(Beyond Pesticides, August 5, 2019) 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 1997, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a draft rule that would have allowed GE, irradiation, and sewage sludge (the “Big Three”) in organic production, which was met by the second largest number of comments the agency had ever received—well before the days of internet advocacy—overwhelmingly opposing the inclusion of the “Big Three.”  The prohibition of gene editing falls under the “excluded methods” provision of the organic regulations. The law prohibits “a variety of methods used to genetically modify organisms or influence their growth and development by means that are not possible under natural conditions or processes, and are not considered compatible with organic production.” (7 CFR 205.2) These prohibited methods include cell fusion, micro- and macro-encapsulation and recombinant DNA technology (including gene deletion, gene doubling, introducing a foreign gene and changing the positions of genes when achieved by recombinant DNA technology).

Ask Members of Congress to Remind USDA that Genetic Engineering Is NOT Acceptable in Organic!

There are many problems with GE, and consumers trust the organic label to provide food free of GE. USDA has long promoted GE, but has avoided pushing it in organic since the run-in with organic producers and consumers over the Big Three. Former Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack, for example, promoted a policy of “coexistence” between GE and organic producers. In this regard, organic producers are joined by others who choose not to grow GE crops because they limit export sales.

Unfortunately, even USDA’s “coexistence” policy threatens the genetic and chemical integrity of organic food. In practice, “coexistence” means that those who develop and use GE technology are not held accountable for the damage they cause. The damage includes that arising from both genetic drift—which can make organic crops unsaleable in the organic marketplace—and chemical drift arising from the increased use of chemicals in GE-chemical intensive cropping systems. Any standard of acceptable use of technology would require control over the consequences. If the technology cannot be controlled, it should not be used.

Organic systems are modeled on natural ecosystems. GE organisms belong in neither:

• GE is based on an out-of-date theory of “one gene—one effect” and ignores pleiotropy. Thus, a gene that makes a plant tolerant of glyphosate is assumed not to have other effects that might be important ecologically or nutritionally. Even the effect of herbicide tolerance itself may result in the presence of toxic metabolites of the herbicide in food.
• Traditional breeding, like evolution itself, depends on forces acting on the whole organism. Exposure over time to different environments exposes unexpected traits. GE plants are created by manipulation of DNA that may create unanticipated results—results that may not be apparent until, for example, the plant is grown under unforeseen conditions.
• Risks associated with GE crops cannot be predicted.
• While the GE/chemical industry has created many claims to virtue for GE crops, the net effect of GE-based agriculture has been an expansion in the use of pesticides and subsequent resistance to pesticides—in other words, the pesticide treadmill.

Nearly half of all consumers in the U.S. say they avoid buying GE foods, and the growth of the organic sector—now more than $50 billion per year in sales—offers those consumers the choice they want.

Ask Members of Congress to Remind USDA that Genetic Engineering Is NOT Acceptable in Organic!

Letter to Congress

On July 17, 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.” I am writing to ask that you let Under Secretary Greg Ibach know his statement is unacceptable and challenges a foundation of organic principles and values.

Evidently, Mr. Ibach has forgotten the reaction 20 years ago, when the USDA published a draft organic rule that would have allowed genetic engineering (GE), irradiation, and sewage sludge (the “Big Three”) in organic production. The suggestion was met by the largest number of comments the agency had ever received, overwhelmingly opposing the inclusion of the “Big Three.”

That is why the final organic regulations include a provision prohibiting “excluded methods,” which are “a variety of methods used to genetically modify organisms or influence their growth and development by means that are not possible under natural conditions or processes, and are not considered compatible with organic production.” (7 CFR 205.2)

There are many problems with GE, and consumers know that they can trust the organic label to provide food free of GE. USDA has long promoted GE, but since the run-in with organic producers and consumers over the Big Three, avoided pushing GE in organic. Former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, for example, promoted a policy of “coexistence” between GE and organic producers. In this regard, organic producers are joined by others who choose not to grow GE crops because they limit export sales.

Unfortunately, even USDA’s “coexistence” policy threatens the genetic and chemical integrity of organic food. In practice, “coexistence” means that those who develop and use GE technology are not held accountable for the damage they cause. The damage includes that arising from both genetic drift—which can make organic crops unsaleable in the organic marketplace—and chemical drift arising from the increased use of chemicals in GE-chemical intensive cropping systems. Any standard of acceptable use of technology would require control over the consequences. If the technology cannot be controlled, it should not be used.

Organic systems are modeled on natural ecosystems. GE organisms belong in neither:

GE is based on an out-of-date theory of “one gene–one effect” and ignores pleiotropy. Thus, a gene that makes a plant tolerant of glyphosate is assumed not to have other effects that might be important ecologically or nutritionally. Even the effect of herbicide tolerance itself may result in the presence of toxic metabolites of the herbicide in food.

Traditional breeding, like evolution itself, depends on forces acting on the whole organism. Exposure over time to different environments exposes unexpected traits. GE plants are created by manipulation of DNA that may create unanticipated results—results that may not be apparent until, for example, the plant is grown under unforeseen conditions.

Risks associated with GE crops cannot be predicted.

While the GE/chemical industry has created many claims to virtue for GE crops, the net effect of GE-based agriculture has been an expansion in the use of pesticides and subsequent resistance to pesticides—in other words, the pesticide treadmill.

Nearly half of all consumers in the U.S. say they avoid buying GE foods, and the growth of the organic sector—now more than $50 billion per year in sales—offers those consumers the choice they want.

USDA should abandon efforts to insert GE into organic and instead devote efforts to controlling the technology so that it does not injure organic farmers or the environment.

Thank you for your attention to this issue.

(Beyond Pesticides, August 2, 2019) Advocates of organic agriculture, including Beyond Pesticides, are sounding a “yellow alert” on the heels of recent comments, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Greg Ibach, before the U.S. House Agriculture Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research. In his remarks, Mr. Ibach opened the door to consideration of allowing new gene-editing technologies to be permitted under the federal National Organic Program (NOP) and its standards. He said, “As the National Organic Standards Board set the rules originally, GMOs are not eligible to be in the organic program. However, we’ve seen new technology, including gene-editing, that accomplishes things in shorter periods of time than a natural breeding process can. I think there is the opportunity to open the discussion to consider whether it is appropriate for some of these new technologies that include gene-editing to be eligible to be used to enhance organic production and to have drought and disease-resistant varieties, as well as higher-yield varieties available.”

The National Organic Standards (NOS), promulgated in 2002 (on the basis of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990) by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) — on which Beyond Pesticides Executive Director Jay Feldman sat from 2010 to 2015) — now prohibit genetically engineered crops in certified organic agriculture. The history of genetic engineering and organics goes back to 1990, when USDA proposed an initial, and much-criticized, iteration of a set of rules about organic agriculture; those rules not only permitted genetically bioengineered (GE or GMO) crops, but also, allowed use of sewage sludge and irradiation. After significant public outcry and an historic number of public comments, the final rule proscribed all three.

In the NOSB Policy and Procedures Manual, “Principles of Organic Production and Handling,” section 1.11, states: “Genetic engineering (recombinant and technology) is a synthetic process designed to control nature at the molecular level, with the potential for unforeseen consequences. As such, it is not compatible with the principles of organic agriculture (either production or handling). Genetically engineered/modified organisms (GE/GMOs) and products produced by or through the use of genetic engineering are prohibited.”

Proponents say gene editing is different from the GE processes that have been used widely in non-organic agriculture to date. Those GE techniques typically have employed gene transfer — moving selected genes for some desirable trait from one plant (or bacteria) species into another. A well-known example is Monsanto’s iconic Roundup Resistant soybean: its genetically engineered resistance to the impacts of glyphosate allowed use of the company’s glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup to kill weeds without killing the soybean plant. With wide adoption of the seed, Roundup’s use spiked, as did the inevitable issue of glyphosate resistance in the soybean plant itself.

GE is based on an out-of-date theory of “one gene–one effect” and ignores pleiotropy. Thus, a gene that makes a plant tolerant of glyphosate is assumed not to have other effects that might be important ecologically or nutritionally. Even the effect of herbicide tolerance itself may result in the presence of toxic metabolites of the herbicide in food.

Gene editing is described as different from gene transfer GE technology. It is described by a National Geographic article as simply the removal of certain bits of DNA (genes) from a plant cell’s genome “in order to control traits. The cell’s genetic structure then repairs itself automatically, minus the targeted gene.” The changes to the genome made by gene editing are permanent — they are passed on to the seeds the edited plant will generate. As various new gene editing technologies — such as TALENs, CRISPR-Cas9, and ZFN — have become available, industry has touted them as the next agricultural revolution, promising outcomes from increased yields, disease resistance, and crops that don’t trigger allergies, to better flavors and nutrition, decreased fat content, and drought resistance, among many potential benefits.

Last year (2018) saw the entry of the first gene-edited crop in the U.S. — rapeseed, the seed source of canola oil. The Guardian reports that more are coming down the pike, including a shelf-stable soybean oil whose oil will contain less saturated fat (from Minnesota-based Calyxt), and an improved variety of waxy corn that is used as a thickener and stabilizer in food products (from Corteva Agriscience, the agriculture division of DowDuPont).

Federal regulators at USDA have said that because such crops don’t contain “foreign” DNA, they should not require the (already inadequate) regulation and testing required for GMOs. The European Union’s highest court sees it differently: the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) in Luxembourg ruled in late July that gene-edited crops must be regulated by the same strict rules as are conventional GMOs in Europe. USDA said in June that it would not regulate crops whose genetic changes could have been produced with conventional breeding — those that have been gene-edited. Some scientists consider these processes to be humanly accelerated versions of what can happen through more conventional breeding means, providing some of the rationale for the potential ruling. A different federal agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has suggested it might treat all intentionally edited food products as drugs, which could mean far more intensive oversight and regulation.

Meanwhile, Beyond Pesticides and other advocates in the organic community are clear: gene editing, for the purposes of regulation of organics, should be included in the definition of genetic engineering, and has no place in organic production or in the National Organic Standards. Further, the myriad issues surrounding GE technologies and GMOs — health and environment impacts, contamination of organic production, resistance, and labeling, among others, should be far more seriously addressed, and regulation decisions based on science rather than on benefit to industry.

In July, Beyond Pesticides wrote in a Daily News Blog entry, “All genetically engineered (GE) organisms — plants, animals, or microorganisms — should be subjected to systematic assessments of human and environmental effects and indirect economic effects (such as contamination of organic or non-GE crops leading to rejection in foreign markets, spread of resistant pests, etc.) before being allowed on the market. These assessments must be made available to the public for comment. All products from GE organisms in the marketplace should be labeled as such to allow consumer choice and to permit tracking of unintended health effects. Companies that develop GE organisms should be required to disclose any GE trait, marker genes, or other genetic constructs that might be present in a commercial GE seed product, including traits and genes for obsolete, no-longer-marketed traits. In addition, the definition of genetic engineering should be broad enough to include all the newer genetic engineering techniques, such as RNAi or the new gene-editing technologies (such as CRISPR-cas9, TALEN, ZNF, and meganucleases).”

Organic agriculture is a safe and implementable approach to food production that eliminates many of the risks of chemical and GE farming and food products. The burgeoning popularity of organically grown food is no surprise, given all the downsides of the chemical-intensive, monocultural practices of industrial agriculture. To have genuine consumer choice, the public needs to trust what the certified organic label represents. As genetically engineered technologies and products proliferate, even absent adequate assessment, protecting the integrity of that organic label is critical. During the House Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research’s mid-July hearing on assessing the effectiveness of the NOP, the House committe chair, Rep. Stacey Plaskett, said, “The power of the organic seal is in its integrity — in the trust that consumers place in it. It’s our job here in Washington, both here and at USDA, to ensure we’re safeguarding the integrity of the National Organic Program.”

Under Secretary Ibach’s comments portend an alarming violation of that trust and integrity. Stay engaged on this and other developments in organics, biotechnology in agriculture, and the integrity of the organic label through Beyond Pesticides’ Daily News Blog and journal, Pesticides and You.

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

Source: https://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/should-gene-editing-be-part-of-organic-production-usda-opens-debate.html

(Beyond Pesticides, August 1, 2019) Last month, the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture approved the registration of 51 additional hazardous pesticides and brought the total to 262 newly approved pesticides this year. Moreover, Brazil’s health surveillance agency, Anvisa, approved new rules that establish risk of death as the singular criteria for determining toxicity of pesticides. Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit that conducts local investigations, reports that the government has simultaneously been unresponsive to incidents of pesticide poisoning. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonoro, is known for his far-right politics, and has been accused of corruption, scandals, and disregard for the environment.

This rapid registration of novel pesticides is unprecedented in Brazil. Many of the products are generic versions of existing formulas, with government officials seeking to lower the price of pesticides. Products include insecticides with the active ingredient sulfoxaflor, a bee-toxic pesticide that has also recently gained traction in the U.S. despite pushback from beekeepers and environmentalists. While an American license for a pesticide, for example, lasts 15 years, Brazilian registration of pesticides never expires. Generic products lower the price barrier to amplified use of these interminable, toxic pesticides.

