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.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Will Biotechnology Regulations Squelch Food and Farming Innovation?
The GLP's 18-part 5-week series -- GMO: Beyond the Science -- begins with a look at the regulatory web that ...
Review of neonicotinoids’ effects on human health finds few studies, ‘methodologically weak findings’
Prior to 2000, neonicotinoid chemicals were virtually unknown, by farmers or anyone else. They have since become the most widely ...
Sustainability: ‘Organic farming should embrace blight–resistant genetically engineered potato’
[Editor's note: This journal article is written by Godelieve Gheysenat, molecular geneticist, Ghent University in Belgium, and René Custers, regulatory and responsible research ...
How to stem farmer suicides in India? Help farmers expand farm size
Editor's note: GMO critics, most notably philosopher Vandana Shiva (Read her GLP profile here), have long contended that the introduction of Bt ...
Friends of the Earth activist campaigner calls for increased regulation of ‘GMO 2.0’ gene edited food
Editor's note: Dana Perls is the senior food and technology campaigner for Friends of the Earth, you can read GLP's profile ...
UK votes support for first GMO crop since 1998, breaking with EU
A UK vote to approve EU proposals to authorise the first new GM crops for cultivation since 1998 suggests the ...
Cheaper blue jeans that are better for the environment? Genetic engineering can make it happen
Editor's note: This piece is written by Dr. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, who was the founding director of the ...
How will CRISPR, gene editing be regulated?
[Editor's note: University of Virginia professor Randall Lutter talks about CRISPR and its regulation.] Now a member of the faculty at UVA’s ...
Monoculture: Is it really the problem ‘intensive agriculture’ critics make it out to be?
Editor's note: The author of this piece is Andrew Kniss, associate professor of weed biology & ecology at the University of Wyoming ...
Wisconsin farm couple to Rachel Ray: Stop spreading pseudo-science about antibiotics in milk
Scientists are increasingly alarmed about the junk science passed along in America's talk shows. Here, a celebrity nutritionist, encouraged by ...
Former US agriculture secretaries: Dow-Dupont merger would encourage innovation, help secure America’s food supply
Editor's note: This article was written by Mike Johanns, former agriculture secretary under President George W. Bush, and Dan Glickman, former ...
Did life start with the simple division of droplets in Earth’s primordial soup?
A collaboration of physicists and biologists in Germany has found a simple mechanism that might have enabled liquid droplets to ...
Chemical companies: Reform WHO’s ‘rogue’ IARC cancer-designating agency
Launching what it called a campaign for accuracy in public health research, the American Chemistry Council, which represents U.S. chemical ...
GMO opponents turn to Hawaii legislature following repeal of local pesticide bans
Following court rulings that overturned GMO/pesticide laws passed by three Hawaii counties — the Kauai County Council formally rescinded its ...
Glyphosate-based Roundup herbicide linked to liver disease in rats? Researcher Séralini under fire again
Animal geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam walks us through a new study by controversial researcher Giles-Eric Séralini, who once again links ...
Environmental activists sue EPA in challenge of approved Monsanto glyphosate-dicamaba Xtend herbicide mix
Environmental groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on January 27th in attempt to force the agency to take another look ...
California can place cancer warning label on the herbicide glyphosate, judge ‘tentatively’ rules
California can require Monsanto [and other manufacturers of glyphosate] to label its popular weed-killer Roundup as a possible cancer threat ...
Improved herbicides only a ‘temporary fix’ for herbicide-resistant weeds
Editor's note: This article was authored by Nathan Donley is a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, a group ...
Economists, in ‘predatory’ journal, challenge Syngenta study finding neonics pose ‘low risk’ to bees
Editor's Note: This article discusses the attack on a Syngenta study by economists published in the Environmental Sciences Europe titled "An experiment ...
GMO mustard approval in India stalled by lawsuit alleging scientists deceived public on crop’s benefits
India’s long-standing push to approve genetically modified (GM) food crops has been controversially delayed, after an environmental campaigner launched a ...
How GMO crops can help feed world’s growing population in time of climate change
Editor's Note: This article was written by Stuart Thompson, a senior lecturer in Plant Biochemistry at the University of Westminster ...
Decoding wheat genome enhances production in the face of severe climate disruptions
Editor's note: Wheat rust and spot blotch are two fungal diseases that cause a devastating amount of crop damage around ...
How conflicts of interest, NGO activism undermine European bee health oversight
The EU recently banned three neonicotinoids to protect honeybees. But a closer look shows the decision was influenced by an ...
Will Trump cut funding of UN agency accused of ‘shoddy science’ for designating glyphosate probable carcinogen?
Editor's note: This article discusses the International Agency (IARC) for Research on Cancer, a sub-group of the World Health Organization ...
#GlyphosateIsVital: British farmers take to social media to defend herbicide’s environmental benefits
The Twitter campaign under the hashtag #glyphosateisvital has been backed by a number of British farmers, who have posted tweets ...
Insect resistant Bt corn losing effectiveness against earworm, study finds
Editor's Note: This article discusses a research paper called "Field-Evolved Resistance in Corn Earworm to Cry Proteins Expressed by Transgenic ...
Trump claims credit for Bayer, Monsanto keeping jobs, biotech research in US
President-elect Donald Trump met with the chief executives of German chemical giant Bayer and agriculture company Monsanto [during the week of January 10] and discussed ...
