmakers about the Trump Administration’s assault on the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In response, U.S. Representatives Grijalva, Beyer, and Dingell in the House, and Senator Udall in the Senate have introduced the PAW and FIN Conservation Act of 2019. This law will roll back Interior Department regulations that would weaken this landmark law protecting species from extinction.

Tell your member of Congress to co-sponsor the PAW and FIN Conservation Act of 2019!

The PAW and FIN Act reverses rules which will: (i) weaken the consultation process designed to prevent harm to endangered animals and their habitats from federal agency activities; (ii) curtail the designation of critical habitat and weakens the listing process for imperiled species; and (iii) eliminate all protections for wildlife newly designated as “threatened” under the Act.

Biodiversity is under threat in the US and throughout the world. Pollinator declines are well known, and now scientists are indicating we are in the midst of an insect apocalypse.  Declines at the bottom of the food chain are even more concerning given reports of “biological annihilation” and a 6th mass extinction among mammals and other vertebrate species.

Every species very species is like a book in the library of life, and losing a species is like burning that book. It means we will forever miss out, and never truly understand how its story connects with the chronicles of life on Earth. Even obscure or uncharismatic species may hold the key to curing diseases and other medical breakthroughs.

Tell your federal lawmakers to join the fight to protect the Endangered Species Act!

The ESA has helped prevent the extinction of 291 species since it was first passed in 1973; a 99% success rate. It’s critically important that we take action today to keep this effective legislation working.

Please consider following up with a phone call urging your elected official to cosponsor the PAW and FIN Conservation Act.

Letter to Congress

Please help stop the Interior Department’s attacks on the endangered species act by cosponsoring the PAW and FIN Conservation Act of 2019. This legislation, introduced by Representatives Grijalva, Beyer, and Dingell in the House, and Senator Udall in the Senate, will undo regulations intended to gut the letter, spirit, and intent of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The new rules announced by the administration this week: (i) weaken the consultation process designed to prevent harm to endangered animals and their habitats from federal agency activities; (ii) curtail the designation of critical habitat and weakens the listing process for imperiled species; and (iii) eliminate all protections for wildlife newly designated as “threatened” under the Act.

Biodiversity is under threat in the US and throughout the world. Pollinator declines are well known, and now scientists are indicating we are in the midst of an insect apocalypse.  Declines at the bottom of the food chain are even more concerning given reports of “biological annihilation” and a 6th mass extinction among mammals and other vertebrate species.

In the face of these declines, it is critical that we protect those already at heightened risk. Every species is like a book in the library of life, and losing a species is like burning that book. It means we will forever miss out, and never truly understand how its story connects with the chronicles of life on Earth. Even obscure or uncharismatic species may hold the key to curing diseases and other medical breakthroughs.

The ESA has helped prevent the extinction of 291 species since it was first passed in 1973; a 99% success rate. It’s critically important that we take action today to keep this effective legislation working. Please become a cosponsor of the PAW and FIN Conservation Act.

Thank you.

Pesticide-coated (or treated) seeds.

(Beyond Pesticides, September 20, 2019) The actual utility of pesticides to achieve their purported goals is an under-recognized failing of the regulatory review of pesticide compounds for use. A study published in Scientific Reports now exposes the faulty assumptions underlying the use of neonicotinoids — the most widely used category of insecticides worldwide. The study demonstrates that use of neonicotinoids (neonics) to treat seeds — a very common use of these pesticides — actually provides negligible benefits to soybean farmers in terms of yield and overall economic benefit. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should take notice, and consider that efficacy ought to have a role in the agency’s evaluation of pesticides for registration.

Neonicotinoids are systemic pesticides that move through a plant’s vascular system and are expressed in pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets (drops of sap exuded on the tips or edges of leaves of some vascular plants). They can also persist in the environment — in soil and water — for extended periods. Neonics are applied to seed, as well as to crop soils and to plant foliage. Corn and soybean seed treatments represent the largest uses of neonics in the U.S.: for somewhere between 34% and 50+% of the soybean crop and for nearly all field corn. This contrasts dramatically with metrics from the decade prior to the introduction of neonics to the marketplace, when a mere 5% of soybean acreage was treated with insecticides. The pesticide is also applied liberally to cotton, oilseed rape, sugar beet, vegetable, and pome, stone, and citrus fruit crops.

Neonicotinoids have come under intensive scrutiny in the past decade because of their persistence in the soil, ability to leach into the environment, high water solubility, and potential negative health implications for non-target organisms such as pollinators — especially bees of all sorts — as well as butterflies, bats, and birds. Indeed, a recent Science publication from researchers in Canada demonstrates that “low-level neonic exposure may delay the migrations of songbirds and harm their chances of mating.” Beyond Pesticides’ video, Seeds That Poison, offers a succinct primer on the dangers of neonic-coated seeds.

The subject study examined a variety of factors in determining neonic efficacy, including weather patterns, soil pH, precipitation, pest abundance and timing, and yield for three experimental groups: soybeans treated with fungicides only, those treated with fungicides and neonicotinoids, and an untreated control group. Despite broad use, the practice of using fungicide-plus neonicotinoid seed treatment appears to have negligible benefit for most soybean producers. The researchers write, “These results demonstrate that the current widespread prophylactic use of NST [neonicotinoid seed treatment] in the key soybean-producing areas of the U.S. should be re-evaluated by producers and regulators alike.”