In 1989, Brazil established one of the toughest pesticide laws in the world that included utilizing the precautionary principle in evaluation and registration standards. However, the proliferation of large-scale, monocrop farming has directly increased use of pesticides, and enforcement has not kept up with the boom. According to advocates, laws in place to protect residents are often ignored, and pesticide poisoning is a growing concern. Last November, there was a record poisoning in which 96 people, including 50 children, were hit by a drifting cloud of paraquat—an herbicide that is extremely acutely toxic because it causes lung fibrosis and is also directly linked to Parkinson’s disease. Paraquat has been banned in the EU since 2007, but remains legal in countries such as Brazil and the U.S.

Repórter Brasil states, “The case is also part of a national phenomenon: the intoxication of children in rural areas. From 2008 to 2017 DataSUS recorded 130 confirmed poisonings of children under 14 by pesticides. This number only takes into account environmental poisoning, i.e., when poison is carried by wind, water or in contact with soil and plants. However […] it is estimated that for each reported case 50 will not be reported. That is, the number of children environmentally contaminated by pesticides in ten years may have reached 6.5 thousand—an average of more than one intoxicated child per day in Brazil.”

A powerful agribusiness lobby has been diligently working on influencing politicians to loosen pesticide restrictions in Brazil for many years. With new toxicity standards removing anything but death from the picture, this trend of rapid pesticide registration and rural poisonings is likely to continue under Bolsonaro’s administration.

Swedish supermarket owner Johannes Cullberg started an international boycott in response to Brazil’s approval and use of hazardous pesticides in food production. #BoycottBrazilianFood began in June of 2019 when the total of newly registered pesticides stood at 197. Mr. Cullburg stated, “We need to stop (the president) Bolsonaro, he’s a maniac.” The boycott prompted a response from the Brazilian embassy, stating, “[T]he Embassy wishes to inform you that Brazil, despite being an agricultural powerhouse, is not the biggest user of pesticides. It is ranked 5th or 7th in the world, according to applicable parameters in pesticide studies,” and so on.

Mr. Cullberg responded, “I salute you for that fifth-runner up position in 2017, but it seems you might actually win in 2019. With that said, let me yet again explain why I do think that a boycott of Brazilian products is still necessary. You argue that your tropical climate craves a massive use of pesticides. According to the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility, Brazil in 2016 alone registered 4,208 cases of intoxication by exposure to pesticides and 355 deaths by agricultural chemicals. I argue that these numbers are far from acceptable to me and should not be to anyone.”

Bolsonaro is unlikely to be moved by pleas regarding human or environmental rights. His campaign last year ran on a platform that touted protected lands as an obstacle to economic growth, and committed to removing barriers to commercial exploitation. This has led to more than 1,330 square miles of forest cover loss since Bolsonaro took office in January. Local mining groups are clashing with indigenous tribes for land, and because enforcement agencies have been crippled by budget cuts there is little capability to mitigate the problem. Ewerton Marubo, an indigenous activist, stated bluntly, “Just imagine if all this is destroyed, if the government opens this area up. In two years it will all be gone. The wood will be gone. The fish will be gone. The rivers will all be polluted. All they want is to destroy.”

There are distinct parallels between the Trump Administration and Bolsonaro’s reign in Brazil— namely, the gutting of environmental protection in favor of corporate gain. Now, more than ever, it is necessary for local groups to stand up and fight back at the local level. Use Beyond Pesticides’ Tools For Change to learn more. You can easily join the boycott against Bolsonaro by buying local, organic food.

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

Sources: Reuters, The Rio Times, Medium, Human Rights Watch

(Beyond Pesticides, July 31, 2019) When it comes to maintaining a healthy gut, organic apples shine, while conventional, pesticide-treated apples come out bruised and wanting, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Microbiology by a team of Austrian researchers. The study is the latest to compare the potential health benefits between foods grown with either organic or chemical-intensive farming practices. As with past analyses on milk, meat, strawberries, tomatoes, and a range of other foods, organic practices were found to produce the healthiest options.

“Freshly harvested, organically managed apples harbor a significantly more diverse, more even and distinct bacterial community, compared to conventional ones,” said Gabriele Berg, PhD to the Guardian.

Scientists reached this conclusion by analyzing the entire apple microbiome, from the peel and fruit pulp, to the seeds, stem and calyx (opposite from the stem, where the apple flower fell off).  Organic and chemically produced apples were weighed and divided, and ran through a series of tests to determine the number of microbiota as well as the diversity therein.

Both conventional and organic apples contained roughly the same number of total bacterium, at roughly 100 million. Interestingly, the bulk of microbes were found not in the skin or fruit of the apple, but the stem, seeds, and calyx. In other words, if you want to gain all the microbial benefits an apple has, do not compost your apple cores, and instead eat them whole.

The two types of apples diverged in regards to diversity and colonization patterns of the microbial community. Every area, from peel to core, of an organic apple contained greater bacterial diversity than its conventional counterpart. Moreover, the distribution of these microbes were also more even throughout organic apples than conventional apples. Organic apples were dominated by Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, genera well known by researchers to beneficial to the human gut, and often contained within commercially available probiotic supplements. They also contained significantly higher levels of Methylobacterium, which is known to enhance the flavor of certain fruits.

Conventional apples, while containing the same number of bacterium, were dominated by Burkholderiales, of which some may be pathogenic to humans. They also contained Enterobacteriales, including some, (albeit low) amount of human pathogenic Escherichia-Shigella, which was not found in any organic apple sample. And growing practices for chemical-intensive apple production may be harming the ability of the apple tree itself to thrive, as researchers found higher numbers of Ralstonia and Erwinia bacterium, known for their ability to harm plant health.

“Organic apples conceivably feature favorable health effects for the consumer, the host plant and the environment in contrast to conventional apples, which were found to harbor potential food-borne pathogens,” researchers wrote in the study.

Food is essential to life, and in so many realms, organic agriculture is the best path to balance the need for human consumption to work with, rather than against, nature. When compared to chemical-intensive agriculture, this study reveals that the food grown in organic soil is better for our microbiome. All-together, switching from a conventional to organic diet has concrete impacts on health, reducing the level of pesticides in the body, and lowering cancer risk. It also has economic benefits, boosting local economies where there is a high level of organic agriculture, as well as farmers’ bottom lines. A broad scale transition to organic is also critical to address mounting crises in the environment, including the pollinator and insect apocalypse.

It is no wonder that American consumers are increasingly seeking out organic foods. As more and more studies discover the benefits many have already realized for their own health, wallet, or local environment. Read more about how to protect, strengthen and grow organic agriculture on Beyond Pesticides “Why Organic?” webpage.

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

Source: The Guardian, Frontiers in Microbiology (peer-reviewed journal)

With attention on the connection between pesticide use and agricaultural growing practices

An

When it comes to maintaining a healthy gut, organic apples shine

A new study is clarifying age-old advice about keeping the doctor away.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 30, 2019) Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a decision to register new uses for the bee-toxic pesticide sulfoxaflor. The decision closely followed a USDA announcement halting the Honey Bee Colonies Survey, combining blows to already suffering beekeepers. According to the nonprofit Bee Informed, this past winter tallied the most colonies lost in a decade—an estimated 37% between October 1, 2018 and April 1, 2019.

“Proposing to register sulfoxaflor for use on bee-attractive crops, in the midst of an ongoing pollinator crisis, is the height of irresponsibility,” said Drew Toher, community resource and policy director for Beyond Pesticides in an interview for Bloomberg Environment. “When all of the available data points to significant risks to pollinators from use of this chemical we must face the facts: EPA is working towards the protection of pesticide industry, not the environment,” he said.

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.

A 2018 study published in Nature, “Sulfoxaflor exposure reduces bumblebee reproductive success,” stated, “There is an urgent need to pre-emptively evaluate the potential sub-lethal effects of sulfoximine-based pesticides [i.e. sulfoxaflor] on pollinators, because such effects are rarely detected by standard ecotoxicological assessments, but can have major impacts at larger ecological scales.”

A 2015 lawsuit headed by beekeepers resulted in a 2016 registration that specifically excluded bee-attractive crops such as cotton and sorghum. However, EPA regularly utilized the “emergency exemption” rule under Section 18 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) to circumvent restrictions, criticized by environmental advocates.

EPA claims, based on mostly industry-financed studies, that sulfoxaflor presents a lower risk for non-target wildlife than alternatives, and that it “disappears” from the environment faster than alternatives such as organophosphates. It is worth noting that this lesser-of-two-evils logic is a false dichotomy, and chemicals may not disappear but rather break down into metabolites that can be more toxic than the predecessor. EPA’s own assessment names that sulfoxaflor as “highly toxic” to honey bees.

A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) peer review of pesticide risk assessment for sulfoxaflor, approved February 2019, found a high risk for honey bees and bumblebees in field applications. France disallowed the use of sulfoxaflor in 2017 based on the precautionary principle, a practice that suggests a social responsibility to use discretion when scientific investigation indicates a possibility of harm or for which their is uncertainty. The U.S. administration, in juxtaposition, is turning a blind eye to the potential damage that this and other chemicals cause to pollinators, according to advocates.

As stated in Beyond Pesticides’ coverage of USDA’s honey bee data collection shutdown, “Permitting [sulfoxaflor’s] use and then ceasing to collect and report data on the status of honey bees that are likely to be impacted is not only a recipe for kneecapping the study of bee decline and imperiling the food supply, but also, another example of the corruption for which this administration is infamous.”

Current law allows chemical lobbyists to unduly influence EPA decisions, causing a bias in favor of pesticide dependency instead of incentivizing alternatives like organic practices and products. The Saving America’s Pollinators Act (H.R.1337) will cancel specific bee-toxic pesticides and reshape the EPA process for permitting pesticides. Ask your elected U.S. Representative in Congress to support pollinators by cosponsoring Saving America’s Pollinators Act (SAPA). If they are already a cosponsor, use the occasion to thank them for their leadership on this critical issue.

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

Source: Bloomberg

(Beyond Pesticides, July 29, 2019) A research study, published in March in Scientific Reports, uncovers a pesticide effect on a sugar-metabolizing enzyme common to all cells that has broad health ramifications ignored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) safety testing protocol. This finding raises a larger question regarding the need for EPA to test for the synergistic effects of pesticides, whereby pesticides and chemicals in combination have an even greater effect than they do by themselves.

The research, by T. Tristan Brandhorst, PhD, Iain Kean, PhD, and others in the lab of Bruce Klein, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and UW School ofMedicine and Public Health, specifically sheds light on the mode of action of the fungicide fludioxonil. Fludioxonil, a phenylpyrrole fungicide, was developed to treat seeds during storage, and has come to be used commonly on grains, vegetables, fruits, and ornamental plants during cultivation, and produce after harvest to extend “shelf life.” As reported by the American Association for the Advancement of Science publication, EurekAlert, “The ability of [the fungicide] fludioxonil to act on a sugar-metabolizing enzyme common to all cells, and to produce the damaging compound methylglyoxal, may mean that the pesticide has more potential to harm non-fungal cells than previously thought. Although fludioxonil has been deemed safe for use, the authors . . . suggest that the effects of this widely used pesticide has upon animals be re-examined.”

EPA, under the current administration, has not shown a willingness to restrict pesticide use to protect humans and the environment. However, EPA has an investigative office—the Office of Inspector General (OIG)—whose job is to “perform audits and investigations of the EPA to promote economy and efficiency, and to prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse.” In order to ensure its independence of EPA, OIG receives funding directly from Congress. Congress may request audits and investigations by OIG.

Ask your U.S. Representative and Senators to request an Office of Inspector General investigation of EPA’s failure to assess pesticide hazards resulting from chemicals in combination having synergistic and multifactorial effects.

In a previous investigation, Drs. Brandhorst and Klein pointed to the uncertainty about the mechanism by which fludioxonil actually causes fungi cell death, asserting that this uncertainty merits a reevaluation by EPA of its potential impacts on human health—noting reports of the fungicide’s ability to disrupt hepatic, endocrine, and neurological systems. The scientists in Dr. Klein’s lab found that a common effect of pesticides on their targets, oxidative stress, is crucial. In this case, the oxidative stress that triggers the toxicity of fludioxonil comes from the natural breakdown of sugars, which is enhanced by the fungicide. Dr. Brandhorst notes, “The take-home lesson is that fludioxonil is multifactorial. It’s not compromising cells by one solitary mechanism. It has potential to damage cells in a variety of ways.” The enzyme-suppressing action of fludioxonil on an enzyme common to all cells is at the heart of the alarm this research raises, but it is not the only reason the fungicide needs to be reevaluated.

The fungicide’s extensive post-harvest use on food crops is of particular concern because it eliminates the chance for environmental degradation of the compound, and once applied, the waxy fungicide is not easily removed by rinsing. Further, UV treatment of produce (sometimes used to reduce pathogens on fresh fruits and vegetables) actually significantly increases the toxicity of fludioxonil. In addition, the lead author indicates that “there is also reason to believe that breakdown products of this pesticide may be 100 times more toxic than fludioxonil itself.”

There are several lessons from this research. First, life is complex, and synergism is the rule, not the exception. Note that in this case, synergism occurs between the pesticide and naturally-occurring processes in humans and other organisms.

Second, EPA should not regulate pesticides with the assumption that the absence of an enzyme in one group of organisms protects the overall health of all other organisms. EPA made a similar mistaken assumption in assessing glyphosate/Roundup, which caused it to ignore the impacts of that herbicide on the human gut microbiota.

