Chemical Controversies
Pesticides are substances that prevent, destroy, repel, or reduce the severity of pests. Pests are living things that occur where they are not wanted or that cause damage to humans, crops, or animals. Pests can be insects, rodents, unwanted plants, bacteria, viruses, or different types of fungus.Ā Pesticides can vary in how toxic they are to humans and the environment. Some are persistent in the environment, animals, and birds, lasting for years; others break down soon after they are released.Ā The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants licenses, or registrations, to pesticides that it has found do not pose unreasonable risks to human health and the environment; it has registered at least 865 pesticides, which are used in thousands of pesticide products.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Viewpoint: Despite global risk agencies declaring glyphosate safe, tort lawyer attacks raise concerns about the future of the herbicide and its manufacturer, Bayer
In a quiet but seismic signal to the global agri-food industry, Bayer is warning it may halt the production of ...
GLP Spaces on X: End public science fundingāsensible policy or sheer madness?
Is it time to eliminate public funding for scientific research? It's an undeniably radical proposal, but one supporters say is ...
2000%? RFK, Jr. claims that chronic disease in the U.S. has skyrocketed in 20 years. Hereās why that’s absurd
āWeāve got the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world. When my uncle was president, 3 percent ...
![Viewpoint: Why does āBig Organicā oppose hydroponics and other sustainable farming innovations? [Hint: $$$]](https://geneticliteracyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-27-at-10.52.43āÆPM-263x129.png)
Viewpoint: Why does āBig Organicā oppose hydroponics and other sustainable farming innovations? [Hint: $$$]
I get pitches for stories every day and sometimes I want to see if the world that opposes science has ...
Air is a major conveyor of microplasticsāand some of it is ending up in our bodies through the food we eat
Plastic production is increasing sharply. This has raised concerns about the effects of microplastics (typically defined as plastic particles smaller ...
Leveraging RFK, Jr. vaccine disinformation, anti-vaccine grifters blame measles on bioweapons, sell fake āAI createdā supplement cures
Anti-vaccine activists with close ties to US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are falsely claiming that theĀ measles public health ...
Off-patent chemistry: Financially strapped American farmers switching to generic crop chemicals
U.S. farmers struggling with slumping incomes and depressed grain prices have been switching to cheaper generic pesticides and fungicides as ...
GLP podcast: Common sense ‘out the window.’ Whistleblower Jamie Reed challenges safety, efficacy of ‘gender-affirming care’
We've all heard the claims about gender-affirming care. The effects of puberty blockers are reversible; most experts agree that medically ...
Viewpoint: Regenerative agriculture that does not include the judicious crop chemicals to fight insects and disease is doomed to fall way short
The Noble Research Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to farm and ranch education,Ā defines regenerative agriculture as āthe process of restoring ...
Viewpoint: Food dyes? Herbicides? Vaccines? ā¦ Water? Yes, they are all toxic depending upon the circumstances so beware of scare claims
We are back at it with the next edition of Fundamental Elements, a new section of ImmunoLogic. The goal? Break ...
How agricultural drones offer farmers a sustainable edge
Traditional farming tools ā big tractors, crop dusters, and lots of human labor ā are expensive, inefficient, and hard on ...
Viewpoint: Hereās how Environmental Working Groupās Carey Gillam, Le Monde and the Oak Foundation destroy reputations while promoting the tort industry
The small media and political monitoring company v-FluenceĀ ā also known for one of its products,Ā Bonus EventusĀ ā has been the target ...
Viewpoint: Junk scienceāThe corrupting dangers of predatory journals, absent peer review and ideologically-tainted research
Unfortunately, junk science is quite common. Myriad systemic pressures have led to this point, but we now must face the ...
ViewpointāUndermining science: RFK, Jr.’s war on expertise
During the Senate confirmation hearings earlier this year, it became clear that the man nominated by Donald Trump to become ...
Food and beverage companies are overhauling their brands as RFK, Jr.ās ātransparency campaignā escalates
For food and beverage companies, complying with additive bans is no longer just about ticking boxes ā it is a ...
GLP spaces on X: Graying LadyāHow the New York Times and other outlets lost America’s trust
The public's faith in journalism has cratered over the last two decades. "Americans continue to register record-low trust in the ...
The Longevity Business Is Boomingāand Its Scientists Are Clashing”
[Leonard Guarente's pet field of improving human longevity] has moved from the fringes to scienceās hot center. Itās drawn billions ...
Viewpoint: Another top NIH food scientist quits, citing RFK, Jr.ās political interference and science censorship
The National Institutes of Health's top researcher on ultra-processed foods announced Wednesday he was stepping down from the agency, accusing ...
National security challenge: China poised to overtake the U.S. as the global leader in biotechnology innovation
TheĀ comprehensive reportĀ from the bipartisan National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) delivers a āsobering, even frightening,ā conclusion: that China is ...
Food industry moves to reformulate spices, dyes and other products in response to RFK, Jr.ās controversial attacks on safe additives
United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s influence is already being felt throughout the food ...
GLP podcast: NPR’s chemophobic hypocrisy; Could MAGA stifle mRNA vaccine progress? AI could shift human evolution
After years of flogging one chemical scare after another, NPR has abruptly changed its tune, defending Girl Scout cookies against ...
Organic produce now costs as much as 53% more than conventional alternatives, and the price disparity is getting worse
Clean eating is important to many Americans, and that often goes beyond fruits and veggies. The quality of those products ...
Swamped by lawsuits targeting its weedkiller paraquat, Syngenta reaches mass settlement but reaffirms global regulatory consensus that the chemical is safe-as-used
Besieged by thousands of lawsuits alleging that its paraquatĀ weedkiller causesĀ Parkinsonās disease, its manufacturer, Syngenta, has entered into an agreement aimed ...
Viewpoint: Every independent risk agency in the world has concluded that the herbicide glyphosate is safe as used. What about its impact on wildlife, soil and watersheds?
Glyphosate is the most controversial pesticide in the world, even though it is the most studied and generally deemed as ...
Fighting over the science facts: Legislative battles over PFAS āforever chemicalsā intensify
As health and environmental concerns about forever chemicals mount nationally, New Mexico joins a small but growing number of states ...
Viewpoint: We have a successful playbook to beat measles. RFK, Jr. is doing mostly the opposite
There isĀ well-known playbookĀ for stopping measles outbreaks. It takes hard work, because measles is so contagious that 9 of out of ...
CRISPR offers unique food safety tools
At its core, CRISPR works like a genetic search-and-replace tool. The system uses guide RNA to locate specific DNA sequences ...