This new research finding underscores Beyond Pesticides’ advocacy against neonic seed treatment, and duplicates some of the findings of a 2014 EPA report, which said that use of treated soybean seed provided little-to-no overall benefit in controlling insects or improving yield or quality in soybean production. The researchers in this recent study analyze data across 14 soybean-producing states and a 12-year period, and conclude that not only does their investigation provide no empirical evidence for the use of neonic-coated seeds, but also, beyond that, the data suggest that the approach yields “little to zero net benefit in most cases.”

Co-authors cite the lack of observed pest management benefits of planting treated seeds, and note that there is a disconnect between perceived crop vulnerability and neonicotinoid utility: “throughout most soybean-producing regions of the U.S., the period of pest protection provided by [use of neonic-treated seeds] does not align with [the presence of] economically significant pest populations. Absent economic infestations of pests, there is no opportunity for this plant protection strategy to provide benefit to most producers.”

Relative to the benefits of neonics for growers, the researchers cite other recent studies that have reported “weak relationships between NST use and effectiveness in preserving crop yield.” They continue: “A recent multi-state study of management tactics for the key pest in the [Midwest] region, the soybean aphid . . . demonstrated that crop yield benefits and overall economic returns were marginally affected by NST.”

The study did not address an additional issue inherent in the question of efficacy: because of the well-documented issue of resistance that develops in chemical-intensive monocultural agriculture, what may be effective in one growing season is unlikely to work in subsequent years because of the resistance that inevitably develops in the target organism.

The researchers also point to one of the alarming and infamous impacts of neonics: “Aside from the fact that a farmer may be incurring unnecessary input costs, a growing body of research suggests that the use of NST in this manner can lead to a host of negative effects upon non-target organisms. It has been reported that neonicotinoids are increasingly detected in terrestrial and aquatic environments. Furthermore, studies in the U.S. and elsewhere have evaluated impacts of neonicotinoid on nontarget organisms such as honey bees wild bees, monarch butterflies, vertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and overall declines in ecosystem function.”

Additionally, they note that the critical soybean-producing states represented in their study, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, rank 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th, respectively, in numbers of honey bee colonies — many of those migratory colonies used for pollination of key fruit and nut crops. The co-authors conclude, “This presents a key intersection between NST exposure and our principal managed pollinator species with demonstrated sensitivity to this class of compounds.”

This research adds to the evidence of EPA’s inadequate registration process for pesticides: the agency has interpreted the foundational legislation for pesticide registration — the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) — as not requiring it to conduct review of pesticide efficacy. Presumably, efficacy would be considered a benefit. It strains credulity to maintain that the FIFRA mandate — to evaluate the risks of pesticide use compared with any of its benefits — can be fulfilled without any assessment of the benefit of the use of a pesticide might be. (See EPA assertion of neonic seed treatment “benefits” here.)

As noted in May 2018 by Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News Blog, “EPA does not review manufacturer data on pesticide efficacy, even though the statutory registration standard requires weighing the risks of pesticides against their benefits. Without efficacy information, the real benefits of a pesticide are unknown, and the reasonableness of pesticide use cannot be assessed. The lack of efficacy data review results in escalating and predictable insect and weed resistance, unnecessarily increases in pesticide use, and putting farmers at risk of crop loss and economic damage. The only instance in which EPA evaluates pesticide efficacy is as a part of public health (not agricultural) pesticide registrations, and even this is without public disclosure or opportunity for comment.”

EPA has taken the position, viewed as irresponsible by advocates, that the marketplace determines efficacy, and that farmers (and consumers) would abandon pesticide products if they did not work. But in real life, absent meaningful independent assessment, farmers use pesticide products on huge swaths of cropland largely on the basis of agrochemical marketing claims. This situation is all the more disturbing because neonics, and many other pesticides, are toxic substances that can cause harmful effects.

Contrast with EPA’s negligence on the “efficacy front” what the Organic Foods Production Act mandates for all organically produced foods: that synthetic a substance or input “approved for organic production” be deemed essential for organic productivity. This criterion is considered in addition to any adverse effects of a subject substance and its compatibility with organic agriculture.

The transition to organic agriculture, land management, and nontoxic or least-toxic pest control strategies, which would obviate issues of pesticide efficacy, is the task at hand. Evidence continues to grow: organic, regenerative, and ecologically based farming approaches can generate not only healthier soils and crops, but also, competitive yields compared to those of conventional, chemical agriculture. A recent study from American Farmland Trust (AFT) shows that such “healthy soil” practices also generate real ROI — return on investment.

The AFT research project followed two corn and soybean farmers (from Illinois and Ohio), a New York farmer growing sweet corn, alfalfa, and corn for silage or grain, and a California almond grower over a number of years. All of them employed various regenerative practices, such as crop rotation, no-till, cover cropping, and composting that garnered soil and environmental benefits, including average reductions of: 54% in nitrogen losses; 81% in phosphorous losses; 85% in sediment losses; and 379% in total greenhouse gases from the test fields. Beyond those outcomes, the stellar economic results included: average increased yields of 12%; average net income increase of $42 per acre per year (with a whopping average increase for the almond grower of $657 per acre per year); and ROI ranging from 35% to 343%. Those are numbers with which any farmer would be thrilled.

To help move the nation and world to organic and regenerative approaches that benefit producers, consumers, and the environment, follow Beyond Pesticides’ coverage of organics; engage with its Action of the Week; check out its Tools for Change; and consider joining the organization as one more way to advocate for the transition away from chemical agriculture. A better, less-toxic world is possible.