Third, EPA must have a complete understanding of the mode of action of any pesticide it registers and act on new information that arises in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. It is a major shortcoming of EPA’s risk assessment process that it does not respond to current science.

Ask your U.S. Representative and Senators to request an Office of Inspector General investigation of EPA’s failure to assess pesticide hazards resulting from chemicals in combination having synergistic and multifactorial effects.

Letter to Congress

I am writing to ask you to request an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General of a failing in EPA’s risk assessment of pesticides.

A research study, published in March in Scientific Reports, uncovers a pesticide effect on a sugar-metabolizing enzyme common to all cells that has broad health ramifications ignored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) safety testing protocol. This finding raises a larger question regarding the need for EPA to test for the synergistic effects of pesticides, whereby pesticides and chemicals in combination have an even greater effect than they do by themselves. (Brandhorst, T.T., Kean, I.R., Lawry, S.M., Wiesner, D.L. and Klein, B.S., 2019. Phenylpyrrole fungicides act on triosephosphate isomerase to induce methylglyoxal stress and alter hybrid histidine kinase activity. (Scientific Reports, 9(1), p.5047)

The study specifically sheds light on the mode of action of the fungicide fludioxonil, which was developed to treat seeds during storage, and is now used on grains, vegetables, fruits, and ornamental plants during cultivation, and produce after harvest. As reported in EurekAlert, “The ability of [the fungicide] fludioxonil to act on a sugar-metabolizing enzyme common to all cells, and to produce the damaging compound methylglyoxal, may mean that the pesticide has more potential to harm non-fungal cells than previously thought. Although fludioxonil has been deemed safe for use, the authors . . . suggest that the effects of this widely used pesticide has upon animals be re-examined.”

EPA, under this administration, has not shown a willingness to restrict pesticide use to protect humans and the environment. This makes a request on this matter to the OIG especially important now.

Previous work by Drs. Brandhorst and Klein pointed to the uncertainty about the mechanism by which fludioxonil actually causes fungi cell death, asserting that this uncertainty merits a reevaluation by EPA of its potential impacts on human health—noting reports of the fungicide’s ability to disrupt hepatic, endocrine, and neurological systems. They found that a common effect of pesticides on their targets, oxidative stress, is crucial. In this case, the oxidative stress that triggers the toxicity of fludioxonil comes from the natural breakdown of sugars, which is enhanced by the fungicide. The enzyme-suppressing action of fludioxonil on an enzyme common to all cells is at the heart of the alarm raised by this research.

The fungicide’s extensive post-harvest use on food crops is of particular concern because it eliminates the chance for environmental degradation of the compound, and once applied, the waxy fungicide is not easily removed by rinsing. Further, UV treatment of produce (sometimes used to reduce pathogens on fresh fruits and vegetables) significantly increases the toxicity of fludioxonil. In addition, “there is also reason to believe that breakdown products of this pesticide may be 100 times more toxic than fludioxonil itself.”

There are several lessons from this research. First, life is complex, and synergism is the rule, not the exception. In this case, synergism occurs between the pesticide and natural processes in humans and other organisms.

Second, EPA should not regulate pesticides with the assumption that the absence of an enzyme in one group of organisms protects the overall health of all other organisms. EPA made a similar mistaken assumption in assessing glyphosate/Roundup, which caused it to ignore the impacts of that herbicide on the human gut microbiota.

Third, EPA must have a complete understanding of the mode of action of any pesticide it registers and act on new information that arises in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. The failure to respond to current science is a major shortcoming of EPA’s risk assessment process.

Please ask the OIG to investigate EPA’s risk assessment practices highlighted by this research.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 26, 2019) The botanic denizens of wild and unmanaged lands typically comprise many different plant species. This is because nature abhors monocultures — the existence of a single kind of plant growing across some amount of territory. Yet, this is the dominant practice in modern agriculture, and brings with it a plethora of problems. One of them, emerging from an Argentinian study out of the Universidad Nacional del Comahue and published in Global Change Biology, is that agricultural production in some areas of the world is at risk because of this obeisance to monoculture in a time of biodiversity loss and pollinator decline.

Monocultural agriculture, for all its perceived advantages — in yield, routinization of management practices, ease of harvesting, and others related to technological tools — also involves significant downsides, including:

• robbing local ecosystems of natural systems of checks and balances, thus making monocrops more vulnerable to pests and diseases — which in turn usually means greater applications of toxic pesticides
• nutritional impoverishment of soil by reducing available nutrients, thereby inviting addition of synthetic, usually fossil fuel–based fertilizers and other inputs
• degradation of soils so that they retain moisture far less well and cause increased runoff of those chemical inputs, potentially contributing to algal blooms and anaerobic “dead zones” in nearby water bodies
• increased topsoil erosion
• plants’ increased development of resistance to pesticides, fueling the cycle of resistance, creation of new chemical treatments, which then generate more resistance, etc.

Human dependence on pollinators for one-third of foodstuffs is at the center of the Argentinian study’s concern, given the decline in pollinator, and especially both domestic and wild bee, populations. The trend in some regions to plant more pollinator-dependent crops without also increasing crop diversity is leading to greater demand for pollination services — which this study indicates is increasingly likely to be met by a shortfall of available pollinators. Increasing demand on these insects to pollinate crops — in the context of the larger “insect apocalypse” at hand — means a smaller proportion of such plants are pollinated. Therein lies the risk to production capacity.

In order to examine how agricultural expansion, diversity, and dependence on pollinators have interacted around the world in recent decades, the research team analyzed crop data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. During the 55 years prior to 2016, the researchers found that, worldwide, the aggregate land area cultivated with crops not dependent on pollinators increased by 17.3%, whereas the amount cultivated with pollinator‐dependent crops grew by 136.9%. The authors surmise that “the pollinator dependence of global agriculture, in terms of the proportion of area cultivated with pollinator‐dependent crops, increased by approximately 70%,” while crop diversity increased by only 20.5%.

The study reveals great variation in these dynamics, however, depending on region. For example, despite plenty of agricultural expansion on the African continent, there has been little rise in pollinator dependence because much of that expansion has been in non-pollinator-dependent crops. In Europe, such dependence has increased even in the face of decreasing amounts of land in cultivation because of intensification of pollinator-dependent crops.

Agricultural production is particularly at risk in regions of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, due largely to increases in soybean cultivation. “Soy production has risen by around 30 percent per decade globally. This is problematic because numerous natural and semi-natural habitats, including tropical and subtropical forests and meadows, have been destroyed for soy fields,” says the study’s lead researcher, Marcelo Aizen, PhD. Some Asian countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia face similar challenges because of growth in demand for the production of palm oil.

Habitat loss — largely due to human development activities, including agricultural expansion — is another chief contributor to significant declines in insect, including pollinator, populations. Particularly in subtropical and tropical areas, the clearing of forests for agricultural expansion is a huge concern; those parcels are often cleared in order to be planted with monocrops that promise high market return on investment. Commonly, soybean, nut, oilseed (such as rapeseed for canola oil and oil palm), and fruits crops are planted, and these require pollinators to produce the useful parts of the plant (technically, the fruit and seeds). The use of toxic pesticides plays a major role in pollinator decline; as Beyond Pesticides has covered comprehensively, pesticides present very significant threats to pollinators, and to human and environmental health, never mind the costs associated with the outcomes. As Environmental Health News notes, “A Cornell study found that pesticide use in the United States causes $520 million in crop loss and $1.1 billion in health costs.”

Although the global insect decline is caused primarily by pesticide use, habitat destruction, and climate change, monocropping represents an additional catalyst to this collapse. According to the study authors, shifts to more pollinator-dependent cropping, absent sufficient pollinator populations, can actually contribute to pollinator decline via pesticide use and natural habitat loss. “Farmers are growing more crops that require pollination, such as fruits, nuts and oilseeds, because there is an increasing demand for them and they have a higher market value. This study points out that these current trends are not great for pollinators,” said David Inouye, PhD, coauthor and professor emeritus of biology at the University of Maryland. As Beyond Pesticides has reported, shifting from monocropping to regenerative, organic, and sustainable practices can support, rather than destroy, biodiversity and pollinator population success.

The project team posits that the mismatch between increasing demand for pollinators and the lack of a commensurate increase in the diversity of what is being cultivated is concerning because of the social, economic, and environmental consequences that may ensue. The study authors say that further useful work might identify regions that are particularly vulnerable because steep increases in their pollinator dependence are taking a high environmental toll that is not offset by economic and other benefits.

The researchers emphasize that their study results represent an “alarm call for the implementation of more pollinator‐friendly, synergistic management, including targeted use of insecticides, the setting aside of marginal land to establish and maintain flower strips and hedgerows, and the restoration of semi-natural and natural areas adjacent to crops. Such changes, in addition to increasing crop diversity at different spatial scales, will increase farmland heterogeneity, fostering pollination services and thus agricultural productivity and sustainability.”

Beyond Pesticides lends its voice to the call for a shift in the destructive and antiquated agricultural system that continues to prevail in the U.S. — the huge growth in organic agriculture aside. Organic and regenerative practices help make their local ecosystems far more resilient to the threats of a warming planet and its more-extreme weather: healthy soil and cover crops, for example, help prevent nutrient and water loss, making land more able to withstand floods and droughts. As reported by The Rodale Institute, during droughts, organic parcels generate yields up to 40% greater than those of traditional, chemically fertilized plots treated with pesticides. In addition, organic practices — by forgoing the use of pesticides — support pollinators and eliminate much of the toxic burden to which they’re exposed in agricultural areas.

Everyone has a role to play in leveraging the shift away from our toxic “business as usual” approaches and toward a genuinely sustainability agroeconomy. As set out in the June 18, 2019 Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog entry, “through public pressure and consumer choice, we can shift towards alternative products and practices, improve biodiversity, and begin to repair the damage done by industrial agriculture.”

Track pollinator, biodiversity, and organic agriculture developments with Beyond Pesticides’ multiplicity of tools, including its Daily News Blog and the journal Pesticides and You. Support its work by becoming a member and/or signing up to learn about actions to take in support of its mission.

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

Sources: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.14736 and

https://www.ehn.org/monoculture-farming-is-not-good-for-the-bees-study-2639154525.html

(Beyond Pesticides, July 25, 2019) Professors are experiencing damage to their soybean field research as a result of dicamba drift from neighboring agricultural fields. Experts worry that continued drift will make it impossible to carry out public research integral to non-genetically engineered soybean production. These reports, recent studies of dicamba drift potential, and numerous lawsuits counter Monsanto/Bayer’s claims that dicamba poses no drift threat when used properly.

Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, manufactures both dicamba and genetically engineered, herbicide-tolerant crops. Dicamba mimics natural plant hormones, auxins, to cause uncontrolled and abnormal growth in non-tolerant plants; soybeans are especially vulnerable. Pengyn Chen, PhD, a professor of soybean breeding and genetics at the University of Missouri’s Fisher Delta Research Center, reports that his soybeans leaves curled up into cups and grew fragile unusual side branches due to dicamba drift.

Dr. Chen has seen damage for the past three years as dicamba use has increased around his research station. The nature of Dr. Chen’s work bars him from switching to dicamba resistant crops, a switch many farmers make to avoid the impacts of drift. Dr. Chen studies many varieties of soybeans, including obscure types that private companies ignore. His research aims to find combinations of soybean genes that maximize resilience and productivity. As a public soybean breeder, he produces seeds that are cheaper than private commercial varieties. However, Dr. Chen worries that the drift of pesticides like dicamba will make it impossible for such research and the public soybean market to survive. “If you kill the public research programs, who is going to study disease resistance, or stress tolerance? Those efforts are going to be gone,” says Dr. Chen.

Professors and soybean breeders at the University of Nebraska, Kansas State, and the University of Arkansas have also confirmed that their test plots exhibit exposure to dicamba. At the University of Arkansas, research station manager Mike Duren reports that his soybeans are showing similar symptoms to Dr. Chen’s, cupped leaves and pointed tips, hallmark signs of dicamba exposure. Duren notes that the only soybeans that are growing normally are the few plots of commercial dicamba-tolerant soybeans planted for comparison.

Bayer/Monsanto continues to say that dicamba does not cause problems when used properly. The company wrote in an email to NPR that they are aware of the damages to Dr. Chen’s research crop and that it is perhaps the result of a nearby farmer spraying an older, unauthorized version of the chemical. However, scientists and researchers continue to worry about the future of crop research. Projections indicate that 60% of all soybeans grown in the US will be dicamba tolerant this year, meaning that farmers will be spraying dicamba on about 50 million acres of land.

These new reports of damaged research crops support the need for better regulation of dicamba and other toxic pesticides that kill crops, impact wildlife, and pose a threat to human health when drift occurs. Environmental advocates say it is evident that current regulations are insufficient. Duren’s fields prove that even the 1 mile buffer zone required in Arkansas is inadequate protection.

Beyond Pesticides ultimately supports a transition away from toxic pesticides towards organic practices that promote pest resilience and decrease the need for these toxic chemicals. A wide variety of alternative practices and products are available to assist growers in this transition. In the meantime, we encourage you to reach out to local officials in your area to voice your concern regarding regulations and dicamba drift. If you think you may be experiencing the effects of drift, please visit our What to Do in a Pesticide Emergency page, and contact us for additional information.

