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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Consumer Reports is fearmongering (again). No, protein powders don’t contain ‘toxic’ levels of lead
Consumer Reports is at it again, this time, fear-mongering about lead in protein powders. Their latest headline and “report” concludes ...
Chemophobia: From anti-corporate liberal left to MAHA right, it’s getting worse
Chemophobia is complicated, but, in short, it’s a distrust or fear of chemicals and appears in many of aspects of ...
GLP podcast: America’s overdose epidemic, explained
The story most people know about America's opioid epidemic, a public health crisis claiming over 1 million lives since 1999, ...
Viewpoint: The GMO primate study that finally shuts the door on misguided claims of unique harm
One of the most persistent myths surrounding GMOs is the supposed long-term harm on our delicate internal landscapes — the ...
Big Ag vs. MAHA: Who’s winning and why
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a reputation for bashing powerful corporate interests in his quest ...
Viewpoint: The organic food industry is a $180 billion marketing fraud
As a biomedical scientist, it has never failed to annoy me that the term ‘organic’ has been co-opted to spread ...
Viewpoint: What happened when a liberal food writer makes a science-based case for glyphosate’s safety and importance—in the New York Times
You shouldn’t drink Roundup. You shouldn’t bathe in it, either. But you shouldn’t worry about eating crops sprayed with Roundup ...
GLP podcast: Tylenol maker refuted link to autism. Daily Caller’s fabricated health scare, exposed
Late last month, Daily Caller published a bombshell report claiming that Johnson & Johnson, the former manufacturer of Tylenol (acetaminophen), ...
Why the chemophobia obsession is baked into America’s consciousness
'No nasties’, ‘non-toxic’, ‘natural’, ‘organic’, ‘mineral’ – there are a multitude of health buzzwords sprinkled through grocery store shelves aimed ...
Viewpoint: The fastest growing delusion in America is chemophobia—and organic marketers are to blame
“Organic” might be the most abused word in the English language. Chemists, farmers, and marketers all use it—and none of ...
Viewpoint: Is the MAHA – MAGA alliance fraying
[Zen] Honeycutt and other “MAHA moms” were disappointed by the MAHA commission report released in September that they say lacked meaningful ...
GLP podcast: Media keeps hyping the youth cancer ‘epidemic.’ Problem? It’s a myth
Buoyed by sensationalist reporters eager to write alarming headlines, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly hyped a dramatic "epidemic" of ...
Viewpoint: The MAHA movement’s wrongheaded war on glyphosate is part of a misplaced broader attack on modern agriculture
The MAHA movement’s war on glyphosate is part of a broader war on modern farming — not only herbicides and ...
GLP podcast: Spread meat allergy with gene-edited ticks? Bioethicists pose vile ‘thought experiment’
How far are we willing to go to slow climate change? The list of proposed solutions runs the gamut from ...
Chemophobic misinformation: 40% of Europeans say they ‘want to live in a world where chemicals don’t exist’
Chemophobia—an excessive fear of chemicals—is everywhere today, particularly for food. It manifests itself in fads like “clean” eating, avoiding ingredients ...
Nation’s most liberal court rejects plaintiff expert’s claims that glyphosate caused couple’s cancer
Although the US Supreme Court frequently overrules it, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering California, eight other western states ...
Viewpoint: Science be damned—RFK, Jr. has his mind made up about the causes of autism
In the seven months since he was sworn in as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), ...
Misinformation alert: No, glyphosate use in Canadian forests is not spurring more wildfires
Quebec province does not allow the industrial weed killer glyphosate to be sprayed on its forests, but there is no ...
How the agriculture and food industries challenged MAHA heavyweights and reshaped RFK, Jr.’s ‘reform’ agenda
In meeting after meeting at the White House this summer, administration officials held talks with scores of leaders from the ...
Lawsuits and misinformation have led to replacing safe glyphosate with far more problematic pre-1974 weed killing formulations
The herbicides in the quiver when Roundup came to market in 1974 were things like Diquat, Paraquat, 2,4-D, and Dicamba ...
GLP podcast: ‘Toxic’ baby food? Dismantling another tort-lawyer health scam
A few months ago, a law firm emailed one of us (Cameron) asking for help promoting their litigation against baby ...
Debate over crop chemicals driving a wedge between original MAHA and MAGA converts
Banning or heavily restricting certain pesticides has been a core tenet of the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement, and supporters ...
63% of Americans drink fluoridated water. Here’s a science breakdown of its benefits and hazards
Debates are hitting headlines as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voices new concerns about fluoride in public water systems. But what does the ...
Viewpoint: What’s behind the recent surge in anti-glyphosate propaganda?
Here’s what I’m observing: 1. Monsanto is gone. Bought by Bayer. A German conglomerate. 2. Syngenta is gone. Bought by ...
The less you know, the more you cockily believe you’re right: The Dunning-Kruger Effect sustains agricultural misinformation
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias where individuals with limited knowledge or skills in a specific area tend to ...
Viewpoint: Media tout alleged ‘danger’ of homeopathic levels of plastic. That’s scaremongering
Homeopathic levels of plastic are the latest environmental scaremongering fad (Nanoplastics! Microplastics!) dominating partisan corporate media when they are not ...
Viewpoint: If activists and trial lawyers have their way, the herbicide glyphosate will be banned. What would that world look like?
As a reminder for the doomsayers, the Environmental Protection Agency classifies glyphosate as “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” ...
