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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Podcast: Fungi destroy $60 billion worth of food each year. Are natural biopesticides the answer?
Food waste plagues both farmers and consumers. Americans throw out much of what we buy at the grocery store—roughly 133 ...
Neonicotinoid insecticide ban, poor weather cut EU canola harvest area to 13-year low, USDA finds
Rapeseed production in the European Union (EU27 + UK) for 2020/21 is forecast at 17.0 million metric tons (mmt), 0.2 ...
With glyphosate-cancer settlement nearing, is the Roundup controversy coming to an end?
Bayer AG is close to a turning point in its legal battle over the weedkiller Roundup. But it still has ...
Viewpoint: Greenpeace lobbies to ban fungicides that kill cancer-causing mycotoxins
A vast network of organizations, including known players such as Greenpeace, are throwing a myriad of unscientific publications at the ...
Viewpoint: California pesticide regulation battle highlights influence of politically connected activist groups
[California] Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling for strong regulatory enforcement to “protect children from pesticide exposure” in a new directive ...
Podcast: COVID-19 a global communist plot? Glyphosate didn’t cause the pandemic. Time to embrace agricultural biotechnology.
While public health officials and policymakers struggle to contain the novel SARS-COV-2 coronavirus, anti-vaccine activists claim the pandemic was orchestrated ...
She’s baaaack! ‘Plandemic’ anti-vaccine disinformation ‘star’ Judy Mikovits now warning glyphosate, GMOs boost COVID-19 risk
[In early May], I wrote about Plandemic, a viral video featuring disgraced scientist turned antivaxxer turned COVID-19 “Fire Fauci” conspiracy ...
EU Food Safety Authority defends pesticide risk studies activists call ‘unfit for purpose’
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published the results of its two pilot assessments on the risks posed to ...
Viewpoint: Modern ‘post-truth’ politics ignores sustainability benefits of GMOs and pesticides
As Africa shows, locust plagues can be devastating for food security, and climate science enables us to detect that certain ...
Ethiopian geneticist defends his country’s decision to approve GMO insect-resistant Bt cotton
A recent report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service welcoming the Government of Ethiopia’s (GOE) ...
Glyphosate to blame for COVID-19? Here’s how we know Bayer’s weedkiller didn’t cause the pandemic
An MIT computer scientist with no expertise in agriculture, chemistry, toxicology, or the biological sciences. And yet for some reason, ...
Reversing herbicide resistance? Geneticists uncover source of ‘dreaded’ pigweed’s glyphosate tolerance
Just hearing “pigweed” can cause fear in cotton and soybean farmers, but a Clemson University geneticist and others believe they ...
Precision (plant) medicine: Biotech drug delivery system fights diseases pesticides can’t control
A new method developed by engineers at MIT may offer a starting point for delivering life-saving treatments to plants ravaged ...
States want tighter EPA restrictions on dicamba weedkillers after another year of ‘skyrocketing’ crop damage
On April 28, the Association of American Pesticide Control Officials (AAPCO) sent EPA a letter asking that the agency consider ...
Cumulative pesticide exposure poses little risk to consumers, EU food safety officials find
Risks to consumers from the presence of pesticide residues in food are currently estimated substance by substance. However, a number ...
Ban glyphosate? Environmental chemist debunks ‘flawed’ case against Bayer’s herbicide
Contrary to sensational media reports and class actions, global regulators consider glyphosate not to be carcinogenic. Consequences could be dire ...
Viewpoint: Activist-inspired GMO cotton bans push Mexican farmers toward bankruptcy
Mexico has a long record of safely cultivating genetically modified (GM) cotton. For more than 20 years, cotton has been ...
Bayer expects widespread use of dicamba in 2020 despite intense legal battle to restrict the weedkiller
Had it proceeded as planned, dicamba-tolerant soybean technology would be receiving rave reviews in 2020. In its four years of ...
Bayer takes ‘tougher stance’ in glyphosate-cancer settlement talks amid COVID-19 financial strain
Bayer said the economic downturn and the need to preserve cash means it is taking a tougher stance in talks ...
Newly approved 2, 4-D herbicides could help cut crop damage from Bayer’s drift-prone dicamba weedkiller
Farmers and weed control experts continue to monitor the dicamba herbicide situation heading into another growing season. Kevin Bradley, University ...
Organic safer than conventional food? Short toxicology lesson shows why that question makes no sense
Pick just about any newspaper or journal and during the course of a year, one or more articles will be ...
Neonicotinoid insecticide ban leaves UK canola farmers with few tools to stop flea beetle resurgence
The bright yellow rapeseed flowers that adorn the British countryside have largely disappeared after crops this season failed. The flaxen ...
Farm groups join lawsuit to support EPA’s glyphosate weedkiller re-approval
Commodity groups, ag retailers and others are seeking to intervene in a lawsuit filed in the 9th Circuit Court of ...
Dicamba on trial: Bayer tells federal judges banning drift-prone herbicide would ’cause chaos’ for farmers
As U.S. soybean and cotton farmers work to get their 2020 crops planted, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ...
Viewpoint: How precautionary public health policy turned coronavirus into a ‘global train wreck’
Worldwide coronavirus response was a failure in risk management ...
Gene-drive technology may combat notorious Fusarium fungus that decimates global wheat yields
The Fusarium fungus is the bane of every wheat farmer’s existence. Causing wheat scab—also known as head blight—it decimates harvests ...
Capitalizing on corona: Conspiracy theorists blame COVID-19 on glyphosate, GMOs and the ‘New World Order’
With a quarter of the world’s population currently in lockdown, time has never been better for ..... frauds, as they ...