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

Source: NPR

Photo credit: Dan Charles/NPR

Ditch draining seed crop lands before emptying into Majors Bay. (Earthjustice photo)

(Beyond Pesticides, July 24, 2019) The U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai’i has found the state’s Agribusiness Development Corporation (ADC) guilty of violating the Clean Water Act. The case, brought by organizations including Surfrider Foundation, Pesticide Action Network North America, and others, represented by Earthjustice, accused ADC of dumping water contaminated with pesticides, including the cancer-causing herbicide glyphosate, into the Pacific Ocean off of West Kauai without a permit since 2015. Hawai’i bears the brunt of agribusiness wrongdoings, and Kauai in particular has faced past issues of pesticide injustice at the hands of the ADC. However, this new ruling marks a turn in past decisions that have favored agribusiness, as the judge found ADC violations. Advocates hope that this decision will highlight the need for government accountability, and increase transparency about what pesticides and chemicals are entering our oceans.

The ADC system collects groundwater and storm water runoff through a series of canals, ditches, and pumps. The polluted water, full of toxic pesticides and chemicals, discharges into the Pacific Ocean along popular beaches that residents use for recreational activities, including surfing and fishing. The case brought against ADC accuses the department of dumping this water without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Under the Clean Water Act, a NPDES permit is needed when pollutants are discharged from a point source (an identifiable source) into the “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS). However, in 2008, EPA passed an exemption, the Water Transfer Rule (WTR), which enables permit-free water transfer between two bodies of water “without subjecting the transferred water to intervening industrial, municipal or commercial use.”

ADC claims that this WTR exemption applies to their water system, and that any discharge from their canals into the Pacific Ocean is a water transfer from one jurisdictional water into another. Essentially, the ADC claims that their water system qualifies as a WOTUS, a claim that the judge found “suspect.” The decision points out that ADC had previously acted as though its water was a point source not a WOTUS, and since there had been no “intervening changes to the definition of a WOTUS, to the interpretation of the definition, or the physical structure or function of the system itself,” ADC did not satisfy the burden of proof that its water system now qualifies as a WOTUS.

Additionally, ADC did not dispute the fact that the water in its system is polluted with pesticides, ADC argued that the pollution is legal under the WTR exemption. According to state law, transfers of water between U.S. bodies of water are exempt even when it might transfer dirty water into clean water. However, this point is moot. As the judge stated in the decision, “the transfers at issue here are not exempt under the WTR because pollutants are added during the transfer.” These pollutants include a slew of deleterious chemicals, such as degradates (break-down products) of glyphosate and DDT, ametryn, atrazine, bentazon, and other toxic pesticides and metals.

“This is really a major finding that our government, DLNR, and Department of Health are not protecting the environment or protecting the health of us,” said Carl Berg, PhD, Surfrider chapter senior scientist. Dr. Berg has long been skeptical of the quality of the water of West Kauai where the ADC System discharges. He began testing the water in 2014, and found troubling results: The water contained some of the most widely used chemicals, including glyphosate.

The ruling that ADC dumped these chemicals and pollutants into the Pacific Ocean in violation of the Clean Water Act is a victory for the residents of Hawaii and West Kauai who have previously brought complaints against the ADC. Plaintiffs in the case hope that as a result of this violation, ADC will either get the NPDES permit which requires that they record and report on its water quality and pesticide levels, or halt operations. “There is still more work to be done to figure out exactly what ADC will do and when, but from our perspective ADC either needs to go ahead and get a permit as soon as possible,” said Wager Cruz, attorney for Earthjustice in the lawsuit, to KOHN2. As history of agribusiness activity on the Hawaiian Islands has shown, there is an urgent need for real transparency and accountability from the multinational corporations making use of the state’s pristine growing conditions.

For more information about the fight to protect Hawaiian residents and the environment from toxic trespass, see Beyond Pesticides’ previous Daily News stories. And to learn more about the dangers pesticides pose to water quality, see the Threatened Waters program page.

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

Source: KOHN2, U.S. District Court Filing, Earthjustice

(Beyond Pesticides, July 23, 2019) Last week, U.S. Representative Nydia M. Velazquez introduced legislation to cancel all uses of the pesticide paraquat, which is acutely toxic and strongly linked to Parkinson’s disease. The move is supported by the Unified Parkinson’s Advocacy Council – a group led by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research – as well as other health and environmental groups such as Beyond Pesticides. Paraquat, which is a dangerous, fast-acting nonselective herbicide that kills by burning living tissues, is also unnecessary. Organic agriculture provides an alternative that does not depend on toxic chemicals like paraquat.

Tell your U.S. Representative to support H.R. 3817 to cancel the use of paraquat.

According to the EPA, “one small sip [of paraquat] can be fatal, and there is no antidote.” Advocates are pushing for its elimination from the American agriculture system for many reasons, including acute toxicity and organ failure by inhalation, oral intake and dermal absorption; chronic toxicity affecting the eyes, lungs, liver, kidneys and endocrine system; and a higher incidence of various cancers after exposure.

The EPA characterizes paraquat as “extremely biologically active and toxic to plants and animals.” The agency has previously determined that exposure to this herbicide harms birds, fish, amphibians and small mammals. Paraquat is significantly harming the federally protected California red-legged frog, and likely is harmful to many other endangered and threatened species of wildlife and plants.

In addition, research indicates low-level chronic exposure significantly increases the risk of Parkinson’s disease. The exact causes of Parkinson’s disease are unknown, although research points to a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Certain chemicals, such as paraquat, increase production of reactive oxygen species that may harm cellular structures and cause the disease. Recent research links paraquat and several other herbicides to the development of Parkinson’s pathology and symptoms. The most recent scientific studies indicate:

• Paraquat increases the likelihood of an exposed person developing Parkinson’s disease;
• The effect is dose dependent; and
• When combined with other factors, such as genetic disposition, exposure to the fungicide maneb or the insecticide rotenone, the risk is even greater.

Thirty-two countries, including South Korea, China, Serbia, Zimbabwe and members of the European Union (where the chemical is manufactured and exported), have weighed the benefits and the potential harms posed by paraquat and banned the herbicide.

The economic and emotional costs of living with Parkinson’s are too high to continue allowing the use of an herbicide so strongly linked to the disease. A person with PD spends an estimated $26,400 per year on their care, and Parkinson’s results in an annual economic burden of $19.8 to $26.4 billion in the United States. Many of those costs affect the government because of the significant number of Parkinson’s patients who rely on programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance.

To protect human and environmental health, harmful chemicals like paraquat should be removed from use. Beyond Pesticides and other organizations stand ready to assist farming communities in transforming pest management by eliminating a reliance on toxic pesticides and adopting organic practices.

Tell your U.S. Representative to support H.R. 3817 to cancel the use of paraquat.

Letter to Congress

Please support H.R. 3817, which would cancel the use of paraquat – a pesticide that is acutely toxic and strongly linked to Parkinson’s disease by scientific research.

According to the EPA, “one small sip [of paraquat] can be fatal and there is no antidote.” By generating free radicals, it essentially burns its way through the body and targets the lungs and other organs. Most acutely toxic exposures result in death, sometimes delayed by as much as three weeks. What more, the EPA characterizes paraquat as “extremely biologically active and toxic to plants and animals.” The agency has previously determined that exposure to this herbicide harms birds, fish, amphibians and small mammals.

Research indicates low-level chronic exposure significantly increases the risk of Parkinson’s disease. The exact cause of Parkinson’s disease is unknown, although research points to a combination of genetic and environmental factors. The most recent scientific studies indicate:

• Paraquat increases the likelihood of an exposed person developing Parkinson’s disease;
• The effect is dose dependent; and
• When combined with other factors, such as genetic disposition, exposure to the fungicide maneb or the insecticide rotenone, the risk is even greater.

Thirty-two countries, including South Korea, China, Serbia, Zimbabwe and members of the European Union (where the chemical is manufactured and exported), have weighed the benefits and the potential harms posed by paraquat and banned the herbicide.

The economic and emotional costs of living with Parkinson’s are too high to continue allowing the use of an herbicide so strongly linked to the disease. A person with PD spends an estimated $26,400 per year on their care, and Parkinson’s results in an annual economic burden of $19.8 to $26.4 billion in the United States. Many of those costs affect the government because of the significant number of Parkinson’s patients who rely on programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Disability Insurance.

To protect human and environmental health, harmful chemicals like paraquat should be removed from use. Please support this bill and take further steps to protect human health by supporting organic agriculture as an alternative to chemical-intensive farming.

Thank you.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 22, 2019) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will permit the continued use of a known neurotoxic insecticide on the food the Americans eat, the agency announced yesterday in response to a lawsuit filed by public health groups. Health advocates say the move to continue chlorpyrifos use is the latest example of the agency working to protect the profits of industry over the health of Americans.

“By allowing chlorpyrifos to stay in our fruits and vegetables, Trump’s EPA is breaking the law and neglecting the overwhelming scientific evidence that this pesticide harms children’s brains,” said Patti Goldman, an attorney for Earthjustice. “It is a tragedy that this administration sides with corporations instead of children’s health.”

Under a lawsuit filed in the 9^th Circuit US Court of Appeals, EPA had 90 days to provide a justification for why the pesticide should remain on the market. EPA denied the petition yesterday, and rather than providing positive justification for continued use of the chemical, attacked the sound science claimants urged the agency to consider as “not…valid, complete, and reliable.”

In the absence of EPA action, several states are leading in the protection of their residents by rejecting the agency’s determination regarding the safety of chlorpyrifos, and banning its use. Two years ago, Hawaii became the first state to take action through a phase-out that completely eliminates all use of the chemical by 2022. Legislation passed in New York earlier this year would leapfrog Hawaii’s phase out period, halting all use of the chemical by December 2021 (Residents of New York are encouraged to contact Governor Cuomo’s office and urge him to sign the ban bill that has been sitting on his desk).

In California, a state with heavy chlorpyrifos use, regulators became the first to eliminate use of the chemical through the rulemaking process, as state lawmakers have so far failed to enact restrictions.

“Every day we go without a ban, children and farmworkers are eating, drinking and breathing a pesticide linked to intellectual and learning disabilities and poisonings,” said the 12 plaintiff organizations challenging the 2017 decision. “We will continue to fight until chlorpyrifos is banned and children and farmworkers are safe from this dangerous chemical.”

Chlorpyrifos damages fetal brains and produces cognitive and behavioral dysfunctions, particularly in children. Prenatal and early life exposure to chlorpyrifos is linked to lower birth weight and neurodevelopmental harms, including reduced IQ, loss of working memory, attention disorders, and delayed motor development. Farmworkers are at heightened risk of acute exposure effects of the chemical (including accidents and spills), which can cause respiratory paralysis and even death.

While EPA determined nearly 20 years ago that the chemical should not be used in residential areas, it maintained uses on food crops, where even low levels of residues on food can end up harming children’s health. For a timeline on the history of chlorpyrifos regulation, see this previous Daily News article.

As EPA’s inaction on the chemical reveals, people in the U.S. cannot continue to rely on an agency whose Administrator holds secret meetings with pesticide registrants like Dow Chemical and, as a result, makes determinations that are not protective of children’s health. Work to ban chlorpyrifos and other neurotoxic insecticides by contacting your state’s Governor and urging them to follow the lead of Hawaii, New York, and California.  To fight chlorpyrifos use every day, help support an agricultural system that does not rely on the chemical or any other highly toxic WW2-era organophosphate pesticides by buying organic whenever possible.

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

Source: EPA release, EarthJustice Press Release

(Beyond Pesticides, July 19, 2019) A high-level, nongovernmental commission in the United Kingdom (UK) — the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) Food, Farming and Countryside Commission — has just released an important report: Our Future in the Land. As reported by The Guardian, “The true cost of cheap, unhealthy food is a spiralling public health crisis and environmental destruction.” The commission’s report calls for radical transformation of the UK food and agricultural system, by 2030, to sustainable, agroecological farming, and establishes steps to launch the process.

A notable one of those steps is the creation of a nonprofit National Agroecology Development Bank to hasten and enable a fair and sustainable transition of a complex system. The commission also published a Field Guide to the Future, which it describes as a “practical guide, with interviews and stories from the RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission’s work across the UK, [including] case studies of good practice and stories of change [that] hint at a better future.”

Our Future in the Land declares, “Our future depends on the land. The land nourishes and supports us. It provides for our nutrition, our health and our wellbeing. Food and farming depend critically on the fate of the countryside. Those who live and work here are the stewards of this relationship but the responsibility for it rests with us all. Our own health and the health of the land are inextricably intertwined. In the last 70 years, this relationship has been broken. Driven by poor policy and perverse incentives, the food and farming system has become one of the main drivers of human and ecosystem crisis. From deforestation, loss of wildlife and soil degradation, to widespread pollution and spiralling diet-related ill-health, people and planet have suffered alike. Far from being the sector that nourishes us, and the land on which we all depend, the system has damaged and depleted our precious and finite resources.”

