10
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 10, 2025) Following International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8, 2025, the poignant findings on women, gender, and hazardous substances in a United Nations report raise critical issues of concern and cause for urgent action to phase out petrochemicals. The Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, by Marcos Orellana, was delivered to the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in July 2024. Excerpts from the report follow: “Women make up roughly 60 to 70 per cent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries where pesticides and pesticide handling are especially poorly regulated. In Zambia, for example, two thirds of the labour force is engaged in agriculture, and 78 per cent are women farmers and peasants. Women there play a significant role in pesticide application, often without any or adequate personal protective equipment, especially during activities such as weeding, harvesting, and washing pesticide-laden clothes.” “In higher-income countries, women who do agricultural work are often poor and/or migrants; pesticides are one of many dimensions of marginalization and damage to their well-being. The European agriculture sector uses many seasonal and […]
Posted in Agriculture, Alternatives/Organics, Breast Cancer, Cancer, Endocrine Disruption, Environmental Justice, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Farmworkers, Take Action, Uncategorized | No Comments »
07
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 7, 2025) In honor of International Women’s Day on Saturday, March 8, 2025, Beyond Pesticides sheds light on the disproportionate risks to women from toxic chemicals that are often unaccounted for and even dismissed throughout pesticide regulatory review and the underlying statutes. In a roundup of Daily News coverage in 2024, as well as the most recent scientific studies in 2025, on the scientific links between pesticide exposure and adverse effects in women, this article highlights the growing inequities in pesticide threats to women’s health. Women farmers and farmworkers are particularly excluded when assessing pesticide risks. As previously reported by Beyond Pesticides, a study published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine finds that pesticide exposure, especially during puberty, can play a role in ovarian cancer development among female farmers. Although there are many studies that evaluate the risk for cancers among farmers, very few scientific articles cover the risk of ovarian cancer from pesticide exposure. Additionally, this study suggests the role of hormones in ovarian cancer prognosis and development, highlighting an association with endocrine disruption. Endocrine disruption can lead to numerous health problems in multiple organ systems, including hormone-related cancer development (e.g., thyroid, breast, ovarian, prostate, testicular), reproductive […]
Posted in Breast Cancer, Cancer, Endocrine Disruption, Farmworkers, Holidays, Occupational Health, Reproductive Health, Women's Health | No Comments »
14
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 14, 2025) Women with occupational pesticide exposure have elevated rates of breast cancer, according to a study in Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology. Based on an analysis of clinicopathological data from 188 affected women, the study authors demonstrate “that occupational exposure to pesticides modifies the clinical presentation of disease in breast cancer patients, depending on their age at disease onset, affecting cytokine production, especially in those exhibiting early age at diagnosis.”  “Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignant neoplasm affecting women worldwide and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in this population,” the researchers report. They continue: “Aging is the primary risk factor associated with breast cancer development and mortality, resulting in a cumulative lifetime risk of 1 in 8 women developing the disease. Disease onset significantly impacts patient prognosis. While most cases are of late onset and occur in women over 50 years of age, early-onset BC is prevalent in certain populations and is associated with a poor prognosis and aggressive tumor behavior.” Data was collected and analyzed from May 2015 to December 2022, with the study population in Brazil spanning “27 municipalities in the southwest of Paraná, a region characterized by extensive pesticide use, predominantly […]
Posted in Breast Cancer, Cancer, Farmworkers, Occupational Health, Oxidative Stress, Women's Health | No Comments »
04
Nov
(Beyond Pesticides, November 4, 2024) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week opened a public comment period on the regulation of endocrine-disrupting pesticides, a proposal that lays out a drawn-out 10-year process that is narrow in evaluating the underlying mechanism that causes endocrine disruption. The proposal, published in the Federal Register as a partial settlement agreement and consent decree, responds to a lawsuit filed by farmworker and health groups challenging the agency’s failure to test and regulate endocrine-disrupting pesticides. Earlier in the year, after over 25 years of delay following the 1996 Congressional mandate to determine whether pesticides disrupt the endocrine system of humans and other organisms, EPA issued a proposal for modifying its approach to the implementation of the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP). The National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences explains endocrine disruptors this way: “Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are natural or human-made chemicals that may mimic, block, or interfere with the body’s hormones, which are part of the endocrine system. These chemicals are associated with a wide array of health issues. . . Endocrine glands, distributed throughout the body, produce the hormones that act as signaling molecules after release into the circulatory system. The human body is […]
Posted in Alternatives/Organics, Chemicals, Endocrine Disruption, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Litigation, Pesticide Regulation, Take Action, Uncategorized | No Comments »
11
Jun
(Beyond Pesticides, June 11, 2024) Published in Science of The Total Environment in May, a comprehensive literature review of population-based studies finds strong linkages between direct and acute pesticide exposure and elevated risk of breast cancer (BC). A majority of the studies analyzed in this review were based on population groups in the United States, but also extends to Australia and three European countries (Greece, France, and Italy). Included in these studies are women who worked in chemical-intensive agricultural settings, directly sprayed pesticides in their at-home gardens, and/or handled pesticide-contaminated clothing. The findings in this literature review underscore organic advocates’ concerns of relying on pesticide substitution models that inevitably impact the health of land stewards, farmers, farmworkers, and the broader public rather than transforming food systems to an organic model that bans the use of toxic petrochemical-based pesticides. The goal of this review was to synthesize existing literature on pesticide exposure and breast cancer to determine the specific pathways and underlying mechanisms that contribute to female participants’ heightened risk. This literature review was published online by researchers at the University of Arizona’s R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy and Coit Center for Longevity and Neurotherapeutics and the Laboratory of Tumor […]
Posted in Atrazine, Breast Cancer, Chlordane, Chlorpyrifos, Dieldrin, Farmworkers, Glyphosate, Malathion, terbufos, Uncategorized | No Comments »
12
Oct
(Beyond Pesticides, October 12, 2023) A new study published in Environment International finds novel environmental chemicals (i.e., piperidine insecticide, 2,4-dinitrophenol, benzo[a]carbazole, and a benzoate derivative) involved in developing breast cancer through various inflammation pathways. These new potential factors contribute to breast cancer and highlight the importance of employing epidemiological biomonitoring like exposome (total exposure from birth to death) to discover mechanisms involved in disease development that are otherwise overlooked. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), breast cancer is a disease that causes breast cells to grow out of control, with the type of breast cancer depending on the cells themselves. Several studies and reports, including U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, identify hundreds of chemicals as influential factors (either promoting or initiating) associated with breast cancer risk. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, accounting for 12 percent of all new annual cancer cases worldwide and causing the second most cancer-related deaths in the United States. Past studies suggest genetic inheritance factors influence breast cancer occurrence. However, genetic factors only play a minor role in the incidence of breast cancer, while exposure to external environmental factors (e.g., chemical exposure) appears to play a more notable role. One in […]
Posted in Breast Cancer, Epigenetic, multi-generational effects | No Comments »