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

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-47442-8

(Beyond Pesticides, September 19, 2019) A coalition of beekeepers is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its recent new use registrations of the neonicotinoid-related insecticide sulfoxaflor on bee-attractive crops . The environmental nonprofit Earthjustice is representing the Pollinator Stewardship Council, the American Beekeeper Federation, and Jeff Anderson—a beekeeper. This is the second suit of its kind to be filed against the agency in the past month: The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety have also filed a lawsuit in the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals on the use of sulfoxaflor on over 200 million acres of crops that draw in pollinators to forage on poisoned nectar, pollen, and guttation droplets.

Sulfoxaflor is a systemic insecticide whose mode of action is the same as neonicotinoid pesticides. After application, the chemical is absorbed and distributed throughout the plant, including pollen and nectar. These insecticides are selective agonists of insects’ nicotinic acetylcholine receptors—they bind to the receptor and cause it to activate. The impact on foraging bees is generally sublethal, but devastating on a population level.

At the request of industry, EPA waived the legal requirement for a full-field study of sulfoxaflor’s impacts on pollinators, erroneously stating that further research would “not add meaningful input to our conclusions.” Under EPA’s approval, the chemical can be aerially sprayed with no buffer zone and applied before and during bloom periods when pollinators are most active.

“Honey bees and other pollinators are dying in droves because of insecticides like sulfoxaflor, yet the Trump administration removes restrictions just to please the chemical industry,” stated Greg Loarie, Earthjustice attorney. “This is illegal and an affront to our food system, economy, and environment.”

Beekeepers were behind the original impetus to get sulfoxaflor registration limited from blooming bee-attractive crops such as sorghum and cotton; Mr. Anderson and the American Beekeeper Federation were also on that initial coalition of litigants during the 2013 lawsuit against EPA.

After a 2015 decision in favor of beekeepers, EPA regularly utilized the “emergency exemption” rule under Section 18 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to circumvent restrictions–a move that was continuously noticed and lambasted by environmental advocates.

The Bee Informed Partnership’s latest survey estimates that beekeepers lost 40% of their honey bee colonies between April  2018 and April 2019, and pollinators as a whole are under threat. As scientists and beekeepers tally up reasons to change farming practices to protect pollinators from poisons such as sulfoxaflor–including entire ecosystem collapse, EPA marches obstinately in the opposite direction under the directive of corporate interests.

Michele Colopy of the Pollinator Stewardship Council stated, “It is inappropriate for EPA to solely rely on industry studies to justify bringing sulfoxaflor back into our farm fields.” She continued, “Die-offs of tens of thousands of bee colonies continue to occur and sulfoxaflor plays a huge role in this problem. EPA is harming not just the beekeepers, their livelihood, and bees, but the nation’s food system.”

With EPA failing to take even the most basic steps to protect declining pollinators, it is up to concerned residents to get active in their state and community and demand change. Work to pass policies that eliminate sulfoxaflor and a broad range of systemic pesticides by promoting organic land care.  For help in organizing your community, reach out to Beyond Pesticides at [email protected] or 202-543-5450.

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

Sources: Earthjustice, New York Times

(Beyond Pesticides, September 18, 2019) A new report published by Friends of the Earth (FOE), “Pesticides and Soil Health” highlights healthy soil as a key pillar of regenerative, organic agriculture. There are numerous methods that regenerative agriculture utilizes to maximize soil health such as cover cropping, crop rotation, and compost applications. FOE focuses in on an often-overlooked aspect to soil health, “that eliminating or greatly reducing toxic pesticides is key to building healthy soils and ecosystems for a healthy planet.” Beyond Pesticides has long believed that toxic pesticide use has no place in organic and regenerative land management practices and that they can and should be eliminated. According to Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides and former member of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) said, “Pesticide reduction strategies that allow continued use of toxic substances undermine the soil biology and biodiversity that is critical to healthy plants and  unnecessary to achieving pest management goals.” “It’s past time to talk elimination of toxic pesticides and nothing short of that.”

Toxic pesticides have a diverse range of unintended impacts, including  cancer and other diseases to those exposed via usage or drift, and crop loss. Lesser known is the impact that pesticides have on the microbes that live in the soil. The report notes that a teaspoon of healthy soil holds billions of soil microorganisms. These bacteria and fungi provide a range of services to plants, such as access to necessary nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. In exchange, plants provide these tiny life forms with carbon in the form of carbohydrates. As the climate crisis continues to wreak havoc, this process of carbon sequestration is integral to mitigation. Pesticides therefore pose a threat to the capacity of soil to play a role in the fight against climate change.

Toxic chemicals damage the soil microbiota by decreasing soil microbial biomass and altering the composition of the soil microbiome. Fungi-rich soil improves productivity and increases carbon sequestration capacity, but use of pesticides results in a bacteria-dominant ecosystem.  Changes in soil composition also result in “vacant ecological niches, so organisms that were rare become abundant and vice versa.” This unhealthy and imbalanced soil has reduced fertility and resilience, and plants grown in such conditions are more vulnerable to parasites and pathogens.  This degraded soil sequesters less carbon than soil with a diverse array of microbiota.

