17
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 17, 2026) An article in Microorganisms by researchers from the U.S., Israel, and Australia analyzes the adverse health and environmental effects of genetic engineering and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), specifically genetically modified microorganisms (GMMs). As the authors state, the prevalence of genetic engineering has “accelerated the creation and large-scale environmental release” of GMMs, which “present unique, long-term risks to human and environmental health.” One of the authors, AndrĂ© Leu, DSc, spoke at the first session of Beyond Pesticides’ National Forum Series: Forging a Future with Nature in 2023. (See recording here.) This review provides risk scenarios of GMMs, showing the threat to ecological systems, particularly within the soil, and human health. As GMMs are “biologically active, self-replicating entities capable of rapid mutation and global dispersal” they present greater risks, and current regulatory frameworks do not adequately assess their potential harm. Genetically altering microorganisms, the most complex and diverse systems in biology, and creating new gene combinations with unknown implications, “has the potential to disrupt the functions, diversity, interactions, and impacts of microbes and microbiomes,” the researchers note. They continue: “This puts human and environmental health at risk. Worst-case scenarios include the promotion of diseases, risks to species […]
Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotic Resistance, Biodiversity, Children, Contamination, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Genetic Engineering, Glyphosate, Microbiome, Resistance, US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Wildlife/Endangered Sp. | No Comments »
10
Mar
(Beyond Pesticides, March 10, 2026) An article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry identifies pesticides, often neglected, as a core factor in the spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in agricultural environments. With antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance growing and infections becoming untreatable and deadly, the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified the problem as a “silent pandemic.” The authors, from Yangzhou University in China, highlight the persistence of both pesticide residues and ARGs throughout the environment, with both being found in water, soil, air, animal manure, and the human gut. “Existing studies have fully confirmed that pesticides are not isolated in the agricultural ecosystem but deeply participate in the proliferation and spread of ARGs through direct coselection, indirect induction of multiple resistances, and promotion of horizontal gene transfer, forming a combined pollution risk that superimposes on the traditional sources,” the authors note. The now well-known phenomenon of horizontal gene transfer—the movement of genes in bacteria from one bacterial species to another, which is facilitated by phages—means that ARGs in those (possibly harmless) bacteria can move to bacteria that cause disease in plants or humans. As stated in previous Daily News posts, pesticides by themselves are a grave threat […]
Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotic Resistance, difenoconazole, Fungicides, mancozeb, Pesticide Residues, Propiconazole, Resistance, tebuconazole, World Health Organization | No Comments »
20
Oct
(Beyond Pesticides, October 20, 2025) With the release of a study that links the use of nitrogen fertilizer in combination with antibiotic pesticides to escalating bacterial resistance, public health advocates are renewing their call for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Congress to eliminate antibiotic pesticide use in land management. This action comes on the heels of a World Health Organization (WHO) study finding that antibiotic resistance is evolving even faster than previously thought. WHO finds, “One in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections causing common infections in people worldwide in 2023 were resistant to antibiotic treatments. . .. Between 2018 and 2023, antibiotic resistance rose in over 40% of the pathogen-antibiotic combinations monitored, with an average annual increase of 5–15%.” These findings, linking pesticides, antibiotics, and nitrogen fertilizers to antibiotic resistance, again raise serious concerns about the deadly impacts of conventional (chemical-intensive) agricultural practices on human health. The researchers found that nitrogen is a strong driver of resistance processes. The richness and diversity of phages—viruses that attack bacteria and can transmit antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs)—is highest in the groups exposed to both nitrogen and combined pesticides, and the abundance of ARGs in phages becomes “markedly elevated” in those same exposure conditions. Bacterial […]
Posted in Agriculture, Antibacterial, Antibiotic Resistance, Antimicrobial, oxytetracycline, streptomycin, Take Action, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
11
Jul
