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: GMOs offer protection against diseases, including cancer, by shielding us from dangerous aflatoxins
How European irony became an African tragedy ...
Viewpoint: How GMO herbicide-tolerant canola accelerated sustainable farming
Who would have fathomed how significant a day in March 1995 would become in the history of Canadian agriculture? On ...
Africa’s locust outbreak: Proof we need GMOs, pesticides and every other tool in the toolbox to combat crop-destroying insects
A perfect storm of conditions led to the locust attack currently tearing through East Africa and Pakistan, where countries are ...
Next glyphosate fight? Colombian farmers challenge government plan to reinstate aerial coca crop spraying
Pedro Arenas is afraid that they'll take flight again. "I expect it could be within the next months," he says ...
EU neonic insecticide ban cut UK canola production from 1.8 million acres to 1.3 million annually
In 2012, U.K. farmers seeded about 1.8 million acres of oilseed rape [canola]. But over the last eight years, acreage ...
Judge cancels second federal glyphosate-cancer trial to aid settlement talks between Bayer, plaintiffs
In an order on [March 5], U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria vacated the March 23 trial date for the second ...
EPA appears likely to re-approve drift-prone dicamba herbicides with added restrictions
When the U.S. EPA reregistered dicamba soybean herbicides for use on Xtend soybeans in 2018, labels were effective for two ...
Will legal ‘assault’ on Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller in US, EU threaten Africa’s access to glyphosate?
A growing assault against glyphosate in the U.S. and Europe is threatening the future of the widely used weed killer ...
Soybean damage caused by Bayer’s drift-prone dicamba herbicide spurs farmers to use competing GMO seeds, weedkillers
Bayer AG’s takeover of Monsanto has been beset by problems, and now a decades-long dominance of the $4 billion U.S ...
Podcast: How to build a coronavirus; alcohol doesn’t shrink your brain; and locusts threaten famine in East Africa
Kevin Folta and Cameron English break down four of the latest headlines from the world of genetics and biotech ...
Agricultural effects of Coronavirus: China’s industry slowdown threatens US access to pesticides and fertilizers
The ripple effect of the Coronavirus in China is being reported in the supply of active ingredients and fertilizers. Exactly ...
Trump urges Colombia to restart aerial glyphosate weedkiller spraying to wipe out coca crops
Colombia will have to restart aerial spraying of the herbicide glyphosate in order to destroy crops of coca, the chief ...
Viewpoint: Proposed EU fungicide ban would sabotage efforts to curb global food contamination
One of the biggest dangers to our food supply comes from mold through a process that’s all-too-natural. Mold thrives in ...
New ‘super weed’ crisis emerging? Dicamba herbicide failing to stop growth of Palmer amaranth pigweed in greenhouses experiments
University of Tennessee weed scientist Larry Steckel has spent the past two months coaxing Palmer amaranth weeds to grow from ...
GMO blight-resistant potato expected to help over 300,000 farmers in Uganda cut pesticide use, boost yields
Stakeholders working within the potato sector in Uganda are confident about the wide adoption of a new bioengineered late blight ...
How the pigweed Palmer amaranth became a ‘super weed’—and what it tells us about preventing herbicide resistance
Bound up with the bad news of super weeds is good news for farmers -- a window of opportunity ...
Bayer in ‘no rush’ to settle Roundup-cancer litigation following endorsements from EPA, Department of Justice
.... Bayer was at pains on [Feb. 27] to quell expectations it was nearing an out-of-court settlement laying to rest ...
Bayer Chairman to step down as potential $12 billion Roundup-cancer litigation settlement looms
Bayer Chairman Werner Wenning, one of the architects of a $63 billion takeover deal that has left the German crop ...
Vaccines, glyphosate weedkiller cause obesity? Dr. David Gorski debunks new round of ‘bogus’ health claims
Those of us who have been following the antivaccine movement and the sorts of claims that its members [make] are ...
Viewpoint: ‘Anti-insecticide crusade’ threatens food security of 20 million people as locusts swarm across East Africa
A plague of locusts has hit Africa. Massive swarms are devouring crops and other vegetation in their path, imperiling millions ...
As France phases out common pesticides, regulator says farmers still need crop chemicals to control new plant diseases
France needs to retain pesticides to combat new plant diseases spread by international trade and climate change even as it ...
Remember the questionable study claiming glyphosate boosts cancer risk 41%? Lead author reasserts her claim, EPA refutes it, and we take a second look
Sheppard and her co-authors are intent on favoring data that appears to support the existence of a risk from glyphosate ...
$265 million dicamba weed killer verdict paves way for more successful lawsuits against Monsanto, BASF
A $265 million verdict .... against two global agribusiness giants [in late February] has now created another legal headache for ...
Bayer likely to fight new wave of Roundup-cancer litigation in Australia, despite looming US settlement
As tens of thousands of cases against the makers of the weedkiller Roundup mount up in the United States, a ...
Viewpoint: We can sustainably feed 10 billion people. Here’s how CRISPR and GMO crops can help
If adopted widely, genetic engineering will bring us closer to meeting the EAT-Lancet dietary targets ...
‘Bee-washing’ by advocacy groups and product pushers: We should shift the focus to native bees not honeybees
Amid the worry over the loss of honey bees, a far quieter but just as devastating loss is occurring among ...
Kenya begins pesticide spraying to fight ‘locust swarm of the century,’ but critics abound
As the devastating locust invasion continues to spread in East Africa and a new wave of locusts is gathering, pesticide ...