The report discusses the correlation between no-till practices and pesticide use. While advocates often tout the positive impacts no-till has such as reduced erosion and preservation of microbes, the report states, “data indicates that the majority of no-till farmers rely on herbicides such as glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. In fact, 86% of No-Till Farmer readers said they planned to plant Roundup Ready corn in 2017, while 80 percent planned to plant Roundup Ready soybeans, and some 92 percent planned to use glyphosate for weed control.”

While no-till practices in an organic regenerative setting may prove beneficial, when used in combination with pesticides such as glyphosate the cons outweigh the pros. Glyphosate negatively impacts the flow of nutrients and carbon from plants to soil, reduces the activity of earthworms, increase pathogens and super weeds, and continue users on the pesticide treadmill.

In order to maximize the capacity of soil to sequester carbon and serve as a tool in the climate crisis, the use of toxic pesticides must stop. Instead, focus and energy must be put into transitioning to regenerative organic systems and restoring soil health to maximizing the flow of nutrients and carbon between plants and microorganisms. This will preserve the important microbial communities in the soil, increase crop resiliency, drought resistance, and reduce overall carbon emissions. Keep abreast of developments in organic, regenerative, and agroecological approaches to health and environment through Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News Blog and its journal, Pesticides and You.

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

Source: Friends of the Earth

(Beyond Pesticides, September 17, 2019) The poisonous farm fields migratory birds forage on during their journey reduce their weight, delay their travel, and ultimately jeopardize their survival, according to new research published in the journal Science.  Like their effects on pollinator populations, neonicotinoid insecticides generally are not killing migratory songbirds outright, but instead precipitating a cascade of sublethal impacts that reduces their fitness in the wild. As the authors told Environmental Health News, the study is a call not simply to ban neonics or one class of chemical, but to change the entire farming system toward more sustainable bird and bee-friendly practices.

Using new technology, this study was not only able to dose wild-caught songbirds (white-crowned sparrows), but also track their migration route using automated telemetry. Apart from the control group that received no pesticide exposure, sparrows were treated at levels well below the median lethal dose (3% of the lethal dose in the ‘low’ exposure group and 10% within the ‘high’ exposure group), and permitted to continue on their migratory path. These are exposure amounts similar to a songbird accidentally ingesting a few treated seeds, according to the study.

Within six hours, both the ‘low’ and ‘high’ exposure group showed a significant reduction in body mass (3% and 6%, respectively) after a single dose of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid. The ‘low’ exposure group ate 8% less than the control group after dosing, while the ‘high’ exposure group reduced its intake by a staggering 70%. This is an important impact because body weight and fat storage are critical during songbird migration. Birds rest at stopover sites to refuel, and return to flight, but birds in the experiment dosed with imidacloprid stayed on average 3.5 days longer than the unexposed control group. Authors suspect that this was the result of weight reduction and reduced feeding.

“Extended stopovers while intoxicated and in reduced body condition could lower survival by increasing susceptibility to predation or inclement weather,” the study indicates. In addition, “Birds that are delayed during migration and arrive later at breeding grounds have been reported to obtain poorer-quality territories, breed later, and produce fewer offspring in worse condition than those of early arrivals, reducing the probability of their offspring recruitment to the population.”

Neonicotinoids are in use throughout the migratory path of these songbirds, indicating a risk that accumulates over time, given that avoidance of treated seeds appears to be a learned, rather than innate bird behavior.

Indeed, there is prior evidence that birds are already feeling the effects of neonicotoinoid use. A 2017 study by the same set of researchers found similar impacts on songbird weight and effects on migration orientation. Research conducted by Canadian scientists in 2018 found turkeys that feed on agricultural fields to be widely contaminated with neonicotinoids, indicating a potential link between exposure and poor reproductive output noted by hunters in the region. Studies from Spanish researchers (1, and 2) also indicate partridges exposed to neonic-treated seeds can reduce fecundity and impact the health of their offspring.

Risks to songbirds are also not limited to agricultural settings. In a report published earlier this year by California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, a soil drench application of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid was implicated as causing a die-off of goldfinches in the area.

Ultimately, the authors indicate that although neonics are of particular concern, simply eliminating their use will not address the problems being observed. As co-author Christy Morrissey, PhD, told Environmental Health News, there are “already replacement for neonics—and they’re just as toxic as neonics, they’re just a different name.” To fix the problem focus should be on the “need to change the whole system to make it more resilient.”

“Monoculture, single crop agriculture is heavily reliant on chemicals for production, unfortunately, that’s just not conducive to life and biodiversity,” she told Environmental Health News. “We should incentivize farmers to diversify systems rather than substituting one chemical for another.”

Beyond Pesticides wholeheartedly agrees with Dr. Morrissey’s assessment, and has long called for a broadscale transition to organic systems. This approach focuses on soil health, and aims to work with, rather than against nature in the management of pests and weeds. Focus in placed on alleviating the root causes of pests and weeds through good nutrition, proper watering, and other cultural practices such as cover crops and crop rotation. As the success of organic farming has shown, this approach can feed the world while protecting the environment. Without this changeover the future is certain to bring more and more silent declines, building towards the Silent Spring Rachel Carson warned could occur.

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

Source: Environmental Health News, Science (peer-reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, September 16, 2019) The Fall 2019 National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting dates have been announced and public comments are due by October 3, 2019. Your comments and participation are critical to the integrity of the organic label. Written comments may be submitted through Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm ET October 3, 2010. Reservations for in-person and webinar comments close at the same time.

