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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Judge fears Bayer ‘manipulated’ $11 billion glyphosate settlement, opening door to more cancer trials
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said during a hearing [August 27] he’s concerned Bayer has “manipulated” the [$11 billion] settlement ...
Study challenges prior research blaming decline of monarch butterflies on deaths during annual migration
A new study suggests that extensive agricultural use of glyphosate herbicide is to blame for the decades-long decline in North ...
Podcast: Deadly chemicals everywhere? Stem cell tourism kills; Natural pet food is a scam
A pair of high-profile studies alleges that the health impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals has doubled in five years. Should you ...
Viewpoint: Cameron Diaz, Katherine Power promote ‘clean wine’ with organic farming myths
In the wake of the natural wine movement and the age of ‘wellness’, it was just a matter of time ...
Viewpoint: When politics and emotion dictate pesticide safety rules, farmers lose
What happens when science is overwhelmed by politics, rhetoric, emotions, and the vessels now used to perpetuate it — social ...
Viewpoint: Farm to Fork failure—How Europe’s ‘obsession’ with organics undermines the global sustainable farming movement
Europe’s quest to confront climate change and achieve carbon neutrality is being undermined by “Big Ag”? That’s not my claim. It’s the ...
Viewpoint: Synthetic pesticides are the solution to East Africa’s famine-causing locust swarms
For months, billions of these pests have migrated from remote deserts into populated regions of East Africa and into Asia, ...
Neonicotinoid insecticide ban, drought could cut French sugar beet yields 30-50 percent, USDA finds
France is the largest producer of sugar beets in Europe growing just over 30 percent of EU27+UK's production in ...
Viewpoint: Germany’s pesticide use drops for 8th straight year, but anti-GMO groups say that’s not good enough
German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture data show that use of crop protection products, e.g. pesticides, went down last ...
EU blocks Austria’s planned glyphosate ban, rejecting claim that weedkiller harms human health
The European Commission has blocked Austria from implementing a planned ban on the controversial weedkiller glyphosate, a document seen by ...
Viewpoint: ‘Bird apocalypse’? Study wrongly blames neonicotinoid pesticides for declining bird biodiversity
Though periodic deaths of bees continue to happen, and have been documented for as long as records of bees have ...
Federal court upholds dicamba weedkiller ban, opening door to possible Supreme Court challenge
On [August 17], three dicamba registrants lost one of their last remaining legal options to overturn a federal court's mandate ...
Viewpoint: Europe can’t produce enough food if it cuts use of farm chemicals but opposes gene editing
Europe is asking its farmers to use fewer pesticides and less fertilizer, while still producing the same amount of food ...
Following ‘ministerial spat’ over glyphosate, Mexico will phase out weedkiller by end of 2024
Mexico will gradually phase out use of the herbicide glyphosate by the time the current administration ends in late 2024, ...
Viewpoint: GMOs a ‘corporate plot’ to control the food supply, and 9 other biotech myths, debunked
GMO stands for “genetically modified organism.” It most commonly refers to organisms—often plants—that have been modified to achieve desired traits, ...
Viewpoint: Europe must abandon ‘fear of progress’ to defeat anti-science chemophobia
A site like European Scientist has one hope: that the 2020s will be the decade of renewal for European scientific ...
Did Monsanto wrongly sue this farmer for accidentally growing patented GMO canola?
Often, the first thing I hear is “isn’t that the case where someone got sued because seed blew onto his ...
France poised to lift neonicotinoid insecticide ban to save pest-ravaged sugar beet industry
The French government is planning to lift a blanket ban on the use of neonicotinoids to help save its sugar ...
Do fast food takeout wrappers and containers harbor harmful chemicals?
The containers that hold your takeout dinner may harbor an invisible threat: fluorinated compounds that persist in our bodies long ...
Next Green Revolution: Gene-silencing technology opens door to safer pesticides, more GMO crops
In the 1940s, modern chemistry delivered new classes of man-made chemical pesticides that still are widely used today. These synthetic ...
French winegrowers challenge proposed ‘unfair, unenforceable’ glyphosate weedkiller restrictions
Distributors and winegrowers are standing up against the changes to the ban on glyphosate proposed by ANSES. They find them ...
Democratic lawmakers propose ban on organophosphate and neonicotinoid insecticides
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) are introducing companion legislation to cancel the registrations of organophosphates and ...
Podcast: Global population crash; Pesticide bans backfire; beef producing CRISPR male cows
CRISPR could enable farmers to produce more beef from fewer cattle, boosting farm sustainability. Lawsuits designed to get pesticides and ...
Aristolochic acids: Natural insecticides found in medicinal plants cause of mysterious kidney disease?
The plant, Aristolochia clematitis—more commonly known as birthwort—can surely be called beautiful, but within it lurks a poison. Over the ...
EPA proposes herbicide tiafenacil as ‘low-risk’ alternative to control glyphosate-tolerant weeds
EPA proposes tiafenacil for pre-plant and pre-emergence burndown use in corn (all types except sweet corn), cotton, soybeans and wheat ...
GMO herbicide-tolerant canola poses no hazard to human health, EU food safety officials find
Following the submission of application EFSA‐GMO‐RX‐002 .... from Monsanto Company, the Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms of EFSA (GMO) was ...
Facing decimated yields, French sugar-beet growers demand access to banned neonicotinoid insecticides
Since April, the beet yellows virus has destroyed a large part of France's sugar beet harvest, including nearly 50% of ...