The 80-plus page report is chock full of context, analysis, and ideas for ways forward. An RSA website page offers a top-level look at the report’s major recommendations, and introduces them with this: “The actions we take in the next ten years, to stop ecosystems collapse, to recover and regenerate nature and to restore people’s health and wellbeing are now critical. In this final report, the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission sets out radical and practical ways for policymakers, business and communities to respond to the challenges.” The report identifies 15 different recommendations across three concept areas:

• Healthy food is everybody’s business.

Levelling the playing field for a fair food system: good food must become good business; committing to grow the UK supply of fruit, vegetables, nuts, and pulses, and products from UK sustainable agriculture, and to using them more in everyday foods; implementing world-leading public procurement, using this powerful tool to transform the market; establishing collaborative community food plans to help inform and implement national food strategies and meet the different needs of communities around the UK; reconnecting people and nature to boost health and wellbeing.

•  Farming is a force for change, unleashing a fourth agricultural revolution driven by public values.

Designing a 10-year transition plan to achieve sustainable, agroecological farming by 2030; backing innovation by farmers to unleash a fourth agricultural revolution; making sure every farmer can get trusted, independent advice by training a cadre of peer mentors and a farmer support network; boosting cooperation and collaboration by extending support for producer organizations to all sectors; establishing a National Agroecology Development Bank to accelerate a fair and sustainable transition.

•  A countryside that works for all, and rural communities are a powerhouse for a fair and green economy.

Establishing a national land-use framework in England inspires cooperation based on the public value of land, mediating and encouraging multipurpose uses; investing in the skills and rural infrastructure to underpin the rural economy; creating more good work in the regenerative economy; developing sustainable solutions to meet rural housing need; establishing a National Nature Service that employs the energy of young people to kickstart the regenerative economy.

The report involved leaders from the agriculture, health, governance, and food system–business sectors. The commission concluded that most UK farmers believe that they could achieve transformative changes in their practices if they received sufficient financial and technical support. Organic Wales farmer and director of the RSA commission, Sue Pritchard, commented, “Farmers are extraordinarily adaptable. We have to live with change every single day of our lives. . . . We [on the commission] are really keen that farmers feel they are in the driving seat and that they can be a force of change. At the moment, a lot of farmers feel beleaguered and that they have become the bad guys. But without sustainable, secure and safe farming in the UK, we will not survive.” UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove welcomed the report, and said, “This report raises issues that are hugely important. We know that it is in the interests of farmers and landowners to move to a more sustainable model.”

The RSA Food, Farming & Countryside Commission called out many years of government policy — which has influenced the food system to generate cheap, processed food — as bearing responsibility for growing rates of obesity, diabetes, and other health issues, and degraded environment, atmosphere, and biodiversity. Ms. Pritchard notes that the UK has the third cheapest food prices among “developed” countries and the highest European rate of “food poverty” — the ability of people to afford a healthful diet. She also noted that Type 2 diabetes costs the UK £27 billion a year; agriculture generates more than 10% of the UK’s greenhouse gases; and farming is the largest destroyer of wildlife, with populations of key species having plummeted by 67% since 1970, and 13% of species now nearing extinction.

To solve these crises, the report says, “agroecology” practices must be supported. The RSA report defines the term this way: “Agroecology means farming in ways that learn from, work with and enhance natural systems. Integrated pest management, organic farming, conservation and regenerative agriculture, and agroforestry are all examples.” The commission says, in its report, that it has “followed the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN’s definition of agroecology as ‘an integrated approach that applies ecological and social principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems. It seeks to optimise the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment and the social aspects that need to be addressed for a sustainable and fair food system.’ It applies the principles of the regenerative economy to agriculture.”

Here in the U.S., people are likely more familiar with the terms and concepts of organic and regenerative farming than with “agroecology.” There is significant overlap among all three, with each term centering a somewhat different emphasis. Regenerative agriculture, according to Regeneration International, “not only ‘does no harm’ to the land but actually improves it, using technologies that regenerate and revitalize the soil and the environment. Regenerative agriculture leads to healthy soil, capable of producing high quality, nutrient dense food while simultaneously improving, rather than degrading land, and ultimately leading to productive farms and healthy communities and economies.” Organic is the only comprehensive food production category that has a legal standard and a label.

The use of pesticides has demonstrably harmful effects on human health, biodiversity, and the functioning of natural ecological systems, as Beyond Pesticides has chronicled for decades. Among the steps the RSA report sets out is creation of a timetable for more-stringent control of the use of pesticides, “anticipating that the scientific case for this will continue to grow.” The report adds, “The pesticide registration process needs re-evaluation, as too many are approved which, years later, are shown to be harmful. This should include the ‘chemical cocktail’ effect. Much more stringent regulation is needed of spraying near water courses and residential areas, and prophylactic use of antibiotics.”

As Beyond Pesticides has long promoted, organic practices, which are codified in the federal National Organic Standards (NOS), comprise a big part of the ultimate solution to the problems this UK report addresses. Organic eschews the use of toxic, synthetic pesticides and soil inputs (e.g., fertilizers), and endorses practices that improve soil health and biodiversity, and generally depend on mechanical and some biological controls for pest problems, rather than on toxic chemicals. Organic practices may include conservation tillage, cover cropping, composting, and crop rotation, among other techniques — all with the aims of increasing production of healthful food, feeding and improving the soil, and making farming economically viable. 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.

Sources: https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/projects/psc/ffcc/reports-2/1.-our-future-in-the-land_executive-summary_july19.pdf and https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/16/true-cost-of-cheap-food-is-health-and-climate-crises-says-commission

(Beyond Pesticides, July 18, 2019) Pesticide products containing the weed killer dicamba become more volatile and drift-prone in hot conditions and when tank-mixed with glyphosate, according to a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of Tennessee. The findings help explain rampant complaints from farmers in the South and Midwest experiencing crop loss and economic hardship as a result of drift from new dicamba products, which are formulated with glyphosate for use on genetically engineered (GE) cotton and soy. While states have taken the lead in regulating the use of GE dicamba products, top political officials within Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s EPA overruled the findings from agency scientists urging larger buffer zones to protect neighboring crops and farm fields.

During a 60-hour window, scientists applied various GE dicamba products (Clarity and XtendiMax) over a range of temperatures and took air samples. As temperatures increased, so did the volatilization and drift of dicamba, even in formulations touted as “low volatility.”

Adding glyphosate to the mixture produced stark results, increasing concentrations of dicamba in the air up to nine times compared to dicamba alone. Tom Mueller, PhD, a professor in the UT Department of Plant Sciences, stated in a press release that glyphosate as “a contributor to dicamba volatility is not as widely accepted, but our data shows the addition of glyphosate to a dicamba spray solution increased dicamba detection in the atmosphere which would point to increased volatilization.” Dr. Mueller and his colleagues hypothesize that this increase in volatility is due to the fact that glyphosate lowers the pH of the tank mix, raising the quantity of dicamba in acid form, which is already known to boost volatility.

Dicamba is an herbicide that acts like natural plant hormones called auxins. Auxins help to control plant growth and, when dicamba is applied, the plants experience uncontrolled and abnormal growth resulting in death. Glyphosate on the other hand works by inhibiting the shikimic acid pathway (and enzyme pathway), preventing protein creation. Dicamba use is increasing due to the failure of glyphosate-tolerant GE crops, which have resulted in the widespread proliferation of glyphosate tolerant-weeds. While the major manufacture of glyphosate+dicamba pesticides, Bayer Monsanto, claims new formulas have lower volatility, millions of acres of susceptible crops, trees, and ornamental plants have been damaged in the last few years, and research finds that even trace amounts of dicamba in the air, levels in the parts per million, can damage non-resistant crops.

Mixing these two herbicides has become a popular practice in an attempt to manage weeds resistant to glyphosate, a result of repeated spraying of fGE crop fields. However, exposure to either herbicide poses a health risk 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.

Since 2016, numerous lawsuits have been brought regarding dicamba, several over the issue of damage from drift. As a result, some states, such Arkansas and Missouri, have attempted to enact cutoff dates for use to avoid extreme volatility in summer heat. However, many states still lack policies, and those that are in place do not completely prevent the damage caused by drift.

Given the volatility of dicamba alone, and the increased drift when mixed with glyphosate and when exposed to heat, it is evident that more regulation is needed. Current policies in place must be reevaluated, and policies that regulate mixing of these chemicals must be put in place to ensure clean air and reduce crop loss. As opposed to the nefarious actions undertaken by political appointees under Wheeler’s EPA to undermine science and reasonable protections from these toxic pesticides, the agency must begin following the precautionary principle, taking measures to assess for harm before approval. Beyond Pesticides encourages farmers wishing to jump off the pesticide treadmill to adopt organic approaches that do not perpetuate a cycle of pesticide resistance, eliminating the need for these harmful chemicals, mixes of them, and risk of drift. Those impacted by pesticide drift can refer to Beyond Pesticides’ webpage on What to Do in a Pesticide Emergency, and contact the organization for additional information.

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

Source: Science Daily, Weed Technology (peer reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, July 17, 2019) A March 2017 bird kill incident in Modesto, CA can be traced directly back to an insecticide “soil drench” applied to the base of several elm trees by pesticide applicators hired by the city, as detailed in a study published last month in the Journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. The chemical in question, the neonicotinoid imidacloprid, is implicated in the ongoing pollinator crisis and insect apocalypse, but can also affect bird populations. Prior research estimated that a single seed coated with the insecticide is enough to kill a songbird; this study confirms that such a scenario can and does play out in the real world. Progress and improvement will only occur when pest management practices stop focusing on pesticide use to solve routine pest problems and emphasize prevention.

As part of city-wide pest management activities, Modesto officials said that imidacloprid was applied to elm trees in several front yards in a local neighborhood. The application took the form of a “soil drench,” which is when pesticide products are applied to the soil around the base of a tree or shrub. The systemic property of imidacloprid and other systemic insecticides means that the chemical will move through the soil, be taken up by the roots and translocated into the rest of the the plant.

While that mechanism poses significant risks to bees and a range of insect pollinators that feed on pollen, nectar, and dew drops contaminated by the systemic insecticide, it is the drench itself that led to the death of over two dozen goldfinches in Modesto. Researchers determined that elm seeds that had fallen from the tree prior to the application were contaminated with imidacloprid during the soil drench. Goldfinches that ate the seeds experienced acute poisoning and sudden death, some falling from their perch to crashing to the ground after attempting to fly.

“The mortality event investigated in the present study highlights a previously unidentified risk of drench application for imidacloprid,” said study co-author Krysta Rogers, Wildlife Investigation Laboratory Investigator, in a news release. “The pesticide label states that the product be applied to the base of the tree and directly to the root zone. [However] Seeds, insects, or other invertebrates consumed by birds and other animals may be present within that zone. If these food items were contaminated during the drench application, they would be highly toxic to animals when ingested.”

Researchers autopsied the birds, finding elm seeds and detectable levels of imidacloprid in the gizzard contents (between 2.2-8.5 ppm) and liver tissue (between 2.1-4.8 ppm) of the affected goldfinches, consistent with the presence of imidacloprid on elm seeds found around soil drenched trees.

The City of Modesto indicates that applicators followed the label correctly. Consequently, this incident points to a serious, but not unexpected, shortfall in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation of toxic pesticides. EPA aims to avert risks from inherently hazardous substances through the proper application of these hazardous substances. However, as Beyond Pesticides has long pointed out, regulating pesticides primarily through label statements is inherently flawed, given the complexity of real world scenarios that can occur and result in harm to wildlife and human health.

Researchers intimate that it is possible that such poisonings may be widespread, but “may not be on the list of differential diagnoses unless it is known that a pesticide application took place.” While it is typical to find birds with seeds in their digestive tracks, researchers would not consider testing them for poisoning without prior knowledge of pesticide use in an area.

The study concludes by urging pest managers to look towards integrated approaches that discourage “the prophylactic use of pesticides” that resulted in the death of the goldfinches in Modesto. Pesticide use should never be the first tool land managers use in their toolbox. All other options, including cultural, mechanical, biological, and habitat manipulation, should be attempted before considering even less toxic pesticidal products. For more information on healthy tree care, see Beyond Pesticides’ “Mail” section from its spring 2018 newsletter, and for issues with tree pests, see the ManageSafe webpage.

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

Source: UPI,  Journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

(Beyond Pesticides, July 16, 2019) USDA’s proposed new rules on genetically engineered (GE) crops exempt almost all GE crops from regulation and allow the company that makes them to decide whether they are safe. The rules proposed by USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) benefit companies like Monsanto/Bayer and Dow, but fail to protect farmers, consumers, and the environment. Please tell APHIS to abandon its proposal and support a regulatory system that is consistent with modern science.

Tell USDA not to allow companies to approve their own GE crops.

The rules would govern USDA’s role in the outdated and fatally flawed “Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology.” The Framework fails to account for the unique risks of genetic engineering, using existing laws like the Plant Protection Act to address issues for which they were not designed. This proposal weakens the APHIS regulations even more.