The proposals of the NOSB, as a part of its ongoing review of practices and materials, are published for public comment.  Beyond Pesticides/OrganicEye is providing the public with a listing and analysis of the issues under consideration by the Board when it meets in Pittsburgh, PA on October 23 – 25, 2019. You can view USDA’s announcement of the NOSB’s meeting and proposals here.

Issues before the NOSB include materials allowed in organic production as well as some policy issues. Materials are either being considered for initial use in organics or the subject of a five-year Sunset Review. To be allowed, materials must have evidence demonstrating that they meet Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) requirements of essentiality, no adverse effects on humans and the environment, and compatibility with organic practices.

Major issues before the NOSB at the Fall 2019 meeting include:

Take nitrates out of organic meat!
The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) prohibits the addition of nitrates to organic food because of the known health effects, but producers of organic processed meat products, along with producers of nonorganic “nitrate free” meats, have found a way around that prohibition –celery powder. The high levels of nitrate fertilizer allowed in nonorganic production concentrate in some vegetables, including celery, but organically grown celery does not contain high enough levels of nitrate to be used in curing meat. Celery powder has been listed as an allowed nonorganic agricultural ingredient since 2007.

Nitrates are prohibited in organic food because of their impacts on human health, which include methemoglobinemia, hypotension, risk of pregnancy complications, a number of reproductive effects, and cancer. In addition, the Beyond Pesticides Eating with a Conscience database identifies impacts of pesticides used in producing nonorganic celery, including farmworker poisonings, contamination of water, wildlife poisoning, and pollinator impacts. The NOSB must deny the relisting of celery powder.

Keep genetic engineering out of organic! 
The NOSB continually updates its assessment of which methods meet the criteria for “excluded methods” in organic production—that is, genetic engineering. At this meeting, the Materials Subcommittee proposes to add induced mutagenesis developed via use of in vitro nucleic acid techniques to the list of excluded methods and embryo transfer, or embryo rescue, in livestock, without use of hormones in recipient animals, is proposed to be listed as “not excluded.” We support these recommendations, except that there should be no use of hormones in either donor or recipient.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) appears to have forgotten the lesson learned 20 years ago when it was forced to ban genetic engineering (GE) in organic regulations. At a July 17 hearing called by the U.S. House Agriculture Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research on “Assessing the Effectiveness of the National Organic Program,” Greg Ibach, the USDA’s Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, stated, “There is the opportunity to open the discussion to consider whether it is appropriate for some of these new technologies, including gene editing, to be eligible to be used to enhance organic production.” In view of this statement, we believe it is important to stress that gene editing, like other forms of genetic engineering, is unacceptable in organic production.

Stop supporting organic CAFOs!
The addition of synthetic methionine to organic poultry rations has a long and controversial history –not because of direct health effects on organic consumers, but because it facilitates industrial-style production of poultry.

Poultry production in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) needs synthetic methionine because of the lack of outdoor access and the choice of fast-growing breeds.
The “need” for synthetic methionine is a result of choices regarding breeds, stocking rates (both density and group size), and outdoor access. Increasingly, consumers are turning to eggs and meat produced in pastured poultry systems, which require fewer synthetic inputs. There have also been advances in the use of insects –specifically black soldier fly larvae—as a source of natural methionine.

The European Union does not allow the use of synthetic methionine in organic poultry, but does require more space per bird, fewer birds per house, and more access to the outdoors. Significantly, the EU also requires that poultry be of slow-growing breeds or be slaughtered at an older age. All these factors contribute to the welfare of poultry.

Research shows that methionine acts as a growth promoter above and beyond its role as a protein building block. Manipulating methionine in the diet through additions of synthetic methionine is effectively using a synthetic growth promoter and is comparable to the use of rBGH to enhance milk production.

Sunset gives the NOSB the opportunity to reconsider past decisions and reinstitute a process of continuous improvement. The NOSB should delist synthetic methionine or add an expiration date to force serious reconsideration.

Written comments may be submitted through Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm ET October 3, 2019.

Not sure how to use our suggested language to comment? Follow these simple steps:

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Please go to Beyond Pesticides’ Keeping Organic Strong (KOS) webpage to learn more about these and other substantive issues, and to provide a unique public comment to the NOSB. We will continue to update the KOS page in advance of the public comment deadline on October 3.

Thank you for helping to protect and uphold organic integrity!

(Beyond Pesticides, September 13, 2019) A study on the use of the herbicide dicamba’s off-target effects finds broad impacts, in both geographic spread and the variety of affected species, with use of the weed killer on Arkansas cropland putting birds at risk in agricultural landscapes. Audubon of Arkansas is reporting results of its community science dicamba monitoring project, conducted under the direction of Bird Conservation Director Dan Scheiman, PhD, and launched in late spring 2019. The project monitored dicamba symptomology in species on municipal, state, and federal lands, where dicamba was not applied, but where its impacts were nonetheless detected. Arkansas Audubon “predicts that in a landscape full of GMO crops [genetically modified organisms] (on which dicamba is typically used), the atmospheric loading of volatile dicamba could be enough to cause landscape scale damage to our state natural areas, wildlife management areas, national wildlife refuges, family farms, and the wildlife they harbor.”