(Beyond Pesticides, July 11, 2025) Pesticides and antibiotics are linked inextricably in the looming crisis of human and ecosystem health. Both started out as quasi-miraculous solutions to age-old human problems, yet it has been clear that the failures of each present severe challenges—and that they are synergistic because they trigger the same kinds of defensive mechanisms in their targets: insects, fungi, and weeds on the one hand, and microbes on the other. A review of contamination of waterways in India with pesticides and antibiotics, published in Environmental and Geochemical Health, recounts the many threats that arise when these chemicals mix and how their presence in water makes the problems much worse.   Globally, about five million people died in 2019 from infections with antibiotic-resistant microbes. By 2050, according to a World Bank estimate, antibiotic resistance could add $1 trillion to global health care costs and subtract $3.4 trillion from annual global gross domestic product. While the world slowly realizes the urgent need to counter antibiotic resistance, the role of pesticides in generating it has received less political and public attention. But there is no doubt that pesticides are strongly implicated. In fact, the resistance of microbes to antibiotics is no […]
Posted in 2,4-D, Agriculture, Antibiotic Resistance, Antimicrobial, Aquaculture, Dicamba, Endosulfan, Fungicides, Glyphosate, Hydroponics, Uncategorized, Water | No Comments »
01
May
(Beyond Pesticides, May 1, 2025) Pesticides by themselves are a grave threat to global health. As is global warming. As is antibiotic resistance. Each of these problems has to be analyzed in its own silo to reveal the mechanisms driving its dynamics. But eventually, it must be acknowledged that they actually converge. A common soil arthropod has clearly illustrated how this convergence creates synergistic effects: warming increases pesticide toxicity; pesticide toxicity triggers antibiotic resistance; antibiotic resistance spreads through horizontal gene transfer (movement through the environment to people) and predation. The consequences, not yet fully understood, are nevertheless emerging from accumulating research. A study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials by scientists at six Chinese universities and research centers examines the convergence in springtails (Folsomia candida)—tiny insect-like animals that live in soils worldwide and are commonly used as laboratory subjects. The researchers exposed springtails to the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid at three concentrations and three temperatures. In addition to measuring the springtails’ direct mortality, the researchers also investigated the microbes in the animals’ guts, checking for expression of genes involved in antibiotic resistance. The evidence is unequivocal: imidacloprid exposure at a soil temperature consistent with current and expected warming (30°C, or […]
Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotic Resistance, Climate, Climate Change, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Imidacloprid, Resistance, synergistic effects, Uncategorized | No Comments »
29
May
(Beyond Pesticides, May 29, 2024) A study from the Academy of Biology and Biotechnologies and the Federal Rostov Agricultural Research Centre adds to the body of science linking pesticide use with negative impacts on soil health and bacterial communities. Antibiotic-resistance genes (ARGs), considered a class of pollutants, are found in certain types of bacteria and can spread through the environment and subsequently to humans and animals. This study, performed by researchers and soil experts, found an increase in specific bacterial families that host ARGs with exposure to pesticides. The study aims to identify the role of agricultural soils in ARG transfer and to assess the presence and prevalence of bacterial families with and without exposure to fertilizers and pesticides. Since soil serves as a habitat for a wide range of bacteria, including many that are resistant to antibiotics, analyzing the organisms within soil samples is an indicator of overall environmental health. Agricultural soils are essential in food production, and as this study states, “[I]ntensive exploitation of such soils implies the widespread use of various chemical plant protection products (insecticides, herbicides, fungicides) and mineral fertilizers, which contribute to pollution and a decrease in soil quality.”  Within this field study, there is […]
Posted in Agriculture, Antibiotic Resistance, Antimicrobial, Fertilizer, Litigation, Mutagenesis, Resistance, soil health, Soil microbiome | No Comments »
11
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 11, 2024) In a move to safeguard public and animal health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned nine manufacturers and distributors in December last year to stop selling unapproved and misbranded antimicrobial animal drugs, with the director of FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, Tracey Forfa, explaining to the public that “inappropriate use of medically important antimicrobials contributes to the development of antimicrobial resistance, which affects both human and animal health.” This action and announcement exhibit a higher degree of concern about antimicrobial resistance—understood as a growing worldwide pandemic—than the history and ongoing inaction by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—resulting in the allowance of widespread nonmedical uses of antibiotics in agriculture and on synthetic (or artificial) turf. Contrary to broad scientific understanding, EPA told a federal appeals court last year that, “There is no data that antibiotic use in agriculture leads to the presence of antibiotic resistance in bacteria of human health concern,” and that “[a]t the present time, there is little evidence for or against the presence of microbes of human health concern in the plant agricultural environment.” The issue of resistance discussed in the scientific literature concerns reduced susceptibility to clinically important antimicrobials, […]
Posted in Agriculture, Antibacterial, Antibiotic Resistance, Antimicrobial, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chewy, Corporations, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pets, Resistance | No Comments »