All genetically engineered (GE) organisms—plants, animals, or microorganisms—should be subjected to systematic assessments of human and environmental effects and indirect economic effects (such as contamination of organic or non-GE crops leading to rejection in foreign markets, spread of resistant pests, etc.) before being allowed on the market. These assessments must be made available to the public for comment. All products from GE organisms in the marketplace should be labeled as such to allow consumer choice and to permit tracking of unintended health effects. Companies that develop GE organisms should be required to disclose any GE trait, marker genes, or other genetic constructs that might be present in a commercial GE seed product, including traits and genes for obsolete, no longer marketed traits. In addition, the definition of genetic engineering should be broad enough to include all the newer genetic engineering techniques, such as RNAi or the new gene-editing technologies (such as CRISPR-cas9, TALEN, ZNF, and meganucleases).

In particular, APHIS regulations should:

• Base the regulation of GE organisms on the unique hazards they present;
• Include “synthetic biology” in the definition of regulated genetic engineering;
• Prohibit developers from exempting themselves from regulation;
• Regulate PMPIs—plant-made pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals;
• Ensure that PIPs—plant incorporated protectants—are regulated at all scales;
• Address hazards other than “plant pest” risks, including: The unwelcome presence of GE genes in neighboring fields of organic or identity-preserved crops, the creation of new compounds in a plant, formed in the plant’s detoxification of herbicides, the movement of genes for manufacture of industrial or pharmaceutical chemicals into crop plants, the creation of “superweeds” (plant pests) through selection for resistance to herbicides continually used on GE crops, the overuse of herbicides in cropping systems dependent on the use of herbicides sprayed over herbicide-tolerant crops, destruction of habitat adjacent to farm fields by overuse of nonselective herbicides sprayed over herbicide-tolerant crops, selection for resistance in insects targeted by PIPs, reduction in populations of insects due to effects of PIPs and destruction of habitat adjacent to fields sprayed by nonselective herbicides over herbicide-tolerant crops, and health effects suffered by those exposed to excessive use of herbicides.

Sign your name to our petition (link below), which we will send to APHIS. To be even more effective, submit your own comments through the Regulations.gov website. Feel free to copy from the language in the petition and/or that in the Beyond Pesticides comments.

Tell USDA not to allow companies to approve their own GE crops.

Petition: USDA Must Offer Basic Protection from Genetically Engineered Organisms
USDA Docket APHIS-2018-0034-0037 

The “Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology” fails to account for the unique risks of genetic engineering, using existing laws like the Plant Protection Act to address issues for which they were not designed. This proposal weakens the APHIS regulations even more.

All genetically engineered (GE) organisms—plants, animals, or microorganisms—should be subjected to systematic assessments of human and environmental effects and indirect economic effects (such as contamination of organic or non-GE crops leading to rejection in foreign markets, spread of resistant pests, etc.) before being allowed on the market. These assessments must be made available to the public for comment. All products from GE organisms in the marketplace must be labeled as such to allow consumer choice and to permit tracking of unintended health effects. Companies that develop GE organisms should be required to disclose any GE trait, marker genes, or other genetic constructs that might be present in a commercial GE seed product, including traits and genes for obsolete, no longer marketed traits. In addition, the definition of genetic engineering should be broad enough to include all the newer genetic engineering techniques such as RNAi or the new gene-editing technologies (such as CRISPR-cas9, TALEN, ZNF, and meganucleases).

In particular, APHIS regulations should:

• Base the regulation of GE organisms on the unique hazards they present;
• Include “synthetic biology” in the definition of regulated genetic engineering;
• Prohibit developers from exempting themselves from regulation;
• Regulate PMPIs—plant-made pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals;
• Ensure that PIPs –plant incorporated protectants—are regulated at all scales;
• Address hazards other than “plant pest” risks, including: The unwelcome presence of GE genes in neighboring fields of organic or identity-preserved crops, the creation of new compounds in a plant, formed in the plant’s detoxification of herbicides, the movement of genes for manufacture of industrial or pharmaceutical chemicals into crop plants, the creation of “superweeds” (plant pests) through selection for resistance to herbicides continually used on GE crops, the overuse of herbicides in cropping systems dependent on the use of herbicides sprayed over herbicide-tolerant crops, destruction of habitat adjacent to farm fields by overuse of nonselective herbicides sprayed over herbicide-tolerant crops, selection for resistance in insects targeted by PIPs, reduction in populations of insects due to effects of PIPs and destruction of habitat adjacent to fields sprayed by nonselective herbicides over herbicide-tolerant crops, and health effects suffered by those exposed to excessive use of herbicides.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 15, 2019)  On Friday, Maryland’s highest court upheld the right of local governments to restrict the use of toxic lawn care pesticides more stringently than the state. By denying an appeal from the pesticide industry’s challenge to a lower court ruling, the Maryland Court of Appeals has made official Montgomery County’s 2015 Healthy Lawns Act, which prohibits toxic pesticides from being used on public and private property for cosmetic purposes.

“This long-awaited decision affirms local democratic decision making to protect health and the environment, upholding the first U.S. county law to ban toxic pesticides on private and public property,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of the organization Beyond Pesticides. “The law, now in force, will bring critical health protections for pregnant mothers, children and other vulnerable residents in Montgomery County, and safeguard sensitive wildlife species like pollinators.”

The decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals upholds local democratic decision making in the face of a challenge by industry groups representing lawn care companies and chemical manufacturers. The chemical industry has fought for nearly three decades to suppress the right of local governments in the U.S. to protect public health and safety with pesticide law, having successfully lobbied 43 states to preempt their local political subdivisions’ authority. Seven states uphold local authority, including the state of Maryland, which has affirmed in its legislature the rights of localities by rejecting preemption legislation on numerous occasions.

“This is an important win for the local organic land management movement sweeping the country, as local elected officials embrace practices that protect the health of people and the environment,” said Mr. Feldman. “We hope other Maryland countries watching this lawsuit will follow Montgomery County’s lead and implement these important protections for their own residents.”

The Healthy Lawns Act, first passed in 2015, was overturned by a Circuit Court in 2017. In response, the Montgomery County Council voted to appeal the decision. Nine organizations, including Beyond Pesticides, filed an Amicus brief in support of the county law. This led to a ruling earlier this year by the Maryland Special Court of Appeals, overturning the circuit court decision and affirming Montgomery County’s right to implement the law. “We thank local advocates from Safe Grow Montgomery and the Montgomery County Council for standing up to multi-national pesticide companies’ bullying and regulating these toxic chemicals in a way that reflects the values of their residents and the community,” Mr. Feldman said.

(Beyond Pesticides, July 12, 2019) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced, on Saturday, July 6 that it would suspend indefinitely the data collection for its Honey Bee Colonies survey and report. The move came, tellingly, less than three weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) once again approved “emergency” uses of the pesticide sulfoxaflor, a bee-killing compound similar to the notorious neonicotinoids, insecticides that contribute significantly to the phenomena of pollinator collapse (“colony collapse disorder”) and massive insect loss (“insect apocalypse”) that are underway worldwide.

Sulfoxaflor is one of the many toxic pesticides that threaten honey bees, which are critical pollinators responsible for one-third of the food we humans consume. Permitting its use and then ceasing to collect and report data on the status of honey bees that are likely to be impacted is not only a recipe for kneecapping the study of bee decline and imperiling the food supply, but also, another example of the corruption for which this administration is infamous. As The Huffington Post reported, “Critics say the USDA’s move is the latest evidence of the Trump administration’s war on science, and its goal of suppressing information about serious environmental harms increasing under Donald Trump’s presidency.” Union of Concerned Scientists economist Rebecca Boehm opined to CNN, “This is yet another example of the Trump administration systematically undermining federal research on food safety, farm productivity and the public interest writ large.”

The USDA survey and report had been conducted annually since 2015, through its National Agricultural Statistics Service, to help scientists, farmers, and ultimately, policy makers, understand what has been happening to these pollinators and how to address the crisis. As Common Dreams identifies, “The number of honey bee hives in the U.S. dropped from about six million in 1947 to just 2.4 million in 2008, with 2018 being the worst year on record for hive loss. Beekeepers reported last year that 40 percent of honey bee hives had collapsed, due to a combination of factors including the use of pesticides.”

In 2015, EPA’s unconditional 2013 registration of sulfoxaflor was challenged by plaintiff beekeepers, and overturned by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the basis of EPA’s having approved use of the compound absent reliable studies on the pesticide’s impacts on honey bee colonies. But in 2016, sulfoxaflor’s registration was amended to proscribe use on crops such as sorghum and cotton, which attract bees. Yet EPA regularly uses an “emergency exemption” rule (authorized under Section 18 of FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) to act around such restrictions. In June, as mentioned above, EPA permitted “emergency” uses of sulfoxaflor on cotton and sorghum crops, which could affect as many as 14 million acres. As of 2017, EPA had granted 78 “emergency” exemptions for sulfoxaflor — a pesticide that EPA itself concluded is highly toxic to bees. In 2018, EPA approved treatment of 16.2 million acres with sulfoxaflor under the “emergency” exemption.

The Center for Biological Diversity provides important context for the June exemption: “The approval includes 2019 crops of cotton and sorghum in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Ten of the 11 states have been granted the approvals for at least four consecutive years for the same ‘emergency.’ Five have been given approvals for at least six consecutive years. ‘The only emergency here is the Trump EPA’s reckless approval of this dangerous bee-killing pesticide,’ said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. ‘It’s sickening that even amid the current insect apocalypse, the EPA’s priority is protecting pesticide industry profits.’” She added, “This administration has been grossly abusing this exemption to allow the use of this one pesticide called sulfoxaflor on a vast acreage year after year.”

EPA’s statement announcing this most recent exemption says, “Pollinator protection efforts remain critical, even under emergency conditions. For each emergency exemption, mitigation measures were put in place to minimize exposure and reduce the potential for unreasonable risks to the environment. The approvals include advisory guidance for protecting bees, and users must also follow all existing EPA guidance for pollinator protection.” The EPA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has recognized the misuse of FIFRA Section 18, and introduced some reality about EPA’s actual commitment to pollinator protection when it wrote in 2018 that EPA “does not have outcome measures in place to determine how well the emergency exemption process maintains human health and environmental safeguards.”

The OIG also noted that, “The program office also does not have comprehensive internal controls to manage the emergency exemption data it collects,” and “OPP [Office of Pesticide Programs] does not consistently communicate emergency exemption information with its stakeholders.” Beyond Pesticides added: “Section 18 is intended to be utilized for unanticipated, urgent, and short-lived pest situations. Instead, it is harnessed as an effective, chronic workaround [of] FIFRA registration and appropriate limits of use.”

Beyond Pesticides opposes the current misuse of Section 18 of FIFRA. During the past decade, Beyond Pesticides’ monitoring of the situation has noticed increasing numbers of state requests for Section 18 exemptions to control a variety of resistant weed and insect pests. Exemptions are frequently approved for such requests. Of course, herbicide-resistant weeds and organisms have proliferated across the U.S. in the last 10 years as a predictable consequence of pesticide use. The argument has been made that such sequelae hardly constitute an “emergency.”

The problems of pesticide-induced impacts — on the health of pollinators, humans, and other organisms; the environmental toxicity and harm that pesticides cause; and the serious and emergent issue of resistance — call out for a real fix: adoption of organic land management practices in the agricultural sector. Such practices can prevent disease and infestation, and are a long-term, sustainable approach that would end reliance on chemically intensive controls that exacerbate the problems that are currently the “easy” remedy to which most farming operations turn.

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

Source: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/08/usda-indefinitely-suspends-honey-bee-tracking-survey-states-get-approval-use-bee

(Beyond Pesticides, July 11, 2019) Pregnant mothers with higher concentrations of pesticide metabolites (breakdown products) in their urine are more likely to have children who develop symptoms of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), according to research conducted by the University of Southern Denmark and Odense University Hospital. The results of this study are consistent with past findings from Rutgers University and Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center, indicating a need for researchers to determine causality, and pesticide regulators to rein in toxic insecticide use.

The pesticides investigated by researchers were breakdown products of the organophosphate chlorpyrifos, and the synthetic pyrethroid class of insecticides. The residue of these chemicals are frequently detected on conventional, industrially farmed food products. Although chlorpyrifos is banned from residential use in the U.S., most household bug sprays such as RAID contain high amounts of synthetic pyrethroids.

Among the 948 pregnant Danish women tested, 90% had some level of chlorpyrifos metabolites (3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol) detected in their urine, and 94% were positive for the generic pyrethroid metabolite (3-phenoxybenzoic acid).

Scientists continued to follow up with pregnant women’s children through the first five years of life. A child behavioral check list was completed to determine the relative level of ADHD symptoms.

Concentrations of both chlorpyrifos and pyrethroid breakdown products in maternal urine samples above the median detection rate for the study corresponded with a 98% increase in odds of their children having ADHD scores in the 90^th percentile, a strong predictor for an ADHD diagnosis. According to a regression model calculated by researchers, each time maternal urinary concentrations of generic pyrethroid metabolites doubled, it was associated with a 3% higher expected ADHD score, and a 13% higher chance of the child scoring in the 90^th percentile. The results were similar regardless of gender reported.

“We see a clear connection between these insecticides in the urine samples of the women and the ADHD symptoms displayed by their children,” Louise Dalsager, a co-author of the study and PhD student to The Copenhagen Post. “It was surprising to see that the connection was noticeable, even if the concentrations weren’t particularly high.”