Dicamba herbicides are volatile compounds used to control broadleaf weeds — especially on fields of GMO soybean and cotton crops that have been genetically engineered for resistance to dicamba. These herbicides damage non-GMO crops and native plants well beyond intended application areas. (In 2017, more than 3 million acres of soybeans and other crops suffered damage from the chemical.) In addition, warm temperatures during and after application increase the odds of a state change of the liquid herbicide to a gas, which can then rise and drift for miles in any direction. Thus, dicamba herbicides can move significantly off the intended targets, affecting acreage far beyond the bounds of application sites — damaging as much as half again the amount of acreage on which it is applied.

Community scientists were trained by Audubon to detect such typical dicamba symptoms as leaf cupping (just as it sounds, the leaf takes on a concave shape), epinasty (a distorted leaf growth pattern), and chlorosis (yellowed leaves because of insufficient chlorophyll), and to look for multiple symptoms on one plant, uniform symptoms throughout a plant, and instances of numerous plants in an area exhibiting symptoms. Species found to be affected include oak, redbud, and sycamore trees, and muscadine and trumpet vine plants. From June through August, project staff and volunteers amassed nearly 250 observations of dicamba symptomology across 17 Arkansas counties.

Symptoms were observed in plant species growing on public lands, such as parks, cemeteries, university research farms, church properties, and wildlife management areas, as well as along many state and county roadways. In February 2019, the Arkansas state Plant Board moved the dicamba application cutoff date deeper into the growing season (to May 25) for this year, and changed some regulations to try to limit impacts of the chemical on non-target species. Yet the community science monitoring project found 13 occurrences of dicamba symptoms “within two miles of where [state] Plant Board inspectors collected pigweed tissue samples that tested positive for dicamba. This and the 198 dicamba misuse complaints received by the Plant Board . . . are evidence that dicamba use was widespread this summer despite the May 25 cutoff.”

Dr. Scheiman comments, on the Audubon of Arkansas website, “Spraying Dicamba on millions of acres of soybean and cotton is an uncontrolled experiment that puts sensitive habitats at unacceptable risk. In a landscape full of GMO crops, the atmospheric build-up of volatized dicamba may result in significant damage to our state natural areas, wildlife management areas, national wildlife refuges, family farms, and the wildlife they harbor.”

Complicating the picture of dicamba damage is the increasingly common practice of using both it and glyphosate on GE soy and cotton crops — as glyphosate has become more ineffective, given the development of some weeds’ resistance to the compound. In 2015, Monsanto began selling another iteration of its genetically engineered (GE) soybean seed, which is tolerant of both compounds.

But this seed-plus-double-herbicide protocol has exacerbated the drift problem and resultant plant damage, whether to crops, or to trees and landscapes on nearby private or public lands. Parcels affected have included university research test fields in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas, which have reported the same kinds of dicamba symptoms in their test plots from drift (which is a significant problem for their experimental work), and in parks and along public ways in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Recent research shows that the addition of glyphosate to dicamba herbicides increased concentrations of dicamba in the air by as much as nine times those of dicamba alone.

As Beyond Pesticides noted in its July coverage of that research, “exposure to either herbicide poses . . . health risk[s,] and both have been linked to diseases such as cancer. These herbicides also pose a threat to pollinators, especially when drift occurs. Increasing the volatility of dicamba with the addition of summer heat and glyphosate will only increase the spread of the herbicide, resulting in more crop damage, pollinator deaths, and human health concerns. While risks to public health and the environment increase, these new formulations are certain to fail as weeds will, as they have in the past, adapt.”

A number of lawsuits have been brought over this issue of dicamba drift and its resultant harms, including a class action suit. In 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced label changes (to “restricted use”) for dicamba products, which aimed to reduce the huge drift issue that causes such damage to contiguous land and crops. In January 2018, following on a huge grassroots effort by Beyond Pesticides and other advocates, the Arkansas state Plant Board instituted a temporary ban on agricultural use of dicamba in agriculture from mid-April through late October of that year. The Arkansas Legislative Council (which by statute acts as a state decision-making body when the legislature is not in session), went on to make that ban official. The moves were attempts to rein in the rampant level of drift, crop damage, and health impacts Arkansans had experienced from the herbicide. Monsanto sued in Arkansas State Circuit Court in 2018 to stop the ban, but lost in that effort.

Then in late 2018 — in apparent obeisance to the agrochemical industry — EPA approved continued use of dicamba. Beyond Pesticides reported at the time: “On October 31, EPA announced changes to dicamba’s registration. Rather than respond to the results of a study performed in coordination with Bayer’s Monsanto, and agreed upon by officials within the agency, Acting EPA Administrator Wheeler decided to ignore adverse impacts to farmers and nontarget species, in favor of the chemical industry. . . . This decision raises a litany of [concerns about] structural problems within the pesticide registration process. Mixtures and synergy are not adequately tested. Inert ingredients are not disclosed. As exemplified in this instance, pesticide producers submit their own studies to EPA in order to support the registration of a product [in] which they have a vested economic interest. Many pesticides, including GE dicamba products . . . are registered conditionally without required health and environmental safety information. . . . Advocates see this action by top-level officials in the Trump Administration as political meddling with a scientific process already structurally deficient, seriously jeopardizing the health and well-being of U.S. residents and the environment. This action is part of a pattern of the Trump administration’s EPA head ignoring the agency’s science.”

