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. 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. 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.
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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, defines regenerative agriculture as “the process of restoring ...
Viewpoint: Food dyes? Herbicides? Vaccines? … 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 — big tractors, crop dusters, and lots of human labor — are expensive, inefficient, and hard on ...
Viewpoint: Here’s how Environmental Working Group’s Carey Gillam, Le Monde and the Oak Foundation destroy reputations while promoting the tort industry
The small media and political monitoring company v-Fluence – also known for one of its products, Bonus Eventus – has been the target ...
Viewpoint: Junk science—The 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 ...
Viewpoint—Undermining 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.’s ‘transparency campaign’ escalates
For food and beverage companies, complying with additive bans is no longer just about ticking boxes – it is a ...
GLP spaces on X: Graying Lady—How 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 Booming—and Its Scientists Are Clashing”
[Leonard Guarente's pet field of improving human longevity] has moved from the fringes to science’s hot center. It’s drawn billions ...
Viewpoint: Another top NIH food scientist quits, citing RFK, Jr.’s 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
The comprehensive report from the bipartisan National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) delivers a “sobering, even frightening,” conclusion: that China is ...
Food industry moves to reformulate spices, dyes and other products in response to RFK, Jr.’s 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 paraquat weedkiller causes Parkinson’s 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 ‘forever chemicals’ 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 is well-known playbook 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 ...
What causes autism? It’s not vaccines, but a new study finds one driving factor
Just as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for an investigation into debunked claims of vaccines causing autism, a massive new study ...
What’s the recipe for healthier food? Healthier soil?
Greater biodiversity is the key to healthier soil. And healthier soil is the key to a range of environmental and ...
GLP spaces on X: How California’s Prop. 65 wreaks havoc on US science and industry
Sold to well-meaning California voters in 1986 as a means of protecting public health, Proposition 65 has undermined American science ...
Combinations of some sweeteners and food additives slightly increase health risks
Food additives are widely used by the agri-food industry and are especially common in ultra-processed products found in supermarkets. Scientific ...
Foreign entities are partnering with American tort forms to fund environmental lawsuits that undermine science and U.S. national security
One of the most insidious threats today is not on the battlefield, but in our courtrooms—where foreign entities are using ...
Toxic tort opportunists: What’s behind the ballooning number of court cases targeting ‘dangerous’ chemicals?
Some day you may be on a jury trial, and it may be about “toxic” chemicals. Although you may be ...
Viewpoint: RFK, Jr. declares he will personally determine the cause of autism by September—which means he will generate rigged and fraudulent research
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised that “by September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and ...
Human ‘bodyoids’: We will soon be able to manufacture brain-less human bodies to generate replacement organs
Why do we hear about medical breakthroughs in mice, but rarely see them translate into cures for human disease? ...