It is particularly concerning that low levels of pesticide metabolites, chemicals that can be relatively quickly excreted from the body through urine, corresponded with the health endpoints studied in offspring up to five years later. And this concern is buttressed by reports that both children and their parents are increasingly exposed to pyrethroid insecticides.

Studies find that higher rates of ADHD is also associated to direct exposure in children, and pyrethroid metabolites found in children’s urine. In 2015, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center found a strong association between urinary pyrethroid concentrations and ADHD, but primarily in boys. Any concentrations found above the level of detection corresponded to a three-fold increase in the chance of developing ADHD, when compared to boys without detectable levels.

Another 2015 study from Rutgers University found that, of over 2,000 children who had ever received an ADHD diagnosis, children with higher urinary pyrethroid metabolite levels were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD.

The impact of pyrethroids is not limited to ADHD. A 2017 study by French scientists tracking urinary pyrethroid levels in both pregnant women and their children found associations between both externalizing and internalizing behavioral disorders. A 2013 Canadian study found significant associations between past use of pesticides around the home within the previous month and elevated scores on behavioral and emotional conduct tests. And a 2011 study found that children with high levels of exposure to pyrethroids and the synergist piperonyl butoxide (often added to pyrethroid products to increase their potency) scored lower on tests for cognitive motor development. At the time, renown pediatrician Philip Landrigan remarked that the intelligence lost from pyrethroid exposure was the same level seen by exposure to lead.

ADHD is estimated to affect 8-12% of school-age children worldwide. While it is a complex disease, and genetics may play a role, no specific gene has been found, and there is increasing evidence that environmental factors like pesticide exposure facilitate the development of the condition. The good news is that avoiding pyrethroids and the organophosphate insecticide chloryrifos is possible. Numerous studies find that levels of pesticide metabolites in urine drop precipitously when switching to an all organic diet. And when pest problems occur around the home, you should never need to resort to highly toxic, yet sadly commonly used pyrethroid-based products like RAID. To assist with those pest problems, see Beyond Pesticides ManageSafe database or reach out to our office through [email protected] or 202-543-5450.

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

Source: The Copenhagen Post, Environmental Research (peer reviewed journal)

(Beyond Pesticides, July 10, 2019) The California Coastal Commission will host a public hearing today on a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposal to drop 1.5 tons of the rodenticide brodifacoum, an extremely potent anticoagulant, on the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. The Los Angeles Times headline on July 7 read, “Biologists say it’s for the best.” At the least, it is important to highlight that all biologists have not come to a consensus and the topic is very much still under debate. The commission has already received over 700 emails regarding the drop, with 600 opposing it.

Home to rare, endemic seabirds such as the ashy storm-petrel, the Farallon Islands certainly have a serious mouse problem – 59,000 rodents occupy the rocky islands. Mice compete with native species for resources and attract an average of six burrowing owls a year. Owls feast upon ashy storm-petrels when mouse populations drop during the winter, killing hundreds of petrels annually. The global population of the ashy storm-petrel is small (10,000 – 20,000), but it is not considered an endangered species. The Audubon Society in California, which supports the brodifacoum program, worked with experts who say the eradication of invasive mice is the top priority for protecting the ashy storm-petrel from further decline.

Critics do not deny that invasive mice need to be managed on the islands but take issue with the aerial broadcast of an extremely potent rat poison. “This is a case of using a shotgun to go after an ant,” said Richard Charter of the Ocean Foundation. Curious and hungry nontarget species such as Western Gulls, fish, and other marine animals become poisoned when they eat bait. What more, there can be secondary exposure when raptors or marine animals consume these poisoned animals. The predicted losses of Western Gulls from this project, for example, is approximately 1,700 individuals. As it takes a while for the poison to take effect, some fear that gulls will drop gruesomely from the sky in public places along the coast. USFWS says they will integrate a nonlethal “hazing” to keep nontarget birds at bay during peak poison times, but that does not protect marine animals from pellets dropping into the ocean.

A 2015 study conducted after aerial drop of rodenticides on Palmyra Island off the coast of Hawaii reported, “We documented brodifacoum [rodenticide] residues in soil, water, and biota, and documented mortality of nontarget organisms. Some bait (14–19% of the target application rate) entered the marine environment to distances 7 m from the shore. After the application commenced, carcasses of 84 animals representing 15 species of birds, fish, reptiles and invertebrates were collected opportunistically as potential nontarget mortalities. In addition, fish, reptiles, and invertebrates were systematically collected for residue analysis. Brodifacoum residues were detected in most (84.3%) of the animal samples analyzed. Although detection of residues in samples was anticipated, the extent and concentrations in many parts of the food web were greater than expected.”

Despite the unintended consequences, USFWS claims that aerial drops of copious amounts of poison is the only effective way to get rid of the mice, and points to islands in New Zealand where it has worked before. However, local fisherman and conservationists in New Zealand had qualms with the collateral damage of rodenticides on the Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands. Penguins, dolphins, and fish were found dead directly after aerial deposits, but public officials never tested them for brodifacoum.

A bait station where the rodenticides and their targets are contained, in combination with other methodologies, is an example of an effective albeit labor-intensive middle ground approach to extirpation. Beyond Pesticides is of the opinion that a brodifacoum drop is a toxic, simple solution to a complex problem that requires more research into integrated alternatives.

Beyond Pesticides offers information on integrated pest management (IPM) and safe alternatives to toxic pesticides in our ManageSafe™ resource.

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

Source: Los Angeles Times

(Beyond Pesticides, July 9, 2019) Teens and adolescents living in agricultural areas and exposed to organophosphate insecticides are at higher risk of depression, according to the findings of a new study in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health. As rates of depression and suicide rise for teenagers in the US and throughout the world, public health researchers are working to find out why by investigating potential triggers. Toxic pesticide use represents a risk that can be addressed head on, protecting children and their families from a range of diseases that threaten public health.

Jose R. Suarez-Lopez, MD, PhD, at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, has been studying children living in the Ecuadorian Andes since 2008. His team assessed 529 individuals aged between 11 and 17 for their blood levels of acetylcholinesterase (AChE), an enzyme necessary for the proper functioning of nerves in the body. Exposure to organophosphate insecticides like chlorpyrifos and malathion have been shown to lower levels of AChE in the body. An assessment was also given to the children to fill out, in order to determine the severity of depressive symptoms or anxiety.

Results showed that children with lower levels of AChE were more likely to report symptoms consistent with depression on their assessment. Researchers specifically found the trend to be stronger for young women, and children under the age of 14.

“Agricultural workers and people in these communities have long offered anecdotal reports of a rise in adolescent depression and suicidal tendencies,” said Suarez-Lopez. “This is the first study to provide empirical data establishing that link using a biological marker of exposure, and it points to a need for further study.”

Indeed, this is the first study linking pesticides to depression that did not include self-reported pesticide exposure. In this instance, using AChE as a biomarker adds weight to the findings and suggests further study should be undertaken to understand the connection and investigate causality.

A number of studies have linked pesticide use to depression in farmers. A 2013 study found that farmers using herbicides were two and a half times more likely to be treated for depression than farmers who did not use herbicides. A broader investigation based on data from 21,000 pesticide applicators enrolled in the long-running US Agricultural Health Study found that those who experienced a pesticide poisoning incident or used pesticides from several different classes had higher rates of depression. Specifically, research found that use of fumigants, organochlorines, and organophosphates all increased risk of farmer depression.

Despite the urgings of public health scientists and professionals, organophosphate insecticides continue to be used in the United States. The findings of this and other studies indicate that farmers and those living in agricultural communities are at disproportional risk of mental health problems as a result of pesticide use. And this is in addition to the myriad of neurodevelopmental, reproductive, respiratory and other health problems individuals risk from exposure to organophosphates.

Alternative methods of agricultural production, like a transition to organic practices, can eliminate the use of organophosphates and a range of other hazardous pesticides. Researchers will continue to study the deleterious effects of these chemicals, but in the face of regulatory agencies more concerned with private profits than public good, it is up to the public to advocate for health and safety measures. Start by telling your state leaders to ban neurotoxic organophosphates, and consider getting active in your local community to ensure lasting change.

Source: UCSD Press Release, International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health

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

(Beyond Pesticides, June 8, 2019) Scientists studying the precipitous decline in populations of monarch butterflies are searching for causes, and pesticide use is one of the factors under their (figurative) microscopes. Purdue University entomology professor Ian Kaplan, PhD and doctoral student Paola Olaya-Arenas recently turned their attention to a poorly studied potential factor — exposure during monarchs’ larval stage to non-target pesticides on their primary host plant and food source, common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). In Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, the researchers report finding evidence of 14 different agricultural pesticides on milkweed near Indiana farm fields, including neonicotinoids clothianidin and thiamethoxam, the pyrethroid deltamethrin, and imidacloprid in a few samples.

The research team’s primary aim was to identify and measure the range of pesticides to which monarch caterpillars might be exposed, or which they might consume, on milkweed plants in agricultural landscapes. Secondarily, they hoped to learn how pesticide presence varies with distance between milkweed plants and nearby agricultural sites. In the subject Indiana environs, where corn and soybeans are dominant crops, the study found neonicotinoid residues on milkweed, particularly those of the active ingredients in clothianidin and thiamethoxam. They note, “Although seed treatment data are no longer reported for U.S. row crops, most corn in our region is seed treated, primarily with clothianidin, and much of the soybean acreage also employs a seed treatment, mainly thiamethoxam . . . . thus it is not surprising that these two insecticides were among the ones most commonly detected.”

The precipitous plummet in monarch butterfly populations — 80–90% over the past 15–20 years — portends a poor prognosis. A 2017 study conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicates that western monarchs have an extinction risk of 86% within the next 50 years. A variety of factors has been implicated in monarch loss: Beyond Pesticides reported in 2018 that, for example, climate change can alter monarch migration patterns, and logging and development in Mexico and coastal California have eliminated significant habitat for monarch overwintering.

Perhaps a chief reason for the decline is loss of habitat and food sources due to the rapid and rabid adoption, in agriculture, of glyphosate-based herbicides and the GE (genetically engineered) crop seeds designed to be used with them. As Beyond Pesticides has written, “utilization of these GE crops has all but eliminated milkweeds from these fields, thus eliminating the butterfly’s source of food,” as well as sites for larval hosting. An estimated 165 million acres of breeding habitat in the U.S. have been lost to herbicide spraying and development.

Despite advocacy organizations’ encouragement to homeowners, land managers, and groundskeepers to plant (and not mow down) common milkweed, monarch numbers have continued to decline. Milkweed loves “disturbed ground,” whether farm fields, fence rows, pastures, roadsides, residential gardens, and even thin lawns. It could, before the advent of intensive herbicide use, particularly with GE crops, often be found growing among food crops in farm fields.

Dr. Kaplan and Ms. Olaya-Arenas note that a great deal of recent investigation and advocacy on non-target impacts on pollinators has focused on neonicotinoid pesticides, in large part because of their explosive adoption in agriculture across the globe. Much of that attention has gone to impacts on bees, but butterflies are also affected. Their published research paper notes, “Two recent time-scale analyses of reductions in butterfly diversity over the past several decades link these changes with the introduction and rise of neonicotinoids in the UK.” Of their study, the co-authors add, “The data suggest that early-season monarchs are at greater risk from neonicotinoid exposure than subsequent generations occurring later in the season. Similarly, our data suggest strong annual fluctuations in risk, indicating that monarchs likely encounter a different suite of pesticides each year.”

The researchers collected and evaluated 1,500+ milkweed leaves from seven different sites in Indiana over a two-year period, and found that: (1) insecticide presence and concentrations decreased with greater distance from agricultural fields; and (2) presence and concentration of pesticide compounds appeared to vary by year and month; e.g., clothianidin was found in June but not later in the growing season, and thiamethoxam and deltamethrin were found in year two of the study, but not in year one.

Some organizations have advised planting milkweed at least 125 feet from any farm field. Dr. Kaplan and Ms. Olaya-Arenas say that this metric is not really based in any science, adding, “It’s not a bad idea to put some distance between milkweed and farm fields, but we didn’t see a magic drop off at 125 feet.” This metric may have come from a 2016 U.S. Department of Agriculture “wildlife habitat evaluation guide and decision support tool for monarch butterfly restoration,” which recommended a “125-foot-wide pesticide-free buffer around restored milkweed habitat.”

The research team points to (without outright recommending) a different metric: plant milkweed even farther away from agricultural fields, because some pesticides can be found as far as two kilometers from the site of application. Indeed, spraying of pesticides via aircraft can reach as little as 50% of a target crop — with the other 50% trespassing to areas as far as 30 kilometers downwind.

Such metrics underscore the reality that a very small percentage of the active ingredients in pesticides actually make contact with the targeted pest organism; the rest is subsumed into the larger ecosystem. Neonicotinoids, which are used widely to coat seeds — and which use was a big part of the rapid rise in neonicotinoid employment starting in roughly 2013 — are one of the most environmentally damaging of pesticides. The co-authors identify an example of one reason that might be: in one study, a mere “1.3% of initial seed treatment is recovered from corn plants exposed to the neonicotinoid clothianidin, with the remaining 98–99% of material leached into the environment.” They also identify that “monarch declines have temporally coincided with the increase in use of neonicotinoids throughout agricultural regions in their summer breeding habitat.”