As Trump EPA officials continue to roll back and subvert regulations designed to protect the public and the environment, and to work with industry to subvert the agency’s own scientific findings, greater numbers of consumers are changing their purchasing decisions to buy organic foods and other organic products. Marketplace choices signal to producers what the public is willing to purchase, so these choices are an immediate way for the public to protect itself from the risks imposed by regulators’ failures and to give producers feedback. In addition, upset about the way the pesticide industry and EPA collude to manipulate or ignore science in the pesticide review process can be transformed into action. One place to begin is at the local level to eliminate toxic pesticides from your community.

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

Source: https://ar.audubon.org/sites/default/files/static_pages/attachments/audubon_arkansass_dicamba_symptomology_monitoring_report.pdf

(Beyond Pesticides, September 12, 2019) This September, adults will join in a global climate strike spurred by the Fridays for Future school climate strike movement.

Environmentalists around the world are galvanizing the public to participate in youth-led disruption in order to bring attention to the climate crisis. U.S. strike demands include a Green New Deal, respect for indigenous land and sovereignty, environmental justice, protecting biodiversity, and sustainable agriculture. The strike will kick off on Friday, September 20 and actions will continue until the next Friday, September 27.

Fridays for Future started when then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg began striking in 2018 in front of the Riksdag – the Swedish parliament. She was inspired by U.S. teens who refused to go back to school and instead organized a massive national protest for gun control after the Parkland, Florida shooting. Ms. Thunberg gained publicity and captured a global audience with her clear voice and piercing castigation of adults in power who, “are sh–ting on my future.” Ms. Thunberg has, among other diagnoses, Asperger Syndrome. She attributes her ability to articulate the climate crisis to her capacity to think differently and see things in “black and white.” In an interview with TIME Magazine, she stated, “The climate crisis is, in some ways, black and white. Either we stop the emissions or we don’t, either we prevent setting off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control or we don’t.” Fridays for Future has become a weekly, international phenomenon. Ms. Thunberg was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

In May of 2019, Ms. Thunberg and other activists issued a request for adults to join on September 20. “We feel a lot of adults haven’t quite understood that we young people won’t hold off the climate crisis ourselves. Sorry if this is inconvenient for you. But this is not a single-generation job. It’s humanity’s job,” they stated, “So this is our invitation. Starting on Friday 20 September we will kick-start a week of climate action with a worldwide strike for the climate. We’re asking adults to step up alongside us.”

The U.S. Youth Climate Strike, a coalition of eight national youth-led climate groups, recently released their demands. In full, they are:

• A Green New Deal
  • Transform our economy to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030 and phase out all fossil fuel extraction through a just and equitable transition, creating millions of good jobs
  • A halt to all leasing and permitting for fossil fuel extraction, processing and infrastructure projects immediately
• Respect of Indigenous Land and Sovereignty
  • Honor the treaties protecting Indigenous lands, waters, and sovereignty by the immediate halt of all construction, leasing, and permitting for resource extraction, processing and infrastructure projects affecting or on Indigenous lands
  • Recognize the Rights of Nature into law to protect our sacred ecosystems and align human law with natural law to ban resource extraction in defense of our environment and people
• Environmental Justice
  • A transition that invests in prosperity for communities on the frontlines of poverty and pollution
  • Welcoming those displaced by the cumulative effects of the climate crisis, economic inequality, violence, and lack of opportunity
• Protection and Restoration of Biodiversity
  • Protection and restoration of 50% of the world’s lands and oceans including a halt to all deforestation by 2030
• Implementation of Sustainable Agriculture
  • Investment in farmers and regenerative agriculture and an end to subsidies for industrial agriculture

Beyond Pesticides is supporting the global climate strike because toxic pesticides contribute to the climate crisis and mass extinction, and organic agriculture is part of the solution. If the U.S. is to meet the demand of protecting and restoring biodiversity, that must include a paradigm shift regarding indiscriminate, poisonous chemicals that leach away from their intended purposes and destroy life. Sustainable agriculture is not compatible with the continued use of toxic chemicals. The demand for regenerative agriculture motivates Beyond Pesticides to note that organic agriculture is regenerative, and the use of toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers inhibits soil’s ability to capture carbon. The work of Beyond Pesticides stemmed from a commitment to farmworker justice, a frontline community to pesticide pollution and poisoning – the demand for environmental justice must include farmworkers.

If you are inspired to stand up and join young people in the global climate strike, you can find local events in your area. If there is not an event in your area, you can start your own. Want to join Beyond Pesticides in the strike in Washington, DC? Email [email protected].

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

(Beyond Pesticides, September 11, 2019) Germany is the latest entity to take action on getting glyphosate-based pesticides out of the marketplace. Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that, beginning in 2020, the country will phase out herbicides that contain glyphosate by the end of 2023. The phase-out will occur through a series of scheduled reductions in amounts allowed for use, with a goal of a 75% reduction over the next four years. The announcement comes after “nation-wide protests and demands from [Merkel’s] junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats, for more decisive action on environmental issues.” This action stands in telling contrast to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) repeated failures to protect people, ecosystems, and our food supply, from this toxic compound.

The German government also plans to oppose any European Union (EU) request for renewal of licensing of these herbicides, according to the environment ministry. Bayer AG, maker of glyphosate-based herbicides and owner of original manufacturer Monsanto, has pushed back, saying that the government is “getting ahead of itself” by banning glyphosate-based herbicides prior to any decision by the relevant EU authority, and that EU laws disallow unilateral decisions by member states. (Pesticide licensing decisions lie with EU governance in Brussels, the de facto capital of the EU, rather than with EU member countries.)

Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner emphasized that, although glyphosate products are currently legal under EU law (until December of 2022), German farming policies will continue to become “greener.” Germany’s Environment Minister, Svenja Schulze, said at a news conference in Berlin, “I don’t expect that there will be a majority anywhere in the EU for glyphosate after 2022.” The government’s move is particularly noteworthy because Monsanto, which developed glyphosate and marketed it as the ubiquitous and infamous Roundup herbicide, was bought in 2018 by Bayer — a German company. This development adds to the uphill slog the company faces in keeping its products viable, given the recent plethora of developments related to the toxic compound.

Monsanto’s patent on glyphosate expired in 2015, so dozens of other chemical companies, including BASF and Dow Agrosciences, now market herbicides based on this active ingredient; they are the most commonly applied herbicides worldwide. Concern about glyphosate-based pesticides swelled when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) determined that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen. Beyond Pesticides has covered the relationship of glyphosate (and the adjuvant ingredients in formulations) to cancer, endocrine disruption, reproduction, and renal and hepatic damage, not to mention its toxicity to fish and other aquatic organisms.

Contrary to scientific consensus and to the IARC’s conclusions, EPA has decided that glyphosate formulations are “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” as it posited in a decision announced in May 2019. EPA took this step even in the face of an April 2019 report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) — an agency of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — which evidenced findings that support glyphosate’s carcinogenicity.

Among the cascade of developments since IARC’s designation have been the more than 13,000 lawsuits brought against Monsanto/Bayer. The premier one of those, which has helped catalyze a veritable tsunami of others, was the suit in which California groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson prevailed in his contention that his occupational exposure to Monsanto’s Roundup had caused him to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). The plaintiff was awarded $39 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages by a jury in California State Superior Court in San Francisco County; Judge Suzanne Bolanos later upheld the verdict but reduced the punitive amount to $39 million, for a total award of $78 million. The first glyphosate case in federal court was decided in March 2019 in favor of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman, who also developed NHL after decades of mixing and using Roundup on their extensive home property; the jury in that case awarded $5 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages. As noted, there is a very long queue of other plaintiffs bringing suit related to the harms of glyphosate exposure.

EPA’s intransigence on the glyphosate issue is underscored with every effort by other entities to recognize glyphosate’s health and environmental threats, and to rein in use of the toxic chemical. In addition to Germany’s announcement, some of those recent efforts include: a 2016 call by scientists to reconsider permitting of the compound; a 2019 University of California ban on use of glyphosate on its 10 campuses; a major pesticide supplier’s discontinuing sales of glyphosate products because its insurer, in the face of that tsunami of litigation, refused to insure the company if it continued sales; a bill passed in July 2019 by Austria’s lower house of parliament banning all glyphosate uses; bans instituted in August 2019 by 20 French mayors in their municipalities in defiance of federal regulations; and a French court’s January 2019 yanking of the license for a Roundup product. Just days ago, 16 stakeholders — health, environmental, farmer, and farmworker communities — called for EPA to remove glyphosate from the marketplace. These stakeholderss cite the critical mass of high-profile lawsuits, environmental impacts, increasing reports of weed resistance, and growing public concern over the health effects of glyphosate in their comments on EPA’s interim reregistration review decision for the chemical.

Advocates say that EPA has a dismal record on glyphosate-based formulations — and on many other pesticides. This record has been more extreme during the tenure of the Trump administration, which has since 2017 worked to loosen and/or revoke regulation it perceives as “unfriendly” to industry. But EPA has for many more years been inadequate to the task of protecting the public and the environment from the compound’s impacts. Beyond the current administration’s industry-friendly machinations, Beyond Pesticides has noted and explained EPA’s failures as, fundamentally, basic inadequacies of the risk assessment paradigm EPA uses for regulating toxic chemicals.

That paradigm arises from the overarching pesticide law, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). One area of inadequacy lies in its distinctions between “active” ingredients (such as glyphosate) and “inert” ingredients, the latter of which get inadequate review compared to that for “active” ingredients. Inert ingredients are not required to be listed on product labels because they are considered “proprietary” manufacturer information, a concerning lack of transparency for the public. EPA’s assessment strategy is not “holistic,” but instead, employs a chemical-by-chemical approach.

Further, the agency depends in significant part on industry-generated research in its regulatory decisions. It also does not systematically address evidence of epigenetic/multi-generational impacts of, for example, glyphosate exposures. Another failure of the regulatory paradigm, as set out in Beyond Pesticides’ report, Thinking Holistically When Making Land Management Decisions, is the “failure of the current laws and regulatory review to consider complex ecological impacts of pesticides. These effects are not captured in current ecological risk assessments, even though interactions among pesticides and their cumulative impacts are devastating to ecological balance and health.”

The gaining momentum against use of glyphosate-based herbicides is good news. The ultimate solution is, of course, ceasing to use toxic chemicals for most pest issues in agriculture, land management, and building contexts. Organic, mechanical, and biologic approaches are available for most of the problems industry wants to fix chemically. Please stay engaged and informed on these issues with Beyond Pesticides’ many resources, including its Daily News Blog, its journal, Pesticides and You, its Programs and Resources web pages, and its newest initiative: Organic Eye — a Beyond Pesticides watchdog agency that will focus on defending the time-honored philosophy and legal definition of organic farming and food production.

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

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-04/germany-cabinet-aims-to-reduce-glyphosate-usage-in-coming-years