As the researchers say in their paper’s conclusion, “Risk assessment evaluating the potential impacts of pesticides on monarchs entails a two-step process; first, documenting the chemicals that larvae and/or adults are exposed to in the environment, and second, experimentally testing those chemicals most commonly encountered to assess lethal and sub-lethal effects.” Having addressed the first step through this study, they add, “We strongly emphasize . . . that pesticide presence does not necessarily translate into impact. Unlike honeybees, for which LD₅₀ data are widely available on most compounds, at present such information is only available for clothianidin in the monarch system. [BP note: LD₅₀ means the median lethal dose, or the amount of the substance required to kill 50% of a test population.] Clearly, a major emphasis of future research efforts should be to close this knowledge gap by quantifying monarch larval responses to a range of pesticides under controlled lab settings.”

The monarch butterfly faces an uphill slog as it confronts the forces of development, pesticides, climate change, logging, and other sources of habitat destruction and contamination. Solutions must happen on multiple fronts, and efforts are underway. Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) agreed to a 2020 deadline for deciding on protection for monarchs under the Endangered Species Act — in response to a petition, filed five years ago by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety, that triggered a 2014 status review. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has deployed a Monarch Butterfly Habitat Development Project to provide funding for efforts to restore monarch habitat and plant common milkweed. It focuses on efforts in the Midwest and on the Great Plains, where it seeks to improving grassland habitat for monarchs. That said, as Beyond Pesticides has identified, the program has been woefully underfunded.

Regular folks can also have an impact in their own and community gardens. Planting milkweed in such environs, as well as “being kind” to it where it is discovered, can help create oases for monarchs. In addition, the toll taken by GE crops and their companion herbicides can be beaten back by purchasing organic food and other organic products whenever possible. See, also, Managing Landscapes with Pollinators in Mind and Hedgerows for Biodiversity. For additional ideas on protecting monarchs and other pollinators, see Beyond Pesticides’ Bee Protective webpage.

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

Sources: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00223/full?_ga=2.99585561.668228990.1562015812-1408830912.1562015812 and https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2019/Q2/pesticides-found-in-monarchs-milkweed-near-farm-fields.html

(Beyond Pesticides, July 5, 2019) This is a story about a chemical pesticide, a fungicide, in wide use for which the mode of action, i.e., the ability to cause harm, has not been fully understood. It is not a story unique to this pesticide. Rather, it is an important story to consider when deciding to use a pesticide or allowing a pesticide to be used. The question is whether the chemical could be broadly problematic beyond the target organisms, in this case fungi? In its coverage of a study published in March, the American Association for the Advancement of Science publication, EurekAlert, reported that, “The ability of [the fungicide] fludioxonil to act on a sugar-metabolizing enzyme common to all cells, and to produce the damaging compound methylglyoxal, may mean that the pesticide has more potential to harm non-fungal cells than previously thought. Although fludioxonil has been deemed safe for use, the authors . . . suggest that the effects of this widely used pesticide has upon animals be re-examined.”

The research study, published in March in Scientific Reports and led by T. Tristan Brandhorst, PhD (in the lab of Dr. Bruce Klein at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and UW School of Medicine and Public Health), sheds light on that mechanism and raises the alarm about implications of the discovery. Among the myriad pesticides used in agriculture is fludioxonil, a phenylpyrrole fungicide, which was developed to treat seeds during storage. However, it has come to be used commonly on grains, vegetables, fruits, and ornamental plants during cultivation, and worse (more on this below), to treat produce after it has been harvested to extend “shelf life.” Though fludioxonil is effective in killing fungi, the mode, or mechanism, of action for this pesticide was previously not well understood.

Fludioxonil was introduced in 1993–1994 by Ciba-Geigy (now Syngenta), and pesticides that include the compound are now marketed under various brand names, including Cannonball, Switch, Medallion, Helix, Celest, Apron, Agri Star Fludioxonil, Dyna-shield Fludioxonil, Maxim, Scholar, Spirato, and others. Syngenta promotes it for use on “targeted fungi, such as snow mold, seedborne and soilborne Fusarium, [and] seedling blights or bunts.” Its use has increased in the 25 years since then, and particularly in the last few, ratcheting up concern about its features and impacts.

In a previous investigation, Drs. Brandhorst and Klein pointed to the uncertainty about how fludioxonil actually causes fungi cell death, asserting that this uncertainty merits a re-evaluation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its potential impacts on human health, noting reports of the fungicide’s ability to disrupt hepatic, endocrine, and neurological systems. Prior to this current study, it was believed that fludioxonil targets hybrid histidine kinase (HHK), a protein in fungal cells. Syngenta has theorized, re: the mechanism of action, that fludioxonil binds to HHK, activating a biochemical process that causes fungal cells to kill themselves. In 2016, Dr. Klein’s lab team found that, although fludioxonil needs HHK in order to kill fungi, the pesticide and protein do not directly interact.

The scientists in Dr. Klein’s lab turned to the hypothesis that oxidative stress — a common effect of pesticides on their targets — might be the linchpin. (Oxidative stress is an imbalance, in cells, between the production of free radicals and reactive metabolites, and their elimination by antioxidants.) Yet, the team found that, when they exposed fungi to various kinds of oxidative stress, cells remained healthy. Finally, the researchers discovered that fludioxonil inhibits an enzyme related to cellular sugar metabolism, causing (via a spike in methylglyoxal release) activation of the deadly HHK cascade.

Dr. Brandhorst notes, “The take home lesson is that fludioxonil is multifactorial. It’s not compromising cells by one solitary mechanism. It has potential to damage cells in a variety of ways.” He references a 2007 investigation that demonstrated that in fungi, disruption of glutathione homeostasis (which manages oxidative stress) synergistically enhances the toxicity of fludioxonil, suggesting that an oxidative stress response pathway may overshadow osmoregulation functions (maintenance of constant osmotic pressure in the fluids of an organism by the control of water and salt concentrations). Glutathione is primarily an intracellular antioxidant, which protects cells against the effects of free radicals — which can include damage to DNA. Fludioxonil has been shown to have DNA damaging impacts on human liver cells, and Dr. Brandhorst suspects that glutathione depletion (a signaling event that regulates the activation of cell death pathways) may ultimately be identified as a factor in fludioxonil-related hepatic damage. The enzyme-suppressing action of fludioxonil on an enzyme common to all cells is at the heart of the alarm this research is raising, but it is not the only reason the fungicide needs to be re-evaluated.

Fludioxonil persists in soil — near the surface for weeks, and for years if it ends up deeper in the soil, where sunlight cannot speed its degradation; it is also a “super toxin” for earthworms. The fungicide’s extensive post-harvest use on food crops is of particular concern because it eliminates the chance for wind, rain, and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) light to break down the compound, and once applied, the waxy fungicide is not easily removed by rinsing. Further, UV-vis treatment of produce (which is sometimes done to reduce pathogens on fresh fruits and vegetables) actually significantly increases the toxicity of fludioxonil.

The fungicide also is an EPA Category I toxin — “highly toxic and severely irritating” — to aquatic plants, bacteria, insects, fish, and aquatic invertebrates, generating concern about its use near water bodies or shorelines. Beyond all that, the lead author indicates that “there is also reason to believe that breakdown products of this pesticide may be 100 times more toxic than fludioxonil itself.”

In addition, the issue of synergistic action among multiple pesticide compounds, or active and adjuvant ingredients in a pesticide, is woefully under-addressed by regulators. Synergistic action was explained simply and long ago by Beyond Pesticides in its journal Pesticides and You: “The concept of interaction is fundamental to understanding the processes by which chemical mixtures act. If the effect is simply additive, the sum of the effects is the same as if we were exposed to each chemical individually. Synergy occurs when the effect of a mixture of chemicals is greater than the sum of the individual effects.”

The federal bodies in the U.S. that are supposed to ensure the safety of both chemicals used in the environment, and those used on food crops and products — EPA, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), respectively — fail to do so. Another passage from the Pesticides and You article offers background: “In 1996, EPA was required for the first time to consider cumulative pesticide exposures in limited circumstances under the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA). [That Act], which amends the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), recognizes that real-world pesticide exposures do not occur as single discrete exposures to a specific pesticide, but rather in combination [with] several pesticides at once. . . . To address the issue of multiple pesticide exposures, FQPA directs EPA to consider combinations of pesticides that have a common mechanism of toxicity when setting tolerances” [“acceptable” levels of pesticide residue in agricultural products]. Because this mandate is a narrow one, confined to compounds that have a “common mechanism of toxicity,” many chemicals are never evaluated by EPA for their synergistic potential.

Thus, EPA continues not to evaluate comprehensively for synergistic effects, which can be more toxic than exposure to a single compound. In 2016, the Center for Biological Diversity wrote an extensive report on this issue: Toxic Concoctions: How the EPA Ignores the Dangers of Pesticide Cocktails. Adding to the concern about fludioxonil’s mechanism of action and the implications for all kinds of organisms, including humans, is its synergistic potential. A 2012 study by French researchers found that a mixture of fludioxonil and cyprodinil, another fungicide, yielded data suggesting cytotoxic (lethal to cells) and genotoxic (damaging to DNA) effects at low concentrations, and with a significantly higher effect of the mixture than would be expected from an exposure response to the individual fungicides. This study by Dr. Brandhorst, et al. adds to the growing body of research on the interactive effects of pesticides on human health and the environment.

Beyond Pesticides advocates for a far-more Precautionary approach to pest control in land management and agriculture, with a transition to organic methods as the ultimate goal. It also monitors and reports on emerging research and developments related to pesticide use through its Daily News Blog and its journal, Pesticides and You.

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

Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6433957/ and personal communication with the study’s lead author, T. Tristan Brandhorst [[email protected]]

(Beyond Pesticides, July 3, 2019) A disturbing association between urinary triclosan concentrations and osteoporosis has been identified in an epidemiological study. Drawing from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) results for 1,848 U.S. adult women, the authors conclude that higher concentrations of urinary triclosan are associated with lower bone mass density and higher prevalence of osteoporosis among U.S. adult women.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, adds weight to previous laboratory results, which showed that endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as triclosan can interfere with bone metabolism. Triclosan and its byproducts are known endocrine disruptors and have been shown in laboratory studies to interfere with collagen and bone structure. Taken together with previous findings, the new epidemiological results demonstrate that the ubiquitous endocrine disruptor triclosan “could lead to lower BMD [benchmark dose] and increased prevalence of osteoporosis in U.S. adult women.”

Triclosan is used as an antimicrobial agent in products regulated by both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and cumulative exposure to triclosan registered by both agencies pose unacceptable risks to human health and the environment. Triclosan exposure has become so common that it has shown up in the blood, urine and breast milk of people across the globe. While people who use triclosan products daily have higher levels of the chemical in their bodies, even consumers who do not use triclosan on their skin are exposed to it through food, water, and even household dust.

Several independent, peer-reviewed research studies have identified triclosan as an endocrine disrupting chemical, not only through its effects on the thyroid system but also through its disruption of ovarian and testicular steroidogenesis. A study by British researchers found that triclosan has estrogenic and androgenic hormone properties, and exposure could potentially contribute to the development of breast cancer. Despite these findings, EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) has not included triclosan among chemicals to investigate for endocrine disrupting effects. Therefore, EPA’s evaluation of triclosan fails to address one of the most concerning aspects of its chemical activity with respect to human health.

On top of its endocrine disrupting effects, recent work shows that triclosan is a possible human carcinogen. A 2016 peer-reviewed study published in the Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology found that triclosan promotes liver cancer cell development in mice through pathways shared with humans. EPA, however, relies on outdated science in its determination of the carcinogenicity of triclosan.

In addition to direct modes of carcinogenicity, triclosan poses risks due to release of known carcinogenic and highly toxic byproducts and impurities. Triclosan, which has been shown to be frequently present as a contaminant in finished U.S. drinking water, mixes with chlorinated drinking water to form the probable human carcinogen, chloroform. When released into surface water and exposed to sunlight, triclosan can also react with chlorinated water to form toxic polychlorinated dioxins. Dioxins have been shown to cause health problems as severe as weakening of the immune system, decreased fertility, miscarriage, birth defects, and cancer.

The present study is not the first to link triclosan exposure to adverse health outcomes in humans. A recent peer-reviewed study, for example, found an association between urinary triclosan and elevated body mass index (BMI) among NHANES survey participants. That study found that the presence versus absence of triclosan in urine was associated with a significant increase of 0.94 BMI points. Taken together, these epidemiological studies raise concern that a by-now ubiquitous chemical may be driving both increased BMI and decreased bone mass density, thus placing more people at risk of osteoporosis and other adverse health outcomes.

The new findings add yet another concern to the list of ailments that have been linked to triclosan exposure. What remains to be done is for EPA and FDA to act in accordance with these known risks, and ban all uses of triclosan, which presently contribute to unacceptable degrees of exposure impacting most of the US population. Beyond Pesticides holds that safer alternatives are available and must be used to protect public health and the environment.

Join Beyond Pesticides to end to the registration of pesticides with known adverse effects, and start of a new system of registering only those products which can be shown to be essential, effective, and least-toxic to humans and the environment. Stay abreast of new science and regulatory updates by tracking the Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog.

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

Source: Association between urinary triclosan with bone mass density and osteoporosis in the US adult women, 2005-2010